Stephen Roney's Blog, page 235

A Long Hot Summer?

I see a difficult situation emerging in the US. The left has become completely lawless—I say the left, not just a faction of the left. On the other hand, the right has been entirely passive, giving the impression that they have collapsed. This further emboldens the left, and matters keep escalating.

I suspect the problem is that Trump has committed himself, for his reelection, to lure black votes over to the Republican side. It was a good strategy, and could have changed the game; but events have made it difficult. Now, if he acts decisively against the rioters or in support of the police, he risks being accused of being anti-black, and the left will start screaming “racist” and “fascist.”

Trump was elected by people on the right who were already deeply angry and wanted to poke the system in the eye. He looked to them like the most radical choice. Now he begins to look to these same people like an origami Bengal. They no doubt begin to think they can trust no one in politics, no one in the “elites.” They are liable to decide, now, to take matters into their own hands.

The middle is only too likely to dissolve, the violence to get more serious, and actual civil war to begin.
There is also the danger that, craving peace and order at any price, ordinary people will turn to any strongman; from either the left or the right. Someone may, as they say in Paris, pick up the presidential sash in the street.



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The Wave Is Still Abating

I'm hearing much concern about a "second wave" for the coronavirus, and an upsurge in the US.

According to the stats, it is not true. It is notable that the daily plague count is not going down in the US as it is in Canada or the UK; I think that can indeed be blamed on the recent protests, and it may get worse.


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Iconoclasm

They have pulled down a statue of Thomas Jefferson in Portland.

I am fundamentally opposed to pulling down any statues. The world has too little art, and too little history. Pulling down any statue is a crime against our children and grandchildren; while any sentient being should be able to understand it does no harm to the historical person we are trying to insult. It is an act of despicable cowardice to assault the dead.

Statues of Churchill and Lincoln are also being defaced in London, and statues of Gandhi removed.

There are, of course, known arguments for each; arguments made by people trying to have such statues removed legally. Jefferson was a slaveowner. Churchill was callous in his dealings with both Ireland and India; he believed in the British Empire. Gandhi was racist towards Africans. Lincoln? I’m sure there must be something.

The comment often heard, at least concerning statues of Confederate generals, is “After all, we don’t have statues of Hitler.”

For what it’s worth, I have never seen a photograph of any statues of Hitler actually being pulled down. Perhaps there simply weren’t any?

I recently learned that there is a mural featuring Mussolini on horseback in a church in Montreal. Nobody has been troubled by it, apparently, even in the 1940s. Moreover, it is meant to honour him—it is a commemoration of his signing of the Concordat with the Vatican. The Ontario town of Swastika never changed its name. 


For the record, I would be utterly opposed to defacing the Mussolini mural, or renaming Swastika, or pulling down any statues of Hitler. None of this would do anything but harm.

We did see many pictures out of Eastern Europe, when the Warsaw Pact and then the Soviet Union dissolved, of mobs pulling down statues of Stalin. This was perhaps in reaction to that dictator’s tendency to put up statues of himself everywhere; in such a case, it might be aesthetically justified. It was also a bit of payback, perhaps, for the modern tradition of pulling down statues of former rulers seems to have begun with the Russian Revolution of 1917.

A common claim made against the statues of Confederate generals is that it is wrong to erect statues of traitors. They fought against their own government.

This is historically false: from their perspective, and according to the US Constitution as written, sovereignty was retained at the state level. The Union forces were an invading army; just as if the EU landed a force at Dover today. The moral duty was to take up arms to defend their homeland—regardless of what they felt about slavery.

And as to slavery, it seems to me unfair to blame Jefferson, or Lee, for owning slaves. The problem was systemic. Had they, as southern landowners, gone without slaves, it would simply have meant surrendering their livelihood. They could not compete against their neighbours. Perhaps they should have, but it is a lot to ask.

