Time to fess up: I have been cucked by The Donald.
I outline many of my longer articles on Evernote. I don’t suppose this one is going to be written anytime soon, so I’m just reprinting the notes in almost unredacted form. Public humiliation is part of the cuckoldry fetish, after all.
I suppose the very last point still stands, at least.
I suppose there’s also some probability that I have finally succumbed to Trump Derangement Syndrome and that the last few days were just The Donald playing 666D interuniversal Teichmuller chess.
10 Reasons To Support the Trumpenreich
Yes I realize this cuts against most educated opinions, even inc. conservative. But!
- The alternatives are shit.
- We Good guys now! (Bill Kristol sad)
-
- Few neocons
- /ourguys/
-
- Can’t Cannon the Bannon
- Flynn
- Rex Tillerson
- NRxer (Thiel, Anton, etc)
- Search “Trumpenreich” tag for more e.g.’s
- No risk of war with Russia
-
- Liberals are dem real Russophobes (see polls)
- HRC NFZ support
- Young Trumpists (/pol/, Twitter, The_Donald) anti-intervention, Russophile if by low US standards, so won’t risk alienating them.
- Triggers SJWs. They need to be! Or we face another dark age.
- Not actually a fundie
-
- Pence is an insurance policy. And frankly, if antifa do assassinate Trump, I hope Pence goes all mullah omar on their asses. They’d deserve it.
- Keep America (somewhat) white.
-
- Pro-natality
- Blue Lives Matter (antagonized by the media). Against the fraud that is BLM.
- Deregulation.
- Transhumanism. Peter Thiel!
-
- Support for life extension, other cool stuff
- “anti-intellectual” Gelernter
- No obvious zradas so far, plenty of peremogas.
- Even if he does go crazy, better Trump than HRC
-
- She enjoys wide support in Europe, China (while Bannon, Flynn, etc anti-China, anti-Iran).
- So Trump will be less dangerous anyway.
Anyhow, that’s the #blackpill out of my system. I’ll have something more analytical in a few hours.
Trump is just the lesser evil. For now.
Kudos I think goes to German reader here, who kept a healthy skeptcism throughout. Still, even at this stage, better than hrc. The warning signs were there: Belicose attitude towards Iran and excessively supportive of Israel. This was always going to lead him down the road of enmity towards the Syrian government.
I don’t like word Cuck in this context, AK. Lots of people much more politically experienced than you were deceived by this con man. Perhaps Pat Buchanan most of all. He has yet to comment on this. To say he is disappointed in Trump must be a gross understatement. More like heart broken.
It is easy to understand why. Trump utilised Buchanan’s policies to get elected and is now reneging on them.
I am a non-American and do not live in America, but the remedy is clear. If you believe in National Conservatism, you must form your own party to represent your views. This is what has happened in France and other European countries. You cannot rely on a mercurial billionaire with a chequered past to do that for you.
The problem with this strategy is that it is unlikely for new national conservative parties to become ruling parties. At most they can push the ruling parties to the right, something the DPP in Denmark did successfully.
“The problem with this strategy is that it is unlikely for new national conservative parties to become ruling parties. At most they can push the ruling parties to the right, something the DPP in Denmark did successfully.”
That’s better than what we have now – no say at all in how our government is run.
A regional secessionist party a la the SNP might be useful. I’d be fine with a couple of states becoming independent. It would reduce the likelihood of global war instigated by the neocohens and provide a place for a white homeland. We should be getting on this bandwagon right away.
Starting your own party doesn’t seem to work either. We’ve seen this over and over again in European countries where those parties spend years building up their base and then sell out so that their leaders can get government positions. Then you’re left doubly cucked as you’ve invested time and resources into a party that just got co-opted by the enemy.
I voted today in municipal elections, grudgingly after a total betrayal by the populist “nationalists” once they got into government, but well, what else am I going to vote for? Trump can do almost anything now because he knows the part of his base that’s most angered about this is also the most anti-Democrat base so at most they’ll stay home.
The source of the problem is the globalist oligarchy and the only way to change things will be to go directly after the oligarchs and their channels of influence. That can’t be done through democracy as we’ve already seen that elected leaders never go after them.
Can’t really criticise those who gambled on supporting Trump. It needn’t have turned out this way. It’s pretty clear now that those who suspected that the issue would turn on who succeeded in getting Trump’s ear once in office were correct. The same kinds of bad actors and dual loyalty types who did for Bush II that way, did for Trump this time round as well. But it could have turned out differently with Trump, whereas with Clinton she was herself one of the bad actors anyway.
The way I see it, the 2016 US presidential election was always akin to the choice faced by a prisoner forced to play Russian roulette and allowed to choose between a fully loaded revolver and one with at least one or two empty chambers. The choice was easy, and the right choice was made, but it just looks as though we got unlucky when the cylinder stopped spinning.
