A Clash of Visions

So Bannon the Cannon has been… fired.

All this time you were thinking you were voting against Zuckerberg’s vision…

zuckerberg-vision

… you were actually voting for Kushner’s.

kushner-vision

Goy, bye!

Anatoly Karlin is a transhumanist interested in psychometrics, life extension, UBI, crypto/network states, X risks, and ushering in the Biosingularity.

 

Inventor of Idiot’s Limbo, the Katechon Hypothesis, and Elite Human Capital.

 

Apart from writing booksreviewstravel writing, and sundry blogging, I Tweet at @powerfultakes and run a Substack newsletter.

Comments

  1. German_reader says

    The US is beyond hope, even the right there is full of “universal nation” and messianic “make the world safe for democracy” types, there seems to be no possibility of this ever changing, not even towards some mild national conservatism inclusive of existing diversity. For nationalists in Europe the US is now what the Soviet Union once was, we need to purge ourselves of its influence and come up with something different to the “American idea”.

  2. for-the-record says

    For nationalists in Europe the US is now what the Soviet Union once was, we need to purge ourselves of its influence and come up with something different to the “American idea”.

    And you’re only just learning that just now?

  3. German_reader says

    I’ve always suspected that, but events seem to confirm it more and more. US liberals are completely insane, tribal fanatics – who not only export their stupid ideologies to Europe (all this extreme “antiracist” idiocy like critical whiteness studies and all the other subversive nonsense like transgenderism comes from the US), no, they’ve also proven with their “Russia stole our election! New Cold War now!” hysteria that they’re dangerous to the rest of the world (was already clear what parochial assholes they are when their antiwar movement died immediately once Obama was elected, also hardly any outrage about something like US support for the war in Yemen…instead they’re getting hysterical about statues and how their feelings have been hurt when someone invades their safe spaces). And the US right mostly is no better, with its cult of markets, free enterprise and bombing for democracy and its eventual support of every subversive cultural pathology the left comes up with.

  4. I guess that makes us in the UK what East Germany was.

  5. Talking about clashes of visions, there’s reality and then there’s:

    He intentionally ignored the denial of consent, still without identifying himself (though we still wouldn’t care), which was a threat to safety and should be considered in a context of perpetuating rape culture. Denial of consent by the media is still a denial of consent and is disgusting and parasitic behaviour.”
    – Antifa dishonest lunacy: a journalist taking photos is “perpetuating rape culture”.

    And there’s reality versus:

    I am a pastor in Charlottesville, and antifa saved my life twice on Saturday. Indeed, they saved many lives from psychological and physical violence…..God is not OK with white supremacy, and God is on the side of all those it tries to dehumanize. ….White supremacy is violence. I didn’t see any racial justice protesters with weapons; as for antifa, anything they brought I would only categorize as community defense tools and nothing more. Pretty much everyone I talk to agrees—including most clergy. My strong stance is that the weapon is and was white supremacy, and the white supremacists intentionally brought weapons to instigate violence.”
    – pseudo-Christian priestly lunacy: “psychological violence” threatened people’s lives (and spiritual violence, apparently)

    This is what the societies of the modern US sphere are up against.

    [Still on Dreher watch – he actually posted that piece with the following seemingly utterly unself-aware comment:

    Stunning. “White supremacy is violence.” So, simply holding an opinion that the Left deems white supremacist is the same as physically assaulting someone — and therefore, the holder of that opinion deserves to be beaten up.

    As though the priest’s call to thuggery is anything but a taking of Dreher’s own repeated assertions that “racism/white supremacy/Nazism is evil” to its logical conclusion.

    Does Dreher not believe in fighting evil? Because most people do.]

  6. hardly any outrage about something like US support for the war in Yemen…instead they’re getting hysterical about statues and how their feelings have been hurt when someone invades their safe spaces

    Hey, somebody in the US/UK/Europe holding transgressive opinions – or worse, actually expressing them out loud – is clearly much far more important than a bunch of brown people getting blown to bits or dying of starvation or cholera on the other side of the world! It’s almost as bad as actual journalists getting punched when it’s only conservatives that should be getting beaten up.

    Ain’t you got no moral compass? No decency?

  7. The two are not mutually exclusive, the one represents the “invite the world” and the other the “invade the world” faction, both factions need the other to survive. For the “invade the world” faction, the USA needs to sell itself as the paragon of all things good domestically. For the ” invite the world” faction, there can be no exceptions to their “diversity is strength” mantra, no homogeneous nations can be allowed to exist as counterexamples, they need to push Japan, Poland, China, Russia to become progressive diverse states like the USA, hence they support the war hawks to make these states US vassals.

  8. Doh! Theory meets reality.

  9. Merry Mazeltov!

  10. So much bitterness, here & on Breitbart.

    Bannon gets free hands

    Frankly I see no point in holding Bannon as a symbol and defender of anything important:

    o He says, (quote:) “Ethno-nationalism—it’s losers. It’s a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more.”

    o SB is so extraordinarily tense & combative … even Trump couldn’t get along with him. And I’m perfectly happy with 36-year-old Kushner trying to influence the twice more experienced man, man of record, Trump.

