Syria was a reasonably well functioning country 15 years ago, with Assad protecting Christians and minorities…Then the US and its minions decided to create a color revolution, accompanied by strangling sanctions and US military occupation of a major. oil producing area…That failed due to Russian military intervention, as did a later attempt in 2015…This time, the Syrian Arab Army refused to fight, probably due to bribery, and the Russians gave up…Now it’s Lord of the Flies territory…The lesson is that no smaller country can indefinitely withstand destruction by the concerted action of powerful countries….

Stalin was infinitely worse than Hitler. The holocaust happened in wartime in the occupied territory. The holocaust happened to non-Germans. If you were a good German in Nazi Germany, you were pretty much free to live a normal life, at least before the war.Stalin ran a terror state. You could be arrested and tortured into confessing anything without cause. The police literally had arrest quotas. Stalin’s forced labor camps were probably more lethal than any of the Nazi so-called death camps.Blaming Hitler for the war is a bit disingenuous. While Hitler certainly failed to avoid the war, both in the West and East, he had a lot of willing partners, starting with the Poles themselves, not to mention France and Britain. Stalin was building out his forces to invade. That’s why Hitler was able to capture so many soldiers and crush all their positions early on. They were in forward attack positions, not defensive dug in positions to repel a German invasion.

Somebody had to expect the collapse. I firmly believe that the Syrian Army officers were paid off and / or blackmailed into abandoning their units. Once they were gone, most of the rest of the army just walked away.

‘Fate of Empires’ by Sir John Glubbp.12-13In the fourteenth century, the weakening empire of Byzantium was threatened, and indeed dominated, by the Ottoman Turks. The situation was so serious that one would have expected every subject of Byzantium to abandon his personal interests and to stand with his compatriots in a last desperate attempt to save the country. The reverse occurred. The Byzantines spent the last fifty years of their history in fighting one another in repeated civil wars, until the Ottomans moved in and administered the coup de grâce.p. 15In the first half of the ninth century, Baghdad enjoyed its High Noon as the greatest and the richest city in the world. In 861, however, the reigning Khalif (caliph), Mutawakkil, was murdered by his Turkish mercenaries, who set up a military dictatorship, which lasted for some thirty years. During this period the empire fell apart, the various dominions and provinces each assuming virtual independence and seeking its own interests. Baghdad, lately the capital of a vast empire, found its authority limited to Iraq alone.The works of the contemporary historians of Baghdad in the early tenth century are still available. They deeply deplored the degeneracy of the times in which they lived, emphasising particularly the indifference to religion, the increasing materialism and the laxity of sexual morals. They lamented also the corruption of the officials of the government and the fact that politicians always seemed to amass large fortunes while they were in office.Soon after this period, government and public order collapsed, and foreign invaders overran the country. The resulting increase in confusion and violence made it unsafe for women to move unescorted in the streets, with the result that this feminist movement collapsed.The disorders following the military takeover in 861, and the loss of the empire, had played havoc with the economy. At such a moment, it might have been expected that everyone would redouble their efforts to save the country from bankruptcy, but nothing of the kind occurred. Instead, at this moment of declining trade and financial stringency, the people of Baghdad introduced a five-day week.

The US economy is based on lies, deception and fraud. A perfect example of this just happened. The New Jersey supreme court just made a ruling that is so typical. A couple was driving down the road and were t-boned by some alien driving for Uber Eats. Apparently, their minor daughter had, at one time, ordered an Uber Eats. By agreeing to the EULA, not only her, but all of her immediate relatives are forced into arbitration.This just happened with Disney too. Someone signed up for a free trial of Disney plus years before visiting Disney World where they were killed by the food. They were forced into arbitration from the Disney Plus app. But I think bad press got Disney to relent. So much for the Seventh Amendment. No right to a jury trial if evilcorp decides you shouldn’t.This kind of bullshit is EVERYWHERE. It’s in automotive. It’s in housing. It’s in socks, if you can believe it. Worse, these things are not really contracts. The other side can change the contract at will without notification. They send these updates from email addresses likely to be sent to spam. If you serve boneless chicken and your customer is severely injured by chicken bones, that doesn’t count either. The Ohio supreme court just ruled (TWICE) boneless chicken is actually a cooking style and not a description of chicken without bones.The online world is also based on fraud, lies and scams.Nobody will do anything about it. We have reached the point the Soviets reached, at least in some respects. The Soviet Union fell because it was incapable of reform. It could have been saved had the will been there. We are at the same point. Nothing can be reformed. Not because reform is impossible, but because the will does not exist.