All that remains is for the trigger to be pulled, and the US regime has been pulling the finger gradually tighter since the election.
A commentator who understands Trump better than any other in my opinion.
Separate countries exist because they have separate interests.
Define the U.S. national interest in “toppling Assad to be replaced by ?”.
(Cf. Iraq 2003-Present, Libya, 2011-Present.)
It is pandering to the American clients who pushed and supported “Assad must go”.
The inability of the American elite to distance themselves from this policy is a sign of their weakness and hybris.
The future belongs to the more competent Chinese who are replacing America as dominant economy and power of this world.
I don’t think you understand why so much of Trump’s base is disappointed. They see Syrian intervention as a pursuit of Israeli national interests at the cost of American interests (and at the cost of us American puppets since the refugees will be dumped on us).
As far as I’ve been watching politics, America’s participation in the Middle East has been blatantly obviously a pursuit of Israel’s national interests with very little regard for the consequences for anyone else. Whether you cloud that in pseudo-intellectual gobbledygook about “national liberation” or in prole gobbledygook about Captain America saving the world is irrelevant. It seems to be another war for the sole reason that Israel wants it. It hardly matters if Trump’s lies about it follow a different aesthetic.
At this point the American right should probably rally behind some communist Jew for POTUS. It would be the only way to elect a candidate that might actually say no to Israel…
I like the word, because if anyone took a few seconds to notice that most of his grandchildren are jews, then one would know he is an absolute cuckhold to them, and the interests he would be most active in supporting would obviously be them.
Pandering to the people who are never going to vote for him and abandoning a part of his base ensures that he is going to be one term POTUS.
Its worse than pandering to people that never will vote for you, it is pandering to people that were openly campaigning 24/7 to oust you. I mean if people have titles like “Against Trump” in their headlines and now you are doing their bidding, anyone with a gram of self respect could never ever defend or support such a man.
If you’re referring to me, you give me far too much credit; while I always thought there was a danger Trump might turn out to be not quite what people here hoped for (his statements even last year were after all often incoherent and contradictory), I wouldn’t have expected something like this. There’s even talk now that the US and its European satellites will give an “ultimatum” to Russia for withdrawal of Russian troops from Syria (that piece of shit Johnson from Airstrip One seems to be busy agitating for something like this). This is total madness, if they really do something like this, there’s a genuine risk of war in my opinion.
I imagine accelerationists (the worse the better, things need to go to s*** for people to wake up etc) must be happy. at least those of them who were serious about it and weren’t just trolling for hillary 🙂
I don’t feel too comfortable about accelerating to where one can now reasonably talk about what to do in case of nuclear war.
Yep, looks like Trump just went full Neocon on us. Must be something in the air in Washington. He didn’t drain or fill the swamp. He seems to have sunken in it.
This week’s events have also provided us with an opportunity to distinguish between the real men and women who have principles and thoughts of their own, and the lumpen bandwagoners who only unreservedly support Trump because they happen not to an unreservedly support Hillary.
“She enjoys wide support in Europe, China (while Bannon, Flynn, etc anti-China, anti-Iran).
So Trump will be less dangerous anyway.”
I actually have my doubts about this regarding Europe, at least here in Germany there was a lot of favourable media reaction to Trump’s missile strike…even some retarded right-wingers on somewhat “alternative” sites have written in favour of it (very bad example here: https://www.tichyseinblick.de/meinungen/schlag-gegen-syrien-trump-besteht-ersten-aussenpolitischen-test-mit-bravour/ ). No criticism by mainstream politicians either. A slight majority of the general population seems to be against it, but unfortunately there are more than enough who over the last few years have been conditioned into permanent outrage about Russia and the “butcher” Assad. Mainstream media have been harping on a “Why doesn’t the West do something against that evil dictator massacring his own people?” theme for years, that can’t have been without effect. So perversely Trump might actually profit from all that war-mongering against Syria.
Are there any real world examples where this Leninist trope ever worked?
It worked for Lenin.
But not for the people of Russia.
I don’t think he’ll profit from it. Betraying your base is not enough to appease the establishment, so Trump will be hung out to dry when they have a chance to impeach him or select a viable candidate against him.
Also, the chances of WW3 are real.
I’d like to live in 1957.
You’re absolutely right about it being better than the present situation. The formation and growth of new Right and Nationalist parties puts pressure on Globalist parties. It was the rise of UKIP which forced Cameron to hold a referendum on the EU. It is the awareness that UKIP is still very much around that drives MPs to push Brexit through Parliament. If they could get away with it MPs would have done what Tsipras did in Greece.
As regards regional secessionist parties, one of which, the SNP, I can speak from personal knowledge. It is in favour of the removal of the UK’s nuclear deterrent from Scotland. It is split on NATO, so there would be a referendum on that after Scottish Independence. Either way, the rest of the UK would be neutralised as a Great Power. It would lose its seat in the UN Security Council and Defence spending would reduce drastically as a result. This can only be beneficial.
