Tag: politics

The Canadian Tea Party

The Canadian Truckers’ Convoy ended up pretty much as I anticipated, effecting zero change despite the media theater as it was easily dismantled by the authorities. So much for the Internet’s armchair logistics experts:

Some mistakes were merely operational. There was no vetting. I gave one person my pseudonym and an invented autobiography, and within hours I was in a boardroom with all the organizers, going through maps, talking about internal weak points, looking at charts, and inputting every important phone number into my contact list. The lack of operational security was astounding.

The grass-roots organizations also meant that no one—yet everyone—was in charge. It was a classic case of “too many chiefs, not enough Indians,” but worse, as if the chiefs had all been drinking mouthwash. So much time was wasted between defective people competing for status and control, including podcasters and lawyers who thought of themselves as serious leaders, that it felt like the Special Olympics of political resistance. Resultantly, there was no distinction between strategy and tactics. Some organizers became so committed to certain small tasks, they could not understand that a bigger picture existed, while at the same time, it was rare for anyone to discuss what success would look like.

Another problem was the lack of quality men: we had some who were brave and others who were sharp, but few who were both. Most damaging of all was that nearly every organizer saw the occupation and their battle with the regime through the lens of a feminine morality, with undue concern about how we would be perceived. There was no understanding of conflict. The organizers couldn’t even fathom the regime extending its power through the judiciary or the financial system, and every time the government used the tools within their control, the organizers would become histrionic, and take comfort in videos of commentary and ranting by political celebrities who supported the convoy.

Somehow, most organizers and demonstrators held two incompatible premises at the same time. They took for granted that the Canadian government had been acting illegally over the past two years, even harming its citizenry for their own gain; and also believed guilelessly that the government would not lie, seize donations, freeze personal finances, use brutal force, or commit any other illegal action regarding the convoy. Every time the government demonstrated its willingness not to “play fair,” there was widespread emotional breakdown among the organizers. Some left fearful for their lives, while others became meritoriously cavalier and tried to get themselves arrested, even if their skillset was irreplaceable. There was an indulgent narcissism in the desire to be arrested for “counselling to commit mischief” and other misdemeanors. Since most organizers were released without charge, there was a sense that you could achieve martyrdom without real sacrifice.

So, as usual, it accomplished nothing except to wake up more regular citizens to the fact that they are not going to be able to vote, protest, posture, or threaten their way out of the neo-liberal world order’s chains. Which is why nothing is likely to change before its eventual, and inevitable, collapse under the weight of its own inversions and internal contradictions.

As a general rule, very few people are moved to act unless they are made sufficiently uncomfortable first. And the societies of the WereWest are literally too fat, well-fed, overstimulated, and drug-addled to be even remotely uncomfortable. But they are fragile and increasingly unstable societies, and their collapse is clearly coming.

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The Truth About 2020

The Russians are no longer incentivized to keep their mouths shut about recent events. I wonder what else we’re going to learn about in the coming weeks.

The Russian ambassador to the UN just said that Trump was the legitimate president and that he was ousted (by election fraud).

It’s going to be fascinating to see what happens when the Chinese confirm this… and proof is provided.

UPDATE: Apparently the statement was about the fake election in Ukraine in 2014, not the fake election in the USA in 2020.

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Russia Recognizes Donbass Republics

Vladimir Putin expertly puts the ball – and any subsequent blame for future violence – in the Imperial USA’s court.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced that Moscow has recognized the two self-declared breakaway Donbass republics in Ukraine’s east as sovereign nations, as a military standoff across the contact line continues to escalate.

Speaking as part of a televised address to the nation on Monday evening, Putin signed the decree, saying that “I deem it necessary to make a decision that should have been made a long time ago to immediately recognize the Donetsk (DPR) and Lugansk (LPR) People’s Republics.” Lawmakers will now be asked to consider statements of friendship and support with the two regions.

Putin clearly understands the significance of 4GW. By planting a rhetorical flag directly in the Evil Empire’s language of freedom, democracy, and self-determination, and recognizing both republics on those grounds rather than simply annexing them, Putin has ensured that Russia will hold the moral high ground in the event war breaks out in the region.

Russia has the military means to quickly and easily defeat Ukraine, but as I have pointed out since 2015, the Russians really do not want to deal with the hassle of occupation and empire. And it isn’t only Russia that will be protecting the two new sovereign nations, as I doubt it will be long before China officially recognizes them as well.

Unless the USA and the EU do likewise, their utter hypocrisy and lack of adherence to their own proclaimed principles will glow like a Fed at a patriot rally.

UPDATE: The Russian military will secure the peace in the newly independent nations. Hearts and minds.

President Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian military to “secure the peace” in the newly recognized Donetsk and Lugansk republics, which were formerly considered to be part of Ukraine.

