by John Moon for the Saker blog
Then:
Sputnik 1 was launched in October, 1957. I remember exactly where I was when the news story broke on the radio. My friend and I were being driven to a high school football game by his father, an aeronautical engineer at one of the largest manufacturers of helicopter rotor blades in the world. News of Sputnik was so important that he pulled the car to the side of the road so the three of us could listen to the lengthy newscast without distraction.
The following year in 1958, at the height of the Cold War, an unknown 23 year old American pianist won the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. Despite the tension between the two countries, the Soviets treated him graciously before he returned home to a hero’s welcome. A fine example of the “promotion of world friendship through the universal language of the arts”, which was a sentiment inscribed prominently at the venue where I met Van Cliburn less than a decade later.
At age 11 I joined the Boy Scouts. Our troop was led by an exceptional man, kind, strict, and strong, who believed that the best way for boys to learn was by doing. Every three weeks during the school year, we went on a weekend camping trip. Good weather or bad, we went.
Building fires, we were each allowed one kitchen match, whether the firewood was wet or dry; whether it was windy or not. Success was anticipated, and so usually internalized. Failure meant (marginally) good natured jeers from the others, and the next boy would test his skill and try his match.
Occasionally on a moonlit night we’d be awakened at 1 AM, and told to collect a compass, matches, canteen, and flashlight, as we were going on a hike. We’d be led along a river or road for a ways, and then led off into the woods on one side or the other. After a kilometre or two of fast walking away from the road through the bush in the dark, we’d be broken into groups of 3 or 4, with one being an older boy. The group would be told to wait for 15 minutes, and then find its way back to camp. More experienced groups would be led farther on and told the same. Other than illuminating the compass from time to time, use of a flashlight was discouraged, and shouting was strictly forbidden. We learned to keep calm, and realize that all we had to do was use our compass and common sense to intersect the road or stream, which would then lead us back to camp. Sounds easy now, but when you’re 12 years old it was less so.
On one winter trip, a mildly retarded boy seriously froze both feet, resulting in his having some toes amputated. It was sobering for all of us to realize that we were a team and part of our responsibility included looking out for one another, particularly one having a disability. We had failed, but we learned, and with our encouragement the boy continued with the Scouts.
Breaking camp meant forming a line an arm’s length apart and walking slowly to pick up everything as small as a matchstick. Anything overlooked and we’d have to repeat, only on hands and knees. Leave no visible trace. And we did not.
I had just entered high school when JFK was elected in 1960. Sputnik had been used to leverage fear of the USSR for the purpose of increasing defence spending, but it had also given rise to an overhaul of the education system. For anyone showing an interest in science or engineering, like me, the result was as if a red carpet were rolling out just ahead of us. An advanced program was set up. My class was the first. We had dynamic teachers, new laboratory equipment, and a new physics curriculum created by physicists from the US and Canada, the Physical Science Study Committee, PSSC.
The thousand days from 1960 to 1963 now seem like magic. Of course we were all aware of problems, but there was also an indescribable feeling of confidence that the problems could, and would, be solved. I know how today’s high school age Russians feel – the same as we felt nearly 60 years ago. Vladimir Putin must be every bit as inspiring to them as JFK was to us.
In high school English, we read a ridiculous play by Sophocles – at least at the time it seemed ridiculous. I was far too young to be reading it, but later realized that it was introduced not for immediate consideration, but as a seed that might possibly germinate later. And it did.
These are Sophocles’s words in the tragedy Antigone: “Evil appears as good in the minds of those whom the gods lead to destruction.” That, written over 24 centuries ago, describes exactly what is happening today. What was inconceivable in 1961 is ubiquitous in 2018.
Sputnik launched on a Friday in 1957. On another Friday in 1963, JFK was murdered in a coup d’état during my final year in high school. As with Sputnik, (and unlike Mr. George H. W. Bush) I remember exactly where I was when the news broke.
For a time, it seemed like we coasted emotionally and intellectually. No one I knew understood the gravity of what had actually happened. Everyone initially believed the government’s story. Most continued to believe, but for some, elementary laws of physics soon made the government’s version preposterous and ominous.
In any case, it was becoming clear that JFK’s administration, perhaps including a holdover, his audacious Project Apollo, marked America’s apogee during my lifetime.
Even with JFK gone, a positive feeling remained briefly at the large state university where I studied engineering. Cracks began to appear as the Vietnam War ramped up. The pointlessness of a war against a country that in no way threatened the United States also initiated a more general awareness of futility and unsustainability.
Once on an early morning flight, as we took off, we flew over endless lines of headlights and taillights of cars driven by the thousands of salesmen peddling Twinkies, Playboy Magazine, and B-52 bombers, all using the four-lane highway to get to “work”, then eight hours later reversing direction to return home, only to repeat the next day, and the next. That awoke a realization that this ongoing waste of resources, both human and material, on such unimportant, and even destructive pursuits could not last. This must go, I thought. In my naïve mind I imagined a return-to-Walden-Pond kind of transformation.
I was right, the current expression of Western Civilization does have to go, but what did I expect? That the Deep State would suddenly become rational and quiescent? The Empire will not quietly revert to Walden Pond. The shell of it has become ever-more monstrously violent as it approaches collapse.
Now:
The company manufacturing helicopter rotor blades where I grew up no longer exists – the original patents for the numerically controlled machine tools that had been invented there expired years ago.
Van Cliburn passed away in 2013 – a truly gracious, humble, and talented human.
PSSC physics is no longer widely taught – “It’s too difficult for students and teachers.”
Sophocles is no longer widely taught in high school – “It’s irrelevant.”
The skilled and successful are no longer singled out for commendation; participation alone is now sufficient to merit an award – “Here’s a lighter and a can of starter fluid to start your fire. Now isn’t that a lot more practical?”
Boy Scouts can no longer engage in the same activities as in the 1950’s – “Abandon them at night in the woods? Are you mad? It’s far too dangerous.”
Boy Scout leaders are more difficult to find today – they’re rightly worried about being falsely accused of pedophilia.
Our scout leader, a fine and generous man, would be sued into bankruptcy today had a boy frozen his feet on his watch. Our leader felt terrible about the incident and took full responsibility, although we knew it was as much the responsibility of us other boys as it was his. Everyone, including the boy’s parents, realized that it was a terrible error – and there was no lawsuit.
What’s happening?
Evidently it’s not hard to collapse a civilization. It’s done from within, gradually, where amazingly, it is not generally perceived as the decay envelops.
Art has been said to be the augury of civilization. If that’s right, it’s not hard to appraise our civilization’s health. Modern visual arts have gone from having become disturbing about a century ago to now being merely silly or irreverent. The only relevance now of such “art” is serving as a harbinger of our decline.
“The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection”, said Michelangelo. If that’s right, where are the true works of art today? And what is our perception of the Divine?
Listen to any fine arts radio station for a day. Most of their programming will comprise Baroque through Romantic music, spanning approximately three centuries from about 1600 to the early 1900’s. What’s happened to serious music over the past half century? Which compositions, if any, will still be performed a century from now?
What can be done?
We need to embrace truth, which is not so easy. Here’s what the 19th century American author, Stephen Crane, says about truth in “The Wayfarer.”
The wayfarer,
Perceiving the pathway to truth,
Was struck with astonishment.
It was thickly grown with weeds.
“Ha,” he said,
“I see that none has passed here
In a long time.”
Later he saw that each weed
Was a singular knife.
“Well,” he mumbled at last,
“Doubtless there are other roads.”
How might the embracing of truth appear?
If the National Endowment for the Arts wanted to stop Civilization’s decay, “Piss Christ” would not have been a winner in the “Awards in Visual Arts” competition in 1987, but would rather have been simply thrown out with the trash.
If the Corporate Media wanted to stop Civilization’s decay, Sophocles would be discussed, rather than Stormy Daniels.
If the Justice System wanted to stop Civilization’s decay, Elizabeth Holmes’s fraud would be judged by the same criteria as “Pharma Bro’s” fraud.
If the Financial System wanted to stop Civilization’s decay, the “Too Big to Fail” would be allowed to die.
The most significant ideas and events are ignored while the most trivial are exaggerated. Outrageous claims and accusations are routinely made with no proof whatever. A few protest, but even those protests are often muted, thanks in part to the efforts of Messieurs Brin, Page, and Zuckerberg. Most citizens seem nonchalant about the Empire provoking major nuclear powers in their name.
Instead, other matters beckon.
In February teenagers were excited about “Taking the Tide Pod Challenge.” Teenagers, who didn’t bother sharing disturbing historical photos in remembrance of the Dresden Holocaust on its 73rd anniversary on Ash Wednesday, February 14, were that week instead enthusiastically sharing videos of their vomiting friends eating Tide Pods.
Then in March, teenagers excitedly demanded that the government abridge one of their civil rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights – the right of personal self-defence. Such are the demands made by teenagers who have essentially no knowledge of history, literature, philosophy, or science.
But they are teenagers and so are to be pitied more than censured, for their environment generally does not foster such study. As with the boy having frozen feet, the responsibility lies more with others.
Their parents and teachers have not read about the Frankfurt School and so do not recognize its ghastly outcomes currently unfolding, as they might, had they also studied the Weimar Republic.
Their parents and teachers have not read Solzhenitsyn, or they might realize that sometimes governments turn violently against their own citizens.
Their parents and teachers have not read Sun Tzu, or they would want to know all they could about the “enemy”, which would lead them to study the philosophers often quoted by Vladimir Putin, such as Ivan Ilyin and Vladimir Solovyov. If they ever did choose to read them, they’d be astonished.
Their parents and teachers have not studied the effects of nuclear weapons on living things, and so they are unable to imagine themselves, their friends and relatives, together with all their belongings one day immolated in a flash of fire, as happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And finally, almost no one bothers to read Vladimir Putin’s speeches, instead relying on the highly edited and intentionally distorted summaries and interpretations presented by the Corporate Media.
The Empire has truly descended into madness, and for us on the outside, it’s almost unbearable to watch, containing as it does, the remnants of our Western Civilization.
