The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report via Gates of Vienna.
For a complete Fjordman blogography, see The Fjordman Files. There is also a multi-index listing here.
At the Center for Security Policy, Caroline Glick writes about “Surviving in a Post-American World”:
Like it or not, the United States of America is no longer the world’s policeman. This was the message of Barack Obama’s presidential journey to Britain, France, the Czech Republic, Turkey and Iraq this past week.
Somewhere between apologizing for American history — both distant and recent; genuflecting before the unelected, bigoted king of Saudi Arabia; announcing that he will slash the US’s nuclear arsenal, scrap much of America’s missile defense programs and emasculate the US Navy; leaving Japan to face North Korea and China alone; telling the Czechs, Poles and their fellow former Soviet colonies, “Don’t worry, be happy,” as he leaves them to Moscow’s tender mercies; humiliating Iraq’s leaders while kowtowing to Iran; preparing for an open confrontation with Israel; and thanking Islam for its great contribution to American history, President Obama made clear to the world’s aggressors that America will not be confronting them for the foreseeable future.
Whether they are aggressors like Russia, proliferators like North Korea, terror exporters like nuclear-armed Pakistan or would-be genocidal-terror-supporting nuclear states like Iran, today, under the new administration, none of them has any reason to fear Washington.
I remember when the Iranian ex-Muslim Ali Sina, author of Understanding Muhammad, compared the personality cult surrounding Barack Obama to that of Fascist leaders. This might seem exaggerated, but there is definitely a personality cult surrounding Obama which is unprecedented and deeply unhealthy. His Marxist economic policies and his bow for the Saudi King are disturbing. I never liked Bush very much, but Obama’s appeasement of the Islamic world trumps anything seen since the days of Dhimmi Carter, and worse is to come.
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Less than eight years after the Jihadist attacks on the USA, a President raised as a Muslim with the middle name “Hussein” hails Islam’s great contributions to American and Western culture. The USA currently looks more like a defeated nation than the world’s sole remaining superpower. It’s the only nation in history where the majority of the population has elected a member of an organization known for hating the majority population of that country.
My conclusion from 2008 still stands: Americans will soon have their hands full with problems of their own and will be in no position to assist anybody even if they wanted to. Europeans can and should maintain good relations and cooperate with ordinary North American citizens, who live under the same Multicultural regime as we do, but we cannot and should not rely on aid from the American elites. They are as hostile as the EU elites.
66 comments:
Fjordman
America was held together by a constitution and loyalty to the flag. This was eminently good as long as the vast majority of people in the US had a sense of ownership of the constitution. With multiculturalism, and with so many diverse identities now in the US, that sense of ownership gets weaker by the day. I just dont see how millions of Muslims in America can hold the US constitution dearer then the one that was given to them by allah.
Europe is far stronger to resist and defeat the Jihad then the US.
Let us hope though that America rights itself.
but we cannot and should not rely on aid from the American elites
It's never been at matter of choice for Europe to rely on aid from America. Since the world order installed in the wake of WWII it's been a matter of staying put and obeying to the world order. Any kind of European vitality has been suppressed under this American hegemony. You have already heard all the arguments about this from across the Atlantic: European nationalism is the root of all evil, European vitality will only lead to endless wars etc. And the American reverse of Obama is not much of a comfort. Instead the more American nationalism grows, the more anti-European and anti-Russian it becomes. Ralph Peters is a good example.
The Europe right-wing Americans see today and disdain is wholly a creation of America herself. The leaders of Europe are nothing but marionettes of the current America-led world order. But this insight has also more and more emerged among the right-wing Americans, now that the true face of (political) America manifestly come to its closure with Obama. But aren't there all these Americans who do not at all support Obama? Yes, and they are like Ralph Peters.
The reason that we find a strong conservatism in America and not in Europe is that American conservatives are not at all conservative but liberals to the core; French Revolution egalitarians and PC addicts with fear of "racism", etc. European conservatism is of a essentially different kind, and totally unacceptable under the current world order. In the American mythology, which is the foundation for our current civilizational paradigm, the old pre-WWI Europe is the worst of the evils, much worse than Communism of fascism. After all Wilson and Roosevelt understood and respected Lenin and Stalin. It was the old (and vital!) Europe that was Satan itself in their eyes.
But these American delusions had to come to and end, and thank you Obama for executing it. As long as America has troops in Germany there is no choice for Europe about whom to rely on. By the voice of overwhelming military force we are just forced to stay put and shut up and keep our traitorous marionettes; since America sees European vitality as the most evil thing in this world, Germany will be the last place they will withdraw from. But at least the whole thing is in motion now.
It will be a chaos. After all America has shouldered the legacy of the British empire as the world police (Never as good since America has never been able to create order. Only to maintain it. Once it's been lost it's lost, because of America's perpetual impotence). But changes hurt, even good and necessary changes.
Europeans can and should maintain good relations and cooperate with ordinary North American citizens
Agreed. But both Americans and Europeans have a lot to learn about their real roots and identity. We will go through many phases, of which the initial ones will be partially phony. America as a polity is scr*wed, and thank the gods for that.Americans as a people, though, has a substance to search back for. The same applies to Europeans. But unlike the Americans we have an advantage of having our nations readily available just under the surface of the prevailing delusion (the thing that the Obamas and Ralph Peters fear and think is the root of all evil in this world).
Americans will soon have their hands full with problems of their own and will be in no position to assist anybody even if they wanted to. Europeans can and should maintain good relations and cooperate with ordinary North American citizens, who live under the same Multicultural regime as we do, but we cannot and should not rely on aid from the American elites. They are as hostile as the EU elites.
