The important part of a long-winded discussion about the state of our government:

Trumpism, in this sense, is big-data populism, and contains the most popular-democratic potential which re-infuses both vigor and freedom into the body politic. But the elites seem to oppose this approach.
This is no accident. This is a deliberate strategy to maintain control. The elites—those in the WEF, IMF, Silicon Valley, and their political puppets—have moved beyond the pretense of democracy. They use the data not to serve, but to subvert. It is not a failure of governance but an assertion of a new kind of power, one that thrives on discord, disillusionment, and division. They know exactly what the people want, and yet they deliberately withhold it, offering instead a perverse menu of policies, culture, and propaganda designed to enrage, divide, and disempower. They push the limits of unpopularity to see how far they can go before the people rise up, only to realize that the structure itself—the apparatus of control—is impregnable. They are testing the elasticity of public tolerance, pushing the boundaries of oppression not to address the needs of the people but to demonstrate their immunity from consequence.
This is the ultimate expression of anti-democracy, of anti-populism, in the age of big data. The elites are not simply unresponsive to the popular will; they are actively hostile to it. They use the immense technological power at their disposal not to foster a shared cultural or political reality but to fragment and atomize the population, creating a landscape where true democratic consensus is impossible. The result is a society where governance becomes an exercise in cruelty, where the more disconnected a policy is from the popular will, the more it signals elite power.
The liberal critiques of this system fail precisely because they misunderstand the nature of the power being wielded. They mistake the superficial trappings of democracy for democracy itself, failing to see that what we face is a post-democratic reality. It is no longer about elections or the marketplace of ideas; it is about managing dissent, controlling narratives, and maintaining a thin veneer of legitimacy while perpetuating an authoritarian order. This is not paternalism as it existed in pre-modern or nationalist frameworks, where at least a semblance of the public good was pursued. No, this is paternalism weaponized, stripped of benevolence and directed solely at maintaining the elite’s stranglehold on society.
The tragedy is not just that we live under this system, but that we have been conditioned to accept it, even to expect it. In an age where technology could liberate us, it has instead been harnessed to enslave us to a perpetual state of dissatisfaction and powerlessness. This is not merely a failure of democracy but its calculated annihilation, a destruction carried out in full view, hidden only by the complexity of the mechanisms used to carry it out. The future, if left in the hands of these elites, promises only more of the same—more control, more division, more distance between the rulers and the ruled. And until this reality is confronted, head-on, we will remain subjects, not citizens, in an increasingly hollowed-out, authoritarian world.
“>https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/09/26/why-this-anti-democratic-anti-populism-ag-big-data-analytics/

——
The current state can be summed up as: “How many fingers, Winston?” (1984 ref). Getting people to say men are women is right up there with four fingers are five fingers.

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 17 2024 13:31 utc | 3

Strange. The link in my comment #3 returns 404.
BUT, you can get there by going to this link – https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/10/15/from-reset-world-war-will-wef-say-farewell-message/ ; and jumping to the link at the end of the first paragraph.
I tried it from preview, and it worked.

Posted by: john_brewster | Oct 17 2024 14:02 utc | 5

Continued summary from MOA week in review thread regarding 3 part series – sound money socialists and the trilemma they face. Always lose.
They link taxes to spending, Link spending to the deficit and the debt. They link all 3 due to their sound money belief system.
When there are no links at all.
Thus never find the votes in Congress or parliament to pass their agenda. It always gets watered down to the point sound money socialists are nothing more than fiscal conservatives.
They should de link all 3.
1. Taxes don’t fund spending – period.
So have a fight about spending without linking it to businesses or rich people or some other group. They are not needed to spend.
2. De link spending from deficits and debts as deficits and debts are just the non government sectors savings desires. A savings number by households and businesses that drops in the bucket after spending – minus taxes.
That’s all it is.
Then have a separate fight and choose a fight around tax rates and re distribution and reducing the power of the wealthy via tax rates etc, etc, without risking 1 and 2.
Instead of falsely linking all 3 and be trapped in a forever political laffer curve war. That they never win.
There is no better example than Bernie’s and Warren’s plans over the years that they always loose. When they mythically link all 3.
The UK black hole which is nothing more than a business and household savings number that dropped in the bucket after spending minus taxation. There is no finding it, it is held by the public who hold settling promises as savings. The budget deficit = The private sector surplus to the penny.
HERE:
https://new-wayland.com/blog/uk-sectoral-balances/
Are now drowning in laffer curve politics after linking the 3. After fooling themselves and the public that link taxes to spending, Link spending to the deficit and the debt. They link all 3 due to their sound money belief system.
Now their spending plans have gone up in smoke as they now drown under laffer curve politics. Looking for a life raft. Thinking they have to find businesses or rich people or some other group to tax to save them.
Sound money socialists have been defeated once again by the trilemma they face.
What they should have done :
Here:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cyXfr11g7So&pp=ygUeU3RlcGhhbmllIGtlbHRvbiAgbm92ZXJhIG1lZGlh
Had 3 separate fights on their own merits. On what they were actually trying to achieve.