I wonder how long it is going to be before we start seeing slave markets in Homs. The fact that the US supported this rebellion then immediately started bombing the rebels after they succeeded says it all. A book came out in 2005 named “Incoherent Empire”. I never read it but the name always stuck with me. Of course this incoherence comes because the US government feels obligated to support a rogue state in the region that works directly against American interests, but we can’t talk about that.

Being a middle-aged white man with a family and a firearm, I think about collapse a lot.I can’t speak for Europe, but the USA’s collapse scenario might be:Cities will become warzones, and the warlords will be black. The test case was the CHAZ in Seattle in 2020. There will be African-levels of violence and pray for any pretty girl left behind.Rural and exurban areas will be better off, with communes or militias forming up. There will be scarcity, and death, but not a lot of violence. Hispanics and Whites may or may not cooperate. Best-case scenario will be “Old West” type living.The big X factor will be felons and homeless dogs. Unless you choose to remain in a city, 90% of your ammo will be spent shooting people’s rabid dogs. The other 10% will be strangers from the prisons or the cities.People in prison are at least as good at SHTF McGuyvering as rednecks are, and will survive better than others. Recent third-world immigrants will be better-prepared too, as they are used to “making do” with little.With all the unhealthy people, boomers, and otherwise useless people who can’t make or fix anything, it will be a bad time. They won’t last a year. This could be 200 million deaths easily.The good news is that even with a worse-case scenario like I outlined, I expect things to stabilize within 50 years. Births will be an issue, but if enough good human capital remains, it’s possible that daily life will revert to that resembling 16th-century Scotland.

The US may be “fragile”, but not all seems the same. For one, we have a division of civic duties among the States and the Fed’s. What did Syria have outside of a Federal government to assert order? But perhaps most importantly, Syria is populated by low IQ Arabs enmeshed in a religion of “death”. Healthy societies are not founded that way, especially after a successful revolution where factions were only held together by a common enemy. Now that Assad is gone, the factions immediately turn upon each other.Of course, this seems all planned by the CIA. The end being that a single great power will fill that chaotic vacuum and the exhausted populace welcome it. I doubt it will ostensibly be the GAE, but whoever *they* are, they will be controlled by us from behind the scenes. Or at least the plan goes.

“the result will be a war zone where lightly armed war bands fight with one another for control of increasingly worthless land”This is how Israel has wanted it, planned for it, and enacted it. As I imagine most know, Zionist jews in the Pentagon developed a plan before 9/11 that the US would destroy the governments of Israel’s various perceived enemies, according to General Wesley Clark, “starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran”. It seems like leaving each nation a Mad Max mess with no central government strong enough to field a coherent military able to stand up to Israel has been the goal.And they have now achieved it in all of the nations except for Iran, which still stands, despite assassinations ofQassem Soleimani andpossibly Ebrahim Raisi, and repeated color revolutions attempts. This is of course why officials make constant ridiculous claims that mysterious USG drones flying over New Jersey, assassins attacking Trump and loosely affiliated with the CIA and DHS HSI, and the NSA hacking the Trump campaign emails are all Iranian attacks. They want the American public riled up and angry so that that we will support the US doing Israel’s work and trying to topple that final nation’s central government, also leaving it a chaotic violent impotent failed-state mess.

