They use their tools to remove elements of truth and elements of freedom beyond our gaze. We are finding out the mechanism slowly, but we are learning how they did it through the work of Matt Taibbi and the others who have seen totalitarianism's fist behind this and will not be controlled. Your voice is not Matt's - it is actually more eloquent than he is, Sasha, and you are just as important, in your way. You two are working two opposite ends of this burning candle that is 2023.
What have we learned? We learned that they are playing jenga with the future in a particularly feckless way. They haven't won, and we haven't lost. Not yet anyway. We're just waiting to see where the collapse becomes complete.
Keep chopping wood, Sasha. Love you and what you're doing here.
Here is how most of my family and working class neighborhood recalls what happened and the consequences of it. The hippies and protesters of the Vietnam war really didn’t get motivated until the Draft and their own personal ass was on the line. Before that, they didn’t give a shit about poor American deaths in Nam. Jane Fonda and he photo ops with North Vietnam we’re their favs. These draft dodgers and protesters then went in to academia in a big way and who was their worst enemy? Why poor white trash of course. Those under educated salt-of-the-earth bastards who didn’t want to give up what little they had left to the government. This hypocrisy and culture continued for decades and is alive today; who do you think actually does the fighting for our country? You Lieutenant Weinberg?! As our country has become ever more socialist, we have fewer and fewer freedoms and a tax base to sustain welfare. Anyway, I thank you Sasha for your courage and exceptional talent in bringing multiple complex subjects together in to a compelling and thought provoking essay. Maybe some day a historian will point to you as one that made a difference.
It's not becoming socialist it's becoming a crony corporate controlled society. The very society Teddy Roosevelt battled against. I keep saying they control both wings of the party, and they control both leaders, and I haven't seen an inch of proof to say they don't control them.
Whether we call them “corporate”, “bankers”, or “1%”; I agree they heavily influence many politicians on both sides. Money does talk after all. That said, I think some politicians are less influenced by them and care more about our country than the average Dem or RINO. I consider Rand Paul, Desantis, Sanders, Tulsi, and Trump in this group (I think Sanders does care but is wrong headed in how to achieve).
Well said. I'm a former Conservative who lost faith in the entire system. The federal government is rotten to the core. The two parties still exist for show. Like the old WWF wrestling matches on cable.
How would you describe your ideological orientation? I can see being a former Republican, as that is what I am. My sensibilities remain conservative (lower-case 'c') with strong libertarian tendencies.
If there were a Minimalist Party I would join it. The less "help" we get from Big Gov the better. I'm not an Anarchist and still vote because it works (where I live) locally.
Here's what I'd like. In theory:
Smaller government with the least power held in Washington. Slightly more at the state. About 85% of government powers held by the county, town or city. 13% by the state. 2% at the federal level. Washington should stick to defending national borders and settling trade/territorial disputes between states. Let the president give fancy speeches on occasion and wave an American flag. Abolish all alphabet agencies and czars. Let Washington collect its revenue from tariffs instead of directly from citizens. Outlaw corporate bribes. AKA lobbying. The states could handle infrastructures like the post office and railroads courses and highways (but no eminent domain if people won't sell.) Any state welfare would exist solely at the local level--or be replaced by private/church charities. State welfare assistance is degrading and dehumanizing in its current form.
Another great piece Sasha. I wish more people could see that the great division we face today is not the traditional right vs. left but the global elite vs. the common people. I don't know why so many on the left (with a few notable exceptions) are so eager to be the minions of big tech and big pharma and so reluctant to criticize the Ukraine war which seems to have no end in sight. It seems to me that these are issues where traditional opponents could find more common ground.
I don't know if you've seen the video of Steve Bannon on Tim Pool's show at AMFEST but it's an example of conservatives, libertarians, and anarchists agreeing on the basic issue of freedom.
I force my little kids to watch old shows like Gilligans Island and Scooby Doo where there were episodes that never would be allowed to air these days. This is to help them understand that aspects of life can be funny even if the humor is not aligned with today's forced narratives.
