annatar1914 wrote:Many people are concerned about world war or regional war in the Middle East over the General Soleimani assassination.
I attribute this to TDS. I was never worried about it at all. There are many who have joined such forums this year to express their angst about Trump in hopes of influencing an election outcome by hoping that their expressed fear will lead to a contagion of fear.
anntar1914 wrote:And General Soleimani understood his place in the Shia Ummah as a Warrior that makes a mockery of the forms of the Westphalian Nation-State that he and his government acted partly within and partly without. Nobody can honestly tell me that the ''Islamic Iranian Republic'' is the same sort of political entity as say; ''Germany'' or ''Brazil''.
True enough, but you could say the same about regimes friendly to the US and of microstates too. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia isn't really like Germany either. Nor is the Vatican, San Marino, Monaco, Andorra, or Lichtenstein.
annatar1914 wrote:I've spoken before of Barbarism and the end of the Western style Nation-State on other threads, well, here's my absolute proof with this event. It's something that the Magi in the time of the Incarnation would have been most familiar with in their dealings with the earthly rulers in the story.
You and I disagree on socialism. The bigger of the failed states today are often socialist. Look at Venezuela for example.
annatar1914 wrote:It's too bad that so many people don't understand the times they're in, but that too is nothing new historically speaking. We're in a time where the personal is political, and the political personal, and the rule of law and of the common good is jettisoned in favor of tribal politics and the raw application of physical forces.... And spiritual ones too;
Well, I'd say we have something of a cold political war in the United States.
annatar1914 wrote:As Fascism is but the final stage of Capitalism in it's crisis phase, the fact of that crisis and it's development in the present day since 2008 AD, entails a return of an old ideology to put a face on the State intervention into the economy, and the coming resource wars.
I think a huge flaw in Marxian analysis is to conflate industrialism and capitalism. Mass production industrialism faces a crisis, because it can produce more supply than the public demands. That's precisely the crisis we have in place today. It's why I mentioned to you that I disagree with Peter Zeihan's analysis that we necessarily face a tripling in the cost of capital. Such a scenario would spells a global depression--not saying that won't happen either, but I think the globalists will try to forestall it.
annatar1914 wrote:Oh, the Jews will be in the Holy Land, and Persia/Iran will still exist too, but the polities as we know them today will not exist in their present forms, and it will be clearly so evident to many by the end of the year 2020 AD, and why.
I would bet Israel will have more staying power than the Islamic Republic of Iran.
annatar1914 wrote:ISIS will renew it's efforts to conquer the world and engage in a shocking new offensive to attempt to do so once more, and this will be linked to the political instability of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. That kingdom's days are numbered, and it will be replaced by a ISIS/al-Qaida type regime. 2020 AD will show signs of that, with the likely death of King Salman.
MbS is more volatile a leader, as evidenced by his war in Yemen and the oil price war with Russia. He also wants to modernize Saudi Arabia, which will almost certainly destablize the regime as currently configured; hence, his inclination to arrest his brother and other high-ups in the royal family.
annatar1914 wrote:What I mean by this is that first of all, the Vatican had to adapt to the Cold War and post-1945 environment the RCC found itself in at the end of WWII, and basically adopted the language and style of the Liberal ideology then dominant in the Western world, as Fascism had lost and Communism was not truly a possibility.
However, this could also portend a change in leadership in Rome. Ratzinger was pushed out too. The RCC had to adopt the Western line, because it was the political pole that tolerated the RCC whereas the communist party did not. Reagan even leveraged the RCC as a political ally ultimately leveraging Wojtyla and sending an ambassador to the Vatican.
annatar1914 wrote:1. That the revolutionary impulse of the ''Left'' around the world will be absorbed by Shia Islam, and in fact, the ''Left'' will convert to Shia Islam, will defend Iran and the Iranian Revolution in all things, and all their actions will serve to promote and build up the Iranian Islamic Revolution.
I think that's an interesting observation, but perhaps too concrete. They certainly do embrace any bit of Islam that is anti-Western, principally because they are more defined by anti-capitalism than they are by socialism--which suggests spiritual exhaustion and disillusionment on the political left.
annatar1914 wrote:2. On the Reactionary ''Right'', the conservative and traditionalist impulse, and it's latent anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, will be absorbed by Iran and the Iranian Islamic Revolution, with an identical absorbing and conversion process as what is happening on the ''Left''.