The world is clearly moving toward something vaguely along the lines forseen by Huntington. The question is will clash be inevitable. Maybe Trump is thinking about a new Big Three or Four Policeman arrangement with himself, Xi, Modi, maybe Putin. Extending and invitation to Xi to attend the innaugural is simultaneously intriguing, hilarious and shrewd. As would be an invitation to Putin, which would have the added benefit of reducing the “foreign policy community” by half through strokes and heart attacks.

The hardest truth is that a collapse is often the only cure for what ails us. An addict must hit a hard bottom if he is to have any chance at redemption. That is nature’s eternal lesson. Normie will not get off the couch until he must do so or die. Hunger is the seminal motivator. Parasites cannot be rehabilitated. You are either strong, smart, and productive, or the gene pool has no use for you. And as for the Syrian example, let’s see how well a creative narrative, woke indoctrination, and pissing & moaning survives in that environment.

Alex Krainer is one of the sharpest geo-political minds on the internet. He is also very aware of historical precedence, something which seems to elude Americans. In this interview, his informed opinion is quite different from all the journalist jibber-jabber we’ve been hearing. He believes the Russians and Iranians decided some time ago to simply invite chaos into Syria as a way of finally defeating the West. In other words, they’ve sprung a trap. His argument is compelling. Listen carefully and listen to all of it… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0FQeGjPSc0

The collapse of the Soviet Union, of Kuomintang China, of Syria, of East Germany, all have as the main cause the lack of payment, regular and loyalty buying, of the soldiers and police.This is the lesson. Above all in a modern, semi-industrial society, the police and soldiers must be well paid to retain their loyalty.The same can likely be said of Saigon.By contrast, the HST, the Taliban, the NVA, etc. are not or were not paid much at all or irregularly paid in the case of the NVA. They fought for a cause, based on national, or Tribal (even more powerful) loyalty.With all the technology, all the clever hacking tricks, it still comes down to the amount of men sufficiently motivated with rifles to take and hold ground while taking casualties.I would ask, who will fight and die for Justin Trudeau without ample pay and opportunities relatively risk free, for cruelty and domination of their fellow citizens? Or for Starmer? Or Macron? The answer is of course no one. The same holds true for Obama btw if he somehow schemes with Alvin Bragg and Judge Merchan, or Fani Willis, to imprison Trump before he takes office and stages some South Korean auto-coup. Fujimori style, so to speak.

We pretend to have such high morality yet we continue to do this to people over and over again. We are the Great Satan, just as the Iranians say.

Notice that Israel is occupying a lot of former Syrian land. This will continue and expand. The media will be showing the head choppers in action and this will justify the occupation as Israel will be “protecting” itself.So we are financing the greater Israel project. I liked the photos in the Syrian government buildings with the pallets of U.S. currency. The pallets had a QR code that shows the origin as the NY Federal Reserve. They don’t even try to hide it anymore.It was funny to see Trump, while all of this is going on, exclaim that “We should stay of the conflict in Syria.” The man is too daft for words.

The Order of the Garter is the oldest English knight order, established in 1348 by Edward III when, at a ball, he noticed a lady losing her garter on the floor. As he picked it up and offered it back to her, he noticed his court smirking lewdly and said: “Honi soit qui mal y pense” – “shame on he who thinks ill thereof”, the motto of the knights.

It would be like them to time their planned demolition of the stock market to coincide with Trump’s ringing the bell. But that is only an economic collapse, we’ve seen those before. GD 1.0 strengthened the regime. (or was the panic of 1873 GD 1.0? and the crash of 1929 GD 2.0? making the next one GD 3.0? and where does 2008 fit into that timeline?). Anyhow, that’s illustrative that there can be a lot of collapses, economically, without any of them having to be “final.” Nor do they need to weaken the state. As we have seen, they can and have been justification for expansion of state power.An imperial collapse of the GAE would most likely begin at the fringes, to include Europe. And even though Europe has already collapsed culturally (non-reproduction, churches become museums, imported replacements proliferating, decadence the highest aspiration of the populace), structurally and economically it is still there. The WEF kids still in charge (if Macron, Castreau, and Starmer switched places, would anyone notice the difference?). So my collapse alarm bells are not yet ringing. It pays to remember that in dissident circles, talk of collapse is often wishful thinking.

