Those of you who, like myself, try not to miss any videos or articles by Andrei Martyanov know that one of his “favorite” topics is the utter incompetence of Western elites in general and US ruling elites specifically. I am sure that his criticisms appear to be over the top to many people and that is normal. It is completely counter-intuitive to assume that the ruling class (because that is what we are dealing with) of a nuclear superpower and, arguably, the most powerful country on the planet, could be ruled by clueless, ignorant, dishonest imbeciles.
So, is he right or not? Does he speak because he is “anti-US” or a “Russian propagandist”?
I decided to chime in, because I know from the inside what Martyanov describes from the outside, so I want to share with you my own observations on this topic.
I studied in the USA for five years, from 1986 to 1991 and I got two degrees in this time period: one BA in International Relations from the School of International Service (SIS) at the American University and a MA in Strategic Studies from the Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at the Johns Hopkins University. During these same years I also worked for several (very conservative) think tanks. The following is a summary of observations I made during this time period and after.
First, and I think that this is crucial, I would argue that a generational change took place in the late 80s, but it all truly began with Ronald Reagan’s Presidency. Let me explain.
It is an undeniable fact that, in the past, US colleges had a very good reputation worldwide. Just the number of foreign students coming from all over the world is a good indicator of this reality. And you cannot have a solid university/college/academy without solid, knowledgeable teachers. During my 5 years in Washington DC, I had the chance to have teachers with very diverse and interesting backgrounds including people with the following backgrounds: (just a few examples I remember best)
- UN Naval Intelligence
- Office of Net Assessment
- DoD (all branches except Marines)
- White House
- CIA
- Northrop/McDonnell Douglas Corporation (YF-23 division)
- PMCs (Israeli)
- GAO
Most of our adjunct teachers, as opposed to tenured academics, had teaching as an “evening job” (literally) while during the day they would work on their “normal/real” jobs. Even during the Gulf War, we had teachers who were planning strikes in Iraqi targets during the day and came to teach classes in the evenings.
I would describe many of them as the “Colonel Macgregor types” as he is very much of that old, Cold War, generation who had no use for the “crazies in the basement” and whose expertise was indisputable, even when their politics were not.
And yes, we also had the option of taking classes by folks from the CIA and the DoS. But those are a special category, and here is why: most, but not all, of the folks which came from the agencies I listed above did not have early in their careers strong views about the USSR, Russia or the Russian people. Instead, they would follow a rather “technical” career path first and then, over time, they would develop views about the Soviet Union and Russians. Say a guy skilled with radar systems would end up studying Soviet radars and gradually develop a natural interest towards the people operating these Soviet radars. In most cases, I would sum the views of this generation of people as follows: a strong dislike for Marxism, Communism and even Socialism (which, frankly, most of them were totally ignorant of) but without any idealization of US turbocapitalism or imperialism which they viewed quite cynically as “we do it because we can” combined with “we take orders”. They also had a very healthy respect for the professionalism of their Soviet counterparts and, quite often, a real fondness (no, I am not kidding) for the Russian people and culture. One of my absolute best teachers was a former USN intelligence officer who spoke pretty good Russian and who was of Polish (!) origin. We became good friends and I can absolutely attest to the fact that this man was a true russophile. Now, I would not say that all our teachers were necessarily pro-Russian, but most of them saw the Marxist USSR as the ideological enemy and not the Russian people or culture as such.
There was no #cancelRussia in their minds.
Things were quite different with the folks from the CIA or the State Department. I believe that most (but probably not all) of their members INITIALLY chose “anti-Soviet” careers because they were motivated by a hatred of Communism/USSR/Russia and so they made their careers by being “hardliners”, i.e. folks who would parrot any kind of cliches about the Soviet Union, no matter how silly.
I should add that the former generation was mostly found in departments like international relations, security studies, strategic studies and the like while the latter typically taught in departments like political science or government studies. At SIS/SAIS we called them “political science freaks” and they did not interact much with them. And yes, those with STEM brains would typically come from STEM fields to an appreciation of Russian people and culture, while there were very few STEM types amongst the “political science freaks” (hence their choice of more ideological courses over more technical ones).
But then, as I mentioned above, Ronald Reagan happened, and that had a huge impact on the US political scene.
Before Reagan, you had paleo-liberals and paleo-conservatives, the former would be inclined to get degrees in stuff like “peace studies” while the latter would study get more “geostrategic” degrees or even military academies. Then Jimmy Carter became president and his many failures and weaknesses secured the triumphant election of Reagan. At that time, there already was a small and nasty group of ideologues which, over time, became known as the Neocons. These Neocons, while not bright by any measure, were clever enough to understand that the Democratic Party was crushed by Reagan and that the power now was with the GOP. So here is what they did:
The (proto-)Neocons began financing (paleo-)conservative think tanks like, say, the Heritage Foundation. Then, as major sponsors of the many think tanks around DC, they would get their own people elected to the board of directors of these think tanks. Pretty soon, the typically (paleo-)conservative Presidents/Chairmen/CEOs of these think tanks would be replaced by real, hardcore, Neocons. After that, it was RIP for any form of real, traditional, US conservatism.
Needless to say, the “old guard” (mostly Anglos) only had disgust and contempt for these ideological freaks, if only because the latter were amazingly ignorant. But money talks, and over the years, expertise was replaced with “hardliner loyalty” and a very strong ideological alignment on the worst of the worst of what used to be called “the crazies in the basement” (which referred to both the Pentagon’s basement and the White House basement).
Now it is crucial to understand how much the Neocons hate Russia, which is rather difficult and very counter-intuitive for normal people. The Neocon level of hatred for Russia very much qualifies as crass racism of the worst kind.
[Sidebar: I have been warning about that since at least 2008, see here: “How a medieval concept of ethnicity makes NATO commit yet another a dangerous blunder“. And now, FIFTEEN years later, I am quite horrified that my predictions are now coming true before our eyes. I really, sincerely, wish I had been wrong…]
That kind of rabid mindset is something which might have existed amongst some paleo-conservatives, but I personally never met such people (at least in the USA; in the UK the entire British ruling class has been viscerally racist and russophobic for centuries!). It is thus not surprising at all that in lieu of competence, these Neocons would instead “compete” on “who could be the most anti-Russian” and to achieve this status ANY argument – no matter how self evidently stupid – was uncritically considered as valid and legitimate.
You might wonder why the “old guard” did nothing to stop that infection’s rot. And, in fact, some tried, I personally know of two think tank directors who tried, but they were betrayed by the Reagan Administration which seemed quite happen to have rabid russophobic racists even in very high positions. Finally, this is the US of A, the “best democracy money can buy” and where the dollar is king. Simply put, the Neocons had A LOT of financial resources, much more than the paleo-conservatives, and they simply “bought their way in” into the US ruling elites.
Then the inevitable happened: when the professionally competent paleo-conservatives saw their institutions and organizations overrun with incompetent ideological freaks, they either kept a low profile and waited to retire or simply resigned.
This triggered a precipitous decline in the competence of the US ruling class.
In the meantime, the liberals began to realize that the Neocons were ridiculing them as “weak on defense” and, basically, as losers. So they tried to show that they too could be as “hardline” as the next guy. This is something which affected liberals not only in the USA, but also in all of Zone A (including all of Europe). Simply put: the liberals did not have the courage, fortitude and honor to fight for their values, so they simply caved in to the trend set by the Neocons and the ugly phenomenon known as “Neolib” increasingly completely replaced old style liberals.
This is why today we see the ugly sight of pseudo-liberals trying to out-Neocon the Neocons.
And, again, just like their paleo-conservative counterparts, the paleo-liberals either kept a low profile and waited for their retirement or resigned.
Some, like the late Professor Stephen Cohen did resist and refused to go with the flow, but he was vilified, ostracized and, eventually, completely ignored. Yet, to his last breath, Professor Cohen remained a world-class historian and analyst, true to his ideals, and a sincere friend of Russia.
But in the public discourse, the few “Stephen Cohens” were replaced by the many “Eliot Cohens”.
After that, is was all downhill for the US polity.
George H.W. Bush was probably the last “old style” President, then one freak replaced another. Clinton was a total puppet of the Neocons. As was Dubya. Obama, apparently, did not come out of the Neocon camp, but he was so quickly co-opted that it made zero difference. And, as we all know, while Trump promised to “drain the swamp”, the Neocons got him to heel in less than 1 month (when they made him betray Gen Flynn and got the latter’s head “served on a platter” to them by Trump and Pence). As for Biden, his administration is pure, genuine, 100% certified Neocons with Neolibs and assorted woke freaks thrown in for “diversity” purposes.
Why does that matter? Because he who controls the White House controls the money flows which, in the reality of US politics, is the one thing that matters most.
By the way, 9/11 played a crucial role here.
It is quite obvious that 9/11 was a Neocon “inside job” and that it served as a pretext to start the GWOT. However, it also had another very important role: it forced each public figure in the USA to choose one of two camps:
- Be obedient and accept the (terminally idiotic) conspiracy theory of the White House or
- Lose your job, position, reputation and means of income.
Most, unsurprisingly, caved in and 9/11 ended “binding up together” the entire US ruling class. That type of bond is the type criminal accomplices have: if one goes down, everybody goes down, hence the omertà around the topic of 9/11 even though it was proven by a preponderance of evidence and even beyond reasonable doubt that 9/11 was, indeed, an inside job. After 9/11, true dissent was completely removed from the US political discourse.
By the way, something similar happened to Europe, except that the categories were somewhat different. In Europe (I am talking about the real Europe, not the “enlarged” EU with eastern Europe included) there were real patriots in most countries. Yes, the USA was the senior partner, but there were enough political leaders which were capable of saying “no” to the US and care for their national interests first (I think of Mitterrand and even Chirac here). That generation of politicians and decision-makers gradually was replaced by a new generation of actors whose entire career plan was to unconditionally and fervently serve US interests, even at the expense of their own countries (Macron, Scholz). And while I would not call EU politicians “Neocons”, I will say that they are the faithful, loyal, servants and slaves of the Neocons.
And, just as in the USA, the competent and patriotic decision-makers were replaced with ideological stooges who had zero expertise or honor, but whom the USA would support as “loyal servants”. Opposition to US imperialism in Europe was relegated to a distant margins of public discourse.
I would argue that the 90s were the years of the absolute triumph of the Neocons who took total control of both the USA and the EU.
So what are Neocons really like? First and foremost, they are extreme narcissists and, as is often the case with narcissists, their obnoxious self-worship, sense of entitlement and hatred of the “other” all come from a deep seated inferiority complex (believe me, they *knew* the contempt they were held in by the old generation of US decision makers, and they *knew* that they were seen as the “crazies in the basement”). So besides being self-worshiping racist narcissists, they were also filled with resentment, a desire for revenge and a unbreakable “us vs them” mentality..
Also, and contrary to popular belief, they were not very smart (if only because being truly smart requires both humility and expertise, something the Neocons are totally devoid from). In reality, the big competitive advantage of the Neocons over the “old guard” was not brains, but drive. This is something we often observe in history: the folks who actually seize power are rarely the smartest ones, much more often you see folks with a tremendous ideological drive. A perfect example? The German Nazis. Please name me one truly educated and smart Nazi! Hitler? Nope. Himmler? Nope. Goering? Nope. Speer, better, but he was not much of a Nazi to begin with. Hess? Nope. Karl Haushofer, Dietrich Eckart or Alfred Rosenberg? Pheuleeze! And I won’t even go into the true morons à la Streicher or Strasser.
Yet the Nazis not only took power in Germany, they managed to convert most of Europe (with shamefully little resistance!) to their idiotic ideology or their genocidal policies. It is quite a testimony to the power of evil stupidity to see how eighty years later(!), the united West is now openly following the exact same policies as the Nazis did in their very short rule (the promised “thousand year Reich” turned out to last 12 years only!).
Finally, I have to mention one more thing: for the US Neocons the election of Trump was quite literally a slave revolt and a slap in the face. While Trump proved to be sub-pathetic by any measure, the fact that a majority of US citizens were willing to prefer him to the “Neocon & Woke diva” Clinton was absolutely traumatic. Having the total control of the three branches of government, AND the media, AND academia AND the financial sector gave the Neocons the illusion that they had finally “made it” and then suddenly, and pardon my French, the people of the USA sent them a loud and heartfelt “f*ck you!” and voted for the one candidate which the Neocons had absolutely demonized.