Maybe the anti-Semitism? ... However, the conservative and traditional impulse is also being championed in Europe by people like Vladimir Putin. The revival of the Russian Orthodox Church in the last 30 years has been quite a phenomenon. Just because it has not been adopted in Western Europe doesn't mean that it won't happen at some point. The influx of Muslim immigrants from Africa and the Middle East has polarized Western Europe.
Potemkin wrote:By about 400 BC, the world had become as wise as it was ever going to get.
I don't know that I can agree with that. They were well on their way to defining the logical parameters/boundaries of thought. The formalization of Boolean algebra may seem to oversimplify, but it could mechanize and perform more calculations than any prior mathematician. Each year we've seen that phenomenon. For example, each year, the number of pictures taken exceeds the number taken in all the years in prior to the invention of the daguerreotype. Empiricism, deduction, etc. weren't nearly as formalized, but it was certainly highly aristocratic. Having worked in mass storage, it's now easy to build a rack of servers with 4x the storage capacity of the human mind; hence, the new interest in AI.
annatar1914 wrote:''Make America Great Again''.... And the fearful rebuke of Socialism during the SOTU.
If you look at it as a spiritual rallying cry, you can see it as something different. I think your affinity for socialism colors your perception. The political left does not have a positive view of things, unless it involves some progress in rights for people with peculiar sexual identities. They have adopted a dismal view of material progress. So they have more or less lost the affinity of the masses, who long for even communal sacrifice towards a goal like putting a man on the moon. Whereas the left wants people to sacrifice their livelihoods and adopt an austere way of life.
So with today as a point of reference, I think the "woke" virtue signallers are going to get very tired of the social distancing required for combatting a viral epidemic. Their idea of progress involves eating a different ethnic cuisine at each meal, and they will be driven mad by rice and beans. Today, society is materially far richer than when Trump muses that America was great. However, at that time, America was spiritually much more sound than it is today.
annatar1914 wrote:It's either that or we go back 1000 years or so, and give up on the whole idea of genuine human progress.
That's certainly a possibility. However, I look at capitalism more systemically than religiously, and I draw a big distinction between industrial capitalism and the information economy. Keynesianism simply doesn't work anymore, and the establishment 1) can't admit it; and 2) doesn't know how to replace it. Socialist societies don't create internets, iPhones, etc. So they tend to stagnate and get poorer and less prosperous. People live more equally, but socialism lacks dynamism. Hence, it's lack of popular appeal.
foxdemon wrote:Too many elites vying for power, it seems, are detrimental to the heath of an empire.
Right, and they end up creating crisis that require tax dollars to solve, like the human rights movement of our time according to Joe Biden: transgender rights. If that isn't a contrived struggle, I don't know what is--especially in the face of homelessness, addiction and mental illness.
annatar1914 wrote:Scarcity is the primary factor, because if civilization is to exist, people have to be made to realize that if everyone tries to get what they want, all will wind up eventually with nothing, unless some are compelled by others to be satisfied with the lesser shares in return for security.
This is the religion of industrial or material capitalism. Software is not entirely material. It's a language expression that translates into electron patterns that drive microprocessors. I work in open source software--our software is free. You pay for support, not for software. It's ruthlessly competitive, but it has also turned my understanding of capitalism on its head to a degree. Since you can make unlimited copies of software for all practical purposes, it is theoretically non-scarce. Marketed as free open-source software, it's demand is perfectly inelastic on the basis of price; yet, demand is elastic on other dimensions, like usability and ease of use.
See, whereas people like Gates have become fabulously wealthy selling software, people like Linus Torvalds have not. Yet, Torvalds has a greater impact than Microsoft as the internet more or less runs on Linux.
This is why I say that to increase aggregate demand in the future will require fundamental innovations. Would you like a coronavirus vaccine if it were available? Many people would. That would be scarce only for a short period of time, but it would have high demand.
Potemkin wrote:People can now vote in Iraq, but is it really a liberal democracy in any meaningful sense?
Fledgling, but certainly far more liberal than Hussein's Iraq.