  11. Bannon gets free hands

    o He says, (quote:) “Ethno-nationalism—it’s losers. It’s a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more.”

    So, bad news for other white people?

  12. for-the-record says

    I guess that makes us in the UK what East Germany was.

    … although some might say that East Germany had no choice.

  13. Does UK have a great choice, being an American client state or part of the nascent European superstate?

  14. for-the-record says

    That’s a good question, I agree, and clearly my comment was somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

    But the fundamental difference remains that East Germany was under brutal Soviet military occupation, and even then the East Germans rebelled against their client statedom (in 1953), an uprising that was suppressed at considerable human cost (West German sources at the time spoke of more than 500 deaths and 100 subsequent executions).

  15. Fair point, we are morally inferior to the East Germans who were victims of force majeure rather than willing collaborators in their own subordination.

    Though I might appeal to the Rurik defence, and insist that the British people were duped by a lying, corrupt, disloyal ruling elite. But I’m not entirely convinced that one works even in the context Rurik uses it (the American people’s responsibility – or otherwise – for US military aggression), so it’s a bit of a weak reed.

  16. Nazism is evil. Communism is evil. If the logical consequence of these beliefs is antifascist lunacy, well, I guess there are going to be a lot more antifascist lunatics around.

    But thuggery is evil too, so then what?

  17. Daniel Chieh says

    Bannon was the sane element; he’s correct – pure ethnonationalism is a fiction and a fantasy. Always has been. Always will be. But what he wanted from everything I can tell would be to remove all barriers from freedom of association, which would allow for effectively segregated communities. Insofar as what the ethnonationalists wanted, he was the single greatest sponsor.

    For the nativist base that Trump had, there is no one else that even comes close to favoring their interests, even indirectly.

  18. German_reader says

    Does UK have a great choice, being an American client state or part of the nascent European superstate?

    There should have been a third way imo, with the UK realizing that its days of global influence are over and that its future would be as an important, middle-sized European power like Germany or Italy, and as an actor in some loose form of European cooperation (looser and less invasive than the present EU). This wouldn’t have necessarily excluded cultivating ties to the former white dominions like Australia or Canada, or to other ex-colonies…even Spain does cultivate its ties to Latin America after all, despite being in the EU. Granted, the deluded bastards who want some United States of Europe (which would be a nightmare) are a problem, especially in Germany (though even here it’s mostly a view limited to “elites”, there is much more scepticism in the general population). But Britain’s role as permanent US satellite, aping whatever cultural toxins the Americans come up with and assisting them in every deluded foreign policy, is just sad and pathetic.

  19. American influence is, at this point, hardly the reason why European countries are currently adopting the insane, self-destructive policies they have now.
    Our elites are even worse than those in America. Even our centre right politicians love to signal how much better than the ignorant, bigoted Americans are (cf. May, Merkel tweets about Charlottesville).
    German ‘conservative’ voters are still willing to vote for Merkel despite her inviting millions of rapists into their country.
    Its Germany rather than the US which is currently trying to force refugees/homosexuality/abortion et al. onto Eastern Europe

    So just how would German hegemony of the continent be any better?

  20. German_reader says

    So just how would German hegemony of the continent be any better?

    It wouldn’t and I’m not advocating for German hegemony in Europe anyway. And yes, many Europeans are deeply deluded and I’m not trying to explain away our own responsibility. But the ideological influence from the US (backed up by all manner of transatlantic foundations, think tanks etc.) is a key element of our problems. The Americans have created an entire ideology about “antiracism” and perpetual mass immigration, with the nation (if one can call it that) being solely defined through abstract values and ideas (so it’s not just about “diversity” and living with it as best as one can…Brazil, India or even Russia to some degree are diverse as well…do you ever see them cited as models?). It’s clear that this is the model for all the anti-national nonsense we’ve seen in Europe over the last few decades (Verfassungspatriotismus, patriottismo costituzionale, “British values” etc.). There are indigenous roots for the present situation as well (especially in Britain and France with their imperial traditions), but we need to break with regarding the US as a success story and a model we have to follow.

  21. But the ideological influence from the US (backed up by all manner of transatlantic foundations, think tanks etc.) is a key element of our problems.

    Exemplified by Americans like this lady:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ERmOpZrKtw

    She is American, born in Madison, WI even though showing some traces of what sounds like Hebrew Israeli accent or is this some speech impediment she has. I wonder how many Wisconsinites are so concerned with Europe’s ethnic and cultural diversity.

