Keys To The Zeitgeist: The Cathedral, Bioleninism & Anarcho-Tyranny

For a variety of reasons, the usual ways of understanding politics have become inadequate to the task. This is true for culture as well, the shopworn trope of Andrew Breitbart "politics is downstream from culture" notwithstanding. Conservatives pretended to understand what that meant but the way in which they deployed it, undergirded by their actions or lack thereof, demonstrably showed that they didn't. Even that original insight no longer applies completely because culture now has become indistinguishable from politics

Instead, far from the useless Left/Right divide, or the meaningless accusations of "socialism is bad!," several terms exist that provide, in my view, a far greater understanding of the times through which we're living. Without them, previous ways of thinking and understanding leave us still adrift, unable to articulate what is going on. And if you can't adequately describe what is going on, you'll never be able to answer, as Lenin once put it, what is to be done?

* * * * 

I've written previously about the Cathedral and have tried to mainstream it, somewhat, through my Twitter account. I'm a Twitter guy, Facebook being of the devil, where I only post memes and run away, or links to my columns here, which go unread & unengaged with. Q.E.D. and all that.

The Cathedral was a concept invented by Mencius Moldbug, real name Curtis Yarvin, in 2008. It's a simple but revealing idea which, once understood, changes forever the way in which you look at things. He defined it this way:

"The great power center . . . . is the Cathedral. The Cathedral has two parts: the accredited universities and the established press. The universities formulate public policy. The press guides public opinion. In other words, the universities make decisions, for which the press manufactures consent. It’s as simple as a punch in the mouth."

He recently elaborated upon it:

"The Cathedral is information: truth, philosophy, ethics, narrative, art and intelligence.

Its inner circle, the Brain and the Voice, includes all professors, journalists, serious artists, published authors, etc. Its outer ring, the Conversation, is the whole upper social class. Its funding division, the Foundation, is the whole upper economic class. Its teaching division, the School, gets to indoctrinate almost everyone for over a decade. And its doctrine, the Dream, defines good and evil for all decent people.

The importance of the Cathedral is defined by its monopoly on legitimacy. A school which is not the School is not educating. A voice which is not the Voice is not informing. A brain which is not the Brain is not thinking. There is nothing legitimate about miseducation, disinformation or unreason.

Prestigious information passes from Brain to Voice, and Voice to Conversation. This process is subtle enough, and its product is of high enough quality, for the Conversation to believe it is actually making up its own mind—from filtered inputs. The Conversation—all of legitimate public opinion—always admires the System. It thinks of this as a completely voluntary and spontaneous critical assessment.

And the Conversation, which is the discourse of the upper social class, is always the discourse of fashion. For the nobility (rich or broke), fashionable ideas are de rigueur. Against the middle social class (rich, doing okay or broke), they are political attacks. Épater la bourgeoisie is the official sport of every nobility. It is the role of the weak to accept these attacks, internalize them, and use them to loyally flagellate themselves.

The arrows of fashion rain down constantly from every direction. The kulaks cannot resist them for long and will surrender to the nobility’s latest definition of cool; not soon enough to be cool themselves; soon enough for this victory over themselves to be expected and taken for granted, and some new demand for further coolness launched.

And hell will freeze helium before the kulaks convince the nobles of anything at all. Even the truth will have a rough time if the kulaks somehow get hold of it first.

This may seem like a brutal process—but frankly, isn’t the nobility usually right? Aren’t nobles just cooler, better people? They certainly have higher IQs. The best of them are in the Cathedral. The rest at least hold Cathedral ranks. Surrender, chuds."

* * * * 

Bioleninism is our next stop in this brief tour of how best to understand the Zeitgeist.  The Warden Post describes it this way and it's as good a definition as any other. You're certainly left in no doubt:

Developed by Spandrell (alias, Bloody Shovel) it takes the basic Leninist model of building a Party to rule the state out of the dregs of society, and shifts this to the realm of biology, wrong-think biology in particular, building the party out of people who are permanent losers within the social order. Naturally, this refers to the non-white, non-heterosexual, non-viable forms of life we’re forced to prostrate ourselves to as the living saints of the religion of diversity. This is for the very simple reason that those with zero status in a sane society stake their entire lives on accumulating social capital through the Party and will revert back to that position of zero status if the party ever loses power, thus ensuring their undying loyalty towards the party and undying enmity towards those who aren’t lacking in status – whether we’re talking about the ne’er do wells of old Russia or the degenerate and swarthy masses of the modern West. In other words, Bioleninism is a system through which the governing Globohomo powers ensure that those most problematic of peons – white, Christian, heterosexual men (and the women married to them) will always be outvoted (and therefore expropriated, disenfranchised and ultimately eliminated) by the aforementioned non-viable life forms.

