Putin 2020

If the God-Emperor cannot, or simply will not, build Americans their promised wall, drain the swamp, stop the foreign invasions, repatriate the post-1965 immigrants, or put America first, then perhaps Americans need to turn to a leader who is actually capable of leading his nation on its behalf:

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Russian women for everything they do in life, like taking care of the home and staying beautiful. He made the remarks to a group of Russian female policewomen on International Women’s Day, which was celebrated throughout the Soviet Union.

“You manage everything at work and at home, whilst staying beautiful, bright, and charming,” Putin said, adding that “It is hard to imagine the history and development of our country without the contribution of the great Russian women.”

“What does a young woman need to maintain her figure? Three things: a workout machine, a masseuse and a suitor,” Putin told the police officers....

“Our women’s ability to achieve success is remarkable. You manage to cope with everything at work and take care of the family. Your love unites, encourages, supports, consoles makes us feel warm,” reported Russian state news agency TASS on Putin’s official comments.

“You are destined to go the whole way of creating new life – the miracle of childbirth. This great happiness of motherhood and child-rearing transfigures this world, fills it with kindness, gentleness and sympathy and asserts the traditional values that have always made Russia strong,” Putin said.

“We shall be always indebted to you,” Putin said in his address to the women of the nation. “This is true of each of us and of the state in general, which remains obliged to do so much for the sake of those who spare no effort in rearing their children.

Hungary and Russia will be of increasing importance in the 21st century because they are two of the only nations that are putting their national interests first. The USA will continue to decline and eventually go the way of the Soviet Union because it is actively waging low-intensity war against the interests of the American nation.

Don't get me wrong. President Trump remains the best available option for the USA. He has exceeded expectations and is one of the best Presidents the country has ever had. But unfortunately, it appears he was too little, too late. And as I warned from the start, there was very little chance that a civic nationalist would be up to the challenge posed by the realities and social rifts of a waning multiethnic, multireligious empire.

BOOKSTREAM: Do we need God?

The extended audio sample for DO WE NEED GOD TO BE GOOD? by anthropologist Christopher Hallpike. If you'd like to listen to the whole thing, the audiobook+ is available at Arkhaven.

QM:AMD #3 in print

Chief Warrant Officer Graven Tower is a ruggedly handsome military policeman who hates aliens. Fortunately, as a member of His Grace's Military Crimes Investigation Division - Xenocriminology and Alien Relations, he gets to arrest a lot of them. Sometimes he even gets to shoot them.

Chief Tower and Detector Derin Hildreth of the Trans Paradis Police Department are investigating the murder of the Crown Prince of Morchard, but they have not been able to determine a motive for the crime or identify any suspects. So when a royal assistant comes forward with information about the prince's secret life, they don't hesitate to pursue the lead into the heart of the wealthy interplanetary establishment.

The gold logo edition of QUANTUM MORTIS A Man Disrupted #3: A Secret Love is now available in standard comic size for $2.99 at Castalia Direct. We plan to re-release issues #1 and #2 in standard size at some point in the future in the interests of those who would prefer a matching set.

"Greatest scam in history"

Even the environmentalists are seeing through the Fake Science of climate change:

Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore had harsh words for the modern environmental movement, calling global warming “the greatest scam in history” and denouncing the use of “fear and guilt” to push the message.

“The climate catastrophe is strictly a fear campaign – well, fear and guilt,” Moore told Breitbart radio host Rebecca Mansour. “You’re afraid you’re killing your children because you’re driving them in your SUV and emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and you feel guilty for doing that. There’s no stronger motivation than those two.”

“Nothing else comes close,” Moore insisted, likening the contemporary environmental movement to “a toxic mix of ideology, of politics and religion. CO2 is the food for life! It’s not pollution,” the would-be heretic declared, claiming that the use of fossil fuels had actually “saved life from an early demise” because CO2 had been declining since the last ice age, with barely enough for the earth’s plant life to sustain itself, until humanity stepped into the breach during the Industrial Revolution.

Anthropogenic global warming/climate change was the most obvious fake news until Russia Russia Russia and the Jussie Smollett hate crime came along. The so-called scientists involved might as convincingly just chant "acid is groovy, kill the SUVs!"

16 felonies

It should be interesting to see the inevitable outrage from the Hollywood crowd:

A Cook County grand jury has returned a 16-count indictment against "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett, according to court records. The Cook County State's Attorney's Office confirmed the indictment, which they said was returned by a grand jury on Thursday. 

It doesn't look like this one is being swept under the rug.

Captain Marvel fails to impress

To absolutely no one's surprise, Captain Marvel isn't very good. If only they had thought of blaming Representative Omar!

Pattern recognition

From the comments in last night's Darkstream in which the recent Voxiversity on Alpha was discussed:

Mister Sick O
so what are you?

Mister Sick O
who am i listening to?

Mister Sick O
tell us what you are

Mister Sick O
you're just back in high school, trying to #*@! anything

Now, do you really still think these behavioral patterns are figments of my imagination? But wait, there's more, from the comments here:

C1: Taleb blocked me, and I'm one of his biggest supporters, apparently for quibbling with his silly opinion that organized medicine is "science."

C2: Have you considered the possibility he blocked you for the simple reason your quibbles don't add anything of value to his life and he already has a bazillion people quibbling with him all the time?

C3: That's what the mute button is for. Or notification filters. Or just accepting that not everyone is going to $*%^ your #*#! over every opinion you put out.  Blocking is the one option that makes it completely obvious that you did it, because then the person can't see your content anymore. Brilliant plan, cutting off a follower who might have given you money in the future just because you were butthurt. I'm off Twitter for good now---it's pure poison in more ways than one---but when I used it I was blocked by most of the e-celebs I ever engaged with, and it was almost always over something trivial like asking for clarification on a point or politely disagreeing with them. I'm not saying Taleb is a typical e-celeb (and he never blocked me) but *%^! if there aren't a lot of fragile %*^($)#$ on Twitter.

Because they are both myopic and solipsistic, gammas never grasp that others readily recognize their pattern of behavior because they have seen it many times before. Because they are not, for the most part, much in demand themselves, gammas have no conception whatsoever of how annoying it is to have a thousand people all "respectfully offering a correction" or "politely asking you for clarification on a point", usually in an obvious attempt to show you what Special Smart Boys they are, and how much you have in common, and how you should totally become best friends.

Even though the initial communication is usually innocuous in itself, the experienced e-celeb knows perfectly well that any response is only going to generate additional requests, demands, and eventually, drama. Even the most minor e-celeb has learned to dread answering an email and promptly receiving a gushing wall of text in response. This is why serious celebrities like Taleb preemptively block fans who show even the slightest sign of being a potential problem; they simply don't have time to put up with the inevitable nonsense.

As for the assumptions of butthurt and fragility, that is nothing but emotional projection. In comparison to the average individual, most e-celebs are actually very psychologically hardened. They have to be or they could not endure the constant negativity they have to endure.

Losing the Left

Powerline makes it official: Neo-Palestinians have lost control of both the Labour Party in the UK and the Democratic Party in the USA:

I think we have crossed a Rubicon of sorts. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and the Congressional Black Caucus–which supported Omar unanimously, as best one can tell from news reports–are in the driver’s seat. Anti-Semitism is now accepted by the Democratic Party.

