Saturday, March 18, 2023
Pax Americana or Pox Multipolar?
Only the “blame America first, last, and only” Left can think that rogue nations will behave better in a multipolar world.
The announcement of a communist Chinese orchestrated rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia is another instance of the feckless, incompetent Biden Administration and the democrats’ foreign policy that damages America’s national security. As the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy’s Mark Dubowitz assessed, it “is a lose, lose, lose for American interests.” As it is for the entire free world.
Of course, many on the Left welcome the communist Chinese-engineered renewal of relations between the Saudi kingdom and the terrorist-exporting Islamic regime. The Left believes it can be portrayed as evidence the duplicitous Tehran regime would be a credible party in an international agreement, particularly, the suicidal Iran nuclear pact the Left still covets.
But the Left’s coveting of the Iran nuke deal serves a far larger purpose, one that transcends even their intermediate goal of the United States abandoning our strategic interests and allies, notably in the Middle East. (It is a contention the Biden Administration contests, despite this and other evidence to the contrary.) The Left’s long-term goal? A “multipolar world.”
There are two prime drivers of the Left’s quest for a “multipolar” world.
In a multipolar world, the United States would no longer be the sole superpower; and power would be more evenly distributed among other nations. The Left’s pursuit of a multipolar world is a logical extension of its irrational loathing of America as a fascist, racist, misogynistic, homophobic nation of haters. Its delusional domestic aim to “fundamentally transform” America and “liberate” its “marginalized” citizens is mirrored in the Left’s foreign policy aim of transforming the current Pax Americana into a multipolar world. It is a goal the Western Left shares with Communist China, which also seeks to liberate the world from the evil American “hegemon.”
The second prime driver is the Left’s embrace of “moral equivalency.” The Left does not employ their moral equivalency to improve the image of our free republic. Unfortunately, there is not an equivalent intellectual integrity in the Left’s assessment of not only America’s adversaries, but of the enemies of democracy and human dignity, such as Communist China, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. Looking at that quartet of tyrannical regimes, one can see why only those who are blinded by their loathing of America could argue a moral equivalency between our free republic, which birthed a new freedom for the world, and these aspiring global and regional autocracies that systematically repress, impoverish, starve, and murder their own people. Yet, because these regimes are on the Left and, thus, in the eyes of the Western Left they seemingly can do no wrong—or at least nothing than cannot be excused because America is...
The 90 Miles Mystery Video: Nyctophilia Edition #1319
Before You Click On The "Read More" Link,
Please Only Do So If You Are Over 21 Years Old.
If You are Easily Upset, Triggered Or Offended, This Is Not The Place For You.
Please Leave Silently Into The Night......
The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #2025
You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?
It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,
from the beautiful to the repugnant,
from the mysterious to the familiar.
If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,
you could be inspired, you could be appalled.
This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.
You have been warned.
Friday, March 17, 2023
The Communist Tortoise and the Communist Hare
Similarly, about a half century before, the Bolshevik regime, under V.A. Lenin, initiated what was known as the "Red Terror" against their political and class enemies, a campaign of murder against non-Bolsheviks (known as "the Whites") that resulted in up to 1.3 million deaths between 1918 and 1921. This approach was simple, to the point, and expedient, but it left a trail of death and destruction that some future communists, particularly communists in Western nations, sought to steer clear of.
In the race between the Tortoise and the Hare, Lenin and Pol Pot were the Hare. What modern Marxists have come to realize, however, is that the Tortoise, the one who took the "slow and steady" approach to the race, ultimately won. That is why the current slow-rolling communist revolution going on in the United States today will not, and does not, involve mass murder, Gulags, and manufactured famines.
See, the Marxists of the 21st century have learned their lessons from the revolutions of the 20th century. The Marxist revolutionaries of today are taking the Tortoise's approach to the race toward revolution and communist "utopia." They are, and have been since the 1960s, doing a "long march through the institutions," where they hope to fundamentally and radically transform society over a long period of time through the culture. After all, politics, the politics of the revolution, is downstream of culture.
At present, the left has successfully captured nearly every major institution of society. Instead of sending political dissidents to Gulags or re-education camps, they instead send themselves and the champions of the cultural revolution to, say, Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity training seminars, where they engage in Maoist-style "struggle sessions" between and among the various races of employees.