This was perceived by the Neocons and their cohorts as a blasphemy, a sacrilege, an absolutely unacceptable “revolt of the serfs” and that is why the Neocons decided never EVER to allow such a thing to happen again (and we all know what they did next).
The bottom line is this: the USA faced a perfect storm:
- A social model in which the Almighty Dollar decides everything
- The most formidable propaganda machine in history
- An “old guard” ruling class too weak, cowardly, confused and (comparatively) poor to resist
- A terminally corrupt Uniparty system which is easy to suborn
- A society which does not instill the kind of demonic ideological fervor which Neocons are raised in, which makes non-Neocons easy prey for the Neocons.
- A country and society in which the concepts “right” and “wrong” have become meaningless and have been fully replaced by “might makes right”, not just de facto, which already had been the case for centuries, but also de jure.
Add to this the (mistaken) notion that the US had won the Cold War and even the (even more mistaken) notion that the US had won WWII, and you have the narcissistic explosion we witnessed in the 90s. And here is the irony: the flag-waving “patriots” which “support our troops” never realized that they were (and still are) being used by the Neocons which, in reality, are the *least* patriotic of any political force in the USA.
Again, 9/11 and the subsequent GWOT are a direct consequence of the pseudo-patriotic fervor which overcame the US society like a tsunami (the USA before 9/11 was a very, dramatically different, country from the post 9/11 USA).
This is all relevant to understand the current Neocon stance: while they have been successful in putting down the “revolt of the MAGA serfs”, Russia, which used to be run by arguably the most corrupt ruling class on the planet for decades (imho: from Krushchev on and including Eltsin) suddenly also revolted!
That was categorically unacceptable to the Neocons.
By the way, it is interesting to note that while now we have irrefutable evidence that Russia did not interfere with US elections, the Neocons almost instinctively make a connection between the “revolting MAGA serfs” inside the USA and the “revolting Russian serfs” outside. And, truth be told, I would argue that the people of the USA and the people of Russia have the exact same enemy. The difference is that the US political system, a truly totalitarian system, cannot be subverted from the inside, but it can very much be defeated externally (if only because this system is BOTH non-viable – it is based on exploitation and imperialism – AND non-reformable – because it is absolutist in nature).
Fundamentally, the Neocon contempt, hatred and fear of Russia is no different than their contempt, hatred and fear of the “deporables”. For those who view the world through an “us vs them” ideological prism all the “non-us” are dangerous “thems” which need crushing.
Conclusion: we have what we have
Andrei Martyanov is absolutely correct – the US is run by absolutely ignorant, incompetent and outright evil narcissists. For such people, expertise is not at all a desirable trait, if anything, it is potentially very dangerous. Loyalty, which in the Neocon context means “corruptibility”, is much more desirable. One example to illustrate the point:
It was not enough for the Neocons to take control of US think tanks and academia. Even RAND, AEI, CSIS & Co. was “too scary” for them, hence their own creation of the so-called “Institute for the Study of War” which is not an institute and which does not study anything, least of all, wars (Neocons have zero military expertise). And now even Russian (!!!) sources refer to the “studies” of this “institute” as something credible. Such is the power of the media.
Which is hardly surprising if we think of what kind of expertise modern does a journos have? At best, they are only actors. At worst, clueless presstitutes.
Again, Martyanov is right, the overwhelming majority of the political commentators and talking heads out there get their “understanding” of war from Tom Clancy books, Hollywood propaganda movies and clever marketing by the US MIC and Pentagon. At best, these journos can write summaries, find “angles”, including the obligatory “human interest” bull, and they have *access*. But what they don’t know, or even care, is that access is granted only to the doublepluspoliticallycorrect journos. Mostly, they have no morals at all and they don’t care. They are in for the money, nothing else. My only objection to the term “presstitute” is that it is very unfair to prostitutes (who, after all, usually DO deliver what they get paid for!). Sadly, I can only agree with the French philosopher Alain Soral (who is being viciously persecuted for his views, but no “human rights” organization would ever dare to defend, if anything, they want him lynched!) who said that there are only two type of journos left: prostitutes and unemployed.
That is true of all of Zone A.
So no, as somebody who has seen all this from the inside (I had plenty of journalist friends, by the way, I know that world too), I can only fully confirm what Martyanov repeats over and over again: all of Zone A of 2023 is run by either the Neocons or their loyal servants, and the past 30 years or more have seen an absolutely epic, historical, cataclysmic brain drain from the Western ruling classes.
One last thing: it gives me no joy to write the above. Frankly, if it was just a purely internal US issue, I would not care very much (their country, their problem, their choice). But that reality is the single biggest threat to our entire planet right now. And it absolutely terrifies me when I see how few people out there understand and realize that Martyanov is quite correct. And, for the record, there are plenty of topics in which Martyanov and I disagree, so I am not siding with him because I consider him a friend (which I do) or because he is my “maître à penser” (which I don’t). No, I fully back him on this issue because for as long as the USA will be the proverbial “monkey with a (nuclear) hand grenade” the Neocons will continue to represent an existential threat to our planet. And with the Neocons in total control of Zone A, that risk will remain with us until these crazies are sent back to some basement or they blow up the entire northern hemisphere.
Andrei
***
Okay, it still is Friday, so some music is in order (if only to lighten the mood!) Today I want to share with you what I think was the best rock singer plus best rock guitarist in history, bar none. I am talking about Ronnie James Dio and Richie Blackmore, of course, who both reached the peak of their creativity when they joined forces in the (alas short-lived) “Rainbow” group. But, rather than post a few videos as usual, I will post three links:
The first two to their best best albums:
Rainbow Rising: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6ogdCG3tAWjZkXZvDRPOfgOLgYU18MaC (playlist)
and
Rainbow On Stage: https://youtu.be/O75GMtgl1l4 (single video)
And, finally, a rare but absolutely amazing concert of Rainbow in 1977: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYFAAfhX89-cwT7ejpxzy3AaTgoBS_8uR (playlist)
And, just as there can be no “Pink Floyd” without Roger Waters and there cannot be any “Deep Purple” without Richie Blackmore, there cannot be any real “Rainbow” without Ronnie James Dio. It is too bad that Blackmore’s ego simply could not stand sharing the stage with a (actually small!) giant like Dio (who was also a very kind and gentle person, quite unlike Blackmore). Their collaboration was short, but I do believe that it was the most talented duo ever seen on a rock stage. Enjoy!
“these crazies are sent back to some basement ”
Great article.
But the big question still remains open…who (AND HOW) is going to send back these crazies to the basement ?
Maybe the blowback from a NATO defeat in the Ukraine?
But that is also *exactly* why they might prefer a “Samson option” to defeat…
hopefully they strongly consider the Judas option
“In reality, the big competitive advantage of the Neocons over the “old guard” was not brains, but drive. ”
This is indeed central to understanding everything that has happened in the US since 1980: the lunatic fringe of the “Left” and the “Right” might evoke revulsion and derision from the normies, but that’s irrelevant because the “crazies” have a single-minded focus on their goals that normies can barely fathom, much less counter. The Western elites are in fact elite, but their elite status is based not on talent or perspicacity, but on amoral pragmatism and unbreakable devotion to “winning” by any means necessary.
The same thing has happened in India. The Nazi loving( literally their founder Sarvarkar was not just a big fan of Nazis but also based his organization on Nazi ideas and wrote about it) Hindu militant party which Modi heads which considers Muslims, Christians should be second class citizens who live at the mercy of the pure upper caste Hindus.
These were considered crazies in the basement but have taken over the state institutions and now for last 9 years political power.
While Modis two sensible decisions in his entire political career ie aligning with Russia and instituting a digital govt owned payment gateway is the UPI for card and digital payments obscure this reality to foreign observers.
They too are marked by absolute relentlessness in pursuit of their goals which no other political grouping has been able to match.
I really don’t think Modi would say that Muslims and Christians are second class citizens. India is fairly diverse politically, and they have had bad experiences with Gates previously. And like you said, they keep on making the right decisions.
U Toronto Munk School on European and Russian affairs was a joke. Little did I know at that time that Soros’s close bud Munk had pushed the university to reallocated funds meant for a center of ethics to his pet project. The journalism Prof was a close personal friend of Chrystia Freeland, Soros’s only official biographer, among other things. Didn’t know any of that when I applied, just wanted to spend a couple years at the bosom of academia, studying the rise of national identity in central Asia and progress of the EAEU. But there was no academic there, just foregone conclusions, conceit, and russophobia. They didn’t even have the central Asia program advertised on their site. Mainly learned how those elites think, Rhodes scholars and certainly agents of some kind, Intel, davos, both? One of our guest lecturers was Parubyi, billed as a Democratic reformer. I complained to the ombudsman, got mysteriously deregistered from the university over the summer. Have been in self imposed exile since. Not sure how much I trust Putin though either. Guy just crossed himself backwards at Bogoyavleniya
Could you please post a link to the video showing that?
Thank you!
Andrei
Wow! Thanks for sharing that. Feels like a complete takeover of all institutions by neofascists and their spineless and brainless “yes” men and women. Canada sadly is in the forefront of this.
Oh, I know what you are referring to. Yes, indeed, Putin did cross himself the wrong way, in church while being filmed. How much anybody can deduce on that basis alone is very open to discussion.
Well, to open the discussion, I would say that it completely trivial, not even worth mentioning. To do so would be to enter ‘Bigfoot’, and ‘Men in Black’ territory. (Not that I don’t think there is possibly some phenomena behind those, but nothing worth discussion apart from strictly within a paranormal studies group).
“Not sure how much I trust Putin though either. Guy just crossed himself backwards at Bogoyavleniya”
There is a simple explanation for that – not claiming it is correct, but it’s perfectly feasible.
There are two factors which intersect.
1. Putin is Left Right equilibrated. His judo instructor Rakhlin tells us that, unlike most judoists, Putin had equal facility in attacking and throwing from either the left or right – a considerable advantage to him, of course. He also chooses to wear his wrist watch on the right wrist, not left. He was able to confuse his opponents in judo [as he still can politically of course], but because they could never predict which side he would attack or throw from. He could switch very fast and easily between them.
2. We have an automatic function component in our brains, what the psycho-philosopher Coin Wilson called The Robot. It takes over for us for many actions once they have become ingrained, like driving a car. Once you’ve done it for while, you dont think “brake pedal, ok, clutch down, gear here”, the Robot does it while you are thinking of a problem at work. Given all Putin has to think of these days, I have no doubt the crossing of himself was being directed by the robot, which in him has equal facility with left and right and just mixed them up.
sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. !!! :-)
If President Putin is fully ambidextrous then this is almost certainly the explanation. The requirement to artificially choose one side over the other, for writing and so forth, can make an ambidextrous person unconsciously do some things back to front. Even though one fully intends to use a particular hand for a task, sometimes the other hand just randomly takes over.
President Putin is often said to be unpredictable, but this is not the case if one has some understanding of the mindset of the Japanese samurai. In this regard he’s a genius and a true master. It is a great tragedy for Japan they are unable to act with any degree of independence at the present time. A foreign leader with such a deep affinity for Japanese culture is unlikely to occur again. Spitefully removing his Judo qualifications on the orders of the United States brings great shame on the Kōdōkan and the Japanese government.
I actually dont think VV is unpredictable at all. I think that is said by those who have absolutely no understanding of him, of how his mind works, nor of the Russian mind set. If you study him you can see he is actually perfectly predictable, according to his own set of rules and parameters.
Re the “ambidextrous”, ,he has, to my knowledge at least, not spoken of it. It was his beloved coach and mentor Rakhlin, who told of this re his judo. I watched my son handle this same issue – no pressure, but he had to learn how to cope with a spacial discoordination problem and his therapist advised choosing a hand to write with. He chose the right because, as he said, “you can see where you have been and where you are going”. He was prevented in secondary school by his tennis teacher from avoiding a backhand stroke by just switching hands for forehand strokes. He was told it was unfair to his opponents ~~ He never did play tennis after that. :-)
Ambidexterity is a blessing, not least because you can comfortably switch to the other hand if you’re carrying something. I also chose the right hand for writing, because most things are designed for right handed people. You can have some minor coordination problems when you’re young, but they’re easily remedied.