So, Saker, in response to your article’s rhetorical question, yes, this really is the end of it all. The mechanism of the collapse is repugnant, but end it must and end it will.
But when? If the decade 1960 to 1970 (to include the JFK legacy flight of Apollo 11) marked the American apogee, what decade will mark its perigee? With humanity having never having faced this particular set of circumstances before, it’s not possible to know, but based on experiences from the 20th century, persistent and unsubstantiated vilification of a designated enemy is a good predictor of an impending hot war, and the intensity in the Corporate Media has been rapidly increasing. “Hot” warfare, used as a distraction, often coincides with a financial crisis, which may also be imminent, given recent important events regarding the Petrodollar. We will likely soon know.
However:
The collapse of the Western Roman Empire would have seemed like the end of the world for those living in Rome in 500 AD. But Civilization did not die; it slept fitfully throughout Western Europe, before finally awakening abruptly and unexpectedly with the Renaissance. Suddenly art, music, literature, architecture, and science all began to flourish together, a heartening example of regression toward the mean. All that latent talent and insight, sequestered in the population for nine centuries was now being released. And it has continued to flourish, with blemishes, for six centuries.
The situation is different now, with the dangerous very long-term effects of nuclear weapons, but it is still possible that Civilization will not die but rather hibernate as before. Even more likely is that Russia will next carry Civilization, for Vladimir Putin clearly understands what is required to make Russia great again.
Finally, here are encouraging observations that have been left to us by two diplomats, one American, the other Swedish.
The first is from George Bancroft:
It is when the hour of conflict is over, that history comes to a right understanding of the strife, and is ready to exclaim: “Lo! God is here, and we knew it not.”
The next is from the personal diary of Dag Hammarskjöld, the second Secretary-General of the UN, not long before his 1961 death in Africa. This diary was not written for publication, and was published posthumously:
The road,
You shall follow it.
The fun,
You shall forget it.
The cup,
You shall empty it.
The pain,
You shall conceal it.
The truth,
You shall be told it.
The end,
You shall endure it.
It is likely that we also may need those words.
And may God help us all…
John Moon in his own words: I appreciate: Music – Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Dvořák, Handel, Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakov, and well… Authors – Rumi, Hafez, Longfellow, Hugo, Dickens, C. S. Forester, Jim Williams, John Kraus, and well… Living at the edge of civilization having four distinct seasons, dark night skies, and radio-quiet. The sound of geese flying south on clear, cold, moonlit fall nights. The availability of Internet for access to vast amounts of information, while taking up almost no shelf space. A place to sit and reflect from time to time. Red roses, symbolizing spiritual receptivity. Toby, who insists that I take him for a walk at least once a day.
Yes, the West has indeed changed. And it has changed for the worse, financially, politically and culturally. Instead of concentrating on it’s cultural inheritance and Christian religion, the West is abandoning both, especially after World War Two, when some sort of liberal style introductions have been made. Russia, on the other hand, has turned back to Christianity, with Putin building 30.000 churches. God, country, family are now becoming the norm, something that Europe and the US used to have. And the response from the West ? Vilification of Russia and President Putin, culminating in that foolish false flag attack in England, which people are expected to believe. Somebody is indeed subverting both Europe and the US. Those who are doing this did not expect that Russia would rise and turn away from this liberal subversion and go back to it’s Christian roots. Looking at responses of ordinary people on the Internet, it would appear that Russia is gaining remarkable esteem.
It is not only ‘abandoning’ Christian religion and cultural inheritance, but aggressively turning against them, deliberately and openly seeking their destruction and humiliation, process which started concomitantly with the victory of Christianity and pursued with manic determination through the centuries. What the ‘West’ really is, is the success of this struggle by the dark forces. The fury and rage of the ‘Westerners’ directed at Russia is the realization that all their efforts have been in vain despite the unspeakable horrors they visited upon Russia in order to destroy the Church and ‘stamp their boots on human faces forever’. They might feel the terror that retribution will come in kind.
John Moon with a powerful truth bomb.
Here’s something interesting, that I haven’t seen anyone really commenting on. Check out maps of Syria’s oil reserves pre-conflict. You’ll start seeing maps that clearly denote oil ventures East of the Euphates as Chinese operated. Islamic State first seized, and then the US switched the flags to US-backed Kurds on the oil regions dominated by the Chinese.
This suggests that China isn’t actually a silent observer of the conflict in Syria, but is directly involved in the proxy war, and it was the US that struck the first blow.
Explains why the Chinese have troops on the ground training Syrian forces (and have done since before the Russians), why Russia felt empowered to go into Syria in force, and why the Syrian economy–despite having none–hasn’t fallen over. China may be playing a massive role in Syria, and as always it has everything to do with the oil.
Could also explain why the Kurds are garnishing zero support and why they are ultimately doomed. They’re occupying Chinese assets.
USSR established strong relations with Syria 1944 and a Defence Pact 1980. Russia has long had a relationship with Syria after US created Baghdad Pact 1955 against Syria and UK plotted since 1957 to topple the Syrian republic.
Australians should, if they’re old enough remember Gough Whitlam’s demise when he attempted to obtain money from Baghdad in late 1975 to fund the Labour Party election campaign. However it was not Saddam Hussein who was to provide the money, but rather a major sting operation to deny Whitlam any money led by the Australian residing in New York, Rupert Murdock, with the main actor Henry John Fischer who at the time resided in an apartment at Sydney’s ‘Blue Point Towers’ owned by Rupert Murdoch.
It was this scam that led to the famous quote; “Gough’s gone; Gough’s gone a million”, by Bob Hawke, ALP President.
Which raises another point of interest. Saddam Hussein had always been the American’s boy which is proven by his going to war with Iran, and yet the Iraqi leader was always totally demonised by the Jewish MSM.
And then later, it was Rupert Murdoch who promised little Johnnie Howard the Prime Ministership, after his agent visited little Johnnie’s office in Bennelong in 1991. This then explains little Johnnie’s roles in the Australian Gun Control grab, 911 and the English 7/7 2005, and always in the background was Rupert Murdoch.
Whitlam was ousted in a constitutional coup by the US intelligence ‘asset’ (since WW2) John Kerr. Whitlam was warned of Kerr’s background by his Minister Clyde Cameron, among others, but thought that he could control Kerr. A BIG mistake that must have been plain when the US sent the CIA coup-master, Marshall Green, the butcher behind the 1965 genocide in Indonesia, as ‘Ambassador’ to Austfailure. Her Maj, ER II was in on it, too, of course, and two senior judges of the High Court, Barwick and Mason. At least it showed what a dirty farce ‘democracy’ is in any US satellite.
Shouldn’t we KISS? Australia is not a ‘satellite’ of US, but a ‘ (British) Commonwealth realm’, a ‘Crown Land’ of Her Maj ER II and descendants. Any GovGen would have done the same, CIA asset or not, because Whitlam was a security threat. As was Keating, but in his case they proceeded more subtly, letting ‘democracy’ take its course. Would you believe that the anti-Russian (totally unnecessary) stance of the couple Turncoatbull-Bishop was because of US? Or what is obvious, that it they were under obligation to do it?
Dear Mulga Bill from Eaglehawk,
I wasn’t talking about Whitlam’s sacking which was a completely different subject; I was talking about Murdoch’s scheme to totally destroy Labour’s chances of winning the 1975 election. The main reason why the Jews didn’t like Whitlam was due to his impartiality in regard to the Palestinian problem with Whitlam giving both sides equal billing; No Jew could ever accept that status.
The US was more concerned about ‘Pine Gap’ which Whitlam was not going to renew the lease.
And what of Rex Connor’s plan to buy back the farm from the British Banks? My God! That would have given us ‘FREEDOM’.
And for heaven’s sake, get your prejudice in regard to the Royal Family into reality. The English Royal Family are simply the ‘figurehead’ on the Rothschild run aristocracy and government of the UK .
In regard to your comment; ” At least it showed what a dirty farce ‘democracy’ is in any US satellite” please go back to John Curtain and Frank Forbes and ‘their’ Irish roots that despised the monarchy so much that they were prepared to let the Japanese invade Australia and then turn Australia over to the Germans so as to make ‘Australia ‘ a republic, and when that ‘conspiracy’ failed they then grabbed the tailcoats of Uncle Sam.
In fact there has not been one Australian government with the intellect, the guts or the integrity to realise that Australia was supposedly a ‘FREE’ country deserving of its own freedom and not a vassal state, going cap in hand to the most, oh sorry the second most barbaric bureaucracy in the world; The British Parliament is the most barbaric bureaucracy, which is why virtually every ‘Terrorist Organisation’ had its base in the City of London, and Washington it’s junior partner in the business of International Terror since the 1800’s.
And that is the explanation of why the Turnbull government sided with the lying insipid Theresa May and kicked out two Russian diplomats; they were simply obeying ‘orders’ from their masters.
Many thanks for your informative ‘rants’ Very helpful for us in the US of I
I am sorry Dan, but China does not have what it takes to protect its interests. Look at Libya, Sudan, etc, etc.
They, China, let billions of their investment bew stolen from them without saying a peep.
Could it be that China keeps its peeping to itself and spends its time, efforts. and funds in preparation for being able to prevent such thefts in the future?
Do you remember the American war in Kosovo? Whose Embassy was it the American artillery ‘accidentally’ bombed for the CIA? The Chinese. When the American forces first invaded Afghanistan, whose embassy did they accidentally bomb for the CIA? The Chinese. There were also approximately 200 foreign military forces captured by the Americans. They were Chinese; remember?
The Chinese were also reported in the MSM at various times as shooting down one of their own satellites. How terrible cried all the American MSM realising that the Chinese now had that technology, and then when the Chinese captured a US spy drone, the Americans demanded that it be returned immediately. The Chinese simply stated come and get it, but when the Americans came to collect ‘their’ property, they found that it had been completely dismantled and every ‘secret’ garnered from the aircraft. The Americans then muttered something and left ‘their’ aircraft where it was.
Yes, the Chinese are playing in the game, but in their own way and their own time, but be aware, the Chinese also play to win.
Sun Tzu emphasises that the greatest victory comes in not having to fight. He didn’t know the Exceptionals, of course.
