Clown World

Date: November 14, 2017
Canonical: 12057
Archive: 12057 [history]
Categories: Badder Thoughts , Culture

I was talking with someone the other day, who I know well enough to talk about current events. I do not talk about my politics with anyone in real life, but I will chat about current events in the cable chat show sort of way, always careful not to take the wrong side. If I am around a gang of Progs, for example, I make sure to sound like an NPR listener, if I am forced to speak about current events. The person I was with is what you people would call a Boomer normie. He watches Fox News and voted for Trump, over Hillary.

I forget what we were discussing, but he said, “Do you ever get the feeling that things are spiraling out of control?” He went on to point out that his parents thought the world was going to hell when his generation was going crazy, but he did not think they ever lost confidence in the country. They were just sick of the kids and communists. His last thought on it was “It just feels like no one is in control anymore. All it is going to take is someone to pull on the right thread and the whole thing comes unraveled.”

I did not have a response, as that is the sort of topic that leads to saying banned things in public and you cannot be too careful. Even when around people I am fairly sure think the bad thoughts, I have made a habit of keeping my mouth shut. I figure it is good practice for when they start coming door-to-door like they are doing in Europe, looking for people who post truthful things on social media. It will probably never happen in America, but you can never be sure, so I only speak freely around certified hate thinkers at hate conferences.

All that said, there does seem to be a constant state of crisis about things now. I do not remember that being true during the Obama years, even though there was that constant sense of foreboding over economics. The near death experience faced by the financial system in the Bush years is the reason. My sense is most people, even Cloud People, think we just got lucky. The mortgage meltdown was just one of the tremors before the credit volcano explodes and covers the world in useless debt.

It does feel different now. Part of it is the Prog panic over Trump. You cannot engage in mass media without seeing someone shrieking about the latest Trump crisis. It is not the shrieking that is unsettling, it is the ham-handedness of it. The Never Trump loons like Bill Kristol and Jonah Goldberg are so transparent and phony, it makes most people wonder if we are ruled over by sociopaths. It is not the constant state of panic in the media that is unnerving to be people. It is what the panic is revealing about our ruling class.

That is just one aspect. The troll culture is another. Americans are increasingly getting their news through social media. That means they inevitably run across guys like Mike Cernovich. He is just one of many professional trolls who are slowly casting themselves as legitimate news reporters. It is not what they post, so much as how much they post that gets them attention. They are a shotgun blast of bullshit, hyperbole and self-promotion that fills the space. A million Geraldo Rivera’s have taken over social media.

It is not just the fringe trolls. Mainstream soy-boys are now hired to generate click-bait for mainstream news sites. Most people reading this remember when the Boston Globe was a readable newspaper. No more. Idiots writing about gun confiscation are just dull-witted attention whores. He even brags about it. The thing is guys like him would not survive the first week of the civil war that would ensure if the government tried a gun grab like he proposes. Congress would be forced to hold session in Canada or Hawaii.

There is also the clown world aspect to it. Americans go on-line and learn that the US Army has now lifted a ban on the mentally disturbed. That’s right, they are letting “people with a history of “self-mutilation,” bipolar disorder, depression and drug and alcohol abuse” join the Army. Imagine yourself or your son in a unit with guys, who cut themselves or struggle with thoughts of suicide. If you are a normie, you look at that and think they have already let crazy people into the Army and now they are in charge.

On the other hand, it is just another day in clown world. Not so long ago, men who dressed as women – and the trans thing is always men dressing as women – were expected to keep that stuff private. If they could not control themselves, then they were shunned or even institutionalized. It was just assumed that people who think they are trees or space aliens or Filipinos trapped in a white guy’s body are suffering from a form of madness. Today, they are celebrated as heroes of the culture, by the people in charge.

That may be why people think things are spiraling out of control. It is not the lunacy; it is the pace of lunacy. It seems to be accelerating. In one generation we went from “Maybe one day a black guy can be president” to having an exotic weirdo with a Muslim name in the White House and his supporters making war on the native stock. One day, comics are making gay jokes as part of their act and in the blink of an eye, Canada is throwing comics in jail for upsetting lesbians. The clown world spiral is accelerating.

In the 60’s and 70’s, the narrative had two sides. The Prog version was that young whites wanted to open society up for the smattering of non-whites, particularly blacks. The alternative narrative was that white society came under assault by cosmopolitan communists who used the youth movement to attack white society. Both sides relied on a civil war framework to describe that age. Both sides assume some sort of resolution where a middle ground is the result and everything gets back to normal.

That is not the vibe of today. It feels like America is a fleet of ships lashed together for so long that no one remembers why they are lashed together. As the ropes begin to break, no one is trying to repair them. Instead. people are severing them so everyone can drift apart and go their own way. In the process, various madmen are setting fire to other boats and cackling like lunatics. Those who want to keep things together, just because that is the way it has always been, are starting to think it is time to cut everyone loose.

Maybe that is the best result for clown world. Whatever America was a generation ago or five generations ago, it is no longer that. It is something different and something increasingly untenable. Too many people want off the ride. To return to the previous metaphor, it used to be the responsible thing was to restrain the crazies from cutting the lashings. Now, the responsible thing may be to cut the cords that bind clown world together, before something much worse happens.

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Comments (Historical)

The comments below were originally posted to thezman.com.

138 Comments

Severian #47390 November 14, 2017 9:45 am 23

That explains the appeal of conspiracy theories, anyway — it’s comforting, if that’s the word, to think that *someone* is in charge. I was really hoping the Trump phenomenon would produce a “crisis of foundations.” It’s long past time we ask ourselves “just what is a government supposed to do, anyway?” We currently have no idea, and we need to figure it out before we can move on to the (increasingly literally) life-or-death task of rearranging it so that it can carry out those functions, whatever they turn out to be.

Issac #47425 November 14, 2017 1:00 pm 3

The idea that individuals or groups are powerful enough to alter civic order is just as spurious as the concept that one satanist cult decides the fate of the world.Truthfully, all the evidence points towards the same arrangement as the previous rebellions cum social movements. Elites give over money and influence to their favored nuts, be they Jacobin, Boshevik, Maoist, or Progressive. Nuts compete with one another to be the chosen vessel of that power, because without political divination they are simply losers at the bottom of any social hierarchy.Contra Z; however, I hear few voices in America interested in separation. Neither elite nor revolutionary gains from having the pie split into pieces. Their goal is always to increase their power and as such their mania is simply a holding pattern until they can assume full control again and continue what they had nearly finished.

Primi Pilus #47453 November 14, 2017 4:00 pm 5

Perhaps the people most likely to be contemplating that terrible option are those who have held traditional American culture — and out nation — so dear … for so long. Thus, they are reluctant to give voice to something so destructive of their own people, history and country. Also, those same people probably are among those most reluctant to advocate for the violence such a course of action would entail. They believe in the system, even if it no longer works. I know my 96-year-old, fully aware and actively engaged Aunt is horrified by what she’s seen these last decades, and sees no way to fix things. But she can’t bring herself to talk seriously about the only few,bad options left. Nor could she even consider endorsing or participating in violence, even if she was still capable of involvement herself. The America they knew was just too central to their world view, and too precious for them to publically advocate dismembering. But that doesn’t mean that they think this experiment can be saved. So I do think they are out there, yes; they are just keeping quiet.

Issac #47463 November 14, 2017 5:11 pm 1

I should amend. I do think some people are quietly looking for the exits; however, I don’t think those people are in any position to separate, peacefully or otherwise. At bottom, your political system can adjust course, but you are much too far gone for coming completely about. The only institution with that kind of power is the military and they certainly aren’t going to carve off territory at home when they still consider most of the world to be of the “national interest.”

bilejones #47548 November 15, 2017 12:46 pm 2

Soros with his color revolutions in Eastern Europe would seem to belie your opinion.

