A constant theme of this inconsequential blog has been that the Anglosphere forms the core of Western Civilization, OK, OK, Civilisation for those in some parts of the Queen's realms. In modern times, at least, it overwhelmingly has been the hardy lads and lassies of the Anglosphere who have suited up and gone to battle to protect Western Civ from power-hungry monarchs, Fascists, Nazis, Communists, and "religious" totalitarians be they Shintoist or Islamist. These Anglophones also have provided much if not most of Western Civ's economic, moral, intellectual, and creative firepower (see this charming piece, for example.)
When that core is weak, then Western Civ ain't in good shape.
Well, friends, that core is in very serious trouble, perhaps the most serious since, at a minimum, the 1930s and perhaps ever.
As we have discussed many times, the United States under the current misadministration of The One is rapidly becoming a non-player on the world scene. The most powerful country ever to exist has become a joke. Our economy is a shambles and headed for more trouble as spending, taxation, new "rights," and new programs grow like weeds. Key institutions, e.g., education, government bureaucracy, courts, the media, have fallen into the hands of the progressives and been transformed into churches of progressivism. Freedom of speech has become ever more constrained as progressivism demands uniformity in thought and action. Even a bedrock conservative institution such as the military must divert increasing attention and resources away from the core mission, i.e., defending the nation and its interests, and must fuss with transgender, gay, and ecological issues. The White House and all its appendages have fallen to an anti-Western cabal determined to reshape the United States into something unrecognizable--and doing so.
The result of the progressive take-over has been a post-United States world. What was once a "what-if" intellectual exercise and the subject for alternative history books and films, has become a reality. We now know what the world looks like without the United States. It is a horrid place. It is a place where petty tyrants such as Putin can assert themselves and do as they will. It is one where rag-tag bands of Islamic terrorists and gangsters can terrorize large swaths of the planet. A place where Islam, almost unimpeded, can launch the most amazing thing I have seen in my life, the large-scale invasion of Europe. The Muslims now stand not far from achieving what once seemed a forlorn mad dream: the Islamization of Europe, the achievement of the Great Caliphate. The Gates of Vienna have been breached, thrown open from the inside.
Britain, most emphatically England, overall perhaps the most important and consequential country of the past 500 years, has just about become a non-entity. It is, in fact, in danger of disappearing completely. There are some glimmers of hope (as described here, for example) but the trend line is overwhelmingly negative. English and British greatness did not come from the Empire. That Empire could have disappeared long before it did without affecting the UK's claim to greatness. It came from that special combination of arrogance, stubbornness, eccentricity, creativity, and curiosity, combined with intellectual and physical courage that has long characterized the British, especially the English. That Britain that I so admired is disappearing first under the "homogenizing" influence of the disastrous EU monstrosity--why did Britain sign up for that?--and now even more precipitously under the increasing tidal wave of hostile immigration. Britain's current government is made up of nominal conservatives who, at best, assume the deer-in-the-headlights stance when confronting the threat to the nation's very existence. The train is coming at full speed. Britain's "conservative" government stands frozen on the tracks.
I have written before about my appreciation and admiration for Australia. More so than many other countries, common sense has characterized Australia. It seems, alas, no longer. I have made no secret for my admiration of gutsy PMs such as Howard and Abbott. Australia's government, for reasons best known to the Aussies, has come under new management via a Liberal intramural battle which left Abbott out and "moderate" billionaire Turnbull in. The new PM seems a decent sort but, and Australians can fill the large blanks in my knowledge, he reminds me of establishment Republican politicians here in the USA, such as Jeb Bush: probably a little too quick to make a compromise with the progressive agenda. For now, however, he appears holding firm, for now, on refusing to kill Australia's coal industry as demanded by the "climate changer" clangers and seems to be keeping, for now, Abbott's tough immigration stance.
Turnbull, nevertheless, does not inspire great confidence over the long haul, and, as with our own establishment "conservatives," likely will not provide a strong international voice of defiance as the West faces destruction from the Ribbontrop-Molotov pact between Islam and progressivism. He will get beaten down by the ceaseless progressive attack and begin to compromise. That is my bold prediction.