Never mind lame attempts to change the subject like the multiple tweets from presidential candidates to the effect that it is not anti-Semitic to criticize the policies of the government of Israel. Of course not, but that is not what Omar did, and not what she got into trouble for doing. She has criticized, rather, American supporters of Israel who she says were bought off by “Benjamins” and are loyal to a foreign power. And she has tried to bring about the destruction of Israel, an important American ally, by supporting the BDS movement, which seeks Israel’s obliteration.

The Democratic Party is not the first to embrace anti-Semitism. A number of European parties did so in the early decades of the 20th century. The political calculus is straightforward: there are only a few Jews, a slow-growing (if growing at all) demographic, while there are lots of anti-Semites, especially among our fast-growing Islamic population. That is, of course, Omar’s base.

We witnessed today the birth of a new Democratic Party. And so far, I haven’t seen a single Democratic officeholder complain about it.

"American supporters of Israel" is an amusingly dishonest bit of rhetoric. If 400 years of residence didn't make transform them into Egyptians, how could less than 100 years of residence possibly have transmogrified them into the Constitutional Posterity of the American revolutionaries?

Anyhow, Neo-Palestinians still effectively control the Conservative Party in the UK and the Republican Party in the USA, even though very few of them actually vote for the latter. But that influence will rapidly decline over the course of the next 15 years, at which point the UK and the USA will almost certainly be added to the long list of no-good, very-bad places that the nomadic Neo-Palestinians used to reside and from which they have been encouraged to move on for absolutely no fault of their own.

Mailvox: getting past gamma

After yesterday's new Voxiversity release, I'm getting a number of emails like these:

I was recently introduced to you by Owen, and after learning more from your past post. I learnt that I am a recovering Gamma. Although you made it clear that you don't like gammas, I am writing this email in the hopes that it is different for recovering ones.

While investigating it further, I have came upon this point of Gamma behavior:

Now that you think about it, in this last year or two you can recall several women cracking jokes at your expense, mocking you, degrading you to their friends, and otherwise holding you in low regard without any fear of consequences. 

It was during a group discussion and she mocked me at not being good with woman, coming to tears just thinking of it. (God, why am i so weak...) This one hits me the hardest as it has happened at a church group and I wasn't able to defend myself, I didn't know how to interact with women all my life.

They are good guys, and I tend to make it a habit of mine to make myself the butt of the joke to lighten the mood, but this humiliation cuts close to bone if I am being honest. I take humiliation from the guys regularly and are okay with it for the most part. Please talk more about how to move past that gamma stage if you would like.

First, let me make it clear that what I dislike so intensely about gammas is their common pattern of behavior. It's nothing personal. I just dislike dishonesty, posturing, false poses of superiority, unasked-for criticism, passive-aggression, and cowardice, all of which happen to be behavioral attributes of the average gamma male. And I certainly approve of when a gamma finally gets sick of himself and decides he's going to stop handicapping his potential by continuing to behave that way.

So, I very much recommend that every gamma who wants to improve himself read the following four posts at Alpha Game, the series titled Graduating Gamma:

1. Step One: Physical
2. Step Two: Spiritual
3. Step Three: Emotional
4. Step Four: Mental

Put him on the record

Put me on the record: Jordan Peterson @jordanbpeterson is a charlatan.
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Can confirm.

Mailvox: failure theatre

A British insider interprets the latest Parliamentary procedures concerning Brexit:

HM Government has just cancelled the 13 and 14 March Commons votes for ‘no deal’ and ‘extension’.

The vote on the deal will proceed 12 March. HMG expects to lose by over 100 votes.

No one has said it, but I expect them to have a 3rd ‘meaningful vote’ on 26 March. We’re only having the 12 March vote because the Commons pushed Theresa May into it on 27 Feb.

Attempts to resolve the backstop on the Irish border are going nowhere. Barnier says that HM Attorney General Geoffrey Cox is seeking a legal solution to a political problem. We’ll continue with the ‘failure theatre’ right up to the end.

I think that they would prefer ‘no deal’ to an extension because an extension would require us to hold EU elections, where we would significantly boost the populist bloc.

"Forget the past"

Read this if you are still under the impression that Disney gives even a fraction of a quantum of a damn about preserving the intellectual properties that it has acquired:

Mark came back for three movies, and not just cameo appearances. He calls his role in Episode VII the beginning of Episode VIII. He dies in The Last Jedi, but he is in reportedly in Episode IX as a Force Ghost. Mark feels Luke’s death should have happened in the last movie of this series.

“Then the second thing was that they killed me off. I thought: oh, okay, you should push my death off to the last one. That’s what I was hoping when I came back: no cameos and a run-of-the-trilogy contract. Did I get any of those things? Because as far as I’m concerned, the end of VII is really the beginning of VIII. I got one movie! They totally hornswoggled me.”

Hamill would also discuss how Johnson directed him to ignore C-3PO and just walk right past him for one scene:

They had me walking by 3PO, not even acknowledging him. I said: “I can’t do that! He (The Last Jedi’s director, Rian Johnson) said, “Okay, go over and do whatever.” So I went over, and I did whatever. They say it in the script: “Forget the past, kill it if you have to”, and they’re doing a pretty good job!’

The statement really sticks with me the most and may be the most telling to fans. Mark seemed genuinely upset with the lack of acknowledgment to the stories that took place before.

He specifically discusses the scene where he’s instructed to ignore C-3PO. The writing is reminiscent of when Chewie and Leia ignore each other in The Force Awakens. The action seems out of character for heroes that went through so much together. Mark was able to fix his scene. However, it was the underlying tone of dismissal by the director that upset so many fans.

That "underlying tone of dismissal" says it all. The evil little men who run Disney hate Western civilization and everything about it. They hate heroes, they hate nobility, they hate self-restraint, and they hate the very philosophical mode of thinking the West inherited from the ancient Greeks. They are not only willing to destroy the cultural icons you love, they downright revel in doing so. You cannot understand what they are doing unless you grasp that. And once you understand them, you can anticipate what they are going to do next.

Which is why I expect they will not even hesitate to destroy Marvel in the same way they have destroyed Star Wars.

No duel-citizenships for legislators

Israel doesn't permit dual-citizenship legislators. Why does the USA?

Approximately one-third of the Knesset members who will be sworn in at a special ceremony on Tuesday are newcomers to the Israeli parliament. Among them are five who, before pledging to serve the Israeli people, had to formally renounce foreign citizenships.

The requirement to give up non-Israeli citizenship did not take Rachel Azaria (Kulanu), Ksenia Svetlova (Zionist Union), Haim Jelin (Yesh Atid), Abdullah Abu Maaruf (Joint Arab List), and Yoav Kisch (Likud) by surprise. While Israelis may hold dual citizenship, a Basic Law passed in 1958 states that Knesset members cannot pledge allegiance as parliamentarians unless their foreign citizenship has been revoked under the laws of that country....

Azaria, a 38-year-old Jerusalem deputy mayor, renounced her American citizenship, which she had held by virtue of her mother having been born in the US.... Two years ago, when the 19th Knesset was sworn in, there were also five new MKs who had to give up foreign citizenships in order to take their seats. Like Azaria, two of them — Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett and Yesh Atid’s Rabbi Dov Lipman — gave up their US passports.

One can't help but notice that Israel also has a wall....

Imperial overstretch

Perhaps you may recall the discussion of when and where the late-stage imperial US military is going to meet its inevitable debacle that finally signifies to the world that the empire is fully in decline. This proposed scenario would appear to be an excellent candidate in the unlikely event it should come to pass.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is prepared to throw the power of its naval force – and urges the world to join in – to block the Iranian oil shipments circumventing unilaterally imposed US sanctions against Tehran.

