Richard Fernandez wonders where we lie in history.
17 thoughts on “Dusk, Or Dawn?”
“Rather than being at the end of things, it is a reminder that we are always at the beginning.”
Marxism is still ascending in the Democrat party. There are a number of Democrats who are in denial but even those are broadly supportive of the ideology even if they don’t comprehend what they support. Until Marxism is defeated in the Democrat party, by Democrats, we wont be looking at the end of what is going on.
Scott Adams likes to say two movies on the same screen. I’ve been applying a movie filter to events because the archetypes are eternal and Democrats are literally creating a movie for the country to watch in the form of a campaign. Harris Walz, the buddy love comedy, like a sitcom where things continue the same but each week more crazy situations. Trump is man with a problem, his movie is entering the third act.
Fiction always turns out the way the author wants and reality has been dealing out plot beats for Trump as much as Democrats have engineered them but life isn’t a movie. The outcome can go either way.
Yeah, yeah and yeah, any mention of the Austrian guy brings down Godwin’s Law, but the Roman Empire was a horror to the people on the receiving end of it too, but we still talk about Rome as to what lessons can be learned.
I think what we have and are moving further towards is oligarchical capitalism. Yes, there is a strong strain of Marxism, but even the National Workers’ Party had its Marxist faction. That got purged.
The oligarchs, i.e. Wall Street, don’t have values apart from the value they put on making money, or if they have values, they come from Marxist indoctrination on college campuses. They essentially go along to get along, especially if whatever war that gets declared an inflicts pain on everyone still allows them to turn a dime.
On the other side, the political leaders may say “I am going to go after the Big Corporations and Billionaires”, which happens to be a campaign slogan in a TV ad that ran this morning, but they haven’t turned on their big-money donors, at least not quite yet.
Now take The Green New Deal, please! The power companies have “rolled over” on wind and solar. They shrugged, OK, if that is what you want, my marginal electric rate is up to 17.5 cents/kWHr and I am paying in the mid 25 cents range–here in Flyover Country–factoring in the fixed connection charge that has increased bigly to pay for all of this. The regulators approve the rate increases, the power company makes a profit and life goes on.
The car companies “rolled over” on electric cars. My theory is that this was embraced by the car companies, except for Toyota that took a sharp pencil to cost and benefits to the automobile fleet. This was because they could finally get the CAFE and emissions monkeys off their backs and make the popular, big SUVs and pickups without further government nags. Only EVs aren’t selling, to which the Marxist faction will retort, “Oh, yeah, their sales are up!”, but they are not up enough to justify the enormous investment (er, spending) on battery and EV car plants.
National Workers’ Socialism had hiccups. There is this dude in England who talks like Ringo going by the handle “Tik” who goes over this, explaining how in a time and a place where everyone depended on coal as a heating fuel, the oversight of the Big Bad Corporations and Rich people fixing the price of coal resulted in, you guessed it, critical coal shortages. They didn’t go full Leninist on every sector of the economy, but when they did, they had a predictable Leninist outcome. Looters and Wreckers!
The question is if a certain political candidate is in the “burn it down” faction or in the political side of the “go along to get along” faction. The auto makers are crying out in pain over the EV mandates because for a variety reasons they aren’t selling, or at least not in the projected numbers. The “go along to get along” faction would grant them some relief, not because they don’t believe in Climate Change but sometimes you need something like Lenin’s New Economic Plan as a temporary relief from Collectivization.
The campaign signaled relief on EV mandates, but the candidate doubled down, saying that the existence of mandates “is a lie”, claiming that her values haven’t changed and that the deadlines that are not a mandate hold firm.
The Right Blogosphere is hopping up and down that the candidate is stupid and a hypocrite and all of that. I think the candidate is walking a fine line between the go along to get along faction that includes the big corporate donors and the True Believers, and we underestimate the intelligence and political accumen of this candidate.
On rethinking the last paragraph, maybe the candidate is a True Believer in the burn-it-down faction and this business of walking-a-fine-line to hold a coalition together is, what is the term of art, projection?
The burn-it-down faction thinks the candidate is “one of us”, whereas the go-along-to-get-along corporate donors think the conflicting messages from the campaign and the candidate are a sop to the radical faction while at the same time a wink and a nod that Wall Street will be just fine. But I am wrong in thinking this is artfully purposeful instead of accidental?
Is this like reading too much meaning into the lyrics of “Hotel California” when the creative process had involved use of recreational drugs and even the song writer to this day is vague about what they mean?
You can check out any time you want but you can never leave?
The go along to get along folks are counting on true beliefs being restrained by either the cultists desire for self preservation or the political opposition, which is an admission the opposition is right. Association with them is threatening prestige and power, which should also be a warning.
It could be that Kamala is a true believer but doesn’t know what that means. Just do the work and have faith that history will unfold into the utopia that was promised.
The danger is that they are actively destroying every check, balance, and opposition and there will be nothing to restrain them. Then the go along to get along can hire a private army or go up against the wall like everyone else.
