Enough and Not Too Much

Patrick Armstrong
Strategic Culture

Moscow will not engage in an exhausting arms race, and the country’s military spending will gradually decrease as Russia does not seek a role as the “world gendarme,” President Vladimir Putin said. Moscow is not seeking to get involved in a “pointless” new arms race, and will stick to “smart decisions” to strengthen its defensive capabilities, Putin said on Friday during an annual extended meeting of the Defense Ministry board. “Intelligence, brains, discipline and organization” must be the cornerstones of the country’s military doctrine, the Russian leader said. The last thing that Russia needs is an arms race that would “drain” its economy, and Moscow sure does not want that “in any scenario,” Putin pointed out.

– RT, 22 December 2017

It’s easy to forget it today, but the USSR was, in its time, an “exceptionalist” country. It was the world’s first socialist country – the “bright future“; it set an example for all to follow, it was destined by History. It had a mission and was required by History to assist any country that called itself “socialist”. The USSR had bases and interests all over the world. As the 1977 USSR Constitution said:

the Soviet state, a new type of state, the basic instrument for defending the gains of the revolution and for building socialism and communism. Humanity thereby began the epoch-making turn from capitalist to socialism.

A novus ordo seclorum indeed.

Russia, however, is just Russia. There is no feeling in Moscow that Russia must take the lead any place but Russia itself. One of the reasons, indeed, why Putin is always talking about the primacy of the UN, the independence of nation states, the impermissibility to interfere in internal activities – the so-called “Westphalian” position – is that he remembers the exceptionalist past and knows that it led to a dead end. Moscow has no interest in going abroad in search of internationalist causes.

Internationalism/exceptionalism and nationalism: the two have completely different approaches to constructing a military. The first is obsessed with “power projection“, “full spectrum superiority“, it imagines that its hypertrophied interests are challenged all over the planet. Its wants are expensive, indeterminate, unbounded. The other is only concerned with dealing with enemies in its neighbourhood. Its wants are affordable, exact, finite. The exceptionalist/interventionist has everything to defend everywhere; the nationalist has one thing to defend in one place. It is much easier and much cheaper to be a nationalist: the exceptionalist/interventionist USA spends much more than anyone else but always needs more; nationalist Russia can cut its expenditure.

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German far-right training for CIVIL WAR & collapse of state, intel warns

RT 

German ultra-nationalists believe a civil war and an eventual demise of the state will come about, and are preparing for it by training to use firearms and explosives, a local security service has warned.

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, sounded the alarm over the rise of the underground far-right, according to Die Welt. An intelligence report seen by the paper calls for increased surveillance of so-called “preppers” – a loose network of ultra-nationalists who prepare for apocalyptic scenarios.

Those people are collecting firearms and other supplies in preparation for “a civil war” or “a feared collapse of public order” in Germany, the BfV revealed. The preppers movement, which first emerged in the US, has long been rooted in survivalism – which sees far-right militias making stockpiles of food, ammunition and medicine that they would use in the event of a doomsday scenario.

Separately, there is an alarming number of extremists who could plot attacks involving improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and small arms. Notably, many of those on the far-right were indoctrinated “a few months or years” ago, but were not known to the agency before joining extremist groups. 

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See also:  Far Reich: Terrorist cell aiming to bring back German Empire raided by cops

The Delusional Futurism Of “Liberal World Order” Academics

Brandon Smith

Perhaps this is an overly broad generalization, but I feel there is an almost universal feeling among the public that there is something intrinsically annoying about academia. The source of this annoyance is up for debate, but I believe it stems from the image academics project versus the reality of their personal character and intent. Your average university approved academic will say that some people find them distasteful because they are “so smart”, and this makes others envious. I would say it’s the opposite – the average academic is actually quite ignorant, but brandishes a false image of being a genius. This is why I often refer to them as “academic idiots”.

Fake intelligence and faux wisdom are like sandpaper to people’s exposed nerves, and the average person is not as dumb as academics think they are.

At the top of the fraudulent academic totem pole are what I would call the “academic philosophers”; the gatekeepers, the people who pontificate regularly on the meaning of life and society while living the most charmed life one can imagine. These are people who in most cases come from upper class backgrounds. They have been provided for every waking moment of their existence. They have had every door opened for them by someone else on the path to success, and have experienced little to no struggle or suffering in the whole of their time on this Earth. And yet, they somehow deem themselves expertly qualified to comment on the human condition.