Now Canada has joined the ranks of mush-mouths. Justin Trudeau, really? Again, I liked Harper a lot. He seemed like a tough sort who knew how to stand up for his country's interests and that of the West. He was particularly defiant in his defense of Israel, rejecting the nonsense put out by the Ribbontrop-Molotov sorts. Harper got put out, again for reasons Canadians can provide, but certainly Obama and his absurd Keystone policies must have had an effect. A lot of progs at the State Department did not like Harper and his stance on global climate change and his positions on Israel. If this Trudeau does not fall far from the tree of the previous Trudeau, we are all in serious trouble. As with our own Obama, he comes from a highly dysfunctional and leftist family. As with Obama, he seems to have a meager resume but talks a good prog game. The media, of course, fawn all over him writing puff pieces about his youthful good looks, his hair, his shirt buttons (here and here, for example) which makes me very queasy. The West is in dire straights and Canada's leader is what? Well dressed? Who knows? And that is not a useful thing as we have found out from our experience with "good looking, charismatic" zero accomplishment Obama.
There are voices, such as in Israel and Hungary, warning the West of the impending disaster. But are those enough? No. The Anglosphere is the core of Western civilization. When that core is absent in the struggle to save that civilization, the barbarians win. We are facing a new age of barbarianism and our leaders talk about global warming and the need not to insult the people who are out to destroy us.
There is no replacement for the USA and its hardy band of Anglophones.
Why did England sign up for the EU? Perhaps because not only were we tired after two world wars, but our biggest ally pressured us to join. And is now pressuring us to stay in.
ReplyDeletethrough family and work ties, i know canada better than the u.k. or australia. if you spend any time in toronto or vancouver you know why trudeau fils beat harper. if obama wants another go at some national office he would do well by setting up shop in either city. go 100 miles into the countryside you may start to find the real canada, what is left of it. sad to think that canada will again undergo years of leftist misrule, just we hopefully get rid of it in 2016.
ReplyDeletesyd B is correct. Given "the people" elected Dorko Maximo twice, combined with our current crop of candidates, we are hardly in a position to criticize.
DeleteWell, you kept your promise.
ReplyDeleteThat was depressing...
Is there no hope?
Blast you, Sarge, thanks to your link, I have even less time for important things, now that I will be reading this page everyday!
DeleteTurnbull was originally a barrister and then a successful businessman, but he is the epitome of self interest. He started in my profession, where I knew him a little, and he always struck me as a person who wants certain things, and will do whatever is necessary to get them; principle wasn't a consideration. He always had political ambitions, and he originally joined the Labor Party. Subsequently, because the electoral cycle made it unlikely that Labor could deliver the political outcome he wanted, he joined the Liberals; where some people mistake the fact that he made a lot of money as proof that he is a true conservative, which he isn't. Turnbull belongs in the Labor Party, and many of his views are really Labor lite. The greatest problem is that Turnbull wants to be Prime Minister above all else, and he will jettison any principle to remain in the job. He has pulled the Liberals to left, and will continue to do so, because that is his natural political instinct.
ReplyDeleteTurnbull's elevation is however not down to the voters; Turnbull ran a long and destructive game of ruin against Abbott, ably assisted by his reliable friends at the tax-payer funded ABC and in the Fairfax press; both of which love Turnbull because he a natural leftie, and hated Abbott. Abbott outed Turnbull as opposition leader over the Rudd government's carbon trading scheme proposals; which Turnbull was going to back and allow to pass. Abbott then won an election and got the job Turnbull wanted and thinks is his right, and Turnbull was never going to allow Abbot to succeed for that reason alone. The lefties just hate Abbott because he is a true conservative and a Catholic. Abbott, and the electorate, was subjected to a campaign of Turnbull led white-anting and vituperative media carping of the kind rarely seen in this country; anything that Abbott did was wilfully misrepresented, howled down with faux outrage and relentlessly criticised, and it all had an effect on low information voters and eventually in the polls, which was used to justify the challenge. The behaviour of certain parts of the media was so bad that the phrase 'Abbott Derangement Syndrome' was coined.
The reality is that Turnbull will end up splitting the Liberal Party in Australia, because he cannot retain its base; they know he is, in his heart, a leftie. I won't vote for Turnbull led government, because it isn't a conservative government.
Thank you. Excellent points.