I agree completely, and thank God.
ConSwede,
What culpability do Europeans themselves share in the bullying by the United States? I've always believed that bullying requires the co-operation of the person being bullied. For example, recently a German friend was complaining to me about how GM wouldn't let Opel be bought by the Germans and made independent, at the behest of the US government. I remember thinking, "Well, stick up for yourselves!" Same thing with the Swiss banking issue recently. What if the Swiss simply said, "No, we like our banking laws just the way they are, thankyouverymuch," instead of changing them?
What if Angela Merkel or her predecessors actually tried to get the US out of Germany? What's stopping her now, in light of limp-wristed Obama recently being elected?
Swede,
I also ought to add that I regularly get chastised by Northern European libs for my negative views on Islam and my disturbing lack of atheism. Is America to blame for this? The higher critical school of thought on the Bible and Biblical inerrancy came from continental Europe, not us. It has been the source of so much decline in German Evangelisch churches and the Protestantism that (to a large degree), informed northern Europe's culture. How are we to blame for the higher critical method, which came FROM Europe to wreck the majority of our mainline Protestant denominations here?
PRCalDude,
What culpability do Europeans themselves share in the bullying by the United States?
Europeans are culpable in at least two ways. First of all, all of the ideas upon which the American polity and its current hegemony is built, was born and coined in Europe. But it required the process of Europeans (quakers and puritans), feeling oppressed and fleeing, leaving their traditional nations and nationalism behind them, overthrowing it across the Atlantic, to take it to its conclusion. It's a process of multiple steps. It started already with the bastard nations of France and Britain. That's how the embryo of a social contract state and subsequently multiculturalism was born. But it needed America, the country built on a blank slate, without any traditional social structure, to take it to its conclusion. And once America had become the most populous European country, and therefore the most powerful, the destiny of our civilization was sealed.
America and Europe should not be seen as two separate and opposing entities, but two things in symbiosis. America is indeed a European nation (in exile), and continuing the legacy of the European history of the Enlightenment. America is indeed the Empire of the Enlightenment; the Leftist Empire. And anyone being in doubt about such a statement should consider how America was the first European country to introduce a 100% income tax, and to elect someone raised as a Muslim to become president, etc, etc. And of course a Leftist empire will always be in denial about being an empire at all, as America evidently is.
I've always believed that bullying requires the co-operation of the person being bullied.
I do not believe in this as a general statement. The kid being brutalized by the school yard bully is hardly co-operating.
But in this case: yes. And there we come to the second way in which Europeans are culpable. Europe found it very convenient to accept America as the new leader and its new role as the irresponsible teenager. Surely there is the trauma of the two world wars as a background for this. But there is even more the ideology from the Enlightenment. The Europeans accepted willingly to surrender to the American military -- which has protected Europe ever since, and is calling the shots -- and the setup of an "eternal" (organized) peace in Europe and no more wars.
But these were entirely different Europeans than the ones that had been running the show up until WWI. This old ruling class had been wiped out in a collaboration between America and the ideological movements of European socialists/liberals.
For example, recently a German friend was complaining to me about how GM wouldn't let Opel be bought by the Germans and made independent, at the behest of the US government. I remember thinking, "Well, stick up for yourselves!"
You are speaking of traitorous European marionette leaders under the current world order. And of the most wing-clipped nation of them all: Germany. This is exactly an example of what I am talking about. They will *never* stick up for themselves, i.e. for their people.
What if Angela Merkel or her predecessors actually tried to get the US out of Germany? What's stopping her now, in light of limp-wristed Obama recently being elected?
I always come back to Gaventa's power theory and his three levels (dimensions) of power, where at the third level the oppressee is not even conscious about being oppressed, and has no concept of her own self-interest. Angela Merkel, as the other European leaders, is fully caught in this Matrix. Germany even more so, since the anti-German hatred by the "world community" won't accept even a teeny weeny sign of vitality from the Germans.
So as in any power relation, it all comes down to obeying the superior military might. That is, as long as there is this high military presence of American troops in Germany, Germany is unable to question this high military presence of American troops in Germany. America, being a Leftist Empire, is of course in denial about at all being an empire, and the oppressive nature of its actions, and how its all built on raw military power. So not only does Germany have to obey the command of America, it has to pretend that it is a friendly relationship.
Conservative Swede! It's good to see some of your comments again.
This whole little essay is quite sad, but true. I really don't know what has become of America so far, or what will happen to us in the future. Representing the Western world, we've got the Europeans with their incompetent governments, the Americans with another possibly even more incompetent government, and Russia (maybe some will argue that Russia is not the West, but in my world view and opinion, it is). We've got Islam infiltrating and taking us over, and the majority of the people are too stupid and ignorant to notice or even care. It's absolutely appalling. You think people would have some sort of reaction to the destruction of their own culture and civilisation.
PRCalDude,
I also ought to add that I regularly get chastised by Northern European libs for my negative views on Islam and my disturbing lack of atheism. Is America to blame for this?
America is to blame for this in the following way:
Within the context of Protestantism: It's in the very nature of being American to misunderstand the historical significance of the state church. The historical significence of the state church was to significantly reduce to power of the church. Taking away the supernational power of the Catholic Church, and putting the church under the political power. But the Americans were puritans and quakers fleeing Europe because they felt oppressed by the Protestant state churches. And since to the collective mind there is only the binary thinking, to Americans the state church represents theocracy, i.e the very opposite of its true historical significance. But this is the truth in the mental bubble in which the Americans live in.
