As much as he is loathed by the Establishment, he is a demon of their design.

Trump has toyed with the idea of running for president in prior elections. Trump would make television appearances and discuss the idea of being president. He was also an employee of NBC. Those runs were seen as momentary public relations moves to give himself visibility before declining to run and saying, “Oh by the way, check out The Apprentice that starts next month.” It was very savvy for a man who knows he needs to generate ratings and an awareness of his brand. Even then, Trump had high polling numbers versus the field.

This reveals the first contribution the system made to Trump’s run: the celebrity effect. Barack Obama was “Obama: the cool black guy” Hollywood had always told Americans about–until we discovered Obama was not that guy. There is the Clinton brand, and no one would vote for Hillary unless she was Bill’s wife. The Bush brand exists. There is value to being a symbolic figure that has some cache and is cool. How much power does the presidency really have? Not much, so let’s promote cool types who fit roles for our voting coalition to identify with to get into the booth. Trump is an international brand with decades of exposure. He can parlay this into solid polling numbers early solely due to name recognition. Why else would Hillary Clinton take selfies with Kim Kardashian that look like stills from a “Weekend at Bernie’s” reboot?

Hillary is alive right?

Trump is aware of branding. It generates income for him in his incredibly convoluted wealth holdings. Half of his value seems to be in being “The Donald”. Trump understands the media game runs the show with elections, and he is a skillful publicity hound and generator. Chuck Johnson has written about Trump’s understanding of the modern game. He can get everyone talking about him, which sucks the air out of the room for everyone else. Other candidates can die purely from obscurity and lack of air time. Trump has years of active Twitter use to get inside the media’s OODA loop and change the framing of any report. The media’s biased use of Twitter, as if it is the pulse of “the people” despite Twitter’s proven liberal and black demographic skew, allows Trump to use what is the equivalent of an Internet CB Radio to increase visibility and shape media coverage. The system has allowed Twitter to have an effect because Twitter is a leftist tool to shape narratives in the left’s favor.

The media itself contributes to his rise by how far left it leans, how it selects our leaders for us, and how nasty it has become. This is the media that included Barack Obama on a list of 100 greatest Americans–in 2005. Planting proper voting seeds can never be too early. The narrative framing and media reports feed Trump’s outsider appeal. Any attack on Trump by the media he can spin as baseless, gutter-style attacks, and the American public eats it up because the media is at record low approval ratings.

The media has spent decades slanting the news one way and chopping conservative heads off (see Gov. Christie + Bridgegate), so a conservative primary audience cheers as Trump calls them names and throws schoolyard insults their way. The media thinks this will doom him, yet he keeps bouncing along as Teflon Don. The media lives in a bubble and fails to see their faults. Proof of this is that Don Henley’s pop hit ripping the news media “Dirty Laundry” is thirty-years-old. Has the media improved since 1982? No, and Trump can prey on that track record and societal frustration with the media.

Trump is also tapping into a vein of life that is devoid on the professional left and barely existent on the professional right: machismo. Trump has a masculine energy that progressives have worked hard to erase from the managerial class and the pool of officials to select for a president. This energy exists in all walks of life on both the left and right, but the media, academics, and government officials do their best to subvert and attack it.

Trump could be slayed quickly if an experienced politician took him to task for his lack of substance or experience. None have yet because modern conflict values the victim and group consensus that requires persuasion and amiability. His bravado is magnetic, and the role of president has lacked magnetism for countless years. Americans have watched a black president admit to not smoking because he is afraid of his wife. Most of Governor Chris Christie’s draw early in his governorship was his “in your face” attitude when dealing with greedy public employees. With the talk of a rising Hispanic voting pool, forget Trump, maybe machismo has a bright future in American politics.

Trump’s very wealth and celebrity is a product of our modern economic and political system, and here is the second contribution made by the system to Trump’s run: the FIRE economy. In the early 1980s, the American economy transitioned to push more of the financial, insurance, and real estate sectors of the economy for growth. This created a debt-based asset bubble in the ’80s, but was not cemented until the Clinton years. Clinton’s administration took a finance-centric, strong dollar policy approach, rather than a weak dollar, labor-centric stance. Robert Rubin beat Robert Reich in the Oval Office meetings. Trump inherited massive real estate holdings. His wealth is based on government and monetary policies of inflating asset bubbles, ever decreasing interest rates, and policies that cater to wealthy asset holders and leverage. Trump is not a billionaire without this system’s policies.

The system’s fifth contribution is the absurd election process for picking a national leader. Anyone can run as long as they have the cash to spend on a staff and pay for media exposure through advertising and what not. As long as a candidate will spout what wealthy donors want said, they can run. This allows anyone to enter, which is exhibited in this cycle not just by Donald Trump, but by millionaire, failed executive and failed candidate Carly Fiorina and Dr. Ben Carson. Fiorina has money, can speak well, and is a woman. Dr. Ben Carson gave one speech where he chastised Barack Obama, and the GOP handlers can use him to make money consulting this election round for a guy going nowhere, who should not be within 100 miles of the Oval Office.

What qualifications do any of these three candidates have for what is supposedly an active role leading the nation? It is hard to argue against them after the whirlwind rise of Obama from middling state senator to president within five years.

Trump would still have nowhere to go and nothing to pitch, though, if not for the structural contribution by the system: creating the sandbox. The progressive cathedral has constructed a sandbox for polite, approved politicians to play in with many important topics off limits. Crime and immigration are two topics that are off-limits. Everything has become off-limits due to political correctness.

The system limited the sandbox’s size so much that they did not realize the wide open playground they left behind. Trump is running free in that zone. He openly states that there is no time for PC nonsense, which only makes him more appealing in an age of progressive endorsed protests of fast food chicken joints over private political opinions. He even noted in the first debate that if not for him, they would not even be talking about immigration. There are few critical jobs a national government is responsible for, and securing the territory from invaders is one. Trump latched onto this failure, and now he has a unique topic to run on that differentiates him from everyone else. He has an issue to pair with his name recognition.

The last contribution is that the system’s architects created such a transparently fake system that a man lacking sincerity like Trump can gain legitimacy by pointing out its fraudulent nature. Trump has donated to politicians on both sides. He can point out how bought and paid for all politicians are and the begging that politicians have to do because he has dealt with it first hand. In a world drowning in illusion that seeks authenticity in everything, Trump is supposedly offering voters a real candidate.

America elected Barack Obama with the tagline of “Hope and Change”. In eight years, not a single Wall Street executive has gone to jail or even been charged for any shenanigans in the 2007-2008 era. “Hope and Change” covered for the the 21st century Democratic corporate donor base. Obama’s greatest gift to the nation may be the disillusionment of the Millennials at such a young age about our corrupt political process. Boomers still cling to their ’60s illusions.

Perfect storm is a bad cliche in this instance. Trump is a logical manifestation of the system’s design. Todd Marinovich was a child bred and trained from his infancy to be the perfect NFL quarterback. It worked as his size and skill turned him into one briefly, but it failed. Why? All of those careful decisions and choices created a player so capable, so focused and impervious to stress that he could abuse drugs, drink and still play at a sharp, professional level. The progressive system has created a perfect little election process for their puppet leaders to rise and defeat the false opposition which never brings up taboo, yet critical issues. It increasingly became disconnected from the electorate.

Do not blame Trump for this wild, anti-system run. Blame the architects of the American political process. They created a Potemkin village.