They have all the employees "of color" air their grievances against the white employees, or all the white employees "admit" their "racist" attitudes or beliefs to the "people of color," all of whom they are trying to indoctrinate as "oppressed" and "oppressor." According to critical race theorists, who view all human interactions and structures of society through a lens of power dynamics and systems of oppression (just as Karl Marx did, except through the lens of class and economics), white people "dominate" society and the institutions of it, and have "cultural hegemony," which results in the various "people of color" being "oppressed" by them.
Modern Marxists believe that if passive-aggressive activities like this are done long enough, with enough intensity and commitment, then indoctrination will result, and a revolution will not have to be forced onto society. The revolution will instead occur naturally because an eager and brainwashed populace wants it to happen, and has been taught that it must happen.
Not a single shot will have to be fired to achieve this revolution, because the culture, after a long enough period of time, will embrace the ideology of the revolution and bring about its goals of its own accord. The left is playing the long game. That is why leftists are teaching Critical Race Theory and Comprehensive Sexuality Education and using Social-Emotional Learning strategies in schools, all of which are rooted in neo-Marxist critical theory.
The left knows that it will take but one generation of students indoctrinated into Marxist dogma to foment a cultural revolution. The revolution, necessarily, in this case, would not be violent, or even contentious, because once an entire generation is uniform in thought and has no opposition to speak of, they can implement their agenda with complete impunity. The left is not betting on a turbulent revolution in the present; it is betting on a gradual and peaceful revolution in...
Are We the Byzantines?
The Byzantines never woke up in time to understand what they had become. Will Americans?
When Constantinople finally fell to the Ottomans on Tuesday, May 29, 1453, the Byzantine Empire and its capital had survived for 1,000 years beyond the fall of the Western Empire at Rome.
Always outnumbered in a sea of enemies, the Byzantines’ survival had depended on its realist diplomacy of dividing its enemies, avoiding military quagmires, and ensuring constant deterrence.
Generations of self-sacrifice ensured ample investment for infrastructure. Each generation inherited and improved on singular aqueducts and cisterns, sewer systems, and the most complex and formidable city fortifications in the world.
Brilliant scientific advancement and engineering gave the empire advantages like swift galleys and flame throwers—an ancient precursor to napalm.
The law reigned supreme for nearly a millennium after the emperor Justinian codified a prior thousand years of Roman jurisprudence.
Yet this millennium-old crown jewel of the ancient world that once was home to 800,000 citizens had only 50,000 inhabitants left when it fell.
There were only 7,000 defenders on the walls to hold back a huge Turkish army of over 150,000 attackers.
The Islamic winners took over the once magical city of Constantine and renamed it Istanbul. It had been the home of the renowned Santa Sophia, the largest Christian church in the world for over 900 years. Almost immediately, this “Church of the Holy Wisdom” was converted into the then largest mosque in the Islamic world, with minarets to follow.
So what happened to the once indomitable city fortress and its empire?
Christendom had cannibalized itself. Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy fought endlessly. Westerners often hated each other more than they did their common enemy.
In the final days of Constantinople, almost no help was sent from Western Europe to the besieged city.
In fact, 250 years earlier, the Western Franks of the Fourth Crusade had detoured from the Holy Land to storm the supposedly allied Christian City of Constantinople.
Then they ransacked the city and hijacked the Byzantine Empire for a half-century. Constantinople never quite recovered.
The 14 th-century Black Plague killed tens of thousands of Byzantines and scared thousands more into moving out of the cramped city.
But the aging and dying empire battled more than the challenges of internal divisions, or an unforeseen but deadly pandemic and the empire’s disastrous responses to it.
The last generations of Byzantines had inherited a global reputation and standard of living that they themselves no longer earned.
They neglected their former civic values and fought endless battles over obscure religious texts, doctrines, and vocabulary.
They did not expand their anemic army and navy. They did not reunite their scattered Greek-speaking empire. They did not properly maintain their once life-giving walls.
Instead of earning money through their accustomed nonstop trade, they inflated their currency and were forced to melt down the city’s inherited gold and silver fixtures.
The once canny and shrewd Byzantines grew smug and naïve. Childlessness became common. Most now preferred to live outside of what had become a half-empty, often dirty, and poorly maintained city.
Meanwhile they underestimated the growing power of the Ottomans who systematically pruned away their empire. By the mid-15th century Islamic armies were ready to exploit fatal Byzantine weaknesses.
The Sultan Mehmed II grandly announced the Ottomans were now the real, the only world power. Ascendent Ottoman armies would eventually move on to the very gates of Vienna in an effort to rule all the lands of the ancient Roman empire.