Potemkin wrote:I am reminded of a comment made by a Soviet apparachik during the Cold War, who denied that the British Labour Party could be a truly left-wing party representing the interests of the British working class on the basis that, having lost a general election, "they do not immediately proceed to sabotage." 
Today's establishment parties certainly proceed to sabotage each other, but neither really represents the public at large.
Potemkin wrote:It's the same reason why the Roman Emperors like Nero or Commodus kept winning and winning and winning, despite their obvious personal deficiencies. The mob loved them for being who they were - their own transfigured, fantasy selves, kicking the shit out of the mighty and the pompously self-righteous ruling elite....
Indeed. That's why you see Biden attacking the voters, calling them liars, fat, full of shit, and the like. Biden represents the Washington establishment. Trump represents the sentiments of the masses.
Potemkin wrote:Absolutely. And the liberals still won't understand why it happened. Lol. The American Republic is entering its death throes, @annatar1914 - I think we both know that.
The American Republic died a century ago. It's the administrative state that is dying now, precisely because it is not a Republic and does not respond to popular will at all--rather regards the people with contempt.
Donna wrote:The difference is that Obama actually looked forward to his genteel retirement while Trump has no choice but to be president for life if he doesn't want to go to jail.
So who would really be responsible for keeping him in power then?
Hindsite wrote:The Trump of God has already completed the goal to "Make America Great Again", but I am not sure that he will be able to "Keep America Great" which is his new campaign slogan.
His lasting accomplishment beyond 2024 is the courts. If he wins again, he will tip the balance of the court solidly toward the conservatives. The spritualists will want to end horrors like abortion. It was Octavian who came up with modern marriage that Justice Kennedy so insipidly dispatched as some sort of expression of affection that was deserving to be extended to homosexuals, etc. The problem with the Welfare State is that to continue its lie, it needs an expanding population and abortion killed that off, while illegal immigration of non-assimilated people kills social cohesion and the ability to rule a stable population. So it may be that the Supreme Court finally does kill off Roe v. Wade, but for far more pragmatic reasons than the evangelicals would have them do it.
annatar1914 wrote:So, you confuse works with faith, the political with the spiritual, and Christian belief with Jewish non-belief. Truly you are a confused man!
The Corporal Works of Mercy are found in Jesus' teachings in the scriptures. It was certainly taught to me being brought up Catholic. That's why I would take in someone who would otherwise be homeless, why I do provide food the hungry, etc. Works and faith are different things, but they aren't hopelessly unrelated.
annatar1914 wrote:I'm not saying Trump cannot be converted nor that he shouldn't be prayed for-for he should as with all earthly rulers-but he is not some quasi-messianic figure that you have made him, and his kingdom, America, is entirely of this world.
Trump's earthly power depends centrally on a number of constituencies, and one of them is evangelical voters who want to see an end to the holocaust of abortion, and more importantly the state's sanction of the practice. Trump--whether through personal conviction or political pragmatism--is headed in that direction. It has big implication both in the material and in the spiritual world.
annatar1914 wrote:But you cannot show where the merely political act of Trump's secular government of moving the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is a spiritual work of a Christian leader rather than a Jewish one.
Maybe, but the First Step Act is something he didn't run on or even talk about during the 2016 election. It was his friendship with Kanye West that got Kim Kardashian an audience, and the relationship with Tim Scott that moved that forward and set out to commute unjust sentences. Now, that too can be politically expedient if he can win some black votes, but if he were the malicious racist he's characterized to be in the press, he would never have taken up this effort. Again, that's not saying Trump doesn't have significant character defects. Nobody is perfect, including perfectly imperfect.
annatar1914 wrote:What ''strong resistance'' or ''spiritual battle'' are you talking about? 
Every president before Trump has been told that war would break out if he moved the embassy to Jerusalem. Presidents are immersed in the insidious fear-mongering "advice" of others, and they ultimately have to make a decision. All presidents before Trump cowered to that advice, but Trump did not. That may mean that Trump is merely brash, disrespectful and reckless. However, it may mean he calls bullshit when he sees it, and does what he thinks is the right thing, consequences be damned.
"We have put together the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics."
-- Joe Biden
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