oh, it's also funded by German taxpayers – to the tune of millions. but it will be interesting to see what kinds of holes the demise of USAID blows in their budgets.
I wasn’t serious, but I bet by some convoluted path, some USAID money is directly or indirectly involved. Its withered hand is in everything subversive.
I'm wondering if there is much awareness in Germany regarding what Trump is doing to rip the curtain away from our government's massive decades long grift via USAID and other agencies.
Is there even much awareness in the U.S.? Many of my friends, family, and colleagues still think Trump is a criminal and he and insane billionaire Elon Musk are trying to destroy the government . . . or something.
No, most have no clue. Their media are relentless, vicious Trump haters. The public laps it up. Few alt-media sites to counterbalance. Government there is arresting and fining meme posters. For added commentary, see Danno below.
I totally agree. Just look at the signs - all with the same slogans, even if they look homemade, and the types of people who show up at these protests. In the US it's almost always the borderline disfunctional who attend. And when functional people do show up, they're almost always government employees getting time off (i.e. payment) to carry the stupid signs. I also note they only become enthusiastic when the cameras are pointed at them.
Very few are driven by ideology. I can attest, as a former employee of an activist organization, that I was driven by a need to pay my rent. I couldn't stand my bosses, who were driven their petty ambition to control others. None of them had more than a superficial understanding of ideology. Germany is different, though. It seems to me these giant "protests" rely on a very German desire to conform.
The very few can number many when extrapolated across a population.
And even a superficial understanding of ideology is still ideology. An old friend of mine is an ardent anti-Trumper living in the DC area. She attended a Kamala Harris rally, entirely voluntarily. She was ready to go out and protest the inauguration but has a young child so couldn't (but she was out there in 2016). These people absolutely exist and there are many of them in big cities across the West.
I live in London, I see the kinds of people who join pro-Palestine marches, anti-racism rallies, Xtinction Rebellion drumming circles, you-name-it. These people are easy to galvanise so it looks like these movements have high levels of support.
And look, honest confession: I used to attend anti-Brexit marches back in 2017/18 when I still bought into certain establishment narratives. I’m sure many people who operated in conservative or dissident spaces at the time must've thought the same thing: “Who the hell are all these marching idiots? Are they being paid or what?”
You also forget a fundamental fact: protests and marches are fun. Bonding with others by attending political events can feel exciting, even exhilarating. Participants tend not to analyse the issues in depth before deciding to join in if they know others who are doing so or if the people they follow on social media are supporting it.
Let us hope that the funding (probably some) from USAID is or will soon be cut-off.
This all, to an American, reminds me of the stupidity of our Left. Who made fools of themselves at every turn, and then were surprised at their loss to Trump.
I hope AfD is ready to govern. Or maybe CDU will show them how. (Well, I assume, contra-E, that CDU will soon agree to join a coalition with AfD.). We shall see.
EXTREMELY INTERESTING, though not at all surprising. The world can’t agree on ANYTHING EVER until a “scary” cold bug comes along… then, immediately, everyone is “on board” and has the exact same talking points, Sweden (God bless them) excluded.
There always seem to be more solidarity on people plotting on and carrying out evil than accomplishing good for the world. Seems too on this end that more people these days are easy prey in being fearmongered or deceived into participating in their own enslavement and destruction.
This is by design. Those who control language are able to control thoughts. Redefining what "Fascism" is immediately after World War II has allowed totalitarians/authoritarians of all stripes to characterize those who hold the ideas that western liberal democracies held in opposition to the actual Fascists in Italy, Spain and Germany as Fascists. The values of individual liberty and freedom that the Allies and patriotic rallied behind to defeat the Axis powers were intentionally twisted into being traits and characteristics of Fascistic totalitarianism.
As implausible as that sounds it's true. I was shocked to discover this. At the same time that western propaganda was using the rhetoric of freedom and liberty to oppose the Soviet Union a Marxist revolutionary, Theodor Adorno had created the F- Scale Authoritarian Personality test:
Which is how there's become a wildly different understanding of what freedom, liberty and democracy are from the rest of us "Populists" understand them to mean. Controlling language resulting in controlling thoughts and ideas within a certain strata of society, the more highly educated (indoctrinated) strata.
The F-Scale test, the theories behind it are what informs today's "experts" on authoritarianism, Fascism, dictators, etc. The F-Scale is presented as the gold standard measure of totalitarianism, the next Hitler and those who would blindly follow him. Created by Adorno in 1947 and adopted by academia and political leaders to prevent the the rise of the next Hitler.
It's important to point out that as a Marxist, Adorno gave no voice or concern to authoritarianism var.: Communist, Stalin, in his test. It's an "F-test" - that only tests for the Fascist variety of authoritarianism.
There is no corresponding "C-test" that was ever adopted by academia and political leaders to prevent the rise of the next Stalin. Which is why you'll never see the academics, those in the highly educated (propagandized) strata be concerned with Communist totalitarians. Or oligarchical, monarchal, technocratic authoritarian regimes.
Which means It's not authoritarianism, totalitarianism, dictatorships that the 'gold standard' tests for, it's only what *Marxists* define as Fascistic varieties.
The same that self-anointed protectors of freedom and democracy have been trained to identify and prevent. This test is what the Timothy Snyder's and Ruth Ben-Ghiat's are trained in, their frame of reference. And their counterparts in Germany and the rest of the western formerly liberal democracies.
So what happens is the rallies of hundreds of thousands of people in the streets in Germany and the rest of the western nations against "Fascism" are filled mostly with people who have no understanding of what their leaders are defining Fascism is. They chant slogans about freedom and liberty calling their opponents "Fascists" believing WWII-era and Cold War-era rhetoric about totalitarianism is what their leaders mean. But if they bothered to take the F-Scale test themselves they'd soon learn that individual liberty, freedom, minimal government interference in private decisions are indicators of Fascistic traits that their leaders have been educated (propagandized) to believe are Fascistic.
That's the thing about words used to communicate ideas and concepts. The same word can have vastly different meanings to different speakers and different listeners. And this is useful for those who use language, rhetoric, linguistics to gain support for their agenda and positions in power. Some times a wide range of meanings are used to obfuscate, the meaning meant by the speaker is intentionally concealed in the ambiguity that the listener is accustomed to believe a word means. Which is why Marxist Noam Chomsky's work in studying linguistics was so influential in shaping the minds and practices of many of today's leaders.