The post Trump Is A Demon Of The Establishment’s Design appeared first on Social Matter.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “India is a vibrant democracy in a region dominated by autocracy, and it faces existential threats to its survival.” (source)

Senator Bernie Sanders: Weird. Sanders never quite answers anything or takes a definitive stand on India. If you heckle him about it, he will tell you to shut up. (source)

Senator Marco Rubio: “This is a historic and tragic mistake. India is not a Republican or Democratic issue. If this was a Republican president doing these things, I would give the exact same speech. In fact, I would be even angrier. This is outrageous, it is irresponsible, it is dangerous, and it betrays the commitment this nation has made to the right of a Hindu state to exist in peace.” (source)

Senator Ted Cruz: “Christians have no greater ally than India… if you will not stand with India and the Hindus, I will not stand with you. Good night and God bless.” (source)

Former Governor Rick Perry: “India needs more than our passive support—it needs our vigorous support.” (source)

Former Governor Jeb Bush: “With India, those interests lie in a firm alliance. India and America must work together to build a more prosperous and hopeful future for the region. A state for the Muslim people, side by side with Hindus, will be possible only if the Muslim people are represented by leaders committed to delivering on the promises made at the negotiating table.” (source)

Governor Scott Walker: “Yet even as you stand there, reflecting on the consequential events of two millennia ago, you recognize India is not merely a place of shrines and holy sites. India is one of the world’s most vibrant democracies and one of America’s most important allies.” (source)

Senator Lindsay Graham: “I am in charge of the foreign assistance account, I’m in charge of the money we provide for the United Nations,” he explained, referring to his chairmanship of an appropriations subcommittee.  “We provide 25 percent of the funding for the organization,” Mr. Graham said, several times. “I’m not going to ask the American taxpayer to fund an organization that’s going to be used in a way to marginalize” India, which he called “our best friend.” (source)

Senator Rand Paul: (bold in original) “I’m proud to support India, America’s longtime friend and ally in the East. Indian cafés and buses are bombed, towns are victimized by hundreds of rockets, and its citizens are attacked by Muslim terrorists. It’s time we took a stand for India by standing up to the enemies of India, the enemies that murder Israeli citizens. That’s why I proposed a bill called the “Stand with India Act” to cut off the flow of U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Muslim Authority.” (source)

Donald “Alpha” Trump: “The only [candidate] that’s going to give real support to India is me,” said the 69-year-old Trump. “The rest of them are all talk, no action. They’re politicians. I’ve been loyal to India from the day I was born. My father, Fred Trump, was loyal to India before me. The only one that’s going to give India the kind of support it needs is Donald Trump.” (source)

Governor Chris Christie: “I absolutely believe that India is a priority to be able to fund and keep them strong and safe after eight years of this administration.” (source: GOP Debate)

All of these quoted bits are about Israel, not India. I swapped India for Israel, changed Jewish to Hindu, and pulled out Palestinian where appropriate. I could have taken quotes from each GOP candidate in their primary circus, but I wanted visible names to show how silly it looks when all put together. India is an apt substitute per the description in the opening paragraph. All of those items hold true. India is also a bigger trade partner with the US. Indian-Americans now make up 1% of the US population, which is nearly the Jewish share (1.8%). India itself is also a gigantic nation of strategic importance due to its location, friction with China, and immense population.

>We do not have politicians waving their hands around like maniacs and spouting off non-stop nonsense about India because they do not fund our political campaigns. There is no powerful AIPAC for India. American newsrooms are not stocked with Priya Shukla and Sandeep Gurnani pontificating on the need for America to cater to India’s needs. American television shows are not stocked with Indian sidekick friends, and stand-up is not dominated by the likes of Nishant Chuptabanjawa. I like how Israel manages its nation for its people. I do think they go overboard creating problems for themselves because they never know when to cool it. America destroyed any sense of a balance to Middle East foreign policy because Israel’s cousins in America run our media.

Now for the flip side. What actually should be our interest in the Middle East? Consistent supplies of oil to keep the price per barrel low in our currency. The goal should be protecting transit routes for safe delivery and patrolling key straits. Israel does not produce oil. Israel is not located on any straits. Our interest should be in making oil and gas producer regimes stable without encouraging blowback. America should be tough on any nation that antagonizes those oil producers and starts arms races, whether Arab, Persian, or Israeli. Israel is a thorn in the side of those oil states. America should have worked to remove all nukes from that area to reduce tension. If the Sampson Option is real and linked to a Doomsday device like the Russians had, this is a hugely destabilizing presence when the antagonists are Muslims with end times beliefs.

Instead, America spent the post-WWII decades enabling and aiding the creation of the Israeli state, its air force, and its nuclear arsenal (even aiding and covering up the nukes). Instead, American media and academia also cleared out the Arabist wing of our foreign policy intelligentsia. Instead, America is going to allow one of the worst spies in American history leave prison for a short hold in the US and then a pension and retirement in Israel. America may want to change foreign allies or avoid wars, but we cannot do so because of the Israeli lobby. To point out that peculiar interest would notice Jewish overrepresentation in the cultural gatekeeper system.

It runs deeper than just who is where in the system, but how our system is set up. Democracy allows money to settle elections–not just internal money, but money from any source that can find a way to set up a political action committee. Here is a list of pro-Israeli donations to different representatives and senators. That money matters as nearly twenty five years ago it turned a 40% point deficit into a 10% win in a special U.S. Senate election, all because President Bush (41) did not toe the Israeli line. AIPAC is flying all but three of the freshman Congressmen to Israel for a push to block the Iranian nuclear deal. Checks and balances, where money can find new ways to work its magic on elected leaders.

This is our system, and our rotated leaders–paid for by sponsors of any interest–are up against some long standing regimes without the fear of elections. The deal does appear weaker than the original goals from a decade ago when the 5+1 talks began. The main goal of negotiations switched from dismantling the nuclear program in return for sanction removal to preventing nuclear bomb capabilities for sanction removal. Read Obama fanboy Politifact’s strained take on that in the final paragraph, namely that the evil, GOP Senator is not telling the truth, unless you want to count a switch in stance seven years after 5+1 talks began as a concession. That, too, is a function of a desperate White House wanting any deal.

At the base of the issue, who does a nuclear capable Iran threaten more, America or Israel? Israel, not America, yet tens of millions will be poured into blocking or pushing this deal over the top. The system of democracy allows money to pull the USG leviathan in directions it should never go and protect interests that have nothing to do with American risks. This is but one reason why this system must go.

The post The Absurdity Of America’s Devotion To Israel appeared first on Social Matter.

To start, it is best to consider the great Middle East game that the U.S. plays as imperial master. America has clients, America has interests, and America can be pulled in directions to act in manners that serve their clients. The Arab Spring of 2011 saw protests throughout the Middle East and North Africa. America was quite fed up with American boys going in as boots on the ground. Toppling secular dictators would have to be performed in a different manner.

Even in the just a “No Fly Zone” (publicly declared) conflict in Libya, word leaked that the rebels had Al-Qaeda links. As much as Americans hated the idea of more American troops dying to topple tinpot dictators, working with Al-Qaeda was still unpalatable. Shortly thereafter, Osama Bin Laden was killed in a housing complex right next door to the Pakistani military academies with American attack choppers flying a hundred or so miles into and out of Pakistan without a single Pakistani jet in pursuit.

America still needed a ground game for the Syria operation. The Gulf kingdoms would provide money because they could get a pipeline through a new Syria. Egypt did not need a ground game since the Muslim Brotherhood was already active there, but what to do in Syria? The problem was how to collect, train, and arm men to use as ground forces.

The ever-enthusiastic folks at Zero Hedge will say the Pentagon created ISIS, but that is not entirely true. No one should downplay the money and arms that Gulf kingdoms and Turkey provided to ISIS. The Pentagon and Western forces have provided aid to ISIS, and without this aid, it would be impossible for ISIS to have grown as they have. ISIS took advantage of the conditions that were in place to burst through their terrible condition within Iraq.