Let’s allow that logic, that traitors should not be honoured. That does justify tearing down statues of Jefferson, and Washington, for they too, at least as much as Lee or Beauregard, took up arms against the government. But then Canada should also not feature a statue of Louis Riel in front of the Manitoba Legislature. He rebelled twice, and was actually convicted and executed for treason. None of the Southern generals honoured were ever so charged. Because they were not in fact guilty of treason in US law. The government considered charges, and realized they would be unable to convict, and would only end up justifying their enemies. 


We also have numerous statues and commemorations of William Lyon Mackenzie and Louis-Joseph Papineau, both of whom rose in arms against the Canadian government. 


We are obviously being inconsistent.

There is a fundamental error in supposing that, if we erect a statue of someone, or just leave it standing, it means we endorse them. Explain then, if you can, the many carvings of demons and gargoyles that adorn medieval cathedrals, or stand at the entrance of any Buddhist temple. It is remarkably simple-minded to suppose remembering someone means honouring them.

And it is a second error, as bad as the first, that you must not honour anyone unless they are without sin. No one, it should go without saying, is without sin. If you think your own heroes are, you are yourself guilty of the sin of idolatry.

This is a common misunderstanding, by the way, among non-Catholics, regarding the saints. The standard of sainthood is not, and has never been, sinlessness. We could not have statues or paintings of anyone, on that basis. The standard is a display of heroic virtue. Virtue, sadly, is a concept we seem to have lost.

Jefferson, Churchill, or Gandhi obviously pass that test. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Bill Establishing Religious Freedom, and was prepared then to stake his life on defending them. Churchill saved the world from Nazism, for a time standing almost alone against Hitler. Gandhi stood against the British Empire, and ended the era of European Imperialism.

If anyone is worthy of a statue in their honour, it is one of these three.

But if we are going to tear down statues and commemorations, let’s at least be even handed. Martin Luther King Jr. has to go too, right? We have credible reports that he was present at a rape, and even urged it on. His womanizing was well known even at the time.

How about Canada’s “Famous Five,” prominently displayed in downtown Calgary, on Parliament Hill, and in Winnipeg—not to mention on the currency? 


Emily Murphy was a genuine white supremacist. It was at least as prominent a theme of her writings as women’s suffrage.

She wrote: "One becomes especially disquieted -- almost terrified -- in the face of these things for it sometimes seems as if the white race lacks both the physical and moral stamina to protect itself, and that maybe the black and yellow races may yet obtain the ascendancy."

She wrote an entire book, The Black Candle, about the threat of the Chinese.

All five were aggressive advocates of eugenics and forced sterilization, in defense of the ethnic purity of an imagined Anglo-Saxon race. They got a forced sterilization act passed in Alberta, which seems to have been used predominantly to sterilize Indian (First Nations) women.

There are really only two defensible positions here: the traditional Jewish or Muslim one, to tear down all statues and paintings of anyone, or the traditional Christian one, of support for the visual arts.

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Icke's Reptile Apocalypse

Planetary master.
I have long been vaguely aware of David Icke, without being interested. I thought him mad. I have worked with the insane, and his claims are just what I would hear from any psychotic.

Yet this does not mean they are meaningless.

And why is it that, unlike most psychotics, Icke has not been locked away or drugged? Instead, he is making millions from books and personal appearances. What he is saying has to resonate with many people.

I account for the difference simply by the fact that, when Icke went mad, he was already a well-known athlete and highly skilled journalist and TV presenter. If you are sufficiently articulate, and already a public figure, you will not be declared mad. Being declared mad is for the little people. No one dares declare a possible social superior mad, unless he is also incapacitated, or says so himself. Which demonstrates a flaw in the concept.

Icke has instead become a shaman.

This suggests that, instead of being locked up and drugged, all psychotics could be. They actually have something of value they could offer, and instead they are being shut down. In other countries, being psychotic is a career. I saw this in Korea.

Icke is fun and energizing to read or listen to. Paranoia infuses life with meaning, makes everything significant and wonderful. A big stone near your home is suddenly the location of regular covert blood sacrifices. Something of cosmic significance might happen at any moment. You feel fully alive.

It is the same thrill as, yet far safer than, taking LSD. It is roughly the same thrill you get from art.

And it is not all nonsense.