The Annoyed Man #47827 November 19, 2017 6:32 pm 0

It seems to me that – absent some kind of cataclysmic violence to “water the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots”, as some are wont to describe it – the future of the nation looks like this:— The more the clowns rule the centralized gov’t, the increasingly irrelevant that gov’t becomes to 90% of the people living more than 100 miles inland of either east or west coast, or 25 miles outside either side of the Mississippi River valley……AKA “Flyover Country, or “FC” (as opposed to “DC”).— As the centralized gov’t in DC becomes increasingly irrelevant to the people of FC, the more likely they are to begin coalescing into semiautonomous regions of culturally and politically like-minded states. For instance, it would be easy to imagine Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and maybe Missouri forming such an autonomous region, calling itself the state of Liberty.— These semiautonomous regions would begin to establish their own trade agreements and mutual defense pacts. As these regions begin that process, they are in fact tearing dispensing with federal “services”, and substituting their own solutions to the problems that those services attempt to answer.— At some point, the citizens of these regions will only identify themselves as “Americans” in the same way that a Frenchman identifies himself as a “European”. In other words, “American” becomes more a description of his continental location on the globe than it does his sense of nationality. (Sidebar: this is why the EU is suffering “exits” and threats of exit…..because in the end, a Belgian still identifies himself as a Belgian, and not as a European Unionian, no matter what the EU bureaucrats in Brussels want to call them.)— At that point, DC ceases to exist as the seat of centralized gov’t; centralized gov’t ceases to exist as a power over the lives of people living on the continent; and the semiautonomous regions become fully autonomous – either agreeing to combine each region’s member states into a single regional “super state”, or they form themselves into smaller scale republics made up of their still-sovereign member states. These new autonomous regions will write their own new constitutions. Those new constitutions will either outlaw firearms ownership, or protect it, according to their previously existing regional cultural biases.— Eventually, the now autonomous regions/states will begin to treat between themselves as sovereign nations, setting up their own trade agreements and military alliances, according to their own needs and requirements. All treaties and/or agreements previously entered into by the nonexistent country formerly known as the United States of America will be null and void, and have no hold over the new autonomous regions. The other partners to those previously existing treaties/agreements will have to negotiate new ones with the new autonomous states – if they want to continue the benefits of those pacts to themselves.— The American state formerly known as California will be known as the Mexican province of California del Norte. Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Delaware will be declared the Canadian territory of Southern Quebec.Naturally, there will be population shifts during the time of transition. Some areas will gain in population, while others lose population. For instance, those who cherish the now defunct 2nd Amendment will flee California del Norte and Southern Quebec and relocate to areas like the state of Liberty, where that right is still protected under the new Constitution Libertonians write for themselves.This is the ONLY way that the U.S. can avoid a future of wholesale political violence…….UNLESS the normies find the magic key to unlock the brains trapped by the clown show.

firefirefire #47692 November 17, 2017 4:08 am 1

One of the things we might have “Government Do” is Less.

Rod1963 #47429 November 14, 2017 1:15 pm 20

Empires don’t break up without bloodshed and the current one isn’t about to let whites self-segregate without sending men with guns to stop us.Even now the U.S. State Department is funding groups in Hungary to instigate a color revolution to over throw Orban(Zerohedge has a link to it). The EU/Germany is considering funding groups in Poland to topple the nationalist regime there,Here we have the GOP going insane over Bannon’s attempt to install populist reps.. And now we have the state of AL threatening to invalidate Roy Moore’s election should he win. It looks to me the elites are willing to openly give the American people a in your faOur colleges are going full tilt anti-white and where a simple statement like “It’s ok to be white” triggers terror and rage in the ethnics and white cloud people.With lunatics like these in charge there is no chance for either a peaceful co-existence or separation.

Karl McHungus #47441 November 14, 2017 2:14 pm 3

The crazies will burn out; enrollment is already dropping at the worst unis. You will see a kind of “revival” mindset take hold of the great herd, and the deep perverts will be locked up.

Ursula #47495 November 14, 2017 11:03 pm 2

The Bolsheviks did not have a majority but they made it happen. A helpful factor was they had the military with them. The establishment has much of the military with them, don’t you think? Or is it a mixed bag? Maybe the globalists, pro-interventionists, suicidals, bi-polars and trannies are for the establishment and the normies are for the new right? And most police are Trumpies, I think. But I suppose with drone technology, one only needs access to weaponized drones and to know where the dissidents live and they’ll just vaporize the troublemakers.

Primi Pilus #47510 November 15, 2017 8:48 am 4

Upper military leadership, yes. The purge of the officer corps began in earnest during the Clinton years. I speak from experience, as one who waited many months beyond the norm for the majors list to come out, since under the Clinton administration is was sent back and forth between their diversity contractor and DC to ensure there was the right balance of monorities and women (and that balance wasn’t tipped in the favor of white males). As one goes higher, they add in greater emphasis on proper political vetting. I saw it first hand, all the way up to the War College level. For Generals and Admirals, the vetting emphasis is on political factors; the race and sex screening functions are already well functioning by that level. Thus, yes, our highest ranking are clearly aligned with this (relatively) new political class agenda. Few … very few … traditionals, can get through.

Al from da Nort #47526 November 15, 2017 10:05 am 2

PP;What about at the field grade, direct troop commander level officers_? In a coup/insurrection scenario they and the senior NCO’s have mattered most, historically.Institutional respect, such as the diversity warriors must count on for obedience, only goes so far when TSHTF. Consider what happened to the Ceausescus during the Romanian Revolution of 1989:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_RevolutionTl:dr; If you are a purely political general who orders the troops to fire on the demonstrators and one soldier or NCO says ‘F that’, he is potentially fatal trouble. But if a few hundred soldiers, their NCO’s and their unit commanders say ‘F that’ *you* are in potentially fatal trouble.The Clinton-era culling of non-PC, capable (predominantly white male) commanders was just getting started when I aged out. But judging from the early efforts, their very-nearly-qualified, affirmative action replacements aren’t smart enough to know whether their orders are likely to be obeyed before issuing them.

Primi Pilus #47533 November 15, 2017 10:33 am 2

I just don’t have a good enough feel for whether or not the field grades and sr NCOs would non-comply. I do know that, from what I saw, the closer one gets to stars, them more compliant he becomes … in most cases I observed.I saw up close peers who didn’t think females should serve in their units writing glowing assessments about the general’s new diversity program in the larger organization’s glossy mag.I watched highly politically motivated, mid-field grade officers turn a blind eye to higher ups’ shenanigans out of fear it would impact their path to wearing eagles and getting closer to that star themselves.Self interest and the power of institutional conforming forces seem an unstoppable combination. Not wearing tin foil on my head, and speaking as abstractly as possible — evidence exists that military forces will use force against entities who are in fact friendly, if so ordered.Not sure it would happen in all cases. But I don’t think the younger, lower-ranking troops have the experience or judgment to do anything other than comply … at least in the initial instances of such situations.I’ve been out for several years, so who knows. I know of successful mid and senior field grades who acted aggressively in theater, and who prosecuted the war as it was done a short 4-7 decades ago, but were were not selected for admittance to the GO ranks. It was almost like they were a necessary embarrassment.

jameswilson #47445 November 14, 2017 2:30 pm 5

There were always things it is a bad idea to co-exist with. We let that line move so far it’s now behind us. Tocqueville–It must not forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life. Subjection in minor affairs…does not drive men to resistance, but it crossed them at every turn, till they are led to surrender the exercise of their own free will.

A.B. Prosper #47481 November 14, 2017 8:32 pm 6

I basically agree with you but minus the hardship I’m hard pressed to see why being separated even by force is a bad thing.Anyway the biggest problem the Right faces is rugged individualism , lots of “me and mine” and an absolute fear and loathing of “us and ours” as a conceptAll that anti Communist rhetoric has really warped people brains or something and we’ve forgotten that if we don’t hang together, we shall all hang separately we used to haveThis is subject to change though, its why in my opinion as foolish an idea as it is, the Christendom portion of the .alt right offers some idea of a collective replacement for the old empireIt also give you a moral platform in which to make people behave in a healthy fashion and grounds for punishment when they don’t.These are good thingsIts also why I like the helicopter rides meme and some of the craptivism over Kuerig and the like . The Right needs to learn the power of collective action, the enormous benefits of collective punishment in tribal warfareAnd trust me this is a tribal war, the loose affiliation of Deplorables and Dirt People vs the Cloud People, Globalists and Looter Cucks , least till the later flips sidesbasically if the Right isn’t willing to have the enemy people, enemy tribe and its institutions fear reprisals, bad acts will continue . This does not have to be illegal note, there are still loads of legal options out there to be usedHell just creating our own stuff is damned effective, don’t read D.C or Marvel , read .Alt Hero , buy from friendlies (say Black Rifle Coffee instead of Starbucks) just keep us vs them in mind at all timesif they go to guns and a response becomes necessary, well than you can do whateverAnd note historically there is plenty of precedence this is why the Christian religions was and Islam still is given deference

Ivan #47913 November 21, 2017 10:03 am 0

Problem is the types of collectivism offered are ineffectual: ‘Murica Civic Nationalism: Race doesn’t matter, demographics doesn’t matter, blacks are to be forcibly assimilated and whites forced to pretend blacks are natural Europeans. Implicit caste system in moral responsibilities. Our “country” is the entire Western Hemisphere. Christian Collectivism: Race doesn’t matter, only religious demographics is relevant, Black voodoo Jesus is just as good as Euro Communist Jesus. Implicit caste system in moral responsibilities. Protestant anti-hierarchy (functionally a charisma hierarchy) just as good as Catholic competence hierarchy.

