I would say another ten days it should be completely over.
Col. Douglas Macgregor,
on day 9 of the war in Ukraine [i]
The term defeatism is commonly used in politics as a descriptor for an ideological stance that considers co-operation with the opposition party. In the military context, in wartime, and especially at the front, defeatism is synonymous with treason.
Wikipedia
When a strategist can manipulate both sides in a conflict, where each side represents one blade of a scissors, he can use the slicing of the blades to cut his way through anything. The conflict then becomes a controlled experiment in which the contenders, as thesis and antithesis, are used to establish a new thing (i.e., synthesis). In the present case, Russia and China (using their Western agent networks and “useful idiots”) are playing out this strategy. They are attempting to destabilize Europe and America to remake the world. An essential ingredient in this strategy is defeatism.
Leninist Defeatism
Four overlapping “scissors strategies” are playing out, along existing fractures: (1) the Biden regime vs. MAGA; (2) Russia vs. Ukraine; (3) China vs. Taiwan; (4) Western elites vs. the exploited masses (of the collapsing Western economies). Behind these scissors strategies there is a convergence strategy, and all these strategies make use of anti-NATO and anti-capitalist defeatism.
To understand defeatism, it is useful to reflect on Lenin’s defeatism during the First World War. Russia was then fighting against Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey. As a defeatist, Lenin wanted Russia to lose the war. In that event, he envisioned coming to power in a revolution. As events played out, the war brought Russia to the brink of economic collapse in early 1917. After the abdication of the Tsar in the February Revolution, Lenin’s defeatism led him to collaborate with the German government. The Kaiser, who was desperate to get himself out of a two-front war, provided Lenin with money (sent into Russia through the Bank of Siberia) so that Lenin could overthrow the Provisional Government and give Germany peace on favorable terms. After Lenin overthrew the Provisional Government in the October Revolution, he agreed to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. That treaty broke up the Russian Empire and ended Russia’s participation in World War I. This is how communism was established in Russia, with Defeatism as the key.
An important marker in all this was Lenin’s opposition to “the omnipotence of ‘wealth.’” Lenin was an enemy of the Establishment. He said that capitalism exploited the workers, pauperized them, and even slaughtered them in “imperialist wars.” We notice, today, similar rhetoric coming from mixed groups of right-wing defeatists. We may aptly call this defeatism “right-wing Leninism” because its modus operandi bears a striking resemblance to Lenin’s defeatism. But that is not all. The American right is more and more identified with the working class, and Lenin was a champion of the working class; so the case is more and more curious, involving what the Marxists call “contradictions.” In this context, former Trump advisor Steve Bannon reportedly told Ron Radosh: “I’m a Leninist.” Radosh asked what he meant, and Bannon said, “Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal, too. I want to bring everything crashing down and destroy all of today’s Establishment.” [ii]
Bringing down the United States Government, of course, would present a golden opportunity to Russia and China. The U.S. nuclear arsenal defends the free world (to whatever extent it is still free). If the United States collapsed in the wake a right-wing revolution to “destroy all of today’s Establishment,” and if the U.S. nuclear arsenal was compromised, who is to say the free world would survive? Given all this, a person like Bannon might be described as a Leninist in more than one sense, or perhaps as a tool of Leninism. On the one hand Bannon sees himself as a defender of the working class. On the other hand, his revolutionary trajectory might secure a victory for Leninism globally.
Setting aside, for a moment, the opportunity that “bringing down the [American] state” represents for Russia and China, it must be admitted that our erstwhile Establishment despises the country’s white working-class. Here we find the blades of one of our scissors – i.e., the Western elites vs. the exploited masses. It is a bizarre irony that the Marxist left, having emerged from its university hatcheries into government, has deployed Critical Race Theory and feminism to suppress what turns out to be the last instinctively American class; that is, the American proletariat. In a comical inversion of political reality, the right picks up the working class as the left picks up the elite. And so, the elitist thing is to be a Marxist of a new type – promoting feminism, open borders, and genderism. The lowbrow thing is to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. It is, in fact, the unwashed masses – Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” – who want to bring manufacturing back to the United States, who want a border wall, and who instinctively distrust the Establishment. Therefore, Bannon is a “Leninist” in the sense that he wants a revolution from below.
One must admit, since 1991, all our political terms have become inverted and confused. Yet there is method in the madness of this confusion. The idea that Bannon might call himself a Leninist goes hand-in-hand with Putin identifying himself as a Christian. As Iago said in Shakespeare’s Othello, “I am not what I am.”[iii] Bannon is not really a Leninist and Putin is not really a Christian. But a game is afoot in which, dialectically, the players become interchangeable so that the black and white pieces on the chess board can switch sides, change sides, or converge. As a strategist, I do not think all this is an accident.
The defeatism that is emerging on the right, having made revolutionary noises, shares Lenin’s hatred of bankers and high finance. And here, we are not talking about Bannon specifically. We are talking about the conspiratorial right. Precision is difficult here; but of all the conspiracy theories infecting the right, most believe that the malefactors of great wealth are the true enemies of mankind. Overthrow the banking cabal and all will be well. And so, the real right-wing Leninists – who make up an ill-defined grouping – have revolutionary aspirations at a deeper level than anybody has yet understood. Whereas conservatism hitherto deferred to Edmund Burke in his opposition to violent revolution, the right-wing Leninists have no such inhibition. Like the dialectical materialists of the communist movement, the right-wing revolutionaries have no transcendental calculus. They are not backworldsmen (in Nietzsche’s sneering coinage); and so, like the communists, they are after power – and they do not care how they come by it. Like Lenin, they believe that wars derive from capitalist conspiracies. This can be seen in the Truther Movement, which Moscow patronizes. It should not be overlooked that this growing preoccupation with conspiracy theory reveals a shift towards Machiavellianism (another Leninist trait). Ironically, conspiracy is the true faith of the conspiracy theorist; for he believes that history can be controlled by money and by cunning. His native envy must conclude, consciously or unconsciously, that history could be his to control. And so, stripping Marxism-Leninism of its outward paraphernalia, the conspiracy theorist has made for himself a simplified revolutionary theory – cutting directly to the chase.
Lenin wrote, “A democratic republic is the best possible political shell of capitalism, and therefore, once capital has got control of this excellent shell … it establishes its power so securely, so firmly, that no change of individuals, of institutions or of parties in the bourgeois-democratic republic can shake this power.”[iv] Similar statements may be found on any number of right-wing websites, and could form the basis for Moscow’s late-game strategy of convergence. The far right and the far left could join forces. After all, they seem to share the same enemy.
It is mind-boggling, indeed, to think that the right and left could combine, that they could agree on a revolution to overthrow capitalism. Of course, overthrowing Wall Street and the banks might destroy the West economically. In practical terms, what could be better for Moscow and Beijing? After the West collapses, the right and left – having defeated the evil “banksters” – could be comfortably merged. If anything should go wrong (and it probably will), the hard reset of a nuclear world war could be used to force the desperate survivors into a socialist survivalism. Should reactionaries and anti-socialists attempt to resist, something akin to the Russian Civil War would play out globally, by bullet and bayonet, enabling the have-nots to overthrow the haves.
Either way, the World Revolution wins.
The World Revolution: An Overview
We may visualize World Revolution as follows: (1) Begin a war in Ukraine that results in a global economic dislocation, either through a Russian victory or stalemate (since Western economic sanctions will apply either way, triggering the collapse of the West’s financial house of cards); (2) extend the economic mayhem by disrupting the West’s vital supply chains as China squeezes Taiwan and mobilizes for war in the Far East; (3) have a Democrat President denounce his Republican opposition as traitors (opening the way to civil war in the U.S., marking the end of U.S. global hegemony); (4) expose the bankrupt and predatory policies of the Western capitalist elite, turning the Western masses against their economic system and governments; (5) break up NATO; (6) bring about the “one Common European Home” advocated by Gorbachev and Yeltsin; (7) make the Pacific Ocean into a Chinese lake; (8) finish off the United States, occupy North America, and rule the world as a socialist commonwealth led by Moscow and Beijing.
This grandiose scheme, in its first iteration, originated with Lenin in Russia. As with all such schemes, it appears outlandish on its face. But all grandiose schemes of conquest appear outlandish at first blush. Think back to the Persian kings, Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Caesar, etc. History shows us many outlandish schemes, and quite a few were successfully carried out. The Romans, according to Polybius, conquered through the patience of their far-sighted policy. The British used sea power to successfully maintain an Empire where Athens, in the ancient world, had failed. It is worth noting that the successful empires of the past were conservative, preserving the intellectual and spiritual heritage of their time. The grandiose scheme of Lenin, however, proposes to establish a world-wide socialist imperium leading to communism. What has taken modernity by surprise, in this matter, is the wantonly destructive nature of socialism. The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia established a regime rooted in the insistent belief that mankind can only be transformed by violence. The idea of transforming mankind in this way, of annihilating man’s instinctive acquisitiveness, is not merely utopian; it is a rationale for creating a totalitarian state predicated on an unprecedented concentration of power. In doing this the Marxists have ignored Lord Acton’s admonition: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”[v]
The lust for power, with humanitarian window-dressing, must always produce a humanitarian catastrophe. When the socialists got power in Russia, forming the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), they directly preceded to mass killing and thievery. It is no accident that corruption hobbled the Soviet system, from top to bottom. Corruption is also a disease that afflicts Red China. It afflicts all the totalitarian socialist countries. Those who complain that the West is the most corrupt and decadent society of all, have no idea what they are talking about. They have not properly studied the socialist system of the former Soviet Union. Absolute power, does indeed, corrupt absolutely.
Therefore, it should not be a controversial proposition that all revolutionary socialist governments are predicated on gangsterism; that is, on lying, thieving, and murdering. We see this from Stalin’s terror famine in Ukraine to Pol Pot’s killing fields and Mengistu Haile Mariam’s Red Terror of 1980s Ethiopia. In their grandiosity they must kill enormous numbers of people because human nature will resist socialism’s insane policies. They must level civilization because civilized values are incompatible with their methods.