It should come as no surprise that the ideas these academics develop tend to deny concrete reality. They seek to pursue agendas that are fanciful at best and would be ultimately destructive if ever applied in the real world.

I find this to be common with many philosophers, not just today but throughout history. The venerated Plato was such a person; the youngest son of wealthy aristocratic parents who was required to do very little in early life but ponder. The trials surrounding his friend Socrates aside, Plato never abandoned the notion of elitist rule over society. Plato’s Republic is a shrine to the elitist model, imagining a world governed essentially by academics – People born with superior intellectual abilities and who were destined to rule over the rest of us as benevolent demigods.

It’s a funny coincidence that supposedly objective elitist academics always come to the conclusion that THEY are the best equipped people to manage society.

The academic cabal is not entirely naive, however. They have realized over time that their sales pitch of an intellectual priest class and Utopian pyramid schemes are not very effective, and they have opted to switch narratives. The new narrative is one of inevitability; the inevitability of socialism, the inevitability of globalism and the inevitability of algorithmic automation.

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The Christchurch Shooting and the Normalization of Anti-Muslim Terrorism

Whitney Webb

Mint Press News

The real forces responsible for the destruction of many Muslim-majority countries and the current chaos present in many Western countries are not generated by civilian populations or religions but instead by the global oligarchy that engineers and profits from this chaos.

 

CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND — What is without question the worst mass shooting in New Zealand’s history took place on Friday when shooters, 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant among them, opened fire at two Christchurch mosques. Four, including Tarrant, have been arrested for the heinous act, which claimed at least 49 innocent lives. Tarrant was responsible for killing more than 40 victims, among them several children, in a rampage he live-streamed on Facebook, sending chills throughout the Muslim community, particularly Muslims living in Western countries.

Tarrant’s motives and ideology, laid bare in a 74-page manifesto, show a concern over the fertility rates of non-white groups as well as the immigration of non-whites to countries like New Zealand and Australia, which he likened to an “invasion” that threatened the white majority in those countries. However, Tarrant — in his ignorance — failed to grasp that many of the Muslim immigrants he targeted had come to New Zealand after fleeing Western-backed invasions, occupations, or persecution in their home countries.

Notable among Tarrant’s views is the fact that he is a clear ethno-nationalist, promoting his view that different ethnic groups must be kept “separate, unique, undiluted in [sic] unrestrained in cultural or ethnic expression and autonomy.” Tarrant also claimed that he doesn’t necessarily hate Muslims and only targeted those Muslims {i.e., immigrants) that chose “to invade our lands, live on our soil and replace our people.” 

He also stated that he chose to target Muslims because “Islamic nations, in particular, have high birth rates, regardless of race or ethnicity” and to satiate “a want for revenge against Islam for the 1,300 years of war and devastation that it has brought upon the people of the West and other peoples of the world.” His views are remarkably similar to those of Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik, which is unsurprising given that Tarrant named him as an inspiration for the shooting.

Though many — in the hours after the shooting — have sought to place blame and point fingers at notable demagogues like President Donald Trump or “counter-jihad” alt-right figures like Laura Loomer and Jacob Wohl, it is important to place Tarrant’s motivations in context. 

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As Germany and France Come Apart, So Too Will the EU

Charles Hugh-Smith
Washington's Blog

When is a nation-state no longer a functional state? It’s an interesting question to ask of the European nation-states trapped in the devolving European Union. Longtime correspondent Mark G. recently posed seven indicators of dissolving national sovereignty; here’s his commentary:

“RE: The Ghosts of 1968 (February 14, 2018):

In France the “Ghosts of 1968” have become the Poltergeists of 2018. This looks like another real watershed in European and world history. Once again Parisian mobs have appeared and have collectively realized they now hold the real power. And their issues are all anti-EU (European Union) and anti-NWO. (New World Order)

I’m honing my German Collapse Scenario as more data flows in, as it is in ever-faster and larger quantities. ‘Germany’ will implode in parallel with the EU.

So-called ‘states’ with:

1. no effective military forces
2. no control of their own borders
3. no control of their currency and banks
4. a government with a ‘diverse’ population in which the majority either has no loyalty to Berlin (recent ‘refugee’ immigrants) or has dropped its loyalty (large parts of Bavaria and Baden-Wurttemberg), and which is also losing the allegiance of the many eastern European immigrants in Germany. These people are among the most energized opponents of the ‘refugee’ influx.
5. Fast rising anarchy and lawlessness by the recent ‘refugee’ immigrants, and which is well known to the population, as are the official orders to the police to minimize crime statistics reporting by not opening official cases.