No better way to figure out what these Marxists define as authoritarian var. Fascist than to examine their F-Scale test. Below are several links to sample tests, descriptions, academic presentations of the test as the academics, Marxists, political leaders, the so-called experts come to understand Fascism. The test, concepts, ideas that they are informed by when designating people as authoritarians, Fascists, the next Hitler's. How they rationalize and justify the use of government resources to oppose their political opponents claiming to be protecting democracy, freedom and liberty. Freedom as Orwell offered being Slavery, that is. How it's done:
Thing is, as presented lot of concerns about Fascism are pretty scary. We can see several of the markers described in some of our preferred leaders. The "cult of personality" and other characteristics it describes are easy to see in the Trump phenomenon. Some of the characteristics aren't flattering, we can see some truth in. And as with most things that are widely believed there are many truths in it that one can see no matter what your values, but there are also many untruths embedded in it. It is my suggestion that those untruths are wrapped inside the truths intentionally. Useful for the true totalitarians who abhor individual liberty and freedom, as all varieties of totalitarianism do to gain and hold on to power by means of linguistic deceit. Controlling language to control thought.
How Wikipedia (globalist narrative) defines Fascism:
Which is not the same definition of Fascism that Theodor Adorno came up with his test. Go ahead, take any of the tests in the links above. If you support individual liberty and freedom you'll be surprised to learn that according the the "experts" on Fascism who are directing the rallies against AfD (and Trump, other 'populists') YOU are the Fascist that they learned from history is the enemy of freedom. Not by accident or coincidence.
I'd be curious where F-Scale puts you, Ryan. I took it, came out pretty darn Fascist. Didn't believe it, went back and took it again, changed any answer that could even slightly impinge on the civil liberties of another, no legitimate government interference - test scored me as uber Fascist, I might as well have been wearing a pencil moustache. Is when I realized what the test really was.
1) We "resisted" because our law on epidemic diseases forbids sweeping mandatory measures. Every case must be tried on an individual basis, first by a doctor and if the patient protests,then by a special court.
Imagine the logistics for merely thousands of such protests, the cost and how much time it would eat up. Our politicians knew they couldn't comply fully, in any way.
2) Sweden has a huge non-Swedish population nowadays, from 15%-35% dep. on definition used. There's simply no way moslems here would respect shuttering the mosques, f.e. And the parties in Parliament know they haven't the manpower in the police department to force compliance - not without using military against civilians for the first time since 1930s.
Knowing even suggesting touching anything the moslems hold dear would cause nation-wide riots and galvanise Swedes opposing the invasion, they refrained from even trying.
3) Our health care sector was taxed, but not much more than a normal flu season, so there was no medical need, and since the decision about quarantines and such must be taken by the doctor appointed national co-ordinator of response to epidemic diseases (a dr Tegnell at that point, a veteran with over 30 years hands-on experience and member of the military's science council), and that doctor wasn't about to, and it is illegal for a minister or any politician to overrule a government appointed head of a department, they could point to our laws when WHO and WEF and UN made noises.
And fourthly, people saw through the idiocy in myriad ways and so mostly pointed and laughed about "the polite virus, that won't infect anyone at the pub unless you stand up without a mask on", and other such nonsense.
We're quite used to putting up the appearance of going along with regulations, only to ignore them as soon as the government's apple polisher isn't present or looking.
Eugyppius, what always staggers me is how these thousands of protesters can suddenly find the time to abandon their usual activities and turn up, on demand, at these orchestrated events. Don’t they have lives to get on with? Or is it made worth their while in ways I can only speculate about? The “funding” must end up somewhere.
When the government pays you not to work, you have all sorts of free time and you owe them major favors. It's a nice EBT card, it would be a shame if anything happened to it.
And on this note... with the death of USAID, you international folks can look forward to major shrinkage in your orchestrated displays of leftist discontent.
USAID is an unusual example because it is not a department created by Congress. It was created whole-cloth with a presidential Executive Order, and thus (unlike, say, the Department of Education) it can be dissolved the same way.
Rubio doesn't have the authority to create such things.
You right about the funding ZuZu. Most of us are too busy working and taking care of ourselves to have time to be full-time protesters. And even if all of us never had to work a day again to support our lifestyles. Some protesters, as we've seen such as those who went to Washington, DC on 1/6/21 spent over 4 years in jail. So if the world governments are happy with what you choose to protest. You will have no problems from them in that arena
The J6 protests actually were organic. That's why the scared the hell out of the deep state. They hoped running an entrapment operation by enticing them into the Capitol would result in mass arrests and intimidation. It worked, sort of. But now we have Trump.
It was schedulesd for sat. afternoon. My colleagues and I worked that morning. the plan was to leave work, get lunch together, go to the protest together at 2pm, and then go to a friend‘s karaoke party at 4.
During the BLM demonstrations in the USA, Tucker Carlson observed that maintaining nightly demonstrations (that interfere with sleep) is nearly impossible without formal organization and funding. During demonstrations against one of the US Supreme Court decisions, many protesters showed up with professionally printed signs. The regime here is not as anti-democratic as the leftists in Germany, but it does channel funds to NGO's that agitate for immigration as well as perform welfare services for new immigrants.
Well, I hope it is right that the leftist press in Germany will discredit itself, but here in the USA, the loss of audience on the left is only moderate.
The faster you can tank the whole system, by bankrupting the country through massive social program, give-aways (and by wars), the sooner full-on socialism has to be implemented.
Essentially the entire cold war apparatus never went away, it was just repurposed. It turned against the west itself over the past 30 years due to leftist and globalist ideologies that took over the elites and the bureaucracy. Deliberate Destruction through Dependence.
The Lefts entire platform is trying to create equal outcomes because it will cause equal dependence. It is impossible to be free if you are not self-reliant. Thats what they want.
You have to admit it's fun watching the Left trying to defend the indefensible. The goal is to save The West, not trigger the Left. For some reason trying to save the west triggers the Left.
There is much in this. The Gladio scandals and the "stay-behind" operatives which were revealed in the wake of the collapse of the old Christian Democrat party in Italy in the early 1990s are suggestive.