Moscow officially recognized the independence of the two breakaway regions on Monday.

Putin has instructed the Defense Ministry to send peacekeepers into the Donbass, while telling the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to establish diplomatic relations with the states.

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Twitter and Treason

Mike Pence not only failed to do his duty as Vice-President of the United States on January 6, he also orchestrated the false claim that he did not have the authority to reject illegitimate electoral votes despite a brilliant constitutional scholar making the clear case that he did.

J. Michael Luttig: I was first called by the vice president’s outside counsel, Richard Cullen, on the evening of Jan. 4. We now know that that was after the fateful Oval Office meeting that day between the president and vice president, where John Eastman made the argument that the vice president could overturn the election unilaterally as presiding officer.

Ryan Lizza: And you know John Eastman?

Luttig: John Eastman was one of my clerks — over 25 years ago — and Richard Cullen is one of my closest friends in all of life. And we had been, at that point, talking seemingly every day — if not multiple times a day — throughout the entire Trump administration because, of course, our close friend, Bill Barr, was attorney general.

So he called me. I was having dinner. No big deal: this is like your best friend calling. He called the night of the 4th and says, “Hey, Judge, what do you know about John Eastman?” And I said, “He was a clerk of mine 30 years ago.” He says, “Well, what else do you know?” I said, “I don’t know. John’s an academic, he’s a professor, he’s a constitutional scholar — and he’s a brilliant constitutional scholar.”

Lizza: This is sort of shocking to hear you say this, considering the way that most people have been introduced to John Eastman.

Luttig: Well, read everything that was written about him before, you know, Jan. 6.

Lizza: So that’s interesting: the person who was the architect of the attempted coup, essentially — I think it’s fair to use that language — was actually a well-respected legal mind with sound views of the Constitution and not some legal quack.

Luttig: That’s correct: The farthest thing from it. So Richard said, “Well, you don’t know, do you?” And I said, “Know what?” He said, “John’s advising the president and the vice president that the vice president has this authority [to reject electoral votes] on January 6” — two days hence. And I said, “Wow, no, I did not know that. Well, look, you can tell the vice president that I said that he has no such authority at all. And Richard said he knows that, I said OK, and we hung up.

The “legal authority” cited by Pence was a tweet from a man who didn’t know how to use Twitter and hadn’t even read the Constitutional case presented by the well-respected scholar. All the talk about a coup is nothing more than projection by the traitors who successfully accomplished one by stealing the election with around 20 million fake votes.

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RIP PJ

PJ O’Rourke, the funniest American political commentator since H.L. Mencken, and one of my youthful intellectual influences, has died at the age of 74. Requiescat in pace.

American satirist and political commentator, P.J. O’Rourke, has died of lung cancer at his home in Sharon, New Hampshire aged 74. He wrote more than 20 books and was best known for his two best-sellers: ‘A Parliament of Whores’ and ‘Give War a Chance’, which reached the top of the New York Times Best Seller list.

His last book ‘A Cry from the Far Middle: Dispatches from a Divided Land’ was published in September 2020 and contained a number of essays on topics ranging from history to the political effects of social media and the ‘internet of things’.

Writing up to the the very end is a good way to go for a writer. Holidays in Hell was my favorite of his works, but most of his books were more than a little amusing. Some of his best quotes:

  • “Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”
  • “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.”
  • “When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.”
  • “Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history, mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadow about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power.”
  • “The Clinton administration launched an attack on people in Texas because those people were religious nuts with guns. Hell, this country was founded by religious nuts with guns.”
  • “No one has ever had a fantasy about being tied to a bed and sexually ravished by someone dressed as a liberal”
  • “God created a free universe. He could have created any kind of universe he wanted. But a universe without freedom would have been static and meaningless — the taxpayer-funded-art-in-public-places universe.”
  • “You can’t get good Chinese takeout in China and Cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba. That’s all you need to know about communism.”
  • “Foreigners may pretend otherwise, but if English is spoken loudly enough, anyone can understand it.“

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Why the GOP Must Die

In case you’re unsure why a) I am not a Republican, b) why the Republican Party is part of the problem and not the solution, c) why the Republican Party does not merit your support, and d) why the Republican Party has to die, well, sometimes a picture really is worth more than 1,000 words. Talk about gay pedoface on steroids!

The fact that the Republican Party decided to endorse it as a candidate for governor rather than immediately killing it with fire tells you everything you need to know about the party.

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Tolstoy on Politics

Dominic Cummings’s blog is one of the more fascinating sites you can read these days, given the rare combination of his proximity to power and ruthless willingness to share his unadorned opinions. His perspective on War and Peace is particularly intriguing.