So then came the American hegemony over Europe in the 20th century and with that Christianity died in Europe. Why? Well, the Americanization of Europe after WWII was immense. Even the second stage after after the Vietnam war is an example of this. Anti-Americanism is indeed something born and raised in America.
Part of this immense American influence (the winner of the great wars always impress people profoundly), was the message that the Northern European state churches were illegitimate and oppressive, amounting to theocracy. So as good Protestants we followed this moral message. But since the Europeans knew no other way to conduct Christianity, the effect in practice became a flight from Christianity as such.
And the Americans were left bewildered: How the heck did it happen that the Europeans left Christianity? As always the Americans are utterly unaware and surprised about the result of their own actions in foreign affairs; just look at Iraq.
How are we to blame for the higher critical method, which came FROM Europe to wreck the majority of our mainline Protestant denominations here?
As I said, America and Europe are in symbiosis. These leftist ideas bounces back and forth across the Atlantic. But this whole setup is protected by American military might. Look at how France is wreckaging the rest of Europe. How can they do it? Because they do it under the protection of the American military might. And America and France are sister nations of the Enlightenment. And part of the setup is how Germany is completely suppressed, and effectively in a total coma. The only threat to this Enlightenment order is Russia.
Natalie,
This whole little essay is quite sad, but true.
This is how I see the situation, with Obama and all:
In fact I think it's great, and I'm enjoying every minute of watching Obama's wreckage.
When I was in high school, there was a big grass slope below the school. At springtime the kids liked to burn the grass. The flames were rather impressive. The teachers tried to stop the kids. But the janitor he helped the kids. He was the caretaker of this grass slope and he know that the old thick dead grass had to be burned, and from these ashes it was the perfect opportunity for the new grass to grow up and replace the old one.
I'm that janitor
and Obama is one of the kids.
It's a pleasure seeing the current world order go up in flames.
You think people would have some sort of reaction to the destruction of their own culture and civilization.
People in general won't react until they feel that they are allowed to do so. But that moment will come, perhaps sooner than we think.
Also, today people refrain from reacting since they live in economic prosperity, and to stand up for their ideas would send them into suffering. However, soon enough we will have a economic downfall that will make the Black Thursday look like a picnic. And then they will face suffering day in and day out. And at that point standing up for their ideas will come at no extra cost, since the suffering is already prevalent. So go, Obama, go!
Conservative Swede,
Eye catching posts Swede, but I can't say I get exactly where you are coming from.
What is your perfect world per se? How would you best describe your political views? (I know you're "conservative") Just curious. Ain't looking for trouble.
Also I wonder what in general makes you think that USA is a leftist country.
It's not just his middle name that's Islamic. The first name, Barack, is also Islamic: it is a variant of Buraq, the winged horse that carried Big Mo up to heaven. So, he's the horse carrying the slaves of Allah to victory.
You New,
Eye catching posts Swede
Thanks!
but I can't say I get exactly here you are coming from.
Well, most people can't. Since the collective mind is stuck in binary thinking I have been accused of being the most strange things, including a socialist.
However, I'd say I'm coming from the times of the ancient gods.
What is your perfect world per se? How would you best describe your political views? (I know you're "conservative") Just curious. Ain't looking for trouble.
I picked the moniker "Conservative Swede" a few years ago. I have walked a long way since then, so "conservative" might no longer cover it. I have no ideological position in this world. I just want this world to go away.
The root of my position is the pre-Christian Germanic Europe. This is the core and the main facilitator of our civilization, and also my identity. Western civilization will fall, Christianity as a political force will fall, our traditional religion will come back.
Also I wonder what in general makes you think that USA is a leftist country.
Historical perspective!
It's only when comparing America with the conversos in e.g Europe that she will look right-wing. The proper points of comparison are previous empires, such as the British or the Roman empire, and then America's leftist character becomes striking.
So then came the American hegemony over Europe in the 20th century and with that Christianity died in Europe. Why? Well, the Americanization of Europe after WWII was immense
I've got a huge problem with this. Christianity started dying in Europe in the mid to late 1800s, not after WWI. The higher critical method started back then, which overthrew the idea of the Bible as inerrant and meaningful and, thus, no longer worth believing. It made its way over here around the turn of the century, just prior to WWI.
I agree with you on the symbiosis idea and the idea that we are a liberal empire, though.
PRCalDude,
I've got a huge problem with this. Christianity started dying in Europe in the mid to late 1800s, not after WWI.
You are right of course. And this is why Nietzsche said "God is dead". But people in general were Christian also here in Sweden up until WWII, the mass flight from Christianity didn't happen until after that. The dying of the Christianity in the 19th century was restricted to the intellectual circles. But yes, it's definitely part of the picture. But since the mass flight among ordinary people didn't happen until after WWII, I think my hypothesis about the American hegemony has an important significance. So we have once again that symbiosis and ping-ponging across the Atlantic ocean.
ConSwede says:
"...Germany. This is exactly an example of what I am talking about. They will *never* stick up for themselves..."
And the Swedes will? What about the lovely little place called Malmo we hear about on this very blog? Me thinks that this is a case of Pot - Meet - Kettle.
And I have the same question as You New, "How would you best describe your political views?"
That has always escaped me.
I also think that too many including the US elites make the mistake of not counting in the core of the US population, us redneck hicks in flyover country clinging to our families, religion and guns in hard times. Be pretty sure, we have about had enough of The Won. The big Zero that the rest of the world thinks they love so much.
PRCalDude,
What if Angela Merkel or her predecessors actually tried to get the US out of Germany?
NATO is self-perpetuating.