It is not that a Progressive Marxist/Fascist society wont have rich people, but rather that class of people wont be repopulated in the new society as they were in the last.
Dusk for whom? If the United States, then I would say yes. The U.S. Empire has nearly run its course.
This is not a negative view. It is just a view that recognizes that all governments have a shelf-life. They all expire at some point. Militarily and economically, the U.S. is reaching the end of the rope. I hope that we will reconfigure into a regional power instead of a hegemon, and focus our energy and wealth on building back our own country. Trump is a step in that direction.
For my own part, the immediate reaction I had to the title of this post was that we were at the start of the movie From Dusk to Dawn, and that after a “joyful” election, the Democrats would transform into hideous vampires, draining the life blood from all of us, and turning even on George Clooney (how’s that for irony?).
I, too, have become a Scott Adams addict, and have paid particular attention to his “life is a movie” meme – because I think it has merit in a backwards sense. However, I don’t know of anyone else who has come up with the alternate ending I described above. It’s the one that terrifies me.
When you have the New York Times and law school professors questioning whether the Constitution is “dangerous”, it makes me wonder about big swaths of the country. Dangerous to whom or what? My guess is they see the Constitution and courts willing to enforce it standing in the way of the socialism they want to impose on everyone.
Larry J, exactly. The constitution stands in the way of their socialist shenanigans. If we were more “constitutional” we wouldn’t have half the problems we face as a country.
If we decide to pull back to being a coastal “power”, who will guard our trade ships? Or do we pull back from all international “entanglements” and go it alone for everything?
Well using the Scott Adams’ pirate ship analogy, we use our coastal bases to raid all the shipping lanes and demand tribute. Only THIS time the Marines are on OUR side!
It is important to look at the risks we face and not be blackpilled.
In isolation, it is still important to do what you think is right. Stay based in your values. Avoid traps. Encourage your fellows. Take measured risks. Live life.
We are about to open the bounty of the solar system. America’s best centuries are still ahead.
India’s best century is still ahead.
Doesn’t seem there much hope for China.
India going to Moon, we going to Moon.
Interesting about a cheap telescope on the Moon:
x1,000 Resolution of JWST But x1,000 Cheaper https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcR6gs0Up6k
“Rather than being at the end of things, it is a reminder that we are always at the beginning.”
Marxism is still ascending in the Democrat party. There are a number of Democrats who are in denial but even those are broadly supportive of the ideology even if they don’t comprehend what they support. Until Marxism is defeated in the Democrat party, by Democrats, we wont be looking at the end of what is going on.
Scott Adams likes to say two movies on the same screen. I’ve been applying a movie filter to events because the archetypes are eternal and Democrats are literally creating a movie for the country to watch in the form of a campaign. Harris Walz, the buddy love comedy, like a sitcom where things continue the same but each week more crazy situations. Trump is man with a problem, his movie is entering the third act.
Fiction always turns out the way the author wants and reality has been dealing out plot beats for Trump as much as Democrats have engineered them but life isn’t a movie. The outcome can go either way.
Yeah, yeah and yeah, any mention of the Austrian guy brings down Godwin’s Law, but the Roman Empire was a horror to the people on the receiving end of it too, but we still talk about Rome as to what lessons can be learned.
I think what we have and are moving further towards is oligarchical capitalism. Yes, there is a strong strain of Marxism, but even the National Workers’ Party had its Marxist faction. That got purged.
The oligarchs, i.e. Wall Street, don’t have values apart from the value they put on making money, or if they have values, they come from Marxist indoctrination on college campuses. They essentially go along to get along, especially if whatever war that gets declared an inflicts pain on everyone still allows them to turn a dime.
On the other side, the political leaders may say “I am going to go after the Big Corporations and Billionaires”, which happens to be a campaign slogan in a TV ad that ran this morning, but they haven’t turned on their big-money donors, at least not quite yet.
Now take The Green New Deal, please! The power companies have “rolled over” on wind and solar. They shrugged, OK, if that is what you want, my marginal electric rate is up to 17.5 cents/kWHr and I am paying in the mid 25 cents range–here in Flyover Country–factoring in the fixed connection charge that has increased bigly to pay for all of this. The regulators approve the rate increases, the power company makes a profit and life goes on.
The car companies “rolled over” on electric cars. My theory is that this was embraced by the car companies, except for Toyota that took a sharp pencil to cost and benefits to the automobile fleet. This was because they could finally get the CAFE and emissions monkeys off their backs and make the popular, big SUVs and pickups without further government nags. Only EVs aren’t selling, to which the Marxist faction will retort, “Oh, yeah, their sales are up!”, but they are not up enough to justify the enormous investment (er, spending) on battery and EV car plants.