GeorgeOrwell #47397 November 14, 2017 10:37 am 20

“Not so long ago, men who dressed as women – and the trans thing is always men dressing as women –”About a year and a half ago an advertising campaign for a large consumer company tried to go full poz, but it never made it out of the ad agency. They were going to sell you not just the trannies-are-brave-heroes thing, but tranny *teens*. They fully knew how creepy the whole thing was, which explains choice of sex for the teen hero in the commercial: girl LARPing as boy. Normies watching tv would find that way less nauseating than, as Zman notes, the far creepier dude in a dress, which is overwhelmingly the usual case in reality. At any rate that stuff was still a bridge too far and the ad never materialized. But just wait. It’s coming someday.This prompts one to also note the biracial couple thing in commercials. It seems the bulk is black man and white woman, but there are very occasionally black women with white men. Why the difference? Also Zog seldom does commercials with the white girl married to a Wesley Snipes. Instead it’s usually a black male with less melanin. We’re not supposed to notice this, I know. Crimethink.

Dr. Dre #47406 November 14, 2017 11:16 am 18

The Blue Cross/Blue Shield materials I receive (I’m on Medicare the past several years) ALWAYS have a late middle-aged black couple on the cover of the brochure, absolutely having the time of their lives, yucking it up. It’s kind of humorous: the black woman always has a short “natural” hair clip, lots of gray, no obvious processing. The man is nice looking, long faced, usually w/ Caucasian features, could be anyone’s grandpa with a little more cream in the coffee etc. I have never seen one of these ads show an overweight, very black woman with lots of braids etc. and the guys never look like the ones taking a knee in the NFL. My question is — where do they find these people? I live in the mid-South and see black people every day. I can think of ONE black couple that looks like this, sort of, and they are absolutely lionized by what passes for white “Society” here, but that’s it.

Dave #47446 November 14, 2017 2:34 pm 7

Absolutely agree. I live in NYC, and I never see black people or couples that look like most ads, and i’m surrounded by black people every day. The black folks used in those ads represent the smallest possible fraction of the black population.

A.T. Tapman Merica #47468 November 14, 2017 5:25 pm 6

I believe you are referring to the proverbial “Magic Negro” They are in very short supply, as rare as unicorns. I may have spotted one a few years back, but it is hard to be certain.

Paul Bonneau #47424 November 14, 2017 12:39 pm 1

Was just watching the old Marilyn Monroe movie, “Some Like It Hot”. Lots of play-tranny behavior in that one, and a big boost for homosexuality right at the very end…

Dr. Dre #47435 November 14, 2017 2:05 pm 8

That is a great movie, with everyone in it at the top of their form, and superb Billy Wilder direction. Wearing clothes of the opposite sex in a theatrical setting has been done since the beginnings of civilization — and play-acting, too, with the ancient Greeks down to Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe etc. That’s not the problem confronting society today re: homosexuality.

Pimpkins Nephew #47480 November 14, 2017 8:31 pm 3

Don’t forget the Three Stooges. Who can forget Curly’s turn as a ‘celebrated’ Latina soprano?

Pimpkins Nephew #47479 November 14, 2017 8:22 pm 0

I’m not sure what your comment means. Are you trying to say that there is some troubling ‘subtext’ here?

TomA #47392 November 14, 2017 9:53 am 20

We can only pray that your analysis is correct and the reckoning comes sooner rather than later. As with all addicts on their final glide path to degeneracy, the quicker they hit bottom, the higher the bottom will be. Incessantly kicking the can down the road just makes the bottom that much lower and increases the damage. Wait too long and the odds of eventual recovery get pretty dim.

hokkoda #47427 November 14, 2017 1:09 pm 19

I suspect this is going to come crashing down around the people who are going full-bore crazy, not around everyone. They’re literally running out of crazy behaviors to champion. What are they down to at this point? Pedophiles? Everybody knows that this is next. You can hear Justice Kennedy writing the majority opinion now, “Who are we to judge what love is, who can love who? No child should turn over in their bed and not find a 54 year old unmarried former librarian who collects women’s shoes there to love him.” What else truly crazy do they have left, given the Prog’s obsession with sex?They’re also in the progress of burning down their own house. That’s what this Hollywood/media business is all about. They’ve decided to burn themselves down to ashes.All that has really happened in the last 5-10 years is that everybody keeps thinking what they thought 20 years ago, but they just don’t say it out loud. The Progs are not going to bake basic human behaviors, traits, etc. out of the population. Rising up to meet it will be more and more people deciding not to become Winston from 1984 winning daily victories over themselves.And those people come from a LOT of very diverse backgrounds. Just like illegal immigration, the party/politician who grabs the pop culture zeitgeist by the throat and throttles it as the anti-Prog, probably wins 40 states.

McWaynor #47487 November 14, 2017 9:55 pm 3

What’s next? I’m thinking barn animals (or has that been done already??).

Alzaebo #47505 November 15, 2017 3:11 am 3

I once got a Dutch porn flyer in the mail, gods know how. Yes, it’s been done already. Boy howdy.

hokkoda #47511 November 15, 2017 8:52 am 3

Given the shift in recent years from calling animals “pets with owners” to “dogs with guardians” – you see it all over the place here in CO at city/state parks – I think people will protect animals before they protect children.

Drake #47403 November 14, 2017 11:10 am 19

A few other things are giving me that “out of control” or “impending doom” feeling.1. Everything is political now. I can’t watch a sports game, a sitcom, and certainly not the news without getting a big dose of unsolicited opinions.2. Everyone is a liar. The political class is happy to have people lie over sexual allegations, Russian hacking, trading favors for campaign contributions, or any other damn thing that will keep them in power. When the truth is so elusive, things feel out of control because there’s nothing to hang on to.3. Communism and political violence seem to be back in vogue.

Andy Texan #47476 November 14, 2017 7:50 pm 4

The world appears to be spiraling down the drain because self government appears to be a thing of the past. I call it neo-feudalism.

Drake #47490 November 14, 2017 10:06 pm 1

Maybe we’ve lost the will and the requisite skills.

Alzaebo #47502 November 15, 2017 2:35 am 4

Lack of will?We’ve never seen such will, such dedication. Popular outcry, voter majority, voluminous research, national bankruptcy, visible collapse, continuous war- none of it matters. They. Will. Not. Stop.

Dr. Dre #47705 November 17, 2017 3:27 pm 0

At least feudalism was structured, although the word they used was order, as opposed to what exists today — disorder! Everyone knew his/her place in the heirarchy, and understood their responsibilities to society. Also, it was understood that God was in charge at each level, so the opportunity to appreciate beauty firsthand in the Church was available and achievable behavioral standards applied to everyone! That’s gone now, so I wouldn’t call the current situation “neo-anything” worthwhile. The “spiraling down the drain” is going faster and faster each day. Unreal and scary.

forest grump #47398 November 14, 2017 10:49 am 18

The left wants the rural conservities gone . they knowingly lie and misrepresent news to agitate BLM and “by any means nessecary ” groups , hoping for violence . the GOP globalist/cheat labor lobby is fine with it and won’t push back . It’s a sad ending to a great and magnanamous society. Every one of them will regret the complete loss of civility and polite society they are bringing about. It’s all a temper tantrum of the left at being largly rejected , combined with the cynical scorched earth no holds barred permanent campaign of the clintons.

LoveTheDonald #47395 November 14, 2017 10:29 am 18

It is possible to signal one’s beliefs in a subtle way, also. For example, I used to be fond of saying “Obamacare isn’t about health care, it’s about destroying the middle class.” Now, I say, “Obamacare isn’t about health care, it’s about destroying the WHITE middle class.” Invariably, I will see a look of agreement on the white folks’ faces and either a look of fury or conscious guilt (to their credit) on the black folks’ faces.

DavidWright #47391 November 14, 2017 9:48 am 17

What surprises me is how tight lipped you are out in public and at work.Easy for me to say being I own my own business but to totally avoid letting people know that there is an opposition or another viewpoint misses many opportunities. Just saying I was going to vote for Trump I received a look of relief, as if they knew they weren’t alone.All this panic and hysteria has got to be good. If they weren’t reacting, we ain’t trying hard enough. It remains to be seen if this change or movement is big enough to keep moving ahead when Trump totally fails us.

cerulean #47410 November 14, 2017 11:39 am 22

Livelihoods, and therefore lives, can be destroyed if a person says the wrong thing. This is universally understood, but seldom remarked on. It is now like the air we breathe. I imagine this is the reason ZMan is circumspect in public.Freedom of expression has been in the process of croaking for quite a while, even though it is nominally protected by law and tradition. In this country, the politics of personal destruction was once confined to politicians. Now it has extended to ordinary people who commit crimespeak. This was the reality in the Soviet Union and still is in totalitarian states. In this regard, the soft totalitarianism of the US is becoming harder by the year.You might point to the alt opinions offered on the web as a counter to this trend. I think that in almost all cases, the people offering such opinions are either anonymous or are financially insulated from being denied a livelihood by the progs. And I think it will be harder for them to survive as independent voices.Getting people thrown out of their jobs for non-prog views — or extracting monetary court penalties from them — is a weapon employed against our side with increasing skill and frequency, as per ZMan’s article. The use of this weapon by one side, but not the other, is a perfect example of asymmetric warfare. Our side has been clueless about defending against this weapon as well as about employing it.ZMan puts this phenomenon as a symptom of our problems. I’d say it is at the root of them.

cerulean #47413 November 14, 2017 11:56 am 6

In my comment, I made it seem like being tossed out of a job for expressing unpopular views is something completely new. It is not, of course. The new things: in the US our side is under attack, technology makes it easier to come after us, and the scale and focus of the attack have increased. It is still true that our side has been ineffective in countering such attacks or employing them.