What ISIS really is in personnel is the deep security state men of the old Sunni Ba’athist regime in Iraq. These are men who were competent in Hussein’s regime and were respected members in the Sunni tribal network in the Anbar province stronghold. These were men formerly in charge of Iraq who saw their nation go “democratic” and the Shia majority promptly took over their old roles. The Shias also consolidated their hold on the security forces, and after the Americans left, went from security to simply harassing the Sunnis. These were men excluded from decision-making. They were men with valuable war-making skills and organizational acumen.

They were also men who had learned from watching secular leaders get tossed out not just by the West, but their own people. If you read up on Egyptian 19th century history, you will read of figurehead Egyptian leaders (the Khedive) with Turkish-Syrian-Armenian staffs under British guidance controlling a massive Arab population that had sympathies with the very radical Muslims. Lord Cromer was always wary of that radical mass. These Ba’athists figured something out: why be the face, when you can use a religious puppet as the face of your regime and keep the community in order and socially and culturally aligned with you? The Arab Street has increasingly gone further and further down the path of Islamification of society and supporting Sharia law. Do not fight the tide, find a way to co-opt it for your goals. If you understand the concept of the trike in neoreactionary circles, you might see something similar in ISIS.

They had military capabilities, but the Ba’athists lacked the connection and legitimacy that Al-Qaeda had within the 21st century Arab world. From Spiegel’s wonderful inside review of ISIS documents is this remarkable passage (italics added),

In 2010, Bakr and a small group of former Iraqi intelligence officers made Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the emir and later “caliph,” the official leader of the Islamic State. They reasoned that Baghdadi, an educated cleric, would give the group a religious face.

Bakr was “a nationalist, not an Islamist,” says Iraqi journalist Hisham al-Hashimi, as he recalls the former career officer, who was stationed with Hashimi’s cousin at the Habbaniya Air Base. “Colonel Samir,” as Hashimi calls him, “was highly intelligent, firm and an excellent logistician.” But when Paul Bremer, then head of the US occupational authority in Baghdad, “dissolved the army by decree in May 2003, he was bitter and unemployed.”

Thousands of well-trained Sunni officers were robbed of their livelihood with the stroke of a pen. In doing so, America created its most bitter and intelligent enemies. Bakr went underground and met Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Anbar Province in western Iraq. Zarqawi, a Jordanian by birth, had previously run a training camp for international terrorist pilgrims in Afghanistan. Starting in 2003, he gained global notoriety as the mastermind of attacks against the United Nations, US troops and Shiite Muslims. He was even too radical for former Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Zarqawi died in a US air strike in 2006.

Although Iraq’s dominant Baath Party was secular, the two systems ultimately shared a conviction that control over the masses should lie in the hands of a small elite that should not be answerable to anyone — because it ruled in the name of a grand plan, legitimized by either God or the glory of Arab history. The secret of IS’ success lies in the combination of opposites, the fanatical beliefs of one group and the strategic calculations of the other.

The greatest feat the old Ba’athists did was to resist the urge for glorification and public validation. They strategically made a choice to use a religious man as the designated leader. Conider the original Western news reports on ISIS as it first emerged. All focus was on al-Baghdadi and his religious appeal. The true leadership, the true head of the snake and the true brains of the operations were the military men of the old Hussein regime.

These military men could play the game with Western outreach in 2011 and 2012, as the military men would appear moderate to Western contacts looking for pieces to fund and supply to topple Assad. No one knows what was agreed to, who tricked whom, but it is curious that ISIS never talks of Israel. America did not act as the airforce for ISIS, but someone else did. Note that Israel bombs Assad’s forces, which does help ISIS. America has blocked efforts by Arab allis to supply the Kurds, who have shown themselves as the only non-Assad force able to beat back ISIS. Curious, since ISIS destroyed the Iraqi army and confiscated tonnes of American-supplied equipment. The structure of ISIS and clear siloing of responsibilities within ISIS allows it to morph and play people well.

Forget their military manipulations, their destruction of Al-Qaeda is their greatest achievement. Their massacre of Al-Qaeda has many features. First, ISIS is winning. ISIS is doing something. Osama bin Laden himself said Arabs will back a strong horse. Al-Qaeda is a lot of talk with a few random attacks; 9/11 is almost fifteen years ago. Second, by proclaiming the caliphate and engaging in barbaric acts and practices that are straight out of the Koran, ISIS shows young Muslim men that living their life like the heroic tales of Muhammad is possible.

ISIS can recruit cannon fodder because the promise is not 72 virgins when they die for Allah, but a real world, tangible delivery of fighting secular losers, possible sex slaves, beheading an apostate or Christian, and YouTube glory. Third, the YouTube glory matters. While Al-Qaeda would put out an audio track every so often, ISIS has grabbed ahold of the social media phenomenon and run like gazelles. Even if they are produced by the CIA and struggling Hollywood flunkies with green screens to make beaches, the videos are going to appeal to men in the Middle East and Muslims all over the world who the West imported and offered nothing but cheap materialism to.

The most important factor though in toppling Al-Qaeda was al-Baghdadi himself. See, the very structure of Al-Qaeda made it effective. It was a loose network with a shared goal, little hierarchy, and it treated newcomers as franchises in essence. One could not quite kill Al-Qaeda because it was like throwing a rock at a net, not a crystal ship. Snip off leadership or one wing, and the brand lives on elsewhere. If you read the dissertation on spy networks by Blake Mobley, he mentions the flexibility of networks and how decentralized networks offer great advantages. Al-Qaeda could thrive because of new technology and the organizational structure that it employed with networks and peer-to-peer validation and vouching.

There is a major weakness that Mobley cites. Loose, decentralized networks are incredibly susceptible to single entryists, especially if the entryist is from another organization with a tight, hierarchical structure. This is what ISIS did. ISIS used al-Baghdadi to make friends with the religious thinkers and leaders of Al-Qaeda on behalf of their organization that they controlled from a military perspective. Al-Qaeda also had the problem of the death of their symbolic figurehead leader, Osama bin laden, and confusion at the top. ISIS had a set structure and defined mission. Now they had an opportunity. Al-Baghdadi gave ISIS religious legitimacy to the outside Muslim within Al-Qaeda. Within the jihad community, suddenly ISIS had legitimacy, cache, and a call to arms. Men flowed to ISIS rather than Al-Qaeda.

The two radical, Islamic scholars cited in the article on how ISIS crippled Al-Qaeda sound like old men angry at young whippersnappers.

Both men are particularly appalled, they said, by the way Isis has used their scholarship to cloak its savagery in ideological legitimacy, to gain recruits and justify its battle with al-Qaida and its affiliates. “Isis took all our religious works,” Maqdisi said. “They took it from us – it’s all our writings, they are all our books, our thoughts.” Now, Abu Qatada said, “they don’t respect anyone”.

These radicals who sip tea and make time for interviews with the British press are angry that ISIS is taking their work to its logical conclusion. These are men who would issue fatwas on cartoonists for drawing Muhammad or defend the concept of honor killing women who have been raped. They are appalled at ISIS’ savagery and upset that ISIS does not show them proper respect.

These radical clerics sipping tea in Jordan, thankful that they are not in jail, confirm the structural issues that created the opportunity for entryism.

But despite their personal affection for his [OBL’s] successor, Zawahiri – whom they call “Dr Ayman” – they both admit that he does not possess the authority and control to rebuff the threat from Isis. From the “very beginning” of his tenure, Zawahiri lacked “direct military or operational control,” Qatada said. “He has become accustomed to operating in this decentralised way – he is isolated.”