How is it, after all, that Icke is coming up with all the same claims as the typical psychotic I have dealt with? If madness were simply random, this could not be so. Rather, whatever we call “madness” has rules and truths of its own. At a guess, we are seeing the landscape of the human psyche, terrain at least as interesting and important to our life experience as the world of the five senses. Not to study it is to be, in Icke’s term, mere “sheeple.” Only looking down and grazing.

This is what shamans and artists, and David Icke, offer: some of the rules and truths of the human mind.

There is, it is true, great danger here. Why wouldn’t there be--just as there is in the sensed world? In fact, there is far greater: hell itself is here.

O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there.

Icke’s claims could also easily move into antisemitism and Nazi race theory; indeed, Nazism itself looks like an irruption from the imagination, a New Age movement of its day. Icke seems unable to keep separate the two realms, that of the mind and that of the senses. This is perhaps the difference between the psychotic and the true shaman, prophet, or artist.

I believe accordingly that it is wise to stay in the worn treads of the established major religions: these are the tested roadmaps.

I think of Icke just now because of his core contention that the world is secretly run by an alien reptilian race. He is probably right.

He apparently believes that most world leaders are alien reptiles capable of shape-shifting to appear human. He cites the Queen Mother, Ted Heath, and Tony Blair. Like reptiles, they are not really conscious; and they feed psychically on human fear and anxiety. Their plan is to mold a life experience of constant anxiety for us all. It will resemble Orwell’s 1984.

Icke here is actually describing the characteristics of what self-help group psychology calls a narcissist. The Bible would simply call this a bad person, a “goat.” Narcissists do indeed, the self-help groups agree, seem to have limited consciousness, an incapacity for reflection, a robotic manner, and an absence of emotions as opposed to desires and frustrations. They cannot appreciate art.

It is a reasonable suspicion, at least, that many world leaders are narcissists: a drive to put yourself above others is entirely likely to lead you to positions of power. Being in a position of power, conversely, is inclined to convince you you are more important than others. Lord Acton made the point: power corrupts.

Narcissists do feed psychically on the sufferings of others: it is a way to demonstrate superiority. They will actively try to cause anxiety and anguish for those whom they control. It makes them feel good.

For this psychic tendency, a reptile is a natural image. It is an image the Bible uses too: the Devil is depicted as a serpent or great dragon. A reptile seems to operate only at the level of stimulus-response: want, get. Lack of human emotion is suggested by the fact that they do not care for their young.

Interesting to not that, although they do not occur anywhere in the world of the senses, the dragon or great serpent is a familiar image in all lands. It must, therefore, represent such a psychic tendency.

Icke claims that the giveaway that a given figure is a reptilian is something about their eyes; they can suddenly turn “jet black.” Whatever this means—the literal meaning seems impossible—it is actually a common observation among those who have experienced narcissists: that the narcissist’s eyes can suddenly turn “black” and somehow inhuman.

To be honest, I know what they are talking about. I think I have seen it, but cannot describe it better. “Insect-like” comes to mind; but that is nonsensical in literal terms. Perhaps “a soul-less intensity.”

Icke claims that these Archons are especially prone to pedophilia and even child sacrifice. This doesn’t make great sense in the case of an alien race, but again is a familiar characteristic of the narcissist. The logic is simple. The narcissist needs to feel superior. Children are easy to dominate. They are especially vulnerable and easily hurt. They scream so nicely.

Understanding Icke’s lizard people as narcissists explains this trait best.

All told, then, Icke is probably right here, if you simply take him on a metaphoric instead of a literal level.


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Ezra Levant on Racism in Canada

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Marianne and the Child

I think it is wrong to pry into the lives of famous people. Celebrities whatever their field are entitled, like the rest of us, to privacy. Interest in their personal affairs is generally the sin of calumny.

I am about to break that rule for Leonard Cohen.

Cohen is too important. He is not just another famous person. He is a spiritual guide, and, in the righteous words of Jennifer Warnes, Canada’s national poet. His soul intersects with Canada’s soul, and contains multitudes.