Thank you John and Saker for your inspirations.
John, take Toby for a walk at least twice a day – he deserves it and you as well. ;-)
Everything in your “last look” is true Mr. Moon.
However, how the generation, your generation, that was thought physics, discussed Antigona, listened to Van Cliburn, and learned how to find their way in the dark woods produced a generation that finds physics too difficult, Sophocles irrelevant, does not know who is Van Cliburn, cannot find their way at all, and eats Tide pods?
Do you think that there is a connection, or today’s generation just fell out of the clear and bright sky? Does your generation bears any responsibility for what evolved since your youth or this is just a lament?
Van Cliburn should have stayed in the Soviet-he would have had a grand career and been much loved by Soviet and other audiences. Back in Thanatopia, he soon outlived his propaganda value in a society that preferred Liberace’ to him.
That is a very, very good question. Really quite profound. We as a society must honestly answer that, if we are to have any chance of survival.
Simply because nobody had any clues of how whole generations and cultures would be trapped and primed for a stub in the back. Boys are getting criminalized for being boys, pumped with estrogenic foods, filled with toxic ideologies and basically completely re-engineered. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLnekV64gTM
These are victims. The same as normal people in Russia who did not expect that millions of them are going to die terrifying deaths in 1917. The enemy was as vicious as it was clever and cunning.
However, I think that there is an awakening. Just look how much support is given to Jordon Peterson. He is a hero. I disagree with some of his history related views but I know why he made them known to the media – it is because, now they can’t really accuse him of anti-Semitism. So far he won every debate with those who represent Zionism and all other murderous ideologies it created. He is deeply spiritual compassioned and fearless human being. He put everything on the line and he is winning.
Winning a debate is a matter of oratory not truth. I enjoy Peterson very much but he can also be quite deceptive in his arguments. He shoots from the hip, sometimes accurately sometimes not. Sometimes he misses by a mile.
Anonymous @2:07 pm:
Yes, we must take responsibility, but it’s like watching the hour hand on a clock. If you don’t know whether the clock is running or not, you can’t tell by looking at the hour hand, or even the minute hand – it’s too slow to notice. Something like that has happened here. At present, I would say, the changes are occurring rapidly enough to be easily noticed. Slow and continuous change never seems to trip an alarm. If someone does sound the alarm, they’re usually accused of being paranoid.
My feeling is that the changes are being orchestrated by people with significant resources. And for ordinary people concerned with career, raising kids, paying a mortgage, etc,challenging, or even noticing the slow erosion of our culture is difficult.
Thanks for the response and willingness to take responsibility.
May I ask you kindly to outline some of the things that in your opinion were related to the current decay and should have been done differently in the 50-70.
The clock example is interesting. However, with clock or not it is in the Homo Sapiens nature to forsee and plan ahead. What were the plans of americans for the future in the 50-70 and what went wrong?
Thank you
Anonymous @9:51 am:
Wow – that’s a very difficult question and I don’t pretend to know the answer. Some thoughts off the top of my head though, would include a rapidly increasing amount of disposable income that translated into a corresponding increase in materialism. Right after WWII, in my neighborhood, literally a stone’s throw from where we lived in a 2nd floor apartment, resided a machinist, two dentists, a judge, a bus driver, and prominent businessman. All in pretty similar homes. By 1965, the ones in the list making more money moved away to much more exclusive homes. The egalitarianism that I felt as a little kid changed dramatically.
Second, starting about 1965 in the university town where I then lived, the use of drugs, with all that’s associated with it, began to rapidly increase. Was that orchestrated? I don’t know. At the time I would have said no, but now I’m not so sure.
Have you seen this video? If not, it’s worth watching. This is the first of a series of four, I think, produced by the BBC:
https://youtu.be/DnPmg0R1M04
I think it gives insight into the rapid rise of materialism in the 1960’s. And there’s no doubt at all that that hedonism was orchestrated.
Hope that helps. What are your thoughts on the matter?
I was born later, my generation falls in between yours and today’s, may be we should be called “the lost generation”, since we did not contribute very much to what developed, but did not stopped it either. We simply were carried by the tide from then to now.
I am familiar with the theories of Ortega Y Gasset, Karl Mannheim – influence of historical events, Morris Massey – value programming of generation and Strauss-Howe with the cycle approach to American history:
The High – strong institutions and social collectivism, weak individualism
The Awakening – increasing personal autonomy
The Unraveling – weak institutions that are distrusted
The Crisis – era of destruction
I find all of them based on grand generalization and raising questions but not giving answers. Answers can be given by people like you, common people who lived trough it.
Consumerism and “values” created by mass manipulation by people like Bernays (thanks for the link), uncontrollable desire to instant gratification and happiness, lack of respect for the world outside of America, messianism, bringing democracy to the rest of the world without asking for the world’s opinion…..May be. All this happened in the happy 50-70.
But still, there is something more and I do not know what, I am not american, although close. Americans, and I mean Americans and not their representatives, should search and find it before the stage of The Crisis.
It was all orchestrated by the so called the same occultocracy that cooked up Nazism and Zionism.
They work over centuries, sometimes quickly more often too slowly for the average person who believes that it’s smart to pretend to be stupid (stay out of “trouble” like a good little child, in other words…) to notice or react, figuring better just try to “run out the clock” of their stupid little lives …..in relative “comfort”….as long as that lasts…LOL.
Time is about to run out. Which is not entirely a bad thing, as log as the missiles don’t fly, all at once, everywhere.
@John Moon
“Was that orchestrated? I don’t know. At the time I would have said no, but now I’m not so sure.” – as someone who grew up in eastern Europe, I put myself the self question but the answer is somewhat different until 1989, but the same mirror after that time. The communist ideology has been forced upon many countries in that region after ww2, but it has contributed significantly to the benefit of all peoples living there exactly because of egalitarianism. The fissures have begun to come to light after 1980, followed by the collapse in ’89. The new paradigm, introduced with the slogan of “freedom and democracy” left everybody unprepared for what will come next : mass privatizations, mass looting, total disintegration of entire economies, mass emigrations and massive loss of population by increased mortality rate. The use of drugs and pornography were nonexistent before ’89 (at least in Romania ), people attended concerts, theater, art exhibitions, libraries and spent much more time in nature, making sport etc. When I was enlisted in the military, it was a bad think in the eyes of my friends not to go or try to avoid that. Each of my friends made some kind of sport and in our free time we used to play football as much as possible. Today all this has changed, certainly there was an orchestration in all this, probably with the scope to make the new generation totally brainwashed ( the communists couldn’t do that, they lacked the means and they were naive – when I think of what is at the disposal today, in comparison to what the communists ever had) Today, the means of propaganda are enormous, the means of derailing ,millions all over the globe is overwhelming. A youth today has to face very great challenges in order to discover a path of light in this darkness which is being felt by many as brightness.
Many thanks for your thoughts in this blog and wish you many more good walks with your dog. I’ll do it in turn with my own as well.
ioan:
I agree – what’s happening right now is certainly orchestrated. Significant changes are happening across many fronts and very rapidly, with the effect of splintering our culture into many, often conflicting, segments. I’m guessing that it’s happening throughout Europe as well. And, yes, the technology that can and is used for propaganda is very much more effective than in the 1980’s.
But there is balance – that same technology used for propaganda permits me to sit here and very easily share ideas with you. In 1989 – no way.
Just returned from a walk with the dog. He left a few “pee-mail” messages in the snow for his buddies!!
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/04/hudson-report-economic-impact-bipartisan-bank-deregulation.html
(Michael Hudson + “commentaries” denote truth)
There are people, still alive, who could see how the ‘orchestration’ was made before the events of 89, knew the people who wrote the score and the ones who played it. They are the looters who became the millionaires of today, the shapers of public opinion, the distorters of national history, the controllers of the mass-media, the shameless liars.
But there are people who still attend Church, who strive to live a Christian life. They are the ‘remnant’ that will be saved, ‘the seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal’. “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Orchestration certainly plays a major role, but it is only a part of the equation. Just like in the movies, the vampire can do nothing to you if you don’t let it. Orchestrators always existed and always will, but explaining our failures only in this way is admitting our absolute inability to defend ourselves.
Just an example – after the WWII, the jewish doctors convinced americans (along with many other things that are now “american values”) how healthy and good is to subject their children to circumcision, because it allegedly protects from certain diseases. It is absolutely proven (I am a doctor) that circumcision has no health benefits other than religious. It is a mutilation and actually has many potential harms. Why americans willingly agreed to this nonsense? Why russians agreed to exchange their own country for “democracy”, gum and jeans, and force it on many others like your country?
I don’t think the Russians have forced the “democracy” on any country from the former Eastern Block, everything started with the arrival of Gorbachev who was keen to make reforms in the socialist system. However, the events have get another turn.
Thank you for writing this article. One of the many nagging issues of JFK was the balance payments issue and the dollar. He was adamant to maintain a strong dollar at 35 dollars to an ounce of gold. He would not flex on this despite taking heat from the likes of David Rockefeller (then president of Chase Bank) who amongst others wanted a floating dollar against gold. Ref. Life Magazine July ‘62.
JFKs demise was followed by the floating dollar, debasement of the currency, easy money. Guns and Butter, Nixon Gold Abandonment, Reaganomics, Derivatives, Greenspan nothing but easy money.
Sophocles – “there’s nothing more demoralizing in the world than money”.
Maybe Sophocles was right all along.
Anonymous @9:51 am:
The more I think about your question the more involved it seems. Hedonism is never a hard sell, and having an increasing disposable income makes it worse.
The parents of my generation lived through the Great Depression, most of them as teenagers themselves. I think it is entirely natural that those parents would try to provide an environment opposite to their own experience at the same age, and so they tended to indulge us.
So, the Depression plus WWII profoundly shaped most of our parents’ outlook and how they raised us. Should they have known better? I suppose, but go back and read that poem by Stephen Crane.Really, really facing truth can be, and usually is, a very unpleasant business, and they had mortgages, careers, and so on. I certainly cannot blame them. Is it then our responsibility? Well, I suppose, but we were pretty young to have enough perspective to see what was happening. If Tide Pods had been invented in 1960, who knows, maybe I’d have taken the Challenge too!! I certainly did enough stupid things (not in Boy Scouts – completely on my own) that I feel lucky to be alive today. And I mean that literally…
Then it was the common people, this silent majority, who let the orchestrators to lure them with shining commodities and glamorous dreams to lead them to the clif.