Unfortunately, we have not learned from the history of totalitarian socialism. Even as the “motherland” of socialism pretended to give up its objectives and adopt capitalism in 1991, even as Red China has played the capitalist game, the old objectives and methods remained in place. The long-range plan of Russia and China for remaking the world requires violence and robbery on an unprecedented scale. This has not changed. Look at what is happening in Ukraine. Look at China’s behavior toward Taiwan. Ask yourself why? The driving ambition of Moscow and Beijing is to annihilate. The most dangerous thing we have done, during the last 35 years, is to say to ourselves, “Yes, we can safely do business with Moscow and Beijing. They will not reign destruction on our heads.” Notice, then, how the missiles and nuclear warheads have been prepared in Russia and China. Notice, also, how the world’s food supply is being constricted. Does anyone remember that control over food always has been the communist path to consolidating power? The fact is, we cannot safely do business with Moscow and Beijing. The GRU defector, Colonel Stanislav Lunev, once described the leaders of the Russian Federation in the following way: “These are not human beings. These are crazy persons.” Commenting on the outlandish program of totalitarians, Hannah Arendt noted, “Until now the totalitarian belief that everything is possible seems to have proved only that everything can be destroyed.”[vi]
A Stratagem is Engendered
Moscow’s strategists have always considered energy to be the Achilles heel of Europe. The decisive energy inputs for a prosperous modern economy are principally oil and natural gas. If the West’s supply of oil and natural gas could be limited or cut off, an economic crisis could be triggered. In this context, the 1979 Islamic Revolution in oil-rich Iran was of enormous importance for Russia. The anti-American nature of the regime, and the liberationist features of Revolutionary Islam, made Moscow and Tehran natural allies. At the same time, Iran could be militarily built into a nuclear power that might easily close off the Persian Gulf oil during a future crisis. Of almost equal importance was the socialist takeover of oil-rich Venezuela under Hugo Chavez. If the United States was supine enough to tolerate the fall of South America’s oil hub, then Russia’s energy war was on its way to success. The icing on the cake, however, would be radical environmentalism.
In recent years geologists have found vast oil deposits in unexpected places. The doom and gloom predictions about peak oil did not come true. There exists, under the earth, large gas and oil deposits. All the West had to do was develop the technology to find these deposits and drill deeper – or fall back on unconventional oil extraction technologies. Here is where the environmentalists have played a significant role for Russia. In recent years radical environmentalism – in Europe and North America – has gone mainstream. With newfound political strength the environmentalists have opposed drilling, fracking, and more. From the outset, Moscow needed to interdict new sources of cheap energy. As luck would have it, the environmentalists did this for them.
It is easy to see who benefits most from radical environmentalism. Without question, Russia and China benefit. Chiefly, because of environmental concerns about nuclear power and coal in Germany, Russia was able to claim Europe as a market for its gas exports. Meanwhile, China secured its manufacturing base as Western manufacturing was moved to China. This owed much to the prohibitive costs associated with U.S. and European environmental regulations.[vii]
For obvious reasons the Soviet strategists became interested in an obscure scientific hypothesis: anthropogenic global warming. Here was a “scientific” theory with strategic utility for the socialist bloc. And then, on 23 June 1988, during a Washington, D.C. heat wave, James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies told a committee of the U.S. Senate that, “The earth is warmer in 1988 than at any time in the history of instrumental measurements….” He said there was “only a 1 percent chance of an accidental warming of this magnitude…. The greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now.”[viii]
Hansen’s statement, on its face, was ridiculous. There is no such thing as “accidental global warming.” Such, however, was the straw man Hansen presented as the sole alternative to the greenhouse gas theory. Scientists have long known that the Earth passes through cycles of warmer and cooler temperatures. In fact, it was warmer in the early Middle Ages than it is now. The Vikings were growing crops in Greenland, which is not possible with today’s cooler climate. Yet anthropogenic global warming has been accepted as true. To this end, facts have been systematically falsified by agents of influence in the scientific community. Careers have been ruined.
To make environmental alarmism credible, nobody was supposed to question the anthropogenic global warming theory. Those who did question the theory were labeled “science deniers,” or they were accused of being paid agents of Big Oil. Yet science is about asking questions. When all this nonsense began, scientists did not even fully understand the mechanisms responsible for global temperatures. Given their ignorance about climate, how could scientists honestly say anthropogenic global warming was scientifically proven? Of course, everyone knows – or ought to know – the sun is a major factor in heating the Earth; but in 1988 nobody realized the role played by cosmic radiation and the sun’s electromagnetic field. In this regard, the work of Henrik Svensmark[ix] has proved embarrassing to global warming advocates. Ironically, Svensmark’s work suggests that the world may not be warming. Instead, we may be headed for serious cooling – with dire consequences to global food production.
Despite the future discoveries of real scientists, James Hansen’s 1988 statements before the U.S. Senate lent credibility to what followed. The New York Times’s declared that Hansen had sounded an alarm “with such authority and force that the issue of an overheating world has suddenly moved to the forefront of public concern.”
As noted earlier, the greenhouse gas theory of global warming has been around for many decades. It was one of many theories presented in academic papers. The originators of the theory were not Soviet agents. It was the political deployment of the theory that made it part of somebody’s strategy. Certainly, if we ask the question of cui bono, we cannot help looking in the direction of Moscow. Yet there is more: In 1982 the Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Presidium of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Ivan T. Frolov, wrote a book titled Global Problems and the Future of Mankind. In this book he hinted that environmentalism was the key to Moscow’s future victory. According to Frolov, who later became a member of the USSR’s ruling Politburo, “pollution of the environment, the destruction of ecosystems, the destruction of many species … have now reached threatening proportions.” These “dangerous disharmonies in man’s interactions with nature are associated with … the capitalist socio-economic formation….” Therefore, he explained, these disharmonies require a “fundamental social transformation.” Comrade Frolov then played his trump card, the one that probably earned him his seat on the Politburo: “As a result of the formation of a layer of carbon dioxide around the Earth which encloses it like a glass cover,” wrote Frolov, “the threat of unfavorable changes in climate has arisen that may transform our blue planet into an enormous greenhouse … with possible catastrophic effects.”[x]
There it is, mapped out by a Soviet science propagandist in 1982. The Soviet Union picked up this idea, put their agent networks behind it, and built it into an “established science.” With government officials and the media trumpeting it, who could resist? The greenhouse gas-mongers could destroy anyone who questioned them. Here was a political instrument for sabotaging the West’s energy independence.
Four years after Hansen’s senate spectacular, in 1992, Senator Al Gore, Jr., wrote Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit. Echoing Ivan T. Frolov, Gore proposed a fundamental social transformation to fight pollution and climate change. Gore, like Senator Joseph Biden, had been promoted into the United States Senate by Armand Hammer (identified by British and U.S. intelligence as a long-time Russian asset).[xi] As a strategist, I do not think all this is an accident.
Today nearly everyone in the West believes in the greenhouse gas theory of anthropogenic global warming. One might say, with some truth, that we “are all useful idiots now.” The bogus nature of anthropogenic global warming propaganda should be obvious to anyone who understands science. It should also be obvious to anyone who understands Soviet strategy, the communist movement, and the history of communist “active measures.”
Germany is, in all probability, the country most damaged by the anthropogenic global warming religion. Under its Climate Action Program 2030, and the new Climate Action Act, the Germans have been closing nuclear and coal power plants. This has led to greater dependence on Russian natural gas. As Patrick Wintour explained in the Guardian, Germany’s “rejection of nuclear power and its transition away from coal meant that Germany had very few alternatives to Russian gas.”[xii] The Russians, in fact, were preparing to cut off Germany’s gas supply months ago. According to Robert Habeck, Russian-owned gas storage facilities in Germany “had been ’systematically emptied’ over the winter, to drive up prices and exert political pressure. It was a staggering admission of Russia’s power to disrupt energy supplies.”[xiii] American leaders have warned Germany about its growing dependence on Russia for many years, but the Germans would not listen.
And now, thanks to the opportunity presented by the war in Ukraine, and thanks to Russia’s ability to cut off Germany’s gas supply, the Kremlin can play out its scissor’s strategy in Europe. Without enough electricity or heat, revolutionary conditions will obtain in Germany. Businesses will not be able to function. Workers will lose their jobs. The German government will be blamed. People have already taken to the streets. Revolutionary defeatism is on its way.
Douglas Macgregor: A Case Study in Pro-Moscow Defeatism
Voices exist, and will continue to appear, preaching the inevitability of Western decline. They will preach Russia’s rise, and China’s rise, and even socialism’s rise, etc. Listen carefully to these voices. Ask who they are. Ask why they are speaking out. In recent years, on the right, there are defeatists who preach the abandonment of America’s allies in Asia and Europe. One such person is retired U.S. Colonel Douglas Macgregor. And he is a classic “blame America firster.”
A defeatist will tell you that America is to blame for all the bad things that are happening. During the Cold War the left promoted defeatism. Yet the left, contrary to its past behavior, is currently holding the line against Russia and China. All the better, then, that they might pull the rug out from under the West’s defensive preparations. Inconsistent characters that they are, they can always double back. And this has already begun to happen. In April Biden canceled two nuclear warhead programs,[xiv] and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was hard-pressed trying to explain why Germany has sent less military aid to Ukraine than Norway. These leftists cannot be trusted to defend the West. And yet, they are holding the banner high – for the moment. What is most worrisome, that this juncture, is that the loudest voices of defeatism are on the right. For the sake of credibility, the ideal defeatist would be someone with military credentials. Figures like General Michael Flynn come to mind, and he certainly has been serviceable. Better than Flynn, however, is Colonel Douglas Macgregor, a self-described military strategist favored by Fox News broadcaster Tucker Carlson.
Colonel Macgregor has been a military consultant and TV commentator since his retirement from the U.S. Army in 2004. Macgregor was appointed by President Trump to replace Richard Grenell as ambassador to Germany in 2020. However, Macgregor’s nomination was blocked by the U.S. Senate because of “controversial statements.” What hurt him most was Macgregor’s notion that Germany’s struggle to overcome its Nazi past partook of a “sick mentality.” He was subsequently labeled an antisemite by American Jewish groups, though he was defended by three Israelis in a Jerusalem Post opinion piece.[xv] Macgregor’s antics are reminiscent of General George S. Patton, a famously opinionated U.S. general who fought in World War II. But then, Macgregor is no Patton.