DeleteSounds like a Nixon. Too bad politicians aren't tested for what is prevalent among them;
DeleteNarcissism,
Amorality,
Egotism,
Personality Disorder and MY favourite is
Psychotic in the for where they believe they (as in singular) are the only PERSON on the planet.
Everyone else is a meat bucket.
THAT is what we are dealing with.
Sure would be nice to have to pass a mental check to practice law and politics.
Wouldn't it?
liberals would use it to prevent conservatives from being part of the process 'for their own good'.
DeleteI mean... we've all heard the phrase "they're voting against their own best interest", right? That's one step away from fascism.
- reader #1482
Excellent work Sir, and greatly appreciated. I would like to offer a different perspective from Australia.
DeleteI'm an ex grunt...now an engineer. I work for a defence engineering company that was founded by two ex warriors. All of the senior management are ex warriors like me, as are many of the staff. Like many of my colleagues I own firearms including half a dozen handguns...and this is in "disarmed" Australia. I guarantee that you will not find a more hard core bunch of Conservatives anywhere in the country. And we are not stupid or ill informed either. We are highly educated, savvy people who know what is going on.
Because we make military kit, we deal almost exclusively with the government, and the universal belief throughout the company was that Mr Abbott was a good hearted man with the best of intentions, but his government was terrible. Chaotic and incompetent are the most charitable things that could be said about his administration.
My office mate is a grey haired, buzzcut wearing veteran of the first Gulf War who may well be the most conservative and least politically correct man in Australia. When he heard that Mr Abbott had been deposed his response was "Well Thank Christ...I could never vote for that dumb bastard!".
My point is that good intentions are not enough in the world of politics...competence is also required. We make big machines that kill people and that will be employed at the direction of politicians, and we want those directions to be given by competent people. Well intentioned (at least in their minds) but incompetent politicians like Abbott...or Obama...will be the death of us all.
Mr Turnbull is, for all his faults, a better choice for leader than Mr Abbott if only for the reason that Abbott would certainly have led his government to defeat at the next election. And while Mr Abbott may have been a dud, the leader of the opposition and potential next Prime Minister would be far, far, far worse.
The country has dodged a bullet in electing Mr Turnbull.
Sounds like a Nixon. Too bad politicians aren't tested for what is prevalent among them;
DeleteNarcissism,
Amorality,
Egotism,
Personality Disorder and MY favourite is
Psychotic in the for where they believe they (as in singular) are the only PERSON on the planet.
Everyone else is a meat bucket.
THAT is what we are dealing with.
Even in mentalhealthtradeland, no one suffers from a generic 'personality disorder'. They suffer from particular personality disorders which have a conventional taxonomy. None of them particularly suggest Nixon. Neither do any of your other terms. Nixon was insecure, deficient in self-confidence, somewhat shifty, and addled by pointless ambition. That's an odd combination. In my experience, the first three are quite common among clergymen and school administrators. The third alone you see among lawyers, social workers, and mental health tradesmen. The first two in isolation you find among librarians. Nixon did practice law, though he had no use for the profession and may have never had a good day doing it.
I'd put money on the proposition that Obama, if carefully cross-examined, would give evidence of three or four traits on your list.
Throw the DSM V at him, Danno!
Delete“Picture the poor Arab private. He knows no one in his unit gives a shit about him; after all, he doesn't give a shit about any of them, either. They're not family. What happens when that private is placed in the loneliest position in the world, the modern battlefield? He runs at the first sign things are going badly. (He'll be fine as long as they are going well, though. Note: things rarely go well.” Tom Kratman
ReplyDelete“We now find ourselves facing the Christian West’s oldest and most steadfast opponent, Islam.”
indeed, hence the jihadis' use of mass infiltration, culture bending and terror.
Deletewhen Obama speaks of progress....Keep this at the forefront of your mind:
ReplyDelete“. I guess the decay of a corpse is progress, too . . . from the point of view of the bacteria.”
We have an entire generation of highly educated fools who think that entropy has been repealed. Civilization is not the default state of society. It will be a hard lesson.
ReplyDeletecute!
Delete-reader #1482
Heinlein would agree.
Delete'barbarianism' or 'barbarism'?
ReplyDeleteI'm honestly wondering at the wording...
