Guest Post by The Zman
A Potemkin village is a fake community built solely to deceive others into thinking that a situation is better than it really is. The term comes from stories that Grigory Potemkin erected phony portable settlements along the banks of the Dnieper River in order to fool Catherine II, the Russian Empress. After she passed, the village would be disassembled and then reassembled further down so she could pass another nice village. The story is probably exaggerated, but the concept is a useful one so the term has stuck with us.
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It’s a useful term that came to mind in the run up to the Charlottesville rally. It came to mind after the riots in Berkeley. In both cases, you have fake cities that exist for no real reason, other than there is a government run college in them. In both cases, the people in charge are ridiculously unserious people, who should not be in charge of a convenience store, much less a small city. That’s because the people who put them into office are just as ridiculously unserious. They’re adult children playing grownup on the public dime.
This is not just a small city issue. The general lack of seriousness among the political class seems to be a byproduct of managerialism. Look around Washington and it is a parade of naive, clueless airheads produced by our finest colleges. It’s not just an American phenomenon. Europe’s leaders are ever bit as ridiculous. The Europeans are creating a class of politicians that are close to fictional. Emmanuel Macron, the new leader of France, may as well be a hired actor, which is why he is a disaster.
Now, Macron’s problems are not all his own making. France, like the rest of Europe, is a financial knot that can never be untied. A lot of it has to do with being vassal states for the last 70 years, but a lot of is demographics resulting from socialism. When you make having babies expensive, people stop having babies. Macron inherited a country that is old, expensive and in debt. Still, he’s proving to be incapable of doing the serious business of building coalitions and getting his program implemented.
That’s the thing you see all over Europe. The political elites carry on like administrators of a university, rather than serious political leaders. Europe is facing an invasion from the south and instead of addressing it, they engage in public pose downs. The few serious countries, like Poland, find themselves on the receiving end of the elite’s wrath, not because they are wrong, but because they are making the barren spinsters running the EU look bad. The European Union is no more serious than a faculty lounge.
Again, this is probably as much a result of managerialism as anything else. The way Western politics is run is that some segment of the political class are paid representatives of the financial elite. Another segment relies on popular support for their position. Then there is a group of professionals, who do the hard work of figuring out how to get things done. Managerialism does not produce this class of leader. Instead, it is pompous dilettantes and hired men, whose loyalty is bought by the billionaire class.
Even the financial elite struggles with a lack of seriousness. Kevin Plank is supposed to be an important businessman, yet he goes in for ridiculous showboating like this. Under Armor makes overpriced underwear that they primarily sell to blacks and teenagers. In a just society, it would not exist, because it preys on the worst instincts of the weakest minds in society. But, men are not angels and there will always be rich men who make money off the poor and stupid. The least they can do is act like adults in public.
But that’s a rare thing in the financial elite these days. Google is the most recent example of how unserious people are incapable of managing simple difficulties. Instead of strutting around like a retarded peacock, the Google CEO could have easily made the whole thing disappear. A check and an NDA would have put a quick end to a trivial issue. Instead he let some old lesbians lead him around by the nose and the result was a fiasco that promises to drag on into the court for years.
The common thread in our public discourse is that our leaders are more concerned with playing make believe than doing their duty. That’s why the word “duty” is never mentioned in public discourse. When was the last time anyone heard a politicians or a rich man talk publicly about his duty to society? The closest you get is some halfwit sportsball player talking about how he needs to give back to his community. Otherwise, we are ruled by a class of people with the maturity and fortitude of prep school teenagers.
That’s what managerialism curdles into in time. What the giants of our side, guys like Sam Francis and James Burnham could not see in their time, is becoming clear in our time. The credentialism and parochialism of the managerial state produces people barely capable of working on a local school board committee. Their lack of exposure to the realities of the human condition cripples them spiritually. They become ruthless, overgrown adolescents playing dress up as they ascend into positions of authority.
That brings us back to Berkeley and Charlottesville. If the political class is unable and unwilling to manage the antics of Antifa and Jason Kessler, what are they going to do when smart and resourceful antagonists come along? The morons waving flags and throwing piss-bombs at each other are the easy problem to manage. The hard problem are the well organized guys with goals beyond getting themselves on TV. As I’ve said many times, Trump was a warning shot. The political class better get serious in a hurry.
Beautifully written. While I mourn our nation every day, I maintain hope that the imminent carnage will forge something as wondrous as it did in 1776. I fight for duty, honor, country. No personal reward, except to see Rothschild heads mounted all over London Bridge.
Beautifully written perfect article.
Think about it — the lack of seriousness, duty and professionalism of the political class can be shown by hundreds of examples. I’ll give only two :
Chicago — murder capital of the world, run by Democrats, ELECTED BY THE MARONS THAT LIVE IN THIS MURDER CAPITAL. They re-elect the same failed party and politicians that created the mess — without ever connecting the dots.
Baltimore another war zone, murder capital, full of empty houses that could be used to house people ( much work to rehab those ), and drugs drugs drugs drugs.
And the marons say this, “I know what, let’s fix what ails Baltimore by electing the same people same party over and over and over again.”
As the Zman says, we have not leaders, we have fakers.
Sad. There are solutions, but those who dare state them are un-electable — OPPOSED BY THE VOTERS who re-elect the same fakers time after time after time.
Thank God Baltimore is largely led by Black people so they cannot blame the white establishment.
Fakers, especially Chicagoan Rahm Emanuel, a man of ZERO ABILITY ! ! ! What exactly has he done for Chicago, can anyone name even one teensy weensy thing ? I know I can’t . . . . . . .
SnowieGeorgie
Didn’t Rahm keep out the evil, racist, fascist, Nazi Chick Fil A ?
NICE ! ! !
Geez I forgot that
Thanks !
Just about every major city east of the Mississippi and most of the major west coast cities are in or about to enter the same class as Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, etc.
Amen to the warning about “…resourceful antagonists…well organized with goals beyond getting themselves on tv…”. Sooner or later, if the vector does not change, guys like me are going to act. I will not be carrying the Stars and Bars, holding a Swastika flag, or wasting any time on the mutt po-lice in attendance. That will be a time to “try men’s souls”.
The fighting was over 9Apr1865 and Reconstruction over 1877. Liberals started Reconstruction II in 1964 but they went way past reforms. Now the Useless Idiots have torn the scabs off and poured salt on the wounds; they have kicked the beehive and this time the Counter-Revolution is on. Down with Tyrants and Tyranny.
I like that”Trump was a warning shot”.
There really is little hope for these hard core ghettos like Chicago. It’s up to any individual caught in that maelstrom to get themselves out by any means possible. The rest have so many problems that have been passed down through generations, learning disabilities that make it impossible to learn the basics, drug addiction which goes from parent to child and virtually no role models to even show them a better life possibility. The time to stop this was when we started shoving money at the problem not now when it’s going to be harder and harder to come up with the money. So we pray for them which is the one thing that will work!