Nil Desperandum. Right and Nationalist Parties can have beneficial effects, even where they don’t achieve power.
I’m not sure it will hurt him that much with his American base…a lot of those people seem to be the kind of “patriotards” who were big fans of Bush II…the sort of stupid housewives (and their male equivalents) from the Midwest and South who constantly declare their love for Israel, “support our troops” etc. The sample we’re seeing on sites like this might be pretty unrepresentative.
But primarily, I meant it could improve his standing in Britain and continental Europe…humanitarian interventionism and anti-Russian-posturing aren’t totally unpopular here as well.
Yes, 1957 with people like Eisenhower in charge doesn’t look that bad by comparison.
I was even thinking 1957 in communist Hungary. It was horrible, but Hungary in 1957 had a brighter future: the communist government was getting less repressive, living standards were slowly improving, and if you lived long enough, you’d be able to see 1989-90 and freedom finally.
Now if we’re lucky, we’ll see Eurabia/Eurafrica, if we aren’t, we’ll see WW3. In the meantime, PC idiocy.
Ah, sorry, I didn’t know that (would have thought there was a lot of repression in Hungary then after the failed uprising in ’56). Maybe we shouldn’t get too nostalgic, after all people back then also constantly worried about the bomb…but yes, in a way prospects for the future may have looked brighter then.
1957-59 was the worst oppression. (Probably still quite a bit better than before 1953, though.) It was only getting better from then.
But the worst things after 1956 mostly affected people involved in 1956. I’d live in 1957 Hungary as someone uninvolved in the revolution, of course.
In 1963 there was a huge amnesty, and living standards got better in the 60s and 70s. (The 80s were already a crisis, at least statistics show that, but my childhood was then and it was OK.)
In other words:
I’d rather live in a horrible country where 99% of the population is genetically close to me and conditions are slowly improving, than in a rich and nice country where conditions are constantly deteriorating and I can look forward to Eurabia/Eufrica scenarios in the country where I live or in most countries around me.
I agree, at least mostly (while I definitely hate the prospect of Eurafrica and Eurabia, I’m not sure genetics alone is a sufficient basis for a polity…there are too many appallingly stupid white people for me to feel solidarity with all of them; frankly, if there wasn’t something seriously wrong with a lot of whites, we wouldn’t be in the situation we’re in now).
Yes, genetic proximity is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for the country. A genetically highly diverse population will by definition be culturally diverse, too, and if you’re a Northwest European white, then it’s very likely that all the other cultures/races will be inferior. Even if not inferior, or even in some ways superior, they will annoy the hell out of you.
I think goodwhites have horrible views (they import the third world), but they are nice neighbors probably.
” A genetically highly diverse population will by definition be culturally diverse,”
I’m not sure that’s always true, and in any case mixing might over time lead to cultural homogenization (after all it seems Northern Europeans in their current form also have existed only for a few thousand years and resulted from the mixing of fairly divergent lineages – something I hope the mainstream won’t catch on to for some time, since i will obviously be used for immigration propaganda). I’m also not sure “most” other cultures are necessarily inferior to Northwest European ones – is Chinese culture really? I have no personal experience of it, but I doubt it’s inferior…just pretty alien for someone like me. Honestly, I think Northwest European whites have significant flaws as well…Peter Frost wrote something along the sort that they have a predisposition to shame, exclude and persecute people they regard as morally worthless…once witches, nowadays “racists”. I think there is something to this and it’s a deeply unappealing character trait in my view.
But anyway, I’m not going to argue with you, I understand race is central to you. It is very important to me as well, but there are also other factors…if by some sort of magic Europe was suddenly only inhabited by whites, but if they all were Muslim, European languages had been erased and all of European culture forgotten, they definitely wouldn’t be MY people anymore.
EurAfrica: Africa is the continent with fastest population growth.
Eurabia: Islam does not depend on genetics for expansion. Turks did not just displace the Greeks of Anatolia, they absorbed plenty of them.
I know all of that, genetically Turks are mostly descended from people who had been living in Anatolia since ancient times (though there is some non-trivial genetic admixture of the original East Asian Turks, and you can see it in the features of some Turks). But as you write there was a total cultural break. I’m not sure if that’s somehow “better” than if there had also been total genetic replacement.
I’m not JayMan, but I think your scenario is simply not realistic. Even if we all convert to Islam, we’ll mostly keep our languages, as well as many parts of our culture.
But overall, culture does matter. I’d wager race matters at least as much, and often correlates with it, so there’s that.
I agree, and in case a concept of the nation that doesn’t include at least some element of descent seems pretty meaningless to me…I’m not in favour of constitutional patriotism and the like.
As is evident to anyone who knows Bosnians.
If Trump initiates an apocalypse, it’s best to use my time not worrying nor trying to stop plans of the cryptocracy that have started long ago. I’ll enjoy my life while I can and any way I can.