Say you start off as a French teenager in 1968: you hate NATO, you burn American flags in front of the U.S. embassy and consider President Nixon one of the worst war criminals in human history.
Thirty or forty years later, you're a high-ranking French official (an assistant-secretary to Chirac or the far-worse Sarkozy). Your motivation for seceding from the North Atlantic Treaty no longer exists.
You and your friends are in power now, so why get upset? Yes, NATO is still a bastion of of Yankee imperialism but that's how the world works, mon amie. No point in dredging up the follies of youth. Etc., etc.
There is a near-parallel faux-objection on the American side. Folks on your side of the pond are not enhusiastic about defending Europeans militarily (can't blame you).
So say an American politican says "No problem, we'll just dissolve NATO and abandon all of our bases on the European continent and focus on our own affairs" and watch as that man gets less votes than a hungry North Korean refugee running for dog catcher.
Christianity started dying in Europe in the mid to late 1800s, not after WWI.
Sooner than that, I think. The Thirty Years War was the big crack.
The notion of ownership of the Constitution is interesting. The United States of America has one of the best constitutions anywhere (the Danish is also good), and a whole lot of what goes wrong these days can ultimately be traced back to unconstitutional measures. There does exist a real Conservative movement in the US, asserting the rights of the states vs. the federal government.
Checking out history, it does seem that the Federal Reserve manipulated the money supply to create the stock market crashes of 1920 and 1929, a pattern familiar in the current crisis. It seems that bankers created the bank run in 1907 that led to the creation of the Fed in the first place. Further, the US entries in WWI, WWII and the Vietnam War seem to have been staged or abetted by the US government.
The current crisis runs deep in the monetary system, and I'm expecting the financial elite to come up with a new super-currency once the dollar fails. They're too smart to walk around in this mess without a plan for what happens next. That is one currency we should NOT permit to be established!
Since a few weeks I've made it a habit to have a copy of the Danish Constitution with me wherever I go. This is an expression of me taking ownership of it. Useful things can happen if more people read and understand their Constitution, and hold their politicians responsible for violating it.
Conswede,
I like your idea to call Americans Europeans and some other points, but this is unjust:
"to elect someone raised as a Muslim to become president..."
Obama was elected by US media. Losing their financial power continually they may dream of embracing financial benefits from an Obama much more then from Reps.
Question of survival, but deadly to democracy. As usual you exaggerate the fate of Germany.
It is internal. Our Europeans have meanwhile much sounder relationship to Germans than 20 years ago. The thing is we can help sound Germans a lot, because the German leftist has no guts to fight a non German critic. But again you have to quit old crap like Bismarck or imperial Germany.
What is the
sense of creeping out from an old ditch to fall in the next one?
There are also many non-Germans living in Germany supporting the rational-democratic selfconfident approach devoid of the Nazikeule non-sense.
Again - it is about dying German media - a smokescreen.
This might seem exaggerated, but there is definitely a personality cult surrounding Obama which is unprecedented and deeply unhealthy. His Marxist economic policies and his bow for the Saudi King are disturbing.
It is no exaggeration at all. BHO is the logical conclusion of elections that are based upon charisma instead of true ability or actual leadership skills. That such an @ssclown occupies the Oval Office represents the ultimate triumph of style over substance.
I would even venture that BHO's bowing low before the Saudi king is an attempt at some sort of symbiotic self-inclusion in circles of royalty as this four-flushing pretender clearly feels himself to be.
Please be sure to also take careful note of the way that America's national supremacy takes a back seat to BHO's pursuit of self-aggrandizement.
Most puzzling of all is how communist leadership always discouraged any personality cults, yet BHO has capitalized upon this to a tremendous extent. I can only think that it is merely an example of weaponizing a behavioral trait of America's electorate in order to subvert it.
... we cannot and should not rely on aid from the American elites. They are as hostile as the EU elites.
And both of these traitorous groups deserve the same fate. Instead, it is more likely that the bulk of America's and Europe's citizenry will necessarily suffer Islam's continued predations until the tipping point is reached.
The tipping point will come when living with Muslims becomes more trouble than living without Muslims. You can bet the farm that this point will be reached. Islam assures this outcome and there is very little that Muslim nations can do to avert it. They have neither the strategic resources nor sufficiently developed military doctrine to prevail over an aroused and angry West.
The only variables that remain are exactly how many Westerners will have to die before the tipping point is reached and the number of Muslims that will die as a result of that tipping point being reached. Any delays only serve to up the butcher's bill on both sides.
Slow jihad is not invasive enough to overcome the West before it crosses the threshold of military reprisal for continuing Islamic atrocities. Islam's inherently radical nature prohibits the creation of any stasis or uneventful interregnum whereby slow jihad can prevail.
Muslims are incapable of preventing further terrorist atrocities and such heinous crimes will assuredly expand in scope so as to inevitably bring down the West's wrath upon Islam. Perhaps not during BHO's reign, but soon enough. Of that you can be sure.
ConSwede, who on earth is Ralph Peters? I've never heard of him.
"Any kind of European vitality has been suppressed under this American hegemony. You have already heard all the arguments about this from across the Atlantic: European nationalism is the root of all evil, European vitality will only lead to endless wars etc. And the American reverse of Obama is not much of a comfort. Instead the more American nationalism grows, the more anti-European and anti-Russian it becomes. Ralph Peters is a good example."
Don't blame European cowardice on the US. The Europeans, have been, and will continue to be, spinless socialist appeasing cowards. Not America's fault!