I was listening recently to the late song “Choices,” off the “Can’t Forget” tour album. And I realized how sad it was.

I've had choices
Since the day that I was born
There were voices
That told me right from wrong
If I had listened
I wouldn't be here today
Livin' and dyin'
With the choices I've made

It is a confession. It is sung in the voice of a hopeless alcoholic. Cohen did not write it, but the fact that he chose to perform it regularly suggests it meant something to him.

I was tempted
At an early age I found
That I liked drinkin'
No, I never turned it down
There were loved ones
But I chased them all away

Cohen did have a problem with drinking; but I fear that is not what he is really talking about. It stands in here for another vice, because he cannot quite speak that truth squarely. It is too painful to admit.

His vice was sex. It was lust.

This was, after all, the title of his first, autobiographical, novel: “The Favourite Game.” The favourite game was recreational sex: the hunt, the conquest. A common and commonly celebrated vice in his young adulthood, the era of Hemingway’s machismo, James Bond, Playboy, and the “sexual revolution.” A blind alley down which too many wandered then, and wander now.

Some girls wander by mistake
Into the mess that scalpels make.

Wrapped up in this is Marianne Ihlen: “So Long Marianne.” You can see her on the back cover of Songs from a Room. I have not seen the movie, “Marianne and Leonard,” but I think the issue is clear enough. It was his first committed relationship. By all the rules and right, that was his marriage, and it should have been for life. There was a child. It is unnatural and inhumane to break such bonds. I gather Cohen walked out on her, gradually, because, starting to become famous, he suddenly had lots more opportunities for casual sex. He was tempted as few of us ever are, and it was a temptation he could never resist.

Ever since he has had to live and die with that choice that he made. A fatal spiritual mistake.

The worst of it is that the child went mad by adulthood. Cohen must have wondered if he was responsible for that.

Cohen never could commit to any permanent relationship. He could never get past the lust; and always had chances to indulge it due to fame. He was an addict.

Notwithstanding, Cohen was a good man. He was just fallen like all of us; all of us have our temptations. The sign of his goodness was that he was wracked by guilt, and continued to wrestle with it. And to confess.

What I loved in my old life
I haven’t forgotten
It lives in my spine
Marianne and the child
The days of kindness
It rises in my spine
and it manifests as tears
I pray that loving memory
exists for them too
the precious ones I overthrew
for an education in the world

But Cohen fans and all of us need to realize that his early and sometimes celebrations of sexuality, attractive to so many, are phantoms on the road, demon voices that ruined his own life, the lives of many women, and the lives of many children, and continue to do so.


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The Devil Makes Them Do It

Recent reports on CNN are astounding as examples of blatant lying. They illustrate what happens when someone commits to a vice. Not only do they lie: their lies tend to become the very opposite of the truth, and they become preoccupied with accusing others of exactly what they are doing.

The topic is this tweet by Donald Trump:
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The tweet was never actually shown by CNN, but was introduced by Don Lemon as “this crazy conspiracy theory.” “Conspiracy theory” seems to have become the stock cliché by which it is referred to in the mainstream media. 


But in what sense can it be so described? Antifa is a known conspiracy, not a theory. The question is only about the significance of the actions of one individual. By definition, one cannot have a conspiracy of one.

Stelter: “he takes in this BS and poisoned information.”

Stelter: “This all started from a right-wing blog called Conservative Treehouse, which traffics in hyperpartisan, often-times made-up information.”
The piece is here.

No evidence is advanced that Conservative Treehouse has ever made up information. Even had they, this is a perfect example of the ad hominem fallacy. If it is true, it does not matter where the story originated.

Stelter: “there was a post, from SOMEONE, making up this claim anonymously…”

Stelter is perhaps being slippery in not being clear what “this claim” means. The only clear claim made in the Trump tweet is that the protester fell harder than he was pushed. Something anyone can judge for themselves by watching the video.




And the author of “this claim,” whatever else is being referred to, is “anonymous” only in the sense that the site’s editorials, like those of most newspapers, are anonymous. The post was by “Sundance,” who appears to be the site’s owner or editor. He writes the site’s mission statement. I expect any competent and honest journalist could track down his legal name, if they wanted to. They might also find that George Orwell was not a real name; nor Mark Twain.