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Oct 17 2024 14:14 utc | 7

@ john brewster | Oct 17 2024 13:31 utc | 3
re: . . . a post-democratic reality. It is no longer about elections or the marketplace of ideas; it is about managing dissent, controlling narratives, and maintaining a thin veneer of legitimacy while perpetuating an authoritarian order.
Democracy is governance by the people, via their representatives in the US case. The Congress comes first in the US Constitution, and when the Congress is a collection of bought-and-paid for thirty year fuddy-duds the whole system goes down the drain no matter the narritives.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Oct 17 2024 14:31 utc | 9

Of course if treasury and central bank offered tours to children and adults that actually showed them how it really works. This was taught in primary and secondary school.
Then laffer curve politics, gold bugs, crypto bros wouldn’t exist. Their monetary silencing propaganda would no longer work on those of little brain.
Alas, it is all kept in the dark away from Children and their education camps. So the games can proceed behind the green curtain.
As they march around the world taking away countries fiat money and monetary sovereignty and replacing it with a gold stndard, fixed exchange rate mindset to entrap them and asset strip them to fulfil there own imperialist desires.

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Oct 17 2024 14:45 utc | 11

She is by far the dumbest candidate for president in the history of US…a certified idiot.
Posted by: Tobias Cole | Oct 17 2024 14:24 utc | 8
You’re correct about the dumbest candidate for president in the history of US. Sadly, she found someone even dumber than her to run as her vice presidential candidate.

Posted by: Phil R | Oct 17 2024 14:56 utc | 13

Posted by: Don Bacon | Oct 17 2024 14:31 utc | 9

when the Congress is a collection of bought-and-paid for thirty year fuddy-duds the whole system goes down the drain no matter the narritives.

—-
You need to read some Caitlin Johnstone. It IS all about the narrative. How else could your 30y critters stay in office if people went off narrative and demanded that politicians represent voters? The narrative keeps people sedated. These days, the narrative is managed by GAAMM; and the Deep State runs the censorship on those platforms.
At this point, Congress is a joke, a gong show. It is utterly irrelevant to the actual governing of the country – as are elections with their pre-vetted trained seals. Governing is handled by DOS/CIA/MI-6/Mossad, which runs the WH and supervises the GAAMM. Yes, Congress-folk are corrupt. Wow. Water is wet. The point is that they are now bought and paid for by anti-democratic tech corporations.

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 17 2024 15:17 utc | 15

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Oct 17 2024 15:10 utc | 14
Thank you. It is good to focus on something positive.
At this time, all one can do is point at the fragmentation narrative (divisive woke tribalism, Manichean election campaigns, non-stop war and terrorism) and get folks to try to look behind the curtain. There is no space for our narrative in the GAAMM. The only space is tiny sites like this (thank you b).

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 17 2024 15:27 utc | 17

@ juliania
can you take a look at the comments in this thread and get back to me, or even better – if you can reply to yalensis, that would be great!
thanks! it is regarding the distinction between eastern orthodox and western christianity.. thanks..
https://awfulavalanche.wordpress.com/2024/10/16/ukraine-war-day-966-the-gun-and-the-cross/

Posted by: james | Oct 17 2024 15:33 utc | 19

Don Bacon@1431
Bit of a civics lesson for you, my Man. The ONLY form of actual democratic rulership across the fruited plain is only extant is a number of states which enable annual township meetings…in such states which actually “allow” township governance. In such annual meetings, one township resident possesses ONE vote with hand raised. THAT is actual democracy.
Under the Federalist Constitution, the U.S. is clearly described as a REPUBLIC. The term “Republic” originates with the ancient Romans. The base words are “Res”…meaning rule or reign by the “Publica”…which is the whole of the people. Thus, the word ‘republic” signifies the FACT that in a genuine republic, the ultimate source of governance is the province of “WE THE PEOPLE”.
The current devolutionary status of our Ruptured Republic was originally instituted by a highly corrupted Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Marshall, a Federalist traitor to actual republican governance. How did he do that? Marshall, a last minute, lame duck appointment, by John Adams (another Federalist) came up with the ludicrous, counter-constitutionalist concept that the “Supremes” have the power to RULE.
That, my colleague in contentions, is tyrannical and dictatorial…as clearly evidenced in the nefarious “Citizens United” (ruling) which allows unlimited campaign financing by not only corporations and trillionaires from America itself, but also including FOREIGN investor class shareholders.
At present Americans live in a RUPTURED REPUBLIC. Period.