Also, anti-European sentiment in the US is growing, to that I will agree, but not because of the reasons you have given. It is NOT an increase in American nationalism which breeds our anti-European sentiments, rather the constant baskstabbing by European countries, their unwillingness to live up to their military agreements, and their smug attitude towards anything American. The constant criticism of American policy, both foreign (legitimate) and Domestic (none of your business), does nothing but breed discontent for Europeans.
Also, I am of the attitude that we should pull completely out of Europe. I have no willingness to continue to have American forces protecting unappreciative whiny little cowards. All you folks have to do is ask us to leave and we're gone. Oh, how I wait for that day. This so called alliance between the US and Western European countries has always been a one way street. Sucking off the tit of America and embracing all of the benfits by doing so, and then when the time comes to pay the piper Europeans are nowhere to be found.
European impotence and cowardice has nothing to with the US!
Well, C-S, I was going to say I read some of your essays over at the Brussels Journal and agree with them, but then saw your usual type of answer above.
To be a hegemon, we must have an empire. Where is it? What are the boundaries? Soft power does not count. That is the part that you cannot argue but you may well gloss over and go right to the sneering attacks. Look, I am just a simple engineer trying to make sense of the world I find myself in. Glad to provide fodder for you.
"Not only my views in general, but every single post I make, will escape you."
Not, "comments require that they be civil, temperate, on-topic, and show decorum."
Glad to be of service.
Too much of Europe's citizenry has been neutered by the World Wars and their own traitorous ruling classes. Many of the nations are unarmed and unable to successfully resist their own government's actions, let alone anything else. The US will remain involved in Europe as it will in Israel. The founding stock Anglo-Celts and later Germans ensure an interest and desire to stay in the people, although not necessarily in their leaders and lobbying firms.
A Reminder, folks:
Keep it civil and temperate. This means:
*No name-calling,
*no snide, sideways remarks about another's ability to understand.
Dymphna the Deleting Dragon.
@ Conservative Swede:
However, soon enough we will have a economic downfall that will make the Black Thursday look like a picnic. And then they will face suffering day in and day out. And at that point standing up for their ideas will come at no extra cost, since the suffering is already prevalent. So go, Obama, go!
I wish I agreed with you that the destruction of our polity would be a creative change, but I don't think it will. There are few signs of that and more signs of a kind of American soviet.
Read Bill Ayers. He's been planning this since the '60s. And he had Soros and Obama and they both have ACORN.
People will be bullied into silence. In order to protect their kids or parents, they will line up.
The barbarians at the gates this time happen to be the mandarins in charge. We will fall, as Rome did, because the middle class will disappear into penury or into the civil servant sheep.
Joshua said: Too much of Europe's citizenry has been neutered by the World Wars and their own traitorous ruling classes. Many of the nations are unarmed and unable to successfully resist their own government's actions, let alone anything else. The US will remain involved in Europe as it will in Israel. The founding stock Anglo-Celts and later Germans ensure an interest and desire to stay in the people, although not necessarily in their leaders and lobbying firms.
My current professor of European history (who I think is, astonishingly enough, on the right wing of the political spectrum) is fond of saying that World War I was what "trashed European civilisation". It's an interesting thought--does anyone have any ideas about this, especially with regards to Europe's current state? I mean, it's actually quite remarkable: if one studies European history, it's clear that Europe has had an extremely violent history (I don't mean this in a way that is critical of the West) and yet, they are just lying back and letting themselves be taken over. There was once a time when they would not have hesitated to use violence against invaders, but their reaction today could not be more different.
Please don't take this as an incitement to violence. It's just a simple observation that I've been thinking about for quite some time, and Joshua's comment made me think of it.
"Read Bill Ayers. He's been planning this since the '60s. And he had Soros and Obama and they both have ACORN"
Ayers isn't the only one. Have a look at the CLOWARD-PIVEN STRATEGY.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6967
Natalie,
My current professor of European history (who I think is, astonishingly enough, on the right wing of the political spectrum) is fond of saying that World War I was what "trashed European civilisation".
As far as I know the First World War was the first time Britain introduced the draft for all able-bodied men of serving age.
A bit character in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby refers to WWI (retroactively) as the "white civil war". Crass? Perhaps. Yet this thinking is, crucially, healthy on some level.
Natalie,
like no war before it the Great War killed off a disproportionate amount of the middle and upper middle classes (and also the upper class, too), with extremely high amounts of volunteers joining the ranks from higher schools and universities and officers corps' often constituted of members of the ruling classes, leading their men into battle from the front.
So, for one, you have horrendrous losses in the strata of society which usually woul constitute the peace-time thinkers, inventors, movers and shakers coupled with an unprecedented loss in wealth and human life. Secondly, you have - for large parts of Europe, including Russia - the destruction (in just four years!) of political and social systems which often have grown over the course of centuries, and which - despite occasional limited wars - especially in the 19th century enabled an unprecedented growth of wealth, knowledge, power and participation without losing much of that continuity.
The Great War, in no small part due to Wilsonian involvement and raised wrong expectations, undid all that centuries and decades of development in just four years. It's something that Europe, mentality-wise, has never recovered from.
2 swede
You are a great polemicist, swede. I enjoy your writings. But you only talk, though the best of all, about the surface of the things. Troops, empires, geopolitics etc. But we westerners are really similar, and there is something behind our current weakness, which is not geopolitics. Once you attributed it ti Christianity.But we all are christianity - its out nature. It is as if to blame people that they consist 70% of water but not of concrete.
The real problem, as I see it, is that we abused our nature. We are turning against it. It is as if people who are 70% of water would decide to live on a planet where temperatures are above boiling point, and blamed water for that.