“Iran is trying to bypass the sanctions on it through the covert smuggling of petroleum via the sea. As these attempts expand, the navy will have a more important role in efforts to block these Iranian actions,” Netanyahu said at a navy cadets’ graduation ceremony in Haifa on Wednesday.

Failing to explain how exactly Israel’s relatively small naval force would impose the suggested blockade against Iranian oil tankers, Netanyahu only emphasized that Israeli sailors are well-trained and adept at carrying out sea missions against adversaries.

The scenario would be bad enough if it was only the Israeli Navy putting itself at risk of being sunk, but there is no way the Israelis would make such a move without expecting the US Navy to come to its rescue once it found itself in well over its head.

And getting into a green-water naval war would arguably be the worst possible scenario for the dominant blue-water navy and conjures up images of the French Navy at the Battle of the Nile, only in this case, it would be the sea power that would be at a serious disadvantage from land-based missiles and torpedoes despite its air superiority.

Voxiversity 011: The Socio-Sexual Hierarchy: Alpha

Voxiversity is back and on track with the 11th video, the second in the Socio-Sexual Hierarchy series, which addresses the topic of the Alpha rank and behavioral pattern. We have a new producer, hand-picked by the previous producer who I am pleased to observe is rapidly becoming too successful and important to make YouTube videos for me, and I think you will see that he made the right choice.

Our goal is to not only get back to the original goal of making two Voxiversity videos per month, but to make more than that, assuming that we can maintain the level of quality that has been established. Voxiversity 012 will address the Gamma and will be released a lot sooner than you probably expect.

• Bitchute
• YouTube

Racism and rhetoric

You may recall that I predicted this very division in the Democratic Party years ago. It's the same political dynamic, writ large, that Omar rode into the Minnesota state legislature.

House Democrats erupted in protest over plans to vote this week on a resolution condemning anti-Semitism - an indirect sanction on freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) in response to the suggestion that supporters of Israel have "allegiance to a foreign country."

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said on Wednesday that there may not be a vote this week on the measure, saying "We’re discussing what is the best way to address it," according to the Washington Post.

Walking into them meeting, a confident Pelosi told the media that the Omar situation "would be resolved," adding "I think you make more of it than there is . . . to be very honest with you — the press loves to foment unease in the Democratic Party but we are very united" regarding the Democratic House agenda.

Moments later, all hell broke loose:

Inside the meeting, according to multiple people present, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tried to keep her caucus focused on a planned Friday vote on a sweeping campaign and elections reform bill. She acknowledged “internal issues,” according to notes taken by a Democratic aide present, and urged members not to “question the motivations of our colleagues.”

But moments later, multiple House members stood up to challenge the decision — endorsed by Pelosi and the rest of the House Democratic leadership — to move forward with a resolution condemning religious hatred. Initially the measure targeted only anti-Semitism, with some Democrats pushing for a direct rebuke of Omar, but by Tuesday night — facing backlash from members not on board with the plan — leaders decided to expand it to include anti-Muslim bias. -Washington Post

Several Democrats those who took issue with the measure were members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who opposed even an indirect rebuke of Rep. Omar when they should be focusing on how to attack President Trump.

"I think there’s a big rise in anti-Semitism and racism, and that’s a bigger conversation we need to be having." said Rep. Cedric L. Richmond (D-LA). "But it starts at 1600 Pennsylvania. It doesn’t start with one member out of 435 members of Congress."

"Why are we doing this?" asked Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), who said that a resolution would be "redundant and unnecessary," likely referring to the January 11 rebuke of Omar after she accused the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) of contributing to pro-Israel politicians.

"We’ve individually and collectively already responded to the fact that we oppose all ‘-isms’ that do not treat people in this country fairly and justly," said Coleman. "To continue to engage in this discussion is simply an opportunity to give both the media and Republicans distractions from our agenda. We’ve got important work to do."

Other members, including Richmond, said it was unfair that the caucus would take action against one of its own members while other GOP lawmakers have uttered offensive remarks with no retribution. This week, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) accused Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) of anti-Semitism for a tweet referring to Tom Steyer, a Democratic donor of Jewish descent as “Tom $teyer,” and Richmond and several other members mentioned Trump. -Washington Post

"We need to have equity in our outrage," said Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) who said after the meeting that she was focused on "the occupant of this White House who is seeding every form of hate, emboldening it with racist rhetoric and policies. That is who we all need to be focused on, and this is a distraction."

According to those present, Omar attended the meeting but did not speak.

Jewish lawmakers, meanwhile, insist that the House needs to pass the resolution condemning anti-Semitism in response to Omar's remarks.

What we're learning here is that the concepts of 4GW apply to rhetoric as well as war. "Racism" is effective because it is based on a perception of societally punching down. But Jews can no longer effectively play the victim game in a multiethnic empire where they are the most powerful identity group among the ruling elite. That is why the accusations of "anti-semitism" are still effective with white Baby Boomers but have no effect whatsoever on rival immigrant populations and younger US citizens.

Also, the best rhetoric points towards the truth. And call it what you will, claiming that supporters of Israel cannot possibly have any allegiance to Israel is not only untruthful, it is downright incoherent.

Mailvox: a tale of two Marvels

WP explains the current Marvel situation:

There were two Marvel comics universes. (For simplicity I'll say two though that is not accurate.)  One was the main one and one was the ULTIMATE universe which was meant to be a more gritty version which started in the year 2000.

The character Nick Fury was always a white man but in the ultimate version they made him a black man and they specifically made him look like Samuel L. Jackson. One could assume that they did this hoping to force the hand of higher-ups to cast Samuel L. Jackson for any future movies that were made.  That is what eventually happened.

Becoming the guy in charge of a 300 million dollar movie is hard.  Becoming the guy in charge of a comic book is much easier. Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury demonstrates that becoming the guy in charge of the comic can mean you decide how the 300 million dollar movie looks.

SJWs appear to have noticed this.  They made a WOKE replacement for all of the main Avengers.  Little black girl Iron Man, womyn Thor, Asian Hulk, black Captain America etc.

In recent years Marvel Comics seemed to want to force a female character to be their flagship character.  A big problem with this was that most of their female characters that people like were X-Men and Fox owned the movie rights to X-Men so those characters were neglected.  They decided to make Captain Marvel into their Wesley Crusher.

For reasons they also re-tooled Captain Marvel to be more repulsive and masculine, they did this repeatedly even though the comics were failures. With this in mind it's notable that a Captain Marvel movie got made at all - no one cares about this character or could reasonably expect it to be very profitable.

Guys like Robert Downey Jr. eventually have to age out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  It would appear that the SJWs knew that and created the WOKE replacement comics to be the source material for the 2.0 Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Which may explain why Disney is looking to eject the comics altogether, since they know that Marvel Comics (SJW edition) is not only NOT going to plant more movie seeds, but is actively attempting to control the movie products. After all, if Disney wants SJW versions of the IP it owns, it is perfectly capable of producing them on its own. Soy Wars (nee' Star Wars) is sufficient proof of that.

Milo banned from Australia

And here I was proud of being personally banned from Google's Mountain View campus. But to have an entire country quaking in fear of you? Now THAT is an accomplishment!