Benz, imho, is a hero. I'm disturbed by the comments there suggesting "they got to him, look at how nervous he is, what happened to our brave lieutenant?" etc. It's gonna break my heart if anything happens to him. What is your take on it? (don't mean to hijack this thread but I value your opinion) R
One could make the case that the Communists didn't lose the war; instead they just withdrew from the field of armed conflict and let subversion do its work.
I think the DOGE revalations in the US about USAID funding left-lunatic media are not isolated cases. It appears to me that Germany and many EU countries, and the UK, have their own forms of USAID-like organizations who's job it is to do crap like this. Germany, in this case, is being subjected to a very similar playbook as, say, Georgia in the last months with the Color Revolution stuff
Once you start seeing things this way, its quite hard not to see it everywhere. The enemy truly is within
And without? The recent behaviour of the UK government, when combined with Trudeau's links to Chinese funding, and The Big Guy's own dubious ties with China, make me wonder if the CCP isn't heavily involved - perhaps actually cooperating with some in the Western infrastructure- to create havoc. Maybe this is going too far, but it's a question worth asking.
Fun fact: before the UK left, the EU Commission hosted a website called "EUinUK" that claimed to dispel "myths" about the EU published in the British right wing press. If you checked them you'd find that the "myths" were primarily true stories about EU spending waste or stupid regulations. The fact checks consisted of explanations that the money wasn't being wasted / the rule wasn't stupid, because the EU says so. Many such fact checks were entirely mendacious.
To pick the last example they ever published, the Daily Mail reported correctly that due to a fear of GDPR fines, a German town had cancelled the tradition of writing letters to Santa Claus due to the personal information children included in the letters. In the "fact check" the EU states that writing letters to Santa Claus is allowed under GDPR because "data can be processed when a person has given their consent but also on the basis of other legal grounds" and "Santa Claus should have the contact details of a family in order to deliver presents on the wish list he received".
In other words, the GDPR did indeed ban it and then the EU did the usual thing of just making up arbitrary BS - literally in this case claiming that Santa Claus is real - and therefore there's no problem. The original article wasn't a myth.
Flick through the archives and you'll find endless waste.
Just from what we've seen, I figure it's all interconnected in one big web. That's part of the design, to make things so complicated it's less likely to be teased apart.
Well, that which cannot survive in daylight tends to die. Perhaps the left and the hatred they bring with it will soon die and Germany will get a more reasonable government.
But seriously, this astroturfing of protests is getting ludicrous, also here in Britain. We've known for a while that democracy has been seen merely as a system to be appropriately manipulated by our more enlightened masters and rulers, but the brazen manner in which they do this is not going to fool any of us plebs for much longer...
wish I could claim credit, various versions of this Russian reversal joke were current on German twitter last year when we were having our last government-sponsored freakout against the right
Do the marchers themselves get paid? In cash or in kind such as free beer or coupons for free or discounted rock concerts or whatever? I can't believe so many Germans have so much free time on their hands. Or else they are really brainwashed to a similar degree as in 1933, which is "problematic" as they say.
Core activist groups absolutely get paid, generally via membership in various activist NGOs. They also have funds to develop networks of volunteers and affiliates to bring the numbers up, to organise transportation, etc.
it's at least to this extent important: without any chance of making a career in the field of censoring facebook or whining about "the right," a lot of these people would find vastly better things to do with their time and you would not have an activist scene that could be so easily turned on at the push of a button.
El Salvador just witnessed the total and humiliating collapse of a highly-promoted anti-mining protest, right after USAID spigots were closed. Coincidence?
Do you think there is central planning to these coordinated events? How large of a group of people are the ‘inception’ of such a plan, if indeed these are planned?
probably platforms like we have "Craigs list" they are looking for many "bodies"
to show up and there are indeed various incentives.
This reminds me of how Harris spent all of the campaign $$ on paying celebrities and painting murals on large buildings. These people are "community organizers" .... yay, and they get plenty from their wealthy funders like Soros and sons
In my naivety I never considered that a “celebrity” would require payment for endorsing a politician. The trouble is that the endorsement becomes worthless as soon as it becomes known that money has changed hands. How can they face the public again? Or is that my naivety talking?
celebrity endorsements have become rather worthless, for example the ones that came out for Harris. The left applauds the endorsement and the rational people know it is just whoring. Then we just boycott their presence. that is not naivety you feel, I believe it is utter disappointment. Some people should just keep their thoughts to themselves. I have never heard of paying celebs but I know the Harris campaign did. Same with their reckless spending on other stupid things like huge painted murals...... which kind of reminds me of this HUGE sign the people are carrying. Just silly.
I assumed that the “celebrities” were True Believers in the covid scam and welcomed the opportunity to signal their virtue to a wider audience. I wondered why on earth anybody would take the advice of a nonentity with absolutely no medical knowledge. But I realise the joke is on me.
> According to taz, 500,000 right-thinking Germans took to the streets this past weekend to combat the out-of-bounds radical views held by 52% of everybody
Preaching to the choir, but as it is relevant, I will copy in full a comment I left on one of my other substack regulars the other day:
----
There is no such thing as a spontaneous outpouring of organic opposition in the world. When protests are truly authentic like that, they end with every protestor in prison. This is true in every country in the world.
Every protest that every western citizen has ever seen in the past 50 years, satisfies one of the following conditions:
1) It's essentially astroturf, and exists not to protest anything, but to manufacture legitimacy for paths that the people in power already want to take
2) It's essentially a larp, completely toothless, and the powers that be ignore it because it doesn't matter.
3) It's real, and the overwhelming majority of people involved end up either dead or in prison.
I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to consider their ten most favourite historical protests and decide which box each fits in.
To me, this is almost tautological. Have you ever organized an event with more than 20 people? It requires logistics. Logistics requires management and money. An organic mass of regular people who all just so happen to have the same opinion some matter lack both management and money. Wherever that management and money came from, that is the source of the inauthenticity.
----
To push the envelope a little bit, consider the last two attacks on the US Capitol (June 2020 and January 2021, respectively), and the radical difference with which the attackers were treated. It's a fun exercise
Which image should we go with? Musk nailing reality to the interwebs's portal or all of Western political bureaucracy screaming "we need more fig leaves" as all of the rest of us stand in that big garden, apples in our hands, pointing.