This was excellent (as always), and one point I'd add on the 1984 theme: that the O'Brien characters that run the WEF and police state exempt themselves from the rules and restrictions. They can vacation in paradise, travel in private jets without masks, eat pasta rather than bleached crickets, and in fact not have to "love Big Brother". In many cases they can do it in broad daylight, while the Winstons of the world have to follow all the rules and be happy about it>
I live in a very progressive New England town, and we are recognized on our street as one family who doesn't have "all the signs" up in front of their house (i.e., the BLM, hate has no home, we believe ..., rainbows, etc.) Very recently a woman who DID or does have all the signs spoke out (mildly) conceding some people made reasonable points about objecting to some explicit cartoons that showed up in the school library and folks went berserk. I'd guess, even though the signs are probably still up, she lost most of her friends that evening. Guess she will have to be "Winston'-ed
Don’t know if you have read David Mamet’s article from 2008ish in the Village Voice of all places entitled “Why I am no longer a brain-dead liberal.” But, Sasha, based on this article and your apparent conversion finding sanity, you could have written it. It was the first cogent confession I had read of a staunch New York liberal who figured himself wrong and then changed it. It took his wife telling him to shut up and rethink his thinking. It is beautiful. Thanks for this piece as all. Very encouraging.
I listened to this piece twice, to fully get (enjoy) how beautifully woven together Sasha’s commentary and analysis colored in the last 50-60 years. The interspersed videos, personal comments, even sound effects, however, brought back much of the detailed misdirected violence of the recent past, vividly. We do tend to forget some of this, as the passage of time blurs, even distorts events primarily experienced and then translated via the media.
The essence, though, of this substack is how vulnerable individual freedoms really are, in conjunction with how moldable the general public tends to evolve through the ages. The general public’s tendency to compliantly follow orders, ingest expert’s opinions, avoid their own gut feelings of what is true or not, continues to erode the very freedoms that so many in the world envy. The concerning aspect of all this is that so many seldom know the value of something or somebody until it is gone.
I believe Jan 6th more than anything was the frustration of the people not being heard. We were locked up and treated like toddlers for months and then when anyone questioned the election at all we were accused of being an election denier or conspiracy theorist. If I had lived close to DC I too may have protested but I wouldn’t have been trying to over turn an election. I could handle if Biden won but what I can’t handle is constantly being told there’s nothing to see here.
Good piece, Sasha. My three young adult children are not GenZ zombies; we have raised them in the real world that has consequences. Just encouraging you all to do the same. And also to follow Sasha's example of leaving your tribe and engaging with others and you'll find out you actually agree on >90% of all issues discussed which is what the Machine fears more than anything else leading to the persecution of one side.
We live not in a 3rd world nation but it's an oligarchy plain and simple. The powerful rich corporations that are global control Biden, Trump, McCarthy, Schumer, McConnell they have this nation locked in their hands we don't do anything.
Yeah Ramaswamy is good, I read his book it was worth the time. Excellent writeup, it's an interesting time right now, hard to tell whether the big issue is taking place more so on the left, or is it the establishment. Glenn Greenwald makes a good point that political labels can be vague and hard to pin down and lead to tribal thinking and get in the way of actually debating issues. Someone hears you are on the right or left and their opinion is formed and they're soon arguing with a caricature they've built up in their mind.
"Someone hears you are on the right or left and their opinion is formed and they're soon arguing with a caricature they've built up in their mind."
That particular thing drives me nuts! It happens just about every time I talk to friends who are still Democrats. I used to experience it with Tea Party friends as well. If I commented on the Republican thugs in the White House they would immediately start in on the Clintons. And they would smirk and sneer at me, as if I liked the Clintons and they had caught me in hypocrisy.
The problem that is common to both parties is that they believe there is one and only one correct way to think. The only other way to think is "that Other Way," which is wrong, demonic, stupid, etc. Like you said, it is a caricature. It appears to me to be not much more than what they imagine to be the opposite or converse of their own belief.
Hopefully Ramaswamy will get some media exposure and get young people to think outside of the narrative. Ron Paul never really had a shot at the presidency but many people, including young people listened and realised he was on to something. In today's context Ramaswamy is also onto something!
I'm a big fan, his book Woke Inc was excellent. I think I'd prefer DeSantis over him but I'd take Vivek over Trump. A DeSantis-Vivek ticket would be amazing but pretty unlikely. Who knows tho, this stuff is hard to predict.
A lot of people believe it will implode on itself due to its unsustainable nature. After the .0001% have murdered off billions and permanently stupefied the rest there will be no one left to feed off. Robots and AI can only go so far, and the Reset cultists refuse to see that their new servants are still full of bugs and not yet capable of full self-maintenance. The guys masterminding this are not inventors or artists but loan sharks and propagandists. Their strengths are knowing how to bribe and game the system, deceive the masses, use technological devices invented by others to deceive and kill.
I can see why they want to download their consciousnesses into a cloud to escape the apocalyptic nightmare they will surely create if it goes on long. Not just evil but insane.