Posted by: aristodemos | Oct 17 2024 15:39 utc | 21

Some ppl like to criticize for suggesting we can’t do big spending programs without 1:1 commensurate tax increases.
For some, Like the British Labour sound socialists it takes the wind out of the debates for taxing the rich (it doesnt).
Others think it’s fantasy to think you can spend big w/o higher middle class taxes.
All of the above beliefs is Mainly because of the trilemma they find themselves in and the strategy the sound money socialists always take.
But, once you get past all of the false rhetoric and incoherent conflation of nominal and real variables, what these critical views really boils down to is the argument that it’s better for progressives to adopt a Manchin-style strategy in budget negotiations.
The MMT position has always been that it’s both unnecessary and self-defeating to pick two fights at the same time – one over the spending program, another over the taxes that people want to falsely claim that are tied to it.
The Chinese never play that game. As this two-front Manchin-style strategy in budget negotiations usually means loss on both. The Chinese just get on with it. Their spending plans free from the tax payer money myth. The Chinese just get things done. Then concentrate on taxes as a redistribution tool as a separate issue.
Do these sound money socialists, actually believe we’re going to see those long-dreamed of progressive tax hikes, vs just less public investment? That the progressive tax hikes are going to win and that they will get more not less public investment ?
They very clearly don’t know how to deal with the trilemma they face and always choose the wrong strategy.
When the Reality is there is a National Contribution which has to be broad based and which results in there being fewer private sector jobs on offer, thereby freeing up the people and the real resources for the public sector to hire.
So that communities can get that much needed public investment free from rent seeking. That they have been deprived of for decades due to laffer curve politics. The sound money, fiscal conservative mindset.
The gold standard won’t stop neither asset stripping or rent seeking as it was designed to do exactly that. As they throw 50 grenades into a river to try and catch 1 fish.

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Oct 17 2024 15:52 utc | 23

On Prostate Cancer
Posted by: Walt | Oct 17 2024 13:18 utc | 1
Coincidentally, this appeared in my inbox just a few minutes ago. You should read it.
https://www.malone.news/p/prostate-cancer?publication_id=583200&post_id=150358195&isFreemail=true&r=aezat&triedRedirect=true

Posted by: forceOfHabit | Oct 17 2024 15:58 utc | 25

John Brewster@1331
Thanks for posting the highly insightful analysis by Strategic Culture…a veritable masterwork of socio-political veracity.

Posted by: aristodemos | Oct 17 2024 16:04 utc | 27

More trans-hating from the usual suspects. Let’s talk about objective reality: a person who walks, talks, and acts like a woman is a woman. Womanhood is not bestowed on people by virtue of having the right sex chromosomes. “Womanhood” is objectively, scientifically, beyond that, because people with XXY and XY chromosome configurations frequently behave and are gendered by social institutions as women.
We discovered “womanhood” many, many, centuries before we discovered chromosomes. For many societies, this was not a problem – it was simply a part of their “objective reality”. The Karankawa tribe that used to occupy modern day El Paso, Texas, had three genders, as did many other American Indian societies. Some European societies included third genders for those who didn’t fit neatly between the two standard ones. Even Muslim societies, strict as they are about social mores, often feature people with XY chromosomes who adopt and perform the roles of women.
I’ve noticed, though, that people who talk about “objective reality” are often the most detached from it. For example, christians who think there’s a heaven or hell, or a deity watching over us who really cares about what we do with our bodies. There are people who tout “objective reality” who even think they can talk to this deity! But someone who objectively transforms their body to objectively have more feminine features, who behaves objectively like a woman, who talks like a woman, somehow isn’t a woman? Get real.
Incidentally, @1, HRT and orchiectomies virtually eliminate the possibility of an XY-chromosomed person developing prostate cancer.

Posted by: fnord | Oct 17 2024 16:15 utc | 29

Let’s talk about objective reality: a person who walks, talks, and acts like a mountain panda is a mountain panda.
Delusional freaks…

Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 17 2024 16:21 utc | 31

i have a few things to add to the conversation and a few links too…
DEI Captures the Treasury Department
How left-wing racialism is corrupting America’s national financial system.
Workplaces to Avoid if you are White, Male, or Straight
here is a question for you all..
i play music and cross paths with an interesting cross section of people… i know 3 different transgender folks – male to female type transitioning and all of them have girlfriends… i am trying to wrap my head around this particular set up.. are they more able to get a girlfriend now that they have transitioned? or, is it because they are more comfortable around women? or?? it’s a wide open field for speculation, but i do find it interesting seeing this in real time..

Posted by: james | Oct 17 2024 16:26 utc | 33

okay.. my post got eaten up, lol… rarely happens… i am going to break it up into bits this time…
adding to the conversation… i know 3 transgender folks who have transitioned from male to female and they all have girlfriends.. i am not sure what to make of this.. is it because they are more comfortable in the presence of women then men? is it easier for them to get girlfriends now?? or?? speculation is ripe, lol…
next post – two links which might have screwed up why my first post didn’t go thru..

Posted by: james | Oct 17 2024 16:28 utc | 35

okay – won’t let me post christopher rufos substack article – DEI Captures the Treasury Department
How left-wing racialism is corrupting America’s national financial system.
you will have to look it up if interested..

Posted by: james | Oct 17 2024 16:31 utc | 37

Delusional freaks are not respected because they have no self-respect (narcissistic self-absorption is not self-respect), and the choice to live without dignity is their own.

Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 17 2024 16:40 utc | 39

One more jihadi terrorist leader bites the dust.