Other than having my kid, of course, this is just the greatest moment in my lifetime. Every single day is our blow against them and they don't know how to stanch the bleeding.
Trump is delivering what Americans have not seen for decades -- actual consequences for actual malefactors. Just fired the CFO of FEMA today for funding luxury hotel rooms for illegals in NY instead of rebuilding hurricane victims in NC (which is their JOB, not illegals). No more bureaucrats "failing into promotions" like the guys who ran Fast & Furious.
While I’m glad she was fired I’m furious she’s not facing charges. You can steal 56 million and just get fired, only to get rehired immediately at twice that pay at some lefty university for sure. Why stop? You have everything to gain and nothing to lose. No, she deserves to be prosecuted, receive a fair trial, then come what may. Meaning, probably jail.
PBS just axed two diversity executives--one making $400,000/yr.--who ran essential programming initiatives like "Meditation Mondays" and "Indigenous Healing Circles"--after a tip-off to The Free Press that they were being sneakily reassigned to a "wellness dept." or "station services."
But we ought to keep in mind that this crap has been going on for a very long time--over a half-century in my own experience as an indentured servant/wage slave in the private sector--and all them deep-endowed conservative think tanks where big names come and go did nothing but speak ironically, or ponderously, or sometimes derangedly but otherwise permitted two generations of kids of all ethnicities to be destroyed, one way or another.
So I hope the deluge sweeps away everyone who has ever been complicit in the destruction of liberal society which is not a bad thing as a concept but must be always carefully kept within intelligent bounds.
In Göttingen earlier this month, a group of a few hundred protesters demonstrating for peace, freedom and an investigation of the corona pandemic were surrounded by a mob of thousands of counter-demonstrators screaming at them and calling them Nazis. These demonstrators with peace flags and signs including calling for solidarity with the vaccine injured, were forced by the mob to turn back. Of course this was celebrated in the media as another win against the threat of fascism. As someone who was wrecked by the biontech "vaccine," this "alliance against the right" literally adds insult to my injury.
I believe Joost Meerloo described these things as “delusion of understanding”. Menticide has been elevated to high art! Meerloo wrote this in 1950’s!
"Something has crept into our mechanized system of communication that has made our modes of thinking deteriorate. People too casually acquire ideas and concepts. They no longer struggle for a clear understanding. The popularized picture replaces the battle of the pros and cons of concepts. Instead of aiming at true understanding, people listen to thoughtless repetition, which gives them THE DELUSION OF UNDERSTANDING."
The Rape of the Mind | Joost A. M. Meerloo, M.D. (1956)
"The general public is being reduced to a state where people not only are unable to find out about the truth, but also become unable to search for the truth because they are satisfied with deception and trickery that have determined their convictions, satisfied with a fictitious reality created by design through the abuse of language."
Probably funded not by the German taxpayers but USAID! 🤣😂
oh, it's also funded by German taxpayers – to the tune of millions. but it will be interesting to see what kinds of holes the demise of USAID blows in their budgets.
I wasn’t serious, but I bet by some convoluted path, some USAID money is directly or indirectly involved. Its withered hand is in everything subversive.
USAID: "But that's my /strong/ hand..."
- Scary Movie (forget which one)
It's a very pertinent question. Who is paid to organise these protests and gather the idiots?
It's as AstroTurf as you can get.
I believe we all know what kind of holes we are dealing with.
Some things dont translate well but the word asshole is what I am eluding
Oh it translates quite well: Arschloch, in German.
I'm wondering if there is much awareness in Germany regarding what Trump is doing to rip the curtain away from our government's massive decades long grift via USAID and other agencies.
Is there even much awareness in the U.S.? Many of my friends, family, and colleagues still think Trump is a criminal and he and insane billionaire Elon Musk are trying to destroy the government . . . or something.
No, most have no clue. Their media are relentless, vicious Trump haters. The public laps it up. Few alt-media sites to counterbalance. Government there is arresting and fining meme posters. For added commentary, see Danno below.
Thought this might be of interest. https://youtu.be/FtT0GAtOSoU?feature=shared
History repeats. Neocon warmongers are livid about their USAID grift getting exposed. The downfall of USAID is the downfall of propaganda and astroturfed protests: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/downfall-usaid-bill-kristol-neocon-ngo
First thought in my mind
Also heavily funded by the EU
And the WEF/UN
And USAID gave $52,000,000 to WEF
Which is probably also partially funded by USAID. We’ll know better when the audit is complete.
How many of these protesters were paid to be there? Not paid indirectly, not organized by paid cadres - but directly given money to show up?
I've begun to suspect that nearly all "grass roots activism" is straight up paid actors. Paid mostly by tax money. In Europe and America both.
The anti-Iraq war marches in the UK in 2002 and early -03 almost certainly were not rent-a-mob.
The anti-COVID fascism marches in the UK in 2021 onwards were definitely not externally funded. In fact the BBC took great care not to publicise them.
I totally agree. Just look at the signs - all with the same slogans, even if they look homemade, and the types of people who show up at these protests. In the US it's almost always the borderline disfunctional who attend. And when functional people do show up, they're almost always government employees getting time off (i.e. payment) to carry the stupid signs. I also note they only become enthusiastic when the cameras are pointed at them.
You underestimate how little incentive ideologically driven people need
Very few are driven by ideology. I can attest, as a former employee of an activist organization, that I was driven by a need to pay my rent. I couldn't stand my bosses, who were driven their petty ambition to control others. None of them had more than a superficial understanding of ideology. Germany is different, though. It seems to me these giant "protests" rely on a very German desire to conform.
The very few can number many when extrapolated across a population.
And even a superficial understanding of ideology is still ideology. An old friend of mine is an ardent anti-Trumper living in the DC area. She attended a Kamala Harris rally, entirely voluntarily. She was ready to go out and protest the inauguration but has a young child so couldn't (but she was out there in 2016). These people absolutely exist and there are many of them in big cities across the West.
I live in London, I see the kinds of people who join pro-Palestine marches, anti-racism rallies, Xtinction Rebellion drumming circles, you-name-it. These people are easy to galvanise so it looks like these movements have high levels of support.
