Category Archives: Culture

Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll, by Jeff Thomas

Posted on February 27, 2023 | Leave a comment

The party was never supposed to stop, except that it has. From Jeff Thomas at internationalman.com:

Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll

The baby-boomer generation were perhaps the most privileged generation that the US has ever spawned.

Their fathers returned from World War II, eager to get married, buy a house and start a family. The economy was booming, as, during the early years of the war, the US wisely stayed out, but provided tanks, helmets and even toothbrushes to those who were directly involved in the fray.

What’s more, they didn’t accept pound notes or francs; they accepted only gold. So, at the end of the war, when the manufacturing cities of Europe had been destroyed by bombs, the male populations decimated and the governments broke, the US was on a roll. They had most of the world’s gold and had first-rate manufacturing facilities that only had to switch from making jeeps and rifles to making cars and televisions.

That wave of wealth allowed the young married couples to spoil their children with whatever they wanted.

The boomer generation reached their teens in the 1960s, and having grown accustomed to receiving whatever they wanted in life, they were young adults and wanted to party. The phrase, “sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll” was coined and it was an apt one. Young Americans opted for plenty of all three.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Posted in Culture, Debt, Economy, Government, Morality, Politics

Tagged ,

What the America got wrong, by Observer R

Posted on February 26, 2023 | Leave a comment

A comprehensive analysis of America’s many mistakes. There’s nothing wrong with a little self-examination. From Observer R at thesaker.is:

BACKGROUND

A quick search of the internet for the term “What Russia Got Wrong” yields a lot of entries. However, a quick search for the term “What America Got Wrong” yields a rather sparse list. This is understandable since the narrative in the West has been that Russia is losing in international relations. Also, the United States (US) think tanks and government studies are oriented toward analyzing Russia, as a competitor country, and not so much toward what the situation in the US is like. There are exceptions, but these are often couched in terms of the need for more money for various US military programs. It may be useful, therefore, to look at a few topics and see how the US fares.

WHAT AMERICA GOT WRONG: MILITARY

Going forward it seems past time to consider some significant deficiencies that have become evident in the American quest to remain a great or the greatest military power. Many of these elements have been brought forward recently in pubic discussions and are important considerations in terms of weapons and military force.

The US has continued to procure weapons that many critics perceive as not suited for the modern age, or that are simply obsolete. These weapons are generally very expensive and prevent funds from being shifted to better uses. The usual examples are aircraft carriers, stealth fighter planes, littoral combat ships, and so forth. Instead, the US should have switched funding and effort into hypersonic missiles, electronic warfare, air defense systems, and perhaps more advanced submarines. Thus, the US really does have a “missile gap” to contend with. The bad name that air defense got with the “Star Wars” episode under President Reagan delayed work in that area for many years. Now it appears that at least one foreign country, Russia, is considerably ahead of the US in air defense equipment.

In addition, long ago the US set up approximately 800 military bases around the world. These bases were useful in the days of gunboat diplomacy and when US hegemony required extensive preparation for military action anywhere around the globe. Then and now these bases require a lot of manpower and funding to operate, but it is not clear that they serve an essential purpose in this age. Other countries have taken up the chore of fighting pirates and bombing terrorist dens. The US effort could be greatly scaled back.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Posted in Banking, Business, Culture, Economy, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Government, War

Tagged ,

For the First Anniversary: 24 February 2023, by Batiushka

Posted on February 26, 2023 | Leave a comment

Sadly, The Saker website is going offline. Hopefully Batiushka will find some place else to post. He’d be welcome here at Straight Line Logic. From Batiushka at thesaker.is:

Tell everyone that the evil that is in the world will grow even stronger,
but that it is not evil that will triumph, but love.
Tsar Nicholas II

Foreword

A published author for 35 years on Church and cultural matters, I wrote a first article for the Saker that was published on 29 March 2022. It seems strange now that it took so long for me to offer to write here, as Andrei and I have the same spiritual background. The SMO in the Ukraine was the turning-point. This article, for 24th February 2023, is the last for Andrei’s blog. Appropriately for the Orwellian-minded, it is the 84th article in those 330 odd days, one every four days. Thank you, Andrei. As for future writings on geopolitical and cultural themes, I will be talking to Pepe Escobar.