Posted by: Zargo | Oct 17 2024 16:53 utc | 41

Unsolicited suggestion/advisory: …
(1) Be kind to/gentle on yourself. Vicarious Trauma is real, consequences the same as for direct personal trauma exposure/s. Serial ongoing exposure, has real life consequences, is akin to Hemingways oft quoted: “Slowly at first, then suddenly“.
Deliberately manage/ration/limit sustained exposure, by periodically taking a break, or when it’s just too much, engaging with something/someone, you cherish/love. Recharged/refreshed, once more into the breach. It’s been 12months plus, not counting Ukraine, and not about to end soon. Be gentle on yourself. Don’t needlessly/inadvertently become an invisible long term casualty … WIA.
(2) All greatly appreciate curated concise/succinct updates/posts on main threads, especially accessible immediacy of primarily via links to usually social media, etc. You know who you are. ‘No Names, No pack drill.’ lol.
Each single such act reaches far & wide re propagation/impact. Yet, within Empire, these valuable takes, especially direct/1st person, footage/video/statements/testimony are promptly identified/targeted then promptly erased/shadowed by our MiniTru overlords functionaries/entities.
Suggestion: Each time posted, having drafted/prepped the ‘posting’, then upload to Archive.org or Archive.ph, etc, also. As part of a Category/Topic ‘package’ you create. No guarantees, yet a backstop. Thirdly, deliberately also upload/post on a non-Empire nations(5/9/14-Eyes/EU/NATO/SK/Japan) online service/social media: ie, OTTOMH, Rumble, Bitchute, VK, Tolstoy, et al, where MiniTru has no powers of erasure nor censorship. It’s only going to get much worse …
You’d be magnifying your single original post here by orders of magnitude, same with secondary propagation/exposure, reducing the work of investigators and evidentiary prep/submissions, increasing the likelihood of crucial evidence for successfully prosecuting/sentencing the amoral inhuman bustards in the future. For minor additional effort in each instance …
Still Steel
Peace Salaam Shalom

Posted by: Outraged | Oct 17 2024 17:07 utc | 43

@Posted by: Mary | Oct 14 2024 13:21 utc
Who said, re: my post, thesis was “starship is awesome, look what teamwork and skill can do.. what would the world be like if this sort of thing happened more often” …
Mary said:

The world would be exactly as it is today, only more so & worse.
Read to the end this morning’s post from the Challenger (space shuttle O-ring) whistleblower & weep:
https://montanarcc.substack.com/p/then-and-now-the-space-shuttle-challenger

====
Mary: I read it to the end, understood all of it, and I see the point you are making: space tech, and a good bit of so-called “high tech” is used for malignant purposes, such as those exhibited by NeoCon, Zionist, Entitled Rulers of the World, etc.
I accept the point: I recognize the inherent danger of building awesome tools for stupid people.
===
May I ask that you pay close attention to these points:
a. Technology is “what humans know how to do”. Rockets, computer boards with blinkin’ lights, abacus, wheel, numbers and math. Tools humans know how to use; some are physical embodiments of “tech”, others like language are abstract. All just stuff humans know how to do. Tech is neither good or bad; the motivation for its creation and use can be good or bad.
b. One of the major qualitative differences between the Rulers and the People is that the Rulers know how to build and operate teams, and the People don’t. Rulers know how to acquire (by any means) resources, and the People don’t.
Those two fundamental powers – make and operate teams, and acquire resources – yield out the situation we’re in right now. The People are weak, the Rulers are strong.
c. Here’s another trusim: you can’t complain your way to a solution. You can dissipate your energy complaining, and that insures the status quo will continue, but you can’t change _anything_ by just complaining.
If the discomfort we feel never gets translated into action, nothing will change.
Those are the points, here’s the discussion:
Hence my advocacy for “teams” of “competent people” with a “well-defined common mission” and “a plan” and “the resources necessary to execute the plan”.
Please take a moment to take inventory of We the People. Which of those key ingredients are present in sufficient quantity and quality?
=========================
==== A few more words, just for Mary. The rest of the Bar feel free to skip over this part.
=========================
Mary, just so you understand my character a little better, allow me to relate this story.
I spent most of my professional career as an I.T. specialist in the WDC metro area. I did it all, and I was pretty good at it. Back in the day, the market wasn’t completely dominated by nefarious, malignant, drop-bombs-on-people’s-heads or spy-on-them enterprises. There was a lot of decent civil work to be done, and that’s where I worked.
I did OK financially, but nowhere in the same universe as many of my peers who were raking in wheelbarrows of money doing DoD, Intelligence, etc. work.
To put a finer point on it, let me continue with the story …
One time, via a close family friend, I got an assignment where he worked. I knew the company did Defense work, but they also did civil-side stuff, too. That happens a lot.
I took the job, made major jack, worked from home, had the run of the project. Awesome.
Until I found out the project was a front for … something “nefarious”. 2 days later, I’m gone. My friend – close friend – looks like the village idiot, and he had to tell management _why_ I left (I was clear about it). Awkward? Yup. Big time. Cost me that friendship (15 yrs).
There’s more. While DC is big, people know each other. That action I took resulted in a _major_ reduction of call-backs, recruiter inquiries, and so forth. I knew it would happen, knew the cost, did it anyway.
=== Back on the more general themes …
I’m not a starry-eyed worshiper of all things tekkie-n-cool. I understand the implications of what’s getting built, probably better than most of bar here @ MoA. I know how a lot of it works, what it’s used for, etc.
What makes me a little different is that I know how to build big projects, form and work well in big teams, acquire and allocate resources, etc. I know what it takes to win.
And right now We the People aren’t doing what it takes to win.