And look, honest confession: I used to attend anti-Brexit marches back in 2017/18 when I still bought into certain establishment narratives. I’m sure many people who operated in conservative or dissident spaces at the time must've thought the same thing: “Who the hell are all these marching idiots? Are they being paid or what?”
You also forget a fundamental fact: protests and marches are fun. Bonding with others by attending political events can feel exciting, even exhilarating. Participants tend not to analyse the issues in depth before deciding to join in if they know others who are doing so or if the people they follow on social media are supporting it.
Let us hope that the funding (probably some) from USAID is or will soon be cut-off.
This all, to an American, reminds me of the stupidity of our Left. Who made fools of themselves at every turn, and then were surprised at their loss to Trump.
I hope AfD is ready to govern. Or maybe CDU will show them how. (Well, I assume, contra-E, that CDU will soon agree to join a coalition with AfD.). We shall see.
EXTREMELY INTERESTING, though not at all surprising. The world can’t agree on ANYTHING EVER until a “scary” cold bug comes along… then, immediately, everyone is “on board” and has the exact same talking points, Sweden (God bless them) excluded.
There always seem to be more solidarity on people plotting on and carrying out evil than accomplishing good for the world. Seems too on this end that more people these days are easy prey in being fearmongered or deceived into participating in their own enslavement and destruction.
This is by design. Those who control language are able to control thoughts. Redefining what "Fascism" is immediately after World War II has allowed totalitarians/authoritarians of all stripes to characterize those who hold the ideas that western liberal democracies held in opposition to the actual Fascists in Italy, Spain and Germany as Fascists. The values of individual liberty and freedom that the Allies and patriotic rallied behind to defeat the Axis powers were intentionally twisted into being traits and characteristics of Fascistic totalitarianism.
As implausible as that sounds it's true. I was shocked to discover this. At the same time that western propaganda was using the rhetoric of freedom and liberty to oppose the Soviet Union a Marxist revolutionary, Theodor Adorno had created the F- Scale Authoritarian Personality test:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-scale_(personality_test)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_W._Adorno
Which is how there's become a wildly different understanding of what freedom, liberty and democracy are from the rest of us "Populists" understand them to mean. Controlling language resulting in controlling thoughts and ideas within a certain strata of society, the more highly educated (indoctrinated) strata.
The F-Scale test, the theories behind it are what informs today's "experts" on authoritarianism, Fascism, dictators, etc. The F-Scale is presented as the gold standard measure of totalitarianism, the next Hitler and those who would blindly follow him. Created by Adorno in 1947 and adopted by academia and political leaders to prevent the the rise of the next Hitler.
It's important to point out that as a Marxist, Adorno gave no voice or concern to authoritarianism var.: Communist, Stalin, in his test. It's an "F-test" - that only tests for the Fascist variety of authoritarianism.
There is no corresponding "C-test" that was ever adopted by academia and political leaders to prevent the rise of the next Stalin. Which is why you'll never see the academics, those in the highly educated (propagandized) strata be concerned with Communist totalitarians. Or oligarchical, monarchal, technocratic authoritarian regimes.
Which means It's not authoritarianism, totalitarianism, dictatorships that the 'gold standard' tests for, it's only what *Marxists* define as Fascistic varieties.
The same that self-anointed protectors of freedom and democracy have been trained to identify and prevent. This test is what the Timothy Snyder's and Ruth Ben-Ghiat's are trained in, their frame of reference. And their counterparts in Germany and the rest of the western formerly liberal democracies.
So what happens is the rallies of hundreds of thousands of people in the streets in Germany and the rest of the western nations against "Fascism" are filled mostly with people who have no understanding of what their leaders are defining Fascism is. They chant slogans about freedom and liberty calling their opponents "Fascists" believing WWII-era and Cold War-era rhetoric about totalitarianism is what their leaders mean. But if they bothered to take the F-Scale test themselves they'd soon learn that individual liberty, freedom, minimal government interference in private decisions are indicators of Fascistic traits that their leaders have been educated (propagandized) to believe are Fascistic.
That's the thing about words used to communicate ideas and concepts. The same word can have vastly different meanings to different speakers and different listeners. And this is useful for those who use language, rhetoric, linguistics to gain support for their agenda and positions in power. Some times a wide range of meanings are used to obfuscate, the meaning meant by the speaker is intentionally concealed in the ambiguity that the listener is accustomed to believe a word means. Which is why Marxist Noam Chomsky's work in studying linguistics was so influential in shaping the minds and practices of many of today's leaders.
No better way to figure out what these Marxists define as authoritarian var. Fascist than to examine their F-Scale test. Below are several links to sample tests, descriptions, academic presentations of the test as the academics, Marxists, political leaders, the so-called experts come to understand Fascism. The test, concepts, ideas that they are informed by when designating people as authoritarians, Fascists, the next Hitler's. How they rationalize and justify the use of government resources to oppose their political opponents claiming to be protecting democracy, freedom and liberty. Freedom as Orwell offered being Slavery, that is. How it's done:
https://www.anesi.com/fscale.htm
https://www.openculture.com/2022/02/are-you-a-fascist-take-theodor-adornos-authoritarian-personality-test-1947.html
https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/a-personality-test-for-tyrants-the-f-scale-and-the-authoritarian-personality/
https://www.mentesabiertaspsicologia.com/blog-psicologia/blog-psicologia/the-f-scale-measuring-fascism-in-psychology
https://www.psychologistworld.com/influence-personality/authoritarian-personality
https://philarchive.org/archive/ROITSD
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-F-Scale-as-a-Predictor-of-Fascism%3A-An-Overview-Meloen/ce531c3a30dfb37e3b2f430a1607d0f168a36abb
http://openpsychometrics.org/tests/RWAS/
https://jonjayray.tripod.com/gul.html
Thing is, as presented lot of concerns about Fascism are pretty scary. We can see several of the markers described in some of our preferred leaders. The "cult of personality" and other characteristics it describes are easy to see in the Trump phenomenon. Some of the characteristics aren't flattering, we can see some truth in. And as with most things that are widely believed there are many truths in it that one can see no matter what your values, but there are also many untruths embedded in it. It is my suggestion that those untruths are wrapped inside the truths intentionally. Useful for the true totalitarians who abhor individual liberty and freedom, as all varieties of totalitarianism do to gain and hold on to power by means of linguistic deceit. Controlling language to control thought.