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The Real Problem with Nationalism, Without the Virtue Signaling

Harrison Koehli
Sott.net

Depending on your political bias, U.S. President Trump is either a black hole, or a radiant orange sun. Either way, you cannot escape his influence. Every tweet and stray comment is picked up, and picked apart, by the media. As Jon Stewart recently pointed out - with a degree of insight sorely lacking in the majority of his peers - the media just can't help but take his bait:

"What he's done well is appeal to their own narcissism, to their own ego," he said. "The journalists stand up and say: 'We are noble! We are honorable! How dare you, sir!' And they take it personally."

"Now he's changed the conversation to - not that his policies are silly or not working or any of this other things - it's all about the fight," Stewart said. "He's able to tune out everything else and get everyone else just focused on the fight. And he's gonna win that fight."

But it's not just his attacks on the media (who are just as keen to attack him). Trump manages to dominate the news cycle, and even create the news cycle, by getting them to focus on issues of no real substance, simply because Trump said it. He's a master of distraction by controversy - troll level 'POTUS'. Or maybe it's unintentional and the media personalities are just that obsessed with them. Either way, I increasingly feel like this guy: 

[...]

 As Joe Quinn discussed in his latest SOTT Focus, Globalism Vs Nationalism in Trump's America, Trump created yet another controversy in a two-year long string of nonstop controversies: he said he is a nationalist at the post-midterm-election White House press conference and during a rally in Houston. Naturally, people were irate, because nationalism is bad. Right? Well, as Joe wrote, "Words and their exact meanings matter", so let's take a closer look at the n-word in question. Patriotism and Nationalism

Back in the early 1800s, there wasn't any difference in meaning between the words patriotism and nationalism. But nationalism drifted into its own semantic space over the decades. Whereas patriotism kept its meaning - "love for or devotion to one's country" - nationalism drifted in the direction of "loyalty and devotion to one's nation". Not a world of difference, right? Aside from the distinction between nation and country, can one really love something without loyalty?

But nationalism also acquired other meanings. As the Merriam-Webster article linked to above points out:

But the definition of nationalism also includes "exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups." This exclusionary aspect is not shared by patriotism.

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NewsReal: Is War on ('Islamic') Terror Morphing Into War on 'White Nationalism'?

NewsReal with Joe & Niall

The evils of 'white nationalism' has been a hot topic in the mainstream media lately, especially following the phony mail-bomb campaign targeting Democratic figures and the mass shooting of Jews at a Pittsburgh synagogue, sparking countless 'soul-searching' psychological profiles of 'the typical Trump supporter' ahead of the US Midterm elections.

If we reflect on older events, like the Battle of Charlottesville last year, or the massacre at a black church in Charleston in 2015, and even elsewhere in 'NATOstan' - the massacre of children of Norwegian elites by Anders Breivik in 2011, for example - it's clear that this theme of 'white extremists' holding severe grudges against 'all racial and ideological enemies' has been percolating to the surface for some time.

Is it mere coincidence then that - just as nationalist feeling is growing in countries the world over, and producing electoral results that 'shock' the status quo - extremist caricatures of nationalism begin proliferating, occasionally commit atrocities, and thus blacken nationalism and mandate government crackdowns on all dissent that 'smells like nationalism'?

This week on NewsReal With Joe & Niall, your hosts wonder if the 'War on Terror' has become what it apparently always wanted to be: a war on political dissidents...

How the Trump regime was manufactured by war inside the global Deep State

Nafeez Ahmed
Information Clearing House

"... far from representing a force opposed to the Deep State, the Trump regime represents an interlocking network of powerful players across sectors which heavily intersect with the Deep State: finance, energy, military intelligence, private defense, white nationalist 'alt-right' media, and Deep State policy intellectuals." [...]  
 
"... rather than being a nationalist 'insurgency' against the corporate globalist 'Deep State', the Trump regime represents a white nationalist coup by a disgruntled cross-section within the Deep State itself. Rather than coming into conflict with the Deep State, we are seeing a powerful military-corporate nexus within the American Deep State come to the fore. Trump, in this context, is a tool to re-organize and restructure the Deep State in reaction to what this faction believe to be an escalating crisis in the global Deep System.

In short, the Deep State faction backing Trump is embarking on what it believes is a unique and special mission: to save the Deep State from a decline caused by the failures of successive American administrations."

 A systemic crisis in the global Deep System has driven the violent radicalization of a Deep State faction

President Donald Trump is not fighting a war on the establishment: he's fighting a war to protect the establishment from itself, and the rest of us.