The silent majority…
“I am not afraid of the enemies, because they can only defeat me,
I am not afraid of the friends, they can only betray me,
I am afraid of the silent majority,
because with its silent agreement all evils happen.”
I too am of Mr Moon’s generation.
What did I see once I married Vassiliki Papasotiriou and moved to Research (just out of Eltham) and started a family? My children attended school at Research and little value was put on the three ‘R’s’. Instead of learning how to add, my two children were taught to ‘Save the Whale’
When I attended the Haig Street Primary School in West Heidelberg, the ‘State Education System was excellent. At the same time across Darebin Creek at the West Preston Primary School another student was receiving the very same education, Talbot from ‘The Electric Universe’.
So when did the ‘dumbing down’ of the Australian student’s begin? How about in 1972 when finally the Australian Labour Party won the Federal Government elections, and Whitlam began to usurp the States’ powers in regard to medical, educational and of course employment in regard to ‘the Dole’.
Was it Cicero who warned of the enemy within the gates? It was never the ‘Reds under the Beds’, it was always the ‘Reds in government bureaucracy, and in Education. And then in 1983 Whitlam’s work was continued by Bob Hawke, that great Aussie Prime Minister whose greatest talent was in sculling a pint of beer!
It was Bob Hawke’s government that started the grab for firearms in 1987, ably assisted in Victoria by John Cain Jnr and in NSW by Barry Unsworth, who lost the 1988 election by making it a referendum for gun control, and then finalised by the Murdoch appointed ‘little Johnnie Howard’ when the ‘Massacre we had to have in Tasmania’ was finally executed from within the Federal Attorney Generals dep’t via the PSCC and the AIC.
As my old Piper Major says; “Slowly slowly catchee monkey.” Wasn’t that what the Fabien Society is all about?
I love your missives from Cloud Cuckoo Land via the Murdoch media, Andrew.
Dear Mulga Bill from Eaglehawk,
There is none so blind as those that do not wish to see.
Can you remember the Murdoch press back on the 30th of April 1996? Their headlines were simple; “THIS IS THE MAN” and thus totally destroying any chance of a proper trial for Martin Bryant, who never had a trial, just a media led lynch mob.
Can you remember little Johnnie Howard’s words on the 3rd May 1996? Little Johnnie studied law and would have known the basic tenets but he stated; “Now that the perpetrator has been apprehended, there should be no reason for a trial”.
And what did Tim Fisher tell his audience at Alice Springs? How about; “If we don’t get it right this time, then next time there is a massacre, AND THERE WILL BE, then THEY’LL take all of our guns off us”
Do you understand just exactly what these politicians have told us???
Are you aware of the roles played by The Honourable Reverend Michael Tate of the diocese of Hobart, Duncan Kerr and Daryl Smeaton in the planning and preparation of the Port Arthur Massacre?
But let’s change the subject. The unions and the Labour Party in Australia accomplished some famous conditions for the working class in Australia. Can you remember some of them?
How about the harvester Company decision of 1915 which implemented the ‘Basic Wage’ for the Australian worker. Paul Keating destroyed that when he replaced the Basic Wage with the American systems Minimum wage so that most Australian jobs could become part-time, casual with minimum payments for workers without any rights that the unions fought for, for almost a hundred years.
What about the State Banks and the Commonwealth Bank. The State Banks were introduced so as the average Australian worker could afford to buy his own home, the ‘Great Australian Dream’! Remember! And then there was the Commonwealth Bank which totally financed Australia’s efforts in the Great War, and at the end of that war King Malloy simply opened the ledger and wrote the whole debt off.
King Malloy wrote off the entire Australian debt from WW1 with one entry into the bank’s ledger. No wonder he had to go,
Of the SSB State Savings Bank of Victoria, the Premier John Cain permitted the SSB of Vic to finance the ‘Tricontinental Bank’ a merchant bank, and when that went bust passed the debt to every Victorian, and then sold the bank to the Commonwealth bank, which then allowed Paul Keating to sell half the Commonwealth Bank to private investors
Do you remember Paul Keating floating the Australian Dollar which then allowed the US Multi-corporations to firstly undermine the Australian dollar to about 49cents and then buy out everything and anything in Australia that was making a profit.
Do you remember the Australian Pilots Union? They wanted a pay rise so Hawke sacked the lot and brought in foreign pilots. Do you remember Simon Crean? He stated when he was made the ‘Leader of the Opposition’ that the Labor Party had to remove itself from the Australian Union Movement. Do you remember that
In fact virtually every move by federal government to destroy the Union Movement in Australia in the past 35 years was made by the Labor Government. But then the Liberal governments in Australia never rescinded those moves against the Australian worker, but supported their Banker bosses.
And as for Murdoch, are you aware that when he studied at Cambridge in England he was the protégé of Lord Beaverbrook, Churchill’s wartime media Mongol. In fact if Murdoch wasn’t in the Mossad then he had to be one of their best assets. 911, the London bombing, the setting up of Whitlam and the passing of information to the Fraser Government.
Now; check for yourself if this information is from cloud Cuckoo Land or factual, and do not insult me as being low enough to collude with Murdoch
Another thing “borrowed” from German language : Wolkenkuckucksheim
Thanks for that.
Very relevant questions.
However, it is a bit unfair to the author to complain that he did not provide explanations or analysis. The articles objective seems to be to explain the situation as it now stands.
Maybe the next article will provide an analysis of how it came to be this way, where and how it went wrong, who was responsible, etc.etc.
This would be useful and interesting. Based on the above account things were going well, so why is it ending badly? Maybe a better understanding would help to set things in the right direction.
Or maybe it is the way things are- things are good for a while, get worse and then get better again and
on and on…?
Looking forward to the follow up article.
Very powerful and, sadly, true to an extreme. I’ve sat here for 12 years and watched CehSha (США) spiral down at an ever increasing rate. I went ‘home’ in August of 2008, shortly after the Gruzya War started, and for what I had to do on that trip things were still pretty much the way they were when I left some years before. I had no need to return until 2014 when the last loose ends needed tying. I stepped off the bird in Miami and good Lord, what a change in a scant six years.
From the looks of it, Mr. Moon is about my age and I remember all the events he talks about, the education, the belief in CahSha’s values and aspirations, society and culture in general although he went for ‘higher education’ and I didn’t, choosing another vocation instead, ergo our worlds would have taken different forks in what should have been roughly the same journey.
So now we have today, and sadly, again, I agree with Mr. Moon. CehSha is done, gone, barely a caricature of what she was. The vestiges of what she was are still there, the rapidly waning power she once had and once was and still has to an extent but that power is now at the tip of the bayonet, not the welcoming hand of a healthy culture and society. I’m an old man now, past 70, and while I still have some years left, I don’t know if I will live long enough to see US totally collapse, if it ever does, but I know the America I grew up in, was educated in, believed in and was willing to put my life on the line to defend, is gone. I find this fact deeply saddening but with age comes understanding and I know there is nothing I can do but mourn her, mourn what she was, what she could still be and what she no longer is.
Auslander
Author
Never The Last One https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZGCY8KK A Deep Look In To Russia, Her Culture And Her Armed Forces
Sevastopol, The Third Defense. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079KRPLS4 Book 1, A Premonition, The Move South
How enjoyable to read a man of erudition, awareness and love of life!
Thank you for the essay. Keen and correct in detail.
Your interpretation of history is an important study. Indeed, the West’s culture has collapsed, its societies corrupted and fallen to swill and disease. Yet, its Civilization still standing atop its mass or weapons and cache of most of world’s wealth.
Over there, a lone wise man, holding up a huge mirror for the deviants to see themselves clearly. Putin!
The moment of truth, high noon is nearing. Already we know our Marshall Will Kane (VVP) won’t run. Like Gary Cooper’s character, the black hats will face his guns for certain.
The morality play this time is not cinema. It’s very, very real.
Evil is being faced down by the moral imperatives of the other four Civilizations, far older and wiser than the crippled West’s degeneracies.
What irony that Trump often in his campaign rally speeches spoke of the greatest danger to America was nuclear extinction. Yet, he has empowered the nihilists and Dominionists to make his policy in foreign affairs, and to be led to the brink everywhere against everyone.
We shall see if Putin can take down the Hegemon. His army does have St. Michael, the Archangel to fight the satanists.
Yup, High Noon is definitely coming. I’ve watched VVP back and fill, turn the other cheek and smile, all the while him knowing what was coming and when. 01 March was the defining moment, he announced that the Hegemon was done. It will rant and it will scream but I have no doubts the they know that VVP did not announce all the new weapons and equipage and they know a lot of the new odds and ends are already in service. Russia is not safe by any stretch of the imagination, Hegemon can still do a lot of damage but the die is cast and the end is nigh for those ungodly heathens and destroyers. A pox on the lot of them.
Auslander
Thank you, this voices my thoughts far more eloquently than I can.
See also:
http://www.unz.com/proberts/how-our-country-was-stolen/
We are heading towards another Dark Age but it is interesting to watch the Empire collapse. Read Rosemary Sutcliff’s novels “The Silver Branch ” and “The Lantern Bearers” for a flavor of what it was like last time around.
Once Finance triumphs over Production and sets out to liquidate all fundamentals into Cash society is doomed
Interesting that the Renaissance came about by way of the Islamic Golden Age.
Basically, the Greeks are not the fathers of western civilization. The Arabs/Persians ( Muslims) took, corrected and significantly added to the Greeks and thus human knowledge.
The Islamic Golden Age was and still is the most underrated, never even brushed up on in academia, era post Rome. The age when the science came into the light.