In an appearance on the Laura Ingraham Show three weeks before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Macgregor said, “NATO, under the pressure of a potential conflict, appears to be crumbling. It has virtually no cohesion.” Macgregor then sarcastically mocked NATO’s preparations in advance of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He also blamed the United States for helping to create the crisis.
To be effective, defeatism does not have to be consistent or coherent. A week ago, Wednesday Macgregor published an article in the notorious pro-Kremlin publication, Veterans Today. He argued that Biden’s support for Ukraine, as meager as it is overblown, is the equivalent of FDR’s policy of “unconditional surrender” during World War II. Macgregor then compared Biden’s policy of sending aid to Ukraine with Lyndon Johnson’s intervention in the Vietnam War: “LBJ found out the hard way that the North Vietnamese were far more committed to ‘victory at any cost’ than were the American people.” It is surprising indeed, that Macgregor shamelessly echoes the defeatist rhetoric of the pro-Marxist left of the 1960s. In this context, someone should remind him that American soldiers are not fighting in Ukraine. It is a totally different situation than Vietnam.
While Macgregor attacks those who sympathize with Ukraine as “gratuitously self-righteous,” he indulges his own self-righteousness by blaming the United States for the war. In one interview he said, “Moscow will never again allow Washington and its allies to transform eastern Ukraine into a launching pad for offensive military operations against Russia proper.”[xvi] A lie of this kind is inexcusable coming from a military man. NATO never turned Eastern Ukraine into a launchpad for offensive operations against Russia. Nobody in NATO would dare attack Russia. But notice the shocking contradiction in Macgregor’s two statements. Suddenly, the weak NATO alliance he mocked in January is transformed by his rhetoric into a threat effective enough to require a Russian preemptive strike into Ukraine!
As an interesting segue into the scissor’s strategy, Macgregor has criticized German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock as “a crusader of the type you see in Washington.” It is funny that he zeroed in on the leading German Green Party politician. The Greens have made their own special contribution to NATO’s future defeatism. As one blade of the scissors to another, Macgregor blasted Baerbock for wanting to “reshape the world to conform to some sort of ideologically pure and good and morally upright picture that always fails in the end….”
Mocking Baerbock’s environmentalism has its place; but is she a princess of darkness or a misguided idealist? Of course, Macgregor is grinning ear-to-ear at Baerbock’s good intentions. He thinks good intentions are foolish. (One wonders, in truth, what his intentions are.) Speaking in English during a recent meeting in Prague, Baerbock said Ukrainians were fighting “for the right … to define their own future by themselves. So [the defense of Ukraine] is not up to Germany….” She affirmed that Ukraine wants to be free and peaceful, and Ukraine has the right. The German foreign minister will not be blackmailed by Russia, saying, “we stand with Ukraine as long as they need us.”
Let us compare these remarks of Foreign Minister Baerbock with statements made by Macgregor’s diplomatic hero, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. On 20 July 2022 Lavrov said that Russia did not intend to occupy or “impose anything on anyone by force” in Ukraine. Directly contradicting himself, Lavrov explained that “peace talks make no sense at the moment” adding that Russian territory ambitions may “extend further West” as the war continues. Incredibly, Macgregor calls Lavrov “one of the most exceptionally talented and intelligent men I’ve ever met. And he is very much in the traditional mold of a great European statesman.”
Can the lackey of a murderous dictator be “a great European statesmen”? Or is he a hack whose flights of genius are circumscribed by the knuckle-dragging instincts of the thug he serves? Macgregor may insist on Lavrov’s greatness, but what is he going to propose next? A reassessment of Joachim von Ribbentrop? A gooey kiss for Talleyrand?
Whatever criticisms can be made of Foreign Minister Baerbock, she appears to be the opposite of Macgregor’s hero. “If I give the promise as a politician,” said Baerbock to a recent meeting of European politicians in Prague, “there could be the chance that people disagree with me and they say in four years, well, you didn’t tell us the truth; but if I give the promise to people in Ukraine, ‘We stand with you as long as you need us,’ then I want to deliver, no matter what my German voters think …. And this is why, for me, it is important … to always be very frank and clear; and this means, [with] every measure I am taking, I have to be clear that this holds as long as Ukraine needs me. And this is why it is so important we have to be frank. Yes, everyone wishes … that tomorrow the war stops. But in case … it wouldn’t stop … we are facing now wintertime where we will be challenged as democratic politicians. People will go on the street and say, ‘We cannot pay our energy prices,’ and I will say, ‘Yes I know, so we help you with social measures.’ But I don’t want to say, ‘Then we stop the sanctions against Russia.’ We will stand with Ukraine and this means the sanctions will stay all through winter time, even if it gets really tough for politicians.[xvii] And we have to find good solutions all over Europe to balance the social effects…. This is a hybrid war [in which] the second strategy [of Russia] is to split our democracies, saying, ‘Now the poor people are being left behind, and we have to give the answers.’ No, we stand in solidarity with everybody in our country as we stand with everybody in Ukraine.”[xviii]
However strenuously I disagree with Baerbock’s views on climate change, she talks more like a statesman than Lavrov. In this matter, she is not deceiving her public. She is ready to fall on her sword. On the other side, Lavrov tells blatant lies. Yet Lavrov is Macgregor’s ideal. It is no surprise that Macgregor showed similar statesmanship when he justified Russia’s invasion during an interview with Tucker Carlson. According to Macgregor, NATO was planning to deploy missiles and troops on Ukrainian territory. Not long thereafter, in another interview, Macgregor compared the Ukraine War to the Cuban missile crisis. There is one problem with this comparison, however: there really were Russian nuclear weapons and missiles in Cuba in October 1962, along with Russian troops; but NATO has never placed nuclear weapons, missiles, or troops in Ukraine. Macgregor also forgot to mention that despite the placing of Russian nuclear missiles in Cuba, the United States did not invade Cuba in 1962 or any time thereafter. So how can he justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with an analogy that is not analogous?
With love for Sergei Lavrov and inept reasoning, Macgregor keeps saying that Ukraine has lost the war. His defeatism is indefatigable. Not only does he say Ukraine has lost, but any effort to help Ukraine is “reinforcing defeat.” In an article he wrote for the 23 August edition of The American Conservative, Macgregor argued that “new weapon systems won’t change the strategic outcome in Ukraine. Even if NATO’s European members, together with Washington, D.C., provided Ukrainian troops with a new avalanche of weapons, and it arrived at the front instead of disappearing into the black hole of Ukrainian corruption, the training and tactical leadership required to conduct complex offensive operations does not exist inside Ukraine’s 700,000-man army.”[xix]
After appearing on Fox News’s Life, Liberty and Levin,at the outset of the Ukraine War, Macgregor was chastised by Fox News national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin, who felt compelled to “correct some of the things that Col. Doug Macgregor just said … because there were so many distortions.” Macgregor, said Griffin, had just vilified the West, sounding like an apologist for Putin. She slammed Macgregor for “appeasement talk” from someone “who should know better because … he was the one who was advising President Trump to pull all U.S. troops out of Germany….” It was, she said, “that kind of projection of withdrawal and weakness … [that] made Putin think that he could actually move into a sovereign country like Ukraine.” Griffin wanted to warn the television audience: “I’ve known and seen Vladimir Putin operate since 1999 when I was based in Moscow for Fox. It is where I started my career with Fox, and Vladimir Putin is a former KGB [officer, and] he has been laying the groundwork for this….”[xx]
On this same broadcast former Republican congressman Trey Gowdy said, “I did not understand Col. Macgregor’s analysis that they [the Russians] don’t want weapons on their border. If they keep taking countries, they are going to have weapons on their border.” Exactly right!
This is what Macgregor has missed. If NATO was the party of bad faith, engaged in treacherous actions, why didn’t Sweden and Finland align with Russia instead of joining NATO (as they have done)? The answer is obvious. Russia is the aggressor. Yet Macgregor will not admit this simple fact. He also cannot admit any of Russia’s battlefield defeats. When the Ukrainians took back a critical airfield west of Kiev in the first days of the war, Macgregor mocked the idea. “The Ukrainians haven’t taken back anything,” he said. Yet the Ukrainians did retake the airfield and the Russian encirclement of Kiev failed.
Macgregor has said that the Ukrainian cause is hopeless, that Ukraine’s president is a “puppet.” They should surrender and save themselves, he has said. Ukraine, says Macgregor, “is an artificial construct – a third of that country is not Ukrainian. It never has been.” – So how does Macgregor account for the Euromaidan Revolution? How does he account for Ukraine’s splendid will to resist the Russian invasion? The Ukrainian Army has killed nearly 50,000 invading Russian soldiers. They have destroyed nearly 2,000 Russian tanks. How is that for a country that “never has been”? [xxi]
At the same time, Macgregor says the Russian military is competent and successful. He sees no humiliating setbacks or defeats. The Russians, he claims, were trying to spare civilian lives by taking the slow approach at the outset of their invasion. During a 23 March 22 interview on Fox News, McGregor said, “What’s happened now is, the battle in eastern Ukraine is almost over.” The Ukrainians should give up, he suggested. Russia has won the war. “We should stop shipping weapons,” he added, because Ukraine’s cause is “a hopeless endeavor.” Oh yes, Macgregor’s counsel is always surrender. Quit the war. Let Russia take Ukraine. Give up.
Here are excerpts from Macgregor’s Interview with Stuart Varney at Fox Business Fox on day 9 of the war: [xxii]
FOX ANCHOR: Is Putin going to flatten Ukraine?
MACGREGOR: No. Absolutely not. In fact, he worked hard to capture most of it intact with surprisingly little damage, frankly. Much less damage than we inflicted on Iraq when we went into it. They are surrounding the Ukrainian forces and annihilating them. Zelenskiy is waiting for Biden to rescue him, and that is not going to happen.