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Oct 17 2024 17:25 utc | 45

There was a lot of talk about Oxford graduates electing Imran Khan as the new chancellor of Oxford University (Chris Patten is leaving that position). But the university has just come out with a list of candidates for whom graduates can vote, and Khan, who is an Oxford graduate, is conspicuously absent from that list. The university gave Middle East Eye no explanation, but the Eye speculates that the excuse must be that Khan has been convicted of crimes in the farcical courts of Pakistan’s current military government.

Posted by: Lysias | Oct 17 2024 18:46 utc | 47

The ultimate humiliation as an individual, family, race of people and sovereign nation is to convince its weaker citizens, many of them as children, that they are the opposite sex and then to cut off or out their own organs and remove their ability to bear fruit.
Everyone involved in this phenomenon should be put on trial and executed by the full force of the state.

Posted by: ryanggg | Oct 17 2024 19:08 utc | 49

Posted by: Walt | Oct 17 2024 13:18 utc | 1
“Go to your doctor, or your hospital, and ask for a PSA test.
*I guess that’s the bulk of the MoA readership. :-)”
I second that motion. Three years ago my PSA jumped from 3.1 to 5.2. During the next 3 months my medical providers and specialists offered 3 times the option of watching and waiting or following up with more testing. Because I care for a disabled son, I followed the more proactive approach. Finally I discovered that I had stage 2 prostate cancer and had it removed 4 months after my first visit. I’m so grateful to be cancer free and I expect to be taking care of my son for the next 15 or 20 years.

Posted by: Paranaense | Oct 17 2024 19:39 utc | 51

@ Tom Pfotzer | Oct 17 2024 17:25 utc | 46
great post tom.. thank you!
@ everyone – i highly recommend reading both toms post and karlof1’s link that he shared @ 51…

Posted by: james | Oct 17 2024 19:57 utc | 53

Workplaces to Avoid if you are White, Male, or Straight

Posted by: james | Oct 17 2024 16:32 utc | 38
Nice article – wokeism and what became of it

Posted by: grunzt | Oct 17 2024 19:58 utc | 55

The Pentagoon just authorized the use of lethal force against the American people… the only enemy they can defeat… civillians
https://x.com/i/status/1846965588897173655

Posted by: ld | Oct 17 2024 20:12 utc | 57

@57 Scanalyse.
Here ya go.
https://anonpaste.io/share/91c8a3f7fc

Posted by: S.O. | Oct 17 2024 20:25 utc | 59

Meanwhile in Canada we have Pierre Pollievre recieving standing ovations in Montreal synegogues announcing his actions against Canadian anti semites
https://x.com/i/status/1772838884503658805
seems the gloves have come off in unison
it’s them against Humanity

Posted by: ld | Oct 17 2024 20:35 utc | 61

fnord you mentioned body dysmorphia. Therefore surely you recognize that trans surgeries are only ever the result of severe body dysmorphia which, as surely you’ll agree, is an obvious mental illness. Healthy people — in both mind and body — are at peace with whom and what they are. Being a healthy, mature adult is not an easy task these days, I know. Indigenous people, as I’m sure you know, referred to gender-anomalous folks as “two-spirit” because indigenous wisdom saw that the body is just as much spirit as the mind. Indeed, the body is the older, deeper spirit of the two. It is the root spirit from which the mind spirit draws its only only source of sustenance. Obviously.
The transgender POLITICS of reassignment surgery is self-loathing in nature; thus the dysmorphia.
Heal the dysmorphia by healing the body, and the mind will follow. Failing that, just drop the fucking politics that only ever ultimately reinforces State hegemony over everyone and everything. I really fucking don’t appreciate that.
Recognize that the vast majority of early onset gender dysmorphia these days is the direct result of fetal toxicity exposure fucking up the hormonal balance during cell division and proliferation. I’m sure you’re aware of the literature on endocrine disruptors.
Heal the body and the mind follows.

Posted by: reante | Oct 17 2024 20:41 utc | 63

@ ld | Oct 17 2024 20:39 utc | 63
Or, YOU, could merely read the thread in reverse, from newest to oldest, scrolling past ‘so much‘. Capice ?
Would you like some FreeDumb Fries with that ?

Posted by: Outraged | Oct 17 2024 20:59 utc | 65

Posted by: james | Oct 17 2024 15:33 utc | 19
That is a huge question, james, and not one that I can answer in a comment — as a faith though, guns have no place in it, any more than they do in any other Christian denomination. So, those African soldiers becoming Orthodox Christians are doing so much as anyone turning to their army chaplain might do, because they feel themselves to be coming very close to their own deaths, and so seek spiritual help or comfort facing that. It is a separate thing from the actual physical battle they might be facing.
I’ll give you an example that is my own experience. When I was two weeks old, my father left to fight in Greece and North Africa, and his army chaplain baptized me. I don’t know, and don’t need to know which branch of Christianity his chaplain was. I don’t even know his name. It is fortunate for me that my small church in Santa Fe, as do many in Orthodoxy (though not all), accepted my baptism unequivocally, as do I. I don’t and would never carry a gun. But I understand those African soldiers; they sought and now belong to my faith, and it doesn’t have anything to do with warfare in any other sense than the spiritual kind.
I hope that helps. As to the biblical edict ‘Thou shalt not kill’ I saw somewhere in some writings about church matters some time back that Orthodox soldiers who have participated in war to the extent of killing or wounding opponents have to undergo special counseling and confessional help. I’m sorry that I don’t remember particular details, but it would be an intense version of the confessions which are regularly required of all adult parishioners before participating in church communion.