In their arrogance, the west, led by vengeful, hateful, racist warmongering descendants of the old Kingdom of Khazar( in the south Russian steppes and parts of Ukraine), actually believe they can successfully take on what is a natural progression in world affairs, by way of multi-polar spheres, and somehow keep the world in the proven miserable old way. The Jew way. It doesn’t work. Sorry, they just don’t make good managers or masters. We saw what they did in 20th century Russia, once they got their grimy hands on power by way of deception and other diabolical acts.
So they want to play with fire. A big, all consuming, zero-sum conflict in the Middle East. All the players are there, in position. Threats are made, lies are said, all the while Russia is pouring in equipment and personnel into Syria and jump off points in Armenia and Russias southern military sector is on stand-by.
Iran is equally ready. It has been preparing for this since 1979. I remember reading on FARS.com news about a Major General in the IRGC as stating that if need be, Iran could muster as much as 5 million men under arms. Hundreds of thousands of ballistic missiles , in fact some estimates say as much as a million, on stand-by. So you see, it would be mutually assured destruction should Israel try and nuke Iran. Iran has ever square meter of Israel mapped out for redundant bombardment with incendiary, high explosive warheads.
Ever hear of all those forest fires in Israel? Well, when the European settlers came to Palestine and occupied it by way of U.N. fiat, they soon started to long for their pine trees and trees from Europe, Russia. So they planted millions of these trees, whom due to the weatherly conditions of the location of Palestine/Israel, the trees and such are there, but dry and somewhat brittle. Perfect conditions for quick spreading forest fires. The Iranians know this very well, and have designed warheads with the right materials to capitalize on this Achilles heel for the Jewish Zionist state. The whole place would be reduced to a match box rather quickly, too.
Anyways, Iran has a ‘ban’ , a religious ban on nuclear weapons. All it takes to reverse that would be a ‘fatwa’ (religious edict/ruling), by a council of experts and that’s that. I wouldn’t be surprised if Iran already has the missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead in its arsenal already, and has already all the other components should this exact need arises. This policy also makes it able to deflect western/Zionist pressure.
General Soliemani of the IRGC QUDS Force is essentially in charge of the enormous amount of battle hardened Iraqi militias, called Hashd Al Shabii, and auxiliaries. In a regional war, these folks are going to be in the middle of the scrap.
Hezbollah has by now grown into a well experienced military giant due to its 7 year involvement in Syria, basically well versed in urban and rural attrition warfare if necessary. They are ready for Israel, U.S. , et al.
The Syrian Arab Army by now has been distilled down to arguably the most effective, experienced force on the planet. They have enormous amounts of experience that would literally overwhelm opposition , so long as Russia keeps dogging U.S. and Israeli planes with ‘cockpit blackouts’ and other such phenomenon, and covers for the Syrians and allies from air assault.
That’s where the Chinese have a vested interest in the Middle East if not only on business grounds, but like Russia, on moral grounds as well. Beijing comes with an open checkbook, a ‘win-win’ for all attitude. In Syria, the are the ‘silent partner’ you don’t really hear much about but behind the scenes, he is moving and shaking things. China has given Syria a open line of credit, and Syria will be an important part of the BRI initiative of China’s. I even read reports that the PLA sent special forces troops to Damascus recently. I’m sure them, and Russian Chechen Spetznaz are embedded with the SAA’s Tiger Forces paving the way from victory to embarrassing victory for the U.S., U.K, Israel, Saudia France.
I’m pretty sure the Chinese don’t like Israel’s Zionism too much, and probably comes off like its bastard sister Hinduism. Both occupying other peoples land militarily. In effect military occupations. Both are noxiously Islamophobic, and harbor a deep resentment because no matter how hard they are, or have tried, they cant seem to succeed against Islam in any way. Its rather laughable that India can be used a a sort of bulwark against China, who is eons way more ahead and advanced than that 900 million strong slum India. Since 1980, China has lifted 750 million people out of poverty. End of story there, but the Indians want a mission to Mars!! And confront China in the Himalayas and Pacific. Ridiculous. All China needs to do is create man-pad portable anti-aircraft / anti-missile systems that are accurate and deadly and mass produce these and saturate Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and that alone would change the whole dynamics of the whole thing.
Anyways…cheers, Salam.
The local fakestream media here in Austfailure is trying very hard to ignore the latest Gaza massacre, or follow Holy Eretz Yisrael in blaming the victims. Austfailian ‘politicians’ naturally, do not dare mention it, not even in passing, although I do expect the more Rightwing and pro-Israel swine to take the time to condemn ‘Palestinian terrorism’, soon. And the Hindutva massacres in Kashmir are ENTIRELY ignored. The training in repressing restive and imprisoned Islamic populations provided to the Indians by the Israelis is turning out as expected over there. Meanwhile UK Labour has surrendered TOTALLY to the baying Zionazi lynch-mob, and is beginning a purge of pro-Palestinian voices. All they want is Total Control-is that really too much to ask, when they are so wonderful?
MM
Those zionazis, like their bugger bros of the fascist right, pine for the good ole days of the 1950s. Not the austerity of the anglo 1950s, but the pindo 1950s, where nobody questioned the propaganda, nor questioned “authority” – any authority, never spoke out of turn, knew their place and never deviated, who’s mantra was literally “conform, conform, conform”, and can be culturally summarized by the pathetic television polemics called “father knows best” and “leave it to beaver”.
Are you seriously saying Zionism is somehow related to Hinduism? I’ll assume either you have not interacted with Indians or Hindus or that you have been following the many false gurus sponsored by the west. Else this statement does not make sense. What makes you speak with such authority about India and Hindus?
Again this anti Indian and anti Hindu trolling. I have noted it multiple times. Alas, likely this is hasbara talk. Mods should pay close attention to this.
Anon, I, if it is I who you are addressing, am speaking of Hindutva fascism, an upper caste xenophobic and supremacist movement that is very akin to various fascisms and Zionism, in its hyper-nationalism and racist aggression. Hinduism is a different thing entirely, in comparison to the Hindutva ideology of groups like the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Vishva Hindu Parishad and other movements. You’d be mad not to be impressed by India and Indian’s gifts to humanity over the millennia, but right now India is in a very bad place being used as a stooge in the encirclement of China. a move driven, I would say, by the Indian elite’s anger at China’s much greater economic and social progress since the countries both threw off the foreign yoke in the late 40s.
The sooner we’ll get rid of false ideas like ‘Renaissance came about by way of the Islamic Golden Age’, the better we’ll understand what is going on in the world. Greek philosophy and Christianity are the fathers of Civilization in the West. Islam contributed, is true, to the gradual degeneration of Civilization in the West which gave birth to the bastard pseudo-civilization which goes by the name “Western civilization”.
JM,
Excellent article. From your article I gather, that you were little older than me. I was in preschool in 56, but I do remember the events. Just like remember all of Europe being frozen by the fear of nuclear war during Cuban crisis. Going back to more pleasant subjects, literature. I read many school assigned books, I remember being questioned about therm, but I must admit and agree with you comment that many of them went by be, until later on when, I was in my mid 40’s to finally understand their deep meaning. But, the reading did not go wasted, because today I appreciate the message of books. Art, I remember during my high school days going to big exhibition of a very famous Spanish painter (you guess his name). What stuck with me since, was his road from being (in my mind then and today) really great artist, to a weird abstract whatever you want to call him. Just like humanity being normal in the days of our youth to the weird idiocy of today.
Imo, if you look at modern Western civilization – that from the time of the Peace of Westphalia – then the Nuremberg trials and the maybe 10-20 years spark of international law obligations during the loss of the colonies, was an abboration. Look at the West for the last 500 years – it has not changed: it raped in the 1500s, and it raped in the 1800s.. It turned slightly inwards in the 1900s, but did it not still rape the rest of the planet during this time?
The issue remains that bias within power, disbalance between the patricians and the plebians, leads to systemic failure. So: look at systems of government, and find the one that holds the balance fairly. It’s certainly not any God-granted system – that by definition overemphesizes the state over the people (well, at least in the Christian world, since Paul of Tarsus hijacked Christ’s message).
Western civilization does have some differentiaition: Switzerland existed as a semi-direct democracy before Da-Vinci, before the ‘enlightenment’, and it likely will afterwards too. So, learn: democracy must be implemented both in the spirit of the law (election of representatives), and the letter of the law (the right for the electorate to directly affect national law).
That Western autocracy may crumble is nothing strange, autocracies do generally crumble – because within them there is a natural disconnect between the representatives of the citizenry and the citizens themselves. There is no give and take with respect to the creation of law, only force on the part of representatives. Sometimes it is benevolent, but those times mostly arise after a bit of the good old ultra-violence.
You want a stable civilization, that lasts for that ‘1000 years’, make sure that representatives can’t make laws that the citizenry can’t say no to. And make sure that the citizenry can’t force terms on the representatives that they can’t say no to. Balance is all that is needed.
The moment you pronounce the Jewish mantra ‘Paul hijacked d the message of the Christ’ all the rest of argumentation falls into irrelevance.
Thank you John Moon. Sobering, moving and inspiring.
Thank you Saker for another gem on your website.
I remember the olden days. I had a serious Catholic education, taught by Dominican nuns, clever and dedicated women. One of the parish priests taught me to play a killer game of tennis – without touching me or my racket. They were good people and they had faith. Then along came Vatican II. Now we have a Pope who denies the existence of hell. Well, that’s okay. They got rid of limbo and the mortal sin of eating meat on Friday, the Latin Mass and numerous other Articles of Faith as well. But it just didn’t do for me and many of my compatriots. What had been taught as unchangeable doctrine was just swept away and there was no need for it. The Vatican now looks evilly at Orthodoxy, as it always has, and would see that swept away as well. The Vatican, the EU, and the UN – these are the major players who have been busily working at their plan since the end of WWII – that I know of. Change for change’s sake and what they look to replace it with is the destruction of the human identity. Why? They say it will lead to a more peaceful planet. Lies! When everyone looks like everyone else, thinks like everyone else, where there is no male, no female, and with a spiritless religion to cater for the spirit – they say all will be well. More lies! I’m not saying all was paradise back in the old days, but for forty years there was the opportunity to really make the world a better place yet all that time post-modernism was sneaking into the education system. Sophocles was right. Evil appears as good in the minds of those whom the gods lead to destruction. The major players and their minions must really believe they are working for the good. There is no other excuse for them. It is not great power or wealth because they already have those goods.