As far as strategy is concerned I don’t believe that President Putin has a primarily ‘Russian mind set’. He has a life sized statue of Jigoro Kano in his home, and he has made Judo the mainstay of his life, which is to say that he’s a traditional budoka, who studies the martial arts as a spirtual discipline (alongside his Orthodox faith).
Only another master, with an equivalent level of skill, has any real chance of understanding his methodology. After he has acted it is possible to make some retrospective judgements, and according to my very limited understanding he has never once departed from the ideals and strategic methods of the samurai.
Kano became an educationalist because he was a passionate Eurasianist, whose dream was to combine the best of the Orient with the best of the Occident, which he believed was exemplified by Ancient Greece. Systematising Jūjutsu was in fact just the first stage of this project.
You said “As far as strategy is concerned I don’t believe that President Putin has a primarily ‘Russian mind set’” — I was thinking that, to varying extents, we tend to share some national characteristics, partly inherited consciousness {thank you President Putin for that concept} and also just the systems we are bathed in and grow up in. We cannot help but absorb many of those, but as we grow we integrate others, drop some, and integrate our own personal growth. But some national characteristics we all have, if we grow up among our own people, I do believe.
I learned something of myself when I read in a history of 8-900 yrs back, of how, when the Danes / Irish used to invade the shores of Gwynedd to raid for cattle and people, we could pack up and disappear in a matter of a couple of hours, to re-appear when danger was past. I saw myself in that :-)
I agree…. I have broken my right arm three times! I’m right handed…. only broke my left arm once.
I guess that makes me a right handed klutz with “metric” steel plates… ;-)
In the process I was forced to learn to use my left hand to write, clean myself up, etc… when I write with my left hand I need to think about it, but it works fine. However, if I write with my left hand naturally, that is without thinking about it, it comes out in a mirror image of the right. I can put it up to a mirror and read it.
I can understand how an ambidextrous person would behave that way.. the “center” would be to the left of the right hand and to the right of the left hand.
Ever watched Leo Messi play? Shoot at the goal? Exactly the same way. Watch how his shots curl…
Also, to my understanding Putin came to his support (I’m not sure I’d say faith) of the church fairly late, so might not have the automatic habit of crossing himself one way or the other. (I’ve been told Catholic and Orthodox do it differently.) I don’t recall any mention of it in his autobiography of some 20 years ago.
I don’t think it matters, His integrity is sufficiently proven, but he never claims to be infallible.
Angry or stupid men will be defeated in battle as well as in life. The Russians are up to bat and they certainly look to be the winners…
yes, but not before they do A LOT of damage (Hitler)
How much is Russia going to take before they turn it loose?
https://folkpotpourri.com/the-folly-of-misjudging-the-bear/
Please don’t post just a link, but please add a personal comment
thank you
The USA are a large self-organizing, self-correcting national system. Every nation is. People who feel they must control in order to be secure get neither. Large systems do not allow that. Real control, the kind people like, is self-organized and distributed. Faith in Dharma, The Motherland, is needed.
The USA are a large self-organizing, self-correcting national system
You gotta be kidding, right?
How is total Neocon control “self-correcting”?
That is EXACTLY the kind of slogans Neocons use to brainwash the people of the US…
Faith in Dharma, The Motherland, is needed.
To each his own. My faith is only in God. YMMV of course…
Yes the neocons may be an emergent property of the USA political system, and they will be tested by evolutionary processes and be found wanting in the evolutionary sense. The state department and treasury will win the Darwin prize.
Sending the US dollar out in to combat to destroy Russia without combined arms, allies, mfg capacity was pure madness. Total war is a more serious business than we know.
Motherlands change as we will be seeing in 404. How can anyone put it’s faith in it.
As far as Dharma is concerned a Dharma of a warrior is to kill on command as is explained in the popular conception of Gita. An inherently flawed system.
Your dislike for India, specifically the Hindus and Modi is clear… Please don’t pollute threads with your opinion that has nothing to do with this conversation topic. seriously
But Masr has a point on the Gita. That is how Google interprets it. I searched “Gita” with Wiki and Wiki asked, “What is the meaning of the Gita.” Google’s response: “Do must do your dharma, be true to your role.” To me, the Gita is about our relationship with God, and the battle-field is the mind. But not so much for Google, and those that run it.
Your ‘ever-changing’ nations ‘permeating’ each other theory, which you have repeated in other threads, is not supported by any kind of evidence. Moreover, your understanding of the Bhagavad-gītā seems to be slight to non-existent. It might perhaps be better if you were to confine your pronouncements to subjects in which you actually have some expertise.
“The USA are a large self-organizing…”
Change the present tense of the statement to a past tense, and I would agree with you.
The last time the American system appeared to be able to make a correction in change of direction was in the Presidential election of 1932, when it changed from Wall Street Hoovervilles to FDR’s New Deal. No such change of direction has occurred from Truman to the present. The deep state formed during WW2, and by the 50’s the Republican hero-president was warning of the Military Industrial Complex.
I was thinking about that time, because 1932 is the last effective signal that America was a functioning democracy. A democracy is a government of the people and therefore can change direction when the people decide that a new deal is needed. The birth of the Republican Party and the election of Lincoln was one such sign of living democracy, FDR’s New Deal was another. After FDR, I do not see any sign that the American system retains this capability to change direction.
I’m afraid your self-correcting mechanism rusted shut a long time ago.
Sorry Rev, but it cannot self correct. That’s like saying an airliner in a downward spin passed the point of no return due to forces of inertia and gravity can self correct.
it’s an impossibility because of the factors it is made up of. Imagine a train free rolling down hill, gaining speed every second. Then suggest it might just roll to a stop.
The current system of the Anachronistic Old World West Empire cannot self correct, because of the very characteristics that make it what it is, and w ich have driven it to where it is now. The train is reaching maximum velocity, the brakes are busted, and the end is irreversible and inevitable.
My wife asked me once, how do we fix this?
I thought for a bit.. then the answer came to me:
“In Europe they fix these things with wars… I’m afraid the US is cruising for another Civil War. I just hope it won’t affect our property values (and 401Ks) too much”
Nothing like a good war to get rid of the Status Quo… lose the war.. half the gov. gets kaputized (there goes half the lawyers) then change the law (there go the other half of the lawyers).
Getting rid of the lawyers is always a great start.
Marines are not a branch of DoD or a separate service, they are in the Dept. of the Navy.
Regarding the military and foreign policy expertise of MSM reporters, two factors caused that precipitous decline: 1) The US ended the draft — once upon a time, boys and girls, almost every adult male in every profession including journalists had served in some branch of the military for at least two years — and now almost no reporter knows anything about the military at all; 2) Dismal pay for almost every working journalist and the laziness factor — there is no money in becoming an expert, but there’s good money is parroting the party line.
Also it’s too ironically precious to not mention: Ronald Reagan’s college degree was in economics and sociology = “paleoliberal”, Carter’s was a generic Bachelor of Science (the Naval Academy did not give specialized degrees when Carter attended) = “paleoconservative”.
Carter also studied Nuclear Engineering at Georgia Tech. Didn’t get a degree, I think he left for the Navy Academy instead. Neither the program nor the school was paleoliberal. From his bio, he served in the Navy as a sonar, gunnery and engineering officer in submarines, and later worked assigned to the Atomic Energy Commission designing power plants for naval vessels. (https://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/about_us/naval_service)
I too perceive a strong generational shift. I think Reaganism and Thatcherism created powerful oligarchs in Zone A, and strengthened existing ones. It was like what happened in Russia during the Yeltsin years.
I have a question though: Is this a slow evolutionary shift, or is what you are describing are puppets in the puppet show? And if so, who is (or are) the puppet-master(s)?
Klaus Schwab has boasted on camera how over 50% of the Canadian Parliament consists of alumni of his “leadership” program, and this is also more or less true of other Zone A countries. But Schwab himself I think is a puppet in a pyramid of puppets. There are secret groups like the Bilderbergs of which not much is know. And when ownership is traced, almost everything is owned by 3 or 4 companies such as Vanguard and BlackRock which themselves are faceless and probably fronts.
I know this is not an easy question, but I have seen the truth discredited and buried by mixing fact with outrageous fiction, and then lumping it all together and discarding it all as “conspiracy theory”. Even the term “conspiracy theory” triggers discomfort in my as I write it.
Logically the above shift must have been coordinated at some level? Or else excessive consumerism and watching too much TV just turned people into idiots…
Andrei, what do you think?
I think that Schwab and his gang have been made obsolete and are, frankly, irrelevant.
Ditto for the WEF which a boogeyman used to hide the real issues.
In fact, all the “Schwab paranoia” is rather cultish in its mindset.
You asked :-)
If Schwab and the WEF are irrelevant boogeymen used to hide the real issues…
Then who do you see as the real agenda-setters, and what are the real issues? And how best do we fight them?
Hmm.. I really think that is a most interesting thought.
Maybe write about it?
Hopefully the site won’t get shut down.
“This triggered a precipitous decline in the competence of the US ruling class.” I would have said that this has a good side to it. Why? This will reduce the imperial status and decrease the geopolitical relevance of the US. There has always been disenchantment with the US on account of Vietnam and Latin America but now it has increased exponentially. Things must get worse before they get better. People’s eyes are being opened. I for example, only mildly suspicious, didn’t realize for a long time what was happening, as is described so well here.
Then I read the last paragraph, only to be reminded that the US and its elites pose a grave danger to humanity.
“While Trump proved to be sub-pathetic by any measure, the fact that a majority of US citizens were willing to prefer him to the “Neocon & Woke diva” Clinton…”
Trump lost the popular vote. Electoral College fvckery got him in.
You are totally missing the point :-)
I don’t particularly understand the ‘lost popular vote’ calls. Is the president of US elected by popular vote? No it’s not. How then has it any relevance?
Electoral college is what defines US electoral system.
In the passed US S. 1169 Strategic Competition Act of 2021, Sec. 136, (f) Authorization Of Appropriations.—”There is authorized to be appropriated, for each of fiscal years 2022 through 2026, $170,000,000 for ongoing and new programs in support of press freedom, training, and protection of journalists.”
This money from the US Government is distorting western media’s news reporting tremendously, especially during severe decline of hard news readership and competitive electronic news website incomes. Ten years ago, there was a cacophony of news media doomsday cries. Have you heard any lately? Uncle Sam came to the rescue! Except that you had to sell your souls.
“Prostitutes or unemployed”
Having lived through these times since Jimmy Carter myself here in the U.S., having seen events unfold before my eyes, I must say this essay is an excellent and concise summary of U.S. history over the past forty something years. I must say “kudos” to the Saker for a great piece of work.
p.s. Dangerous too is that the Neocon thinking has trickled down into mainstream American thought. We are no longer talking about just a few nut jobs at the top…….
Thank you! It is nice that somebody does realize that this is, in fact, a very concise summary, considering the topic.
I am more used to folks moaning about “too long an essay” (which just tells me that they are not my target audience).
Thank you for your kind words!
Andrei,
From what you have accurately pointed out, is it possible also to draw the following inescapable conclusions?
1. Money which was poured into the think-tanks came not from the Neocon minions themselves but their paymasters, who are presumably very wealthy people.
2. Therefore “big money” of some variety wanted and presumably still want to “take over” US foreign policy. The money paid in is an investment seeking return.
3. Greed and arrogance drive big money.
So we are forced to conclude:
4. Unbridled greed and arrogance of certain people are creating difficulties for billions of people around the world.
Your opinion will be greatly appreciated!
1) yes
2) yes
3) yes
4) and yes again
I agree with every point you make.
Actually, the root of most evil on our planet is usury and its “byproducts”.
I recommend Michael Hudson as THE authority on this topic :-)
Kind regards
Brilhante Andrei, como sempre.
Pra complementar, cito o que o apostólica Paulo escreve a seu irmão Timóteo em 1 TM 6:10
“…o amor ao dinheiro é raiz de todos os males”
Brilliant Andrei, as always.
To complement, I quote what the apostolic Paul writes to his brother Timothy in 1 TM 6:10
“…the love of money is the root of all evil”
O corretor ortográfico me pregou uma peça:
O correto do versículo é: o amor ao dinheiro é raiz de todos os males
The spellchecker played a trick on me:
The verse is correct: the love of money is the root of all evil
@ The Saker
Thanks for this absolutely brilliant article! I am spreading your article out to my friends.