A.B. Prosper #47454 November 14, 2017 4:01 pm 5

This is because the Right is the party of money and commerce and little else . The idea of economic warfare against people that are supposed to be your market is foreign and repulsive to them. The Muh Capitalism blinders prevent them from seeing these people aren’t the market and are basically their enemiesThis is changing though as the ability for the US to generate real wealth for its people vanishes and it even gets harder to lootFor I don’t know five decades the establishment Right only barely tolerates traditionalists and social conservatives and somewhere between fellow travelers or useful idiots if they are populist like Pat BuchananThat said as the .Alt Right grows and tactics change , such economic warfare will become part and parcel and there is nothing anyone can do about it.Also we saw some glimmers of that in President Trump’s suggestion we consider taking away broadcast licenses since the press is unfairThat’s a Leftist tactic, deplatforming writ large and while a waring shot no doubt put more than a bit of fear into them.

Ursula #47415 November 14, 2017 12:05 pm 11

While the U.S. and some other western countries, like U.K. and Germany, grow increasingly authoritarian with their progressive globalist agendas, countries like Russia and China continue growing in the opposite direction, opening to more freedoms in social and business life. I’m sure I’ll get a lot of hate for that comment, to which I respond, Step away from the propaganda and look up commentary from westerners living in and doing business in those countries these days.

jameswilson #47437 November 14, 2017 2:08 pm 14

In speaking with many Chinese traders twenty and thirty years ago–taking buyers to lunch was always in the Chinese business plan–it was obvious that the natural flow of their conversation stopped dead at politics back home. They were outright fearful. What changed in China was that they began to improve themselves incrementally at the same time it became too obvious the American colossus was suiciding. The Chinese openly pity us trapped in our democratic multiculturalism.

Ursula #47488 November 14, 2017 9:59 pm 7

Asian tells Africans they are stupid for destroying what White people built and for learning nothinghttps://youtu.be/3LhSjLNyM-sChinese are pretty industrious people; would love to hear their observations as they work with Africans (or in spite of Africans) in developing regions in Africa. Can imagine what they think of our feral African-Americans.

August #47492 November 14, 2017 10:17 pm 6

They’re pretty tight-lipped, but every now and again some political or business figure In East Asia says what he actually thinks about Africans. Often followed shortly by profuse apologies.

Paul Bonneau #47420 November 14, 2017 12:26 pm 10

“Now it has extended to ordinary people who commit crimespeak.” Even if that is the trend (which is questionable), the remedy is not to keep your mouth shut. Otherwise, they win. All life is risky, and eventually you die anyway. The question is, how does one face those risks?

Unknownsailor #47443 November 14, 2017 2:23 pm 13

And should that day come to pass, you should make it as painful as possible for all concerned to try and take you down. Most of all, never, ever resign or quit. Make them fire you.Also, what is good for the goose is also good for the gander. You should be looking for reasons to get the alt-left turds around you fired. Report every infraction, file a harassment case at every slight. Keep files of ever little thing they do, and if/when they come after you, go biblical on them in return.The moment you self censor is the moment you let them win by default.

Spherical_Cube #47432 November 14, 2017 1:30 pm 7

I’m not. Have you ever worked in a corporate environment?

Karl McHungus #47393 November 14, 2017 10:06 am 15

Here’s the thing, history is a process. It’s going to go where it’s going to go, no matter what anyone says or does to the contrary. Some aspects of the new system — currently emerging — are visible, or at least partly visible. But most of the new system is obscured right now. There is a high chance of multiple points of societal breakdown, with localized carnage on a large scale. Positioning yourself away from those points, with resources at hand to survive any outages (food, water, energy) for at least 3 months is the smart play. Worrying about Joos, or 9/11 theories, or any other nonsense is the waiting-for-the-hangman play. Vote for Trump supporters only, and tell everyone the gop needs to die.

Al in Georgia #47402 November 14, 2017 11:07 am 11

I advise my family and friends to stock up on food, guns, ammo and a way to get clean water. Things may get interesting in the future.

Tim #47417 November 14, 2017 12:09 pm 8

Karl, you are absolutely right. Food, water, heat, self defense are absolutely necessary. Also key, get to know your neighbors, just on a friendly basis. You don’t need to discuss politics, or (preparing for an apocalypse)…but you need to know at least some of them.

Saml Adams #47419 November 14, 2017 12:22 pm 18

Funny, but during Sandy got a dry run on that. Now I knew all my neighbors, but grossly underestimated just how helpless the vast majority were. One of the funniest episodes was watching one scream at the ConEd operator demanding that her “power be restored right now!” or heads were going to roll–using up what was left of her cell phone battery.

Dutch #47421 November 14, 2017 12:28 pm 13

When the Cedar Fire was bearing down on our neighborhood back in 2003, I had to go around and turn off everyone’s gas main with a big Crescent wrench. No one in the neighborhood had a clue. Of course, they also didn’t believe the fire was coming. I pointed out that the smoke plume from the fire was blowing directly over the neighborhood. Most of the neighborhood burned down.

Lineman #47455 November 14, 2017 4:20 pm 7

We always make sure those are the ones on the last…The ones that bring us food or drinks on the other hand, well they usually benefit from that if we can…

Issac #47426 November 14, 2017 1:05 pm 8

Alternatively, no months supply in a rural climate is going to save you if Progressive power is solidified and purges begin. Kulaks weren’t exactly urbanites. You should treat political power as a lifeline too. Withdraw too much or too soon and you forfeit the world to people who would hunt you to extinction.

Karl McHungus #47434 November 14, 2017 1:56 pm 6

Exactly who was “safe” from Stalin, in the CCCP? Exactly no one. Therefore there is no way to “prepare” for that kind of scenario, so it is safely and profitably ignored.

Old Surfer #47465 November 14, 2017 5:20 pm 10

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

Karl McHungus #47473 November 14, 2017 7:18 pm 1

You don’t know the Russians very well, do you. re:Chechnya campaign.

RDG #47482 November 14, 2017 8:56 pm 9

They had confiscated your guns. What would you use to do that Solzhenitsyn? Kitchen utensils? Axes? They would shoot you dead in front of your family. And so you went quietly. Know this: gun confiscation is the beginning of the damnation the progs plan for us.

bilejones #47469 November 14, 2017 5:51 pm 0

See My 5:50, ish comment

BackwoodsEngineer #47458 November 14, 2017 4:44 pm 8

Except, the kulaks were disarmed. We aren’t. Molon labe.

Issac #47466 November 14, 2017 5:22 pm 6

Most were not disarmed, they were simply overwhelmed. Like the Progressives in America, Bolsheviks imported millions of angry aggrieved ethnic groups who had a grudge against the kulaks and sent them by the thousand to kulak territory. Eventually the call went out to do the deed and so the kulaks went to their graves.

A.B. Prosper #47477 November 14, 2017 8:03 pm 4

Everyone goes to their grave at some point. Every race every ethnic group, every culture, every faith , every ideology will eventually be dust .Once you accept that that you can move on and live life a little easier.The thing is no sane person is fighting a revolution for just himself, its for his family and his future family. Kin and tribe matter nothing matters more including religionThat lack of families, lack of kin or anything worth fighting for combined with the gilded cage of comfort we live in is what cripples the right and keep them from taking power.It saps the will and makes the 10 of billions of rounds of ammo and the hundreds of millions of guns, mostly useless paperweightsIn some sense, Obama was spot on about bitterly clinging, that is what the Right does mostly.Hell the Left could simply no longer seek more gun laws and without effort in a short period of time simply replace the Right with a more docile people since the only thing that seems to be a trigger to action is removed.They’ll get the Brazil they want to rule easily by simple inactivityThat’s why the election of President Trump and others like him, caused such a freak out, Trump is no conservative, not a solution and weakly nationalist but he brings hope and can very possibly create a preference cascade

Issac #47581 November 15, 2017 7:09 pm 1

“Everyone goes to their grave at some point. Every race every ethnic group, every culture, every faith , every ideology will eventually be dust .Once you accept that that you can move on and live life a little easier. ”Not really. The collection of ethnics and races we have today survived a very long time. Admixture happens, but rarely does it do what will happen to Europeans: utterly dominating what remains of their genes and territory.If you are white and living easily in America or Europe, I don’t know what to tell you. That sounds to me like the most supine cuckoldry imaginable.