The Morrison government has banned right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos from entering Australia in a fresh crackdown likely to infuriate his conservative supporters but please critics who believe he is anti-Semitic. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age can reveal the controversial speaker was told this week his visa application had been rejected and he cannot enter Australia.

I can understand how very important it must be to all Australians to keep anti-semites out of the country. No doubt that's why they don't permit any Muslim immigration....

Alt-Hero #6 in print

The sixth issue in the revolutionary Alt-Hero series is now available in print. Limited edition gold logo editions are now available from Castalia Direct.

Hell hath no fury like a superhero humiliated in public.

After the debacle at the Eiffel Tower, Captain Europa is determined to hunt down the renegade superhumans who embarrassed him in front of the world. And when Jean-Michel and Christian finally surface after spending weeks in hiding, the Global Justice Initiative is on their trail as fast as Shade can drive his supercar to Paris.

But there is a new player on the scene, a mysterious one with strange and surprising resources. And even a team of superheroes will find it hard to find a pair of young men inside the 300 kilometers of bone-encrusted tunnels that make up the Catacombs of Paris, especially when they don't want to be found.

JBP vs VD: a rational assessment

This video series promises to be interesting, particularly if James Fox Higgins carries through by completing a comparative analysis of Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life versus my Jordanetics. He's done six videos to date, taking him through chapter four of the latter.

Not to give the whole thing away, but the answer, of course, is yes. Jordan Peterson is lying to you.

On a not-unrelated note, the Voxiversity video The Madness of Jordan Peterson just hit 50,000 views. YouTube instructs us to celebrate.

Your fans love this video! Your video hit 50K views. Create a post to celebrate with your fans!

So, that was fun.... 

Ensafening Wisconsin

We’re announcing tonight that undocumented folks will be eligible to receive driver’s licenses and ID cards. This makes our roads and our communities safer, and helps strengthen our economy and Wisconsin families.
- Governor Tony Evers, Wisconsin

Well, if it strengthens the economy, then it must be good. Pursuant to which I note that the Japanese economy exploded upward after it invaded Manchuria. Perhaps Governor Evers should consider that as a next step.

Stream.me shut down

Ethan Ralph explains why the owners took it down:

Ethan Ralph, the owner of news and talk show Killstream, Stream.Me’s biggest channel, has attempted to defuse speculation. He just now stated via a provisional youtube edition of his show that he spoke to the streaming platform’s owners and been given an explanation for the disappearance.

“What is going on is, there’s a board on 8chan — they doxxed the owners of Stream.Me,” said Ralph, referring to the /cow/ board on the infamous imageboard popular with edgelords, neo-nazis, and communists. “They doxxed their family, there were calls made to the owners saying ‘we know where your kids go to school, we know where they live’ — and they decided to pull the plug on the entire site.”

The owners’ wives also received photos of themselves covered in the trolls’ semen....

I certainly understand why they decided that it's not worth the bother. Although it's a pity to lose what was a steadily improving streaming alternative. These days, you need to have an action plan in place for when the SJWs come after you. Because it wasn't ordinary channers doing this, it was Antifa, of that you can be sure.

I, too, am concerned

Blacks just noticed that CNN is insufficiently vibrant.

The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) called out CNN and its president, Jeff Zucker, in a press release, blasting the company for what it says is a lack of diversity in its top leadership. NABJ also said that it was placing the company on a special media monitoring list so the matter could be studied further.

“The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) is concerned about the lack of black representation within the ranks of CNN’s executive news managers and direct reports to CNN President Jeff Zucker,” the organization said in a press release on Tuesday. “This concern, coupled with Zucker’s refusal to meet with a four-person NABJ delegation, has prompted NABJ to place CNN on a special media monitoring list.”

“CNN President Jeff Zucker has no black direct reports. There are no black Executive Producers at CNN. There are no black Vice Presidents on the news side at CNN. There are no black Senior Vice Presidents on the news side at CNN,” the release continued.  “NABJ is also calling for a civil rights audit that examines the company’s hiring, promotion and compensation practices involving black employees.”

Apply the disparate impact test. If it's good enough for firefighters, it's good enough for the media. Then require every media company to employ the same percentage of blacks who appear in their advertisements.

Fundamental to whom?

I have said to people when they ask me, if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain would be our commitment to our aid, I don’t even call it our aid, our cooperation with Israel. That’s fundamental to who we are.
-Nancy Pelosi, 2018 IAC National Conference

Translation: "I can haz donations?"

I'm pretty confident that when the US empire collapses and Washington DC crumbles, there will be no more cooperation with Israel or any other nation. Anyhow, it will be both ironic and informative if Omar comes out of this outrage cycle as the most popular new politician in the Democratic Party.

Ben Shapiro Wrecked by One Perfect Tweet!

Ben Shapiro@benshapiro
Omar: The nefarious Joos and their money and dual loyalty undergird American support for Israel.
NYT: The question raised is...is Omar right?

Glenn Greenwald@ggreenwald
Isn't it notable how the person who mocks every claim of racism & bigotry as the by-product of whiny, authoritarian, overly-sensitive snowflakes suddenly leads the callouts, denunciations, & demands for safe spaces when it comes to his own group? Almost like he has no principles.

I laughed. I cried. Much better than Cats. Now, answer the question, Ben. Is Omar right? And if not, why not?

As others have already observed, nothing demonstrates the lack of influence AIPAC possesses in Washington DC like the entire political class of both the Republican and Democratic parties, including both executive and legislative branches, uniformly denouncing a single Congresswoman criticizing AIPAC's excessive influence.

Glenn Greenwald has more on the subject:

There are so many points to be made about this episode, each of which could justify its own entire article. It is, for instance, beyond dispute that what Omar is saying is true given that the very first bill passed by the U.S. Senate this year was one that allowed punishment for American citizens who boycott Israel, while U.S. citizens in 26 states are formally punished for boycotting this foreign nation, as we reported last month in the case of a Texas elementary speech pathologist who lost her job for refusing to sign a pledge not to boycott Israel (to keep her job with Texas, she’s allowed to boycott any other nation or even an American state: just not this one favored foreign nation).

Thus far, the two federal courts to rule on such laws have struck them down as unconstitutional violations of the free speech rights of American citizens on behalf of Israel.

How can anyone possibly pretend that it’s invalid or offensive to observe, as Congresswoman Omar did, that some in America demand allegiance to a foreign nation when American citizens are allowed to boycott American states but are punished for boycotting this one specific foreign nation?

As Yoram Hazony writes: "an empire will usually have a particular ruling nation at its heart." It's not exactly a mystery which nation presently rules the U.S. empire.

This is what it sounds like

When cucks cry:

As I took part in a recent student leadership board meeting for the Department of Political Science at Boston University, a group that works to advise faculty on ways to improve, I offered some advice: the department could use more intellectual diversity.

I suggested more debates in the classroom, as opposed to what I had witnessed in my three years at the school, that being an assumption during class that everyone agrees.

I broached my idea after I had sat and respectfully listened to the ideas of others for an hour, but my peers, and a professor and an administrator in the room, were not about to return the favor.

One student chided me that “debate” was too aggressive of a word, that I should use “discussion” instead. Another student, a College Democrat in the room, then compared me to a well-known peer from Boston University who is often regarded as a neo-Nazi and who went to the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, noting “he has sat here in these seats asking for intellectual diversity as well.”

I felt shocked and insulted. I waited to see if either the professor or administrator or any of the other students in the room would defend me. None did. One student suggested conservatives shouldn’t major in political science at Boston University, as they’d have a hard time. The room erupted in laughter.