ANCHOR: Do you think the end is in sight.
MACGREGOR: Oh yeah. The end of this phase is still a few days away. In the first five days I think, frankly, the Russian forces were too gentle. They’ve now corrected that, so, I would say another ten days it should be completely over.
ANCHOR: It sounds like, colonel, you do not approve of Zelenskiy’s stand.
MACGREGOR: I think Zelenskiy is a puppet, and he is putting huge numbers of his own population at unnecessary risk. And, quite frankly, most of what comes out of Ukraine is debunked as lies within 24 to 48 hours. The notion of taking and retaking airfields, all of this is nonsense. It never happened.
ANCHOR: [Incredulously] He is not a hero, standing up for himself and his own people? You don’t think he is a hero?
MACGREGOR: [Smiling broadly] No. I do not. I don’t see anything heroic about the man. And I think the most heroic thing he can do right now is to come to terms with reality: Neutralize Ukraine. This is not a bad thing.
This exchange is vintage Macgregor. To smugly degrade the president of a beleaguered nation and promote the aggressor’s cause is disgusting. Yet this is what Macgregor does. To show how much currency Macgregor’s false narrative has, I received a call two Sunday evenings ago from a pro-Russian right-winger. Following Macgregor’s lead, this man confidently stated that Russia has already won the war. “All the news says so,” he insisted. I then asked, “Wasn’t the Russian drive on Kiev repulsed? Is not the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet at the bottom of the Black Sea?” The pro-Russian partisan did not answer me. “The Americans sank the Russian flagship,” he said. The Ukrainians, of course, get no credit for anything.
Concluding Remarks
There has occurred, in the West, a general intellectual decline. In place of historical knowledge and classic philosophy we have conspiracy theories animated by feelings of resentment. These feelings are readily exploited, especially by Moscow. In fact, right-wing conspiracy theories can be seen as an adjunct to the old Marxist-Leninist demagogy, predicated on harnessing class resentment to ignite a “proletarian” revolution. As history shows, this harnessing was extended by the communists to include racial and sexual resentments, with devastating cultural effects on the West. After the supposed collapse of communism in Russia, Moscow was free to extend this strategy to the exploitation of conservative resentments – to harness the revolutionary potential of alienated traditionalists, racists, and libertarians.[xxiii]
Moscow can now mobilize an ever-wider spectrum of malcontents. (Why limit yourself to Marxists?) By gradual steps, conspiracy theorizing has brought anticommunists to see that capitalism is the real enemy. Moscow would have all right-wingers believe that communism itself was merely a conspiracy originated by capitalist malefactors.[xxiv] This coopting of the right by Russian disinformation has a long history, going back to the 1920s. In more recent decades we have the pro-Russian ravings of Lew Rockwell and the late Justin Raimondo. We have, on the paleoconservative side, Patrick Buchanan and Paul Gottfried. What is left of conservatism once you remove the libertarians and the paleoconservatives? Here the communist salami slicer has narrowed the spectrum of totalitarian resistance to a disempowered set of nobodies, labeled as “neocons.” It is interesting to see how the MAGA movement has marginalized the neoconservatives, driving them back onto the left.[xxv]
It is unlikely that Douglas Macgregor knows any of this. His military education, deficient as it was, does not enable him to grasp the strategic meaning of his own words. One observes that he is impulsive, even knee-jerk in his responses. Thus, he has joined those voices – on the left and the right – that despise the existing order. By seeing NATO as the problem, and Ukraine as a puppet state, he becomes a puppet in his own right. He has judged his brother as his enemy, yet he has not pulled the log out of his own eye.
Moscow and Beijing are great powers. They have thousands of nuclear weapons, fleets, and armies. While we should never disparage military power, ideas represent an even greater power; for the mind is involved in everything, having the power of perception and decision. If you can rule a person’s thoughts, then you rule the person. To this end Moscow and Beijing have built networks around the world for spreading subversive thoughts in other countries. One of the core thoughts now being inculcated on the right, is defeatism. As a case in point, Macgregor’s Defeatism helps to show that two ideas are at work in defeatist rhetoric: (1) Moscow and/or Beijing is not your real enemy; (2) your real enemy is the elite of your own society. This message, essentially, is Leninist. It is revolutionary.
Because the West has been infiltrated at all levels by socialists, the alienated conservative wants to throw the baby out with the bathwater. By all means, throw out the bathwater. But how does that work when your own ideas are part of that same bathwater? Ideas are, indeed, decisive. Take up the wrong ideas and you are defeated before the fighting starts.
Moscow and Beijing are succeeding in the information war. They have intellectually disarmed the West. By raising the false flag of their own spurious capitalism, they created narratives for turning conservatives into revolutionaries. Even now, they are working to unite the left and right against capitalism. The blades of the left-right scissors, once closed, could form a stabbing weapon with which to finish off the West.
This is the game that is being played.
Notes and Links
[i] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHxZyPdo3L0&t=56s
[ii] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/06/lenin-white-house-steve-bannon
[iii] Othello, I. 1, 65.
[iv] V.I. Lenin translation Robert Service, The State and Revolution (London: Penguin Books, 1991), p. 14.
[v] https://oll.libertyfund.org/quote/lord-acton-writes-to-bishop-creighton-that-the-same-moral-standards-should-be-applied-to-all-men-political-and-religious-leaders-included-especially-since-power-tends-to-corrupt-and-absolute-power-corrupts-absolutely-1887
[vi] Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1968), p. 157.
[vii] When some US firms move production overseas, they also offshore their pollution (theconversation.com)
[viii] 4 Key Moments That Forced Americans to Confront Climate Change – HISTORY
[ix] The Chilling Stars: A Cosmic View of Climate Change: Svensmark, Henrik, Calder, Nigel: 9781840468663: Amazon.com: Books
[x][x] Ivan T. Frolov, Global Problems and the Future of Mankind (Moscow, 1982).
[xi] The Truth About Armand Hammer’s Relationship With Prince Charles (grunge.com)
[xii] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/02/germany-dependence-russian-energy-gas-oil-nord-stream
[xiii] Ibid.
[xiv] Pentagon to scrap nuclear gravity bomb as part of Biden review – Washington Times
[xv] Antisemitism accusations against Dr Douglas MacGregor are deeply upsetting – The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com)
[xvi] https://www.veteranstoday.com/2022/08/31/joe-bidens-demand-of-unconditional-surrender-to-russia-will-fail/
[xvii] Tough for the politicians? What about the German people?!
[xviii] Accusations against Baerbock rejected as “disinformation” (deutschland.de)
[xix] https://www.theamericanconservative.com/reinforcing-failure-in-ukraine/
[xx] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/watch-fox-reporter-scolds-col-macgregor-for-sounding-like-a-putin-apologist
[xxi] https://www.dw.com/en/russia-ukraine-updates-russian-troop-losses-surpass-45000-kyiv-says/a-62948923
[xxii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHxZyPdo3L0&t=56s
[xxiii] See the writings of Aleksandr Dugin, whose mission it is to harvest right-wingers for Moscow.
[xxiv] See, for example, the conspiracy theory of the John Birch Society.
[xxv] The neoconservatives were failures, to be sure, and their demise deserves an essay of its own. In short, foolishly believing that Russia was the West’s “partner,” the neocons allowed themselves to be strategically diverted and politically discredited by their misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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256 responses to “Defeatism and Revolutionary Strategy”
That is an interpretation based on Protestant notions of dispensationalism that date back to Scofield and his reference Bible, but there are other plausible interpretations of Bible prophecy that predate all of that. It is probably better to not speculate too much in this regard as there are many plausible interpretations of prophecy, much of which must be interpreted symbolically. Many people over the years have tried to set dates or tie the Second Coming of Christ to this or that event, and they’ve all been proven wrong up to now. This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t study the signs, but given the multiple interpretations which are possible, such speculation only leads to endless and counterproductive arguments.
What you are saying boils down to this: abandon interpreting prophecy as it’s impossible to get a superlative answer. Which in turns means prophecy is worthless for forewarning God’s people and only serves, at best, as a post-event confirmation of the veracity of God’s Word. I think Isaac Newton made that mistake too, so you’re in intelligent company. But remember, intelligence is no defence against stupidity 😉
There is, however, a correct eschatology and it is knowable and vital to know. You won’t find it among the apostates, though, which is why I advocate going back to when the Lord’s cause was in a more glorious state and using late era Puritan models of interpretation as a starting point.
Not at all. I’m just saying this forum isn’t the correct place to hash these issues out as it turns into a distraction. I could provide evidence for the Orthodox position and write about the errors of dispensationalism and a dispensationalist could do the same with regard to my position, but at the end of the day, people are going to believe what they believe, in my experience and such discussions quickly become counterproductive. Interpretation of Bible prophecy is a spiritual matter, which is not the focus of this forum.
Ok, some counterbalance to the fundamentalist roadside preachers.
richardcarrier.info Scholarly peer reviewed publications
https://www.richardcarrier.info/jesus.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQmMFQzrEsc
And as far as apocalyptic, visit Doug Vogt’s diehold on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMr-5HHnAmU
or Ben Davidson’s site Suspicious Observers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihwoIlxHI3Q&list=PLHSoxioQtwZf1-8QeggXIVdZ-abyJXaO1
They both believe the sun will nova soon on a 12068 year cycle. The magnetic poles are moving, no hiding that. Flip, or excursion?
Pardon, but the incessant biblical quotes are tiring. So is telling people they’ll roast in Zoroastrian hell for not heeding your supposedly enlightened warnings.
-bill freeman
Some of the preaching bristles with a sort of “your going to hell” egotism. Yes.
Dispensationalism was actually developed by Nelson Darby in the early 1800’s. Scofield and probably Hal Lindsey’s “Great Late Planet Earth” popularized it among the evangelical community.