Alzaebo #47500 November 15, 2017 2:12 am 8

So immigration was the swarm weapon, not disarmament or ideology. Maybe the most important observation ever made about the Revolution.No wonder our betters never mentioned it. (Stalin did relocate millions, didn’t he.)

Dutch #47550 November 15, 2017 12:55 pm 0

Wow. That insight is an eye-opener.

zreader #47451 November 14, 2017 3:50 pm 14

Imagine yourself or your son in a unit with guys, who cut themselves or struggle with thoughts of suicideFrankly, this is the norm. I never saw any cutting, but depression is extremely widespread in the military. A lot of it is due to having high-IQ guys trapped in menial, soul-crushing jobs for the benefit of a military that in ostensibly defending the nation is actually subverting it.Remember when Gen. Casey made his statement after Nidal Hassan shot up Ft. Hood, “…as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse”? What do you think that does for morale?And now the poor bastards can have female squad leaders.

Paul Bonneau #47422 November 14, 2017 12:31 pm 12

Don’t worry, someone is still in charge. It’s just that they aren’t very good at it any more, and their interests do not even peripherally align with ours.The author seems excessively timid around other people. I’ve always just said what I thought even if it was unpopular. People come to expect that from you over time. It’s also pretty easy to just laugh at PC crap.I suppose it depends on how secure a person feels in his job. If you are just barely hanging on anyway, keeping quiet makes more sense. Back in the ’70’s and ’80’s when I was an engineer, the economy was good enough that even in the unlikely event I was fired (which never happened), another job was available just down the street. Maybe that is the appeal of shaky economies to the ruling class – they tend to make people keep their mouths shut and their heads down.

Karl McHungus #47438 November 14, 2017 2:09 pm 0

Guess what…it isn’t the 80’s anymore. You have no idea how out of touch you sound; kind of like a pesty drunk that won’t shut up.

Tully Bascombe #47459 November 14, 2017 4:59 pm -1

Paul’s comment is typical of clueless Boomers

McWaynor #47486 November 14, 2017 9:54 pm 5

I’m an engineer in my 50’s, have been active in this field since ’87. Totally agree with Z. A place of business is exactly that, for BUSINESS not a place for robust political debate. Played that game before, all it spreads is hate and enmity, making it tougher for people to simply do their jobs.As far as being secure in my job, I can tell you that I’m highly paid, highly sought after, highly competent and have never been unemployed in my entire 30 year career. None of that matters if you piss off the wrong guy (or is it ‘xuy’ now, I’m probably out of date) because you can’t keep your mouth shut. You’ll be on a Performance Improvement Plan skating toward the door in short order, and the engineering community is small enough that people in other companies hear things (yes, even in a largish city like Detroit).If you value working and eating, do your job while you’re at your place of business. Using biting political debate to change the mind of some idiot communist won’t work and probably isn’t in your job description.

Dutch #47491 November 14, 2017 10:16 pm 7

The workplace is enemy territory. Get a look into HR and see who they go after. Lay low in enemy territory and quietly scope out the area for potential allies.

Ursula #47493 November 14, 2017 10:38 pm 8

You’re right, bad economies do make people stay quiet so they won’t lose their job. Plus, Z Man grew up poor, was a good student, applied himself to succeed and now, as he’s stated, he prefers avoiding being poor again. Completely understandable. People who are retired after making good salaries their entire lives, having good money socked away and are taking in social security on top of it are fortunate not to know what American workers experience these days with scarce jobs and low wages, thanks to all the immigrants. For most of us, there will be no retirement and no savings, just making enough to eke by and hoping for no medical emergencies or car breakdowns. There are a few well-paying industries out there but many of those include doing things that one could consider being part of the problem and not making our society any better in any way. Just feeding the sociopathic and parasitic elite. That’s where all the money is.

Alzaebo #47504 November 15, 2017 3:08 am 5

So, so true.Things are much more desperate and limited now. No room for error, no time for recovery. Everyone walks on eggshells.

Eduardo #47412 November 14, 2017 11:49 am 12

Regarding the thinking and expressing of “bad thoughts”, there are two types of people.One group makes sure you know exactly how they feel either through bumper stickers, political signs in their yard, or self-identified comments on line. I find these people to generally be self-absorbed jerks, especially the ones with the “Coexist” sticker on their Prius. Virtue signalling at its finest.The other group keeps their opinions to themselves or only share it with like-minded souls. Smart folks, those. My dad never allowed anyone to know where he stood and told me to be the same way. It helps avoid having your door keyed or tires slashed.

Saml Adams #47416 November 14, 2017 12:06 pm 9

Here behind enemy lines one has to always be on guard As I tell fellow shooters, “the first rule of Gun Club? You don’t talk about Gun Club.” There are people around here crazy enough to call the PD if they see you carrying a cased, trigger locked rifle to your car for a trip to the range.

soapweed #47484 November 14, 2017 9:12 pm 2

Eddy, my man: If you think you can categorize folks into only two types, you might need to get off the 4 lane at the next opportunity.My stickers are: [1] Lets play cowboys and muslims and [2] USA raised beef, no more mixing meats.If an issue might arise from the above opinions, I’ll gladly handle it, and if a disagreeable type follows me to my cattle guard, then his fate rests with the NAPA battery on the Case back hoe and my giddy fingers on the control levers….. plenty of room down here in the bottom ground. soapweed

Din C. Nufin #47499 November 15, 2017 1:40 am 5

I dunno. Ted Nugent says if you don’t call out the ass holes, you become one.

Dutch #47409 November 14, 2017 11:37 am 12

Are things that different and worse than they were two or three years ago? I can make the argument that some things are going in a slightly better direction now.I believe the difference is that, two or three years ago, the mouthpieces of the “system”, the arbiters of public-think, were busily papering over all the problems. Now they are fully vested in magnifying the nits and manufacturing crises out of whole cloth.We are being played.Speak to a reasonably intelligent and aware center-leftie. They show all the signs of hypnosis. Discuss public events, watch their eyes, and note when they drop into rote recital of what they have been fed by the media and the internet. They get that moment of the thousand-yard-stare, just for a flash, as the rote agenda kicks in and they start rolling with the blah-blah-blah.They go down that rhetorical path, and it carries them into all the swirls and eddies of prog-racism-sexism-end of the world-all Trump’s fault. There is no discussion, and no thought going on there. It is the product of hypnosis.We are all being played, but part of taking the red pill is recognizing the hypnotic dimension of what is being used against us all.

Karl McHungus #47418 November 14, 2017 12:10 pm 13

What you are saying is true enough, but that is only one piece of the puzzle. There are genuine tectonic movements going on now, real changes in long standing power arrangements. For a start, the GOPe has been fully revealed (and is now fully reviled). Hollywood is aflame, the NFL is gut shot and staggering around, etc etc etc. Whether the tec plates are being moved by human volition is debatable, but moving they are.

Dutch #47423 November 14, 2017 12:38 pm 8

There are so many threads. Many have been there for a long time (the 2008 financial crisis was a warning that things were seriously not OK, even back then), but the emotional drama show we see today is a sign that it all is quickly moving away from where the powers-that-be want things to go. They are throwing out all the stops to try to get back on top of things. That they are using such ham-handed techniques says many things. They are getting desperate. They underestimate the intelligence and perceptively of their foes. And they have a lot of mind-bending techniques out there in place. The ham-handedness will not work on US, but it will work on THEM, not because they are stupid, but because they can be unknowingly manipulated. Their conceit that they are the smartest people in most rooms is being used against them. They have no idea what is being done to them.

Karl McHungus #47436 November 14, 2017 2:07 pm 8

Agree that the heavy handedness is a sign of mounting panic. If Roy Boy gets in, they will be plotzzing themselves silly!

Al from da Nort #47460 November 14, 2017 5:00 pm 8

Dutch;Agreed. People’s Exhibit A of ham handed propaganda was Sunday’s NFL ‘Veteran’s Tribute’ barf-inducing bilge. Respect for the military suddenly replacing respect for the flag. Using uniformed military as stage props. False swearing-in ceremonies. Guys in camo prancing around with team flags (anybody can buy camo gear). Stupid camo rags and ribbons (too much white for forest or desert, not enough white for actual winter camo), etc., etc.

zreader #47452 November 14, 2017 3:59 pm 11

Z, if you want to link content from sites like Jezebel or even the Boston Globe, you should use this site:http://archive.is/ Just copy and paste the URL you want to link to, and archive.is will generate an archived version of the page. That way Jezebel or whoever won’t generate any ad revenue or traffic statistics from your readers. Starve the parasites. Good post, btw.

Alex #47394 November 14, 2017 10:17 am 11

I have a bit more freedom than most regarding speaking out, but unlike the maniac progs I don’t seek to upset the folks I’m talking to either. Its common courtesy, but I make no bones about the way I view the world to my friends with whom I agree.