And I’m not going to feel ashamed to be a victim by what must be one of the greatest cons in world’s history. I’d give them credit, they really are damn smart.
If the current appearance is false and Trump leaves the world in a better shape than it is now, then not only I should continue enjoying life just as in the first case, but it’s actually quite cool to placidly cheer for him.
So, I’ll do that.
An ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. This motto not only sounds nice, but it has helped me significantly in the past.
Chile (“make the economy scream”), too.
This is more of a New Left thing than M/L proper, even though they wrote about it.
why do you ask me, though? I’m against this sort of thing. when things go to sh**, all you get is sh**y living and falling behind which is worse than any cathartic effect it may (or may not) have. and it’s cynic and un-Kantian
although, that was subversion, not authentic accelerationism
Roki Vulovic (the singer) said in an interview once that Muslims could be nice people if you didn’t politically agitate them, whereas Croats were c***ts, no exceptions.
I personally think this is more to do with class than with religion (same as in Ireland.) Islam is still a bit of a parallel world, though. And there’s the danger of purity spiralling and phil-Arabism.
I have a family friend who lived in Hungary for a couple of years after the amnesty (I think 1964-1966 or so). He was from India, which was neutral in the Cold War, and was doing some sort of engineering studies. From his description, people were quite happy then, and if you didn’t criticize the government you could live quite a comfortable life (Hungary was described as the “happiest barracks in the bloc.”)
He also talks about how friendly / welcoming the Hungarians were to him as a foreigner, which is an interesting contrast to the stuff you hear today about evil racist Hungarians…..
It’s worth pointing out that Eurabia / Eurafrica are only theoretical threats in the western parts of the continent. Ghanaians and Syrians aren’t moving en masse to Poland or Hungary. Even f they wanted to, the electorates in those countries are already strongly ethnonationalist (even in the absence of any significant migration to date), so future mass migration would be strongly resisted. Hungary is 0.06% muslim right now and that’s been enough to make a quasifascist party get an absolute majority of the youth vote.
Even in the western parts of Europe, the backlash triggered by mass immigration is so intense that I think something will happen before we reach Full Eurabia/Eurafrica. The relatively modest amount of immigrants in Denmark has given an ethnic nationalist party the status of official opposition for the first time. I don’t know what will happen in future- maybe tougher immigration laws, maybe partition, maybe deportations, maybe increased foreign aid to African and Middle Eastern countries in exchange for keeping their citizens at home. And I certainly hope whatever happens will be relatively mild and humanitarian. I don’t think all of western Europe will consent to massively changing their ethnic balance though, although some countries like France and Germany might end up going that route.
Finally, it’s a mistake to think that fertility rates remain constant over long periods of time. Quebecois used to have a really high fertility rate, today they have a very low one. Same with Native Americans in the US, they used to be more fertile than white Americans and now they’re much less fertile. Much of Latin America has gone from super high fertility rates to sub replacement ones in the last few decades, as have east Asian countries. It’s not out of the question that African countries and Middle Eastern ones (and their emigrants in Europe) might experience similar fertility drops in the future. At least if European culture successfully manages to convince them of the beauty of the sexual revolution. Southern Africa after all is well into the demographic transition, and some Middle East countries like Iran and Lebanon have reached sub replacement fertility.
For that matter the white American vs. Puerto Rican fertility differential has flipped as well as the white vs. Native American one.
” don’t think all of western Europe will consent to massively changing their ethnic balance though, although some countries like France and Germany might end up going that route.”
Umm, there isn’t really that much left of western Europe if France and Germany go down. And I don’t see how smaller nations like Belgium or the Netherlands could escape the trends affecting their larger neighbours.
I also think you’re overestimating the potential for backlash (though obviously there already is quite a lot of it in France…unfortunately probably not enough for Le Pen winning). At least in my own country I don’t see much of it. Anybody with half a brain should have been woken up by the events since fall 2015 and realized that a radical change of course is needed. But the main right-wing opposition party is now busy tearing itself apart, left-wing extremists are openly terrorising their opponents, and all the relevant political groupings (media, parties, trade unions, churches etc.) pretend the main problem is some ominous right-wing threat. Those of us who understand what’s going on meanwhile are thoroughly demoralized.
Maybe Germany is a special case (its population certainly seems to be quite exceptionally lacking in political intelligence). But right now it all seems pretty bleak.
Iraq was a mistake according to Trump. But he never said the US was now going to be avoiding trouble at all costs. That would invite aggressive revisionist powers to get funny ideas.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11835679
Why is Russia in Nicaragua if not to damage the American national interest in the way Mearsheimer says ? But America is Godzilla, so it could overthrow Assad with a flick of its eyebrow,. Just as the British Empire used anti slavery or protection of Jews to intervene , the US uses human rights to intervene in areas where rival power are forcing on Syrian people a government they do not want to live under. Even Godzilla isn’t feared if he just stays home.