You are absolutely correct. I meant that its popularity dates back to the publication of the Scofield Reference Bible (which introduced it to the wider community of Evangelicals), but, yes, dispensationalism originated with John Nelson Darby and the Plymouth Brethren, a Protestant sect. My point is only that it is one interpretation among many, and a fairly new one at that. Thanks for the clarification. My main point in my earlier post was simply that there are many different perspectives on the interpretation of Bible prophecy (the Eastern Orthodox Church I attend, for example, rejects dispensationalism as Protestant innovation), and for this reason such discussions usually quickly turn into fruitless arguments that distract people from the issues raised in this forum.
“…for this reason such discussions usually quickly turn into fruitless arguments that distract people from the issues raised in this forum.”
Amen!
Francis Schaeffer, of the L’Abri fellowship, brought up the idea of co-belligerents—people who may be enemies in some areas, yet work together in other areas. An example is pro-life work—both Roman Catholics and Protestants can work together on this issue without compromising their theological differences. There are many other similar examples.
The issues raised in this forum impact all those who call themselves “Christian” whether we agree with their theology or not. As such, we are all co-belligerents. There are other venues in which to argue theology (which includes eschatology) but here we focus on the common danger, namely communism. So please, don’t try to convert others on this forum to your particular theology nor to your particular ideas on prophesy, that divides in the face of a common enemy.
I don’t care if the person next to me in the foxhole is an atheist, Muslim or even a little green man from Mars, as long as we have each other’s back in the face of a common enemy. Likewise, I don’t want to be arguing fine points of theology nor convoluted interpretations of prophesy, in the middle of this battle against communism.
Hi thought I had a clear understanding about all of this until I read your article. Up until today, I just simply thought it’s a battle between leaders and countries that wish to be nationalist and those that wish to become globalist under the rule of a ruling world elite class.
Is China communist country? Is Russia communist? As far as I know China is simply a country that practices capitalism under the fist of mob rule. In Russia, you’ve got a very pro-nationalist president who is also a thug, but who cares mainly for the interest of Russians. And same with Chairman Xi. He doesn’t give a crap about any of the countries in the world, only China.
Globalists sincerely believe that nationalism is the cause of wars and that nations have to surrender their sovereignty, but Putin and Xi are laughing at that as the Americans and European leaders, including Canada, self immolate and allow them to fill the vacuum.
A lot has been mentioned in this article about communism, but I don’t see communism, I see fascism and we know the definition of fascism is the merging of corporate interests with governmental interests. Does China look like a fascist system?
I’m sure the author of this piece knows what he’s talking about and I am not challenging him but I can say that a lot of us have pro Russian feelings because we see all of the American dirt bags that have been in the sewer called Ukraine and I see Putin as a guy who simply fights defensive wars and is looking out for Russia after its long history of being invaded. There are many of us who can sympathize with the Russians and while we can sympathize with the Ukrainian people, their oligarchs and their leaders do a disservice to their citizens. In the end, geopolitics becomes real scary because the top cop isn’t around anymore because it has self destructed, so we can’t make countries feel secure through Pax Americana. We have set the whole world on fire by giving up our dominance economically, militarily, and politically in the world.
Joseph Schumpeter said that communism, in practice, turned out exactly like fascism. And you ought to know China is communist and not fascist. Do not mistake them for fascists. The ruling Party is the communist party. If you get arrested for opposing the government there, you go to a labor camp they drill communism into your brain. Why do you not know this? Because all the communists in the world decided to play a game more than 30 years ago. The game was and is, not to tell anyone if you are communists.
Why didn’t I know China is communist?
It looks more like a brutal dicatatorship, which isn’t necessarily a communist thing, and relies on state controlled capitalism.
I’m beginning to think communism and fascism are mere mechanisms for Mafia rule. It was stated to me in a comment Communism is revolution. If that can be true then fascism is a cooperative enterprise between government and corporations to cement power for both at the expense of the tax payers. (I won’t pay for my own enslavement!) I never thought of communism as strictly being Revolution. If so, in the end, we’re talking about maniacal thugs who want serfs. This is a tough article to digest and my reading comprehension is not what it once was.
Hi Retired. I am fairly new here myself– the last 8 months or so, and I’m still in massive learning mode regarding Communism. But, since the author often closes comments down by the weekend, I can direct you to a few extra starters to help track with some of the working paradigms here. His blog articles are very focused and deep, and I found them to be rather befuddling til I got more of an overview of his perspectives and learned more of Communism’s complex history. He does not write at the standard 8th grade reading level that most news articles are at. I always have to really focus and think, reading thru the blogs. So, your reading comprehension abilities are not slipping. It’s just more challenging content, especially on the front end. If reading is your preferred learning method, have at this blog and books. But, below are some interviews, if that is a more helpful format.
Jeff’s interviews with these newer Youtubers are very good introductions to the complex, quagmire of Communism’s history, agendas and strategies. The hosts were in learner mode and let Jeff expound on Communism without interrupting or redirecting– which was so helpful.
https://youtu.be/DDICHRr2_uI
Jeff is connected with this group. They have several interesting webinars.
https://presentdangerchina.org/webinar-the-ccp-is-transitioning-to-war-what-are-we-doing/
And this is Trevor Loudon. Both he and Jeff Nyquist are friends and mutually respect each other’s expertise in Communism. Both have studied it for decades, written books etc. This is a great site to get short synopsis of Communism’s activities in America and around the world.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/author-trevor-loudon. And, if you r not subscribed to Epoch times, here it is again.
https://youtube.com/channel/UCaXfI2HoM6JuZ3v6pk4R5wA
Trevor’s expertise is more focused on the various communist parties, groups, orgs in America and western nations, and which politicians are connected to them. Jeff describes himself as a strategist. He goes deep into the history, agendas, strategies of world communism. Here are some interviews these two did together. Sadly the sound was very poor in the first discussion. You may want to listen to the other talks first. They all stand alone. You’ll be more patient suffering thru the sound issues after you get a taste of their perspectives.
https://youtu.be/a_t7O9tqCyk
And this ex-KGB officer and Soviet defector, Yuri Bezmenov, was also really helpful. He concretely explains what subversion is and what a communist mindset is like.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/CPHiamPyPNOf/
https://www.bitchute.com/video/yY91trbDEYMd/
Don’t want to overwhelm you with resources, but just some of the better big picture, overview ones for you to pick thru as you please– or not. 🙂
Sorry I did not see this — very good!
Yep, we have the communist as a utopian party, and yet the communist- Marxist as a method of debauchery self subversion and subversion of everything via “organizing” and self recuperating active measures, Machiavelian. And then we have the schizophrenic childman and childwoman communist with post-oedipian fantasies of killing parents it is dependent upon. Ultimately, like the scorpion on the frog, the childman or childwoman has such an aversion for adult reality, it kills it on crossing the river. It does not see recuperation in the helping frog at its mercy, it sees it in freeing itself from having to embrace the frog, death being a more acceptable recuperator.
This is what people do not understand. Crazy people and criminals will choose death over accepting a reality they are allergic to. It often is seen with these naive liberals trying to help violent migrants who end up murdering them. Communists have made full use of that jewish naivete which for thousands of years felt it was safer in an islamic or socialist diaspora as a self hating dhimmi working doctor jobs for his overlords. Sometimes there is no cure. The stubborn and brainwashed stupidity-blinded red neckish Nazi of Noah’s flood is just as irrecuperable as the death oriented communist.
But nowadays we have a strange recuperator which is organizations like the FSB and perhaps even the FBI. The FBI has been involved in dumbing down operations such as Kwanzaa fake religion manufaturing. These cults are schizophrenic and childman favoring. The communist party children adults of the Soviet Unions have similarly been recuperated by adult role players at the FSB nowadays in Russia – sort of schizos themselves capable of manipulating other schizos. The same FSB was invited by Mueller’s FBI after 911, a period of great opportunity of recuperation of weakened souls, ready to join cults for those with high serotonin, or islamism and communism for those with low serotin, while others more resilient and with more balanced serotonin capable of taking it and managing to seek recuperation in better places of life. 911 which was organized by FSB operator Al Zwahiri recently killed by drone quietly.
One could say the loop is closed. The debauchery of a hubristic FBI recuperating a democrat party which soon will admit it cannot control big state as it cannot control nig money controlling it (republicans having become puppets of democrats ruling for them over conservative people in name only) is on its way. From state we now have statism. However one must asks who is the Pope in there? Who is organizing all this subconscious communistoid debauched and self subversive behaviors, who has been influencing and creating the ferments and the trauma trigger shocks like 911 which would see itself as tremendous opportunity to recuperate and recruit?
Seeing that the FSB was invited at a lost and incompetent and corrupt DOJ/FBI , it only is obvious that this knuckleheaded imbecile of Mueller flattered himself as a recruiter of the FSB while in fact it was he and his country the victim, he and his country which traumatized was thus being recuperated there and then by the FSB. This is not unsimilar to a victim woman inviting at her home the double twin of the criminal who raped her earlier to be recuperated in her depression, nakedness as a form of depression expression. In that respect she looks the recruiter when in fact it is the invited who is not going through trauma who recruits her.
Communists are nationalists. Americans are misled, partly because of some renegade cosmopolitan factions like Trotskyists were historically influential in America, those factions have no influence in actual Leninist states. Also partly because multi-national character of America it is not clear what nationalism should mean. You have black nationalists, white nationalists, Zionists and so on.
By nationalism, I believed it to mean one’s own country is sovereign and should not be subject to foreign control, and policies should reflect the interests of those citizen taxpayers and not the interests of foreign countries, unless they share a common consensus.
I listened to an old speech by Gary Allen, author of None Dare Call it Conspiracy, and he said that communism was really a disguise for eventual globalist hegemony. Why would any capitalist corporation want communism? Even Deng and Lenin knew that communism comes up empty when the government is so poor that it is weak. It’s like, “Yes, we know that communism doesn’t work, but power for the ruling class is the real outcome.” Seriously, Xi and Putin must laugh at the self destruction in the west. Self hating, WEF friendly puppets are not doing anything for their people. Bernie Sanders and the BLM cabal like Marxist techniques but don’t truly believe in communism because they buy real estate like the good fascists that they are.
I know I am probably missing something in this article. Not sure what it is.