Midwestmike #47433 November 14, 2017 1:47 pm 10

It makes sense to fill the army with crazy people if you pla to turn them loose on half the population. Normal men and women might not want to go along with the program as ordered.

Deplorable Black Man #47404 November 14, 2017 11:13 am 10

As usual, great post Z.However, I just don’t understand your beef against Cernovich. I don’t follow the guy much anymore, but his role in exposing the Michele Fields hoax (god that seems like that happened 10 yrs ago) was invaluable in exposing the mendacity, and outright insanity of the never Trump, Conservative, Inc., loons.And in regards to tranny mania, I was in a black barbershop last Wednesday, and the discussion turned to the Virginia election results, in particular the tranny who won in Virginia. Let’s just say the brothers weren’t having anyone of the celebratory vibe that was all over the mainstream media.I couldn’t help but laugh as it was such a great example of how unstable the coalition of the fringes is.Also made me lick my chops at the spectacle of him/her receiving a prime time slot at the 2020 Dem convention. Can’t wait to see the camera shots of the convention floor when that happens!

thezman #47411 November 14, 2017 11:44 am 13

Guys like Cerno remind me of an expression my grandfather was fond of saying. “A dog that will bring a bone will carry a bone.” It meant that a guy who will do something unethical for you will do something unethical to you. That’s the pattern with guys like Cerno. They attack anyone and everyone in an effort to get attention.

bilejones #47462 November 14, 2017 5:08 pm 8

Zman, here’s a later reaction to Stalin’s Terror:“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”― Aleksandr SolzhenitsynI should imagine that if any serious planning as to how to counter the gun grabbers is taking place, it involves more that just finding places to way-lay the confiscators but that databases are being built of the cops, their wives, children and homes. Similarly for Journalists, Judges, DA’s and politicians. Perhaps just over a million a most.If the fear is not just for their own safe return home but that there may be nothing to return home to, that should stop things pretty damn quick.It would, of course have to be rolled out swiftly and broadly to stop a mopping up of the first few thousand.

Teapartydoc #47405 November 14, 2017 11:13 am 8

At a meeting where a lot of the discussion is on health policy. Things are bad because intervention makes things more complex. Then we need to intervene more because the last intervention didn’t do what we thought it would. But maybe we can make things better by intervening to increase diversity.One thing I can tell you that is certain is that your doctor doesn’t give a shit about what the side effects of the interventions are as long as these “lashings” as Z calls them, do what they are really designed to do. And that is maintain the licensing monopoly and funnel money to them.Dress it up any way you want to. It’s a skimming operation.

Christopher S. Johns #47471 November 14, 2017 6:11 pm 7

Twitter and Facebook give lunatics a megaphone and a feedback loop. Cernovich may be a relentlessly self-promoting grifter, but he’s not certifiably insane. I have to ration my exposure to Twitter because my blood pressure spikes upward whenever I engage the sheer volume of knock-down, drag-out autistic screeching and nut-jobbery that flatters itself as though it were an adult comprehension of the world. Simply put, a republican form of government that depends on citizens rationally engaged with the issues of the day can not possibly sustain itself in the current social climate. We already occupy a sort of twilight tyranny – meaning that all the tools designed to rob us of our liberty are already locked in place, even though they currently operate in a halfhearted, inconsistent, uncommitted way. That may soon change.

Karl McHungus #47475 November 14, 2017 7:28 pm 4

Just stop reading twatter, you will be better off for it.

bad guest #47612 November 16, 2017 7:30 am 0

Cerno IS a relentlessly self-promoting grifter, but he comes from the right side of the divide. I personally can’t stand him, but I realize that’s because he’s made the cardinal mistake of revealing who he really is and what he’s really all about early in his career.In this respect he is a little like Trump, though their personalities are different. You know what you are getting with Cerno, just like you know what you are getting with Trump.This contrasts with the typical politician or “journalist” who has spent many years carefully concealing their real personality, motivations, idiosyncracies, and foibles in order to move up in an organization or government, always building their resumes and thinking of the image that they want to present to the world so that they can keep moving up in the world, while they satisfy their real political ambitions behind the curtain, and steal/sellout for bales of cash in the dark.

Brooklyn #47444 November 14, 2017 2:27 pm 7

“His last thought on it was “It just feels like no one is in control anymore. All it is going to take is someone to pull on the right thread and the whole thing comes unraveled.””I wonder from time to time how much of this is really about everything going completely nuts and how much of this is because we spent the last 30 years shifting to a constant, never-ending newscycle – first on cable and now on a smartphone. Imagine if we’d had Twitter and Facebook in the 1970s when NYC was turning into hell, there were regular bombing going on, and it looked like we were losing to the Soviets.This sounds more like the newscycle is playing on his mind; have we gone even five minutes since last year without someone in our disgusting media, in degenerate Hollywood or among our insane academia talking about how Trump couldn’t or shouldn’t or wouldn’t or isn’t President? Or how somehow Putin in his new role as Ernst Blofeld has been using mind rays to force America to accept the humiliation of a Trump presidency?I do agree that there is something off about the times we are in today; its hard not to look at the elites and the positions they push and not think we are a step away from a giant mashup of Mad Max and the Civil War. But I’m not so sure that we are on a verge of a collapse as much as whats going on is one of the periodic hysterias that pop up in the country every couple of decades or so. In the 1980s it was drugs and satanic daycare centers, now its patriarchy and colonialism. In the 2040s it’ll be something else.“All that said, there does seem to be a constant state of crisis about things now.”If Hillary had won, we’d have a constant state of crisis but everyone at the levers of power would be doing everything possible to keep in quiet which actually was what they did during the Obama years. Its only a crisis because first Trump got in and second (but probably more importantly) Trump ran as a Republican. If he had run out of the Democratic party, nobody would be hyping any crisis on a day to day basis. We reduced Libya to a wasteland (and don’t forget we were ready to do the same to Egypt before the army over there intervened) and it passed like tears in the rain during the Obama years; meanwhile a half a year of discussion at the UN before we went into Iraq in the Bush years raised massive protests and riots. I don’t think Al Gore would have gotten the same reception. If a Democrat wins in 2020, you can bet that happy days will somehow be here again.

Mark Auld #47401 November 14, 2017 11:06 am 7

When the financial house of cards falls, the ropes that bind will fail. Internal disruption is one source of Violence, but what about off shore predators? Perhaps we take our sovereignty and safety for granted.

hank #47530 November 15, 2017 10:24 am 6

If Trump saw a house on fire, ran inside and came running back out carrying an infant, the media would report “Trump seen fleeing the scene of a suspicious house fire which almost claimed the life of a child.”

beau #47447 November 14, 2017 2:46 pm 6

‘…the responsible thing may be to cut the cords that bind clown world together…’ are you referring to dividing this nation into two, or more, parts Zman? is your opinion such a thing could be done in a peaceful fashion? please elaborate. these questions are asked in an information seeking fashion, not in an adversarial manner.

Anonymous White Male #47399 November 14, 2017 10:53 am 6

Most individuals that try to anticipate the future use the past as a reference for their predictions. This is human nature. How do you predict what will occur? If you have no reference points, your future will make about as much sense as the Book of Revelation? Will the coming destruction of Western Civilization resemble the Fall of the Roman Empire? Will it resemble the English Civil War? Will it resemble the French Revolution? Will it resemble the American Civil War? Or will it pass with a whimper like the Fall of Communism?What is noticeable to me is that what we are moving toward is being directed. This smacks of “conspiracy theory”, so respectable and academic “pundits” will avoid it like the plague, or ridicule it since it “could never happen”, given the complexity of human nature and the distances involved in controlling the globe. But, is human nature really that complex or are there primary traits that control the macro and override the millions of tiny variations that work at a micro level? What do humans want? What do humans need? The needs are few, the wants endless. But, even the wants can be categorized into a minimal number of subsets. Given some individuals’ need to control events, it is not hard to imagine engineering models that direct humans toward desired goals. Take Hegelian Dialectics. Hegel’s thesis was philosophical conjecture. However, what if the process by which his synthesis occurs could be reduced to equations by those with a more mathematical outlook? Given that controlling large numbers of people produces great power and wealth, and given the intelligence and evil nature of all/some men and their need to remove uncertainty from their path to control, it seems to me that this “conspiracy theory” is already in motion. But then, I’m paranoid.I have read things here and on other sites that would indicate that you are an atheist, Zman. Is this true, or have I misinterpreted things? If you are, I don’t really care. But, how do you rationalize the presence of evil without some permanent standard? Or, do you view evil as just that which leads to chaos similar to entropy in the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics?

LoveTheDonald #47414 November 14, 2017 12:03 pm 0

Zman an atheist? Nah!!! My guess would be Polish Catholic. However, he does seem to be prone to bouts of melancholy — maybe that’s where you got the atheist idea. Personally, I’ve never met a happy or well-adjusted atheist.