We should take heed from the last generations of the Byzantines.
Nowhere is it foreordained that America has a birthright to remain the world’s preeminent civilization.
An ascendent China seems eerily similar to the Ottomans. Beijing believes that the United States is decadent, undeserving of its affluence, living beyond its means on the fumes of the past—and very soon vulnerable enough to challenge openly.
Left and Right seem to hate each other more than they do their common enemies.
Like the Byzantines, Americans gave up defending their own borders, and simply shrugged as millions overran them as they pleased.
Our once iconic downtowns, like end-stage Constantinople before the fall, are now dirty, half-deserted, dangerous, and dysfunctional.
America prints rather than makes...
The 90 Miles Mystery Video: Nyctophilia Edition #1318
Before You Click On The "Read More" Link,
Please Only Do So If You Are Over 21 Years Old.
If You are Easily Upset, Triggered Or Offended, This Is Not The Place For You.
Please Leave Silently Into The Night......
The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #2024
You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?
It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,
from the beautiful to the repugnant,
from the mysterious to the familiar.
If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,
you could be inspired, you could be appalled.
This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.
You have been warned.
Thursday, March 16, 2023
Blogs With Rule 5 Links
The Other McCain has: Late Night With Rule 5 Sunday: Olivia ThirlbyProof Positive has: Best Of Web Link AroundThe Woodsterman has: Rule 5 Woodsterman StyleEBL has: Rule 5 And FMJRAThe Right Way has: Rule 5 Saturday LinkORamaThe Pirate's Cove has: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup
The Other McCain has: Late Night With Rule 5 Sunday: Olivia Thirlby
Proof Positive has: Best Of Web Link Around
The Woodsterman has: Rule 5 Woodsterman Style
EBL has: Rule 5 And FMJRA
The Right Way has: Rule 5 Saturday LinkORama
The Pirate's Cove has: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup
Trump calls for independent investigation of multi-year probe by 'weaponized' NY prosecutors
Donald Trump, through his attorney, is asking for an "independent investigation into the unprecedented multi-year probe of President Trump by the New York County District Attorney's Office's [sic]."
Read the full letter at the link:
Silicon Valley Bank Spent $74 Million on Black Lives Matter and Social Justice Causes
Many in the financial punditry class believe the move is necessary to prevent a chain reaction that could take down other big investment banks. There is plenty to be debated about the merits of that action, but it certainly does make it harder to accept that Americans are being forced to bail out millionaires when SVB has been grossly irresponsible with their own funds.
As it turns out, SVB was a massive donor to Black Lives Matter and other social justice causes, to the tune of nearly $74 million dollars. $73,450,000 to be more exact.
The figure comes from an extensive report dropped by the Claremont Institute on Tuesday. The report details $82 billion dollars in social justice/BLM investments by major American companies. SVB stands out as one of the larger donors, next to big donors like Apple ($100 million) and Comcast ($165 million). While at the top of the donation pool, those contributors do pale in comparison to donors like Blackrock ($810 million) and Citigroup ($1.1 billion). However, the group did pledge on their website to provide in total up to $11 billion dollars by 2026 for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs and racial justice causes.
SVB executives explained on their website the turbulent racial atmosphere following the George Floyd killing and protests prompted them to expand “opportunities for dialogue,” a calling that doesn’t seem too have much concrete investment return, but ended up taking $74 million dollars out of bank coffers anyway.
Will Hild, the executive director of Consumers’ Research, told The Federalist that SVB’s failure on the heels of its left-wing activism “is yet another indication that SVB was focused on woke virtue signaling instead of protecting their customers’ deposits.”
“Time after time we see the same pattern: companies that are the most concerned with ESG scores and woke politics do the worst jobs serving their customers,” Hild explained. “The rest of corporate America should learn from SVB’s failure now, before they are the next company to make headlines for comically poor management.”
The company’s Corporate Responsibility report leaned heavily on their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) actions. Some of the report’s major concerns included:
The 90 Miles Mystery Video: Nyctophilia Edition #1317
Before You Click On The "Read More" Link,
Please Only Do So If You Are Over 21 Years Old.
If You are Easily Upset, Triggered Or Offended, This Is Not The Place For You.
Please Leave Silently Into The Night......
The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #2023
You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?
It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,
from the beautiful to the repugnant,
from the mysterious to the familiar.
If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,
you could be inspired, you could be appalled.
This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.
You have been warned.