At first glance, this isn't obvious. Among his first actions upon taking office, Trump vetoed the Trans Pacific Partnership, the controversial free trade agreement which critics rightly said would lead to US job losses while giving transnational corporations massive power over national state policies on health, education and other issues.

Trump further plans to ditch the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and US, which would have diluted key state regulations on the activities of transnational corporates on issues like food safety, the environment and banking; and to renegotiate NAFTA, potentially heightening tensions with Canada.

Trump appears to be in conflict with the bulk of the US intelligence community, and is actively seeking to restructure the government to minimize checks and balances, and thus consolidate his executive power.

His White House chief strategist, Steve Bannon, has restructured the National Security Council, granting himself and Trump's Chief of Staff Richard 'Reince' Priebus permanent seats on the NSC's Principals' Committee - opening the door to the White House politicization of the government's highest national security body.

Trump's White House has purged almost the entire senior staff of the State Department, and tested the loyalty of the Department of Homeland Security with its new 'Muslim ban' order.

So what is going on? One approach to framing the Trump movement comes from Jordan Greenhall, who sees it as a conservative ("Red Religion") Insurgency against the liberal ("Blue Church") Globalist establishment (the "Deep State"). Greenhall suggests, essentially, that Trump is leading a nationalist coup against corporate neoliberal globalization using new tactics of "collective intelligence" by which to outsmart and outspeed his liberal establishment opponents.

But at best this is an extremely partial picture.

In reality, Trump has ushered in something far more dangerous: The Trump regime is not operating outside the Deep State, but mobilizing elements within it to dominate and strengthen it for a new mission.

The Trump regime is not acting to overturn the establishment, but to consolidate it against a perceived crisis of a wider transnational Deep System.

The Trump regime is not a conservative insurgency against the liberal establishment, but an act of ideologically constructing the current crisis as a conservative-liberal battleground, led by a particularly radicalized white nationalist faction of a global elite.

The act is a direct product of a global systemic crisis, but is a short-sighted and ill-conceived reaction, pre-occupied with surface symptoms of that crisis. Unfortunately, those hoping to resist the Trump reaction also fail to understand the system dynamics of the crisis.

All this can only be understood when we look at the big picture. That means the following: we must look a little more closely at the individuals inside Trump's administration, the wider social and institutional networks they represent, and what emerges from their being interlocked in government; we must contextualize this against two factors, the escalation of global systemic crisis, and the Trump regime's ideological framing(s) of that crisis (both for themselves, and for public consumption); we must connect this with the impact on the transnational Deep System, and how that links up with the US Deep State; and we must then explore what this all means in terms of the scope of actions likely to be deployed by the Trump regime to pursue its discernible goals.

This investigation will help to establish a ground state for anyone on which to build a meaningful strategy of response that accounts for the full systemic complexity of our Trumpian moment.

So the first step to diagnosing our Trumpian moment is to see who is leading it. We'll begin by looking at a cross-section of some of Trump's most prominent nominations and appointments.  

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Stalling Brexit will benefit the radical right wing

Moon of Alabama

We claimed that BREXIT - is not gonna happen and pointed to a propaganda campaign (see further examples in the comments there) launched to reverse the Brexit votes. Within that campaign two memes get pushed:

First, young voters feel cheated of their future because some old, grumpy people voted for Brexit. Well, these young voters of age 18 to 24, tearfully interviewed by the BBC and Channel 4, constitute only 5% of the electorate. Only a third of them voted at all, 70% of those 1/3 of 5% for "Remain". This is a small part, and a not very interested one, of the population. Who are they to deserve some special attendance?

The second meme pushed is the "success" of some petition for a #ReverseBrexit vote someone set up on the UK parliament website. It now has more than a million "signatures". That is a lot in a short time frame. But wait, any dog on the Internet can "sign" that petition provided it has some throw-away email address. I, a German in Germany, "signed" to test the procedure. It took me about 30 seconds.

This propaganda campaign will not have any tangible success, but it sets a certain atmosphere which then will be used to stall the exit process. 


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Brexit: Individualism > Nationalism > Globalism

Jeff Deist
The Mises Institute

Decentralization and devolution of state power is always a good thing, regardless of the motivations behind such movements.

Hunter S. Thompson, looking back on 60s counterculture in San Francisco, lamented the end of that era and its imagined flower-child innocence:

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

Does today’s Brexit vote similarly mark the spot where the once-inevitable march of globalism begins to recede? Have ordinary people around the world reached the point where real questions about self-determination have become too acute to ignore any longer? 