There are a few ways to describe our situation. One way is to say that we started to associate ourself with Egypt and not with Israel. And we are inviting the same treatment, as the Pharaoh got, on ourselves. Global warming hysteria is just one example.
The other great example is Harry Potter. we all decided that we are so mighty, that we are above ordinary people. Actually, 3rd worlders are only ordinary people nowadays. We all are magicians. We don't live on this Earth, but above, dont need any land but outer space, dont produce children but only information. That's out self-greatness complex, fueled by movies, books and all our inflated culture.
And troops here, troops there - it is all temporary, and will go with the wind.
I'm sorry, but if I have to pretend that plain stupid and mean-spirited comments are intelligent and a good understanding of what I wrote, this is no longer an intellectual discussion but a meaningless session of therapy. If a low-IQ thrashing of an intellectual discourse cannot be pointed out, but if one has to pretend according to a no-good egalitarian mindset of "we have to pretend that every opinion and utterance are equally good", there's no longer any point in at all having a discussion since facts and logic has been put in a secondary position.
Stupidity and a mean-spirited attitude always wins in the long run in the West, since if it's pointed out by the intelligent and good-spirited it's considered impolite. And a Westerner being impolite is considered the worst crime on this planet. E.g. it is also considered "impolite" to defend oneself against an aggressor. It's a recipe for disaster. But I'm happy to see it all self-implode, which will happen without the help from me participating in any discussions.
So sorry everybody, I forgot for a moment that discussions like these are meaningless. I'll quit immediately.
Conservative Swede,
Are you telling us that, despite your great intelligence — which I am among the first to acknowledge — you are unable to say the things you say without being rude?
That when you come across the arguments of a stupid person, your only possible response is to insult him?
I don’t believe it. I think that you could argue your case cogently, effectively, and convincingly without being bathetic. I don’t believe that one has to point out the stupidity of an interlocutor to win an argument with that person.
I think that, if you choose, you can make exactly the same arguments without using direct or implied personal insult.
If you so choose.
An argument made without recourse to rudeness and insult is also more effective. If a person is on the cusp of making up his mind, you are much more likely to convince him if you approach him reasonably, without invective, and without questioning his intelligence. The desired outcome — changing others’ minds — is more likely to result if you don’t use these insulting methods of argumentation.
Since I know that you are intelligent enough to realize these things, I’m forced to wonder what your motive is. What is your reason for arguing? If you are attempting to change peoples’ minds, why choose such an ineffective and unproductive means of doing it?
I realize that you have left this forum yet again, and that you are probably no longer reading this and will not answer me. Still, I leave the question hanging in the air.
Baron, I think the answer is pretty obvious. ConSwede has some interesting arguments, but he does not have all the answers. So rather than engage in an ongoing discussion that he cannot totally dominate, he will leave the field in a pout. This is an ago old response.
Baron Bodissey,
The only people who have been rude are Robohobo and then Dymphna for deleting a perfectly valid comment of mine, and now you for accusing me of being rude. It's very convenient isn't it, to delete a comment and then describe it as very rude.
I've had it with you people. Good bye!
Baron, I don't recall saying that you were rude. Where did you find that? I do think that you were pandering, although I had not intended to be quite so blunt about it.
Pardon me, Baron, I though a comment from ConSwede was from you. I apologize for my response.
@astratomunchkin
So, for one, you have horrendrous losses in the strata of society which usually woul constitute the peace-time thinkers, inventors, movers and shakers coupled with an unprecedented loss in wealth and human life.
I would only amend your idea to emphasize the losses of young, fertile men of that WWI generation. Women lived on -- many, many spinsters -- and never bore the children of those men.
This loss down the generations was geometric in outcome.
And then we proceeded to do the same thing less than thirty years later: take the best and the brightest and slaughter them...we have only to look at those who did survive to glimpse, in the shadows, the massive loss of what might have been.
As long ago as that was, contemplating our losses never fails to stagger me.
Swede --
I don't agree. To describe the person you're debating as stupid -- either directly or by obvious implication -- is insulting. I think most people would agree with this assessment. Some, like me, are willing to put up with more of such behavior than others are.
And, needless to say, insulting people is rude and uncivil.
I still don't understand why asserting that someone else is unintelligent is a useful argument.
By saying, in effect, "You're stupid!", what do you gain?
What is your purpose in saying that you are more intelligent than someone else?
Do you convince someone that you're right by saying this? Do you make others better informed, happier, or more resolute?
What is the intended result of this tactic?
I still don't understand what you hope to achieve by asserting that you have a greater intelligence than the other participants in the discussion.
I realize that you have left again, and that I am speaking to empty air. But I ask the questions nonetheless.
Baron,
If you are in a hole, the best way of action is to stop digging.
You owe me an apology, but it's clear that you do not yet understand it at this point. I will however spend all the time and effort necessary for you to understand it. And by the end of the process it think it will be all clear to you. I believe this since at heart you are a good and decent man.
How, precisely, does he owe you an apology?
The sheer conceit is amazing.
Conservative Swede:
I really do like you a lot, and most of the time we get along fine. But in all honesty: what is going on here? I'm sorry, but you are being absolutely ridiculous. Why on earth does the Baron owe you an apology? Do you not think you're being a tad silly?
Natalie,
I'll be posting about it at my blog. Let me present my case and then see what you think. There will be more than one post.
endtimes --
Gates of Vienna's rules about comments require that they be civil, temperate, on-topic, and show decorum. Your comment violated the first of these rules. We keep a PG-13 blog, and exclude foul language, explicit descriptions, and epithets. This is why I deleted your comment.
Since you're new here, I've redacted your comment and reposted it below.
---------------------
endtimes said...