And his claims are heavily documented, not “made up.” Including tweet threats from the man himself, showing a strong left-wing and anti-police bias, eyewitness testimony, and a statement by the mayor of Buffalo identifying him as a known provocateur. Specific claims made in the Treehouse article, although not made by Trump: “professional activist, agitator and Antifa provocateur.”

The one item that might be questionable, given the evidence presented, is that he was a member of Antifa. Given the nature of that organization, any such claim can probably rarely be proven or disproven. They are a loose association of other groups. Let’s rely on CNN’s own definition: “"[t]he term [antifa] is used to define a broad group of people whose political beliefs lean toward the left -- often the far left -- but do not conform with the Democratic Party platform.” By their own definition, then, it seems profoundly disingenuous of them to claim there is any serious doubt that calling Gugino a member of Antifa was a fair observation.

By contrast, CNN, Stelter, and Lemon do not document their claim that the Trump tweet was false in any way. They seem to have just made it up. They are blaming Trump for doing exactly what they are doing, while they are doing it.

“One America News repeated THE LIE from Conservative Treehouse…"
Here is the One America News coverage:


Stelter inadvertently admits that neither Trump nor OANN actually even said the man was a member of Antifa--only that he could be. “It’s always with a shroud of mystery,” he explains. He suggests they failed to make the claim only so that it could not be disproven. In other words, he is blaming them for NOT making a claim he says is false.

Their supposed motive is of course ridiculous. If Stelter can disprove the claim, he can disprove it equally well whether or not anyone has made it.

Stelter concludes “but this is clearly a kooky theory with no evidence to back it up.”

Lemon then says, “Some people are connecting this to Russian trolls. Now why is that?”

That’s remarkable: the idea that Gugino, the old protester, fell harder than he was pushed, they describe as a conspiracy theory without evidence. Even though it’s all on video, and everyone has seen it. Yet their only source for a claim that some unspecified “this” is all a Russian conspiracy is “some people.”

Stelter does give one additional piece of evidence: apparently the talking head who covered the story for OANN had worked for Sputnik News in the past—and Sputnik News is run by the Russian government.

This is again pure ad hominem, and doubly irrelevant since the OANN reporter was only reporting on the story in Conservative Treehouse, just as CNN is doing now. Interestingly, Stelter offers no evidence that Sputnik News has ever reported on the story—an obvious bit of journalism he ought to have done before claiming any special Russian interest in the matter.

Having worked for Sputnik probably says nothing about the ideological interests of any journalist in any case. RT, the Russian government TV/video service, hosts the widest conceivable range of ideological voices.

Stelter: “this is looney tunes stuff; this is crazy maddening stuff.” "It’s a form of poison…going straight to the president’s brain.”

“Maddening” instead of “mad” may be a Freudian slip here.

Lemon: “it’s really shameful.”

Interestingly, he looks down at this point. Run the video for yourself and see. Just as someone would do if they were themselves ashamed. This seems to me further evidence that he is projecting. He feels ashamed at the lies he is telling, so he expresses it as an accusation towards someone else.

He can’t look the viewer in the eye.

Lemon: “even when you present to them all the evidence, and the fact-check, they don’t care.”

Neither Lemon nor Stelter has offered much if any evidence or facts for their claims in the segment. Conservative Treehouse had offered a lot of evidence; they have just ignored it.

Lemon: “they don’t care, because they want to believe it.” This sounds like a bit of self-revelation; and it indeed expresses the common idea on the left. Everyone simply “chooses their narrative,” believes what they want to believe. He is projecting the same motive onto Trump and his supporters.

“… and then the president has this fixation on scary words and terms, right?”

Let’s look at the scary terms Lemon and Stelter have just used to prejudice viewers against Trump and his tweet: looney, crazy, poison, poisoned, BS, conspiracy, shameful, maddening, trolls, Russians, kooky, lie, made up.

What scary terms is Trump accused of using?

Lemon offers “unmasking.”