Syria is not threat to Israel and has nothing it wants . Israel does not dare expel the Palestinians from the West Bank, which nis the one thing that could save it as a Jewish state . Official US policy for a Palestinian state dooms Israel as a Jewish state.
Have you any idea what it would be like if Israel ceased to become a Jewish state of had to hand back the West Bank? Diaspora Jews would go berserk with fanatical anti nationalism, and destroy the West.
One more point. I don’t like Gypsies, I consider them to be useless parasites.
Yet when in Western Europe I met with a Gypsy guy (he was a pimp, I learned later), who was friendly and surprisingly intelligent, it was good having a few drinks in his company. You know, there was a guy, who understood my language, culture, spoke the same language, and at least partly had the same culture (though of course with some destructive Gypsy counter-cultural undertones), so culture of course must matter a lot.
Huh, we must be lucky to have dodged that bullet.
They would blame themselves you think?
Nation needs both descent (with occasional exceptions) and culture. Cannot exist without both. But if I had to choose just one of them, I’d choose descent, because having a biological child is more important to me than being able to raise a child.
He was being sarcastic you think?
Dangerous to think they are already going all out.
Point taken about Germany and France being the “core” countries of western Europe. Your case is even stronger when you add the third big country, the UK, since they have issues with immigrant communities that are as far as I can tell even worse than France and Germany. (The UK’s South Asian population commits statutory rape at eleven to twelve times the rate of ethnically English people, going by UK government statistics, and over 50% of Pakistani British marry their own first cousins, a number that’s actually gotten worse over the last few decades).
That being said I was thinking more about some of the smaller western European countries like Austria and Denmark (if you consider Austria western), where ethnic nationalists have done quite well. This is actually having an effect: I saw a survey recently indicating that most Austrian Muslims would prefer to leave the country if they were compensated financially. Which from an ethnic nationalist point of view would be the most humanitarian solution- voluntarily population transfer with compensation.
https://www.dailysabah.com/europe/2016/09/10/no-security-in-austria-for-migrants-as-many-consider-leaving
And in Denmark of course, as pointed out above the ethnonationalist party (which is now the second largest party) has successfully pushed the discourse in a more hard line direction on immigration. I think Germany and France probably are, to a certain extent, “special cases”. Germany of course has a residual guilt about WWII and ethnic nationalism, and France has a national myth of civic nationalism / assimilationism, which might permanently prevent either of them from doing anything to resist mass immigration. That seems to be much less true of Austria and Denmark, it remains to be seen whether it’s true of England.
In general though I think you’re too pessimistic. The “Eurabia” time frame that Anatoly is concerned about will take many decades to happen, if it ever does. And over the course of those many decades there’s plenty of time for fertility rates, migration patterns, or political sentiments to change or to reverse themselves.
“…the US uses human rights to intervene in areas where rival power are forcing on Syrian people a government they do not want to live under”
Are you saying that an Islamic sharia regime in Syria would be preferable to an authoritarian secular government (which is really the ONLY type of stable secular government possible in backward Muslim Arab countries)? Why the hell should that be? Even according to the “democracy-is-more-important-than-secularism” logic, which is a HUGE fallacy, that wouldn’t make sense, since the oppressive Islamic sharia tyranny that would replace the secular autocracy of the Assad regime in Syria would NOT be “democratic” in any way, shape or form.
And who says that ALL or even most of the Syrian people “do not want to live under” the Assad regime, anyway? Those in Syria violently opposed to the Assad government are generally radical Islamists with their support base in the ultraconservative, backward rural Sunni Muslim areas of the country. What about all the non-Sunni minorities – Alawite, Christian, Shia, etc.? What about all the secular-minded Sunnis (mostly urban and educated) who want to live in a halfway-modern, civilized society, not a sharia one? What about ATHEISTS and non-religious people? Don’t they count? Why is what THEY want less important than what backward conservative Islamist peasants want? This is just repetition of the same stupid, absurd neocon canard that the opposition to the secular authoritarian Assad regime in Syria consists of “moderate liberal democrats fighting tyranny”.
In addition, who gave the U.S. the right to go around deposing regimes around the world that do not pose a threat to it merely for “geopolitical” purposes, and all the consequences be damned? How is this not rogue criminality? And WHY should the U.S. be regarding Russia, a modern secular nation with its roots in white European Christian civilization (and which is NOT threatening to attack or destroy the U.S.), as a greater “enemy” and “rival” than sharia-supporting Muslims, Islamic supremacists who want to spread Islam everywhere, fundamentalists, jihadis, Al Qaida terrorists, takfiris, Wahhabis, Saudis etc.? How is this compatible with “Western civilization” which the U.S. claims to be leader and defender of; democracy; or Western or “democratic” values?
In short – you are a despicable, psychopathic, neocon Anglo-Zionist propagandist.