You only have to look at the makeup of the Minneapolis City Council to see Bioleninism in action. In fact, most of Minnesota politics on the Left is a grand exercise in it. The lower the I.Q., the more unaccomplished, the freakier the freak, the more exalted they become by the powers pulling the strings and setting the stage. This was the attempted new normal long before the Wuhan virus.

By contrast, loving your straight wife or straight husband, including the miracles which proceed from perfect sexual complementariness, children, is to be abjured, preferably mocked and belittled outright. 

You can find Spandrell's three part essay here.

Other commentators have noted that a singular feature of Bioleninism is the assault on the middle from the top and the bottom. The uppermost & the lowermost are in a kind of war against that middle, in order for the top to rule more effectively because they can and do easily manipulate the bottom strata of society. The losers, the very targets, are the middle class, normies. To date it's been wildly successful because those who fight against it don't fundamentally understand what the "it" is. 

We're awash in Bioleninsim because the Cathedral promotes it incessantly. Hand, meet glove.

* * * * 

Finally, the concept of anarcho-tyranny is played out daily in 2020 and while the incidents of it--strange, baffling, flat out wrong--are everywhere, too few understand the screenplay of this movie.

ParallelOptics has a depressingly accurate description of what it is:

"An amoral system of asymmetric law enforcement

Administered through a bureaucratic labyrinth of selective rule application

Under Anarchotyranny the ruling class aims to control its subjects so that they cannot coordinate / oppose the Regime 

This constitutes the tyrannical aspect

Instead of controlling the ‘real’ criminals / reining in the Regime’s own de facto paramilitary forces

This causes distributed anarchy

Meanwhile the law is interpreted and enforced selectively / asymmetrically depending on what is perceived to be in the interests of the Regime

Anarchotyranny is a demonic Hegelian synthesis 

The Regime tyrannically / oppressively regulates citizens lives yet refuses to enforce fundamental protective law 

Violent riots are incited by the Regime

While self-defence is effectively criminalised

Real criminals evade justice as long as they are ideologically aligned with power

While law abiding citizens are cast as criminals for protecting what belongs to them."

If you want a concrete, recent example of anarcho-tyranny, just think of the McCloskeys, the Saint Louis couple being legally persecuted by Soros prosecutors simply for defending themselves and their home with lawful firearms. If people don't wake up, this will eventually be their fate in some fashion or another. Because it's designed to be their fate. 

* * * * 

Together these three concepts explain the current times in far greater depth than any other. My brief explanation of them can be seen as a black pill, certainly, but I prefer to see it as something else: a way out. Because if you don't understand what is happening and why, you have no ability to find ways with which to extract yourself, your family, your culture and your country from it. The future, in other words, is closed off if you don't know the "what, why or how" of what's happening.

Once you do, however, everything changes because clarity brings insight. And insight allows previously obscured courses of conduct to become visible. What might initially be thought of as a black pill is actually a red pill. The nice thing I like about red pills is that they frequently lead to white ones. 

Minnesota Republicans: Sleepwalking Thru 2020

I haven't written anything in more than four months because I haven't had anything to say, or, more precisely, to say in public. But coming off of some slight involvement in a recent "activist" activity, my experience of which could only charitably be characterized as "no good deed goes unpunished," I realized that it was of a piece with Minnesota Republicans overall in this strangest of years. There's both a lot to discuss and very little: absence is like that and absent is what Republicans have largely been. 

One has to come to a full stop in order to appreciate how astonishing it was to see them disappear in real time. It's hard to imagine what life was like before the mid-March declaration that we had "fifteen days to slow the spread." Since then, the spread of the Wuhan virus has indeed been slowed but the spread of power grabs and petty fascism engaged in by both Democrat & some Republican governors in America was fast and disturbingly permanent.

Gov. Tim Walz, the personification of everything that's mediocre about Minnesota, was no exception. Invoking "peacetime emergency" powers, thirty days at a time, he badly bungled the state's response to the virus. From criminally wrong "models" of deaths & ICU hospitalizations, to the hysterical overreaction in buying a seven million dollar morgue (now used as a closet, as one local outlet put it), to allowing virus patients to be placed in nursing homes and long term care facilities making Minnesota the third highest ranking state in killing its elderly, to a useless mask mandate issued five months after the "pandemic" began solely because he didn't get a bonding bill, Walz demonstrated the poverty of actual governing talent that plagues modern politics. 