How Wikipedia (globalist narrative) defines Fascism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
How Mussolini defined Fascism:
https://www.cato.org/commentary/economic-leadership-secrets-benito-mussolini
Which is not the same definition of Fascism that Theodor Adorno came up with his test. Go ahead, take any of the tests in the links above. If you support individual liberty and freedom you'll be surprised to learn that according the the "experts" on Fascism who are directing the rallies against AfD (and Trump, other 'populists') YOU are the Fascist that they learned from history is the enemy of freedom. Not by accident or coincidence.
One helluva comment. Bravo.
I'd be curious where F-Scale puts you, Ryan. I took it, came out pretty darn Fascist. Didn't believe it, went back and took it again, changed any answer that could even slightly impinge on the civil liberties of another, no legitimate government interference - test scored me as uber Fascist, I might as well have been wearing a pencil moustache. Is when I realized what the test really was.
They're the same people who can not think for themselves
I wonder how Sweden managed to resist without having high profile people die, or something else very bad happen to it.
You would think there were some very bad threats given to get every country to fall into line.
I can explain that, being a Swede:
1) We "resisted" because our law on epidemic diseases forbids sweeping mandatory measures. Every case must be tried on an individual basis, first by a doctor and if the patient protests,then by a special court.
Imagine the logistics for merely thousands of such protests, the cost and how much time it would eat up. Our politicians knew they couldn't comply fully, in any way.
2) Sweden has a huge non-Swedish population nowadays, from 15%-35% dep. on definition used. There's simply no way moslems here would respect shuttering the mosques, f.e. And the parties in Parliament know they haven't the manpower in the police department to force compliance - not without using military against civilians for the first time since 1930s.
Knowing even suggesting touching anything the moslems hold dear would cause nation-wide riots and galvanise Swedes opposing the invasion, they refrained from even trying.
3) Our health care sector was taxed, but not much more than a normal flu season, so there was no medical need, and since the decision about quarantines and such must be taken by the doctor appointed national co-ordinator of response to epidemic diseases (a dr Tegnell at that point, a veteran with over 30 years hands-on experience and member of the military's science council), and that doctor wasn't about to, and it is illegal for a minister or any politician to overrule a government appointed head of a department, they could point to our laws when WHO and WEF and UN made noises.
And fourthly, people saw through the idiocy in myriad ways and so mostly pointed and laughed about "the polite virus, that won't infect anyone at the pub unless you stand up without a mask on", and other such nonsense.
We're quite used to putting up the appearance of going along with regulations, only to ignore them as soon as the government's apple polisher isn't present or looking.
Eugyppius, what always staggers me is how these thousands of protesters can suddenly find the time to abandon their usual activities and turn up, on demand, at these orchestrated events. Don’t they have lives to get on with? Or is it made worth their while in ways I can only speculate about? The “funding” must end up somewhere.
When the government pays you not to work, you have all sorts of free time and you owe them major favors. It's a nice EBT card, it would be a shame if anything happened to it.
And on this note... with the death of USAID, you international folks can look forward to major shrinkage in your orchestrated displays of leftist discontent.
https://x.com/nayibbukele/status/1888692755993412010?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
It seems that when the US Swamp stops exporting free krill, Left Whales everywhere stop bellowing.
(Sorry for the mixed metaphors, but just like Justice Ketanji Brown Jackfish, I'm not a marine biologist.)
Is USAID gone or is to be repackaged by Rubio instead into some other sinister iteration?
USAID is an unusual example because it is not a department created by Congress. It was created whole-cloth with a presidential Executive Order, and thus (unlike, say, the Department of Education) it can be dissolved the same way.
Rubio doesn't have the authority to create such things.
From your lips to God’s ear.
You right about the funding ZuZu. Most of us are too busy working and taking care of ourselves to have time to be full-time protesters. And even if all of us never had to work a day again to support our lifestyles. Some protesters, as we've seen such as those who went to Washington, DC on 1/6/21 spent over 4 years in jail. So if the world governments are happy with what you choose to protest. You will have no problems from them in that arena
The J6 protests actually were organic. That's why the scared the hell out of the deep state. They hoped running an entrapment operation by enticing them into the Capitol would result in mass arrests and intimidation. It worked, sort of. But now we have Trump.
Very very good observation!
I suspect many of them are bourgeois bohemian public sector workers... protesting is always the most important thing on the agenda
And getting paid. And being on call.
It was schedulesd for sat. afternoon. My colleagues and I worked that morning. the plan was to leave work, get lunch together, go to the protest together at 2pm, and then go to a friend‘s karaoke party at 4.
During the BLM demonstrations in the USA, Tucker Carlson observed that maintaining nightly demonstrations (that interfere with sleep) is nearly impossible without formal organization and funding. During demonstrations against one of the US Supreme Court decisions, many protesters showed up with professionally printed signs. The regime here is not as anti-democratic as the leftists in Germany, but it does channel funds to NGO's that agitate for immigration as well as perform welfare services for new immigrants.
Well, I hope it is right that the leftist press in Germany will discredit itself, but here in the USA, the loss of audience on the left is only moderate.
I was thinking the same
All of it planned, just like US.
It's the Cloward-Piven theory basically:
The faster you can tank the whole system, by bankrupting the country through massive social program, give-aways (and by wars), the sooner full-on socialism has to be implemented.
Essentially the entire cold war apparatus never went away, it was just repurposed. It turned against the west itself over the past 30 years due to leftist and globalist ideologies that took over the elites and the bureaucracy. Deliberate Destruction through Dependence.
The Lefts entire platform is trying to create equal outcomes because it will cause equal dependence. It is impossible to be free if you are not self-reliant. Thats what they want.
You have to admit it's fun watching the Left trying to defend the indefensible. The goal is to save The West, not trigger the Left. For some reason trying to save the west triggers the Left.
There is much in this. The Gladio scandals and the "stay-behind" operatives which were revealed in the wake of the collapse of the old Christian Democrat party in Italy in the early 1990s are suggestive.
I always wonder who really won the Cold War...
https://youtu.be/iZtXQNDJJm4?si=pC3o3_KHTjyBjPbn
This is "required" viewing if you haven't seen it already.