Posted by: juliania | Oct 17 2024 21:05 utc | 67

Posted by: fnord | Oct 17 2024 19:47 utc | 53
You’re not telling me that someone born as an XY genotype, so he never had an uterus, grows one as a result of his transition to the female gender, gets pregnant and gives birth?

Posted by: grunzt | Oct 17 2024 21:23 utc | 69

Forgive my unhinged screeds, bar flies.
@ Posted by: Caliman | Oct 17 2024 21:07 utc | 69
What I’m saying is that “womanhood” is a signification which we are either consciously constructing for our own purposes as a society, or one which we are unconsciously constructing and which we then allow to dominate us (similar to Max Stirner’s “spooks” – no French pomo here, just good ol’ fashion Left-Hegelianism, the morass Marx and Engels emerged from and were highly influenced by). We’re lucky – or perhaps unlucky, if you’re a traditionalist – to live in societies where there is an ever-present rupture in meaning, because that rupture gives us the ability to question our society and evolve and/or discard its institutions, including institutions like gender. I think – and now I will reveal my pomo cards – that the 20th c. Greek philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis (don’t worry, he hated the New Philosophers and BHL in particular) was right in identifying that rupture as a necessary precondition of a democratic, autonomous (i.e., free) society.
I don’t understand the fear of “division” here. It’s not the transgender people who are promoting social division, and in any case, society is clearly divided along plenty of real (insofar as we have to deal with them in everyday life) lines, the most important in our society probably being class.
Perhaps one day concepts like gender and race will fade away and there will only be individuals with some shared characteristics, but people will be able to look and dress how they want. Your doctor may need to know your sex chromosomes for some reason or another, but “gender” may not matter. “Xenofeminists” used to talk about this in regards to stuff like artificial wombs, although that’s getting into 90s pomo territory. But I think the “male/female” binary doesn’t get us there. The “radical feminists” who align with religious reactionaries to, say, ban transgender women from using the women’s bathroom, clearly don’t use it that way (it would be more consistent to say we shouldn’t have gendered bathrooms and should just piss and shit together, as we probably did as a species before the neolithic). That is a clear reification of the binary in order to structure and divide society. I know some trans-exclusionary radical feminists will talk about “gender abolition”, but this is only to reify the binary, and to introduce concepts like “lesbian separatism” (and unfortunately the TERFs aren’t alone in that one – some trans women also advocate separatism, for the same reasons as the TERFs, which is disappointment in how they are treated by their oppressors).

Posted by: fnord | Oct 17 2024 21:36 utc | 71

As Gore Vidal said. long ago, there is one party in the USA, the Property Party, with two right wings. The Republican wing is a little more doctrinaire in its support, the Democrats are a little more likely to throw a few crumbs to working people and minorities. But basically they are the same. Whether Trump or Harris sits in the White House in a year’s time, we will have war-war-war, and the majority will get poorer, and more will be homeless, while a few plutocrats get richer, heedless of potential revolts and disaster.

Posted by: lester | Oct 17 2024 21:58 utc | 73

As Gore Vidal said. long ago, there is one party in the USA, the Property Party, with two right wings….
Posted by: lester | Oct 17 2024 21:58 utc | 74

I don’t have the exact quote, but Gore Vidal, who care from a very wealthy, ruling class background, noted the following with respect to so-called “conspiracy theory”:
Gore Vidal (paraphrased): “It’s not a conspiracy. They all just think alike.”

Posted by: N. Hanrahan | Oct 17 2024 22:05 utc | 75

@Walt
Funny thing. I just had my prostrate checked two days ago.
I was noticing that my body was acting funny. Being in my high 60’s, I expect some changes. But I noticed that lifting weights (just a few) to help lower my blood pressure wasn’t building any mass. Instead it wasn’t doing anything.
Also my sex drive was zero.
So, being in China, I went to the local hospital. Registered and saw a specialist right away.
I was expecting a finger up my anus for the prostrate check. You know; American style. But no. That did not happen.
After he listened to my story (narrated and translated by my wife) he ordered a bunch of tests. I had blood work, urine work, and a test that was like an AI color-ultrasound.
I did all the tests, and then saw the doctor.
Turned out that I was overweight.
I did not have prostrate problems, but my weight caused prostrate and gonad problems. Everything was bigger with fatty buildup. And there were these small globules filled with water and cluster of fat nodules. They were interrupting everything and thus my body could not produce androgen’s. Which is of course the stuff that makes testosterone.
He told me to immediately lose weight; aerobic exercise. Smaller portions of food. Little meat; heavy on vegetables and fruit.
And I have been following that diet all week. So far, I am losing about 0.8 Kg/day.
I had to make some minor alterations to lifestyle to accommodate these changes, but it’s far better than the alternative; a co-worker friend (my age by one month) has stage four prostrate cancer while living in Boston about ten years ago. he survived, but he had the fight of his life.
I don’t want that.
Now, about the Chinese hospital visit. It was in a small city; Tanzhou in Zhongshan. No waiting. They saw me immediately. After tests and everything, we went and got breakfast. So it took about three hours all told.
Total cost was 600 RMB for the visit, tests and a weeks worth of three kinds of medicines. $82.22 USD.
I have made a follow up appointment for next Monday. There they will put me on a long slow TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) regime which is softer and more permanent than the Western pills that I am currently taking.
Best wishes to you. And please don’t mess around with your prostrate.