Local media supported and covered for him every step of the way, of course, echoing his preposterous talking points, joining in his deflection by blaming President Trump for Walz's shortcomings and failures, and refusing to ask any serious, probing questions about both the hypotheticals generated by a model whose code was kept hidden for months, as well as demonstrable failures in what had been done to date. Remember the "moonshot" that never happened?

The traction of this approach could never last because it became clear to Americans that how various parts of the country succeeded, or not, was largely a function of a state's governor and not the Leviathan of the federal government. Women took the lead in the Minnesota Department of Health and women reporters did most of the covering of them. The result was predictably awful, like women cops or firefighters.

* * * * 

The pandemic torpor was suddenly and violently replaced Memorial Day Weekend with the death of criminal and porn star auteur George Floyd. Instead of being released promptly, Islamofascist Attorney General Keith Ellison kept the police body camera footage hidden from the public, allowing the false narrative that Floyd dindu nuthin to take hold, resulting in arson, looting and rioting breaking out across the country. There's no length people like Ellison won't go to destroy America. When the Daily Mail published surreptitiously recorded video of the footage, the narrative collapsed almost at once. But the damage had been done and damage and division was always the goal. 

The Minneapolis City Council, which resembles an outtake from the "Star Wars" cantina scene, rushed headlong into defunding city police. It also embodies a concept known as "bioleninism," about which I'll write in the near future, along with anarcho-tyranny. More recently, it has climbed off the ledge upon which it sanctimoniously climbed when confronted with an unsurprising crime wave. 

As a side observation, the huge spike in crime in Minneapolis, as well as in St. Paul to a lesser but still disturbing degree, is overwhelmingly caused by Blacks, Hispanics, Somalis and Native Americans. Despite race being all, don't look for that angle in your local news coverage. 

Minnesotans are already marking their calendars for a reprise of this mindless violence next year when some or all of the officers charged in Floyd's death are acquitted. With real life having been reduced to a series of interchangeable stage sets, it doesn't take much to see the future. Think of it as kabuki but without the aesthetics. 

* * * * 

Once Minnesota got past its costly spasm of destruction things reverted, somewhat, back to the suffocating conditions Gov. Walz had imposed. It didn't go unnoticed, however, that for weeks on end, sometimes seemingly endlessly so, the virus—mirabile dictu!—disappeared as thousands, even tens of thousands, of people around the country gathered to protest, commit crimes, whine about imaginary grievances, and engage in public displays of pathological narcissism, all encouraged & fawned over by our corrupt and dishonest media who saw in this behavior a chance to finally defeat Donald Trump. 

When the contradiction between virus hysteria and "protesting" became too great to ignore, the Cathedral promptly promulgated the notion that waycism was important enough to disregard the heretofore sacrosanct edits that deprived citizens of their most meaningful freedoms. In no small part, this led to many Americans realizing that everything had been politicized by the elites in 2020 (remember impeachment?) in order to defeat Trump in November. The thing about illusions is that once shattered, they're never repaired. This is as true in politics as it is in life and love.

* * * * 

Minnesota Republicans can be forgiven for being as disoriented as the rest of us in March and much of April. But even then there were signs that the pandemic wasn't going to be as disastrous as advertised. By May a great deal was already known about the virus, given the worldwide crash research into it, how it functioned, the best practices in treatment for those afflicted. 

During this time there was no counter narrative from Republicans, no response to the regular briefings from girl bureaucrats in the MDH, demonstrably over their heads. As a result the narratives that Democrats wanted, and which could be reliably amplified by a complicit local media delirious to do their own small potatoes thing to help get rid of Orange Man, shaped most public opinion. 

It rarely occurs to Minnesota Republicans to go on offense and this has never been more true than in 2020. Every state that borders us is freer, more open, and with substantially lower death totals. Leave it to the MNGOPe to refuse to look around and use the best comparative evidence available. Provincialism is a bipartisan affair in Minnesota.

In their defense (and it's always defense with this group), they'll say they refused a bonding bill, something the parasitical Walz was keen to get. True enough but how low must the bar be set before it can be said they passed it? While it's true that it would have been political malpractice for them to have agreed to one, they commit such malpractice frequently enough that I suppose we should be glad they didn't this time. Not all low expectations are bigotry.

Slightly better was the Republican led Senate in refusing to confirm two of Walz's commissioners. It was something but a bit on the too little, too late side. I'm dubious that it creates any real barriers to the Governor getting done what he wants and on his terms. Of course, they didn't have the testicular fortitude to take out the manifestly incompetent head of the MDH, Jan Malcolm. "You're killing people" the Leftist freaks would shout and they would cower, not knowing how to respond because they rarely do.