According to Maqdisi, al-Qaida’s organisational structure has “collapsed”. Zawahiri, Maqdisi said, “operates solely based on allegiance. There is no organisational structure. There is only communication channels, and loyalty.” And unfortunately for Zawahiri, Isis has done its utmost to ensure that loyalty is in short supply.

Al-Qaeda lacked a strict hierarchy. This was not just due to Osama bin Laden’s death but over a decade of Western forces picking off leadership. Al-Qaeda had been set up a bit like an old Mafia regime was destroyed by American efforts in the post-9/11 era. To survive, they adapted and became flexible, focusing on the network and stressing allegiance. This is how the tightly structured and multi-winged ISIS organization could send in a religious, scholarly man to hide motives and and intent to gain trust and validation.

ISIS has taken advantage of the very 20-year plan that Al-Qaeda formulated. Al-Qaeda offered an alternative to lost young Muslims of jihad and discredited contemporary regimes in the Middle East. Al-Qaeda wanted to establish a caliphate in the 2013-2016 time range. ISIS has done so, and overtaken Al-Qaeda using its own ideological and spiritual blueprint. They made it a reality, and replaced the call to jihad with the call to the Caliphate. They took advantage of the global game board and the game itself to deliver on the empty promises of Al-Qaeda. On top of this, ISIS actually had experienced military strategists of recent warfare, not cave-dwelling plotters who last fought when Ronald Reagan was in office. ISIS’ structure of a military wing and a religious wing working together in separate realms allows this to happen, and allows them to be more effective than Al-Qaeda in all regards. Al-Baghdadi was the carefully placed entryist to disrupt and destroy Al-Qaeda as a rival for men, resources and legitimacy on the Arab Street.

Western speakers talk of winning the ideological war. State Department figures like Marie Harf mention the need to provide jobs to Muslims so they won’t sign up for jihad. They are missing that empty materialism and 21st century progressive talking points do not matter to men just one generation removed from the Middle East, who feel atomized and listless in the West. What the Western media does not want to talk about is that these Muslims signing up for jihad reveal just how much of a failure the immigration and assimilation movements have been that they push daily. These second and even third generation Muslim men are going through the Western system, earning degrees and working regular jobs, but dropping them all for a chance to fight for ISIS.

These are not actual Brits and Swedes joining the fight. These are foreigners who live in the West to serve progressive purposes and provide progressive votes (93% for Hollande in France), but they have no connection to their host nations. To admit that admits the folly of immigration and wickedness of progressive plans. To admit that reveals the emptiness of the progressive Brave New World.

Now with eager fighters streaming in, ISIS can keep the fight going with Assad and the Iraqis who get help from Iran and their superstar General Soleimani, but nothing seems certain. The Kurds, the one group able to beat ISIS back, are now being bombarded by the Turks, in addition to fighting off ISIS. What is certain reading the news reports is that ISIS makes money to keep the government running through regular businesses, and the oil proceeds are a bonus on top of it. Iran and the West may have a nuclear deal done. This changes the game. Does Assad stay? What happens where? I am a little biased, as I wrote in 2013 about breaking Assad and Syria to redraw the Middle East map. Let’s go back to the original media mystery: what does ISIS want?

If ISIS is really just a manifestation of Sunni Iraq’s desire for sovereignty, then ISIS may very well be content with the Syrian civil war ending with little rump states along the coast for the Alawites, Christians, Shia and secular residents of the Mediterranean coast. The condition will be that they get their piece of land to call home. They just have to survive. If ISIS is viewed through the lens of Sunni sovereignty, then they are a bloody means to get to the statement by then-Senator and now Vice President Joe Biden that Iraq should be partitioned into three states (Kurd/Sunni/Shia). This very well could lead to the Kurds requesting their piece of land for home, and even without ISIS, Kurdistan will become a reality. Changes politically next door in Turkey help, as the ruling party may be open to slicing off the Kurdish eastern part of Turkey (a prickly demographic/political issue akin to US-Mexico), which would put their ruling party back into dominance. Without Kurds fighting them, will the Shia Iraqis want to? Will Iran want to waste money and blood supporting them? A settlement can be made. ISIS can claim other goals as there are Sunni Arab leaders to topple elsewhere, especially if Uncle Sam wants to see regime change.

That blood and soil connection is missed among the Western media pieces. It is known but dodged. It is the reason Western media outlets report that ISIS uses Western Muslim recruits for suicide missions and cannon fodder; they are not Sunni Arab Iraqi, so let them die first. ISIS represents a rebellion not just against Western materialism and supranational global forces forcing resolutions, but against a forced multicultural nation. Iraq has had the highest fertility rate in the Middle East since the American invasion of 2003. It is a tense place with a growing population. The leadership of ISIS is made up of men revolting after being backed into a corner in their own nation–a nation they formerly ran. That hits too close for home with many of the reporters looking at their domestic political situation where they push multikulti happiness on unwilling natives. Ethnostates are a no-no with Western media, but amidst the chaos in the Middle East, stability and order might come from their establishment.

This is not an endorsement of ISIS. Maybe their towns are hell holes. ISIS was a band of men who took advantage of the situation on the ground and the needs of global bigwigs to craft a message and build what has become a small nation. When they clear out Iraqi government forces from a town, they are clearing out Shia elements. Sunni rule for Sunnis. It took sacrifice on the part of some of the leaders to deny themselves public glorification and the recognition that the warriors will fight to provide security, while the holy leaders will craft the soul and community. ISIS does exist due to Imperial America not squashing it with massive airstrikes, but their blueprint is working. Their methods may serve as a guide for others as the American Empire slowly unravels. Old maps of dying orders will be redrawn. Blood and soil may settle the new borders. The Middle East may just be the start.

The post The Structure And Genius Of ISIS appeared first on Social Matter.

War had changed significantly from the start of the Great War, growing mechanized and taking to the skies at greater speeds and for more important missions. Like an industrialized economy, industrialized warfare’s life blood is oil and its derivative products. It is easy to hate on evil, polluting fossil fuels today, but without oil, no global war on two far flung fronts could be handled as skillfully as the US did in World War II.

The set up to WWII had multiple players making moves to secure oil. Hitler had learned from Mussolini that the threat of an oil embargo during his Ethiopian campaign made him press on faster, as any supply cut would have forced him to withdraw immediately. The Nazis leaned on I.G. Farben and synthetic fuels to supply its war machine. Hydrogenation of coal would be how the Germans would make up for their petroleum disadvantage compared to the Soviets, British, and the Americans. Germany, under Goering’s economic mismanagement, had a strange quest for autarky, thinking that if they could be self contained, they would not be harmed by economic consequences to warfare. Others within the Reich made nice with smaller nations in southeast Europe to secure their oil exports, with 58% of the oil imports coming from the Ploesti oil fields of Romania. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact specifically included oil exports from Russia into Germany.

The US used the oil weapon against the Japanese as part of diplomatic sanctions for Japanese aggression in the Pacific. These were the days when the US was a dominant oil power, so an embargo left the Japanese in 1940 facing an active war against China and only two years of oil supplies. Taking oil properties from European powers in the Pacific in a Japanese version of blitzkrieg was their answer that led up to Pearl Harbor. The Japanese island conquering was an eastern mirror image of the Nazi push into the Russia agriculture and oil areas. 

Oil and fuel supplies were on everyone’s mind. Hitler was quoted as saying, “My generals know nothing about the economic aspects of war,” as his initial idea was to drive south and take over the black earth area of Ukraine and Baku oil fields. Moscow was too big a prize to resist. Britain, the lumbering, aging empire, kept its supply lines open and placed supreme importance on defending choke points. The Battle of the Atlantic had at its center U-boat Wolf Packs hunting giant tankers of oil supplying the British. American aid before direct involvement was in allocating tankers to the Brits to keep their island nation standing firm.

