Guest Post by Scott Adams
As a trained persuader, I’m seeing a dangerous situation forming that I assume is invisible to most of you. The setup is that during the presidential campaign Trump’s critics accused him of being Hitler(ish) and they were sure other citizens would see it too, thus preventing this alleged monster from taking office.
They were wrong. The alleged monster took office.
Continue reading “Be Careful What You Wish For (especially if it is Hitler)”
In Part One of this article I discussed the failure of our brains to think rationally due to our biases and the relentless propaganda flogged by our Deep State ruling class. Viewing the future through the looking glass of the Fourth Turning keeps you focused on the three catalysts which will drive all events in 2017 and beyond. I’ve addressed my 2017 Debt forecast in Part One. Now I will make some guesses about what might happen in 2017 related to Civic Decay and Global Disorder.
“Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.” – Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
The presidential election and its aftermath tell you everything you need to know about the level of civic decay overtaking this country. The country is as divided as it was after the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. There is virtually no common ground between liberals and conservatives. The pure hatred and contempt between the winners and losers in the recent election does not bode well for the country over the next four to eight years.
The social fabric of the country has been torn asunder. The Clinton supporters believe anyone not on their side is deplorable, racist, misogynist, and fans of Hitler. Trump supporters believe anyone not on their side is low IQ, Muslim loving, deceitful, math challenged, and fans of a criminal. The gulf between the two sides is unbridgeable.
Guest Post by The Zman
Imagine the space-time continuum gets scrambled and you find yourself in a world where the coming election is between a crazy old cat lady, an old hippie, Hitler and Mussolini. Hitler is leading one major party and Mussolini is leading another major party. The hippie and the cat lady have no party and very little support. As a practical matter, your choice is between Hitler and Mussolini. More important, you know the ramifications of both choices. The former is murder and mayhem and the latter is authoritarianism and long speeches.
Heil Hillary describing what she will do in no uncertain terms. First she announces she is going to take our guns. If she doesn’t think Trump supporters are even human, how easy will it be for her to herd her “enemies” into cattle cars? Listen to the cackling laughter of her minions when she denigrates half the U.S. population:
This video was sent to me by my 22 year old newly employed son. He found it to be funny. I bet this video wouldn’t have had any impression on him a year ago when he was a college student. But he now sees how the government leeches extract a huge portion of his pay at the point of a gun. All of the Bernie Sanders loving college students will have a different opinion in five years when they see 40% of their pay confiscated by government thugs, with no benefit to them.
Guest Post by Eric Peters
Whatever happens, it’s going to get ugly.
If Trump is nominated, there will be riots – the Perpetually (and professionally) Aggrieved will take to the streets.
If Trump is denied the nomination, there will be riots – as the people come face to face with the true nature of the system they were taught to respect since childhood.
Not since 1861 has America been so clearly divided. These divisions transcend mere political differences of opinion over this or that policy. There is a fundamental schism. Irreconcilable differences. The two sides detest each other, have almost nothing in common. And so can no longer live together.
Trump has been likened to Hitler – which is unfair. He is no Hitler. He is a crony capitalist and some other things, too. Mussolini, maybe.
But he isn’t Hitler.
However, he is riding a wave – make that a tsunami – similar to the one that led to the chancellorship of the German Reich (as it was styled in those days) falling into the hands of the former gefreiter. The people of Germany had been driven to a state of desperation and frenzy by decades of economic evisceration of their country and thus, of themselves. Their country had been ruled over by a revolving, insular cabal of greedheads and frauds, some nothing more than puppets of financial interests, who milked the cow for their and their masters’ benefit.
Sound familiar?
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/01/2016 08:13 -0500
With Super Tuesday upon us, it appears no matter what the establishment throws at Donald Trump, nothing seems to stick and reduce his core support’s enthusiasm. Many on ‘the other side’ are unable to comprehend this support and so Indianapolis residents Jon and Elsa Sands wrote to The FT to explain why they are voting for Trump…
Sir, My wife and I are affluent Americans with postgraduate degrees. We are socially liberal and fiscally mildly conservative. We are not the sans-culottes you see as the prototypical Trump voter. We are well aware of his vulgarity and nous deficiency yet we contemplate voting for him. Why?