Alzaebo #47501 November 15, 2017 2:26 am 0

I laughed- I mean, really?

Issac #47430 November 14, 2017 1:20 pm 7

I’m not an atheist, but as I observe the perversity of most modern churches, synagogues, and temples, I no longer feel comfortable criticizing the faithless on that count alone. Evil is malice without measure. The godless rightist knows this better than the faithful liberal.

cerulean #47440 November 14, 2017 2:12 pm 5

“This week, the story is coffee machine maker Keurig, which pulled ads from Sean Hannity’s show at the prompting of Media Matters, and is now facing a conservative backlash of NFL-size proportions. But it isn’t just one or two companies engaging in virtue-signalling, it’s practically all of them. It’s Pepsi, which panders to antifa in its ads. Its Heineken, which salutes open borders in their adverts. It’s Twitter. It’s Starbucks. It’s KLM airlines. Despite vast differences in their products, services, and consumers, every industry seems to have the same virtue-signallers.”http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/11/14/welcome-to-the-corporate-culture-wars/Since corporations are going to this much trouble to combat their politico-cultural enemies, do not doubt they will terminate any employee who mouths off on his own time.

Dave #47450 November 14, 2017 3:48 pm 5

The worst part of the corporate virtue signaling is the fact that the vast majority of centrist normies, and even conservatives, will continue to buy/use their products without interruption.

Occasional Commenter #47472 November 14, 2017 6:36 pm 6

If you want good, non-Starbucks coffee, try the Black Rifle Coffee Company. Founded by some ex-SOF guys. Their ads on YouTube are hilarious and definitely non-PC. (Sorry, I don’t know how to embed a link here.)

Ursula #47496 November 14, 2017 11:12 pm 2

Website:https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Halloween ad:Horror Film Survival Tactics with Black Rifle Coffeehttps://youtu.be/5emqx8q5rOo

Saml Adams #47508 November 15, 2017 6:01 am 4

Been buying from Black Rifle for a while. Still have an old Keurig, but use refillable filters. Haven’t bought a K-cup in ages. Good coffee.

Spherical_Cube #47431 November 14, 2017 1:29 pm 5

And in a good # of cases these days, there’s just not enough people with a stake in the status quo to actually care about it anymore.

RDaneel #47498 November 14, 2017 11:28 pm 4

Mmmmm, I think the world is ….. fading. Dissipating. Entropy is becoming more ….. visible. Chaos is really ordered but to the eye seems disordered. Things are becoming less bright and made more and more of the Shadow World.

23rd SC Inf #47464 November 14, 2017 5:14 pm 4

Enough hand wringing about “things spiraling out of control”….time to get ready for the coming violence….first step is to network with your neighbors….get to know them now before SHTF day…they’re the ones you will have to depend on when civil unrest begins.

Karl McHungus #47449 November 14, 2017 3:14 pm 4

Nice shiv over at Cuckmedia, in the fat gut of Radosh! Reynolds likes to prance around and pretend he is “above it all” but he is an academic cuck through and through.

Dutch #47457 November 14, 2017 4:33 pm 10

There are seven major political factions now. Four on the left, Bernie socialists/commies, Clintonistas, Obama-bots, and the traditional Pelosi-Schumer Dems. Three on the right, never-Trump McCain/Bush/Romney people, traditional McConnell/Ryan Reps, and Trump. Only one of the seven is red-pilled, all the rest are blue-pilled. Trump-leaning people need to be supported at all times, always. There is no alternative. If you find one, let me know.

jameswilson #47507 November 15, 2017 3:48 am 4

Six on the left, one on the right. Fixed.

Todd_Brown #47428 November 14, 2017 1:09 pm 4

Oh geez…. you did the unthinkable. You criticized Mike Cernovich. Expect to get the wrath of the “dark supreme lord” or whatever that guy is calling himself now. It won’t be in direct response to this blog post, and it won’t mention Cernovich at all… but it’s coming soon. He’s super ass-blasted that nobody outside of his own minions is buying his super cool, super original comic books.

Ursula #47494 November 14, 2017 10:41 pm 2

“super ass-blasted” — LOL!

David Wright #47497 November 14, 2017 11:25 pm 2

The one who is a standard deviation higher than our host here?So he says. Who says that anyways?

Alzaebo #47506 November 15, 2017 3:13 am 2

Mike who?

Verbal Bomb Chucker #47562 November 15, 2017 2:04 pm 3

There was a saying, “All Good Things Must Come To An End”. The good thing called America is about at the end of the ride.I agree that things seem to be out-of-control. The nut-burgers that used to be locked away at the local Wacky Ward are running loose and being celebrated as heroes. Lefties are screaming at the sky, which for us normies, is great to laugh at. But many lefties are joining the hate-hit squad called Antifa. Free Speech is frown upon on most college campi because “words hurt” the feeling of college snowflakes. 77% of college-education Democrats think that Gender is NOT determined at birth. So much for being educated. It does feel like we are in the beginning stages of the movie “Idiocracy”. God help us all.

Karl McHungus #47483 November 14, 2017 9:02 pm 3

Ace’s cuck reversal therapy has failed (no surprise there) and he’s now flapping his wings about Roy Boy. God damn he is one fat bag of fear; total pussy.

Dutch #47485 November 14, 2017 9:45 pm 8

Geez Louise, didn’t anyone learn anything last fall? Full speed ahead, damn the torpedos, go with what you’ve got. You win it or you don’t. Once you start playing around with alternatives, you are playing their game. You never win anything worthwhile playing their way.

Dutch #47489 November 14, 2017 9:59 pm 3

Conservative Treehouse seems to be with the program tonight, at least.

Joseph Moroco #47407 November 14, 2017 11:20 am 2

“or struggle with thoughts of suicide.” It will be easy to gather a suicide squad to charge the guns.

Al from da Nort #47448 November 14, 2017 3:06 pm 5

Joe;I’d guess that you are being factious. But in the event you are not: The answer is, “Actually, no: Terrible idea. Completely unethical. Far more dangerous to friend than foe.”The following will sound unsympathetic. There should be no sympathy with getting Dirt Folk killed just so The Cloud can bask in their smug feelings of superiority over the wisdom of history and common sense.To repeat the obvious, potential suicides are inherently unstable. So, unless stopped by neuro-pharmacology, their clocks run down at random rates with random action thresholds. Hence, even *if* it were ethical, it’s not possible to warehouse them for a future moment where the enemy guns show up and are chargeable. Much less is it possible ‘click them on’ simultaneously. Besides, the depressed are notoriously not action oriented. That is, until the sad day comes that everybody would hope to avoid.But the big reason why admitting mentally unstable, potential suicides to the military is a terrible idea is that they then have access to dangerous weapons and high explosives. Should that sad day come, it would be all too tempting for them to avail themselves of whatever means are at hand, particularly if they are dramatic. Or if they have accumulated grudges, etc.Besides, their normal squad-mates would have no desire to join in any such ‘charge the guns’ enterprise. GI lore is full of wise aphorisms* such as ,’Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than yourself’. Point being to not let a suicidal fool get you killed for nothing. The terrible implications of discovering such an individual in your unit while in combat should be evident.*Aka Murphy’s Laws of Combat

Alzaebo #47503 November 15, 2017 2:55 am 5

Letting the mentally ill into the military is the same strategy as the Obama admin’s rule change to gun purchase applicants, reducing background checks of the mentally unstable by 40%.Or rushing in immigrants from violent cultures. Crack open the door, and something useful will fall through. With completely plausible deniability, and plenty of blame to throw at one’s enemies, too.

bad guest #47557 November 15, 2017 1:23 pm 2

Between the girl empowerment, transgenderism, nutcase admissions, and this guy,http://www.businessinsider.com/us-army-opens-investigation-into-west-point-grad-promoting-communism-2017-9,I’m convinced that somewhere the decision has been made to degrade the military to complete incompetence and ineffectiveness. Having said that, it really doesn’t matter whether this is all intentional or not. The US military is well on its way to becoming an affirmative action, transgendered, socialistic, gang banging third world gang of oafs, queers, and morons that the Russians or the Chinese could roll over it in a couple of hours on any battlefield. The best armed forces on the planet?http://thesaker.is/the-best-armed-forces-on-the-planet/

Sam J. #47642 November 16, 2017 12:09 pm 0

“…The NeverTrump loons like Bill Kristol and Jonah Goldberg are so transparent and phony, it makes most people wonder if we are ruled over by sociopaths…”It may very well be that this is the case. I certainly think there are a vast number at the top.It’s possible that the roughly 250 year cycle for Empires to fall is that’s about the time it takes the psychopaths to rise to the top. It’s been remarked by psychologist that psychopaths seem to have a preference for dirt and serious pozzed behavior every now and then. I think destruction and degradation of others excites them. Their inner monologue screaming with glee,”Look what I did” as the society burns, melts and sputters around them.