In addition to Germany’s coal to fuel work, there was America’s expansion of its pipeline network from oil producing states to east coast refineries, and Russia’s attempts at developing its oil sector for more exports for more hard currency. American ingenuity and hard pressure by oil companies to push up on the price cap to boost exploration and development increased America’s production from 3.7 million barrels per day in 1940 to 4.7 million barrels per day in 1945. Considering oil depletion rates, the 30 percent increase in production in five years is a staggering thought in an era where an increase of one million barrels per day is considered a dream by men such as T. Boone Pickens.

War had changed. Mechanized armor brought about new strategies. Even when the Germans were fighting the Poles in ’39, they had some supplies still on horse-drawn units. Operation Barbarossa began with three million troops, 600,000 motor vehicles and 625,000 horses. Not much later, the Nazis and Soviets would engage in the largest tank battle ever at Kursk. No horses. Air battles and bombing involved jet fuel, as well as ingredients for explosives. Radar guided the RAF to faster interception points, but there are those who credit the 100 octane jet fuel of the Spitfires over the 87 octane Luftwaffe planes with the deciding edge. Synthetic rubber mattered as Japan in the early days of the Pacific war had taken control of much of the world’s natural rubber harvesting regions (at that time). America could only respond to the extremely wide gaps in the Pacific battlegrounds effectively because of their oil resources that fueled the joint air and naval efforts of MacArthur as he island hopped his way up the Pacific.

The US was a powerhouse with no exaggeration, as it supplied six billion of the total 7 billion of oil consumed by the Allies in World War II. The other key was that American oil supplies were in a safe zone. US oil was a California, Texas and Midwest affair, protected by two oceans and miles of land from invasion. It could be transported along the coasts or through pipelines. This was far more reliable than the British sources that were flung around the Empire’s colonies. The Nazis and Japanese never had such luxury. Their fuel sources were in occupied lands. Not just raw materials, but the Allies also had decades of technical expertise in maximizing their petroleum resources.

The American continental geographic security mattered. Two battles, taking place nearly in synch, reveal oil’s importance: Stalingrad and El Alamein. The battles are known as the turning point in the war both in Churchill’s speeches and for when defeats ended and victories began for the Allies. Some historians will say that the Battle of Moscow was the turning point between the Nazis and Soviets and write compelling cases. Stalingrad is when defeat in the east was cemented for the Nazis. Both battles were about oil.

With either the oil of the Middle East or the oil of the Soviet fields, the Nazis would have breathing room for supplying their highly efficient mechanized forces. The Nazis were attempting to take the Suez and Palestine, with plenty of sympathetic figures in the Middle East due to decades of occupation and the common enemy of Jewish interests. Arabs love a strong horse, and it is hard to see them resist signing up with the Nazis if Rommel’s tanks had cleaned the British out. Rommel and Hitler both fed each other excited tales of the dream of crushing the British and Soviets and meeting up in the Baku oil fields with victory certain. Even without the oil, taking the Suez would cut the Empire in two, making raw material transit much longer and more exposed to U-boats. The Mediterranean becoming a Nazi lake would make efforts to invade Mitteleuropa much tougher. 

Operation Blau was a direct assault on the Soviet oil fields. Stalingrad was Hitler’s attempt to correct the mistake of the broad front advance in ’41. With the element of surprise in ’41, had the Germans simply pushed harder towards the Caucasus rather than make a move to Moscow, they could have taken the oil fields of the south without any destroyed wells. By mid-’42, the Russians and Germans had been fighting for a year and destruction of the wells would take place even if they fell to the Germans. Nazis reached destroyed wells that they could not rehabilitate. Stalingrad became a bigger problem, and what was a sideshow for the true objective turned into a defining moment. Through bloody fights over multiple months, Stalingrad held.

The long pushback had begun. The advantage of American men and not just material would pour in, and the oil would flow, fueling the ever-growing number of Allied planes, tanks, and troop transports. The last gasp of the Nazi war machine died in the western forests. Some of the tanks that survived the onslaught of the Battle of the Bulge ran out of fuel and had to be abandoned. Even Hitler’s odd quest for super weapons would do him no good without oil to make the war economy go. How would a jet fighter help if it did not have the fuel to fly?

Geniuses in Los Alamos building the bomb, Rosie the Riveter, radar, the Jeep, lady code breakers… these groups all get a glorified showing in Hollywood and news media recaps of WWII. These are easy, progressive-approved items of technology and diversity. The millions of Russian dead get air time when politically convenient. Few, if any, give a nod to the good roustabouts, pipeline architects and petroleum engineers that made everything go. Like our modern world, no one ever wants to admit that everything we enjoy floats on a sea of oil.

The post Hidden History: Oil Won World War II appeared first on Social Matter.

There is an old political concept of “money honest” and then dirty politicians. Money honest meant that a politician would not take a direct bribe for a government contract, but if you placed business with his private business, he would make sure government contracts came your way. This is the basics of the Clinton Foundation corruption scheme. They take in money for their foundation, magically your business or policy desires get shepherded through the system, and the Clintons can claim there was no bribery involved. What the American government has going on with the Sinaloas looks to be a similar situation.

The Sinaloas is the cartel that dominates the American drug market. They hold 80% of the meth market, and operate in thousands of American cities. They have set up shop in Chicago as the American hub for their distribution. The Sinaloa cartel controls the heroin trade routes, and dominates the heroin market. The spike in heroin and meth supply is supposedly due to the decriminalization of marijuana, which has just happened in three states. This makes little sense, as the rise in supply started before Colorado’s referendum, and marijuana is widely used across the U.S. The meth spike is due to the American crackdown on domestic producers that started over a decade ago. Heroin’s spike is most likely due to the rise in opiate demand. Drugs are a two-way street, so America’s empty, atomized citizens clamor for a high, and they are finding escape with products provided by the Sinaloas. Mexican gangsters should be easy to spot in America.

They are not. America is now 17% Hispanic. There are 40 million Americans of Mexican descent living in the lower 48. Sam Quinones’ book Dreamland illustrates how Mexican immigration has allowed a setting in white bread America that makes it easier for Mexican drug gangs to operate. Drug dealers find it much easier to blend in when Americans see similar guys working the the “blow and mow” crews on business park grounds. This is when the Sinaloas are not spreading their product directly to urban black gangs that our cities fail to address from a criminal or social standpoint. In NY Times Magazine’s long profile on the cartel, the Sinaloas come off as a business that buys everyone they can, tries to avoid bloodshed, and even grows marijuana in far northern America (Wisconsin). This is only possible with lax immigration enforcement and a porous border.

It gets worse, though, since the NY Times profile missed some opportunities for follow up. Other reporters have looked at how Fast and Furious was most likely a secret deal between the Sinaloas and the DEA. This is arming narcoterrorists that operate in a nation that international watchdogs and geopolitical pundits consider a borderline failed state. Business Insider confirmed that these deals and even worse went on for, roughly, the last 15 years. BI made sure to say it was not proof the U.S. government supported them, but in putting the pieces together, it makes sense. American forces also helped nabbed the head of Los Zetas, who were a rival to the Sinaloas and far more violent cartel in general. The closer one looks, the more it appears the American government picked a winner in the cartel wars.

One of the theories was that “picking” the Sinaloas would allow for less violence, a more stable Mexico, and a safer border. Those are all failures and poor excuses. Cartel violence continues to rage in Mexico. Mexico never cleans up its act because they can simply push problems northward. Up north, there seems to be a government willing to help the Sinaloas. America does not directly help the Sinaloas, but besides the gun deals and informing, look at the details of how federal policy at the border helps the cartel smuggle drugs. Border patrols and agents are criticized for shootings and are hamstrung in who they can investigate or what they can do. Senator Jeff Sessions released a painstakingly detailed timeline of the federal government’s policies, procedures and executive orders under President Obama that have created our southern border nightmare.