Tolstoy describes a meeting with the Tsar to discuss goals and strategy. There are many factions. There are those who want to follow ‘the pseudo-theory of war’, those who think the opposite, and courtiers who try to effect a compromise between the two — ‘Though by this course neither one aim nor the other could be attained, this seemed to the party of compromise the best line to adopt’.

I’ve heard such arguments so often over twenty years. It is quite normal for those at the centre of power to be unable to define their goals and for someone trying to seem ‘sensible’ to argue for a ‘compromise’ that guarantees only chaos. The inability of senior people to be rigorous in their thinking about goals, and the failure of institutions to force clarity, is one of the most under-appreciated aspects of politics and government. For example, if you trace the history of the Prussia-Austria conflict 1862-6 through the famous Schleswig-Holstein affair to the decisive battle of July 1866, a conflict so crucial in shaping the modern world, one of the most important features is that Emperor Franz Joseph would not and could not prioritise the conflicting goals of a) retaining Austria’s position in Germany and b) regainining her position in Italy. On the other side, Bismarck knew exactly what his priorities were. This fundamental fact lies behind the hugely complex diplomacy and Austria’s disaster. And exactly the same failure to prioritise goals recurs over and over — you see it around the Cabinet table before August 1914 and I saw it around the Cabinet table in 2020. Assuming wrongly that ‘at least those in charge know what they’re trying to do’ is one of the biggest errors made by the media and high status, often highly competent, observers.

Another faction wants to promote X, another wants to promote Y. But most are thinking mainly about their own career, about money, decorations and promotions.

The eighth and largest group, numbering ninety-nine to every one of the others, consisted of men who were neither for peace nor for war, neither for offensive operations nor a defensive camp at Drissa or anywhere else; who did not take the side of Barclay or of the Emperor, of Pfuhl or of Bennigsen, but cared only for the one thing most essential — as much advantage and pleasure for themselves as they could lay hold of.

In the troubled waters of those cross-currents of intrigue that eddied about the Emperor’s headquarters it was possible to succeed in very many ways that would have been unthinkable at other times. One courtier simply interested in retaining his lucrative post would today agree with Pfuhl, tomorrow with Pfuhl’s opponents, and the day after, merely to avoid responsibility or to please the Emperor, would declare that he had no opinion at all on the matter. Another, eager to curry favour, would attract the Tsar’s attention by loudly advocating something the Emperor had hinted at the day before, and would dispute and shout at the Council, beating his breast and challenging those who did not agree with him to a duel, thus displaying his readiness to sacrifice himself for the common weal. A third, while his enemies were out of the way, and in between two Councils, would simply solicit a special gratuity for his faithful services, well aware that it would be quicker at the moment to grant it than to refuse it. A fourth would contrive to be seen by the Tsar quite overwhelmed with work. A fifth, in order to achieve his long-cherished ambition to dine with the Emperor, would vehemently debate the rights and wrongs of some newly emerging opinion, producing more or less forcible and valid arguments in support of it.

All the members of this party were fishing after roubles, decorations and promotions, and in their chase simply kept their eye on the weathercock of Imperial favour: directly they noticed it shifting to one quarter the whole drone-population of the army began buzzing away in that direction, making it all the harder for the Emperor to change course elsewhere. Amid the uncertainties of the position, with the menace of serious danger which gave a peculiarly feverish intensity to everything, amid this vortex of intrigue, selfish ambition, conflicting views and feelings, and different nationalities, this eighth and largest party of men preoccupied with personal interests imparted great confusion and obscurity to the common task. Whatever question arose, a swarm of these drones, before they had done with their buzzing over the previous theme, would fly off to the new one, to smother and drown by their humming the voices of those who were prepared to examine it fully and honestly.

From the euro campaign in 1999 to the Department for Education to the referendum campaign meetings to the Cabinet room and Chequers, this buzzing has been the background noise to my twenty years in politics.

Prince Andrei watched the debate and ‘could only wonder in amazement’. After listening, he asked to serve with the army instead of remaining near the Emperor and thereby ‘lost his standing in court circles for ever’.

Focus on the actual job, rather than the courtier game, is often a disaster for one’s status and career.

Cummings and Tolstoy are both right. I’ve twice been bitten by a foolish focus on the actual job rather than the courtier game. In fact, in order to be able to do the actual job, it’s often necessary to first solidify your political flanks within the organization.

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Trudeau Flees Canada

This means he’s not Prime Minister anymore, right?

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his family have left their home in the national’s capital Ottawa for a secret location as up to 50,000 truckers gather to protest against the country’s vaccine mandate and Covid lockdowns.

Hundreds of truckers drove their giant rigs into the Canadian capital Ottawa on Saturday as part of a self-titled ‘Freedom Convoy’ which started as a protest against vaccine mandates required to cross the US border.