Posted by: Rufus Arrr | Oct 17 2024 22:48 utc | 77

@Paranaense @Walt
Three months?
The way I look at it is simple. Consider your body as a car.
If it starts to rattle and make strange sounds, or doesn’t accelerate well, or doesn’t break well to a stop, a prudent person would take it into a shop to get it checked out by a mechanic.
You don’t mess around.
Three months in a ratty old car might have a breakdown in the worst possible time.
The moment something sounds wrong. deal with it.

Posted by: Rufus Arrrr | Oct 17 2024 23:00 utc | 79

Fnord @ 29:
The Karankawas and other American First Nations societies recognised three genders in their society because they recognised that men who dressed as women, adopted the mannerisms and names of women, and even married other men and adopted children with those men to bring them up, still weren’t really women. Likewise, women in their societies who dressed as men, adopted the mannerisms of men, and who married other women so they could adopt and raise children together, were still not recognised as men.
The third gender existed as a fluid concept to accommodate people who did not fully conform to their societies’ expectations of them as biological men and women. The roles played by third-gender people in their societies were sometimes unique to them, and their societies often depended on having such third-gender people to carry out such roles, like adopting orphaned children, being babysitters for other people’s children or carrying out certain essential religious rituals that neither heterosexual men nor women were allowed to perform.
Recognising that other gender identities exist does not mean that certain men can force the rest of society to recognise them as women, especially if the underlying aim is to deprive women of the resources they need to get out of poverty or to escape domestic violence.

Posted by: Refinnejenna | Oct 17 2024 23:17 utc | 81

Posted by: Refinnejenna | Oct 17 2024 23:17 utc | 82
Refinnejenna never ceasing to amaze!

Posted by: lex talionis | Oct 17 2024 23:23 utc | 83

@Tom Pfotzer | Thu, 17 Oct 2024 17:25:00 GMT | 46

I recognize the inherent danger of building awesome tools for stupid people.

This ethical conundrum resolves if you attribute all actions to people, and maintain that acting must uphold proper scrutiny. That leaves technology in itself ethically neutral. To pick up your example, if you build awesome tools and already know that stupid people will abuse them, the problem is that you’re facilitating evil, while the technological tools are merely the means to that end.
A good example for the problem is internet security. There is a school of thought that has all users having to take care of their personal defense themselves, including against state actors. To this end, powerful encryption tools are to be provided. But can the cyberwar be decided thusly, or will it remain a raging battle between various sides? I believe the latter is likely, and the way towards a lasting peace would be to make sure that the technology isn’t abused in the first place (or at least not by organized state actors). Of course, this can only ever be more than another warring solution if true insight provides the motivation to refrain from abuse. Still, technology in itself is ethically neutral; all problems arise from its use.

Posted by: persiflo | Oct 18 2024 0:07 utc | 85

@Refinnejenna | Thu, 17 Oct 2024 23:17:00 GMT | 82

The Karankawas and other American First Nations societies recognised three genders in their society because they recognised that men who dressed as women, adopted the mannerisms and names of women, and even married other men and adopted children with those men to bring them up, still weren’t really women.

Brilliant. This own the thread, I guess, unless someone proves that men are women and vice versa.

Posted by: persiflo | Oct 18 2024 0:34 utc | 87

Prostate Cancer.
I think it’s extremely bizarre how everyone in the dominant culture goes on about cancer but nobody in that culture understands what it is.
Here’s the biology of it.
Structurally there are two types of toxins. Water-soluble and fat-soluble. The latter are the true carcinogens because they are harder for the body to process and excrete. Processing of fat-soluble toxins in cells require nutrient intensive (to make) enzymes and oxidases that break down the fat-soluble molecules into water-soluble molecule such that those simpler water-soluble molecules can enter the water-soluble bloodstream for further processing (generally by white blood cells) and/or be transported to the filter organs ahead of excretion.
When the body is chronically ingesting more fat-soluble toxins that it can process and is unable to keep up, it grows adipose cells (fat cells) in order to stabilize the toxic reactivity (molecular instability) of these carcinogens just as with foods: fat is a preservative. Though it be an intelligent Plan B to the failed daily excretion of carcinogens, this stage — storing carcinogens in adipose tissue — is the beginning of one many kinds of metabolic dysfunction.
Under various circumstances, however, adipose storage may not be an option. Perhaps the nutrition is inadequate, perhaps that metabolic pathway is not functioning in that region of the body at the time; invariably it’s because some other trauma(s) is(are) being prioritized. When adipose storage is not an option, the body has two other options.
The first option (Plan C) is to undertake tumorigenesis in order to grow (intentionally mutated by the body) tumor cells in new tumor microenvironments that are intended to be temporary storage sites for carcinogen overflows. Tumor cells are fibrin structures filled with free cholesterol from the bloodstream and it is in the fatty cholesterol that the carcinogens are stabilized. They can be grown anywhere by the body because fibroblast cells are ubiquitous throughout all tissues in the body. These microenvironments are intended to be ephemeral but continued chronic overexposure can cause them to continue expanding and become enduring – this is the body in a downward spiral.
The second option (Plan D), upon both adipose storage failure and tumorigenesis consideration, is to store carcinogens in the body’s other fat cells, those being the functional fatty tissues of glands and organs (which are all of them except for the heart).
The reason that prostate cancer is by far the most common cancer in old men is because the fatty prostate, which feeds high-value nutrients to sperm, is of little to no value anymore to the evolutionary intelligence of the body, especially if the old man is in poor health from overflows of carcinogens, among other traumas. So the body houses the fat-soluble toxins in a place that it can afford to sacrifice when additional adipose storage is failing and tumorigenesis is considered to be a greater risk.
Yet the incredibly foolish allopathic culture believes that cancer is some kind of alien invasion. Like body snatchers. Well, that’s Semitic human herding for you. Fearmongering from the Medical Nemesis as Ivan Illich called it.