@Naresh
This evil caused by avarice and greed has been predicted long ago in the Bible:-
“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”
1 Timothy 6:10
I agree completely with The Saker that the Neocons are an existential threat to our planet, to humanity.
Much of that ‘think tank’ money is recycled taxpayer money.
The flow goes …. taxpayer to government to defense industry to think tank. Another branch goes from defense industry to congressional election donations.
Then both the congress and the think tanks agree that more taxpayer money has to go to the defense industry.
An absolutely brilliant piece of work by The Saker. Thank you very much, and I mean that with great sincerity.
You have a very real gift for sharing the Truth in a powerful and particulary persuasive manner. I will definitely download and make copies of this magnificent work so that I can reference it and hopefully develop a more well developed comprehension of all the information you share for my own understanding, and also hopefully to persuade other humans capable of responding to Truth.
I’m also going to make another much deserved donation as a token of appreciation.
Again, thank you for this.
It is a brilliant piece. Explains things logically and makes me glad there are people who can see right through the facade – and that I’m not mad for believing similarly.
As for ” the Elite” – another word captured and bastardised by a self serving band of cretins to make themselves seem above everyone else. To me, Elite signifies someone at the top of their abilities or who have proved themselves, moral, honest, aware and someone to be looked up to – like cream rising to the top
The current so called elites are more like the scum on top of fouled pond water, or the slag on top of molten metal, and I refuse to use the word Elite in any way when describing them.
I will chime in on the subject of “political science”, which I have a degree in. You can walk into any “political science” department in the United States and quickly uncover a filthy orgy of the freakiest neo-liberal and Neocon propagandists on Earth. I once had a professor who preached to the class that the US was “uncoditionally viable” and could “take on the entire planet at once and win.” In reality, Washington could not even take on Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time without going bankrupt. And any real attempt at fighting Russia and China simultaneously would result in the USA’s nuclear annihilation.
So, yes, the US intelligentsia (we can lump together mass media journalists, think tankers, and university “social science and humanities” professors here) are nothing but shameless propagandists. Whether they are all actually arrogant, delusional morons, I am not certain. Simply because an educated person can easily play the role of an arrogant, delusional moron to earn a paycheck. This raises the question, then, of who is really responsible for the neo-liberal/Neocon propagandists. Ultimately, that blame lies with those who have bought and own them. A group of incredibly power-mad lunatics that really do want to rule the entire world with an iron fist, just like how they dominate their own country and its overseas satellites. I am, of course, referring to the plutocratic USA’s billionaire oligarchs.
No, not USA… the oligarchs that are the issue are Western Europe based. American Oligarchs are Nouveau Oligarchs.
The money changers in London have been at this for centuries… why do you think the UK is so nuts about the Ukraine? The fact that Russia has shown it doesn’t need the global money exchange system built around London has become an existentialist issue.
If the World doesn’t need London’s markets and banks and glolbalists then there is nothing the UK can offer.
At least the USA has resources, we can make it strictly on our own, as Trump showed. But the UK is completely hosed, lost, done for, toast, sold out a long time ago.
DRIVE? Is that anything like Chutzpah?
nope
Why does the West hate Russia Ask Borrell, he said it “Russia fights to the end” and we all know to beat Russia we must kill every one of them. The West tried many times as this blog has repeated the invasions which Russia defeated once or twice every century. Our education system elevated every defeat that we suffered into a victory and blamed Russia the victim for littering their land with our dead.
The Catholic church attacked Russia the Godless Soviets, the next Armageddon, the Untermensch. The education system even convinced the other Slavs who hail from the Russian tribes that they were only worthy to be slaves or servants. Some Slavs like the quislings Croats and Poles want to be Germans and even teach their children to hate their brothers in the East. Our education system was no different maybe a bit more subtle but it was as Nazi as the school system in Germany during 1934-45. Everywhere where Britain rule the policy was “Better that people of non-assimilative . . .race should not come to Canada, but rather that they shall remain of residence in their country of origin, and do their share, as they have in the past, in the preservation and development of the empire”.
Why the hate of Putin who puts every Western leaded to shame. He is intelligent, diplomatic, and well read. Putin inherited a political system entirely created by US “advisers” whose sole purpose was to further oppress and exploit the Russian people. The human and economic costs of the Gorbachev and Eltsin years can only be compared to the effects of a major war. And yet, out of this horror, came a leader whose loyalty was solely to the Russian people and who set out to liberate Russia from her foreign oppressors. We hate him because he did not let us partition his country. He organized the BRICS to challenge the US petrol dollar, the World Bank and the IMF. We hate him because he rearmed Russia
These people are not stupid. It is an act. America is a subjugated country at this time. Here in California we have Gavin Newsome as governor. This is the same man that destroyed San Francisco. We have a demented loser for a president who probably did not legitimately win the 2020 election, that would mean all the laws passed and execute orders signed are voidable. We have 2 dubious elections in a row, and the next will be the same because of mail in ballots. John Federman is the senator from PA after a debilitating stroke. Kamala Harris is incapable of logic or wisdom.
The neocons that want to destroy Russia are doing their darn best at finishing off the US. Yes a nuclear holocaust is probable. Faith in Christ costs nothing and will secure eternal life past this land of the dead.
Happy Chinese New Year.
What a masterpiece.
This is THE single best explanation I have seen for why the people running the U.S. and EU are doing such outrageously stupid and suicidal things.
I have been tearing my hair out for months, trying to figure out how and why things could be happening the way they are, and getting worse all the time. Where did it come from, the massive, hysterical HATRED of an entire society toward Russia and Russians? A hatred so fierce that it leads people to risk their own annihilation in a nuclear holocaust?
I am grateful to you for finally solving what has been for me a frustrating mystery. You have explained it very well. Alas, it all makes sense now.
With the lack of talent among the current generation of American elites, I wonder how many Americans just said no?
I was watching the movie Woodstock. A young Joan Baez singing gospel tunes is must see and hear. :) But, Woodstock NY is not all that terribly far away from Syracuse, NY, where, within a year, one Joe Biden had received his law degree. Roughly, the same generation.
Now, Joe Biden was certainly not at Woodstock. He obviously hated those people, and was always much closer to Ronald Reagan and Jesse Helms. But, if you watch that movie or just recall those times, you see a large swath of that generation of Americans who wanted nothing to do with America’s culture of war. There was a moral revolution within America at that time, and a large part of that generation took other paths away from the war machine and corporate America. And it lasted into following generations as well.
What effect does it have on the leadership quality of a nation when a large portion of not just one generation but several generations say no to the dominant ruling elite? One can argue about whether it was the better or worse part of the generation. Personally, I feel the part that wanted Peace and Love in the world was the better part, while the part that wanted to go to the other side of the world and napalm children was the worst part. But which ever way you see it, a fair bit of the potential leaders of the nation were just saying no.
Is Joe Biden all that was left? Is that what we are seeing in American leadership? Did a significant portion of the best minds of a generation just say no?
For me, it is always a mistake when any society, because of racism or sexism or some other form of hate, refuses to use all of the talent pool available to it to the benefit of the society. Is the final revenge of the Woodstock Generation that their refusal to join the war machine had the same effect of depriving the current leadership generations of America of a portion of the available talent, leaving America with Joe Biden?
Biden was neither with the anti-war generation nor with Reagan-Helms.
There was another group.
Biden was the 3rd way… a lawyer. Pretty much amoral and easy to corrupt. Biden was aligned with the Clintons.
Perhaps the fundamental issue is that we have lawyers working in Government.
We have way too many lawyers.. and people who take “degrees” in government and politics.
This is not to say that ALL lawyers are corrupt.. my neighbor is a lawyer, but he deals with contracts, so he serves a useful need in our economy… but many lawyers are simply a waste of resources.
I first encountered those who would later be referred to as the Neo-Cons when they were the sycophants of the late “Scoop” Jackson, a U.S. Senator form Washington State. They were, in fact, war hawk Democrats, noting that the Democratic Party used to be known as “the war party.” They slithered into the Republican Party during the Reagan years and were well ensconced there by the end of Reagan’s second term. There has always been in American life an antithesis to American exceptionalism and the sense that America is an indispensable nation. Be breeding ground for those twin theses – exceptionalism and America as the indispensable nation – was among the Puritans of New England. Although “these people” lost their Christian veneer by the end of the 18th century, they kept their messianic zeal to remake America in their image, which they did. One can hear their voice in Wilson’s “make the world safe for democracy.” The Neo-Cons joined this pathogen, a gain-of-function, if you will and transformed far too many Americans into the new and more lethal Neo-Con version of American exceptionalism and America the indispensable nation. The Neo-Cons re-energized the apostate messianic zeal of the apostate Puritans. Their Project for the New American Century and Full-Spectrum Dominance are their manifestos.
Stellar performance, Andrei. We took off down to Boston for dinner around 4, didn’t make it back up until after 1:30am (party we dropped in on) and Martyanov and Saker and Larry Johnson had their most prolific days EVER. This piece tops the list with the past history going back to the 80s and 90s in DC (I was there, hell, I installed their new phone systems all over DC after the breakup of Ma Bell) and it’s like a walk back through my DC life. And every word is true in this article. Thanks, Andrei, you’re a real guy and a great resource and writer. Those qualities must run in the family of guys name of Andrei, heh!
I wanted to share something related to the topic at hand, that my husband heard the Japanese TV say last week. “A man,” he says, “Comes up to a pond and claps his hands once. Startled, the birds all take wing. The pond’s carp all gather, anticipating food, and a lady appears from the tea house nearby and asks, ‘Can I help you?'”
The man, he says, is Putin. The world is hanging on to every word he says. The collective West panics, letting their imaginations run wild. The Chinese come forward, anticipating new deals for needed resources. Iran and others offer a hand.
Nice essay today, Andrei! I’ll share it with the deplorables in my family. John Michael Greer would be in perfect agreement with you about the Western elites. He distinguishes himself from “conspiracy theorists” based on this observation: all these terrible sorts things happen due to pure idiocy among elites, not cold rational planning. Amazingly, this frenzied idiocy appears like clockwork each time an empire reaches this terminal phase of its development.
Andrei Lobaczewski, who wrote the book Political Ponerology, also emphasized that it is incompetence that brings thoroughly corrupted rulerships down, as like you noted, they promote incompetent but ideologically compatible cronies and fire anyone that disagrees with their dangerously deluded ideas. Their early successes lead them further away from sanity.
He said that when that happens, get out of the way, because it is really messy when they implode. (My restatement of the basic idea.) Greer says that even when things look really hopeless for them, they’ll try a Plan B: pellmell to their island estates or such; but let’s hope they don’t get tempted by the Sampson option., given how easy it was to bring in Friedman, for example.
Facts are facts.
please don’t post such truisms.
or, at least, add a personal comment
thank you
This article offers some answers in areas I’ve contemplated for many years which make a great deal of sense putting it all together. Particularly what kind of person would waste such tremendous potential for such a cursed path? Its all so grim, the more knowledge you gain/ the more sorrow one has indeed. I did find a sliver of hope in realizing this trance has been effected by so few and has so little it continues on as the ramifications of hubris fail to hold up the sky. Even the currency, the godform our society truly believes in, is debased by the hoarding class and the archetype of narcissism which passes as the ethos while pretending to be the Logos.
The Saker,
I basically agree with your assessment. So, let me share some of my personal experiences with, I think, a different perspective on the same issues coming from you and other commenters.
As retired American engineer with international experience. I have interacted with normal citizens and a few business execs all over the world (but no elites). I recall that, in virtually all cases, the people I met were friendly. After a little personal social interaction, it seemed like visiting old friends back home.
But, about 3 decades ago, I recall observing initial hints of significant changes in America. At the time, those changes appeared to (a) involve major shifts in policy and (b) rapid implementation timing. I saw the onset of financialized capitalism and overseas capital shift. I saw 9/11 twin tower event and the travel restrictions and more personal monitors on citizens. I saw both the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war and all of their unwarranted carnage and cost to Iraq, USA and its allies.