Electing the standard-bearer of the Democratic Party seems purposeless. The neanderthal Republicans barely respected the legitimacy of Bill Clinton’s or Barack Obama’s election, let alone that of Hillary who would arrive tainted with scandal and the email lapses hanging over her head. We would get four years of gridlock and “hearings”.
The Republican tribunes, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, are backward, foolish and inexperienced. John Kasich, a moderate with extensive governmental experience and a willingness to compromise, is an also-ran.
That leaves The Donald, really a moderate in wolf’s garb, who would owe nothing to either party and might strike deals, for instance on tax reform.
Yes, we could be like the good citizens who voted for a “tameable” Hitler in 1933 to get things back on track. But the alternatives look worse.
Simply put, as Liberty Blitzkrieg’s Mike Krieger summed up:
Trump is the protest vote against ever-bigger government and the failure of Summers/Keynesian policies
Guest Post by Thinker
Hitler came to power for a number of documented reasons, some of which are rational, others of which are emotional. Either way, the world continues to question how a vicious madman could rise to power in Germany during this time, most of all the German people who, to this day, will do almost anything to prevent another authoritarian movement. Though I believe that is being used today against them as a bigger authoritarian movement gains hold (migrant fundamentalism), the German people seem to be either blind to a new definition of totalitarianism or are so terrified of it happening again in Germany that they are incapable of resisting it.
Following WWI, the following issues remained from the 1920s or were present at the time:
Long-term bitterness
Deep anger about the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles created an underlying bitterness to which Hitler’s viciousness and expansionism appealed, so they gave him support.
Today, we have deep-seated anger at a number of things: government over-reach, the broken rule of law, inequality, crony capitalism, lack of meaningful representation from elected officials, degenerated race relations… we all know the many things that have created the seething undercurrent in this country.
Hat tip Jack M.
My old Grandpa said to me, ‘Son, there comes a time in every man’s life when he stops bustin’ knuckles and starts bustin’ caps and usually it’s when he becomes too old to take a whoopin’.’ I don’t carry a gun to kill people; I carry a gun to keep from being killed.
I don’t carry a gun because I’m evil; I carry a gun because I have lived long enough to see the evil in the World.
I don’t carry a gun because I hate the government; I carry a gun because I understand the limitations of government.
I don’t carry a gun because I’m angry; I carry a gun so that I don’t have to spend the rest of my life hating myself for failing to be prepared.
I don’t carry a gun because I want to shoot someone; I carry a gun because I want to die at a ripe old age in my bed and not on a sidewalk somewhere tomorrow afternoon.
I don’t carry a gun to make me feel like a man; I carry a gun because men know how to take care of themselves and the ones they love.
I don’t carry a gun because I feel inadequate; I carry a gun because unarmed and facing three armed thugs, I am inadequate.
I don’t carry a gun because I love it; I carry a gun because I love life and the people who make it meaningful to me. Police protection is an oxymoron: Free citizens must protect themselves because police do not protect you from crime; they just investigate the crime after it happens and then call someone in to clean up the mess. Personally,
I carry a gun because I’m too young to die, and too old to take a whoopin’!
Guest Post by Jesse
“A personality disorder characterized by grandiosity; an expectation that others will recognize one’s superiority; a lack of empathy, lack of truthfulness, and the tendency to degrade others.”
“Narcissism becomes particularly malignant (i.e. malevolent, dangerous, harmful, incurable) when it goes beyond mere vanity and excessive self-focus. Malignant narcissists not only see themselves as superior to others but believe in their superiority to the degree that they view others as relatively worthless, expendable, and justifiably exploitable.
This type of narcissism is a defining characteristic of psychopathy/sociopathy and is rooted in an individual’s deficient capacity for empathy. It’s almost impossible for a person with such shallow feelings and such haughtiness to really care about others or to form a conscience with any of the qualities we typically associate with a humane attitude, which is why most researchers and thinkers on the topic of psychopathy think of psychopaths as individuals without a conscience altogether.”
“There is nothing about the man that is service-oriented. He’s only serving himself.”
Both videos from The Saker.
Hitler vs Syria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=17qDNQ2xYdU
“In this video you will see the kind of war Russia is preparing for: basically – a worst case scenario if Daesh supported by regional allies decided make a move into Central Asia or the Caucasus. Or, if Russia has to move to protect Iran from a major attack.