Dig if you will the picture
Of you and I engaged in debate.
Inept free speech dogma fails you.
Don't you realize truth is merely hate?

Doesn't flow quite right, but amusing nonetheless.

The Fiscal Justice Initiative

A whole range of new plot lines suddenly occurs to me:

France intends to tax the revenue of about 30 Internet giants such as Amazon.com Inc. to help ensure “fiscal justice,” according to Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire. The levy of as much as 5 percent of French sales will start Jan. 1 and potentially raise about 500 million euros ($570 million) for the state, Le Maire told Le Parisien newspaper. Under the plan, which the cabinet will discuss on WednWednesday, the tax will apply to any company with global revenue of more than 750 million euros and French sales above 25 million euros, Le Maire said.

U.S., Chinese and European companies may meet the levy criteria, including a few French businesses, the report said, as governments grapple with how to tax global Internet giants that can generate huge domestic revenues from limited physical assets. Spain and the U.K. are also working on digital sales taxes, while Europe has so far balked at a continent-wide levy. France intends to tax revenues from local targeted ads, marketplaces and the re-selling of personal data.

The free ride for Big Internet appears to finally be over.

Late-stage imperial transition

This is a useful summary of the axiomatic foundation of Yuval Hazony's The Virtue of Nationalism:

The order of tribes and clans is the proto-political order. The state developed out of the weakness of this order, because this order of tribes and clans is held together in a way that makes it difficult to achieve peace, because you have these warring tribes and warring interests. It is also difficult to achieve justice because you have capricious leaders and you have a system where it is very hard to achieve justice where people are fundamentally at war—because justice becomes weaponized and justice cannot really arbitrate when there is no fundamental peace at the root of society. And so, there is a need to move beyond this tribal order. This proto-political order then leads to the development of the state, whether that is a free state as different tribes join together willingly, or a despotic state as certain tribes dominate over others and establish rule through military might.

Now, these different sorts of institutions can be distinguished from each other. So, a family is not like a business. A business is held together by financial interest. Within them individuals are fairly dispensable. You can hire and fire, and little loyalty exists. People are not going to work for their business at great personal sacrifice themselves, not usually. Except in certain extreme cases, people do not have a deep sense of loyalty to their company or to the boss that they work for. Families, however, are different. They pass on a legacy from generation to generation, and there is a sense of deep loyalty and mutual connection within these contexts.

The empire is a state that is, in principle, boundless. It is an amorphous collective. And so, it does not have the same structures of loyalty at its heart. There is a difference between tribal order and the order of the empire that is not just one of scale. So, it is not just that we relate on a very local scale in the tribe, or the clan, or the family, and then that is just scaled up and up until you get the nation, and then the empire. Rather, the empire is a fundamental shift in the notion of order. It is the difference between loyalty to familiar individuals, to one’s neighbors, and loyalty to the abstract imperial project, its ideology, and to a generic humanity—a humanity that is not particular, that is not the humanity of one’s neighbor but is just a humanity in general, an abstract humanity. It is often an ideologized humanity, a humanity that appears as such within an ideology that can often exclude certain people as falling short of the true reality of that humanity.

The tribal person who places loyalty to their family and their clan over loyalty to empire will be seen by an imperialist as pathological. Tribal order is vulnerable, as I have already noted, to war, to capricious rule, and to injustice, and to the inability to obtain justice. Imperial order, by contrast, establishes an expanding realm of peace at the cost of independence and self-determination. The principle of the unity of humanity encourages violation of the boundaries of other people in order to expand rational government order over all of them. And so, the empire works in terms of abstract and universal categories of humanity. It works in terms of concepts of justice that are universalized and detached from any sort of distributive sense of justice. It is universal human rights, that sort of thing.

And an empire will usually have a particular ruling nation at its heart. Even as they champion the universal interests of humanity, the domination of one particular group or the hierarchical superiority of that group tends to be advanced.

It's a long piece, but well worth reading. I think the key to understanding the fate of the U.S. empire going forward is that it no longer has its original ruling nation advancing its interests, but a replacement foreign nation doing the same. The ritual of genuflection before AIPAC performed by Republican and Democratic politicians is one indication that this transition has already taken place, the control of the financial and cultural high ground is another, and the growing number of anti-BDS laws is a third. As, of course, is the pious fiction of "Judeo-Christian values" so fervently avowed by conservatives.

The transition from native to foreign elite is a normal development in a late-stage empire and customarily precedes the gradual decline and collapse of the empire. Philip the Arab became the first non-Latin emperor of Rome in 243. Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders, was crowned the first Latin emperor of the Byzantine emperor in 1204.

Marcus Julius Philippus was born in Arabia the son of Julius Marinus. Philip entered a military career and was on the campaign in 243 AD against the Persians led by Shapur. Timisitheus was the Praetorian Commander in charge and he successfully defeated the Persians at Rhesaina. However, Timisitheus suddenly became ill and died during the campaign. Philip I the rose to the rank of Praetorian Commander under Gordian III. Philip was more interested in taking the throne than in destroying the Persians.

Philip’s intentions were clear. Her instigated whatever he could to create disloyalty among the troops against the 19-year-old emperor Gordian III. In a last and sad attempt to maintain locality, Gordian III addressed his troops. He finally told his men to chose between himself and Philip. He gamble failed and the troops openly selected Philip and Gordian III was murdered. Despite a monument being raised to Gordian III on the spot that he died, and his body being taken back to Rome for burial, Philip never looked back.

Philip was eager to take the reigns of power in Rome so much so that he quickly agreed to a peace treaty with the Persian king Shapur. The terms were widely viewed as a sign of defeat on the part of the Romans. Philip gave Shapur a down-payment of 500,000 denarii in addition to an annual indemnity. No Roman emperor had ever agreed to such a deal, but Philip was more interested in getting to Rome....

The reign of Philip I marked the true collapse of the denarius as a regular issue within the monetary system. As inflation soared, the denarius no longer became a viable denomination and it was virtually replaced by the antoninianus. All subsequent reigns that followed Philip I issued denarii very sparingly if at all.

Mailvox: two links

John Hawkins is just a little behind on his reading

Respectfully, a phrase that has been in use for almost a hundred years and essentially means exactly the same thing as Christian values to the general public seems like a weird thing to choke on out of a 1500 word column especially since Jews aren't a problem at all for America. No argument at all from me on how big of a factor immigration and immortality are for the country....

1. So, about that hundred years....

2. Jews aren't a problem at all for America.... 

Judeo-Christian values are NOT and have never been "exactly the same thing as Christian values". Or, for that matter, Jewish values. In fact, the term is considered to be offensive and anti-semitic by many Jews. From the Jewish Press: There’s No Such Thing as Judeo-Christian Values:

Let’s be clear: Far from “sharing” one tradition, Orthodox Jews are prohibited from marrying Christians, setting foot inside a Christian church—and we can’t even drink from an open bottle of kosher wine that has been used by a Christian. We reject the Christian idea of salvation, we abhor Christian divine teachings on every subject, and we are repulsed and outraged by incessant attempts by Christian missionaries to bring us into their fold.