Significantly, there is nothing intrinsically scary about “unmasking.” Just the reverse: “masking” suggests something sinister, something to hide; “unmasking” is the opposite of that. Trump is simply using the accepted term. If it seems bad to the general public, it can only be because what it describes is that bad. If it is frightening to Lemon and Stelter, the reason would seem to be that they are aware of having something to hide.

exactly what Lemon and Stelter have been doing all through the interview: merely throwing out scary words and terms.

Then Lemon cites “defund the police.”

Perhaps Trump has used the term. But it comes from the left, not from Trump.

Stelter then says “Antifa,” perhaps to suggest that it too is a scary term Trump is promoting.

But that term is crafted to sound as unscary as possible: “anti-fascist.” Who isn’t against fascism?

If it has come to sound scary, like “unmasking,” this can only be because of the actual activities engaged it.

Stelter: “researchers say” Antifa is involved in the disturbances only in small numbers in large cities. He cites NPR.

Yet this is not a contradiction of anything said on the right, much less by Trump. It is spectacularly unlikely that you would find anyone on the right claiming Antifa has wide support. The assertion has been that small numbers of Antifa provocateurs have been trying to turn the protests towards violence.

And, of course, it is improbable that any researchers have accurate numbers. Mark Bray, an Antifa apologist, writes at their Wikipedia entry that “members hide their political activities from law enforcement and the far right." So if, as seems likely, researchers rely on either police reports or depositions from those arrested, their figures are worthless. What other sources might they have?

Lemon suggest the current alarm about Antifa resembles past hysterias on the right: a past obsession with “The New Black Panthers.” Odd; I follow the news pretty closely, and the organization name barely rings a bell. A Google search suggests they were active circa 2000-2013. I now remember charges of voter intimidation during elections.

But I do remember quite recent obsessions with “Russian collusion,” “The Proud Boys,” “white supremacists,” “the alt-right,” “the Koch brothers,” “Russian bots.” All, it seems, on the left. Continuing a longer and storied tradition that includes and included “rich capitalists,” “the Trilateral Commission,” “the Skull and Bones Society,” “Wall Street,” “Big Oil,” Blackwater,” “the Jews,” “the kulaks,” “the military-industrial complex,” and on and on.

Lemon ends with the sage advice that one must not seek simple solutions; that real people and real life are more complicated than that.

If anyone is listening, however, that looks like a Freudian admission that there might be more than one side to the claim of “police brutality” in Buffalo that has been the subject of this very segment.

Given that Lemon, Stelter, Anderson Cooper, and just about everyone in the old legacy media is in lock step on this, all openly denying easily seen facts, all even using the same stock term “conspiracy theory” about the tweet, might itself suggest a conspiracy; on the left.


I don’t think so. I think this is an example of how evil manifests an independent will and intelligence, once an individual commits to it. The way, in alcoholism, the bottle comes to command the man. The easiest way to think of it is to call it the Devil.

'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

Where Human Rights and Human Equality Come From

“Another Christian concept, no less crazy, has passed even more deeply into the tissue of modernity: the concept of the 'equality of souls before God.' This concept furnishes the prototype of all theories of equal rights...”

--Nietszche, The Will to Power

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The Tumbrel Passes

Execution of Robespierre
I had suggested this COVID-19 pandemic was sent by God to straighten us out, and discredit false ideologies. Now it looks like the opposite has happened: the craziness, in the US and perhaps also in Western Europe, is getting rapidly worse. And it looks as though the US is closer to collapse than Communist China.
Yet it may be that things are the opposite of what they seem. It may be that in the streets of the US now, we see a cornered animal. The instinct may be to take with it as much as it can on the way down.

The twin pillars of the postmodern left have been the education system and the media; the indoctrination system. Both seem to be under existential threat. The mainstream media has been dying for years; the coronavirus crisis has now caused surviving newspapers to shutter across the country. Suddenly there is no advertising revenue. Even leftist new media is failing.