The problem for the globalists is that trust in the institutions is extremely low. While the left is in love with government at this particular moment, that will fade immediately if a Republican gets in office.
Plus without the support of China and India the globalists will be reduced to lecturing Western countries about why they need to support massive taxes and restrictions on freedom
Good points. Also how “liberal” or Progressive can one be while simultaneously backing endless war in Ukraine, FBI sabotage, CIA intrusion in domestic affairs, and apathy and hostility toward poor whites (because of their race)?
You are only the second person I've encountered who knows who Czeslaw Milosz is, and his works. A professor of Russian language introduced me to his book, Native Realm, when I was in college.
They use their tools to remove elements of truth and elements of freedom beyond our gaze. We are finding out the mechanism slowly, but we are learning how they did it through the work of Matt Taibbi and the others who have seen totalitarianism's fist behind this and will not be controlled. Your voice is not Matt's - it is actually more eloquent than he is, Sasha, and you are just as important, in your way. You two are working two opposite ends of this burning candle that is 2023.
What have we learned? We learned that they are playing jenga with the future in a particularly feckless way. They haven't won, and we haven't lost. Not yet anyway. We're just waiting to see where the collapse becomes complete.
Keep chopping wood, Sasha. Love you and what you're doing here.
Here is how most of my family and working class neighborhood recalls what happened and the consequences of it. The hippies and protesters of the Vietnam war really didn’t get motivated until the Draft and their own personal ass was on the line. Before that, they didn’t give a shit about poor American deaths in Nam. Jane Fonda and he photo ops with North Vietnam we’re their favs. These draft dodgers and protesters then went in to academia in a big way and who was their worst enemy? Why poor white trash of course. Those under educated salt-of-the-earth bastards who didn’t want to give up what little they had left to the government. This hypocrisy and culture continued for decades and is alive today; who do you think actually does the fighting for our country? You Lieutenant Weinberg?! As our country has become ever more socialist, we have fewer and fewer freedoms and a tax base to sustain welfare. Anyway, I thank you Sasha for your courage and exceptional talent in bringing multiple complex subjects together in to a compelling and thought provoking essay. Maybe some day a historian will point to you as one that made a difference.
It's not becoming socialist it's becoming a crony corporate controlled society. The very society Teddy Roosevelt battled against. I keep saying they control both wings of the party, and they control both leaders, and I haven't seen an inch of proof to say they don't control them.
Whether we call them “corporate”, “bankers”, or “1%”; I agree they heavily influence many politicians on both sides. Money does talk after all. That said, I think some politicians are less influenced by them and care more about our country than the average Dem or RINO. I consider Rand Paul, Desantis, Sanders, Tulsi, and Trump in this group (I think Sanders does care but is wrong headed in how to achieve).
Big Pharma owns Congress and the Senate. As do all major corporations. "Too big to fail." Bribery is perfectly acceptable if called lobbying.
Trump is not part of that group not after Saudis invested 2 Billion into his company.
*eyeroll*
Well said. I'm a former Conservative who lost faith in the entire system. The federal government is rotten to the core. The two parties still exist for show. Like the old WWF wrestling matches on cable.
How would you describe your ideological orientation? I can see being a former Republican, as that is what I am. My sensibilities remain conservative (lower-case 'c') with strong libertarian tendencies.
If there were a Minimalist Party I would join it. The less "help" we get from Big Gov the better. I'm not an Anarchist and still vote because it works (where I live) locally.
Here's what I'd like. In theory:
Smaller government with the least power held in Washington. Slightly more at the state. About 85% of government powers held by the county, town or city. 13% by the state. 2% at the federal level. Washington should stick to defending national borders and settling trade/territorial disputes between states. Let the president give fancy speeches on occasion and wave an American flag. Abolish all alphabet agencies and czars. Let Washington collect its revenue from tariffs instead of directly from citizens. Outlaw corporate bribes. AKA lobbying. The states could handle infrastructures like the post office and railroads courses and highways (but no eminent domain if people won't sell.) Any state welfare would exist solely at the local level--or be replaced by private/church charities. State welfare assistance is degrading and dehumanizing in its current form.
I am with you, 100%
"You Lieutenant Weinberg?!"
I know that the character of Col. Jessup was made to be the "bad" guy, but every word he spoke on that witness stand was God's honest truth.
Another great piece Sasha. I wish more people could see that the great division we face today is not the traditional right vs. left but the global elite vs. the common people. I don't know why so many on the left (with a few notable exceptions) are so eager to be the minions of big tech and big pharma and so reluctant to criticize the Ukraine war which seems to have no end in sight. It seems to me that these are issues where traditional opponents could find more common ground.