Old Russia and Old Europe

I am an Old Russian who lives in Old Europe. I have lived in several European countries, not only in Russia. But just as I never recognised the New Russia, nor do I recognise the New Europe. Just as I recognised neither the Soviet Union with its post-Sovietism, nor do I recognise the European Union with its post-Europeanism. The latter Union was born just a few days after the funeral of the former Union, as the demons that had haunted the USSR for exactly 75 years from December 1916 to December 1991 crossed westwards and found another corrupted and rotting corpse to infest and consume. I believe that we are now at a millennial parting of the ways in world history with the clear and abject failure of the Western world. Although those of nominal faith are riven by nationalist politics, compromised by money-oriented careerism, strangled by bureaucratic centralism and reduced by superstitious ritualism, we follow another way. For the King is coming and we must be ready to meet Him.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Posted in Culture, Geopolitics, Governments, Military, War

Tagged ,

The Crusades of the Virtuous, by Nora Hoppe

Posted on February 23, 2023 | Leave a comment

Degenerate cultures generally produce degenerate art, and our degenerate culture is no exception. From Nora Hoppe at thesaker.is:

The culture and arts of a society, of a civilisation can be seen as a barometer of its development and the quality of its statehood. Confucius, who saw music as the noblest of all the arts, said: “If one should desire to know whether a kingdom is well governed, if its morals are good or bad, the quality of its music will furnish the answer.”

The arts – in their truest and noblest forms – have always posed a serious threat to despotic powers because they represent a freedom of spirit and independence of thought.

During the Third Reich, the Nazis engaged in “Cancel Culture” by censoring various forms of music, literature, films, theatre plays that were considered an “an insult to German feeling” and which they condemned as “Entartete Kunst” [degenerate art]. Instead, they promoted works that exalted the “blood and soil” values of racial purity, militarism, and obedience.

In times of Roman imperial decay the arts had no fertile soil from which to develop as the previous arts had either been “cancelled” or perverted for propagandistic purposes. Edward Gibbons described the state of culture during the Decline of the Roman Empire: “…this age of indolence passed away without having produced a single writer of original genius or who excelled in the arts of elegant composition. […] The beauties of the poets and orators, instead of kindling a fire like their own, inspired only cold and servile imitations […] The name of Poet was almost forgotten; that of Orator was usurped by the sophists. A cloud of critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste.”

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Posted in Crime, Culture, Government, Society

Tagged ,

Putin’s ‘civilizational’ speech frames conflict between east and west, by Pepe Escobar

Posted on February 23, 2023 | Leave a comment

The West is not going to destroy Russia, not if Vladimir Putin has anything to do with it. From Pepe Escobar at thecradle.co:

In his Federal Assembly address, President Putin emphasized that Russia is not only an independent nation-state but also a distinct civilization with its own identity, which is in conflict and actively opposes the values of ‘western civilization.’

https://media.thecradle.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Vladimir-Putin-speech-START-treaty.jpg

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s much awaited address to the Russian Federal Assembly on Tuesday should be interpreted as a tour de force of sovereignty.

The address, significantly, marked the first anniversary of Russia’s official recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, only a few hours before 22 February, 2022. In myriad ways, what happened a year ago also marked the birth of the real, 21st century multipolar world.

Then two days later, Moscow launched the Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine to defend said republics.

Cool, calm, collected, without a hint of aggression, Putin’s speech painted Russia as an ancient, independent, and quite distinct civilization – sometimes following a path in concert with other civilizations, sometimes in divergence.

Ukraine, part of Russian civilization, now happens to be occupied by western civilization, which Putin said “became hostile to us,” like in a few instances in the past. So the acute phase of what is essentially a war by proxy of the west against Russia takes place over the body of Russian civilization.

That explains Putin’s clarification that “Russia is an open country, but an independent civilization – we do not consider ourselves superior but we inherited our civilization from our ancestors and we must pass it on.”

A war dilacerating the body of Russian civilization is a serious existential business. Putin also made clear that “Ukraine is being used as a tool and testing ground by the west against Russia.” Thus the inevitable follow-up: “The more long-range weapons are sent to Ukraine, the longer we have to push the threat away from our borders.”

Translation: this war will be long – and painful. There will be no swift victory with minimal loss of blood. The next moves around the Dnieper may take years to solidify. Depending on whether US policy continues to cleave to neo-con and neoliberal objectives, the frontline may be displaced to Lviv. Then German politics may change. Normal trade with France and Germany may be recovered only by the end of the next decade.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Posted in Culture, Geopolitics, Governments, Politics, War

Tagged , ,

Keeping Civilization Alive, by Paul Rosenberg

Posted on February 20, 2023 | Leave a comment

The gatekeepers are trying to destroy, not preserve civilization. It looks like it’s up to us. From Paul Rosenberg at freemansperspective.com:

Keeping civilization alive has fallen to us. A lot of us grew up believing that Democracy would deliver the best of all possible worlds, but that pleasant promise has become very obviously false. Rulership is not equipped to supply honest and humane living; what they are equipped to supply is ever-more rulership, aka, enforcement.

And so there’s no one to cultivate civilization but us, and we must do this. As briefly as possible, I’ll describe our situation, then move on to what we must do.

The Present Ruling Model

As I noted recently, there are two primary models for attaining a civilized, humane, high-trust way of life:

  1. Cultivate civilization within people.
  2. Enforce civilization upon people.

In the best of the old days, governments contented themselves to deal with exterior threats, leaving any number of religions and philosophies free to cultivate civilization within the populace.