There is hope... there's always hope... Still looking for a good GOP candidate to reverse this stuff domestically... someone who can lead because he's simply not afraid of the media because he's "strong and courageous".... Even though Trump doesn't fear the media, it's because his 'plan b' to being potus is to go back to being a billionaire. That's not what I mean by strength and courage. (Though he doesn't get any dings there compared to the rest of the field in my book either.)
Still hoping for someone to toss in a nice hat.
- reader #1482
An excellent summary. What really got up my nose was the assertion that the Liberal Party's conservative supporters did not matter.
ReplyDeleteLord Waffle [one of Turnbull's nicknames] may find that he has made a big mistake come the next election.
Confession [I'm not sure that that is appropriate for a Jewish boy] As a staunch Constitutional Monarchist I detest his Republican tendencies.
Not sure what happened there. My comment was supposed to attach to Brett's post
ReplyDeleteAs a very well armed and entirely un-sheeplike Australian, I would suggest that you are mistaken. If you attended either of the ranges that I shoot at on a weekly basis (one for handguns, one for rifles) , I doubt that you would express that view quite so readily to the gentlemen with the truckloads of guns that you will find there every day of the week.
ReplyDeleteOn a flippant note, Canadians simply got tired of a 10 year old government. Time had run out on it. On a more concrete basis, the public sector unions and liberal media, including the state funded CBC, ran an Anybody But Conservative campaign and demonized the PM Harper, who was and is a thoroughly decent chap.
ReplyDeleteNow the traditional Laurentian Elite are back in power and watch for the money to flow to their and their pals' pockets. The liberals ran on a policy of "change" so now we have a Liberal government with a PM called Trudeau. Where's the change?
The boy is an air-head; he has his mother's smarts. He is full of all the modish dinner party talking points and until now, has never been able to hold down a job or complete a real university course.
"...or complete a real university course." Indeed. He has a Bachelor of Arts in literature (comic books?) and a Bachelor of Education (at one point he was a part time drama teacher). He apparently took a year of Engineering but quit, likely because it had a lot of numbers and stuff and hurt his head. He also snow boarded and smoked a lot of dope. Excellent, dude!
DeleteYup, father's looks and mother's brains.
^^^^^^^
ReplyDeleteThis. Exactly.
"Obviously, this is just the latest piece of propaganda in what has become a truly epic farce. We'd also note that if the US is interested in stopping ISIS from robbing central bank vaults , Washington may want to consider giving some of the ammo and weapons the Pentagon is dropping into the desert in Syria to the Iran-backed Shiite militias operating in Iraq. Unlike the US-trained Iraqi regulars, they don't tend to run away when they're getting shot at."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-03/us-officials-outline-secret-summer-operation-stop-flow-dollars-isis
***
I've been reading a history of the Dark Ages, those 500 or 600 years following the fall of the Roman Empire in the West. The type sof events and causes then are starting to re-occur now.
ReplyDeleteRead Charles Oman's "The Dark Ages" (cheap as ebooks from Amazon) and tell me if you don't see the similarities.
I do not see the similarities. Per Philip Daeleader and others, Europe saw a secular demographic and economic implosion which endured for nearly 400 years (250-650 ad) and was coincident with the destruction of the political architecture and much of what counted as education, science and technology. Not seeing that.
DeleteThe political and culture degeneration of the Roman Empire proceeded a period of military adventurism where large areas were depopulated. Stability is a prerequisite for economic and demographic prosperity.
DeleteWe are just seeing the beginnings of a period that is starting to look a lot like the 500 ADs.
The political and military degeneration proceed the demographic and economic collapse.
Putin is no petty tyrant. He is probably the most rational, skilled and adept politician/war leader since World War II. He's been running the largest remaining empire for the last 16 years and it has only gotten better and more lethal since he took charge in 1999.
ReplyDeleteRussia's not an Empire. It is a large nation-state which never had much in the way of overseas dependencies, now incorporates only one or two small provinces with a non-Russian majority (Chechenya and Tuva, I believe, which have about 1% of Russia's population between them), and does not have much in the way of patron-client relations abroad - you have White Russia and the Donbass insurrection and that's about it.
DeleteSomeone once said that 'old men do not grow wise. They grow careful'. Putin is now an old man. I would be very skeptical he's going to get more mercurial and reckless in the coming decades.
"Putin is no petty tyrant. He is probably the most rational, skilled and adept politician/war leader since World War II."