I don't know if you've seen the video of Steve Bannon on Tim Pool's show at AMFEST but it's an example of conservatives, libertarians, and anarchists agreeing on the basic issue of freedom.
I believe that every leftist, no matter how ordinary, is truly convinced that they will one day be a privileged member of the Nomenklatura.
I force my little kids to watch old shows like Gilligans Island and Scooby Doo where there were episodes that never would be allowed to air these days. This is to help them understand that aspects of life can be funny even if the humor is not aligned with today's forced narratives.
This was excellent (as always), and one point I'd add on the 1984 theme: that the O'Brien characters that run the WEF and police state exempt themselves from the rules and restrictions. They can vacation in paradise, travel in private jets without masks, eat pasta rather than bleached crickets, and in fact not have to "love Big Brother". In many cases they can do it in broad daylight, while the Winstons of the world have to follow all the rules and be happy about it>
I live in a very progressive New England town, and we are recognized on our street as one family who doesn't have "all the signs" up in front of their house (i.e., the BLM, hate has no home, we believe ..., rainbows, etc.) Very recently a woman who DID or does have all the signs spoke out (mildly) conceding some people made reasonable points about objecting to some explicit cartoons that showed up in the school library and folks went berserk. I'd guess, even though the signs are probably still up, she lost most of her friends that evening. Guess she will have to be "Winston'-ed
Thank you Sasha!
Nailed it. 100%. Thank you.
Don’t know if you have read David Mamet’s article from 2008ish in the Village Voice of all places entitled “Why I am no longer a brain-dead liberal.” But, Sasha, based on this article and your apparent conversion finding sanity, you could have written it. It was the first cogent confession I had read of a staunch New York liberal who figured himself wrong and then changed it. It took his wife telling him to shut up and rethink his thinking. It is beautiful. Thanks for this piece as all. Very encouraging.
I read that piece. It was one of the first glimmers of hope, from my perspective.
I listened to this piece twice, to fully get (enjoy) how beautifully woven together Sasha’s commentary and analysis colored in the last 50-60 years. The interspersed videos, personal comments, even sound effects, however, brought back much of the detailed misdirected violence of the recent past, vividly. We do tend to forget some of this, as the passage of time blurs, even distorts events primarily experienced and then translated via the media.
The essence, though, of this substack is how vulnerable individual freedoms really are, in conjunction with how moldable the general public tends to evolve through the ages. The general public’s tendency to compliantly follow orders, ingest expert’s opinions, avoid their own gut feelings of what is true or not, continues to erode the very freedoms that so many in the world envy. The concerning aspect of all this is that so many seldom know the value of something or somebody until it is gone.
"Consumers" is what Kraut Schwab calls us underlings. Mindless consumption is what they want from us.
They want us to consume and NOT produce. The opposite of yesterday's tyrants.
I believe Jan 6th more than anything was the frustration of the people not being heard. We were locked up and treated like toddlers for months and then when anyone questioned the election at all we were accused of being an election denier or conspiracy theorist. If I had lived close to DC I too may have protested but I wouldn’t have been trying to over turn an election. I could handle if Biden won but what I can’t handle is constantly being told there’s nothing to see here.
Good piece, Sasha. My three young adult children are not GenZ zombies; we have raised them in the real world that has consequences. Just encouraging you all to do the same. And also to follow Sasha's example of leaving your tribe and engaging with others and you'll find out you actually agree on >90% of all issues discussed which is what the Machine fears more than anything else leading to the persecution of one side.
We are already a third world nation.
I’m just trying to keep my children and grandchildren safe from
the Leftist Pigs destroying the country that I fought for in Vietnam and
my relatives fought for in WWII and Korea.
We live not in a 3rd world nation but it's an oligarchy plain and simple. The powerful rich corporations that are global control Biden, Trump, McCarthy, Schumer, McConnell they have this nation locked in their hands we don't do anything.
Parallel and local. The only way.
Yeah Ramaswamy is good, I read his book it was worth the time. Excellent writeup, it's an interesting time right now, hard to tell whether the big issue is taking place more so on the left, or is it the establishment. Glenn Greenwald makes a good point that political labels can be vague and hard to pin down and lead to tribal thinking and get in the way of actually debating issues. Someone hears you are on the right or left and their opinion is formed and they're soon arguing with a caricature they've built up in their mind.