Globalism, championed almost exclusively by political and economic elites, has been the dominant force in the West for a hundred years. World War I and the League of Nations established the framework for multinational military excursions, while the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank set the stage for the eventual emergence of the US dollar as a worldwide reserve currency. Progressive government programs in Western countries promised a new model for universalism and peace in the aftermath of the destruction of Europe. Human rights, democracy, and enlightened social views were now to serve as hallmarks of a post-monarchical Europe and rising US.

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It’s Not Just the UK – Widespread Support for EU Referendums Seen Across the Continent

Michael Krieger

Actions have consequences, and people can only be pushed so far before they snap. I believe the Paris terror attacks will be a major catalyst that will ultimately usher in nationalist type governments in many parts of Europe, culminating in an end of the EU as we know it and a return to true nation-states.

Although I think a return to regional government and democracy is what Europeans need and deserve, the way in which it will come about, and the types of governments we could see emerge, are unlikely to be particularly enlightened or democratic after the dust has settled.

My thoughts and prayers go out to all the victims of these horrific events, but the Paris attacks didn’t happen in a vacuum. The people of Europe have already become increasingly resentful against the EU,  something which is not debatable at this point. This accurate perception of an undemocratic, technocratic Brussels-led EU dictatorship was further solidified earlier this year after the Greek people went to the polls and voted for one thing, only to be instructed that their vote doesn’t actually matter.

– From last year’s post: A Message to Europe – Prepare for Nationalism

If you aren’t paying close attention to what’s happening in Europe, you may be surprised by the extent of “elite” panic at the notion that the British people could decide to leave the EU. Here’s just one example, from Donald Tusk, president of the European Council.

Why is it so dangerous? No one can foresee what the long-term consequences would be. As a historian, I fear that Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction of not only the E.U., but also of Western political civilization.

While there’s no doubt that a Brexit will result in major disruptions to the status quo system, isn’t that the point? Moreover, that’s some downright apocalyptic talk by Mr. Tusk. What’s driving it?

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Far-right protests break out across France as tensions reach boiling point

Comment: And of course, divisions, race riots and the stimulation of left-right extremism is what the PtB are looking for. Their Terrorism industry is designed to encourage exactly that. 

------------------- 

 

Daily Express

 

A peaceful demonstration taking place in the centre of Lille, northern France, was interrupted by right-wingers appearing to belong to the Front National.

The unrest came as Front National leader Marine Le Pen declared French people “are no longer safe” and called for France to take back control of its borders.

    ‘I was lying in a grave’: Survivors share their stories of Paris...
    BREAKING: Paris terrorist was a Syrian refugee, says Greece...

Many people have taken to the streets across France today to show their solidarity with Paris despite the French government banning demonstrations from taking place for security reasons.

The protesters, armed with flares and with banners reading: “Throw out Islamists” pushed their way through the peaceful crowd and started chanting “Out the Muslims”.

Protesters hurled Islamophobic chants as police surrounded the tense scenes.  

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What Separatism Means

Lew Rockwell

Ivan Daraktchiev sent me several of his papers in appreciation of my work which he views as expressing many ideas similar to his. There’s good thinking and insights in his work. Naturally, one may not agree with all of his ideas. There are ideas of my own that I’ve expressed over the years that I may now disagree with.

The strength of his analysis is to take a broad view across many countries in order to understand events. Having lived through Communism in Bulgaria before leaving for Belgium, he is familiar with the devastation caused by a bureaucratic class of parasites, the nomenklatura, that destroys a society, both morally and economically. This idea aligns with the Austrian analysis. After years in Belgium, he realized that the EU was similar to the Communist system in being taken over by a nomenklatura. In fact, many western democracies are in the same position. He calls this parasitic and destructive political system “nomenklaturocracy” and says Orwell was right about it. So have been Mises and Rothbard and Rockwell and many others in the intellectual movement toward freedom, better societies and better political arrangements.

With this idea in mind, that all governments are controlled by ruling classes that attempt to insulate themselves from their subjects, the differences between communism, fascism, and representative democracy become only matters of degree. Lengthy disputes between democrats and republicans become trivial. Notions that a republic will outdo a democracy become off target since both involve constitutions and representatives, and these lead to party control and nomenklaturae. The key question is always the extent to which a nomenklatura has turned government into a nomenklaturoracy. The key question is the extent to which a government has been captured by those in the government so that the people have lost control of it.

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