How the major players must hate Putin. He shows them up for the base and worthless creatures they really are.
Dear Jayem,
My mother was a Protestant, and naturally so am I. My mother had said on numerous occasions that there is a ‘Hell’. It’s here on earth.
There is so much evidence that my mother was correct back then, especially when we see what our ‘elected’ governments are doing in ensuring that my mother’s belief is endorsed.
May I be coy and suggest that neither Christ nor God ever invented religion, it was invented by man to control man. Thus may man worship and adore God each in their own style and manner, and practise their beliefs in God’s understanding of good and respect with all honesty and integrity.
Now who was it that called Putin Saint Michael? Isn’t that so true!
Is the ‘west’ really any loss to humanity? Anglo-Western ‘Liberalism’ is not actually Liberal- its simply a marketing name for Colonialism and Imperialism after 1945. Even in the glory years of 1950-1990s ‘west’ it was all a big fraud. They hid behind Anti Communism in those days which in the minds of many gave this Imperialism a glossy sheen. But really it was all about getting people across the world to work hard to buy stuff they didnt need and make a small number of people extremely rich. To Live in Order to Consume. Shiny Happy People. Even as a Christian it is more noble to live according to the Bolshevist slogans of the ‘Internationale’ , Peasant/Workers building a Better egalitarian World etc than to be a debt ridden consumer lusting for ever after objects.
True Liberalism/Libertarianism would destroy itself almost immediately because it would allow anti Liberal elements to exists within it, and soon Fascists or Communists or Islamists would take over this liberal state. Trump, Netanyahu, May and Macron are purely Imperialists and their actions only make sense if you understand it in this light.
Imperialism is alive and well online as well. Voices against the Empire are being silenced. YouTube has taken off the channel ‘Russia Beyond’ and others which show Russia in a positive light. Avoid these corporate wings of the Empire like youtube and facebook.
isn’t it part of the strategy for an elite which wishes to entrench itself to de-industrialize and to dumb-down its population?
De-industrialization and dumbing-down dis-empowers the masses. They become powerless and much more suggestible – much more suggestible, less able to comprehend and criticize power, more easy to manage and herd.
”Their parents and teachers have not read about the Frankfurt School and so do not recognize its ghastly outcomes currently unfolding, as they might, had they also studied the Weimar Republic.”
Granted, Cultural Marxism is vile, but it didn’t spread primarily because of some ardent believers applying the teachings of the Frankfurt School. What really got Cultural Marxism going in the West was the CIA-sponsored Congress for Cultural Freedom, promoting hedonism and infantilism as ”cultural freedom”, clearly setting the West up for sex, drugs, and rock’n roll, later to be followed by post-modernism, the glorification of sexual aberrations, and all-out cruelty/bestiality. The Weimar Republic is a case in point, as its decadence was correctly identified as filth and degeneration by the forces of Reaction, among them the Nazis.
”Their parents and teachers have not read Solzhenitsyn, or they might realize that sometimes governments turn violently against their own citizens.”
Seriously, what need would they have for Solzhenitsyn? The anti-Soviet slanders are deeply embedded in the Western canon as of 100 years, explaining inter alia the silly name-calling very much en vogue even here: USSA, Rotschild agent Lenin, Jewish revolution , and what-have-you. Needless to say, this is just sheer cowardice on the part of people who feel they have to prove their ’Western credentials’ — avoiding like the plague any expression of sympathies for the West’s most reputable enemies, past and present.
”Their parents and teachers have not studied the effects of nuclear weapons on living things, and so they are unable to imagine themselves, their friends and relatives, together with all their belongings one day immolated in a flash of fire, as happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
To paraphrase Theresa May, it’s ”highly likely” they wouldn’t care even if they seriously did study these subject matters. Their exceptionalism tells them they are 100% out of reach of enemy fire, and the Japanese are as foreign to them as are any other people, bar the Zionazi Israelis.
”And finally, almost no one bothers to read Vladimir Putin’s speeches, instead relying on the highly edited and intentionally distorted summaries and interpretations presented by the Corporate Media.”
That’s a scientifically accurate description of the true nature of the West’s self-styled ’individualists’: Grovelling sycophants asking for Massa’s firm, ideological guidance through adulthood, LOL.
Corroborating what you say:
https://mltheory.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/great-conspiracy-against-russia.pdf
http://www.greanvillepost.com/books/LiesAboutUSSR-SousaE.pdf
Both books explain in documented detail how deep the lies were in demonizing the USSR. Another book worth checking is Grover Furr’s Blood Lies, which proves that Bloodlands, the work of a propaganda professor were deliberate. The West has been using flat out lies to undermine and target its intended victim, either the ‘savage Red Skins’ or the “Red Russkies” in this case.
@subhuti37
The linked material is excellent — I read both these publications some years ago alongside Another view of Stalin , written by Ludo Martens in the mid-1990s.
Putin elicits the same violent insanity and hatred in the West as did Stalin. Put simply, it’s Western supremacist fantasies coming under ever more severe stress and strain through the blows of Russian/Soviet top-class leaderships — raging and fuming are sure signs of profound weakness.
Nussiminen:
I take your point regarding Solzhenitsyn. My thought was that most adults 40 years ago would have said “Yes, we know that n-million people died in the USSR.” I suspect that that was more or less an abstract way to really say that the USSR was evil. Solzhenitsyn, on the other hand, personalized matter, describing how people were apprehended and how only a small number of guards could control a large number of prisoners, by exploiting weaknesses inherent in most people.
I just hope Putin is not considering taking up a Trump invite to the Whitehouse. What folly and absurd risk of much of what Russia has achieved so far in its reconstruction. Just politely decline and ask about RT in DC.
Putin is nobody’s fool. He knows what he’s doing. If Trump is preparing a trap for Putin, it will fail.
But if Trump’s tactic has been to flip-flop for the last year and a half, to trick the neocons into thinking
he is with them, and he is now on the brink of ending the US involvement in Syria, there’s no one I
trust more than V.V. Putin to establish proof of that fact.
Sure, I may be wrong, as I have often been in the past. But there is no cost to seeing the glass as
half full. And no cost here, to put some skin the game.
“Civilization did not die; it slept fitfully throughout Western Europe, before finally awakening abruptly and unexpectedly with the Renaissance.”
—-
Nothing abrupt or unexpected in creation of Renaissance.
There was no true self-awakening also.
With the fall of Byzantium, running away from the Turks…Many of the brightest minds were seeking refuge…
Mainly in Italy.
Those Greeks broght magnificent Greco-Roman civilization, to the backward West, with them.
Philosophy, science, arts.
That was the spark that have started Renaissance.
Even though Ortodox East was abandoned to the Turk hordes by the West…
They gave new life and forgotten civilization to the West.
That is today well hidden secret about the period of inferiority of the West.
Just look at Venetia or Vatican they are full of relics stolen from Constantinople.
Jako, Thank you. You said it brother.
jako:
Saker very diplomatically suggested to me that the paragraph about the fall of Rome and the Renaissance was flawed. I made a couple of minor changes and left it in. I should have removed the whole thing. I’m merely a dilettante in many subjects. My opinions about that period of history really stem from high school history where events mostly in western Europe were stressed. I’ve got a lot to learn… Thanks.
John,
Unfortunately we also went through the same schooling. The “west” had always it’s own spin on the things, which was always anti-Greek, or East if you like it that way. Let me bring up my son’s words, who is barely 40 a total product of neo-liberal brainwashing machine, said to me one day that Greece was always considered by the West – “Middle-East”. Although, there is some truth in this statement, because as I like to put it Mediterranean and Black Seas were always Greek lakes, even though today it does not seem so.
I would like to bore you with more on the Greek hating Western spin, which includes those who have been in Greek government, yet governed by London and Washington. Some of the information contains english, but most is in Greek unfortunately.
Accordingly to paleontologist/anthropologist Dr. Aris Poulianos, who studied in Moscow and initially performed anthropological studies in Caucasus area. After returning to Greece in 1964, he studied human remains in the cave of Petralona and other areas. After his earth shuttering discoveries he was locked out by the Greek government as his discoveries were deemed unacceptable to the western establishment. His discoveries include 13mln year old human settlements and remains (he insists that these people were walking and talking humans unlike the discoveries in Ethiopia, Australia and other places).
About Petralona With English texts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXVMJMTO4Zs
The human remains found in the cave of Petralona are 700,000 years old and are of Greek DNA. He followed his discoveries with the statement that the Greeks are the oldest humans on planet.
Daphne the 700,000 year old human is from Greece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm7pUuq4VFs
These fact are recognized by the world’s anthropologists, although not publicized. Bottom line is: Greeks did not come from some other places they are native to Greece. This also applies to Doric people, who are from central Greece (Western Thessaly).
Thank you !
Has to be said .
But Westerners are disabled in knowledge and subject to
centuries of haughty , racist propaganda against the refined
cultivated East .
Envy of Rome’s rogue politicians killed the Easterners .
One Crusade sacked (burnt, raped, desecrated ,robbed)
Konstantinople and then let the Turks take over. They got
to Vienna twice . Now they are in Paris, Stockholm, London,
Berlin , ……….
Study the sources , the primary literature !
Regarding this sentence:
“Then in March, teenagers excitedly demanded that the government abridge one of their civil rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights – the right of personal self-defence.”
While I don’t disagree that the teenagers of today are to be pitied ( for various reasons), regarding this particular march, it was not a grassroots movement. It was organised and paid for: Here are Ellen Degeneres and Oprah Winfrey discussing how she, George Clooney, Spielberg and others each contributed 1/2 million each in order to bus teenagers to Washington for the demonstration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G38n8oXkvvY
Starts at 0.50s
Regarding this sentence:
“Their parents and teachers have not read about the Frankfurt School and so do not recognize its ghastly outcomes currently unfolding, as they might, had they also studied the Weimar Republic.”