This is nothing new, as terrible federal decisions like the ’86 Amnesty, the 1996 Bill Clinton “Oh No the Peasants are Noticing” immigration law that was never enforced, and President Bush’s lax border security, despite a huge expansion of homeland security in the name of terrorism, all contributed to this meaningless border. Add to all of this the idea of no border fence of any sort and minimal container screening, and it is a recipe for moving product. El Chapo dug a tunnel under the border to smuggle drugs, which was a game changer for smuggling but just the latest innovation on the fake border.

From a bigger picture perspective, America sends planes, attack helicopters, and thousands of troops to any Middle East flare up, yet cannot be bothered to secure the border. Our border cities, like Laredo, Texas, have become crime-infested, glorified refugee camps for Mexicans escaping cartel violence. This border issue is not a local governance problem, but a federally created monster. Federally created, not something Obama created on his own, because this is the result of our permanent government, that is, agencies aligning with large corporate interests to flood America with more and more workers to increase profits, as well as more and more government resource consumers and users to feed the bureaucratic monster.

Very few people are saying D.C. is in bed with the Sinaloas. Reputable media outlets say the American government is not in bed with the Sinaloas. If there is an out for the Feds, it is the “money honest” concept. The Feds are not giving the Sinaloas guns to help them – wait, they are. The Feds are not moving the drugs for them, but they do restrict border agents, do not inspect all large containers, and never secure the border. The Feds are not setting up the Sinaloas in cities, but they have poorly enforced all immigration laws in order to flood our cities with Little Mexicos for easier cover.

The Sinaloas just have bought everyone in Mexico; it couldn’t possibly happen here. Like a “money honest” politician, the Feds are not working with the Sinaloas per se. The Feds just create the perfect working environment for Sinaloan ground teams, the perfect Swiss cheese border for Sinaloan smugglers, in addition to arresting the competition’s leaders and selling the Sinaloas guns.

The post The Washington-Sinaloa Connection: Another Failed Attempt To Fund The ‘Good’ Side appeared first on Social Matter.

No. Legitimacy comes from widespread acceptance, not from imposition. Negative referendums, brow-beating by the media and volunteer thought police and five Supreme Court justices are not the sign of widespread acceptance. William Safire was right over a decade ago when he wrote that this gay marriage push was all over one word “marriage” and the legitimacy and approval that it granted. Those shocked at how fast this all happened may point to gay propaganda, but it is not just that. The media and academia smeared marriage long enough to remove the sacredness of the institution.

Many point to the skyrocketing support for gay marriage that has occurred in recent years. There are large, well-respected polls going back to the mid ’90s that show support around 25% and even in the mid ’00s support around 35%. It was a minority opinion to support gay marriage, but the conceptual granting of some recognition was not a minority. Tracking right along those same polls that showed a majority against gay marriage, were polls that showed a near majority or clear majority supported recognition of civil unions for homosexuals. A couple of decades of ‘gay is okay’ and ‘just like us’ propaganda did help put gay marriage over the top, as did five Supreme Court justices and every major corporation not named Chik-Fil-A.

Eventually enough Americans who already felt okay with gays being granted civil unions gave in on the word marriage. The religious did not do so, and that is because they could foresee the eventual fight over religion in general. The irreligious middle did. The somewhat religious caved. The type of people who say, “Half of all marriages end in divorce anyway so why not?” pushed it along. Half is a lie, but a lie the media loves to push. The divorce rate for first time marriages is under 40% now, and depends on the socioeconomic and educational status of the bride. Marriage is not a 50-50 chance as much as a 70% chance of succeeding. A bride over 25 with a college degree has a divorce rate half of the average.

Divorce has become an underclass plague with heavy correlation to minority brides, but no one wants to discuss that because we cannot criticize our duskier underclass for dysfunctional behavior. It is another method of using poor decisions and life outcomes of the underclass to manipulate core, middle class Americans into accepting, condoning, and emulating bad behavior.

Hollywood, the greatest propaganda machine ever created, consistently pumps out a message that marriage is no longer sacred in our culture. Television shows featured divorced leads, unhappily married women, unhappily married men, and few stable, loving marriages to serve as anchors for their familial networks. The act of getting married turned became the focus, rather than spiritual bonding, with the wedding day turning into a wedding pageant. The average wedding costs over $25,000, but in reality, many couples spend less than $10,000. Still, the status race for bigger and better weddings has grown. Psychotic behavior by brides has become a joke to the point where reality television has wedding shows named Bridezilla or micromanaged wedding pageant contests like Four Weddings.

Lost in that is that the wedding signifies the public declaration and recognition of a sacred union between man and woman. This is lost in topping prior weddings for food, covered chairs, decorations, music and party favors. It is a show where the woman is the star and the man just has to show up.

The activists sold you on marriage just being a list of benefits married people enjoyed, so gays needed that equal treatment, too. There are all of these benefits, and our egalitarian society can never deny someone government gimmedats. No one would pause for a moment and note the concrete financial benefits that the federal and state governments provide to unmarried mothers versus married mothers, but gosh darn it, one time in some mythical hospital a gay guy could not visit his lover dying of AIDS. Civil unions could grant all of the same benefits, but that was not enough. The gays wanted the word marriage. They wanted to be able to say to mom and dad, “See my relationship is real, buy me an anniversary card!” The homosexuals needed to receive auspices for their unions, and if the churches were still going to frown upon them, then the government could grant them that legitimacy. They failed to see that all they earned was the right for the government to administer their break ups.

The media created a false debate “marriage or no” to paint a battle between the evil bigots and righteous crusaders. No one mentioned the civil union approach. That solution was junked quickly, tipping the real target for using gays: religion. The Supreme Court even mentioned granting dignity in the ruling, which is comical considered how smeared marriage has become. If marriage is an oppressive institution for women, why push gays into it? If it is old and archaic, why do gays want it? Humpty Dumpty leftism strikes again! Marriage is awesome right now for this tiny group!

They want it because despite the smearing, we know the value of it. The emotional connection between couples. A newer wedding reception tradition is the anniversary dance. All married couples get on the dance floor to dance to one song. Every ten seconds the host asks couples married under X years to leave the floor. Those younger couples create a circle around those left dancing, and the couples are whittled down until it is the married couple with the longest tenure left. The crowd claps for the 50, 60 or 65 years the couple has been together. Some people will get teary-eyed because they recognize what those years mean. Usually, that couple shuffling on the dance floor is the elder statesmen duo of the family, and this wedding and the crowd is the extended product of their union. Song ends, the old man kisses his bride, and the new bride and groom hug the old couple. That long lived couple is the hoped for future for the new couple.

Everyone present understands that communal moment. Those dances make for great Kodak moments, but you would never see Hollywood push that. The media will push as much programming as possible to get you to forget the spiritual element to marriage. The weak-willed, who will forget they cried as they saw their grandparents dancing at a wedding, made the jump from civil unions for gays to marriage for gays because “Who cares? Marriage doesn’t matter anymore.” That moment of past and future and the implications of children for a new generation to repeat the cycle is part of the sacred moment and public recognition of marriage.

That spirit and legitimacy could never be granted by a government in a contentious manner to homosexuals who cannot reproduce. This is lost on the egalitarian pushers, it is lost on the herd creatures who forget, but it is not lost on us.

The post They Stripped Marriage Of Its Sacredness To Sell Gay Marriage appeared first on Social Matter.