Retired, we are at the end stages of a 65-year conspiracy by the “former” Communist nations, which are still Communist. It helps by understanding that “Communism” simply means an ultra-powerful dictatorship by any means, and that they all work together, as their goal is a “worldwide federation of Communist states”.
In other words, worldwide dictatorship, made up of many dictatorships in alliance with each other.
Russia is still Communist. China is. So is Cuba, Venezuela, etc..
Communists’ #1 is deception. Always assume they’re lying.
The greatest threat to the US and Europe is the worldwide alliance of Communist states, all working together to destroy and rule them. Don’t feel bad about being deceived – they have invested trillions and thousands of agents into this project, both on the Left and the Right.
Thank you for replying Perseus. I’m a little shocked at the revelations about Russia’s deception. I fell for Putin’s self proclaimed love and support of Russian opposition to moral decadence displayed in America and his subsequent support for Christianity. And my belief that he cares only for his countrymen while our government could not car less for Americans.
So is Biden and his puppet masters’ support for Ukraine real or not? I’ve been reading Mr. Nyquist’s articles all morning and was wondering why we are not allies with Russia since our government loves China so much and since Russia leads the way, not to American nationalism, but to communism—again! Please guide me to better understand the American piece of the puzzle. Maybe they are all frozen by the bribe money they have received. I could not side with Zelensky because Newland and the anti Trump deep state has been meddling against Russia in Uk. Not to mention that all the stuff I read on this supports Mr Mearsheimer’s school of thought. Up until a few months ago I wondered who Jeff Nyquist was.
The Marxists cannot fly their red flag in the light of day until they have us beat. They must continue to pretend. Iago’s line, “I am not what I am.” From my point of view, the Obama administration was helping Russia in Ukraine by going against the Ukrainian oligarchs who had turned against Moscow. This fact should not be ignored. For Hillary and Biden and Obama to call the Republicans “Russian puppets” is the ultimate bait and switch. The DEMS did the Uranium One deal. They gave Russia billions for its own version of Silicon Valley. So they are the authentic anti-Russian party? Why should we believe anything they say? The whole West sympathizes with the Ukrainian underdog. It was politically impossible to take Russia’s side given what they did. Plus, the left had committed to the anti-Russian rhetoric. Russia’s failure to take Ukraine rapidlly presented everyone on the left with a terrible problem. Perhaps some saw it as a way to get out from under Russian blackmail. Hard to say. My intelligence shows that the resources sent to Ukraine were not meant to be so effective. But the aid was effective. The Ukrainians put their shoulder to the wheel, modifying old Soviet equipment, making efficient use of what the West sent — receiving help from Poland and Britian and Norway, etc. I don’t think the HIMARS were intended to work so well. Washington probably thought the Russian S-400s could intercept the HIMARS. Oops. The system did not work. Russia’s front is in retreat. Ukraine will accelerate their attack. Will Russia reach for the nukes? Will their be a change in Moscow? Can we trust that change? Some interesting points for further discussion if Russia does not go to nukes in the wake of these losses. There is good news this week, indeed.
Actually, communism signifies internationalism.
Internationalism is not in contradiction with nationalism. Cosmopolitanism is.
Mr. Matamoros, your fifth paragraph resonates; I fell for the Russian deception. I also instinctively sided with Russia because:
Obama, Newland, Biden, and a long list of Vindman-like creeps sided with Ukraine and the Nazis and Zelensky. I thought that Russia was being targeted by US and WEF/Davos because they won’t play internationally. And China? Like Xi is going to play second fiddle to any bald headed James Bond villain in Europe!
I see Bannon as a hero for fighting the CCP and the deep state. Can you please enlighten me on this? And thank you for a very clear and unambiguous reply!!!
In stuff I read, they say fascism (Nazi type) is national socialism while communism is international socialism.
Fascism and National Socialism are actually different. One was Hitler’s ideology, the other was Mussolini’s.
National chauvinism of Nazism and Fascism is not nationalism. Defining feature of those ideologies is dominance over other nations. Communists are for national self-determination and national sovereignty, which is the opposite
So Putin is a Nazi, then, for invading Ukraine?
@JRNyquist: From what I know, Hitler admired and was very impressed with Mussolini, and he borrowed a lot from him. This includes that infamous Nazi hand gesture, which before being associated around the world with the Nazi Party, had been called something like the ‘Roman salute’.
@ Retired
Glad to see you’ve found Jeff Nyquist’s site. New articles can’t explain the background each time, but you’ll get a good idea of Jeff’s ideas and perspective if you read some past articles. Before you do that, here’s what you’ll find in answer to your questions, without any of the details that Jeff’s articles will fill in:
Communism is not a single, static doctrine. The Marx of The Communist Manifesto was very different from the Marx of Capital, which was very different from the Lenin of Better Fewer but Better, which was very different from the Lenin of the New Economic Policy, and so on. Communism is, in effect, the science of revolution, and in particular, revolution designed to bring about total state control, ultimately, across the globe. The various doctrines propagated by communists will vary according to the circumstances and goals: for example, Stalin criminalised homosexuality in the Soviet Union, but had it promoted by the CPUSA – the first society he wanted to be stable enough to fight a major war, the second society he wanted to undermine.
You ask if Russia and China are really communist, and say you think they’re fascist. Economically, “fascist” is not inaccurate, but Mussolini actually took Lenin’s New Economic policy (1920s) as his main model, with private enterprise under state control (a vegetable stand won’t be micromanaged, but a major energy or communications-technology firm will be). But the ambitions of Russia and China are still internationalist, and so they work closely with communist allies such as Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, North Korea, Vietnam, South Africa, Angola and many more.
The collapse of the Warsaw Pact, and then of the Soviet Union was a high-risk strategy discussed in Moscow as far back as 1958, designed to make the free West put its guard down, so that Moscow could receive Western technology and investment, and so that it could complete its infiltration of Western institutions (government, the legal system, the media, think tanks, corporate boardrooms etc.) – this has been successful. Belarus, Armenia and the Central Asian states, to varying degrees, continued cooperating with Moscow and were lead by old Communist nomenklatura figures. The Georgian people were not satisfied with this fraud and had an uprising to gain true independence from Moscow, facing wars that created breakaway republics loyal to Moscow. Ukraine did the same, and had the same results, trailing behind Georgia by about a decade. The breakaway areas in Ukraine call themselve’s “People’s Republics” and use all the old communist symbolism; statues of Lenin pulled down and destroyed by the Ukrainians have been replaced by the invading Russians.
The United Nations, World Economic Forum and other “globalist” institutions were partly created and have served Moscow and Beijing as tools for the subversion of the West. One of Moscow’s goals in the last two decades has been to fool US and European conservatives into thinking that Moscow is a conservative Christian nationalist polity that is the only force that can defeat the “globalists”, whereas these “globalists” are themselves controlled or manipulated by Moscow and Beijing.
It takes time to master the evidence, which is extensive but complicated. There is no other way to arm your mind against communist deception, which knows very well how to make itself attractive to conservatives, and Jeff has been focusing on this recently. It should be obvious to you that warning against the communist manipulation of conservatives is not an invitation to embrace the “globalist” leaders of the West, who are merely another arm of the same manipulations. But while Moscow and Beijing still lack full control over the formerly free West, we still have a far better chance than the citizens of Russia or China do (let alone Cuba or North Korea).
Great summary!
Half way through this well written article and I feel obliged to comment.
Strawman arguments .
Conflation with totalitarianism and socialism.
This disturbs me.
Hitler’s socialism was undeniably popular and successful (as commented by many major western leaders of the time prior to WW2).
Stalin and Lenin’s totalitarianism was unpopular (Lenin had only 25% of the vote in 1918) and was openly fought against and brutally suppressed. They never had popular support until decades of Pavlovian behavioural modification policy had grown roots (later exported to the west once perfected). Lenin was a great fan of Pavlov, which shows how much distain he had for the proletariat.
If both Germany and USSR were truly socialist as you claim they would have not been enemies.
They say the Chinese have the highest IQ, I find this hard to believe unless IQ is a measure of compliance.
Now I will finish reading the article and make no further comment…
[…] mehr als kognitive Dissonanz, da Russland möglichst beide Seiten mit Defätismus manipuliert, wie hier Jeff Nyquist erklärt. Wie zwei Klingen einer Schere wirkt es, wenn etwa MAGA vs. Biden inszeniert […]
“So Putin is a Nazi, then, for invading Ukraine?”
Putin sees Russian speaking Ukrainians as part of Russian nation who have to be liberated. He does not want to exterminate them and take their land or enslave them like what Nazis did in occupied countries. Or replace them via mass migration what imperialists do to vassal nations.
Left wing cosmopolitan deviation of marxism have been embaraced by to the imperialists in late 50s and 60s. They have nothing to do with contemporary Leninist states.
In my country, communist party is against teaching foreign languages on elementary schools, so the youth don’t get poisoned by cosmopolitanism. They are the most nationalistic party.
But since nationalism, like capitalism, is a debauchery of capital and nationhood to subvert the rule of law, it is a step to communism.
This from a feed I’m monitoring.
Looks like the Ukies gave the bear a bloody nose.
“Russian Armed Forces left Izyum
🇷🇺🇺🇦 We are leaving most of the Kharkiv region. This is a military disaster. We are severely underpowered. The only thing that will improve the situation is the declaration of WAR to Ukraine, the introduction of martial law and mobilization. In the near future, and better – TOMORROW.
Nothing else will help, it’s already obvious. I have no other words for you.”
So I suspect an escalation or at least a counter offensive.
It’s pretty much obvious this is shaping out to be a war of NATO vs Russia.
When does China get involved? Or the nukes start flying?
-bill freeman
Minor tactical retreat. Russia is waiting for November with restarting offensive.
https://mobile.twitter.com/lylegoldstein/status/1564653871909175298
Thank you, Comrade. The Fatherland thanks you for your tireless service. Extra gruel in your rations.
“Minor tactical retreat” leaving behind huge amounts of ammunition and heavy equipment? And it has cost Russia Izyum and all eastern gains for the past 4 months. Russian sources now say half of Luhansk is vulnerable to collapse and are calling for full mobilization (which is impossible for Russia) and nuclear strikes.