Yes, if only they studied the Weimar Republic… they would probably be more cultivated. Bauhaus movement originated during the Weimar republic, Max Beckman, Ernest Barlach were great artists outspoken in their antiwar stance (it was after the horror of WW1). Berlin was a great art center after WW1… Instead in Hollywood now there is glorification of war and violence…
Thanks for interesting write-up!
Serbian girl:
Agreed 100% that the recent demonstration was well funded and well orchestrated. And I’m pretty sure that many of the teenagers who participated did so with the best of motives. They truly want domestic gun violence ended. So do I. But I do think that they’ve not thought through the whole matter and are being manipulated, and I’m not so sure that some of the “gun violence events” have been orchestrated as well.
I’ve been wrong so many times and about so many things that I’m in no position to judge anyone. But I do think it is our responsibility to observe and to share observations.
I too feel as the author, as I lived the same period and much the same class – right down to the boy scouts and even ROTC – – but this is and was mere belief, A fairytale. Mere cover for a cryptonazi 5th column. The Germans lost the war, true, but the nazis did not…they remain a basic tool.
As the descried fairytale rolled on the real power struggle was running on the dark side of capitalism.
For starters read all the way through, with a sharp pencil and taking notes and checking the claims against common sense and sources All the way through “Deep Politics and the Death of JFK” (P D Scott) – then tell me I’m wrong.
The internal contradictions have done what they naturally do. Pity. History ticks along too fast.
I note that some expect that the US may now fragment into regions and populations. History suggests that’s a violent process. The illiterate population is helpless, unable to produce what they use, supply chains are fragile and non redundant – after the inescapable reduction in population it is natural that foreign powers will dominate the political arena of what is now the USA. – not that this would be new, just more obvious…
I wonder who will dominate California? Russia or China? Both have a history here – but the Russian position is stronger.
https://www.fortross.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/FortRossFinalWebLayout121714.pdf
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/us/fort-ross-park-saved-from-closing-by-renova-group-of-russia.html
People speak of “politics”. I have no political opinions whatsoever – only personal ideas of what’s right and wrong – not far from the Boy Scout Law (by the way), that and opinions about history.
Maybe beer will be “one ruble”, who knows?
Very insightful, John Moon, and thanks. I too remember exactly where I was when JFK was assassinated. I was in grade 10 and my heart-throb locker partner, Glenda Olberg, was in the class, seated just behind me. Glenda was a transplant from Texas. On hearing the news, she cried.
Which brings me to the present. Evidently Trump has invited Vladimir Putin to meet with him at the White House. PLEASE DON’T GO!
Meaningful words, sir.
Thank you.
May you and Toby have a long and happy life together, true friends.
Is that you and Toby in the picture ?
Thank you !
….
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
sherlock_holmes:
No, Toby is a golden retriever, and I’m less penitent than the unknown person sitting on the bench contemplating his red roses.
Oh,i see John…Then…we are brothers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=145&v=CS0GkCfljqk
Civilization didn’t sleep during the so-called Dark Ages, it burst into glorious, and musical, artful, life, speaking Arabic and preserving the Greek and Latin for later centuries.
As for the Cup, we shall empty it completely, with the hope that another generation will not drink of it again…
Your essay is indeed a refreshing and intellectually balanced read compared to the vitriol and naked opinions that masquerade as news and objective analysis that bombard us daily.
Like yourself, I have positive memories of JFK. I believe he was a visionary genuinely working to build a better world. Perhaps that is why Dallas, 1963 happened since certain vested interests felt threatened by his vision. JFK recommended Barbara Tuchman’s book “The Guns of August”, I believe as a warning for all of us. I remember reading it and thinking: “How could people be so foolish and short sighted? Surely that cannot happen again to rational people.”
And yet here we stand today.
Thank you and the Saker for providing this essay.
A splendid text. Thank you John Moon
Thank you John, I have read and reread your words and forwarded them on to my small readership.
sheila
sheila,
Thanks for your kind words.
Somewhere I’d seen a video of Van Cliburn performing in 1958 with Nikita Khrushchev in attendance. I can’t now find it. This is a different concert in Moscow, still in 1958. If you don’t want to watch it all, at least jump to about the 37 minute mark to see how he is received by the audience. They give him so many flowers he literally cannot carry them all.
https://youtu.be/yV4wyxHMY9I
We live in a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants, in a world that has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. We have solved the mystery of the atom and forgotten the lessons of the Sermon on the Mount. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about dying than we know about living.
—U.S. Army General Omar Bradley to the 1947 U.S. Army Graduating Class of West Point
Yes, indeed, nuclear giants, ethical infants. Perhaps more correctly, SCIENTIFIC giants and ethical FOETUSES.
Science has brought us to the brink of disaster, not just because o four knowledge of the atom, but also because of genetic engineering, information technology, and artificial intelligence, to name but a few.
Yet we know so little about evil, or anti-life, the wish in humans to destroy and the insatiable need to possess far beyond need.
We know so much yet we know so little, and it is our ignorance of our knowledge that imperils ALL life on earth.
A real sobering view of what has and is happening look no further than Chris Hedges here:
“Brace yourself the American Empire is over and the descent is going to be horrifying.”
https://youtu.be/vfKo36w5eWw
Moon
“Our scout leader, a fine and generous man, would be sued into bankruptcy today had a boy frozen his feet on his watch. Our leader felt terrible about the incident and took full responsibility,”
I’m curious. Took full responsibility how?
“although we knew it was as much the responsibility of us other boys as it was his.”
At age 12, you may have been made to feel guilty for the injured boy, but the adult taking care of you kids should have made sure every child was safe. It is absurd to put such responsibility upon the other kids.
vot tak:
You’re right – he should have made sure every boy was safe.
Our scout leader took responsibility simply by admitting that it was his responsibility, and that he had failed to anticipate this event.
My recollections are fuzzy, but the boy was in the grade behind, so I’d have been older than 12. We were never made to feel guilty, as our leader assumed responsibility. In retrospect, he should have done the same as with the “midnight hikes,” where a couple of older boys would have been formally assigned to keep close tabs on the disabled boy.
Prior to any winter camping trip we reviewed things to be mindful of, such as never keeping a full canteen, being sure to have lots of insulation under a sleeping bag, and so on. In this particular case, we were walking across the ice, on the way home from a weekend on an island. Apparently the boy’s feet had become numb – a bad sign in the winter. Probably one of the things in our pre-trip review included a warning about not lacing boots too tightly. At any rate the boy removed his boots and instead walked part of the way in heavy socks. I’m guessing that the 15 or 20 of us were walking single file with the leader in front, who would have been trying to avoid slushy areas, and the boy was at the rear where the snow would have been well packed, making walking easier. Instead he should have been near the front.
My intended point was that choices must be made regarding the trade-off between acquiring skills in sometimes dangerous situations versus safety – the ultimate in safety would have been to stay home. Our leader (I think) had been watching out for the boy while on the island, and had assumed that the walk back across the ice was not risky.
John Moon
Thanks for the reply. I appreciate you taking the time.
I would buy a dvd of Stormy Daniels performing Sophocles. But does she feel John Moon’s need to Bask In Reflected Glory? Bless her.
An interesting article which resonates on many levels.
I was in primary school when Sputnik was launched – it was a big deal and the teacher babbled on about the wonders of space. For homework we had to watch the skies that night. In rural Aussie, the sky was illuminated by a zillions stars and the centrepiece -the Southern Cross. We were expected to find a tiny dot traversing the sky. The next day the teacher asked the class, “Did anyone see the Sputnik”.
I think we were all captivated by the teachers enthusiasm and the entire class, eight of us, answered in one voice, “Yes Sir.”
‘Oh, well in that case, you can all draw what you saw.”
Needless to say, we all presented a page of stars on a dark blue background.
But, it did start my interest in all things Russian.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5571391/Children-hooked-iPads-try-swipe-given-books-read.html
Teachers reporting children do not know how to turn pages in a book…more important it is symptomatic that parents have not read books to their children to interact and engage with them…which means this is one instance of abandoment at tender ages…..maybe…
Thought provoking words, thanks John. Really grateful that you posted this (and thanks to The Saker and co for providing a platform for such things).
I would humbly suggest that there is still room for optimism; despite the drivel dished out by the MSM and social media networks, science and technology continue to advance. I have the privilege of working in the field of human health research and the future looks tremendously exciting. Moreover, much of it is here right now, being tested and rolled out beyond the laboratory. Many of us continue to work on the enhancement and evolution of the human condition and strive towards the emancipation of our species.
With a nod to the era of Sputnik and the first steps taken by the human species outside of our atmosphere:
The stars will never be won by little minds; we must be big as space itself.
(Robert A. Heinlein)
Glossopteris:
You’re absolutely right. There is always balance. Yin and yang. The “good” and the “bad” are never completely isolated. The invention of the printing press was a good thing? Well, the same printing press that today is printing Holy Scripture will tomorrow be printing pornography. So is it “good” or “bad?” It’s both together, and it’s up to us to discriminate between Holy Scripture and pornography. We ourselves determine which of the balance pans is higher.
Superb article.. inspiring and provocative.
Top it off by listening to Glen Campbell ‘Highwayman’ w/Boston Pops Orchestra 1978.
Crummy quality.. fantastic just the same! https://youtu.be/8iQdKtustvw
TXNR:
Glenn Campbell is great. I’d not heard this – thanks.
Here’s one for you, performed by Loreena McKennitt:
https://youtu.be/Ixi4jz0Gn4E
Campbell is one more loss of the generation.. Your recommendation is very great!
My thanks.
I still like the version with Waylon, Willie, Johnny, and Kris. The idiosyncrasy of their individual voices works better for me than a symphony – which obscures the words by Jimmy Webb.
As to the time of America you are referring to – there was a dark side as well. The rampant homophobia, the racism, the misogyny and squashing of women, the conformity of the 50s -the mindset that brought us the Vietnam War and Dr Strangelove ,yes the working class children were allowed to join the middle class because of the competition with the Soviet Union – now that it’s gone we see the middle class shrinking, the mindset of “better living through chemistry” – the nuclear reactors built not with safety in mind but their ability to make plutonium, the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK – and more.