It is particularly disturbing when Klinghoffer makes statements which reveal his complete assumption of elements of New Testament Pauline ideology, for instance, the requirement that wives submit to their husband’s authority. There is no mandate on precisely how a woman should behave with her husband—Jews expect the happy couple to work it out for themselves. Also, while divorce may be a tragedy, and God cries, it is in no way banned—in Judaism, that is. The story in Christianity, and Klinghoffer’s “Judeo-Christian Biblical America,” is different.

Incidentally, we have more in common with Muslims than we do with Christians; Jewish law permits Jews to enter a mosque… but not a church....

Jews and Christians differ on every single fundamental principle—even on the meaning of core Scriptural texts. More crucially, Christians rely on the Old Testament for legal delineation; whereas Jews rely solely upon our rabbinic tradition. We never, ever turn to our Bible for legal guidance, only to our rabbinic literature. To suggest that our Sages had anything at all in common with the likes of Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Carter or Pat Robertson is a slap in the face of 2500 years of scholarship.

“Judeo-Christian” is as valid a concept as happy-joylessness, or tall dwarves. Klinghoffer’s yearnings for this repugnant “ideal” is a deviant phenomenon without a trace of commonality in traditional Jewish thought, ancient or modern.

A conservatism that quails from accepting the fundamental distinctions between Judaism and Christianity is inevitably doomed to be one that cannot accept the distinctions between male and female, good and evil, and American and Not-American.

Why conservatives always lose

I know John Hawkins means well, but his diagnostic ineptitude here is simply off the charts.

Exhibit 1: The first step to getting our culture to go back in the right direction is understanding why conservatives are losing the culture wars.

Exhibit 2: The “old school” values that made America successful were Judeo-Christian values that people were immersed in from their childhood on, usually in church. 

When you can't identify the enemy, you cannot defeat the enemy. And when you cannot defeat the enemy, you are destined to lose. There are no "Judeo-Christian values". There are no "Islamo-Christian", "Hindu-Christian", or "Satano-Christian values".

Conservatives are losing the culture wars because they rejected the central role that Christianity and the posterity nation played in traditional American culture. So they permit non-American, non-Christian opinion leaders to lead them straight into cultural defeat, time and time again.

There are two primary causal factors: immigration and immoralization. Deal with them or go down to defeat.

RIP Keith Flint

It would appear the lead singer of Prodigy decided he was done.

I’m not saving up for anything. I’m cashing it all now. I’ve always had this thing inside me that, when I’m done, I’ll kill myself. I swear to God that’s not suicidal – it’s definitely a positive thing. The moment I start s******* the bed is when you’ll see me on the front of a bus. I just want to look back and know that I’ve lived what I consider a fulfilled life.

They had more famous songs and videos, but I always considered this acidic commentary on the false nature of fame, consumerism, and the record industry to be the best of both.

UPDATE: RIP Luke Perry as well.

Luke Perry -- the TV icon and heartthrob who rose to fame on "Beverly Hills, 90210" -- has died after suffering a massive stroke 

The diversity imperative

Remember when I said the USA is going to lose its next major war? This USAF general is underlining my case:

Improving diversity and acceptance across the Air Force isn’t just about being politically correct, it’s a “warfighting imperative,” USAF Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said Friday.

Speaking to a room packed full of airmen at AFA's Air Warfare Symposium, Goldfein said for himself and many leaders across the service, it can be hard to recognize issues other airmen face. These leaders need to accept that “we have blinders on as leaders,” and need to reach out to airmen from all backgrounds, races, genders, etc., to point out ways to improve.

“The only way we can see that is to surround ourselves and build teams in ways that others can point them out for us,” Goldfein said, adding that there needs to be a “big tent” culture of acceptance in the Air Force.

The decline and fall of the US empire is going to amuse and mystify historians for centuries, if not millennia. I'm feel as if I'm beginning to understand how Juvenal felt before writing his classic satires.

The conceptual weakness of conservativism

James Kirkpatrick explains why conservatives will never be able to even begin to successfully address the problem of corporate deplatforming:

Conservatism Inc. now at least recognizes deplatforming is an issue. Matt Schlapp of the American Conservative Union recently announced that a slot at CPAC will feature Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, who “will talk about the growing concerns around big tech companies and what Congress needs to do about it.” Hawley has questioned whether large tech companies should continue to benefit from the Section 230 protection in the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which protects social media platforms from being sued for user content.

Yet the ironic result of taking away this protection could be the destruction of small internet startups, ensuring that Facebook, Twitter and other large companies are the only ones who can maintain a large user base. Big Tech, of course, is entirely governed by the Left.

The larger problem: Conservatism Inc.’s dogma is preventing it from doing anything productive. There are two critical issues.

• Conservatism Inc. won’t defend its own;
• It won’t attack corporate power, even when that power is used in service of the Left.

Conservatism Inc.’s tradition of “purges” and selling out its own is well known and is arguably the defining characteristic of the movement. Thus it was less than a month ago the entire Republican Party threw Congressman Steve King under the bus because he was misquoted by the New York Times.

With online censorship, the temptation is to remain silent as the “unrespectable” elements are gradually deplatformed. Indeed, those who are not deplatformed actually benefit from the lack of any competition to their Right. Certainly, the “Never Trump true conservative” types would have rejoiced if Donald Trump’s Facebook account had been purged in 2015, as the company was reportedly considering. Indeed, journalists enforcers are still crusading to get President Trump banned from Twitter even now.

Even more serious: conservatives, because of their attachment to “free market principles,” are ideologically incapable of confronting the Leftist corporate power structure now called “Woke Capital”. Thus, at a time when populism is on the rise globally, American conservatives are in the idiotic position of trying to defend companies like Amazon from socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, even while Amazon continues a crackdown on conservative speech.

At this point, anyone who focuses their rhetorical attacks on the faceless, unidentified "Left" should be considered suspect at the very least. It is more likely that they are simply unwilling and unable to face the reality of identity politics for one reason or another. The common conflation of corporations with capitalism, which is an intrinsically false notion due to the obvious and undeniable fact that corporations are artificial constructions of the government, is a conceptual trap into which most conservatives have fallen.

How is it "conservative" in any way, what does it conserve, to defend the rights of artificial constructs while absolving them from any responsibility for their actions?

The irony is that the very phenomenon of corporate deplatforming demonstrates that capitalist imperatives are not priorities for the modern post-capitalist corporation, because they do not rely upon the interactions of supply and demand for its profits, but rather, politically-driven access to the government-financial pool of resources.

Refusing to learn from history

How do the experts expect to be able to learn anything from history when political correctness prevents them from looking at the causal factors.

The first way to look at past civilisations is to compare their longevity. This can be difficult, because there is no strict definition of civilisation, nor an overarching database of their births and deaths.

In the graphic below, I have compared the lifespan of various civilisations, which I define as a society with agriculture, multiple cities, military dominance in its geographical region and a continuous political structure. Given this definition, all empires are civilisations, but not all civilisations are empires. The data is drawn from two studies on the growth and decline of empires (for 3000-600BC and 600BC-600), and an informal, crowd-sourced survey of ancient civilisations (which I have amended).

Collapse can be defined as a rapid and enduring loss of population, identity and socio-economic complexity. Public services crumble and disorder ensues as government loses control of its monopoly on violence.

Virtually all past civilisations have faced this fate. Some recovered or transformed, such as the Chinese and Egyptian. Other collapses were permanent, as was the case of Easter Island. Sometimes the cities at the epicentre of collapse are revived, as was the case with Rome. In other cases, such as the Mayan ruins, they are left abandoned as a mausoleum for future tourists.