Posted by: reante | Oct 18 2024 1:31 utc | 89

@Posted by: reante | Oct 18 2024 1:41 utc | 91
I can’t tell if your comment is sarcasm or a whole new level of delusion.

Posted by: Roger | Oct 18 2024 2:59 utc | 91

Re Id 62
Picture a prostitute, and the John takes out a $1,000 dollar bill and wraps it around a certain part of his anatomy. Just imagine the things the prostitute would do to get the bill. That’s kind of a description of Pierre.

Posted by: Just a grunt | Oct 18 2024 3:12 utc | 93

@Posted by: fnord | Oct 17 2024 19:47 utc | 53

The patient was born with XY chromosomes. They gave birth naturally. Many intersex people are able to reproduce on their own … The point of the example is to show that “biological sex” is not a useful binary in a medical or scientific context, that it’s a simplification we tell children in science classes, but which is not even close to a 1:1 map with “the natural world” or all which really exists. Concepts in general, but even scientific concepts, are at best models that lean on reality, but they do not fully express reality. They are impositions of the human intellect onto a chaotic and messy universe. Of course, some concepts are more useful than others – the usefulness of any kind of strict, reified, sex binary, though, remains to be seen.

A person with XY chromosome cannot “give birth naturally” as they do not have ovaries, even in the case of the rare Swyer Syndrome (1 in every 80,000 births). The term “intersex” is not really used in biology anymore as it has been utterly misconstrued; that’s why science now uses the term DSDs. People are either Y (male) or not Y (female), with only a tiny minority of births not being prototypically male or female, as the exceptions are so small (the rule is proven by the smallness of the rate of exception). You are misrepresenting reality and utilizing a post-modernist philosophy that very basic scientific concepts are cultural constructs rather than reflections of observed reality.

As for “TERF” being a slur, that’s so stupid I can’t even believe you’d say it. The demographic which is most accepting of transgender women is lesbians. The small population of trans-exclusionary “radical feminists” who deny the objective reality of transgender women are not even categorically lesbians. The idea that “TERF” = “lesbian”, though, is very flattering to the TERFs who are cuddling up to religious reactionaries in order to impose restrictions on people’s bodily autonomy and to promote sadistic laws against transgender men and women which are already causing intense suffering.

Just because you believe/assert something does not make it true. There are many gender critical feminists, a lot of them lesbians and a lot of them left wing. You are simply throwing yet more slurs around in attempting to typify those that question gender ideology as “right-wing”. You sound like Hillary Clinton and her “deplorables”. TERF is a slur used to attempt to shut up anyone questioning gender ideology.

Posted by: Roger | Oct 18 2024 3:38 utc | 95

Xinhuanet has a posting up about a speech that International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva gave on Thursday ahead of the 2024 IMF and World Bank Group Annual Meetings.
The quote from her

“Countries would do well to recognize that the rules-based global trading system delivered many benefits and is worth preserving,” she added.

There are lies, damn lies and IMF lies.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 18 2024 3:56 utc | 97

Fnord @ 53:
That example you cite of the woman who apparently was chromosomally male (that is, she supposedly had XY chromosomes in all her cells) and who was able to give birth turns out to be a chromosomal mosaic. That is to say, some her cells had XX sex chromosomes and others had XY chromosomes.
From birth she was brought up female, experienced puberty as a female (that is, she underwent the menarche and had regular periods, so she had a uterus and ovaries) and she had two pregnancies, both apparently unassisted. Her daughter was found to be chromosomally male.
The mother’s family over four generations was found to have included individuals who were born sexually ambiguous (they may have been hermaphrodites), who were infertile for some reason or (if they were female) failed to menstruate.
So this was an unusual family of individuals who may have had, among other things, some form of chromosomal mosaicism involving the 46th set of chromosomes (the set that determines an individual’s biological sex). The fact that this family is cited in medical literature indicates that this family is unique, and therefore it is not proof that intersex people can conceive children and give birth without outside intervention.
This and your other argument that lesbians are the group most accepting of transgender women (without offering any evidence to back up that argument) demonstrate the superficiality of what you are trying to argue.

Posted by: Refinnejenna | Oct 18 2024 4:27 utc | 99