DeleteYou must be joking. What has Putin exactly achieved for his country ?
1. He wasted the huge opportunity he had to turn Russia into a lawful, free and prosperous country, while the West was willing to help and the price of oil was high.
2. He ruined his chances to achieve his strategic aim of keeping the newly independant countries of his "near abroad" under Russian influence, by alienating Ukraine for generations. Even Belarus' dictator, who used to be a puppet of Putin's, is having second thoughts now and is hedging his bets towards the West.
3. He developed into a fine art the skill of not making friends and not influencing people on the international scene. Russia is close to being a world pariah, thanks to him.
4. He made sure no one could succeed him in an orderly and peaceful way, which promises troubled times ahead for Russia.
5. Meanwhile, away from glitzy Moscow, ordinary Russians live in abject poverty, while public health facilities are disappearing fast, railway connections that were the only lifeline of rural communities are shut down, and everybody who can manage it emigrates to Europe, Israel or America.
Russia has allies, if not friends, in China and Iran in international fora. Russia and China have also cobbled together an alliance with the Central Asian states, partly ensuring that Sharki Turkistan (Xinjiang) separatism will not get outside support. It seems that since the end of the Cold War, the Sino-Russian split (begun when Mao was incensed with Khruschev's de-Stalinization), has largely mended. I would not say that this is an example of Russia's inability to make friends and influence people!
DeleteFurther, is the rest of the world as enthused about "normalizing" LGBT as the post-Christian West is? Putin has forbidden the adoption of Russian orphans by homosexuals (and I'm not so sure he's wrong); and is it really worthy of the US to bully Uganda over keeping anti-sodomy laws on the books? We in the West might well be alienating people faster than Putin is.
@ Robert Marchenoir - you have critiqued Putin according to our conception of good government (the people etc etc).
DeleteBut in Russia good government means strong government, which means helping yourself and your clan to everything you can, he doesn't give a damn how he is seen in the Grauniad or the WSJ, or whether BBC looks down his nose at his lack of empathetic sustainable LGBT outreach programmes - in Russia he is revered and hated as every good tsar should be. He has more money than Croesus, and what he hasn't got his friends have, and he can do absolutely anything he likes, to anybody.
By his own standards he's done very well.
@ Cuffleyburgers
DeleteYou're wrong. Your own thuggish standards are showing here.
By his own standards, Putin has lost Ukraine. Ukraine, remember, by Putin's standards (he's been on the record saying that an untold number of times), is Russian territory.
Ukrainians were friendly towards Russia. It was easy for Putin to keep Ukraine in Moscow's orbit. But he's a "tsar", as you say. That is, a thug. So he did what thugs do : lie, insult, subvert, steal and invade. Ensuring that Ukrainians will now hate Russia for generations.
Putin created an Ukrainian patriotism that did not exist before. The result of his agression is that Ukrainians now feel firmly on the European side.
Also, as a result of Putin's actions, Baltic and even Scandinavian countries have asked (and received) military protection from NATO.
If that's success from Putin's point of view, you'd have to wonder what failure would look like.
You pretend he can do anything he likes to anybody. Wrong again. Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya (which is legally Russian territory, contrary to Ukraine which is an independent country), has promised to shoot Russian police if they set foot in Chechnya without his permission.
Look up Chechnya on a map. It's but a tiny speck on the immensity of Russia.
That's a bit like the governor of Connecticut giving orders to Obama, and threatening to shoot FBI agents on sight. Even by mafia standards, your "tsar" looks quite impotent to me.
you say "There is no replacement for the USA and its hardy band of Anglophones.". Once the USA completes its transformation into a Central American sort of country, it will hardly be Anglophone.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely
DeleteMr Mad - I just re-read your white dudes piece and (of course I am biassed being a white dude and moreover an Anglo) but for me that is one of the finest blog post I have ever read, anywhere.
ReplyDeleteQuite superb, and I wish the main stream media would publish material of the same quality.
What a depressing yet accurate portrayal. As an Englishman (NOT British or UK but 100% English), the DiploMad has hit the nail on the head. England as a nation is finished, destroyed by bien pensant enemies within who deliberately opened the floodgates to tidal waves of people alien to our ways of life and culture and who have no intention of assimilating.
ReplyDeleteEngland is finished. Welcome to Anglistan.
Where can I go??