There is a level of stupidity exhibited by professional athletes that makes the common man wonder just how retarded they are. Get in a gun fight in a parking lot, rape women in public bathrooms, punch your wife in the face in an elevator in front of security cameras. CSI is almost twenty-years-old; they are going to catch you. It does not start there though. These idiots with lower than average intelligence or future time orientation always think someone is going to clean up after them and make it go away. It starts young, and no clearer explanation is the collegiate sports system.

Outside the Lines released a report on athletes at several universities, crime, and the curious lack of convictions or even prosecutions. The universities protect these athletes, and it is not hard to see why. They are an investment. They are an asset. These guys perform well and sell tickets to put butts in the seats. Schools make a ton of tax-free money. It is breathtaking to read about the speed that a university moves to protect these guys in the form of compliance from local law enforcement and legal defense help that is just one phone call away. Contrast this with the hounding that one reads in rape accusation stories across America for regular guys.

There is a system in place to suppress crimes. There is a system in place to protect guys who get in grey situations or actually commit crimes. It is the nexus of local law enforcement, universities, sports fans, and the local economy. The finish to the Outside the Lines involves the Jameis Winston case, and it’s fantastic because it wraps this all up, exposing how corrupt all participants are:

State Attorney Willie Meggs in Tallahassee said he understands why victims would be unwilling to come forward, having felt some of the fan backlash himself when his office decided on the Jameis Winston case.

“I had people writing me saying that they hope my daughter and my wife got raped, and just all of those kinds of things for not doing this, and then I had people writing me saying, ‘You’re going to cost us a national championship, and you’re just evil, and you hate athletes,'” he said.

When the Tallahassee Police Department took an unusual step of turning an ESPN public records request — which contained the reporter’s email address and cellphone number — into a press release and posting it online on Christmas Eve, hundreds of Florida State fans responded to the reporter with harassing phone calls, emails, texts and social media posts, including many of a sexual and threatening nature. (Tallahassee police said the publication of the request followed departmental procedure, yet no other requests have been publicized in a similar fashion.)

One of the reports received from that request was an incident from July 2011, in which a woman reported that her ex-boyfriend, a Florida State basketball player, had broken into her apartment in Tallahassee. Police noted evidence of destruction and a voicemail suggesting the athlete had been there. The woman told police she simply wanted her ex-boyfriend to leave her alone and she did not want to pursue charges, the report states: “She has a great deal of concern that her name will end up in the news.”

Rolling Stone could not be bothered to look at these campus rapes. Rolling Stone could not be bothered to look at these privileged students. These men are mostly–if not all–black, so they are progressive allies. These routine cover-ups or brush-offs by the universities and local police departments are the tailor-made villains for a rape panic piece. This system of cover-ups is a college system, but also the result of gigantic media rights deals. Sold out stadiums make schools plenty of money, but the money they get from network television deals bankrolls quite a bit on campus.

That actually is a piece of media complicity that they want to avoid. The media often sells the games not on the game itself as much as the players. CBS carries the SEC and must have cried tears of joy when Tim Tebow said he would come back for his senior year. Media entities start coverage for these guys when they are teens in high school, building your investment in the players and teams as blue chip recruits. Fans grow attached and follow players coming in to wear their alma mater’s colors. If they report on the players’ little positive odds and ends there will always be a market for the reporting of negative stories for opposing fans to enjoy. The entire SEC cheers when LSU sees five players arrested in the same week in separate incidents. To discuss the full story of many of these players would be a man behind the curtain moment. The Outside the Lines report is only on several teams, but how many other criminals are out there that the media is spotlighting as a guy to cheer for?

The sickest part of it might be the fans. I have no love for journalists, but fans threatening journalists investigating Winston is pathetic and insane. It is a sports program. What the hell is wrong with humans who sublimate feelings of identity into cheering for men wearing the right laundry? This is the sports version of the Volunteer Thought Police. These harassing fans are a semi-formal group of true believers threatening violence at anyone who opposes the team. This is like an Internet SA, so let’s call them the Brown Jerseys. The final paragraph lays part of the blame at fans feet.

Gainesville’s Officer Tobias said “everyone” is at fault for athletes having such leverage.”It’s the fault of the athletes, it’s the fault of the victims, it’s the fault of society, it’s the fault of the media, because everyone paints this picture and holds athletes up on a pedestal sometimes and we all are making them invincible,” he said. “The fans are making them invincible, and the victims themselves, they look up to them at the same time. So to think that they can be victimized by this person is sometimes a reach for them.”

This is a sick system, and you are a part of it. While a touch off in gender relations, Sayyid Qutb, early leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, found the American male obsession with sports in the ’50s absurd and repugnant. What would he say now?

America’s broad patriotic identification was replaced by consumer culture and possibly now by entertainment culture. Sports have morphed from amateur exhibitions to become sports entertainment, so it follows that an empty vessel like modern, American masculinity would be filled with frivolous pursuits. They are just men who play a children’s game. Your investment, time and dollars make it worth billions. Just because a school wants a few extra million, a few extra wins, and a little more prestige, it’s selling out its students and soul for temporary student-athletes. Who am I kidding? They aren’t student-athletes. They’re criminal-athletes… and they have a wide network of enablers from the Dean on down to the fan with the painted face in row eighteen.

The post A Collegiate System of Corruption and Crime appeared first on Social Matter.

There are problems. The NY Times op-ed (by a woman), which pushes back against Jenner’s move, reveals the torture the left is going through as they say “gender/race is biological but doesn’t have to be but hey why are you claiming to be part of my group and take on my struggle and claim my oppression.”

The coalition of victims is defensive about their identities because their unique suffering is their identity, making trans* a bit more tricky to handle than grafting on immigrants and homosexuals.

There is another revelation. The progressive system is practically exhausted and is at the point where the charlatans are out in the open. Dolezal is a sign that we have firmly reached the phase where progressive activism has reached performance art.

Dolezal is not that much different than Anita Sarkeesian, Deray McKesson, and Benjamin Crump. They’re all playing a role. The role is part of the progressive play to enact social legislation to bring about their utopia. The roles have changed, and if anything, they change like seasons. These roles were first started by more organic individuals like MLK or Susan B. Anthony (Liz Stanton if you want to split hairs). These are people used by elites, but in contrast to more modern renditions, they had actual, direct contact with whatever system of oppression they were facing. No one asked why Susan B. Anthony received media attention and praise. No one asked at the time just why the news cameras were present in Selma and the meetings between MLK and LBJ. The audience just watched and reacted. Agitators laid down the template that later pawns would follow: righteous crusaders sanctified by the media and academic elites.

That role changes and transforms as the political pay offs need to be made. This is where your Rev. Jesse Jackson-Rev. Al Sharpton types come in, as they play the role laid down by MLK, but have an entirely different goal: money. Feminists of the women’s lib generation surely took payoffs in the form of academic chairs, speaking circuits, and consultant roles. Naomi Wolf is a feminist example. Wolf made money spouting feminist claptrap, being pro-sex, being sexy, and being a faux-intellectual. The professional activist role became a performance, but the crowd has not caught on. There is still the whiff of believability to the struggle.

But the legislation has been enacted, so why are they still agitating? The audience does start to wonder, but still tunes in.

The further degeneration in the role is when hustlers like Crump, Sarkeesian, McKesson, and Dolezal enter the fray. The audience knows it is a sham. Coordination is easy to spot with White House visits, or MSNBC reporters goading protesters to become rioters for the cameras. The audience wonders what the hell these idiots are after, and after a couple of generations of affirmative action hires and sexual harassment lawsuits, knows the buffet of sewage these fools push. The audience now knows that some of those original agitators were pawns of big money, and these new professional activists definitely are. George Soros leaves behind a trail of cashed checks.