Days earlier, he had called the truckers headed for the city a ‘small fringe minority’ before the convoy of hundreds of vehicles grew up to 45 miles long as it made its way to the capital.

If the USA addressed the Canadian situation the same way it handled the Venezuelan situation, it would already have declared Jordan Peterson the new democratically-legitimate leader of Canada and transferred all of the Canadian gold reserves to his personal account.

I’m not suggesting it should, merely that it’s interesting to observe the different way the US government and media behave toward these fleeing foreign leaders, depending upon how controlled the deposed leader is by the New Neo-Liberal, Rules-Based World Order.

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Interview with an Elder God

While rooting around my WND audio interviews, I discovered an old interview from the 2012 election season with an unlikely political figure.

We are deeply privileged to have the opportunity to speak with another potential candidate for the presidency. He’s been asleep beneath the ice for centuries, but now he’s up, he’s active, and he’s thinking about throwing his tentacles in the ring in 2012! So, I’m pleased to welcome The Thing That Should Not Be himself, Dread Chtulhu! So, Mighty Cthulhu, I understand you’re thinking about a run for the presidency!

Yes, America has tried voting for the lesser evil and you’ve seen how that’s worked out. It’s time to vote for the Greater Evil!

And that would be you?

Yes, of course. Unless Hillary gets into the race again.

But you haven’t made up your mind yet.

Not yet. There are some issues.

Issues?

Potential problems.

Like what?

I’m afraid there may be a few indiscreet tweets.

Really?

Hey, when you’re sleeping beneath the Antarctic Ice, things can get a little slow, you know what I mean?

You’re on Twitter? Who were you tweeting with?

Arianna Huffington. That is one NASTY greek goddess. She’s got a mouth that I can only describe as FILTHY. Nice lady.

Arianna Huffington, wow. Okay, anyone else?

Well, I sent a picture to that little singer girl, Justin Beeber, but she didn’t hit me back.

I think Bieber is a boy.

IS HE? Oh… well, wouldn’t that have been embarrassing.

You said a picture? What kind of picture?

Yeah, well, you want to talk about some RIDICULOUS BULGES. I got ’em. Lots of ’em.

I’m not sure America is ready for a naked tweeting president, Cthulhu.

Who said anything about naked? I was wearing silk boxers.

Classy. But still….

Let me set one thing straight. When the American people vote for Cthulhu, they will get the promised evil. The Greater Evil. Nonstop, full-time, pure and dedicated evil. I will devour puppies. I will tear the heads off foreign heads of state, and I will make America FEARED again!

You don’t think that sounds too much like Mitt Romney’s platform?

Does it? Hmmm, perhaps I’ll have to rethink my position on healthcare then.

So you’re in?

First we have to see if this Beeber girl goes to the press or not.

What about Arianna?

We’ve got a date this weekend. We’re going to see the Hangover 2. I love that little naked Japanese guy. Makes me laugh every time.

Thank you, Great Cthulhu. America’s next president or long-deceased elder god worshipped by mad homicidal cultists? Only time will tell.

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Bumbling Toward War

The UK Prime Minister is rattling his sabre in the direction of Russia while he dances in a desperate attempt to save his job.

‘We need to make it very clear to the Kremlin, to Russia, that that would be a disastrous step.’

The government has ruled out sending combat troops, but Mr Johnson said Britain is ‘leading on creating a package of economic sanctions’ against Russia and he would be speaking to international allies later.

‘We also need to get a message that invading Ukraine, from a Russian perspective, is going to be a painful, violent and bloody business,’ he said.

He’s dancing because the Tory establishment’s ability to bury the fallout from Partygate appears to be failing.

Allies of the PM say he is still ‘determined’ to ride out the crisis.

‘He’s feeling determined,’ one MP loyal to Johnson told The Times.

‘He genuinely believes that he didn’t break any rules and that he was going to the garden [on May 20, 2020] to say thank you.’

But an anonymous source told the Telegraph they would be ‘very surprised’ if Mr Johnson was still in power by the end of the week.

‘Met officers have spoken to Sue Gray now, as you would expect, and have been able to provide a lot of information,’ the source said. ‘Put it this way, if Boris Johnson is still Prime Minister by the end of the week, I’d be very surprised.’

UPDATE: Johnson is beyond toast at this point. The idiot actually had a birthday party thrown for him by his wicked evil witch-wife. He’s going to have a tough time explaining that he also didn’t know his birthday party was a party.

ITV News understands Boris Johnson had a birthday party during the first lockdown in 2020 despite the rules forbidding social gatherings indoors at the time. It’s alleged that the prime minister’s wife, Carrie Johnson, helped organise a surprise get-together for him on the afternoon of 19 June just after 2pm. Up to 30 people are said to have attended the event in the Cabinet Room after Boris Johnson returned from an official visit to a school in Hertfordshire.

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