6 Syrian Druze villages are asking to be annexed to Israel’s Golan Heights and become a part of Israeli Druze population.

The one economist who predicted the Soviet collapse was Judy Shelton with 1989’s “The Coming Soviet Crash: Gorbachev’s Desperate Pursuit of Credit in Western Financial Markets.” She examined Soviet balance sheets and found them unsustainable. Trump appointed her to the Federal Reserve Board in 2019, but the Senate stalled her appointment and in Feb. 2021 Biden withdrew it. A warning of our collapse?

I’m in the middle of Eric Cline’s1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsedand its a fascinating overview of the collapse of the multi-polar societies of the eastern Mediterranean. Syria has been collapsing for millennia it seems.Also, n.b. Peloton is a publicly traded company that is still going…

A deep dive into the fascinating and timely topic of societal collapse and catastrophically failed states cannot omit the rich case histories of post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa. Applying Z-Man’s metrics and lead indicators of collapse to contemporary South Africa checks every box on the test sheet. A country to watch…from a safe distance.

A strategic retreat from runaway globalism would do a lot of good in the US. But some sort of purge is going to be necessary. Not necessarily guillotine purges, but certainly something that exiles people from access to power permanently is necessary. 4 years is a blink of an eye. But 12 years? We could wipe them out if Trump does a good job with Vance.

The Israeli-backed, Turkish-paid “moderate Islamists” who’ve taken over Syria are an interesting phenomenon. Mark Collett sheds light on this in ashort video. The evolution of these Islamic insurgents resembles that of the Serbian nationalist Black Hand organization, which in 1914 existed primarily as an asset of Serbian military intelligence.

Probably the most spectacular “collapse” known to us is the fall of the Aztec Empire to a band of 100 or so Spanish ruffians with gold on their mind. Or – similarly – Pizarro’s conquest of the Incas. We’re talking not only collapse, but revolution in the lives of the unhappy inhabitants of those empires and the economies they served. From agrarian peasants, to Potosi mining slaves in one lifetime. Lesson: It sucks to be weak.

“You can’t get the new order until the old one collapses.”Yes. However, in post-America there is a willful and highly organized project of controlled demolition happening.Very powerful and organized networks and institutions are willfully executing a controlled demolition of the carcass of America. Clinton was pushing for it 30+ years ago. Petreaus and other generals have been advocating for it explicitly for nearly 25 years.The point? Well, it is quite possible that what we think of as The Regime being incompetent and dying is not what it is. It is a misreading or a cope. Maybe what is happening now is that a second faction is jockeying for control.Both factions are fully on board with Liberal Democracy as a system. “Dissidents”, will be out in the wilderness for a long time. Best they not think of themselves as Dissidents but the architects of the system that they can clearly articulate and describe amongst themselves. This vision must be expressed in positive terms, not negative terms. Then rather than political dissidence the project becomes … …Millions of American Remus and Romuluses suckling at the teet of the wolf in a self-civilizing wilderness.

Sweet ride Z.

Does anyone know the name of that movie about the stasi in East Germany , black and white, the lady gets hit by a truck at the end. Ty

“Of course, once you start thinking about those conditions, the West begins to look a bit fragile.” Merely a question of time. There were war bands in the aftermath of the collapse of the western part of the Roman empire. In the USA I would guess the collapse into roving war bands will be initially along the southern border.

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Must watch. This has gone viral.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD5gtM1A990

Once Amerika “liberates” a country, they are now ruled by the 3-G’s, gangs of guys with guns.

I think the collapse you want to look out for is the collapse of the dollar. That could lead to the new American revolution

No Radio Derb?

Question for next week: A while back you mentioned you had been reading a biography of Bukharin. What was the title and author of that book, and would you recommend it? I have been interested in learning more about him and his relationship with Stalin for some time. Or you can send this to me offline. Thanks!!