What can this tell us about the future of global modern civilisation? Are the lessons of agrarian empires applicable to our post-18th Century period of industrial capitalism?

Collapse may be a normal phenomenon for civilisations, regardless of their size and technological stage

I would argue that they are. Societies of the past and present are just complex systems composed of people and technology. The theory of “normal accidents” suggests that complex technological systems regularly give way to failure. So collapse may be a normal phenomenon for civilisations, regardless of their size and stage.

We may be more technologically advanced now. But this gives little ground to believe that we are immune to the threats that undid our ancestors. Our newfound technological abilities even bring new, unprecedented challenges to the mix.

And while our scale may now be global, collapse appears to happen to both sprawling empires and fledgling kingdoms alike. There is no reason to believe that greater size is armour against societal dissolution. Our tightly-coupled, globalised economic system is, if anything, more likely to make crisis spread.

Read the article and notice what factors just happens to be omitted: immigration, identity politics, and foreign leadership. Now consider this description of the Crisis of the Third Century that nearly brought down the Roman Empire.

The Crisis of the Third Century was a period in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the combined pressures of barbarian invasions and migrations into Roman territory, civil wars, peasant rebellions, political instability with multiple usurpers competing for power, growing influence and Roman reliance on barbarian mercenaries, and commanders nominally working for Rome, but increasingly independent, plague, debasement of currency, and economic depression. The crisis began with the assassination of Emperor Severus Alexander by his own troops in 235, initiating a 50-year period during which there were at least 26 claimants to the title of emperor, mostly prominent Roman army generals, who assumed imperial power over all or part of the Empire. The same number of men became accepted by the Roman Senate as emperor during this period and so became legitimate emperors.

By 268, the empire had split into three competing states. Later, Aurelian reunited the empire; the crisis ended with the ascension and reforms of Diocletian in 284. The crisis resulted in such profound changes in the empire's institutions, society, economic life and, eventually, religion, that it is increasingly seen by most historians as defining the transition between the historical periods of classical antiquity and late antiquity.

Is this starting to sound familiar? Both the UK and the USA are empires with foreign leadership that has no love for the native populations over which it rules, and unlike the Jurchen tribe which created the Manchu Dynasty that ruled over the Han for 268 years, those that currently rule the two Western empires actively seek to destroy their historical culture, religion, and native peoples.

The end of the Avengers

It would appear someone is VERY upset at Disney, as the story for the big wrapup of the current version of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has leaked, according to Bounding Into Comics. Don't read more if you don't want to know what may, or may not, be the movie.

Read more »

Puppies redux: Nebula edition

It was funny to read this in my inbox, as it was the first time I've had any reason to give a thought to SFWA in a long, long time. Possibly the most amusing thing about this latest SFWA kerfluffle is that it is a direct consequence of SFWA adopting my original campaign proposal to admit independent authors to the membership. Sad Puppy leader Brad Torgersen observes, with no little irony, the 2019 version of Sad Puppies:

This past week, some indie authors got on the Nebula ballot, and the taste-makers—many of whom are ardently "woke" political activists—began braying about how a "slate" had ramrodded these indie authors onto the sacred SFWA ballot, and how it was high treason against all things Good and Clean in the genre for *any* "slate" to influence the Nebula final selections.

Nevermind that magazines such as Locus have spent decades publishing "recommended" lists designed and published explicitly for the purpose of influencing both Nebula selection, and Hugo award selection, among others. Such "recommended" lists have been with the genre for a long time, and only now—mysteriously!—has it been deemed evil for such lists to exist. Provided those lists don't originate from Correct™ sources, with Correct™ credentials, Correct™ political affiliation, and so forth.

Well, predictably, the indie authors came in for a caustic drubbing, and many of them—some being overseas, and not at all familiar with the internecine rhetorical warfare of American literary SF/F—were both angered and confused. And I can't blame them. It's difficult to properly unearth the many decades of political and elitist cultural battles which have saturated SF/F in America, and the larger Anglosphere SF/F lit scene, since at least the 1920s.

Suffice to say the whole thing is perhaps best explained through the lens of George Orwell's landmark 1984. Where you have Inner Party, and Outer Party, and Proles.

Inner Party being comprised of long-time Super Fans (aka: "true fans") and some venerable editors and authors who've labored carefully for years to take up positions of influence and prestige within SFWA, and the broader literary SF/F "establishment" as a whole. They are concerned almost
entirely with their own power and influence.

Outer Party being the newcomer political activist writers from the universities who see all of literary science fiction—and the Hugos and Nebulas, as well as other awards—as a tool for "woke" political activism. All of them aspire to Inner Party status, and are just waiting for the extant Inner Party to literally die off, so that the Outer Party members can graduate to places of Inner Party power and prestige.

And finally the rest of us inhabit the land of the Proles. Fans and authors who were never part of the establishment, and do not attend the so-called "World Science Fiction Convention" (which never was 'world' much, even when it went overseas) nor are we active SFWA members. Many of us are indie authors, or hybrids, who often make far more money and have far more readers than any three dozen SFWA trad pub members put together. But we still bear the stigma of self-publishing which is beyond the borders of establishment propriety in the eyes of the Inner Party.

So, when a "slate" created for and by Proles manages to get some Prole selections onto the ballot—which rightfully belongs to both the Inner and the Outer Party!—the Inner and Outer Party take it as an act of ART WAR! And as you know, Bob, nothing is more vicious than ART WAR!

And this meant it was time to launch the social media mobs, Twitter snipers, "woke" punditry, etc. In an effort to get the Proles kicked out of the process, or at least make the world aware of how horrible and evil it is that Proles stood up to be counted. Which Proles are never, EVER supposed to do. Ever. Proles are meant to mind their places in the hierarchy and not cause a fuss. We are to accept what the deciders of "worthy science fiction and fantasy" have declared for us this season, and learn to love Big Brother.

THAT is the state of American literary SF/F, in a nutshell. That is SFWA.

Which doesn't make it any easier for indie authors or fans, much less indie authors or fans who don't originate from U.S. soil. The whole thing can seem both ridiculous and conflicted. Which it is. Because any sane outsider looks at it all and does a W-T-F.

Try as they will to style themselves international, the Inner and Outer Party members of American literary SF/F are hopelessly provincial, sharing a painful overlap in ideology, as well as a kind of homogeneous, mushy globalist-liberal outlook. Which, being "woke", puts a premium on demographics over individualism. Fetishizing ethnicities and sexualities. While remaining borderline-militant about a single-track monochrome political platform.

So, certain Inner and Outer Party folks proceeded to step all over their own unmentionables in an effort to "call out" the "slate" of the indie Proles from the dirty ghettos of indie publishing. And now the Inner and Outer Parties are in damage control mode (yet again!) trying to re-write events, submerge evidence, gaslight the actual victims of the literary pogrom, blame all evils on Emmanuel Goldstein (cough, Sad Puppies, cough) and crown themselves the Good People once more. Who would never, of course, do anything pernicious, because how could they? They are Good! They tell themselves they are Good all the time! They go out of their way to virtue-signal this Goodness on social media! It cannot be possible that they have done anything wrong!

Well, if you've seen the ugly carnival long enough, it's easy to peer through the smog. And I am sorry for all of the Nebula nominees who—being rightfully excited to learn of their nominations—watched that excitement crumble beneath a digital tsunami of accusations and character assassination. I've been there. I remember the lies and slander. I know how it happens, and why.