Explains a lot of what we're seeing. Much bigger than any of us thought.
Benz, imho, is a hero. I'm disturbed by the comments there suggesting "they got to him, look at how nervous he is, what happened to our brave lieutenant?" etc. It's gonna break my heart if anything happens to him. What is your take on it? (don't mean to hijack this thread but I value your opinion) R
He's nervous for a reason. But he's not going to back down. He's pot committed.
He's one helluva a patriot and I think eventually truth will win out, and he'll be a big reason why.
Guys! This is a must watch. It’s literally jaw dropping!
https://x.com/DataRepublican/status/1889172190282821690?s=19
Check this out. She does a great job through all her comments on her thread to summariz Benz's assertions.
Thanks for the tip: weekend viewing!
One could make the case that the Communists didn't lose the war; instead they just withdrew from the field of armed conflict and let subversion do its work.
Yuri Brezmonev said as much before he died
This is definitely on the lines of my own thoughts.
I think the DOGE revalations in the US about USAID funding left-lunatic media are not isolated cases. It appears to me that Germany and many EU countries, and the UK, have their own forms of USAID-like organizations who's job it is to do crap like this. Germany, in this case, is being subjected to a very similar playbook as, say, Georgia in the last months with the Color Revolution stuff
Once you start seeing things this way, its quite hard not to see it everywhere. The enemy truly is within
And without? The recent behaviour of the UK government, when combined with Trudeau's links to Chinese funding, and The Big Guy's own dubious ties with China, make me wonder if the CCP isn't heavily involved - perhaps actually cooperating with some in the Western infrastructure- to create havoc. Maybe this is going too far, but it's a question worth asking.
The EU itself does this on a massive scale.
Fun fact: before the UK left, the EU Commission hosted a website called "EUinUK" that claimed to dispel "myths" about the EU published in the British right wing press. If you checked them you'd find that the "myths" were primarily true stories about EU spending waste or stupid regulations. The fact checks consisted of explanations that the money wasn't being wasted / the rule wasn't stupid, because the EU says so. Many such fact checks were entirely mendacious.
You can see an archive of the old website here:
https://wayback.archive-it.org/11980/20200131183933/https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/
To pick the last example they ever published, the Daily Mail reported correctly that due to a fear of GDPR fines, a German town had cancelled the tradition of writing letters to Santa Claus due to the personal information children included in the letters. In the "fact check" the EU states that writing letters to Santa Claus is allowed under GDPR because "data can be processed when a person has given their consent but also on the basis of other legal grounds" and "Santa Claus should have the contact details of a family in order to deliver presents on the wish list he received".
In other words, the GDPR did indeed ban it and then the EU did the usual thing of just making up arbitrary BS - literally in this case claiming that Santa Claus is real - and therefore there's no problem. The original article wasn't a myth.
Flick through the archives and you'll find endless waste.
Just from what we've seen, I figure it's all interconnected in one big web. That's part of the design, to make things so complicated it's less likely to be teased apart.
I think that's exactly right. USAID is just part of a network of supranational organizations - with usaid probably as the leader
USAID has been financing media in many countries, not just the USA.
It sounds like you've got your own USAID scandal in Deutschland. It's all going the same way - blowing up in their clever faces.
Well, that which cannot survive in daylight tends to die. Perhaps the left and the hatred they bring with it will soon die and Germany will get a more reasonable government.
Based title!
But seriously, this astroturfing of protests is getting ludicrous, also here in Britain. We've known for a while that democracy has been seen merely as a system to be appropriately manipulated by our more enlightened masters and rulers, but the brazen manner in which they do this is not going to fool any of us plebs for much longer...
I absolutely love your headline - 'tis brilliant, and not clickbait.
wish I could claim credit, various versions of this Russian reversal joke were current on German twitter last year when we were having our last government-sponsored freakout against the right
People protesting election outcomes = people protesting democracy.
Someone suggested replacing "democracy" with "liberalism" when the Left say they're defending it, and it makes a lot more sense.
"Our phony-baloney jobs" is an ever better replacement (see: Blazing Saddles)
Do the marchers themselves get paid? In cash or in kind such as free beer or coupons for free or discounted rock concerts or whatever? I can't believe so many Germans have so much free time on their hands. Or else they are really brainwashed to a similar degree as in 1933, which is "problematic" as they say.
Core activist groups absolutely get paid, generally via membership in various activist NGOs. They also have funds to develop networks of volunteers and affiliates to bring the numbers up, to organise transportation, etc.
Surely money is not the sole motivating factor here, though. The "feels" are more important for most of these clowns
it's at least to this extent important: without any chance of making a career in the field of censoring facebook or whining about "the right," a lot of these people would find vastly better things to do with their time and you would not have an activist scene that could be so easily turned on at the push of a button.
Dead right: I have been too quick to ignore the importance of hard cash in the American Empire!
If the money is turned off, so too will much of this noisy whining. Given how dicey the public finances are now, I can't wait.
El Salvador just witnessed the total and humiliating collapse of a highly-promoted anti-mining protest, right after USAID spigots were closed. Coincidence?
https://x.com/nayibbukele/status/1888692755993412010
Something similar in Norway I believe
Do you think there is central planning to these coordinated events? How large of a group of people are the ‘inception’ of such a plan, if indeed these are planned?
"Etc." includes buying pallets of bricks...
probably platforms like we have "Craigs list" they are looking for many "bodies"
to show up and there are indeed various incentives.
This reminds me of how Harris spent all of the campaign $$ on paying celebrities and painting murals on large buildings. These people are "community organizers" .... yay, and they get plenty from their wealthy funders like Soros and sons
And as we have just uncovered, Soros and those other wealthy funders get their money back through heavily-indirect grants from agencies such as USAID.
In my naivety I never considered that a “celebrity” would require payment for endorsing a politician. The trouble is that the endorsement becomes worthless as soon as it becomes known that money has changed hands. How can they face the public again? Or is that my naivety talking?
excellent question.
celebrity endorsements have become rather worthless, for example the ones that came out for Harris. The left applauds the endorsement and the rational people know it is just whoring. Then we just boycott their presence. that is not naivety you feel, I believe it is utter disappointment. Some people should just keep their thoughts to themselves. I have never heard of paying celebs but I know the Harris campaign did. Same with their reckless spending on other stupid things like huge painted murals...... which kind of reminds me of this HUGE sign the people are carrying. Just silly.