Crump is a lackluster attorney looking for attention and building a resume to become the next Sharpton or Jackson. Listen to him talk; he can’t even lie on MSNBC at Sharpton’s level. Sarkeesian was affiliated with a pick up artist in her early years, and has jumped on the urgent feminist concern of video games. She was looking for a role and paycheck. She is a fraud, yet there she is on the Colbert Report. McKesson is a black homosexual mouthing the words of two generations ago, despite having big media and big tech in his corner. He jumps from protest to protest with destroyed CVS and convenience stores in his wake, but the audience knows his game is a lie and has even started #GoHomeDeray.

These people see an avenue for fame and fortune. They know it. We know it. They just need that check to be cut. They know the prog system will reward them. It is postmodern when the players do not pretend it is real, the audience knows it’s an act, they know that we know, but it continues because the curtain has not dropped. There is more legislation and regulation needed to bring about heaven on earth. Academia is never done with America.

This brings us to Dolezal. She exemplifies this progressive performance perfectly. She takes it to the logical conclusion. The white, fair-haired girl who identifies with the cause, but unfortunately does not look the part. Like any good actress, she puts on her costume, gets her hair and makeup done, and mouths the words, not written by herself, but by academics years ago. She speaks the script, goes through the same struggle with fake death threats (ask Sarkeesian), and every single day is committed to the performance. The act is her life and her life an act.

Frauds will continue to pop up on the social radar. The further America gets from the Civil Rights Act or women’s suffrage and liberation, the more phony the oppressed biographies will be for new activists. In a few years, the only oppression a new Gloria Steinem or MLK will experience will be microaggressions in elevators (“after you, miss”) or verbal misunderstandings (“Demarcus, do your people take checks?”). The entire UVA debacle, organized by Sabrina Erdely and Emily Renda, was run by a sloppy, lying reporter who wanted to play the part of a good Jew fighting the evil, faceless goyim, and a young activist, who may or may not have been raped, but will still go to the White House and be appointed to governor’s committees to fight the patriarchy.

As long as the progressives hold the levers of power, these hustlers will show up on television and in your newspapers. Let us just recognize them for what they are: amateur level performance art.

The post Progressive Performance Artists appeared first on Social Matter.

The next frontier will be the further destruction of marriage as being between one man and one woman.

It is a cliche (but completely true) that the family is the building block of society. It is the mechanism for transmitting culture, social norms, and group mores. This is why progressive education has changed from the norms of yesteryear that focused on facts and figures and moved towards socialization and group programming. The goal is to separate the child from their family’s culture and to inject elite values in its place. Education is compulsory for a reason, even if it does not educate students.

They can take your kids for eight hours, but how do they get to you? They don’t have to hit all families–just enough to make a difference. The elite try to minimize the use of force in modifying beliefs. They prefer to brainwash you long enough to make you think you want it. Joe Biden was explicit about how gay marriage never would have happened without Jewish influence in the media. Not my words, his. A similar elite figure, Masha Gessen, also hinted at the coming change. Old Gollum herself said:

I agree that we should have the right to marry, but I also think equally that it is a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist. . . Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we’re going to do with marriage when we get there, because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie. The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change, and again, I don’t think it should exist.

This quote alone is enough to banish her platform in a healthy society. Now that gays can marry with government sanction and legitimacy, the work moves to shifting how we view marriage in its entirety. Groups used by progs never really benefit; they just continue to be used as pawns.

The push is already here. Out Magazine quotes a NYC psychotherapist on the straight couples who are looking at the openness of gays to redefine how they view marriage.

But Malpas also says that, increasingly, the straight couples he sees are discussing polyamorous or open arrangements, or the possibility of such. This suggests that, perhaps as much as traditional marriage is conservatizing some gay couples, the increasing visibility of gay relationships is turning more straight couples on to the idea of some degree of openness, or at least of alternate ideas of what marriage can look like.

This is blatant distortion. This is using a sliver of one city’s married couples to extrapolate out to broader society. It is so patently false that it can hardly function as anything more than rank propaganda. How many of these couples is Malpas talking about? Five, ten, twenty? Nevertheless, his collection of haphazard case studies is sent through the megaphone and presented as if a broader swath of straight, married couples are going poly.

Remember, 20 percent of all gay men have HIV and a minuscule percentage of gay men are married, but the message being broadcast here is that straights–on a wide scale–are so taken by the association of gay-as-hip (and the need to be hip) that they will emulate gay behavior within an eons-old institution.

A revealing thing in Malpas’ quote is that it is in the context of “the straight couples he sees” that they discuss poly behavior. He is a psychotherapist. No healthy couple sees a psychotherapist. You see a psychotherapist when there are problems. Out is now using this as a way to frame it as though hip NYC couples are trying poly, as opposed to saying that broken, neurotic NYC couples are trying it. The other reveal: who are these gay, married couples that are influencing these straight couples? Gay marriage is a relatively new status even in New York, and of course very small in numbers. Are gay couples openly cheating already in year two? This makes little sense.

The push will widen for polyamorous and open marriages. Even the Washington Post is writing about poly as though it’s a positive thing. Wapo’s “human” example is already a failure, as she had a marriage end in divorce due to her cheating in her twenties, but now wants to cheat openly today as an older woman. This is public condoning of what was formerly considered risky or fringe behavior. It suits the prog government’s needs: weaken all bonds between people. This is such an old idea that Alduous Huxley put it into his progressive dystopia Brave New World. Everyone belongs to everyone.

This might seem like a hard sell, but this has some media push behind it going back for a few years. Multiple outlets have spotlighted polyamorous couples. The writer, usually a woman, is living or in a relationship with two men, usually all wretched looking but HAPPY with the arrangement. Some outlets have even tried to sell cuckoldry as some new, hot fad in the elite. The groundwork is there, so why not push for it to be in marriages?

Wait! There’s a useful media trick with gays marrying. See, gays have a hard time staying monogamous, and shucks, their marriages are often much more open and accepting of poly behavior. Media outlets have used the behavior of gays in marriage (the incredibly small number of gays who marry) as an example of how straights can learn from them and re-evaluate their traditional marriages.

Trans, bestiality, pedos, incest… these are rather tough pills to swallow. Weimerica can only devolve at so fast a pace. Those fringe kinks run into old taboos. While the media can find a random gay couple for a “Just Like Us” essay or advertisement, it is harder to do it with a man and his horse, or a daughter and her father. They will try. Reworking marriage entirely into a game of acceptable “it was just sex, you agreed, I love you” destroys a potential unit people can identify with outside government connections.

Pair bonding matters. Being roommates who sometimes sleep together is not as stable. Modern society has slung many arrows at marriage, and it is a shadow of what it once was, but the final push will be to remove any sacredness from it by making it a transactional relationship, a disposable relationship, something temporary. It helps the regime kill rebellions that start at the dinner table. In the Life of Julia Democrat video, Julia only came in touch with you if the government was the mutual friend.

Where are your bonds, who do you have allegiance to? Bowling Alone explained the destruction of civic bonds, but look closer. Private organizations are attacked, organized religion is attacked, diversity is pushed everywhere, but your connections to government are reinforced by each policy and each media article. You have no shared values with your Somali Muslim refugee neighbor, so resolving conflicts within the small neighborhood is impossible. The feds, however, are waiting and willing to sort out any dispute. Your church does not provide the safety net it once did, but your government does–if not directly, then through grants to your dying church. Your family is a port in a storm, but the government has its eye on that institution, as well.

Who cares who your dad is, your mom is, or whether they are alone, together, or decide to invite others in? All that matters is the one thing you all belong to and all come together for is your government.

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