Just shrug it off, and walk away. Neither SFWA, nor Worldcon, nor the Outer nor Inner Parties, have anything for you. They are not the audience, and never were. And the harder they try to enforce their own relevance, the more plain it becomes that this relevance has fatally degraded in the new century.

Meanwhile, no one seems to have noticed that both Tor and Baen are rapidly sliding towards nonexistence. I've heard that Macmillan is looking to get rid of Tor from several sources over the last three months. The changes you've seen in Castalia's practices of late are the direct result of Amazon destroying the ebook publishing market, and those changes are hurting the traditional publishers a lot more than a company like Castalia that doesn't rely as heavily upon the various channels.

The acid test is going to be in April. It's going to be fascinating to see how well a book that is in very high demand does through the channel versus direct.

Mailvox: dealing with SJWs

A reader writes concerning the outcome of her decision to take action with the family SJW:

I wrote to you a little while ago, detailing some of the pain and agony my SJW sibling had put our family thru in the last year, and you advised us to dump her, saying that it wasn’t worth it.  So we had dumped her locally recently, holding family events just with our adult children and grandchildren, and they’ve been delightful and relaxing.

But I was concerned about when my elderly parents return from [REDACTED] this spring and felt we’d have to go back to the SJW abuse for their sake. I’ve been thinking since your note, and had a talk with my dad this week, and we reviewed the history with sibling, including my family’s behavior (which my dad feels has been pretty exemplary), and he pretty cheerfully agreed that our family should do things separately from sibling at this point.

He’s at a loss, because he says SJW never listens to anything he tries to tell her, and hasn’t for years, but he also doesn’t believe that we should be treated so badly, including our adult children. I wish she could get a different perspective that values family over politics, but she has a history of bad decision making, and I am just really relieved that we can look forward to a summer that is positive and relaxing when my parents return, that we won’t be baited, ambushed, sabotaged or abused at my parents’ home, and that my parents see the situation and appreciate what we’ve been through with her. Anyway, thanks so much for your straightforward advice and encouragement.

I don't take the idea of excising a family member, or an entire branch of the family, from one's life lightly. But it is precisely because family is so important that it is vital to excise serial bad actors from the family without regret, because they have a reliably destructive effect on everyone in the family.

If a family member makes it clear that they have no interest in maintaining familial harmony, or simply refuses to behave in a civil manner, then one should not hesitate to leave them to their priorities and exclude them from family activities. They have already made their choice, one is simply honoring it and permitting them to experience its consequences.

The prodigal son would not have learned from his experience had his father not permitted him to reach rock bottom and repent. Enabling an abusive family member is not helping them, to the contrary, it is complicity in their abuse.

Please note that that notwithstanding this singular email exchange, I am not beginning a career as an advice columnist. Since I am not an advice columnist, I simply ignore the vast majority of emails sent to me seeking advice. I do macro, not micro, and to the extent that I ever offer micro advice, it tends to be considerably more brutal and succinct than you are likely to be seeking.

Disney to shut down Marvel

That's the latest rumor to excite the non-stop drama of the comics industry:

A new rumor indicates that Disney might be shutting down Marvel Comics sooner rather than later.

The rumor comes from Jude Terror at Bleeding Cool who cites a press release from Marvel Comics indicating that Marvel’s Editor-in-Chief C.B. Cebulski and Joe Quesada are heading down to Austin, Texas to discuss the importance of comics to Disney’s business based off the Marvel intellectual properties.

In fact, Terror speculates that Cebulski and Quesada are heading to Austin, Texas to save Marvel Comics because “comics must continue to be published even if they add little value to the budget on their own simply because they provide the genetic material to make actual profits elsewhere.”

Terror even questions, “If less people are buying comics and the direct market is on the verge of collapse, then why should a megacorp like Disney continue to bother publishing them at all, especially when they can make far more money mining the intellectual properties for other mediums?”

Terror’s speculation isn’t anything new. Thom Pratt at The Kingdom Insider speculated about Disney cutting out Marvel Comics back in 2017.

Pratt notes that Disney’s entire profit on an entire year of Marvel Comics amounts to what they make “off one single Marvel Studios movie.” He bluntly writes, “Comic book sales look absolutely pathetic compared to an MCU release.”

Pratt who has his own sources at Disney even stated that “comic books have about as much value to Disney right now as a T-shirt.” In fact, he states it might even be less because “T-shirts have a higher profit margin.”

Pratt even addresses the idea that the comics are needed to mine for future stories in movies, video games, and other genres.

He quickly refutes this writing, “The MCU has taken characters and concepts in a totally different direction than the comic books, and Disney could easily hire away the best “idea guys” to work directly for Marvel Studios.”

Pratt predicts that Marvel Comics as a publisher will be done away with. He sees it existing in some form but being an “office full of brand managers overseeing licensed deals.” He even believes that Disney will license out the Marvel superheroes to other publishers similar to what they do with their Disney characters to IDW and Dark Horse.

Part of Pratt’s prediction has already come true as Disney has licensed their Marvel superheroes to IDW.

I'm a bit dubious about this, as the continuing decline in comics sales was not quite as bad as I expected in 2018, although the more profitable sales of graphics novels did collapse. According to Comichron, the top 300 graphic novel dollar sales declined 16.5 percent last year, to $73.6 million, but top 300 comic dollars increased $10.7 million despite a three percent decline in units as a result of the rise in the average comic price to $4.19.

The fact that the MCU cycle is coming to an end and Captain Marvel looks to be a complete bust suggests that if 2018 was bad, 2019 will be considerably worse. But Marvel isn't suffering as much as its lesser competitors, as it actually increased its unit market share from 40.4 percent to 44 percent and is still bringing in revenue of well over $100 million, though it may not be doing so profitably.

It would be amusing if Disney offered Arkhaven the opportunity to license any of its characters, although I can't imagine we'd be terribly interested in cultural icons such as Lesbian Meth Batgirl, Thorella, She-Wolverine, or Shade, Marvel's First Superhero Drag Queen. In any event, Arkhaven's support is continuing to grow steadily and we expect to have a series of exciting new announcements in the coming three months. In related news, the gold logo edition of AH#6 will be available from Castalia Direct next week.

Note: the new standard size introduced with the gold logo edition of Chuck Dixon's Avalon #3 meant that we did not know exactly how the pricing would translate to the Castalia Direct store. Our first estimate worked out to a price of $3.14 in practice. However, we have since adjusted that, so the $2.99 retail price will return on April 1 and will be maintained across the Arkhaven line for standard size series comics.

This video by the Kingdom Insider, who is very familiar with Disney's customary practices, is extremely informative. Key phrase: "To the Walt Disney company, the real Marvel universe to them is the Marvel universe they created. The movies. The movies have basically replaced the comic books."

This article by a comic book retailer is pertinent, especially this statistical truth-bomb:

The January 2019 order form features 1106 solicited periodical comic books. Of those, only 454 of those SKUs are new items – the other 652 are variant covers. That means a staggering fifty-nine percent of all solicited comics are actually variants. That’s completely and entirely absurd! It is deluded, it is dangerous, and it actively works against the best interests of the market.

That's why our only variant covers will be the Premium editions intended for the comic book stores. We'll do the gold logo limited editions for the collectors, but we're keeping our price at $2.99 for those. Remember that at 24 pages of story, our comics are not only less expensive and better-constructed, but provide considerably more content than the average Marvel or DC floppy.