I have already written about the “armored underbelly of Russia” and what this video shows are some, but not all, of the capabilities this armored underbelly can count on. The truth is that if Daesh or any other force suddenly decides to tickle the Russian Bear’s putatively “soft underbelly” it will met with an amount of violence it can’t even begin to imagine. The same goes for any Ukrainian attempt at attacking Russia directly.”
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“We know now that in the early years of the twentieth century this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own. We know now that as human beings busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacence men went to and fro over the earth about their little affairs … In the thirty-ninth year of the twentieth century came the great disillusionment. It was near the end of October. Business was better. The war scare was over. More men were back at work. Sales were picking up.” – Opening monologue of War of the Worlds broadcast – October 30,1938
It was 77 years ago this week that Orson Welles struck terror into the hearts of Americans with his live radio broadcast of the HG Wells classic War of the Worlds. The broadcast began at 8:00 pm on Mischief Night 1938. As I was searching for anything of interest to watch the other night on the 600 cable stations available 24/7, I stumbled across a PBS program about Welles’ famous broadcast. As I watched the program, I was struck by how this episode during the last Fourth Turning and how people react to events is so similar to how people are reacting during the current Fourth Turning. History may not repeat exactly, but it certainly rhymes.
Guest Post by Eric Peters
Free people don’t look for “leadership.” But that’s what every candidate for the presidency – regardless of partei – is offering to give them.
Such people deserve what they will get.
They have, after all asked for it.
Most Americans do not know what the German word, fuhrer means.
It does not mean “Hitler.”
It means, leader.
Hitler was Der Fuhrer; the leader.
The Germans of the Hitler era loved having a leader. Being led.
And leading, too.
They even had an expression for it: fuhrerprinzip, the leadership principle. You obeyed your superiors and your subordinates obeyed you in turn – with the leader (Der Fuhrer) at the apex of the pyramid.
Americans today are like the Germans were.
Ready for a leader.
And to be led.
The one requires the other.
This sickness in man was – is – not unique to Germans. It is a canker humanity picked up somewhere from ape to now that itches and comes to the surface regularly, pustulating and red. Germans (Prussians, to be precise about it) were particularly afflicted but the disease is easily spread.
“And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.” – John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Everyone has seen the pictures of the unemployed waiting in soup lines during the Great Depression. When you try to tell a propaganda believing, willfully ignorant, mainstream media watching, math challenged consumer we are in the midst of a Greater Depression, they act as if you’ve lost your mind. They will immediately bluster about the 5.1% unemployment rate, record corporate profits, and stock market near all-time highs. The cognitive dissonance of these people is only exceeded by their inability to understand basic mathematical concepts.
The reason you don’t see huge lines of people waiting in soup lines during this Greater Depression is because the government has figured out how to disguise suffering through modern technology. During the height of the Great Depression in 1933, there were 12.8 million Americans unemployed. These were the men pictured in the soup lines. Today, there are 46 million Americans in an electronic soup kitchen line, as their food is distributed through EBT cards (with that angel of mercy JP Morgan reaping billions in profits by processing the transactions).
Continue reading “WHY THIS FEELS LIKE A DEPRESSION FOR MOST PEOPLE”
Guest Post by Jim Kunstler
Even the formerly august New York Times grants that Donald J. Trump has ignited a voter firestorm of grievance against a dumb show election process that rewards a craven avoidance of real issues. Immigration is actually a stand-in for the paralysis, incompetence, overreach, and bloatedness of government generally in our time — but it is a good doorway into the larger problem.
Immigration is a practical problem, with visible effects on-the-ground, easy to understand. I’m enjoying the Trump-provoked debate mostly because it is a pushback against the disgusting dishonesty of political correctness that has bogged down the educated classes in a swamp of sentimentality. For instance, Times Sunday Magazine staffer Emily Bazelon wrote a polemic last week inveighing against the use of the word “illegal” applied to people who cross the border without permission on the grounds that it “justifies their mistreatment.” One infers she means that sending them back where they came from equals mistreatment.
It’s refreshing that Trump is able to cut through this kind of tendentious crap. If that were his only role, it would be a good one, because political correctness is an intellectual disease that is making it impossible for even educated people to think — especially people who affect to be political leaders. Trump’s fellow Republicans are entertainingly trapped in their own cowardliness and it’s fun to watch them squirm.