Conservative Swede:
I don't know if you have left in a huff for real, but I'm curious:
You say you want to return to the Pre-Christian Germanic world. I'm just wondering... why? I don't get it.
It was defeated for a reason. If it was so much better, why did it die? Why has every attempt to resurrect this pre-Christian utopia been so disastrous?
And how do you account for all of the progress made by both Christian Societies and the Enlightenment? The technology, the prosperity.....
Wars are nothing new... but technology, science, an ordered society, these things are not universal.
Frankly, I think YOU are the Leftist. You want to return to a prmitive tribal society -- exactly like the Left.
Russia also has a massive military. Why is it such a failure compared to America (and I'm from Russia now living in America, not that that has to do with anything). I'm always curious about people such as yourself who detest America and then in the same breath hold up Russia as some great challenger, without which the whole world would be forced to eat McDonalds. [redacted]
Of course now that Russia is embracing capitalism and America is following the Soviet model, things are getting quite interesting.
Hey Baron....
I'm a little confused since I've violated none of your rules in my opinion. The one sentence which you redacted in my entire post was ironic and had to do with previous postings. I called an idea stupid -- and no one by any stretch of an imagination could have thought it was directed at them as an epithet. It was neither foul, explicit, nor an epithet... so that is why I'm confused by your reaction... but okay.
I do enjoy your blog and recognize your right to do what you want. Just expressing some confusion here.
Endtimes,
You say you want to return to the Pre-Christian Germanic world. I'm just wondering... why? I don't get it.I have started blogging again. If you stick around I will come to that topic too.
Frankly, I think YOU are the Leftist.I'm not sure I'm allowed to say so here, but most people, due to their binary thinking in the context of the current theater, don't understand where I come from.
You want to return to a prmitive tribal society"Tribal" sounds like a very good starting point to me. It can of course be broadened from bottom-up organically. "Primitive" -- I cannot see where you see me suggesting that, or how you even imagine us getting to that point.
Since you associate "tribal" with leftism, and imply that leftism is bad, I conclude that you identify your own position with internationalism. That's highly ironical.
Endtimes,
detest AmericaIt's funny how one cannot point out the true position of America in the current world order without getting these sort of comments. May I say "hypersensitive"?
Conservative Swede,
Why do you call me hypersenstive? Many of my family detest America... perhaps I was putting words in your mouth. I don't see how you can possible like a country and wish for it's destruction... which you did on this forum.
Maybe I don't understand where you are coming from- you have not answered one of my questions, but have put words in my mouth.
I think tribalism is bad because it is collective. I'm an individualist first and foremost. How can I be a transnationalist if I believe in the sanctity of the Individual? Tribalism is the opposite of individualism
I think tribalism is the end result of internationalism... so it's hilarious that you accuse me of this.
What happened to the endlines...?
One other thing -- I truly do NOT understand your thought process at all. I associate Leftism with internationalism. As do leftists themselves. How did you conclude that I am internationalist because I think Leftism is bad? When the exact opposite is the case?
Internationalism is the most dangerous ideology to me, BECAUSE i believe so much in individualism.
Internationalism is a theory which is impossible in practice -- which is why the ultimate result can only be tribalism - the ultimate in the breakdown of rationality and individual rights.
Your answerss all seem nonsensical to me. I mean no insult - just being honest. You post with glee about the impending collapse of America... and then say I'm hypersensitive because I assume you detest America.
And then you imply that Leftism is at odds with Internationalism - this truly makes no sense to me as internationalism goes to the core of all Marxist thought.
Endtimes,
I don't see how you can possible like a country and wish for it's destruction... which you did on this forum.I wish for the destruction of the EU. That surely does not make me anti-European. But precisely the contrary! However among Americans I find much more often, even among the ones with otherwise sound reactions, that they strongly identify with their monster polity, and take it personally when it's criticized (even though Obama is in power).
I think tribalism is bad because it is collective. I'm an individualist first and foremost.Individualism and collectivism meraly are two sides of the same coin. The hyperideological industrialized society where all levels between the state and the individual has been erased: village community, church community, guilds, etc. And soon to a theater near you: the family. Tribalism, even in its most primitive form, represents the organic society and traditionalism opposed to the sterile and naked individualism/collectivism.
Endtimes,
And then you imply that Leftism is at odds with InternationalismI suggested nothing of the kind. I concluded that with your opposition, to tribalism that you side with internationalism, which puts you side by side with leftism.
You are extremely unclear in your thought, CS.
EU is a not a country nor is it even a continent - it's a transnational bureaucracy. I wish for its destruction BECAUSE I don't want to see Europe destroyed. America is a country. If you wish to see it destroyed, then I assume you are not a fan.
I stated the supposition that internationalism, which is doomed to failure -- will lead to tribalism. In this sense, I think YOU are side by side with the Leftist.
Tribalism and Collectivism are two sides of the same coin. They are both antithetical to Individualism.
Tribalism is the hatred of the individual human mind -- in this way it is identical with most Leftist ideology.
Frankly, I think anyone who holds up a pre-industrialized society as an ideal to go back to, such as yourself or the Green movement, are the ones who are hyper ideological and don't know just what it takes for a human to survive in nature, who have had the comforts of modern society their whole life and have no clue just what human existence was like through most of human history.
Endtimes,
OK, fine. We are not getting anywhere.
Long live individualism and the atomized society, I guess...
Humanity for most of its history has been tribal... in this sense, Swede, you are right that is an organic to human existence. But you can't have it both ways and say long live individualism -- as if it has been a natural feature of human life. It hasn't. Most societies crush the individual. I know this not from ideology - but from direct personal experience. The EU is a great example of this in modern times.