Do you study to be this stupid?
It’s possible that all along the play was for Russia to look like the bad guy. Drop a tactical nuke and force a response from the US. The response is the casus belli. They arrest Trump and humiliate him like Bannon in front of their propagandists. Splash it all over the media and use their forces on the Right to incite maximum anger. Then stage fake “responses”. As US simmers, Chinese and Russian subs surface for the final act.
Russian propaganda TV was in panic mode.
I am not sure conscription would improve things, unless they have a few more semi worthy troops left in Siberia. What is the state of their mothballed equipment? The one they have now was looted of parts. Aside declaring war and using tactical nukes in an escalation? What if that fails then? Could reveal itself traumatic and transformative for Russia, a sort of mini dark age there, if it already was not gloomy enough before.
I am told that 80 percent of the stored Russian weapons are in very poor shape. Out of 10,000 tanks, only 2,000 are usable. Probably similar numbers with other weapons.
I have a neighbor like that. SHe is very strange. On welfare and scamming people, yet votes Trump. She is part black, white and Indian, and she hates blacks and is very racist. Yet she very much is for socialism and abortion, hates children.
This is in a nutshell a person embodying a depraved form of love of nation (in the form of empowered racism against blacks as a black person herself), love of the hard working (she is married to a construction supervisor) and yet herself lazy loves to see her supervisor lording it over illegals, while all the while she is against open borders. This crazy person is actually an unconscious Marxist brain organizing at work , ie. an intuitive Marxist, one which embraces virtues and turns these virtues to debauchery as a mean to abuse and pollute the very ground and values which brought about herself to life, money making and respectability.
I think this growing strong on a good ground and then polluting that ground to undermine others is the Nietsche concept or vision of the Last Man. The Last Man benefited from the rule of law, and, now, empowered, will not let anyone benefit from it, thinking it can do without it with his or her sheer acquired powers.
The strange thing about the Last Man is that the concept also exists here in the Last Woman, but perhaps more powerfully and stealthily, because within an unconscious dynamic process that is not egged on externally and artificially, and, instead, the external moral prerogatives displayed hysterically pushes this “Last Woman” to automatically and most efficiently do the opposite. Secretive agendas type are cultic while more legitimate religion is open, spiritually open.
I can’t endorse choosing political sides based on individuals you personally don’t like, but you don’t have to worry that people of your neighbor’s kind will gain anything from proletarian revolution
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FXPVzChX0AE-g48.jpg
There is no doubt in my mind, that, like for the Donbas Ukrainians, these will be recruited to the front cannon fodder lines before Russian soldiers. Let us not confuse the mentality of subversion shared and the sociology of how it will all distribute, more or less after the useful idiots expire their usefulness.
Do we know what the correct move is for Germany to secure their energy supplies? And what the most realistic is? It seems the correct move would be to stop the closing of their nuclear plants and immediately construct LNG terminals and source LNG from the US, but it seems that won’t happen. Instead it seems they’ll use more coal. What is the rest of their strategy long-term to survive without Russian energy? I heard some ministers talking about sourcing from Qatar. I have also heard that there is a massive natural gas deposit in Europe, not sure if that’s true or if it has any chance whatsoever of being drilled.
The Germans are doubtless looking for a way to get natural gas by sea. The thing to do is lower the temperature of natural gas shipped from the US or elsewhereand put it on a tanker ship, sail it to Europe, turn it back into a gas, and send it through a pipeline. The only question is whether this can be done in a timely fashion.
I am not by any means a fan of Bandera or of Dontsev, Mr Nyquist: my fealty is to Russia, to which I include Belarus and the Ukraine. I do not expect nor do I care for the popularity nor the opinion of the deluded masses. But, those ideologues understood the power of myth, as false as that myth is. Hell, America was built on far less. Consider the sympathy recently for the British Monarchy these days: reality is monarchist and heirarchical and deep down everyone knows it. That’s why the Modernity is so inept, universally, even the most intelligent or intrepid of popular and nationalist strongmen. I know people will howl, but Tsar and kings are coming back, Glory to God.
A monarchy signifies a link to the past and a heritage, which is one of the reasons the Cheka murdered the entire royal line: to sever that link forever.
People are stuck on the Romanovs for a future Orthodox Autocrat. That need not be. I am thinking God Himself will show the way, to the people and the notables of the land. The Romanovs of today have removed themselves, and the people will not have another German family.
Faith for Russia boils down to this, Strannik. Russia’s deliverance can only come through Providential events. Perhaps these are unfolding now. An honest Russian government. People infused with positive belief. What a blessing Russia would be for the whole world.
“Returning to the Tsar” is not a real project and just another bait mind shaping language from Marxists. How convenient that in this language progressivists are the one solely owning political credit for progress into the future, all the while their work is to actually delete any future, putting any genie back in the bottle? In that sense islamists are a more viable political competitor to communists and progressists, since the Kalifate is a future oriented view of a utopian islam and not an actual return to 7th century islam as some have erroneously thought it was. 7th Century islam for them is only a step up toward that project and certainly not something they see themselves at nor returning to.
In the same sense, for any empire mindedness to really rise, it too would have to be a new Founder’s project and letting the Romanov rest where they are at, as their season came to an end. Of course, Lenin not buried yet, the peasants have this strange illusion that a seasonless Marxist dictator utopian world should continue or be continued as a disastrous project.
To be a real empire, you have to accept opposition from local,kings. This ethnic unicity minded “empire” of Russia-Ukraine-Belarus would be wholly disfavorable to Ukrainians as it is, and it is a debauchery of empire into actual Marxist imperialism, an empire using its position of empire to dumb down regions and centrally making itself dictator of the entire place.
Mr Nyquist, that day is coming, of this I have no doubt. And yet confounding most on either side of this modern conflict. The modern age is dying, for the simple fact that Modernity is death itself. Our cities like Spengler said, the ” Petrifact”, the ossification of civilization.
I hope you are right, Strannik. The modern age has brought, in recent years, terrible perversions to the fore.
So the Russian Reset will return. Right now, Russia is the enemy (but not really) but is a useful enemy to stigmatize and get rid of Trump, who may not really understand what’s going on. I heard maybe one Trump person refer back to Obama’s whispered comment on a live mic that he would be more flexible with Vlad after his re-election. So there isn’t much cognition on our side about the fake non-communist Russia.
https://twitter.com/imetatronink/status/1568377064197361666?s=20&t=qyd22DGJm14GVbNBz482WQ
See the mindset?
I’m going to drink a whiskey and reorient my beliefs.
I have heard someone say, “The truth is an offense, but we should not add to that offense by the way we present the truth.” I would encourage people to keep that in mind when they post.
It all depends on how one functions. For some sincerity comes first and then true skills grow out of it. For others truth is not offending at all simply because they have a sincere “spirit of truth” themselves. For other, being a “genius” connected to all things the way Kant, Musache or Otto Weininger embraced it, happens to be high virtue in its atheistic self realization (which does not mean the philosopher is an atheist necessarily, but only how that truth is derived through genius). However truth becomes a lie when it exists in content and not in context/container. You can be truthful in a Christ sense of things, do and say everything right and still be wrong, still, if that truth does not generate more truth beyond itself, if that myth stops generating unique stories and stops being a useful “tool box” meta-theory conveyor of sense, a tool box of useful theories actually regenerating itself and generating new theories.
One can argue and negotiate with a god, let alone with God. Joseph himself struggled with himself at night, in a fight neither could prevail. Truth is not a blind acceptance, it is a contest to move to better and higher things as a way of escape, instead of to lower things, which a sclerotic unarguable truth would be. It is not merely for oneself, but for an organization amongst others with respect to a spirit that is sharedly aspired to, a trinity ultimately. The duality trauma of truth between man/the tribe and God is to be recuperated by integrating God into the new tribe and the tribe into that new tribe resulting from that wedding. This organization of truth is trinity in oneness, because three parties of truth, the self, the other and the shared value “symbol”, all wedded.
Mr. Nyquist, the problem is, is that the ” solutions ” to the problems of our Luciferian world civilization partake of too much a mixture with the very evils of our civilization. Tsar Peter’s vision is not a real answer, nor is China or Islam for that matter. The solution is personal collective interior spiritual regeneration. A return to the land and a skeptical eye towards technocratic solutions.
The World, is in a deliberately, controlled demolition. There will be no pulling out of this; it is a, fait accompli, that will usher in the Antichrist. Prior to that, is the, Wedding Supper of the Lamb. Those not of the Body by that time, might try as you suggest, but how are they to deal with, robodogs, drones, and 5G?
Thank you, Jeff, for your great essay. I’ve been so frustrated with “defeatism when I encounter it in blogs and podcasts. How can they be so “intelligent,” so well-read, such great communicators, yet be so blind? Your essay helped me understand.
I spent this afternoon reading through the comments (so many excellent insights) and my own thoughts are these.
Solution to Defeatism:
1. Article I, section 9 and 10 of the Constitution, states that both Congress and the states are prohibited from issuing titles of nobility. No offense to Strannik, but we don’t want aristocrats or kings in our country. But the prohibition also means to:
a. Prevent Congress, state officials, and citizens from exempting themselves from certain laws, thereby creating a “special” class.
b. Prevent the population from devolving like Europe into classes of serfs, peasants, merchants, nobles, and royals (who were above the law) where the offenses and punishments depended on your “class.”
Our concept here was to create a society where “all Men are Created Equal” and all men are “equal under the law.” And it has generally worked.
This has produced an America that has tremendous social mobility since our founding. This is one reason why our country has been so dynamic, so innovative, and so prosperous. The idea has been: “It’s not who you know or what class you belong to, it’s what can you do?” Wherever this principle has been violated, all we must do is self-correct. Easier said than done, I know, but if we read, study, and teach our Constitutional rights and defend and assert them, as Justice John Jay wrote, then we can end the corruption.