National Workers’ Socialism had hiccups. There is this dude in England who talks like Ringo going by the handle “Tik” who goes over this, explaining how in a time and a place where everyone depended on coal as a heating fuel, the oversight of the Big Bad Corporations and Rich people fixing the price of coal resulted in, you guessed it, critical coal shortages. They didn’t go full Leninist on every sector of the economy, but when they did, they had a predictable Leninist outcome. Looters and Wreckers!
The question is if a certain political candidate is in the “burn it down” faction or in the political side of the “go along to get along” faction. The auto makers are crying out in pain over the EV mandates because for a variety reasons they aren’t selling, or at least not in the projected numbers. The “go along to get along” faction would grant them some relief, not because they don’t believe in Climate Change but sometimes you need something like Lenin’s New Economic Plan as a temporary relief from Collectivization.
The campaign signaled relief on EV mandates, but the candidate doubled down, saying that the existence of mandates “is a lie”, claiming that her values haven’t changed and that the deadlines that are not a mandate hold firm.
The Right Blogosphere is hopping up and down that the candidate is stupid and a hypocrite and all of that. I think the candidate is walking a fine line between the go along to get along faction that includes the big corporate donors and the True Believers, and we underestimate the intelligence and political accumen of this candidate.
That last paragraph is dead on. Fight like you’re the third monkey on the Ark and it’s starting to rain.
I’d rephrase that to get past the bi-normative intersectionality of what potentially could be a very pleasant cruise. Try this:
Fight like you’re the 2nd Bull on the ark and it’s started to rain…
On rethinking the last paragraph, maybe the candidate is a True Believer in the burn-it-down faction and this business of walking-a-fine-line to hold a coalition together is, what is the term of art, projection?
The burn-it-down faction thinks the candidate is “one of us”, whereas the go-along-to-get-along corporate donors think the conflicting messages from the campaign and the candidate are a sop to the radical faction while at the same time a wink and a nod that Wall Street will be just fine. But I am wrong in thinking this is artfully purposeful instead of accidental?
Is this like reading too much meaning into the lyrics of “Hotel California” when the creative process had involved use of recreational drugs and even the song writer to this day is vague about what they mean?
You can check out any time you want but you can never leave?
The go along to get along folks are counting on true beliefs being restrained by either the cultists desire for self preservation or the political opposition, which is an admission the opposition is right. Association with them is threatening prestige and power, which should also be a warning.
It could be that Kamala is a true believer but doesn’t know what that means. Just do the work and have faith that history will unfold into the utopia that was promised.
The danger is that they are actively destroying every check, balance, and opposition and there will be nothing to restrain them. Then the go along to get along can hire a private army or go up against the wall like everyone else.
It is not that a Progressive Marxist/Fascist society wont have rich people, but rather that class of people wont be repopulated in the new society as they were in the last.
Dusk for whom? If the United States, then I would say yes. The U.S. Empire has nearly run its course.
This is not a negative view. It is just a view that recognizes that all governments have a shelf-life. They all expire at some point. Militarily and economically, the U.S. is reaching the end of the rope. I hope that we will reconfigure into a regional power instead of a hegemon, and focus our energy and wealth on building back our own country. Trump is a step in that direction.
Well said, both wodun and Orville.
For my own part, the immediate reaction I had to the title of this post was that we were at the start of the movie From Dusk to Dawn, and that after a “joyful” election, the Democrats would transform into hideous vampires, draining the life blood from all of us, and turning even on George Clooney (how’s that for irony?).
I, too, have become a Scott Adams addict, and have paid particular attention to his “life is a movie” meme – because I think it has merit in a backwards sense. However, I don’t know of anyone else who has come up with the alternate ending I described above. It’s the one that terrifies me.
Sorry, From Dusk till Dawn.
When you have the New York Times and law school professors questioning whether the Constitution is “dangerous”, it makes me wonder about big swaths of the country. Dangerous to whom or what? My guess is they see the Constitution and courts willing to enforce it standing in the way of the socialism they want to impose on everyone.
Larry J, exactly. The constitution stands in the way of their socialist shenanigans. If we were more “constitutional” we wouldn’t have half the problems we face as a country.
I prophesy a new movie: “Twilight of the Poodles.”
If we decide to pull back to being a coastal “power”, who will guard our trade ships? Or do we pull back from all international “entanglements” and go it alone for everything?
Well using the Scott Adams’ pirate ship analogy, we use our coastal bases to raid all the shipping lanes and demand tribute. Only THIS time the Marines are on OUR side!
Every day and in every way someone is lying in history
It is important to look at the risks we face and not be blackpilled.
In isolation, it is still important to do what you think is right. Stay based in your values. Avoid traps. Encourage your fellows. Take measured risks. Live life.
We are about to open the bounty of the solar system. America’s best centuries are still ahead.
India’s best century is still ahead.
Doesn’t seem there much hope for China.
India going to Moon, we going to Moon.
Interesting about a cheap telescope on the Moon:
x1,000 Resolution of JWST But x1,000 Cheaper
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcR6gs0Up6k
And always question, is there life, out there.