"Someone hears you are on the right or left and their opinion is formed and they're soon arguing with a caricature they've built up in their mind."
That particular thing drives me nuts! It happens just about every time I talk to friends who are still Democrats. I used to experience it with Tea Party friends as well. If I commented on the Republican thugs in the White House they would immediately start in on the Clintons. And they would smirk and sneer at me, as if I liked the Clintons and they had caught me in hypocrisy.
The problem that is common to both parties is that they believe there is one and only one correct way to think. The only other way to think is "that Other Way," which is wrong, demonic, stupid, etc. Like you said, it is a caricature. It appears to me to be not much more than what they imagine to be the opposite or converse of their own belief.
Hopefully Ramaswamy will get some media exposure and get young people to think outside of the narrative. Ron Paul never really had a shot at the presidency but many people, including young people listened and realised he was on to something. In today's context Ramaswamy is also onto something!
I'm a big fan, his book Woke Inc was excellent. I think I'd prefer DeSantis over him but I'd take Vivek over Trump. A DeSantis-Vivek ticket would be amazing but pretty unlikely. Who knows tho, this stuff is hard to predict.
Yes, I find him interesting as well!
My hope waxes and wanes, but then I’ll see something like SS’s brave writing, or a tweet like this, and the hope rises again..
https://twitter.com/staunch_namo/status/1619273683822075905?s=46&t=IH6wV1gX2BjEvsnvBzGu6A
Revolutionary War, Civil War, WWII... How does this 4th turning end?
A lot of people believe it will implode on itself due to its unsustainable nature. After the .0001% have murdered off billions and permanently stupefied the rest there will be no one left to feed off. Robots and AI can only go so far, and the Reset cultists refuse to see that their new servants are still full of bugs and not yet capable of full self-maintenance. The guys masterminding this are not inventors or artists but loan sharks and propagandists. Their strengths are knowing how to bribe and game the system, deceive the masses, use technological devices invented by others to deceive and kill.
I can see why they want to download their consciousnesses into a cloud to escape the apocalyptic nightmare they will surely create if it goes on long. Not just evil but insane.
The problem for the globalists is that trust in the institutions is extremely low. While the left is in love with government at this particular moment, that will fade immediately if a Republican gets in office.
Plus without the support of China and India the globalists will be reduced to lecturing Western countries about why they need to support massive taxes and restrictions on freedom
Good points. Also how “liberal” or Progressive can one be while simultaneously backing endless war in Ukraine, FBI sabotage, CIA intrusion in domestic affairs, and apathy and hostility toward poor whites (because of their race)?
I have been absolutely floored by the impenetrability of the Hive Mind amongst the Progressive Left. It is a mass-psychosis event.
It’s a fuckin online mob with no shame.
Here is a plausible analysis from Michael Lind at the Tablet https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/power-mad-progressive-utopianism-must-be-stopped
Your amazing insights demand the posting of this poem by Creslaw Milosz.
OECONOMIA DIVINA (From The Rising of the Sun)
I did not expect to live in such an unusual moment.
When the God of thunders and of rocky heights,
The Lord of hosts, Kyrios Sabaoth,
Would humble people to the quick,
Allowing them to act whatever way they wished,
Leaving to them conclusions, saying nothing.
It was a spectacle that was indeed unlike
The agelong cycle of royal tragedies.
Roads on concrete pillars, cities of glass and cast iron,
Airfields larger than tribal dominions
Suddenly ran short of their essence and disintegrated
Not in a dream but really, for, subtracted from themselves,
They could only hold on as do things which should not last.
Out of trees, field stones, even lemons on the table,
Materiality escaped and their spectrum
Proved to be a void, a haze on a film.
Dispossessed of its objects, space was swarming.
Everywhere was nowhere and nowhere, everywhere.
Letters in books turned silver-pale, wobbled, and faded
The hand was not able to trace the palm sign, the river sign, or the sign of ibis.
A hullabaloo of many tongues proclaimed the mortality of the language.
A complaint was forbidden as it complained to itself.
People, afflicted with an incomprehensible distress,
Were throwing off their clothes on the piazzas so that nakedness might call
For judgment.
But in vain they were longing after horror, pity, and anger.
Neither work nor leisure
Was justified,
Nor the face, nor the hair nor the loins
Nor any existence.
Czeslaw Milosz – damn auto-correct got your post.
Great post, by the way!
You are only the second person I've encountered who knows who Czeslaw Milosz is, and his works. A professor of Russian language introduced me to his book, Native Realm, when I was in college.
Pleased to meet you!