Descent is more important at the level of the INDIVIDUAL, as in your child example. But at the national and social level, culture, civilization and CULTURAL MENTALITY, BEHAVIOR AND HABITS matter MUCH more than simple racial descent or phenotype.
A Latin American of Christian Ibero-American cultural background and culture who has darker skin tone, or even a non-Muslim East or South Asian, fits much better in Europe and is much more “European”, than a practicing Muslim Bosnian, Albanian or North Caucasus native who has fair skin, hair and eyes.
A lot of things were annoying, though. For example sometime during the mid-60s two guys graduated from my father’s university dorm room (of 30 people), and upon graduation, the others learned that during their university years they had scholarship grants from… the Ministry of Interior. Nobody was sure what it meant exactly, but most probably the two guys were moles. My father was also at least twice asked if he would just agree to attend meetings with two plain-clothes policemen, “you know, just anything you saw or heard”. He said no, and probably there were no negative consequences for that, but who knows? Also, most likely people who had stellar careers had no compunctions about agreeing to such meetings. It is estimated that in Hungary, a country of 10 million, there were perhaps 100,000 paid agents of the Ministry of Interior (Section III), another perhaps 200-300,000 informal agents (people who, like was proposed to my father, had regular “talks” to secret policemen), which means that you had a very high chance of being reported on.
“I saw a survey recently indicating that most Austrian Muslims would prefer to leave the country if they were compensated financially.”
I don’t think that’s realistic. In the early 1980s Helmut Kohl actually did something like this and tried bribing Turks into leaving Germany by offering financial incentives to those voluntarily leaving Germany (and there were a lot fewer Turks in Germany then than today, and they had been here for much less time, and hardly any had German citizenship back then). It didn’t work, despite all that (real and alleged) “racism” living in Germany was just much more attractive than going back to Turkey for most. Unless you used some really drastic methods or offered insanely high compensation (which would bankrupt even a country like Germany), Western Europe will have large Muslim minorities in the future. To some degree we have to accept that. What is totally unacceptable though (at least to me) is continued mass immigration of the kind we have seen over the last 25 years (under New Labour in Britain, here in Germany since 2015 at the latest etc.). But for this to end the entire political discourse would have to change so an honest discussion about matters like nation, religion, and yes, to some degree even about race could take place. I don’t see that happening, most people are too conformist and adhere to the prevailing taboos (and if the dam breaks, who knows what will happen then…maybe people will go the opposite extreme and go full Nazi? That wouldn’t be desirable either).
But maybe you’re right and I’m too pessimistic…I live by the principle of expecting the worst, that way I won’t be disappointed, and given how stupid most people are, it’s not unjustified imo.
Yes, it was similar or even worse in East Germany, notoriously there were even cases of people spying on their close relatives (on their spouses, children, parents, siblings etc.). So I guess we shouldn’t become too nostalgic for the old Eastern bloc even though not everything was bad there.
Please note that Hungary was supposed to be “the happiest barrack in the communist gulag”, freer than basically any other Soviet bloc country, and so theoretically there was much less spying on citizens going on than elsewhere.
Of course, now we have the same, but with electronic means.
I wonder if Unz is being monitored as well. Hopefully our comments here won’t be used against us someday 🙂
A “right” is something you can enforce.
I’m sure there are files at the NSA of all unz.com commenters, complete with our IRL identities and the porn sites we visited at age 22. I’m also sure they can search our IRL identities (if they ever wanted to) and find, besides of course all those porn sites, the comments we placed here.
Whether anyone actually bothers to look it up I don’t know, but probably they simply don’t have time for that. They have probably like tens of thousands of jihad sympathizers in all major Western countries, important politicians to blackmail, etc., we’re pretty small fish to fry. In the communist system, if they heard anything bad about you, they would send it to your employer, or the local party secretary, etc. I think it’s better from that point of view.
On the other hand, should any of us become famous or worth checking, they now really have everything. We spend so much time online, that probably they know our most secret thoughts even if we never comment anywhere, just from the sites you visit, articles you read, comments you upvote, etc.
The way international law works is that the strongest players agree to set some rules (like, “thou shall never invade a smaller country just for the sheer hell of it”), and then they obey it even if it’s inconvenient for them. If the rules are good, they will be beneficial to them perhaps 50% of the time. Like, the rules were good for the Russians in 1999, because they could protect their ally Serbia. Same thing in 2003 with Saddam. Then, in 2007 they could shield Serbia from the international recognition of Kosovo’s independence. So it’s all the more natural that when it became their turn, in 2014, they simply didn’t grab the Crimea because they knew that they benefited greatly from the international system and were afraid to lose all those benefits (like protecting their weak allies when they themselves are in no position to protect them.)