The educational establishment probably faces a similar crisis now that everybody has learned how to study online. For universities, their main source of income has long been foreign students. COVID has arrested that flow, and if there is recession or worse in China and in Saudi Arabia, it may not revive for the foreseeable future. At the same time, the COVID crisis has not generally helped the reputation of “the experts.” They stand to lose much of their authority with the public as a result.
If Antifa is largely behind the rioting, the typical Antifa member seems to be an academic or a school teacher. These are the desperate ones about to lose their prestige, their power, and perhaps their livelihood. And they are being supported openly by the media.
Beyond these centres of power, the power of the left has been based on controlling information. They have of course tried to maintain their control by openly censoring and “deplatforming” any new sources of information for the general public. As and if they are losing control over information in spite of this, it seems obvious enough that they would now be resorting more dramatically to trying to scare everyone into submission.

It is obviously working with a lot of people. Prominent people are especially vulnerable, since they are easy to single out as examples, and they have the most to lose. Bill Cosby comes to mind.

Yet this form of control is extremely fragile: it depends on maintaining the impression of power. Lose that impression, and things can collapse very quickly. I think of the old Soviet Union. Or, for that matter, the British Empire.

For a time, leaders and the general public will take the cowardly path, try to keep their heads down, and hope the mob or the elite does not target them. Yet as everybody, especially in leadership, sees the odds increase that they too could be next, perhaps despite their best efforts, the safer bet will at some point be to stand and fight. Things may start happening even faster then, but in the opposite direction.


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Wild in the Streets

Napoleon emerges: 13 Vendemiaire; the "whiff of greapeshot"
Good luck, all my fellow superannuated hippies. You know that revolution we were all calling for in the Sixties? Looks as though we might finally get it.
What we are seeing in the US is starting, I think, to look like a revolution in progress.

We are at that inflection point at which nobody seems to be in charge, and events move so quickly that it is like a spinning wheel—the basic image of the “revolution”—and you cannot guess where that wheel will stop. The situation seems to change daily. Now we seem to be in the Jacobin phase, when everyone is rushing to the most extreme position they can think of to try to stay in front of the mob—and to seize control, which seems up for grabs, for themselves. Rioting? Defund the police!

How will it end? Actually, we can guess pretty easily where the wheel will stop. Revolutions almost always end in a more authoritarian government: a Napoleon, a Hitler, a Mao, a Lenin, a Cromwell, an Ayatollah Khomeini. A few revolutions that do not: those with a generally recognized leadership from the beginning, who can impose some order. That is something we conspicuously do not have here: who are the leaders of Black Lives Matter? Do any names come to mind? Who are the leaders of Antifa?

Archbishop Vigano has written a letter to Trump, claiming that the “Deep State” is behind all this, and behind them, the Freemasons. I do not believe in such conspiracy theories. There is nobody in control. It all looks planned for destruction because there is a Devil—evil itself has an independent intelligence, a Logos, and works in transpersonal coordination towards its purposes.

When things devolve into chaos, the common man then craves nothing so much as order. From any quarter. This is a golden opportunity for any prospective dictator.

No, if it comes to that, it isn’t going to be Trump. If this is the revolution, the dictator is almost always someone insignificant in the eyes of the world at this early stage. Nobody knew much about Stalin in 1917; or about Hitler, a mere corporal, in the Great War; or Napoleon, in 1789.

First, the revolution devours all existing leadership. Then it devours its children.

Nothing seems more pathetic than, yesterday, images of a worried-looking Mitt Romney leading a march declaring “Black Lives Matter.” Or police chiefs lying prostrate, or washing the feet of the nearest man with dark skin. They imagine this will save them. Whatever happens now, such people will never again hold positions of leadership. The revolutionaries will want someone uncompromised. And so will the reactionaries.

With any luck, the machinery of civil society that the founders set up, that has withstood everything for perhaps two hundred and fifty years, will weather this tempest too. With any luck, Trump is the man who can hold things together. If he just stands absolutely firm in his rhetoric—only his rhetoric--and things hold together well enough to hold a real election in November, things can still work out. Democracy is designed to inoculate against revolution and mob rule.

But we are suddenly remarkably close to the breaking point.


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