Since the the 1970s, however, we’ve seen a hostile takeover of morality… of the enforcement of moral norms by the state. (Via the regulation or criminalization of everything.) Under this model, the state must enforce proper speech and sexual procedures; it must punish and repress the original sin of racism; it must enforce Green to prevent an apocalypse… it must eliminate threat after threat, ultimately bringing us to a promised land.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Posted in Collapse, Culture, History, Literature, Morality, Society

Tagged

Being A Placeholder Isn’t Enough, by Paul Rosenberg

Posted on February 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

How many people in their older years look back and say, “Is that there is?” From Paul Rosenberg at freemansperspective.com:

Everything “normal” in the Western system trains you to be a placeholder: You are expected to attend the schools to which you’re assigned and complete the necessary programs. By doing that, you can attain a nice slot in the big machine. Then you’ll function in that general capacity, probably for many years. This is called success.

You’ll be able to get car loans, a house loan and possibly even 2.1 children. And then, when you’re too old or sick to continue, the machine will drop you out and a new person will be called in to fill your slot. A few years later you’ll die and a few people will say nice things about you. You will have been a placeholder, perhaps a mildly rewarded one, but that’s all.

It ain’t enough.

We are unlimited beings. All of us can create willfully; all of us are geared for transcendence. It’s a crime – a sin against the universe – to hold such creatures within fixed roles. And make no mistake, the entire, fear-driven conformity complex exists precisely to hold you in a non-threatening state, unable to consider any other possibility.

“That’s Too Dramatic”

Sadly, this isn’t too dramatic a characterization: What people actually do falls horrifyingly short of what they’re capable of doing. Pretty much every thinker of note has seen that much. We have a long, long way to go… a long way to grow. And being a placeholder keeps us away from most of it.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Culture, Society

Tagged

Information Is Broken, by Paul Rosenberg

Posted on February 6, 2023 | 1 comment

Once upon a time, information purveyors had an economic incentive to make sure the information they purveyed was correct. From Paul Rosenberg at freemansperspective.com:

Humanity is informed as never before; nothing in the historical record compares. This, unfortunately, is not a particularly good thing.

The provision of information, if it is to bless mankind, must have quality control built into it… it must have a feedback mechanism with teeth. Barring that, it can spiral out of control, as, indeed, it has.

Consider that almost everyone in the modern world is flooded with information. Even the poorest people walk around with phones beeping at them a dozen times per day, delivering little packets of it. And for active people the info-delivery is far greater. Even the delivery devices themselves, smart phones, have become status symbols.

But who is providing all that information, and what price do they pay for delivering bad information?

The previous era of information delivery was dominated by newspapers; they provided most of the information for daily living. And that system, problematic though it could be, had effective feedback mechanisms. Newspaper readers paid for the information they received. And so, if they made bad decisions because of bad information, the newspaper would have a problem on their hands.

Continue reading→

1 Comment

Posted in Business, Culture, Media, Politics, Propaganda, Technology

Tagged ,

Botoxalips Now, by Good Citizen

Posted on February 4, 2023 | 1 comment

How do you tear down beauty? Promote ugly. From Good Citizen at thegoodcitizen.substack.com:

Continue reading→

1 Comment

Posted in Culture, Morality, Psychology, Society

Tagged ,

The Race to the Bottom Accelerates, by Charles Hugh Smith

Posted on January 27, 2023 | Leave a comment

Everywhere you look, products and services are getting worse. From Charles Hugh Smith at oftwominds.com:

When competence, transparency and accountability are all punished, the Race to the Bottom accelerates.

Race to the Bottom describes the process of competitive devaluation, where value is gutted to remain competitive with those who are grabbing market share by stripping out quality, value, durability, transparency, accountability and competence.

We see the global Race to the Bottom in everyday products: the quality of goods has plummeted as manufacturers compete to reduce costs to maintain high profit margins by stripping out the quality and durability of components. We see it in shrinkflation, where the cereal box contains less cereal while the price ratchets higher.

We see it when cereals that once contained no sugar are now sickly-sweet because the manufacturer is losing market share to less healthy sugar-bomb cereals.

We see it in healthcare where costs have been so ruthlessly stripped out to boost profits that it takes months to get an appointment and overworked caregivers no longer have the “luxury” of providing the care they were trained to provide. Routine procedures and hospital stays now carry pricetags equal to four years college tuition or a modest house.

The Race to the Bottom isn’t limited to goods and services. Consider the bedrock of the social order, civility. Civility in discourse is now rarer than sightings of UFOs / UAPs.

In politics, scoring cheap points while ignoring the nation’s social decay and unsustainable bubble economy is another example of the Race to the Bottom. Is getting to the bottom of the Taylor Swift ticketing “fiasco” really the most pressing issue that politicians need to address? It would seem so.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Business, Collapse, Crime, Cronyism, Culture, Government, Media, Medicine, Politics

Tagged