On the USA domestic front, there is high unattended street crime combined with low funded police in some cities. Covid and Covid rules are enforced without evidence leading to isolation. There is serious stratification between “normal” and “elite” which creates significant stress in the society, which leads biases in financial, legal and social interaction. There have been fake court rulings, that are obvious miscarriage of justice. And the trend toward more surveillance, more swat team actions, more arrest without charges just seems to keep growing.
In summary, the normal USA citizens, without doubt, are under extreme social and emotional stress. Dr Mattius Desmet, a psychology professor in Belgium has researched this phenomenon he calls Mass Formation Psychosis. He has observed that nagging stress, uncertainties and isolation can affect thought processes of large groups who are experiencing similar stresses. He says that the Mass Formation Psychosis can cause confused thoughts and actions.
I spent the last three paragraphs above just to say this:
Please forgive the USA citizens! They do not know what they do.
I suggest that the USA citizens are good in their hearts. However, they tend to be gullible to the “misinformation” provided from the elite. Let an elite labeled as “leader” tell the USA citizens that war is good, and the USA citizens will typically agree or sit by while the government implements their plan anyway.
How can the good USA citizens be reached and stripped of this insidious Mass Formation Psychosis. I don’t know or whether it can be resolved. But, to me, these is one path to solving it. That is, start reaching out to Russia, and maybe others, who are very devout Christians, albeit a bit more orthodox version. If Russia is truly free of the USSR years, then shouldn’t Russian and Americans basically have similar beliefs.
I find it totally unbelievable that a nation that devoutly touts the importance of Christianity within its history (USA) is even considering a war, let alone a deadly world war, with the most devout Christian nation in the world (Russia). I am an old but highly spiritual person in my retirement, so I can’t help but feel that this is a psychosis. I also believe that Christians in both nations must find a way to reach out to each other and join
together to communicate and get to know each other in person, not thru a surrogate.
Ideally, the people of the world need to talk to each other, get well acquainted, become aware of issues for each other. Then organize further and work with each other to eliminate the neocon type of pattern offered by the elite and strive to resolve to live as a peaceful and spiritual person, without having to tolerate so much with the elite goals. I like to think as a family not as a gang!
Please forgive the USA citizens! They do not know what they do.
Dear MrBill
Yes, what we see in the USA today is pretty awful, but no worse than what I saw in Russia in the 90s. So, as Dostoevsky wrote, we should judge a nation not by how low it can fall, but by how high it can rise. Right now things look terrible, but unless the Neocons blow up the entire northern hemisphere, the USA will survive this crisis and, like all other empires of the past, the USA will become a “normal”, if rich and powerful (it has natural and human wealth). So, please, do not lose hope!
Second, the people of the USA tried to get “change we can believe in” and “draining the swamp”. They got betrayed in both cases, but at least they TRIED!!! Compare that with the EU…
Finally, as Saint Paul wrote: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12) So our enemy is not another human being, but the dark spiritual powers which hate both God and His creation. Bottom line, this is not about the people of the US, or Russia, or any other people or ethnicity. It is a spiritual war which began 2000 years ago and which we are still waging.
I don’t know how/when this will all end, but I know that our struggle is not in vain. That I am sure of.
Kind regards and all the best
Andrei
Thank you for putting emphasis on the third leg of the triad. We can explain how Western elites became ignorant and incompetent. Nobody is talking about the evil part because we do not have the vocabulary or framework for such a discussion and hence give it short shrift. You can prevent ignorance and incompetence. Evil exists. You can not prevent it, you can just choose whether or not to fight it. Evil people have risen to prominence because not enough people stood in their way for whatever reason — greed, fear, apathy, even sympathy for evil. We celebrate historical figures who acted against evil in the past. Those who advocate against evil in the present get the prophet’s reception. Be strong and do not despair — it’s what evil wants you to do.
Be strong and do not despair — it’s what evil wants you to do.
EXACTLY!
What a great article!!! Thank you so much!
”Andrei Martyanov is absolutely correct – the US is run by absolutely ignorant, incompetent and outright evil narcissists.”
To claim that ruling elites in the US/West would be incapable stupid idiots is a bit thick. They have ruled the world for centuries and Saker claims that something changed during the Reagans administration! Well, possibly something, but not anything crucial. If he really thinks so he have no idea about the nature of the ruling elites of the West.
For example, Trump was easy prey for them, because he had no idea how powerful were his opponents. Were those who destroyed Trump stupid or incapable?
Even the WW1 was carefully planned by those same elites, for a similar reasons than the present crisis, which true purpose is WW3. Only difference is that now Russia is IMO stronger and better prepared – and has a good chance to win decisively this time. Much because the western narrative is crumbling with the advent of the Internet.
What comes to WW1, as you know, the rogue nation that time was Germany, not Russia. More than 100 years ago, as Russia in these days, Germany was vilified and targeted by propaganda. Preparations for war always start with the narrative.
So, also Sakers claims about deep rooted hatred of Russia based on ethnicity are groundless in this context – or did I misread him?
This has nothing to do with the ethnicity. It’s all about geopolitics and satanic values. And because present day Russia stands on the way of complete satanic control of the World, Russia is the enemy:
https://gorthodox.com/en/ne…
But was it so during the days of Yeltsin?
Another thing I don´t understand is Sakers adoring attitude to the rock music? To my knowledge Saker is a devout Orthodox?
This brings me to the strongest weapon of the West, soft power. I don’t say that all music is devilish – that would be senseless – there are the differences between the bands, and even genres. But rock scene in general has been without a doubt one of the most powerful tools in the hands of the globalists. I’m sure many of you are aware of this, so I’m not going to details here.
If Saker wants to escape reality with the help of the Rainbow, that’s absolutely his own business. But as a Christian myself I want to say that the western church has been ruined decades ago, much because of the soft power of the satanic West.
I would even argue that in the West, church has been used as a bridgehead, for the demise of traditional society and Christianity. I hope that similar development doesn´t take place in Russia.
This comment is slightly edited version of co-posted comment on Martyanovs blog.
@ Z Speller
“Even the WW1 was carefully planned by those same elites,”
The word is TREASON!!! Some interesting history from an old book dated 1973:
“At the close of World War I, when the leaders of the Western world met in the beautiful Hall of Mirrors to sign the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was compelled to deliver up all the gold she possessed in the Reich Bank of the nation. It would not be long, however, before much of America’s gold would move back again to Germany and to western Europe.
ln 1934, when legislation was passed prohibiting the American public from owning gold currency, the door was left wide open to the foreign holders of American dollars to claim gold in exchange for their paper. But even before this international stage was set, Representative Louis T. McFadden (R-Pa.), Chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency, made statements on June 10 of 1932 which indicated America’s gold was already moving back to Europe. His statements were recorded in the Congressional Record and pages 140-174 in H. S. Kenan’s book entitled The Federal Reserve Bank. Representative McFadden speaks of those on the other side of the water with a strong banking “fence getting the currency of the Federal Reserve Banks-exchanging that currency for gold and transmitting the gold to the foreign confederates.”
McFadden named the dates on which America’s gold was shipped to Germany:
On April 27, 1932, $750 thousand in gold was sent to Germany. One week later another $300 thousand in
gold was shipped to Germany the same way. In the middle of May of that year, $12 million in gold was
shipped to Germany. . . .Almost every week there was a shipment of gold to Germany-these shipments
are not made for profit.
Representative McFadden referred also to the comments of Senator Elihu Root:
Long before we wake up from our dreams of prosperity through an inflated currency, our gold which could
have kept us from catastrophe will have vanished, and no rate of interest will tempt it to return.
In his report to Congress, Louis McFadden asked the question,
Why should our depositors and our government be forced to flnance the munition factories of Germany and Soviet Russia?
Representative McFadden continued,
Gold was taken from the entrusting American people and was sent to Europe. In the last several months
$1,300,000,000 in gold has been sent to Europe every dollar of that gold once belonged to the people
of United States and was unlawfully taken from them.
As I weighed the words of Louis McFadden and other lawmakers, I also witnessed the fantastic scene of America’s vanishing gold. The record was unbelievable:
1949 – $24,500,000,000
1958 – $21 ,593,000,000
1959 -$20,478,483,000
1960- $19,420,997,000
196L – $ 17,667,587,000
1962-$.15,997 ,647,000
1965-$13,733,000,000
On and on the gold drain went, unabated. Then came the crisis in the spring of 1968. We were living in Europe at that particular time. On March 14, hysterical crowds of people crowded, screamed, and scrambled their ways to the windows of the banks of England, and to the bank windows of the sub-basements of Paris to exchange their paper for gold. On one single day, the crude and the cultured, the
peer and the peasant, carried off 200 tons of the precious metal. They stored it in secret places of their homes and deposited it in various banks in strongboxes labeled with fictitious names.
On that day Senator Everett Dirksen in conversation with Secretary of the Treasury Fowler, William McChesney Martin, and a dozen other senators said,
We have reached the bottom of the barrel.
It seemed like only yesterday when I spoke on monetary matters when America had $26 billion in gold in her treasuries.By June 30 of 1971, it had been reduced to $10.5 billion. Cantelon pgs 41-45
Treason!!!!!
Okay, you win. I bestow upon you the title of “dumbest comment of the thread”.
Maybe somebody will beat you, but you placed the bar pretty high, and it is going to be tough beat that :-)
Now that you got noticed on not one, but *two* blogs (bravo!), please don’t come back.
Thank you!
The monkeys that hold the organ grinders tin cup are stupid but it would be unwise to think that the organ grinders themselves are stupid. They write and play the music the monkeys and their audience dance to. And Russians freely admit they are outmatched in the propaganda war. Expertise you say? By way of deception thou shalt do war. That is their expertise and it should not be underestimated. It has a long lineage going back 3500 years to the Levites in Babylon. They are practiced, experienced, ice cold, ruthless, smart, tough, committed and very hard working. It is said that Lucifer is not some beast with horns and cloven hoofs breathing fire, he is a dapper and well mannered character who is everything you want him to be. In the past these people have set great armies, that were not their own, against one another and extracted their Hegelian dialect reward from the outcome. Russia is not feeling good about having to use their Christians to necessarily kill many other Christians who have been pitted against them. Not the same Christians but some kind of Christians nevertheless. And all directed by Jews. Is that not a strategic success of sorts? The moral war is the real war, the outcome of which will eventually follow the corruption spread by people who have expertise in corruption spreading matters. That is their game. Christ, the mildest human to have walked this earth (so we are told anyway), is reported to have said: (pick the Bible of your preference I use this one for effect)
Contemporary English Version
You Pharisees and teachers of the Law of Moses are in for trouble! You’re nothing but show-offs. You travel over land and sea to win one follower. And when you have done so, you make that person twice as fit for hell as you are.
I think Martynov accurately speaks of the proselytes and misses the proselyters. In this he misses the forest for the trees. The architects and directors of anachy are hidden far behind the scenes in a rarified world of their own, you will not find them on any mainstream list of the world’s richest persons or in any club or secret society. They are apart, they are not stupid, they are few, they are educated in world affairs differently. Full spectrum personal power is their god, money being merly one of the means to that end. They are like the smallest Russian nesting doll most deeply embedded in the doll group who choose to remain invisible. And they are the only doll that is not split in two. Mischaracterize, underestimate or remain inadequately aware of their presence at your own peril.
@ Befree
My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge Hosea 4
Loved your description of Satan!!! Very true!!! Thank you!!!!
Is it not shocking how easy we the Christian church are as cannon fodder?
And the words of Christ about:
Depart from me you workers of iniquity, I never knew you!?
Treason and more treason even in the house of the Lord!
“the USA before 9/11 was a very, dramatically different, country form the post 9/11 USA”
I somewhat disagree with that. The US was undoubtedly significantly degraded after 9/11 but many aspects were set up for that to happen. Using mathematics terms, instead of a “discontinuity” I’d talk about an acceleration of a trend that 9/11 triggered.
I lived in the US from 2000 and 2004 connected through academic institutions to the lunatics you are referring to. I observed the 2000 election, the bombings of the USS Cole and other ships (a starter to what was about to come) and several other signals of American decadence, in economics, the social “fabric” and other non-military aspects that make the health of a country.
What I can attest is that all the signs were there to introduce the “egg of the sake” that 9/11 finally became. A gigantic defence budget that had to be justified, an increasingly de-industrialized economy where quality jobs were replaced by precarious service jobs paying much less, a fake “war on drugs” that was already ongoing well before 9/11 and that served not to protect the youth but to justify prison to minorities or “undesirables”, money laundry to Wall Street and a too to control the Latin American backyard (Mexico, Colombia), etc.