Patrick Flynn #47593 November 15, 2017 10:33 pm 0

Clown world,eh? I recognize the circus our world has become and often wonder who is driving the clown car and what kind of music could they possibly be listening to? It has to be the same maniacal drivel that seldom encounters any thought or common sense. I do understand that most person’s worldwide live in a environment surrounded by their own self generated group think and would seldom ever consider a thought or idea outside of their comfort zone let alone a proposal that would require some independent thought rather than a knee jerk spontaneous double speak they have been infected with from the media or academia.I find it curious and ironic that the Internet allows us so much access to reams and terra bytes of information yet as a species we are reluctant to seek truth in our affairs personal and political because truth is often painful and requires introspection of ourselves and others motives. The mantra is to go along to get along because it’s easier. Learning truth is painful at times but more often than not, enlightening if you are perceptive enough to put up with a little hurt ego.I personally have a tough time putting up with the lunatic press, academia, politicians, intellectually lazy people and mouth breathers who can’t find their ass with both hands in a telephone booth so I’m also guilty of isolating myself in my happy bubble of people who think like I do. The people I associate with are farmers, builders, independent business people, engineers and blue collar folks who are well educated and hardworking. I tune out the idiots ( I’ll get to the idiots in a minute ) and listen to or question people who have proven their worth to society with hardwork and successfull persons in general.I do have a great deal of fun with the so called ‘ deep thinkers’ who are ever more rude and condescending to us hoi polloi in fly over country.When i encounter these so called intellectual elite ( and I do every day ) they begin to tell me how I should think, act or dress I automatically go on the defensive.1) Who told you that? Your Mom?2) Do you have reference material that I can reference that has ‘ hard ‘ evidence or peer approval?3) Have you ever entertained a thought and rejected it after considering it?4) Did you take the red pill?5) What did Donald Trump do to you personally to cause you so much distress? No, really, what did so and so do to you?6) What proof do you have to back up your claim?Last and not least is the question I would like to ask every celebrity and newscaster on the planet: what are you going to do when normal people discover who YOU REALLY ARE?”Bottom line is that in my little way I resist. I’m not a bigot nor a racist. I like to think of myself as introspective and a deliberate thinker based on common sense.I hate what I see our nation devolving into and fear for our Republic.Snake Plisken

Dusty #47592 November 15, 2017 10:31 pm 0

Silence is considered to be consent. You don’t have to get on a soap box; a simple no or I don’t agree will do. You call this a clown world but don’t realize you are one of the clowns. You sound worse than the clowns you don’t like. You offer nothing no solutions only a bunch of whines. If you don’t like what is happening speak up against it.Individual people are neither good nor bad. It is their actions that can be good or bad. Terrorist tactics and other criminal activities are bad. These activities are easily identified because the methods used consist of force, threats and fraud. They violate other people’s right to choose what to do with their own property, which includes one’s life and body as well as material things. Every crime or terrorist activity violates this basic right. It doesn’t matter who commits these acts they are terrorists and criminals even if they are in the government.Honest peaceful people deal with each other by free choice for mutual gain. No force, threats or fraud is needed. They respect each others right to choose what to do their own property.It is said the people give the Government the right do things that are terrorist or criminal acts. Since no individual person has the right to commit acts of terrorism or crime, how can they give what they don’t have? The government is only a number of individual people and have no right to commit terrorist acts or crimes; they have no right to do so. The claim is a fraud to swindle you of your freedom and allow them to do what ever they want.There are terrorists and criminals out there that want to deprive you of your property and freedom to choose and you must defend them if you want to keep them. The best way is to challenge their so called right to use force, threats or fraud like I have demonstrated. If that does not stop them, you have to resort to counter-force which is self-defence which should be your last resort.There are many ways to defend you property. It seems most people think of guns first but in SHTF situation ammo might be hard to replace. They are noisy and give your position away and you can get shot. They can heard for a long distance and alert others of your presence who might not have known you were there. The Viet Cong held held off the US military for almost twenty years even though the US had superior weapons. A lesson can be learned from them. They used Booby traps and seldom exposed them selves to the enemy.Booby traps are easy cheap to make from abundant local materials. They work for you 24/7 and you are not there to be a target. If set up right they can be armed or disarmed in a minute or two and be a single device or multiple devices operated from one trigger. The best ones are those that maim but don’t kill. In most cases the wounded are taken care of and this reduces the number of those fighting you and uses up their resources treating the wounded. It is also demoralizing to be targets and nothing to shoot at. The psychological factor works against them and in your favour. Practice making them but do not leave them armed. They are to be used in a SHTF situation only.There are lots of other things that can be done but you have to discover them. I hope this lets you know that things are never hopeless until you give up.

Alzaebo #47607 November 16, 2017 3:55 am 0

Yuh. Tiger traps at the office!

chris #47521 November 15, 2017 9:52 am 0

“That’s right, they are letting “people with a history of “self-mutilation,” bipolar disorder, depression and drug and alcohol abuse” join the Army. Imagine yourself or your son in a unit with guys, who cut themselves or struggle with thoughts of suicide. ”To be fair, this lifting would most likely be for people who experienced these things many years ago and they do not affect them today. If you were ever diagnosed as depressed when you were 16 and prescribed anti-depressants should you be banned from joining the military when you are 28 and have not had any issues of depression since you were 16?

bad guest #47610 November 16, 2017 6:35 am 0

The vast majority of new recruits enter the services before the age of 21. I went in at 20 and was one of the older guys in my squadron. I recall that there was a guy around 30 in our flight, and he was considered an old man by the rest of us.

chris #47625 November 16, 2017 10:37 am 0

Then change the hypothetical from a 16 and 28 year old to a 12 and 21 year old.

bad guest #47611 November 16, 2017 7:02 am 1

Military basic training was formerly an exercise in stress, designed to break down the personality, to a degree, and reform it to the military’s requirements. It was not an environment for someone with latent or dormant mental illness.Perhaps 25% of the typical basic recruiting class in the Air Force used to “wash out” several decades ago. This usually meant that they couldn’t or wouldn’t conform to the instructions and orders they were given, usually due to some form of personality deficit, and were either discharged or required to repeat several weeks of training.Again, not really an environment for people with latent or dormant mental illness, though undoubtedly this has all changed in the last 40 years.Possibly these self-mutilating bipolar transgendered individuals fit right in these days.

chris #47624 November 16, 2017 10:34 am 0

Is the example I provided though a latent or dormant mental illness? In the example there has been no signs of it for 12 years. People recover from influenza and hepatitis and broken bones. Those are not considered latent or dormant illnesses. Considering that children these days are over-diagnosed for a host of psychological conditions (depression, ADHD) I can see why higher ups might think their policy was too broad. Nonetheless, any change should be empirically examined to see if is warranted.

Ensitue #47439 November 14, 2017 2:10 pm -1

When I hear someone attack Mike Cernovich I instantly think of the Globalist Pedophile Network and how men like Cernovich are exposing them

thezman #47442 November 14, 2017 2:20 pm 8

This is the hive mind at work. If you don’t worship Cerno, you are attacking him. Ok. Enjoy the cult, but I’m not interested in joining.

Tully Bascombe #47461 November 14, 2017 5:03 pm 0

I read what Cerno has to say, I read what Z has to say, and I also read what Vox Day has to say. It is possible to disagree with one or all of them from time to time without labeling them as enemies to be mocked. You should try that sometime, less drama is actually quite satisfying. Unless you’re a chick, or an SJW

Haxo Anghmark #47470 November 14, 2017 5:54 pm -2

stop beating around the bush, Z-man: when the Jew rules, the Devil rules.

Karl McHungus #47474 November 14, 2017 7:27 pm 2

It’s the jews who are beating around (and on) the bushes.

Dutch #47478 November 14, 2017 8:05 pm 10

True story—I do sound work for various local music events. I use a modular set of sound boards, senders, cabling, mics, monitors, outputs. Adaptable to any situation, but elaborate and complex. Last night, a dress rehearsal for a church Interfaith music show. One piece from each participating group. The Tribe has been sending me e-mails every day for two weeks. Over one song.I have the basic set up laid out and ready to go, waiting to see what each of the five groups need. I step out to unload some tables while people are showing up. The Tribe members took it upon themselves to disassemble my set up and completely reconfigure it for what they wanted. Never mind asking me or co-ordinating with anyone else. Of course, they had no idea what they were doing, and had things all crossed up.They had fits over every element of the set up. “I’m too loud”, “replace this mic, it’s no good”, “I don’t sound right”. Well, their song was basically a camp song, and they had a bunch of Edith Bunkers singing, IYKWIM. Sounded like crap.These are middle aged adults, and they carry themselves like out-of-control children. No self-awareness, no manners, no sense of how to conduct themselves in someone else’s house. And they act like they are the bright ones and everyone else in the room is a dolt. Not a good impression.I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that a lot of people are irredeemable. It’s a bad attitude, but, “dayam!”

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