At least, that’s how it should work. It doesn’t, because the US has used this “might is right” “international law” for at least two decades now, and so the Russians don’t cooperate with them at all. So the US attacks Serbia and supports Kosovo independence because it’s strong and it can do it. It attacks Iraq because it’s strong and it can do it. OK. But it was obvious to anyone who wasn’t a moron that there was going to be some payback. The US won’t always be so strong that it will be able to project force anytime anywhere, and protect all of its allies. South Ossetian and Abkhazian independence in 2008 was the first time since the collapse of the USSR that international law would’ve been good for the US, but not for Russia, and Russia was in a position to break it. So it did. Then came Crimea in 2014. There will be many more. In the end, I’m not sure they’re better off now that both can break international law. WW3 is likelier, in any event.
Regarding East Germany, of course it was an authoritarian state. (Which I’m generally fine with: I don’t think most people care that much about political freedom). It had some significant merits though. The actual GDP of the GDR is disputed, because of debates about how to do quality comparisons between western and eastern goods- with no market pricing you couldn’t compare them based on price. But the statistician Gerhard Heske, within the last 10 years, has done some fairly well regarded quality adjustments (using what he claims is standard methodology) and finds that the GDR economy went from 40% of west German GDP/capita in 1950 to 55-57% in 1989. That’s not just faster economic growth than west Germany, but it’s also slightly faster than the overall economic growth since the return to capitalism. (East Germany is apparently at 67% of western GDP now, whereas if we extrapolate the communist rate of growth we would expect it to be at 70%. Although again the modern day GDP figures of eastern Germany are disputed).
The “new german states” grew very fast in the 1991-1996 period (after a sharp collapse when the free market was introduced between 1989-1991), but then growth slowed down to rates comparable with the west after 1996. (I would guess that the loss of skilled people to the west cancelled out the influx of western investment).
The GDR also had the lowest level of economic inequality in the world (Gini index of 0.17, IIRC tied with Czechoslovakia and slightly below the Belarussian SSR). And unlike our common stereotype of communist atheism leading to sterility, they had a higher TFR than west Germany (slightly below replacement).
It’s not surprising there are a lot of people (less in Germany than in the other former communists states) who are nostalgic for communism.
Reiner Tor,
Oh, unquestionably. Hungary was an authoritarian communists state after all. In general though I’m not sure people care that much about freedom. Remember the liberal heroine du jour Svetlana Alexeyich, who Anatoly harshly mocked last year? One true thing she said was when she admitted (unhappily) that “people in my country care about sausages and vodka, not about freedom.”
My natural tendency is somewhat pessimistic too, but it usually takes the form of “things will get better, but only after a very great deal of things getting worse.”
Anyway I don’t think Germany in the 1980s is a good comparison for, e.g., Turks in Austria or Pakistanis in Britain today. Turkey and Pakistan are both richer relative to Europe than they were then; Western Europeans are more dissatisfied about immigration and less “welcoming” than they were then; western European economies have less demand for unskilled or semi skilled labour; and at least in Britain, South Asian Muslims are more radicalized / less integrated than they were then. But really I’m not even necessarily referring to “paying Turks to go back to Turkey”, per se. I think it’s also quite possible that we will see a process of ethnic “sorting out” within Europe, at least if continued polarization around ethnic lines happens before the Schengen agreement is rescinded (which it probably will be within a few decades).
I think a part of our disagreement here is I don’t see western Europe as a whole, as a coherent identity: I think in terms of individual countries, which vary quite a bit amongst themselves in terms of their cultural values and historical experience. Austria and Germany for example, share a number of cultural and linguistic similarities, as well as both being industrialized, wealthy, social democratic temperate countries. (Yes I’m aware Austro-German and German German are not ‘the same’ language). For a variety of reasons, Austrians seem to be more ethnocentric than Germans, and are moving faster in that direction today. (A FPO government in Austria within 10 years seems much more plausible than an ethnonationalist government in Germany). I think it’s quite plausible that if ethnic conflict in Europe keeps getting worse, Muslim minorities and liberal-minded Austrians may start emigrating to, well, Germany, or possibly to other “liberal” European countries. And more ethnocentric minded Germans might move to Austria to be around people more like them. Likewise you might see ethnic minorities and liberals move from Denmark to Sweden. South Asians in northern England might move to Scotland, and so forth. After all if the Daily Sabah article is correct, most Muslims in Austria don’t really want to be there, and moving to Germany is a much more appealing prospect than moving to Turkey.
I’m sure the prospect of Muslims from other European countries moving to Germany might not please you, as a German. But I do think that there is a natural human tendency towards concentration around culturally and ethnically similar enclaves, and so I think migration within Europe is as likely a way that Europe might ‘sort itself out’ as the prospect of paying people to leave Europe might be.
Yes, likely is like you describe it. But of course people like us are too marginal for the security services to devote much attention to us. Still, I’m somewhat bothered by all of this, and that’s one of the reasons why I’m not part of any social media. I also hardly comment on German sites anymore (which are mostly worthless and fairly restrictive concerning free speech anyway) because I don’t want to run into trouble with the censorship apparatus the present government is building up in its effort to control discourse and stifle the dissent caused by the 2015 opening of the borders. So I’m grateful that we can at least exchange views on a site like this.