As a foreigner of Caucasian traits (who passed as an ordinary American until I opened my mouth…) I witnessed the hatred and racism of both well-positioned “Liberal” people in Ivy-League Academic institutions of New England and the ordinary “Conservative” citizens from “rusted” and forgotten towns just 100 miles from the East coast.
Yes, also as a non-American, I agree. I had interactions with visiting Americans to England years ago, in my youth, and study of recent America history shows the same thing. It just hasnt been a clearly obvious.
Some excellent studies have shown that any idea, in order for it to take root and become influential in a social grouping, has to be taken on board, and taken to heart moreover, by 10% of the entire adult social group. Less than that, the idea can just fester away having no influence for years and years. But once it hits that Critical Mass Point of 10%, the growth is explosive, more than exponential.
It’s like the old adage of “we went bankrupt overnight in 18 years”. !!
I’ve been thinking for some time, that surely, in years down the track, this will be known as the Age of Stupidity and Ignorance.
All of our ills stem from stupidity, and the fact the terminally stupid are ruling the roost, from the Corridors of Power to village schools preaching cross genderism as biology is shown by the end result, which we see everyday across the social spectrum, from social ideologies, “cancel” cultures, collapsing economies, and unbridled indulgence in the dark emotions of racial hatred, Russophobia and all ethnic phobias.
What is stupidity, really? It isnt the result of an unfavourable limited intelligence inherited from parents of the same;. nor is it the result of damage to the instrument of thinking – for stupidity is a chosen thing, which is why the Buddha said it was a sin. And it is. It is a refusal to use the instrument and ability we have to think;. to understand what constitutes thinking and ensure that every child is taught it as far as that child can grasp it.
It is to reach beyond mere second-hand knowing {you know because someone told you} and even first-hand knowing {you know because you experienced something for yourself}, to reach understanding, which is to grasp all the elements which are part of and contributory to that which you observe, and the ways in which they interact upon and with each other to produce their final result.
How many do we see do that?. This was illustrated beautifully in the book and movie “The Big Short” which documented the banking collapse of 2008. We see one who does seek understanding – Michael Burry – taking his analysis of thousands fo home loans to banking houses to arrange a way to bet on shortening the housing loans market. Now, that market was trusted to be totally safe; that was held – from second hand knowing – to be so safe it was boring, unprofitable in the extreme. When he leaves a board room full of ‘”bright young things”, they roar with laughter at him, and spread the gossip for more laughs, at his perceived “stupidity”. But at no point do they seek understanding, go do some work, research, to learn what drove him to do what he did. Now that is stupidity, it was enacted across the spectrum and lost billions $$ from pension funds, private savings etc, etc.
Indeed, in another scene, a group of hedge fund managers, trying to understand, are berated by an acquaintance who says
“You are a part of it. Look at you, you dont see do you? You think these guys are on the level. They are STUPID, cant you grasp that?” And this was a chosen stance – as Buddha said, it was sinful.
We see nothing but rank utter stupidity all around, and indeed, it’s stupidity that is taught to the young, thus there is no chance this can self correct. It cant. It can only end in total annihilation. And the only those with understanding will have a hope of surviving. I agree with Martyanov 100% – and this article.
I might add, my working background was in medicine, and laboratory science. And across three Universities, across the science and medical and humanities departments, I saw nothing but utter crass stupidity. No nothings with their noses in the air, convinced they were the pick of society and so much better than the machine shop foreman who knew and understood every single inch of his work and all parts there of. I saw coming disaster from this 40 yrs ago. And, like Saker, I wish I had been wrong.
Two things that in my view explain why the Neocon are like this: Most if not all neocons are immigrants of mostly east European or central european peasant stock and who were dirt poor immigrants who came to the US – Such immigrants grow up on stories whether true or imagined about injustices and atrocities committed on them and their forefathers and are driven by a truly megalomaniacal desire for revenge and retribution – In most of their stories,it’s the Russians who are the villains and they are in their demented minds righting historical wrongs – Secondly the argument that the old world US was a far better place with higher quality people is a myth.What they really have is the same type of psychopaths for centuries together but now with the internet,the flow of information has allowed common people a real view of what their rulers really look like – It’s just a stupid argument where it’s always cool to blame the current generation as idiots and crazies where casting the oldies as some sort of enlightened crowd . They surely were not and that’s the same generation that waged a merciless war in Korea and Vietnam killing millions and unleashed the sex and drug addled counter culture wave that’s still wrecking the satanic US – The US is a cancer on earth in a metaphysical way and it getting wiped away with all its corrupt and degenerate population is kind of karmic justice to balance the scale
We love this quote by the American writer who Ezra Pound who was profoundly against US aggression:
“The real trouble with war (modern war) is that it gives no one a chance to kill the right people.”
‘…in the UK the entire British ruling class has been viscerally racist and russophobic for centuries!’
The British ruling class don’t hate Russians, they hate any outsider who stands in their way, and they regard all foreigners as untermenschen. They laugh at the disabled and they make monkey noises when they see dark skinned people. I’d like to see their heads mounted on pikes and their feudal castles reduced to rubble.
As long as the US Dollar and other Western currencies, owned and created by the “chosen Tribe”, are not overthrown, chaos, wars, and global sufferings will carry on unabated.
I’d like to chime in here, because it has struck me that when the article says NeoCons/Libs are ‘well funded’, it means that they are in fact the tool of/servant to big corporate interests. It is money that is driving the NeoCon/Lib locomotive. Absent that and they surely shrivel back to being just the obscure Mont Pelerin Society of old. NeoLiberalism is the maleable ideology of the ‘exhorbitant privilage’ of the hegemonic dollar, and the ideology designed to extend and deepen the plunder it has facilitated.
…
What rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slinks toward Bethlehem to be born?
I noticed of course, that the elephant in the room has not made its appearance – yet. Or may be it did, but assumed its special invisible form.
So, here’s a little magic want to make things appear from whence they have been disappeared. yes, I know it’s obvious, but I do have my own take.
Just as people suspect, but cannot prove (as it is unprovable, even if it is surmisable) the all powerful American jewish civil society, its rise – and precipitous decline – has something (or a lot) to do with the cognitive degradation and the deliberate disappearance of real smarts from among the ‘ruling classes”. Once upon a time, as evidenced from going back to old old issues of Commentary magazine, there were some smart cookies among the rising mandarins. Perhaps not always commendable, morally, like Kissinger, but there was brain power there, and there were political chops and legal expertise, and analytic thinking, going back to the days of Brandeis. Jewish lawyers, fater all, headed the most powerful Unions and were instrumental in making the ACLU a bastion of last resort for free speech.
Stephen Cohen is an excellent example of this class of Realpolitik people, some academic, some journalists and some political movers and shakers.
But then something happened. It’s easy to say, that Israel happened, but that’s only a part of the whole. yes, there was the Project for new American Century, and we know who its movers and shakers were and why. But even then, in the heady Clinton days, there was push-back – which came from among the jewish elites themselves as well as – surprise, surprise! – from the direction of israel (which also had a few strategic thinkers, though getting fewer by the day).
What happened, as is alluded to by the article, is that the once vaunted American education system got corrupted. Eviscerated, if you wish – its heart and brains slowly eaten away by continuing attempts to chip at the very concepts of western excellence. In the 21st century the process became more obvious – starting in elementary school, the public education system started crumbling from within, pulled down by a toxic combination of gigital double-speak, meme talk and focus stealing widget, which made the morphing of PC speech into outright woke nonsense all but guaranteed. Sadly, the society of educated people started bifurcating into a top 10% (which include the STEM specialties. populated by mostly Asian, increasingly NOT Jewish and small sliver of still well educated people with focus in the humanities, political science and economics).
People may not realize but for the past 20-25 years there has been a steady decline in the number of jewish students specializing in STEMS, with the exception perhaps, of Computer Science. Nowadays it’s only some of the most theoretical fields of eg Physics, that still have some people with jewish heritage (third of whom are israelis anyways with another third east Europeans including Russians) with very very few found in the engineering oriented fields (indeed, the last 3 Jewish engineers I met – on whatever level – were all originally from Israel, with one a Russia who made the usual israeli “layover’ as they call it).
What this means for the topic at hand is that the influx of people with analytic skills from this one, well connected, well endowed community, has slowed to a trickle. nowadays, even ones such as Bill krystol 9for whom I bear zero respect) or Tom Friedman (ditto, but lower still) who could at least BS with the best of them, have been replaced with the likes of…..drum rolls please – jennifer Rubin, Bari Weiss and their ilk. While the Kissingers, and even the ladeens made way for the obviously not so sharp Blinken, Sullivan and Nuland.
There’s more to say on this issue, which is how the elite ecelons of mandarins gort corrupted and dumbed dow, but I bring up the jewish element because it’s emlematic of the deterioration.
If I were to write a Part II to this, it’d be about how the selfish-egotistic-but-bright element turned into narcissistic psychopaths. Part II (which may or may not show up) will wrestly with the eternal conflict beween the Jews – as a collective – and Russia – also as a collective. Again, I got my own viewpoint as I grew up studying the history of east Europe in israel, where everything got a special little “twist?” Only now can I begin to put the pieces together.
Thanks for your forebearance, those who got his far.
Sorry for the many typos. Written too quickly as I was chasing a few fleeting thoughts. If I could, I’d edit, to spare everyone’s delicate eyes…
If i were to write a Part II (I won’t mercifully) that one would be called “The Eternal Sadness of Chomsky et al”.
Often times I wish that a Physics background should be a fundamental requirement to become a ruler.
Not an engineer like Carter, no… someone who can think on their own.
But the, why would physicists bother?
I know myself have no interest in such things… except when I have to pay my taxes and when I realize that we, USA, have troops in some country I didn’t know existed… why?
Oh well.
BTW, Computer Science has become so so, no longer a proper science… Computer Engineering is far more interesting nowadays.
Andrei My Brother (Spraznikum on the Feast of the Theophany)
My country and my life changed forever on 9/11. I had just turned 20. I had just joined the boatmen’s union in San Francisco. We had an old school union hall first exit off the Bay Bridge. I remember how eery it was that day driving over that bridge to the hall. I was the only car on the bridge.
I initially lashed out my boiling rage towards the Muslims (unlike now I didn’t know any Muslims then). That led me to enthusiastically support the first post 9/11 military misadventure into Afghanistan. However at the same time I noted how the Muslims of Iran came out with candles to honor the victims of 9/11 and was touched by this and that eventually led to today where I have a deep respect and love for Iran and Shia Muslims.
America was angry. I was angry. I felt this was my Pearl Harbor. I initially signed up for the US Marine Corps (0311 infantry) but this news broke my dear grandmother’s heart and I began to regret my decision. Luckily for me my Grandmother (whom I took care of) wrote a letter to the USMC and I was dismissed from obligation.
Then came the Iraq War which I opposed from the beginning. I knew Saddam was secular Baathist. He would never support 9/11. Crazier still was the Neocon assertions that Shia Iranians helped their mortal enemies (the Saudi funded Wahhabis) to attack the USA but the US government would hitherto protect Saudi Arabia while continuing to vilify Iran.
It didn’t make nay sense. Then I learned about WTC 7 falling. It hadn’t even been struck by a plane. Then there was the dancing Israelis in New Jersey detained by the FBI and later set free. Strange stuff and too many coincidences.
All of these questions eventually put an end to my flag waving BS and made me face some hard questions. Questions I hadn’t asked myself since the NATO bombing of Kosovo (which was traumatic for me because I had come to know and love Orthodoxy well before 1999 in the form of a little storefront mission in San Francisco run by monks of the St. Herman of Alaska Monastery in Platina, California which had been established by Blessed Father Seraphim Rose.
I had no religion until I was 15. I even flirted with Judaism in my early teens, being smitten with a Jewish girl I had known from childhood. It was first Roman Catholicism (of which my Mother had been in her youth) and then Orthodoxy that eventually led to my conversion to Christianity. I loved Roman Catholicism (in many ways I am still a Roman Catholic) and it’s profound sense of social justice in the late 19th century, into the 20th century, but when I found Orthodoxy at 15 years of age in a small mission chapel I fell in love. I knew Orthodoxy was the ancient Christian faith of my ancestors and the lecture I first heard by the Orthodox Nuns was on St. Martin of Tours. I understood then that my Western Ancestors had long ago been fully Orthodox.