  22. German_reader says

    I’m familiar with that Barbara Spectre video, but if your point is that it’s all just due to Jewish machinations, I don’t believe that. To be sure, there is a lot to be criticized about Jewish influence in the US, and as a German I resent how central to the “American idea” a WW2 victory cult and focus on the Holocaust nowadays are (with the clear implication that Germany will be forever “on probation”). But I think a good case can be made that the now-dominant strains of the American project were there right from the beginning. Already in the mid-19th century you’ve got those nutcase transcendentalists with someone like Walt Whitman defining the US as a universal nation where all the races and creeds of mankind congregate to create something totally new. And the idea that a sinful world is to be redeemed through American military power must go at least back to the US civil war (with the Reconstruction aftermath the first attempt at reeducating a defeated population) and was quite prominent in WW1 as well, when Jews weren’t politically that influential in the US.
    There certainly were also important other currents in US history like nativism, isolationism or the various ideologies anti-Yankee Southerners came up with (which certainly were also dubious in other ways). But it seems to me ultimately the Puritans and their descendants won.

  23. You can’t take Jews an their interests out of the equation. While some unifying and motivating ideas are necessary it is better to come down on Earth and look at what are the real mechanisms. In your previous comment you were close to see it: backed up by all manner of transatlantic foundations, think tanks etc. Follow the money at least. Who is paying for Barbara Spectre organization?

    Do you really think that Walt Whitman affected anything? With or without Whitman America would open itself to bring labor to industrialize it. This was happening w/o Whitman. Probably it is very German to think that ideas are the moving force and then you keep overlooking shady operators behind the scenes who push and pull strings and levers not because of some ideas but because of their specific and particular interests. Brits usual do not mistake ideas for a real thing. For a good reason their chief idea was empiricism not idealism unlike Germans. Do not go to war with ideas that you most likely misidentified.

    I will repeat my question: how many Wisconsinites are so concerned with Europe’s ethnic and cultural diversity?

  24. Even our centre right politicians love to signal how much better than the ignorant, bigoted Americans are (cf. May, Merkel tweets about Charlottesville).

    Two old, ugly, childless White women condemn “Trump’s America” while their countries fill with non White, fertile muslims who hate their Nice White Lady values and want to replace it with intolerant, supremacist Islam.

    LOL.

    White racists when they speak of the “White race” or a “White homeland” need to understand that there are more White people like Merkel and May than like them.

    There are White homelands all over America and they are Obama voting, gay marriage embracing, open borders, White liberal enclaves. Both residential areas and areas of employment.

  25. Yes, US is very evil, especially its political Right, while Germany, especially when lead by Merkel’s conservatives, is very nice and the lighthouse of every right-wing person in the world.

    But, wait, what do I hear: German conservatives, even those Bavarians, always dear to the heart of You know who, have recently imported more than one million moslem men and women. And there are still more to come and settle the chemical wasteland that is contemporary West Germany.
    Those are real conservative actions, aren’t they? Thus Germany will be the new model for the political right all over the West – all the Merkels of the world unite, Merkel is the god and German reader is her prophet.

  26. German_reader says

    Do you really think that Walt Whitman affected anything?

    Probably not that much, but he and those other transcendentalist nutters show that something like the ideas that are so troublesome today existed in a pretty extreme form already in the US of the 1840s.
    Or in regards to foreign policy, look at how WW1 was understood by “progressive” Protestants in the US as a crusade for democracy, to rid the world of evil:
    http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/onward-christian-soldiers/
    Compare that to the peace initiatives of Pope Benedict XV.
    I’m not saying that there isn’t a serious problem with Jewish organizations and political networks in the US and their influence both on domestic matters and foreign policy. But I doubt that this suffices as an explanation. We probably just have to disagree about this.

  27. This conversation made think of this guy:

    Complete the System of German Idealism
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOk6HB609po

  28. an important, middle-sized European power like Germany or Italy.

    I don’t think the French would like being compared to Italy as a middle-ranking power, let alone the British.

    This wouldn’t have necessarily excluded cultivating ties to the former white dominions like Australia or Canada, or to other ex-colonies.

    Of course, it did. That was the whole point. Of the EEC. Australian/New Zealand primary imports were to be knocked out in favour of European agriculture.

    Spain does cultivate its ties to Latin America after all, despite being in the EU

    In other words they’re cheating. They should not have cultural-trade ties to former language/kin colonies if they are following EU Rules.

  29. German_reader says

    I don’t think the French would like being compared to Italy as a middle-ranking power, let alone the British.

    But that’s what Britain and France are in reality today. Ok, they’ve got nukes and permanent seats on the UN security council (which of course reflects the status of 1945, not today). But the idea that they’re still, or will ever be again, world powers like in the 19th century is delusional. And quite possibly harmful, since imperial nostalgia and a desire to cultivate ties with ex-colonies must have been at least a factor in opening up Britain and France to mass immigration. And unless I’m mistaken, Britain still allows Commonwealth citizens resident in Britain to vote in parliamentary elections and grants them certain other privileges (which it never did for EU citizens btw; personally it seems like a foolish policy to me since most Commonwealth citizens live in Africa or the Indian subcontinent and may not have necessarily positive feelings towards Britain).
    Anyway, my point wasn’t to defend the EU which in its present form I’m opposed to.

  30. Re: ” when Jews weren’t politically that influential in the US.”

    Get a copy of “Our Crowd,” by Stephen Birmingham. Not exactly an expose and essentially a puff piece on the 19th century Jewish-American community. Names names.