Basically what was good about the system at that time worked for you. But I agree, much of what was good has been thrown out – the baby with the bathwater – while the elites endure and the improvements in technology have extended their power – imagine Himmler’s staff with personal computers. Goebbels with today’s media. Brave New World and 1984 working together.
Thank you John for the article. Thoughtful and perhaps lyrical in the way you have written it – perhaps a gentler way to take the bitter medicine of reality?
Anyone who is interested in American and western decline might appreciate the work of Professor Morris Berman. He is a cultural historian and social critic and has written a number of books including a trilogy on US American decline. He wrote these long before it was “popular” to do so; I think the first was in the late 80s or early 90s. Here he is giving a talk at a book shop:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn1sHrhCjTI
SusieQ:
Thanks for the video. I’ve only watched the first 10 minutes so far, but will finish it tonight. It looks very good.
Saint Seraphim of Sarov predicted this spiritual “Renaissance of Russia.
But it would not be long lasting .
(So the West has to come around .)
Lord have Merci on us !
That is the beauty of an Atlantean world, nobody sees it for what it is.
It none the less where did it end up?
Modern visual arts are not just a harbinger. They are an essential part of the same plot that killed JFK. Starting around 1956, CIA and State Dept cultivated and funded all sorts of chaos-inducing art, from abstract painting to jazz to rock. Their goal was to destroy civilization and attribute the result to Russia. (Sounds familiar.)
You can see some of the details by searching the Wikileaks CIA archives for Jazz.
https://search.wikileaks.org/?query=jazz&exact_phrase=&any_of=&exclude_words=&document_date_start=&document_date_end=&released_date_start=&released_date_end=&new_search=True&order_by=most_relevant#results
Incredibly well written essay.
Sad but true.
May God help us – and our children and their children.
oh Tempora et mores. Yes I hear d that ol’ conservative! out on the bonfire you go!
New socialists dont need that crap. Not in Europe we dont. We actually dont need the US warmongering anymore. We need the US to be isolationist and retire to its spere where it can terrorize Canada and South America and then generally just FO.
There may be some good o’ God fearing Yanks overthere, but we dont want you either. You have let the world down. Yor greedy abandonment of all rules and laws and empathy, makes us say fukc off.
Stay in you self -made hellhole, ruled by mega rich, and F O.
When you and your fellows drown in toxic waste, die from not having healthcare or employment, we say we told you!
So give me no shit of boy scouts and heroism, its fake!! Aske the Russians what they paid for victory in WWII.
Socialism, not communism, is the way to build a society, Scandinavia is a place you can only dream of. Your attitudes displays that : You are ruled by Egoism!
The American way! Egoism!
…agreed…but NOT “egoism”…POWER = “manifest destiny”…and all remaining U.S. POWER is military..
A certain phase of Western civilization is ending but the civilization will endure in another form. This is why chaos is good. It is upsetting patterns breaking down old habits, prejudices, traditions that are no longer useful. Confusion and chaos cannot last very long so that eventually a new order emerges out of chaos. Right now it feels that all the balls, so to speak, are up in the air which ones will we catch, which ones will disintegrate, which ones will crash, which ones will be resilient? This current crisis demands new human capacities, long dormant, must be reactivated. Psychic and spiritual abilities are popping up now that we are no longer afraid of being burned at the stake, lynched, or put in a hospital. A strong feature of this trend is the ability to connect, to feel compassion, to combine intellectual knowledge with intuition and so on.
As things stand, as you note, society is becoming ridiculous in a way it wasn’t when you and I were young. Sometimes I feel I’m living in a Monty Python skit–like listening to Boris Johnson or any number of people of all ages but particularly the young.
A BRILLIANT article! Thank you Mr. John Moon.
A wonderful piece of writing. Thank you for posting. I’m a generation younger than you so I don’t have memoirs of the America’s golden age. Born in the summer of love I was taught that we would never know who murdered Kennedy. Thant make me part of that slacker, latch key kid generation. Yet the decline is impossible to miss unless of course your an idiot doped up on MSM disinformation and propaganda. What caused it go so wrong. Gosh, too many too list but certainly decadence, greed and hubris. And of course a dose of poison courtesy of the Frankfurt School.
I’m a year or two older. Learned a lot in the Boy Scouts. In retrospect was forced into
being a math major because of the Cold War fear and because I could do it. But I survived.
And I watch in disgust at the decline in education which will preceed our nation’s decline.
Petrodollar, Federalist Society, Wall Street, Big Pharma, Rothschild Rockefeller One World Government. Flesh-trading for eons = cannabilaztion of our own species.
As in nature, there is a season and the changing of seasons is a reality for all life in Earth.
[To moderator: I post this clip entire because its mood chimes so well with John Moon’s article — The West that Was. But if it crosses guideline re original contribution, I shall not be offended if it is not published in the Saker]
Mike-Florida comments in SyrPer: Re > “Do you remember the days when you could work for 40 hours, your wife could be a housewife and you could retire at 60? Those days have gone.”
Remembering the days – when most paid off their homes by age 40, paid off their cars in 2 years then drove free and clear next 7 and entered middle and senior age in their own, free & clear homes – with savings in the bank- from a one-wage earner family. Moms by staying at home not only disciplined little Johnny, teenage Johnny had side jobs like bagging groceries and delivering newspapers before school, had to study and make grades and respect teachers, or else – stay-at home moms’ put great pressure on schools RE quality education for their kids or else they pushed firing principals and measurable academic achievement soared. Dad’s were loyal to their firms and firms to them – including retirement. Real family incomes increased every year – no longer.
Such was before certain PTBs developed idea to accelerate – from one wage earner to two, from free and clear to a debt-based fast-driven consumerism society – which was ‘sold’ to the public with ‘feel good’ BS like this > women are to be liberated from the home – have a right be free from such, leave home and enter work force and make money, everybody buying cars with longer than 2 year notes, borrowing-away and spending equity from homes instead of paying them off – and instead of earning college by hard working with 3 side jobs they think can live the good life with student loans and no payment until ??
If a war was fought a nation drafted its own foot soldiers – meaning the wounded and dead were sons and fathers and uncles, which stirred anger as the population demanded stop, and conflicts were short. No longer – borrow money and hire proxies – and have MSM assure nobody knows – only ‘Bread & Circuses’ for the masses – – and have ‘nice’ wars, 24-7.
Of course, the same consumerism drive is the heart of regime change – control others, wal-mart on every corner, buy our planes, missiles and bombs, or else. TV now 75% commercials the difference fake news or agenda-driven content. Yes, nearly every generation says > ‘remember the good old days.’
And now, women cannot remain home if wanted – must work away from home and earn money to support more consumption per family and since they do they feel its their right to higher consumption – nobody home to educate little Johnny, most families maxed out in debt, cars and homes never free & clear, forget savings as need to spend all plus borrow, max-out credit cards, 20 year-olds up to eye balls in debt before first job without work-experience – dad bags groceries as a senior.
If you ask a group of people for show of hands those with free and clear homes > nada. Next, try free and clear cars > near nada. Ask show of hands college students without borrowing > nada, unless grand-dad paid. Ask for show of hands those with a credit card – all hands up; Apple I-phone > zillions hands in the air. Who spends more non-work time learning more skills to make themselves more valuable in the work-place – than time spent on Facebook > nada.
Bottom-line > US ‘advanced’ from world’s greatest creditor nation – which was respected by most > to history’s greatest debtor as a debt-driving over-consumption economy, also playing ‘world dominance’ suck & control resources world-wide – despised by most. Not cool. Cannot prevail. Should not. World now pushing back.
Our dear Syria is a brave and daring symbol of ‘ground zero’ world-wide driving the shift – to the good and better. The fact citizens of Syria must suffer is awful. Especially when 99% of the citizens in the West have zero clue. If they did, everyone would love Syria. I Salute Syria – and their steadfast allies. [sorry for adding-on, MD. You started it – but thanks. Mike).
…Moon needs read TRUTH not found in “art”…begin with Talbot’s, “The Devil’s Chessboard”…then study A.I. and realize man hasn’t only “created” god…now, he has invented him…
as the chip in hand becomes internalized, ending what it was throughout human history to be human…soon to be “chipped up”, internalized, connected optic nerve-crossed over with technology…thousands of layers, “connectivity” in so far as deep space CIA satellite intel…no further “schooling” necessary, as all answers “internalized”…
..access denied when questioned…truth-Socratic dialectic ended with access enabled-corrputed. And our John Rendon’s “Rendon Group” (propagandists) having their promissory “last word”: (Iraq) “..we lost control of the message…we will fix that next time..”
911 was always fable…
A moving and candid lyrical poem to our time. Sometimes, living in the demoniacal West I forget all those things which so many of us hold in common.
We are no longer allowed to have common experiences. We are no longer allowed to have a common history.
History and time have become virtual and pixelated.
Thanks for reminding me of real reality. It is a sign of madness that we have to speak of true news and real reality but that is what we have come to.
Beautiful.
It should be stated that the 2nd amendment could be argued to allow you carry a nuke in a briefcase.
But neither that nor a civil war on the streets between the mythical people and the mythical government will, to even the least degree, stand in the way of anything the mythical government of the people want to do to enslave the mythical people. Civil war never solved anything in this country, and the south never lost, and nobody forgets.
What DOES work, if you take a step back from your inculcation in violence, is to find that moment when the family members and loved ones of those in the security services charged with dealing you violence are starting to suffer in the same way you are.
Then poof! You will have your revolution in a heartbeat.
This was the dynamic that brought Hugo Chavez back from a US-backed coup in 2002.
– Shyaku.
Shyaku:
Agreed – where the line should be drawn on the personal possession of weapons is not an easy question to answer. A total guess is that, at least historically, it was assumed that one could be armed with the same weapons as a typical infantryman.
Thank you very much John Moon.
And what a moving photograph, visualizing your “own words”!
Thanks Hans.
Actually it worked the other way around to some extent – the photo led to the words. (about the red roses, etc) I’d been looking for another photo that I’d seen somewhere of (I think) the same old man, but beside a river. Obviously these have been Photoshopped. Never did find that one, but found this instead.
What a beautiful article, and so touching.. The truth does that..