Then to my horror President Clinton unleashed hell on Orthodox Serbia, stealing Holy Kosovo from the Serbs and later President Bush formalized this injustice recognizing Kosovo as an independent country. I converted to Orthodoxy (in the former Soviet Union no less) exactly one year after President Bush formalized the theft of Holy Kosovo and my Pope Benedict XVI failed to condemn this theft of a Christian land from a Christian people.
Between the theft of Kosovo and NATO’s original proxy war with Russia in Georgia 2008 that I became convinced that I must leave Western Christianity and become an Orthodox Christian in communion with my Serbian, Ossetian and Russian Orthodox brothers and sisters. And so I did. In a forme Soviet (majority Muslim) Central Asian Republic no less. I had married a local (believe it or not she’s not Russian or Orthodox).
It took me over two decades to become who I am today. Maybe three. I know my America died on 9/11 but it was on it’s death bed during the Clinton Administration and as you correctly point out had become sick during the Reagan Administration, this became worse during Bush 1,.multiplied during Clinton and became terminal on 9/11 under Bush.
Things have never been the same. However I was reborn as a Russian Orthodox Christian in 2009 and never forgot that. I love Russia. I love the Russian people and their culture and heritage and faith. I do not vilify their Soviet experience. It is as much as their identity as Tsar Nikolai II was and is.
I would like to make an important point and counter the argument that the top of the Nazi Germany was run by a bunch of morons. First of all I would urge all readers to read the transcripts of the Nurnberg trials which will give you more then enough information on the IQ of the Nazi regime . IQ tests were done on all the Nazi’s and Goering had one of the highest at 138, much higher than Speer and most of the others . But I implore many to read his testimony , he is far from a madman that the mainstream media like to portray .
Hitler as well had a IQ above Goering and again if you want proof the best source for how the Germany Nazi regime is the classic book written by William Shirer , The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
I will also counter that the main stream media portrayed Slobodan Milosevic as a communist apparatchik , a moron . Again, read The Hague Tribunal Transcrips. He made mincemeat of the prosecution case so much so the resorted to murdering him.
Don’t take this the wrong way as I agree to most of the article but we must be careful in reporting the full truth . Finally , Rudolph Hess is still very much a mystery and I dare say his flight to Britain was actually a truce signed between Britain and Germany which essentially allowed Germany a free hand to invade the Soviet Union .
All the Best,
Konstantin
Fantastic!!!
2 very small bones of contention:
1. I don’t really consider journalists prostitutes anymore, they’re more like the cigarette and tobacco lobby. They’re the propaganda department of the empire. For this reason it makes no sense to appeal to their better natures or anything (I’m not suggesting Andrei was doing that).
2. In any discussion of the Neocon takeover of the US, we shouldn’t forget the ‘dark matter‘ which makes it all possible. It’s the acceptable conspiracy theory borrowed from astronomer, without which the motion of galaxies cannot be explained. The ‘dark matter‘ of money, and lots of it is what made possible their takeover of all the fields which they now dominate. That and the protection afforded to them for the revolution they orchestrated.
Short answer. Yes, Andrei is correct.
America has gone from arrogant to suicidal. End of comment.
Regards,
Kuznechick, that is, Grasshopper.
I want to relearn Russian, I so miss
One fundamental detail….
FOLLOW THE MONEY
Where did the neocons and neolibs get their money?
Who controls the IMF, Davos, etc…?
This goes back to the globalists and money changers… Why would the UK be so involved? Huh?
The neocons and neolibs are tools… dogmatic and incapable of fixing a pot hole. Useful political idiots, that’s all. A ready made tool to control the peoples so The People With The Money can get their goals:
More money, more power…
And Political “Science” is a misnomer, it is no more “science” than the Laffer Curve is mathematics.
Saker, thank you for a very perceptive column. Appreciated!
Andrei: “You might wonder why the ‘old guard’ did nothing to stop that infections rot. And, in fact, some tried… Then the inevitable happened: when the professionally competent paleo-conservatives saw their institutions and organizations overrun with incompetent ideological freaks, they either kept a low profile and waited to retire or simply resigned.”
In that regard, I have a personal story: An ‘acquaintance’ worked for an alphabet agency, and had risen to a senior status. (All details will be smudged-out, for obvious reasons.) S/he briefed senior officials on his/her analyses. After 9/11 and the wars stemming from that, he/she noticed senior officials becoming increasingly angry (literally) at his/her accurate summations. Not what they wanted to hear…
Then, his/her analysis-group began to be ‘dismantled’ from above: reorganizations and funding cuts. New bosses were appointed with more ‘political’ agendas than just fact-reporting. This acquaintance fought the good fight for a time, and then retired as early as possible. (A great loss to the ‘analysis’ industry!) Sad…
Andrei: “And with the Neocons in total control of Zone A, that risk will remain with us until these crazies are sent back to some basement or they blow up the entire northern hemisphere.”
Coincidentally or not, this acquaintance sold his/her house near DC, and moved far-away from DC – into a semi-rural area…
Was Clinton a Neocon? I thought that the War Party (Neocon and Neoliberal) had worked very hard to destroy his Presidency because Clinton refused to make war in the Middle East. Despite the first WTC bombing; and the downing of TWA Flight 800 (?) (the passenger airliner sot down by a missile over Long Island); despite the OKC bombing; he refused to make war for them. I think Clinton was a hero for delaying the start of the present era of endless war.
“Please name me one truly educated and smart Nazi!”
Try Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Andrei. Seemed to regard his Jewish PhD professors as supervisors quite well.
Asserted to have met Eddy Bernays and had his book on the shelf – Propaganda.
__________
Was Adolf really unintelligent?
Remember Charlie Chaplin? He would attend the 24 hour Movietone newsreel theatres to take updates on Nazi Germany.
Chaplin, a performative genius, having observed Adolph Hitler’s public addresses, remarked that Adolph Hitler was a performative genius.
Both rehearsed in front of mirrors.
__________
” . . . now even Russian (!!!) sources refer to the “studies” of this “institute” as something credible”.
A success of London-Washington PsyOps?
__________
“At best, these journos can write summaries, . . . “. As helpfully explained to me, the scripts are written by think tank analysts and delivered to journalists to run under their own name. I suppose some do generate their own narratives, perhaps from intelligence agency recommended points.
__________
“My only objection to the term “presstitute” is that is is very unfair to prostitutes . . . “. As I concluded myself.
__________
https://les7eb.substack.com
I’m running late with posting a comment here so I doubt anyone will read it, or very few at least, & therefore I will not make it as detailed as I otherwise would have. But there is something missing here, & I don’t mean that as a criticism, because I accept everything Saker/Andrei says as true & accurate. What is missing? In the 1970s & 80s the Anglo west went through a structural transformation as dramatic as any major change in history, I am referring to deindustrialization. There is a huge problem with the discourse on this subject because it is, in sum, presented as a purely economic/financial phenomenon that cam about as a result of the end of the boom cycle of 1950s & 60s, the self-inflicted bankrupting effect of the Vietnam war, & corporate opportunism to begin a process of mass relocation to south east Asia, mainly China, to maintain the profitability of US, & to a lesser extent, UK manufacturing. This is where I would have gone into a long explanation as to why this is not entirely true, & why deindustrialisation was actually planned – it was a conscious move by the banking/finance sector, Wall St & City of London, to eliminate manufacturing from the economy. A major reason for this is that the owners of the banks & finance institutions have always sought complete control over currency, in the US this was gained in an unprecedented way through the creation of the Fed, which essentially gave a monopoly to a few families that own the banks to lend money to the US government by obtaining a contract to print that money. With the loss of the Vietnam war, & China’s role in helping Vietnam, US government institutions were weakened considerably, plus there was the earlier assassination of Kennedy. This was a moment for the banking/finance sector to make a move on attacking industrial capital, to which finance capital has always been historically hostile – & this is where the easing of relations with China emanated from & the beginnings of off-shoring. To cut a long story short, the manner is which finance capital pulled a coup d’etat on the US & UK economies required a change in the administrative personnel of state, in order to ensure the deindustrialization would go all the way the standard of professionals in government & state administration had to be lowered dramatically to ensure that any resistance to these policies would be crushed. This is how the US had a Hollywood actor assume the presidency in the 1980s, something that would have been unthinkable 15 to 20 years earlier. There is a lot more to this story, the historic battle between finance capital & industrial capital is one of the most important subject matters that gets practically no attention, & yet explains much of what has happened during the 20th century.
Saker – I agree with you but there is a lot more to it than meets the eye. This is going to be long but perhaps adds some personal insight. I will qualify this as I do not know had bad it has declined since I retired. I spent 1971-2009 in the military with 12 years enlisted to the rank of SFC and 16 years as an officer up to Major and then another 10 as a GS-15 (civil service Colonel equivalent) all in the US Army.
I watched the evolution from the Vietnam era which was organized using the WWII system of personnel management to the awful period post-Vietnam where all kinds of experimental changes using the newer systems of personnel management coming out of Harvard. Then came Reagan and he dramatic increase of the military back to a new peak. The period after Reagan saw additional changes, especially to fitness and evaluations which went to a computerized system. We then had a period of multiple low level conflicts one of which was the disastrous Grenada invasion where we learned the services had no ability to communicate with each other nor understand each services particular requirements. That added in a requirement for Joint service where mid-career all officers are required to serve with a sister force. The period after Nam added new educational requirements which were detrimental. All officers were required to have a Bachelor’s degree at a minimum. The problem was that many officers were battlefield commissioned or were in MOS (military occupational specialty) such as RN where it was common for an RN to be a “three-year” nurse without a Bachelor’s degree. All of these officers were either reduced back to whatever enlisted rank they had when they were commissioned or eliminated. At the same time virtually all helicopter pilots were eliminated en masse. The entire force was reduced and Congress put a cap on the size of the active duty force which remains today.
The services got around this by Nationalizing the State National Guards as deployable brigades. Previously there was a hierarchy of active forces that combat deploy first and are backfilled with Reserve forces, Reserves are deployed next and backfilled by Ready Reserves (soldiers that have served their active commitment but are on inactive reserve status until their entire commitment is completed. This was 4 years for draftees and 6 years for volunteers now it is 8 years and no draftees at all although registration is still required. Officers have different commitments and a commission is usually with no expiration date. You have to resign which must be approved. I tried to retire twice which was refused twice when my 9-year payback (3:1) of active duty was filled for my PhD in residence school time of 3 years. By the way, I was recalled from National Guard to active duty involuntarily (I was a rotary aviator) to serve as a Microbiologist which was in dire need of bodies to fill a gap created by idiotic personnel management. I got a promotion so I was at least compensated but I much preferred flying. C’est la Vie! Later I was coerced into getting a Ph.D. Now the National Guard deploys first which is weird but doesn’t violate the Congressional manpower cap.
Anyway, I digressed from my narrative. A lot of changes were being made to the personnel system much of it experimental. When I was enlisted I had a GT score of 150 (maximum) and a score of 135 was required for technical MOS including Special Forces. A GT score of 106 was required to be an Infantry Lieutenant. One problem was that the death rate in Vietnam was triple for black soldiers than white soldiers and it was deemed to be institutional racism. This was because in the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) tests their GT scores (GT tends to be similar to IQ test but tops at 150 and is really more about education than intelligence but it sort of meshes). How you score on the ASVAB gets you selected to technical MOS rather than combat MOS. Low score equals Infantry, Truck Drivers, MPs, or cooks. Artillery and Armor actually require some intelligence so have slightly higher requirements. One thing they did was lower the test requirements for technical MOSs as how is it possible for soldiers to require higher IQs than officers? They also simplified the tests so undereducated minorities would get better scores. The effect was a serious downgrading of the military. The elimination of the draft was also a disaster as you had a fairly high level of University graduates as soldiers, many with doctorate degrees. In My Medical Laboratory Technician course, I was the only volunteer soldier and the only one without a degree. The other 49 students were all National Guard and all of them had doctorates, many with M.D. degrees. This was their way out of going to Vietnam. So, we had a system already trying to compensate by lowering all standards.