Did somebody mention celebrity endorsements?
https://substack.com/@alexilex1/note/c-92256255?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=2ya3v
Absolutely fine with facing the public. It's all about the grafting.
Outside of such discussions as this.
Have you ever seen the celebrity endorsement scam mentioned?
Same happened during covid.
I assumed that the “celebrities” were True Believers in the covid scam and welcomed the opportunity to signal their virtue to a wider audience. I wondered why on earth anybody would take the advice of a nonentity with absolutely no medical knowledge. But I realise the joke is on me.
> According to taz, 500,000 right-thinking Germans took to the streets this past weekend to combat the out-of-bounds radical views held by 52% of everybody
Preaching to the choir, but as it is relevant, I will copy in full a comment I left on one of my other substack regulars the other day:
----
There is no such thing as a spontaneous outpouring of organic opposition in the world. When protests are truly authentic like that, they end with every protestor in prison. This is true in every country in the world.
Every protest that every western citizen has ever seen in the past 50 years, satisfies one of the following conditions:
1) It's essentially astroturf, and exists not to protest anything, but to manufacture legitimacy for paths that the people in power already want to take
2) It's essentially a larp, completely toothless, and the powers that be ignore it because it doesn't matter.
3) It's real, and the overwhelming majority of people involved end up either dead or in prison.
I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to consider their ten most favourite historical protests and decide which box each fits in.
To me, this is almost tautological. Have you ever organized an event with more than 20 people? It requires logistics. Logistics requires management and money. An organic mass of regular people who all just so happen to have the same opinion some matter lack both management and money. Wherever that management and money came from, that is the source of the inauthenticity.
----
To push the envelope a little bit, consider the last two attacks on the US Capitol (June 2020 and January 2021, respectively), and the radical difference with which the attackers were treated. It's a fun exercise
Which image should we go with? Musk nailing reality to the interwebs's portal or all of Western political bureaucracy screaming "we need more fig leaves" as all of the rest of us stand in that big garden, apples in our hands, pointing.
Other than having my kid, of course, this is just the greatest moment in my lifetime. Every single day is our blow against them and they don't know how to stanch the bleeding.
Trump is delivering what Americans have not seen for decades -- actual consequences for actual malefactors. Just fired the CFO of FEMA today for funding luxury hotel rooms for illegals in NY instead of rebuilding hurricane victims in NC (which is their JOB, not illegals). No more bureaucrats "failing into promotions" like the guys who ran Fast & Furious.
While I’m glad she was fired I’m furious she’s not facing charges. You can steal 56 million and just get fired, only to get rehired immediately at twice that pay at some lefty university for sure. Why stop? You have everything to gain and nothing to lose. No, she deserves to be prosecuted, receive a fair trial, then come what may. Meaning, probably jail.
You're spot on; a rapist will rape until they're permanently stopped.
Its just like everything else with the Left.
See the latest. Total bullshit:
https://x.com/LawrenceBJones3/status/1889308183614697888?s=19
Or this:
https://x.com/DschlopesIsBack/status/1889094894234271782?s=19
They should be arrested. That's the bare minimum. Any ordinary person would face severe consequences for such actions.
It's outrageous that those who've screwed over the American people haven't been held accountable.
Enough is enough!
It's not as if it's been ruled out. The statute of limitations is quite generous.
PBS just axed two diversity executives--one making $400,000/yr.--who ran essential programming initiatives like "Meditation Mondays" and "Indigenous Healing Circles"--after a tip-off to The Free Press that they were being sneakily reassigned to a "wellness dept." or "station services."
But we ought to keep in mind that this crap has been going on for a very long time--over a half-century in my own experience as an indentured servant/wage slave in the private sector--and all them deep-endowed conservative think tanks where big names come and go did nothing but speak ironically, or ponderously, or sometimes derangedly but otherwise permitted two generations of kids of all ethnicities to be destroyed, one way or another.
So I hope the deluge sweeps away everyone who has ever been complicit in the destruction of liberal society which is not a bad thing as a concept but must be always carefully kept within intelligent bounds.
You're spot on; a rapist will rape until they're permanently stopped.
Its just like everything else with the Left.
See the latest. Total bullshit:
https://x.com/LawrenceBJones3/status/1889308183614697888?s=19
Or this:
https://x.com/DschlopesIsBack/status/1889094894234271782?s=19
They should be arrested. That's the bare minimum. Any ordinary person would face severe consequences for such actions.
It's outrageous that those who've screwed over the American people haven't been held accountable.
Enough is enough!
huge fancy sign, top notch quality
I suspect USAID paid the protesters to come out on such a very cold day. It is worth the money
Y’all just a few steps behind the US and Milei. Welcome to the wave, amigos!
In Göttingen earlier this month, a group of a few hundred protesters demonstrating for peace, freedom and an investigation of the corona pandemic were surrounded by a mob of thousands of counter-demonstrators screaming at them and calling them Nazis. These demonstrators with peace flags and signs including calling for solidarity with the vaccine injured, were forced by the mob to turn back. Of course this was celebrated in the media as another win against the threat of fascism. As someone who was wrecked by the biontech "vaccine," this "alliance against the right" literally adds insult to my injury.
I believe Joost Meerloo described these things as “delusion of understanding”. Menticide has been elevated to high art! Meerloo wrote this in 1950’s!
"Something has crept into our mechanized system of communication that has made our modes of thinking deteriorate. People too casually acquire ideas and concepts. They no longer struggle for a clear understanding. The popularized picture replaces the battle of the pros and cons of concepts. Instead of aiming at true understanding, people listen to thoughtless repetition, which gives them THE DELUSION OF UNDERSTANDING."
The Rape of the Mind | Joost A. M. Meerloo, M.D. (1956)
Great quote.
Reminds me of another in the same vein:
"The general public is being reduced to a state where people not only are unable to find out about the truth, but also become unable to search for the truth because they are satisfied with deception and trickery that have determined their convictions, satisfied with a fictitious reality created by design through the abuse of language."
- Joseph Piper
Excellent quotation. I love the phrase "delusion of understanding". At least in the past more people knew what they didn't know.