I appreciate a place where I can say whatever I want. I know what it's like when you can't.
The borders of the former CCCP are filled with tribalism. So is much of the planet today. The existence of tribes devoid of individualism are very similar and are still found all over the place. I don't think it is that hard to find yourself a nice place you can move to that closely resembles pre-Christian Germanic Europe.
When swede said "long live" he was being sarcastic.
There's tribalism and there's tribalism. Without wanting to appear sophistic there are good and bad sorts of tribalism. We tend to refer to the good sorts as nationalism, or the extended family. My own opinion is that they can be characterised as either outward or inward looking. Outward looking tribalism is based on the individual working out into his family, and the family working out to the greater group. By working out I mean that thee individual forms a foundation for himself and then extends his strength outward to his family to support them,, creating a foundation for that family to then extend outward to their extended family and neighbours.
The inward looking tribe is based on creating a protective wall around itself. The individual protects himself from conflict with his family by continually seeking advantage; at the same time his family works together to find advantage and protection against their extended family. This is well expressed in the Islamic tribalism (brother against brother, brothers against father, father and son against the cousin and so on) but it makes itself known in other realms too. In politics, for example, or leftist collectivism of the sort envisioned by marx, lenin and engels, where highly coercive government structures create a society based on mutual mistrust, and instil a need to look inward, to protect oneself and isolate oneself from as much harm as possible by forming barriers against the outside world.
The contrast between a society that reaches out to each other with open hands and one that holds out clenched fists is probably the simplest way to understand these two forms of "tribalism".
The former, the tribalism of the individual reaching out, is best characterised by the north germanic custom of government, which formed semi-temporary hierarchies as far as necessary to deal with a particular issue. Where a village leadership could deal with it that's as far as it went, but as issues became broader various representative councils would be chosen until eventually a king would appear.
Well that's not entirely accurate but it's probably a good general summary of how things could work back then.
Ironically for CS's arguments, this "tribalism" formed from a highly independent, individualist agrarian society. His argument against societal atomisation seems to stem from a belief that society must be managed by what he has previously described as a "strongman", that social norms and beliefs must be rigidly enforced in order to bring about a strong and unified society, and he looks to the old North German beliefs and structures to do this. I naturally disagree. This sort of tribalism creates an adversarial and antagonistic society. It is nothing at all like the tribalism of the ancient North, which was based on mutual trust and support, rather than on the worship or adoration of a strongman figure or the state, which replaces the role taken by God in CS's vision.
If I'm characterising these beliefs incorrectly then I apologise, of course, but all of what I have said is based on CS's own writings here and on his blog.
OK Swede, fair enough. I personally think you're being a tad overly sensitive, but I will definitely read what you have to say about the whole matter.
Graham,
That's one of the worst caricatures of my opinions I've seen in a long time. You are also caught in the individualist/collectivist trap, where you only see the extremes of an atomized society and the extremely centralized one. What I'm speaking of is a society where the power is organically rooted locally.
Regarding the strongman it is the flip side of our current society of centralized democracy. This is what's coming for us when it all breaks down. Given that we think that our states would persist. The concept of a strongman has been much discussed here, and the idea is shared by many commenters. It's not something you can attribute specifically to me.
So the strongman is what the current order and the current weakness leads us into. It's not the sort of society I advocate as the good society. If I could have, I would have turned the clock and made us do things differently the last hundred years to avoid that. But the Westerners have insisted on shoving the weakness all the way to the bottom.
Yes, I'm quite sure we will end up in a situation of a strongman as an emergency situation. But that's not the good society. The good society, the good state, has several strongmen organically rooted locally.
It takes at least a generation or two to rebuild a society organically once it has been destroyed. A strongman is the panic reaction in the vacuum that appears. It can go well or it can make the situation worse. If it fails the state will disintegrate. We would then live in a situation of constant chaotic war, a situation of blood and fear. People's first priority will be physical protection. This is the kind of situation in which once historically the aristocracy emerged, the samurais that protected the people. This is the way to organically build a locally rooted society from nothing.
A good society has to be sustainable. To be sustainable it has to realistically take the nature of power in consideration, or it will be overrun and perish. Societies which consider the nature of power as intrinsically evil are doomed to perish.
CS --
I agree. The "strongman" is what we are headed for. He's not what we want; he's just the inevitable endgame of the centralization of political power, metastasizing bureaucracy, and a lack of accountability among our rulers.
Obama seems to be the man set up for the role in the USA. However, today is the day scheduled for a resistance against this process by the States. We shall see how that turns out.
One way or another, there will be a devolution of power to the localities. If it does not occur in an orderly and non-violent fashion within the existing system, then the result will be as you describe.
Slightly OT: Pamela Geller has been reporting on Obama's plan to introduce conscription and create a land army of impressionable and vulnerable young people to fight his domestic opponents.
If you guys have ever been to a football game in the mid-west like i had just outside chicago, you would have realized the strength of america. it isn't america that has 15% muslims (try 1.5%). but back to the football game; 80,000 people in unison, cheerleaders going wild, every arm raised in the crowd...military salute at half-time, no the real truth is that america is the modern rome. obama is just the catalyst; when the reaction comes, europe will be glad they are in europe, because those american legions are gonna march. ever hear of tecumseh... sherman? did you not know that every tank man in the world knows that patton was the best general in the war? did you not know that america was founded in blood and loves spilled blood on the battlefield? yes the republic is on the way out like rome's did; the parallels are amazing. obama is bambi compared to what is coming; they will boast - who is able to wage war with the beast?
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