Without the draft, there was no easy way to convince people with degrees to join the military hence why they created their own medical schools. Other technical things ended up getting people who couldn’t get good for, were failures in their respective careers, or had no other way out. The military after going 100% volunteer saw a severe reduction in the quality of the force, at all ends. In the enlisted, you ended up with people who were unemployable or lived in poverty areas with no hope of progress. For these, the military is a godsend and a way out of poverty. Of course, these are also ethnic minorities or “rustbelt” types. Many soldiers were given a choice by a judge at sentencing to either join the military or go to prison. Not a huge number but they do make up a disproportional number of troublemakers.
Many officers get tuition assistance through the ROTC and have a payback requirement. The smarter ones don’t do well in ROTC and end up in the Reserves or National Guard. Officers come in several flavors. There are those who are patriotic and love the military and usually come from military family backgrounds. There are those that are tolerant (often but not always mediocre) and do a good job and meek it out for retirement. There are those that just can’t make it anywhere else and are lucky to have the military. Many of those are “good” officers and don’t make trouble. They also don’t make bold decisions and survive by keeping a low profile.
The service academies are another thing entirely. If the US had royalty these would be them. Many are from Blue Blood families and are privileged. I would say most are privileged but quite a few come from meager backgrounds but are one way or another connected to a Senator or Congressman. Minorities including women are given preference and lower requirements. Even so, the officer corps is generally less than 3% of minorities. Even the academy graduates get out after their payback unless they are part of the mediocrity and know they would be toast outside the military. Our current SECDEF is one of these. Petraeus is of the elite kind. All of them are what we term “ring knockers” as they wear their West Point ring and rap it on the table if you don’t notice and demand better treatment. most easily get the best assignments and abutted career path. They are untouchable and can pretty much get away with anything. The rules simply don’t apply to them. They are also generally idiots. They are also almost all the Generals.
One thing I find interesting is that West Point graduates are always sent to a civilian university (while on active duty) to garner a “special” Master’s degree (usually at an Ivy League school) which is then followed by 4 years as an instructor at West Point. Nearly all instructors at West Point have no doctoral degrees. So, in many ways, it is an inferior academic institution. I saw many of them at Cornell when I was earning (no privileges for me) my Ph.D. Anyway, this is pretty common and not discussed much. Also, Colonels who retire at West Point are usually promoted to Brigadier General on retirement. That used to mean something before the “high 3” requirement as generals receive full pay for life. Now it is just an honor. I go back to the days when we soldiers would get detailed to mow their lawns, wash their cars, and serve hor ‘derves at parties. That was outlawed in the mid-70’s.
The military itself has slowly adopted a system of evaluations that eliminate any officers with actual leadership skills. These officers are deemed to be uncontrollable. General Paton wouldn’t have been promoted to Major these days. What you end up with are ticket punchers, committee members, and sycophants (often all 3). These days commanders when faced with making an actual decision hold a meeting of 12 colonels and only if all 12 agree do they commit to making a decision. Otherwise, it sits in limbo. All of them are terrified of making mistakes. This is the main problem now. Add in the special promotions of unqualified ethnic officers and you can see the problems.
Promotions are handled by committees and officers are selected to go to the Army Personnel Center to sit on a promotion board. This really means sitting in front of a computer and going through hundreds or thousands of personnel records one at a time. There is a single first page that is a summary plus a photo. Photo is critical as we don’t like fat or ugly officers. Based on this all board officers do a go-no-go decision which cuts the pile to roughly half. Many are obviously unqualified. They then go one file at a time spending roughly 90 seconds per record (they only have 1 week to do this) looking at the evaluations and assignment histories etc. Religion, ethnicity, and schools are prominently displayed. Each record is scored using a 1-100 number and on to the next record. There are 12 officers doing this for the week and some fees are re-examined in the process. They have no idea who will be selected for promotion they only know the number they assigned for each record. I forgot to mention the records being reviewed are in a particular year group which is the year of commissioning (this can change if you are “passed over” for promotion “above the zone”. Sometimes it can be several years if there is a need so it is somewhat fluid. Some “special” people from 1 or 2 years earlier year groups are inserted (blue bloods) for early promotion aka “below the zone”. The computer system merges all the scores and ranks them top-down. There is a particular number requirement of how many promotions are available and a line is drawn. Everyone below the line is passed over. However, we aren’t done yet. They do an additional adjustment and pull in the special people if they aren’t already in the promotion zone, then they start pulling in non-selects officers based on gender and ethnicity to make up the ”correct” socially engineered balance. It is then adjusted a third time so the ratios all work out and a promotion list is generated. This list is then sent to Congress. They look for how may of their constituents are on the list and if none, or not enough, and especially if they are on the House Budget Committee, they demand an adjustment, and more people are pulled up from the non-select side and the selectees are bumped off the list. This system pushes many fully qualified officers off the promotion lists and effectively eliminates them from the military. None have a clue what happened to their wonderful careers.
I can go on and on especially looking at the required service schools which is yet another debacle. Then we have the overlords at P{personnel who actually make assignments and are easily influenced whether through politics or money (or even threats against family). Key assignments equal promotion to general.A lot of money is riding on this and it is very influential.
I hope this gives an inside view of the catastrophe of the US military. I would also like to add under Obama there was a test given to officers that were designed to determine if the officer believed the Constitution was superior to the President or not. Anyone who felt that way was eliminated (unless a blue blood). Legally we all swear an Oath to uphold the Constitution and the orders of the politicians are lesser. Clearly, the neocons want a force devoted to the President and not the Constitution.
Dear Old Microbiologist
Thank you very much for a very interesting insight into what is going on with the US military and, especially, its officer corps!
Kind regards
Andrei
Thanks, Andrei – It is a rough subject and more or less kept dark and little understood even by the officers in the military unless they have a friend (like I did) over at PERSCOM (or whatever it is called these days as it changes name every administration). I can add lots of examples to flush it out. Such as the Grenada war where we fought 50 Cuban engineers were asked to be there by the Grenadian government to build a hospital but somehow we thought our American students (another scam entirely – a “buy a degree” program) were in danger. We invaded with a Carrier group and a full division of Army. Over 500 Bronze Stars were awarded (mostly to officers) in that war. The ironic thing is the Army was fighting the Navy and had some very interesting battles. It seems the radios of the services can’t tune into the same frequencies. An intelligent Army captain called the Pentagon by phone and asked them to tell the Navy to stop shelling them which revealed that no one ever thought to check if the radios worked together. You can’t make this stuff up.
The other big factor is political appointees. These are people put into senior positions, often getting SES grades (senior executive service) and can assume the rank and position of a General usually in a support activity. Many Agencies are run by appointees like DTRA, DARPA, etc. Military Agencies are horizontal to the DoD and not under a respective service. Then there are the Deputy Secretary positions also filled by political appointees. Most appointees are friends of the administration and are being rewarded with an opportunity to cash in on their donations (much the same as Ambassador appointments). Some need Senate approval and some don’t. These people in general know nothing about the military and often nothing whatsoever about the Agency they are appointed to run. They rely heavily on military officers (usually Lieutenant Colonels) to actually keep things straight. I recall speaking with a freshly minted Ph.D. about 25 years old with zero experience but a daughter of someone very important. She was put in charge of a very large and critical sub-agency which she screwed up completely.
I’ll add the Naval problems with ship collisions were a result of several very poor decisions. Usually, an officer that will command a ship in the Navy serves as a First Officer under a senior Captain sort of as an apprenticeship. However, the Navy decided that instead of serving under the tutelage of a senior experience officer they would use a set of DVD’s instead. So, these ships were commanded by Commanders that had no time running ships other than theory from DVD’s. and a written (fill in the box type) of test (usually done as a group think). Generally, it is the First Officer that does the lion’s share of the work backed up by the Chief of the Boat but these positions have had relaxed training as well. Worse, the officers were all Hispanic which suggests they were selected not based on qualifications but rather on ethnicity. The results are clear. I hope the Navy has fixed these problems as they were likely some brain fart from a Harvard-educated political appointee with zero experience. This problem is not limited to the military and US corporations are infested with similar problems. Boeing comes to mind.
Lastly, these problems extend from Hollywood hype of excellence that doesn’t exist and leaders that don’t know how to lead using equipment that doesn’t work. Then add in virtually unlimited funding for mostly useless wonder weapons (very little reaches as far down as the actual soldiers or maintenance of what is on hand). Then, lastly “Boys with toys get bored and start wars”.
Really, I secretly hope the US goes into Ukraine and gets their asses kicked hard. This is the only thing the US will understand as they have zero respect for anyone else. The loss of Ramstein AFB, NATO HQ, Aviano AFB, etc. and eliminating all of the US spy satellites (and AWACS) in the Ukraine theater all simultaneously would be a just dessert and nice response which the US has been very thoroughly warned not to do.
Incredible article. The “credentialed” class has ruined America. Dio is incredible. I do appreciate his work with Rainbow but I also love his work with Sabbath and his solo band. He was a truly awesome musician.
The public statements of the spokes people, leaders, and talking heads which the Andrei s criticize are not meant to be accurate, they are propaganda for the public. Providing a rational critique is a waste of time. No one at a high level in the US has ever believed that Ukraine would or could defeat Russia. The Hegemon is interested in feeding the MIC, profits for its energy and agricultural conglomerates, and decoupling Europe from Russia/China. If one wants to understand US foreign policy, don’t count on learning anything from the lectures of the dutiful representatives of US agencies. Read William Blum and Michael Hudson. The decadent West will not ultimately be defeated by theologically correct Russia. It will be defeated by the vision and pragmatism of the Chinese communists–a rather different theology. Incidentally, by strange happenstance, AU and Johns Hopkins are also two of my Alma Maters–my career, though, was the military.
He has the funniest way of saying it, with the most uncompromising blend of sincerity and old style humour, when he says that they ‘don’t know shit from Shinola’.
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/doesnt-know-shit-from-shinola.html
Economics: The sanctions against Russia hurt NATO membership more than the Russians. It hurt their allies in Europe more than it hurt America. And they never gave anybody a hint as to what was going to happen except when Blinken admitted that the loss of Nordstream 2 was going to exceptionally profit US suppliers, like that was a good thing.
Military Science: Martyanov upholds professionalism. NATO upholds the Empire of Lies that emanates from the MICIMATT complex.
https://biblehub.com/isaiah/45-7.htm
Nuclear War: while Martyanov recognizes the risk of escalation to nuclear war, if we mention it in social media, we are Putin apologists, or upholding the Russian narrative, so we get degrees of separation in the variations of light and darkness that they call shadow banning.
https://biblehub.com/matthew/6-23.htm
Martyanov upholds commentators like Ritter and Berletic, as fellow professionals. Ritter tells us that Zaluzhnyi read everything written by Gerasimov.
Zaluzhnyi Studied Military Doctrine Of Russian General Gerasimov …
Sep 27, 2022The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi from a young age studied the collected works of the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, General Valery Gerasimov. This is stated in the article about Zaluzhnyi in The Time.
https://ukranews.com/en/news/884541-zaluzhnyi-studied-military-doctrine-of-russian-general-gerasimov
But NATO and Ukraine in general show nothing but contempt for Russia, Russians and their military professionals, which is something that Martyanov gives us in the west a perspective on, like no other.
That’s the corruption of their Ivy Leagues, which are more like poison ivy leagues, who toxify every attempt at a negotiated peace based on mutual respect for the security of each.
Worst is the racism in Ukraine against Russia and ethnic Russians. If we had the same attitude against our Francophone minority in Canada as they have in Ukraine, we could never have peace. But it must be hard being a Russian in a North America that doesn’t know shit from Shinola.
❗US always prepared for war with Russia | Putin again calls Ukrainian regime – Neo-Nazi
Jan 18
2023
On episode 19 of the show we are joined by Stanislav Krapivnik, retired Captain of the United States Army, a veteran, former infantryman and tank operator, he served in the Balkans, Bosnia and Macedonia. He was a military adviser to the UN mission in Georgia, where he prevented a clash between Abkhazians and Georgians on the border with Svaneti. Currently he resides in Russia, and you can also find him on his Telegram channel: http://t.me/stastydaiobratno
https://youtu.be/Pan4rUhOsvs
Even as an American national, Krapivinik was distrusted as a Russian.