I don’t know, I know people from the former GDR who definitely are not nostalgic for it because they regarded the climate of political repression as unbearable. By the 1980s the system also totally failed in providing the consumer goods people wanted (it may seem like a tiny detail, but most East German households didn’t own a telephone even in 1989). But you’re right that the system in some ways wasn’t a complete failure, at least it maintained a skilled workforce and comparatively high fertility rates. I’m also increasing coming around to the view that reunification was handled pretty badly and in a way that was humiliating to many East Germans (many West Germans hold attitudes towards easterners that can only be described as contempt, even hatred), so there isn’t much cause for Western triumphalism.
“Yes I’m aware Austro-German and German German are not ‘the same’ language”
I wouldn’t go that far, they’re mutually intelligible without much problem (unlike e.g. German-Dutch which really are different languages).
There actually has been some remigration of Turks to Turkey in recent years, but I’m doubtful this will continue in large numbers, given the political situation in Turkey (which might actually lead to many Turks who are opponents of Erdogan’s rule fleeing the country) and the worsening of economic prospects there.
Your idea of ethnic “sorting out” within Europe might not be implausible, it could well happen that in 20-30 years much of the former West Germany will have a strong imprint of Muslims and other migrant communities whereas the former East Germany will be much more ethnically German and attract Germans from the west who want to get away from “diversity”. But obviously this would create grave problems as well and might eventually even lead to separatist movements of one kind or another.
And no…I definitely don’t like the idea of Germany (or at least the part of Germany where I’m living…Berlin and North-Rhine-Westphalia can go to hell as far as I’m concerned) becoming some sort of giant reservation for Europe’s Muslims 🙁
So the US will become intelligent and moral when it is weak. Well that is what I was arguing: respect for other states’ rights is less than salient in countries with the power to do as they will. Conflict is fruitful anyway.
I think with telephones something really stupid might have been going on. Like the security services worrying how expensive it would be to listen in to all those conversations. Photocopy machines were for example under very strict regulations, because they could be (and were) used to spread anti-communist propaganda. I suspect it must have been a way of stifling communications and the spread of rumors among the population.
Strength is not a constant, it changes in time and space, like Russia is strong in its own backyard, but it’s weaker in Syria, still weaker elsewhere. Also Russia was temporarily weaker.
You basically argue that goodwill is worthless. In any event that seems to be the case with a lot of things in the eyes of the permanent US regime: like they created the impression in the Soviets that NATO would not expand, and then reneged on that as soon as it became possible for them. Same thing with the whole aggressive war thing. I hardly doubt anyone still believes what the US regime promises them. This could easily lead to WW3, with idiots like you cheerleading all the way.
Every animal will fight against much stronger opponents on its own territory, but be more wary off of it it. Syria is not in the Russian sphere of influence,–they only came in after Obama did nothing to correct Asad. Russia is supposed to be this fearsome military power, but it is scared of the US and Syria is not a vital interest for them. I do not see Trump having established by action rather than chattering, that the US is not scared to correct Assad as having damaged his credibility with America’s allies. If Russia does not like it that is their problem and the problem of their allies, because inviting the Russians in does not make you invulnerable to US intervention.
The Russians might do something closer to their borders, like in Estonia. Estonia is not a vital interest for the US, so what makes you think that once the US regime plays nuclear chicken with them over Syria, they won’t be willing to play the same over Estonia?
“Conflict is fruitful anyway.”
That’s what a lot of people thought in 1914. Didn’t turn out that well in the end.
A) The US under Obama portrayed itself as a protector of Syrians (Muslims) made big threats it did not carry out, and was left looking like a paper tiger in the eyes of the world.
B) Trump is slow to say what he will do, never says what he won’t do, and uses implacable military force.
Only one of the above is likely to facilitate other countries coming to see the US as a formidable state that one’s enemies fart around with at their peril.
Nobody knows that for certain, but the Russians don’t know what the US under Trump would do.
We are still here https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2017/02/03/the-great-filter/
But Trump or his advisors think they know what the Russians are going to do, don’t they? In which case they are playing with fire. Unpredictability is a game anyone can play, as Putin showed in 2014.
It’s a false dichotomy to think those are the only options. I would choose neither.
That was predictable, and Mearsheimer in fact predicted it decades before.
It was a surprise for most US policy makers at the time, which is all that matters. With hindsight you can say how Mearsheimer predicted it, but before you couldn’t pick Mearsheimer as the best forecaster.
You read his lips but read them when he was running (ie dissimulating) , and this is now. The bombing shouldn’t surprise . Trmp had already sent US troops to SyriA . Trump actions as pres are a good guide to what he will do next as pres.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/08/politics/marines-raqqa-assault-syria/