2. There is an irony here. Inherently, our Constitution creates equality, but Communism inherently creates inequality. If you’re not a member of the Party, you are stuck in a system that has zero social mobility. If the leaders are corrupt, too bad. Isn’t that ironic? Commit, how do you answer?
So how does this counteract defeatism?
Knowing our Constitution is the antidote. Many people don’t believe Russia is still communist. They need to be shown how Russia and China are indeed communists. Tell them to stop buying into QA and start reading the Constitution. That is something to be proud of. Then maybe their focus and energy will be towards fixing the violations of Constitutional principles rather than the next QA drop.
Our Founders understood that freedom (A God principle) is necessary to pursue happiness. The basis of that pursuit lies in the biblical teaching in Genesis 1 and 2 that God created man “to tend the garden.” We have a job to do—take care of His garden which includes the necessity of work (not toil) and by extension serving others. This notion of tending His garden becomes the basis of fair exchange.
We all know that Adam Smith wrote, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). But his first book was On Moral Sentiments (1759). Adam Smith understood the necessity of integrity and virtue in the marketplace.
All this to say, that our Founders believed in virtue and integrity. They almost universally believed that we have only one King, one master and that is God Almighty. This is another part of the answer to Defeatism. We need a return to a true free and fair market system which can happen with a return to the original intent of the Constitution.
In our Constitution, we require our elected officials and military to take oaths because our Founders knew God is in charge, “the all-seeing Judge of the world, whose eye can never be deceived, and whose judgements can never be perverted.” (Adam Smith) God knows what we’re doing, and we will be judged for this. The defeatists should be reminded of this. Whose side are you on?
Everything is fixable by a return to principles. Speak up. Assert your rights. As Jeff says, we have to call out the liars. And we must hold onto our Constitution.
“2. There is an irony here. Inherently, our Constitution creates equality, but Communism inherently creates inequality. If you’re not a member of the Party, you are stuck in a system that has zero social mobility. If the leaders are corrupt, too bad. Isn’t that ironic? Commit, how do you answer?”
Can you provide any concrete examples of career advancement restrictions in socialist countries for non party members outside of politics or high managerial positions? Evet if the party membership was required, it was open to all. As far as I know, in my country, socialist Czechoslovakia you could do whatever you wanted no matter of class background, which I think was a mistake.
My understanding from news articles such as in The Epoch Times is that party members in China enjoy greater privileges than non party members and that to advance socially, educationally, politically, or economically, you must be a party member.
That is true.
Actually my father is a quite accomplished scientist (never a party member), his mentor and our family friend has been a member of a high nobility family, during the proletarian dictatorship period of the fifties, he had to spend two years as a worker before being allowed to study his field (for free), that is all. No further restrictions in his career advancement. The proletarian dictatorship officially ended in 1960. Since then, no one cared about your class background, which maybe was a mistake.
Commit: the moment you wrote “…outside of politics or high managerial positions”, you proved that LadyfromLibertyGarage is correct. The political class and the high managerial positions are the lords, and the rest of the people are the serfs. The lords have a history of corruption and the serfs are oppressed and suffer.
I doubt you can do a political career outside of a party even in bourgeoise democracy.
Also what people in the west are missing about socialist states, these are under immense external pressure. JR Nyquist is calling for political control over enterprises in the interview with Gussack. The party members in managerial positions is exactly that.
I am calling for political control over enterprises? I do not recall saying that. I do not believe in state control of business. I believe, rather, that big business should not interfere with the function of the state. I also beleive a good reform of business would be to limit the size of businesses so that large enterprises do not become dominant in the economy.
C02 and man made global warming was not invented by the Soviets.
Svante August Arrhenius who was coincidentally Gretha Thunberg’s great grand father first postulated the ridiculous theory in the 1890’s.
Nuclear and coal energy and hence energy security in Germany was obliterated by Angela Merkel a card carrying communist.
Nye Bevan was a socialist, he helped to create the NHS in the UK and he never killed a single soul, on the contrary he probably saved countless souls including Americans who couldn’t afford insurance and travelled to the UK for life saving treatment.
Your use of socialist to an European genuinely sounds retarded.
Europe and the rest of the world had plentiful supplies of oil and gas during the cold war when Russian reserves remained largely untapped. These untapped reserves held from the global market arguably enhanced the wealth of western oil companies.
There are many more quantifiably unaddressed untruths in your analysis.
You are absolutely correct with regards to peak oil.
Jeff, could you please give us a one-sentence definition or short definition for each of the following, that clearly shows the distinctions between the three: communism, fascism, socialism? After all this time, I still find it very confusing. Philosophically, they all sound like the same thing to me.
Modern Communism is Marxism-Leninism, which advocates world socialist revolution leading to communism (through the withering away of the state). Socialism in this scheme is the collective ownership of the means of production under the dictatorship of the proletariat, or, it can evolve into “the State of the Whole People” (another stage in the evolution of the Soviet regime). Democratic socialism, which differs, usually involves state ownership of some large enterprises, but this is generally regarded by Leninists as a false socialism where the socialist leaders are “opportunists” who have betrayed the revolution for a place of privilege under the “dictatorship of the bourgoisie.” Fascism is Mussolini’s ideology, which he definied as “everything in the state.” But in reality the Italian fascist regime existed under the monarchy of Victor Emanuel III of Italy, and Mussolini was technically the prime minister. He was overthrown by the Fascist Council after the fall of Sicily in July 1943.
If communism, fascism, and socialism were placed on a spectrum of government control over the economy on one end and a free market system, free of government control on the other, they would all fall on the government control/central planning end of the spectrum. But even in the US there is a lot more state control and intervention in the economy than people realize. For example, a corporation is a state-chartered (created) business entity that enjoys limited liability status, meaning that a corporation is treated as a person for legal purposes and shareholders are protected from individual liability by virtue of the fact that a corporation is considered as a “legal” person. That is, if a corporation engages in negligent behavior, only the corporate assets are at risk, but the shareholders’ individual assets are not, no matter how thin the veil may be between the so-called “corporate assets” and private assets. Of course, this is just one example among many that I could cite. The point is that there is a ton of state intervention in the economy in modern America. We took a sharp right turn toward state intervention during the FDR era, when he created all sorts of interventionist schemes and even tried to change the number of justices on the Supreme Court to uphold his unconstitutional social programs (see the Wickard vs. Filburn case, for example, where the Interstate Commerce Clause was used to justify controls over wheat production for purely private consumption. The opinion in that case is a real piece of judicial acrobatics.)
Analyzing this history one must be careful to avoid false categorization and theoretical dogmatizing. All political systems, including the economic system of the Soviet Union, rely on forms of capitalism. The degree of market freedom tends to determine the degree of efficiency and development. The actual freedom within the Soviet economy fluctuated throughout Soviet history. The same for the Nazi economy and economies in the West. This is a moving target.
The free market system is not anarchy. There must be laws. Regulations and administrative law courts have greatly complicated matters, as we are talking about the advent of government benefits. I do not believe in the welfare state, but we have one. We all pay into it. This causes a lot of additional regulation and bureaucracy. Yet, that does not make our system socialist or fascist. There are additional things that have to happen. Man does not live by bread alone.
All of Russia’s morale problems and crappy troops seems to finally be biting them in the ass with the collapse of their frontline. Ukraine is already hitting cities in Luhansk, with Russian telegram in hysteria and some even saying half of Luhansk might fall.
Unless Russia uses nukes, this marks the beginning of Russian collapse in Ukraine. It will be a complete defeat. And what will Russia have to occupy Europe or anything at all?
Ukraine might have just saved the world from WW3 by stopping Russia in its tracks at stage 1 of the end game!
At the outset of this war, a Ukrainian I know told me, “You cannot defeat Russia because that would mean nuclear war. We can defeat them and save the world from such a war.” Let us hope he is right. The war in Ukraine is a kind of civil war within the former Soviet Union. The future freedom of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarussian people hangs in the balance. Imagine what would happen if all three of these nations were free. It would be a tremendous thing for humanity as a whole. Ukraine would become, in the wake of that event, one of the most important countries to watch. The success and the spiritual quality of the Euromaidan Revolution is an ongoing thing, and it would be tested in the wake of success — for it is success that spoils many nations. Where will Ukraine go, politically and in terms of its national philosophy? We watch and wonder.
Yes.
Of interest: https://www.ekathimerini.com/nytimes/1192932/conditions-at-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-get-worse-and-worse-and-worse/
Hi Jeff,
In your analysis you never touch upon the ‘black international’ which is even a same danger to the world as ‘red international’. Could it be these are working together (another scissors) and coordinating effort to crush democracy?
Are you referring to the Black International having to do with the comic movies about “Men in Black,” or the Black International made up of Africans, or the supposed Black International formed by the Vatican to counter atheistic liberalism, socialism and atheism? There is also an alleged Black International made of of right-wingers who see Vladimir Putin, Marine Le Pen, and Donald Trump as leaders who will bring a new order. If you mean the latter, then the answer is complicated. There is no such international, in in my view, except that developed by the Russian special services in 1945 by working with the Nazi diaspora. They constituted a secretive false flag galaxy of front organizations serving Moscow under the Nazi flag. In effect, the Nazi diaspora was formed by Martin Bormann toward the end of World War II when the Third Reich began moving gold, technology and personnel to South America. Bormann was a Soviet agent who effectively controlled the Third Reich while Hitler was busy managing the war. This is a long and difficult subject with true and false leads. Even the evidence for the death of Martin Bormann is controversial. The head of the Gestapo, Heinrich Mueller, was also a major figure in this and he supposedly died in the rubble of Berlin. At least three sources reported that Mueller had worked for the Soviet Union and defected there after the war. Both Waltern Schellenberg (AMT6) and Reinhard Gehlen (Foreign Armies East) alleged that Bormann and Mueller had worked for the Soviets during the war, and after. Two East Block intelligence sources, decades apart, reported that Mueller had been brought to Moscow in the early 1950s. One source — a high-level KGB general — gave similar information to former CIA officer Peter Bagley after the fall of the Soviet Union. Bagley wrote about it in his last book. I was corresponding with Bagley on this subject at the time of his death.