* * * * 

Last week Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg died because of course she did, is this still not 2020? It seems all but certain that her replacement will be nominated and confirmed before the November 3rd election. This has had a profoundly dispiriting effect on the Regressive Left and I can't get enough of it. 

* * * * 

It seems likely that Trump will win unless the election is rigged post-voting and I wouldn't be surprised if Republicans not only keep the Senate but take back the House. A mighty backlash is coming after a year of nonsense and insanity. A similar backlash occurred in India when Narendra Modi won his second term as Prime Minister. The opposition Congress Party was destroyed. I want a Modi level landslide. The American people are patient, at least the ones who aren't low impulse. They've bided their time and now that time is coming soon.

Friends and acquaintances of mine, staffer types, lobbyist types, knaves & rogues, apparently are being taken in all over again by polling. They think, once more, I don't know what I'm talking about despite being right about 2016. Of course, being right then is no guarantee I'm right now. You'd think they'd be less gullible about polling, though, but you'd be wrong. We'll see soon enough.

If the results are good for Republicans, then in Minnesota we have to go on offense and take advantage of the situation. This requires new thinking from our sclerotic Republican class and I'm not at all sure they are up to it. But they can't coast going forward in the next two years. It would help if they could decide whether or not they actually believe in anything.

I'm obligated to mention the 2022 gubernatorial race because that's all the political class will be talking about after November 4th. Minnesota politics really is boring. 

That said, Mike Lindell cannot defeat Tim Walz despite what Republican Party chair & sociopath Jeniffer Carnahan intimated on Twitter recently about him being the nominee. It's not that I don't believe his approval is low in greater Minnesota and deservedly so. It's that two years is a long time and simply not being Tim Walz isn't a path to the mansion on Summit Avenue. 

Republicans will have to want to win for a change, really want to win, if they are to make Tim Walz the one term governor he should be. But it will take more than the old thinking which has led to 14 years without a GOP statewide win. Most organizations would reassess strategy, tactics and messaging with a loss record like that but not Minnesota Republicans because the same people get jobs and make money regardless. 

A message of economic populism and nationalism would find a receptive electorate in this state. Who could be that messenger? It remains to be seen but the apparatchiks are terrified about anything that is not Chamber of Commerce, the enemy of the American people, approved. The closer to Trump, the further away they move. 

Remember, in the 2016 Minnesota presidential caucus, these people gave little Marco one of his rare wins. He couldn't win his home state of Florida but the chuckleheads here found him to be as unthreatening, insubstantial and tapioca as they are. Rubio now seems dated, stale, bought & sold, yesterday's man, a strap hanger in a subway car going in a very different direction then when he boarded. He's only along for the ride, just like them.

If these people determine our nominee for 2022, he or she will lose. If mindless and talentless cheerleaders like Carnahan do, the same result will obtain but for a different reason.

Apple-like, those who determine our nominee will have to "think different." 

Thinking would be a good start. There's still enough time to get to the different part.

 

 

The Muslim Pets Of Minnesota Democrats

All religions are purportedly equal in America but in Minnesota there's only one that's exalted, praised and promoted by those in the DFL, in and out of office, to say nothing of their handmaidens in the media. They aren't subtle about it and that's the point: some barely literate, welfare dependent & criminally active dude from Somalia is far better than you, and your family, who have lived here in Minnesota for generations.

They're not white and you are. This is their literal calculus; they're importing any Third World underclass in order to stay in power, the Great Replacement. That Islam is the most violent, regressive, divisive and per se hateful religion in human history is simply value added to the Cultural Marxists now regnant in this state.

* * * * 

I've written about the dangers of Islam in the West for as long as I've been writing here, or at Alpha News and elsewhere, for more than a decade. I used to be younger. But the message doesn't age and so I couldn't help but be struck by the next-level audacity, the sheer contempt and in-your-faceness of Governor Walz, parroted by his lower echelon minions in state government, who last month wished the forcibly-imported-into-Minnesota Muslims a Happy Ramadan. 

To use their phrase: this isn't who we are. Nor, certainly, wish to become. 

There is, theoretically, nothing wrong with a public official wishing the adherents of one religion or another well on their particular holiday. Personally I'm not fond of it, rather French in fact, when it comes to L'etat and religion. But America was founded and created by Christians, mostly Dutch & British Protestants. So the public square has always contained the uncontainable, God. It should continue to do so.

The trick is to get it right and here Governor Walz and his troops didn't at all and by design. Governor Assistant Football Coach (h/t Sheila Kihne PBUH) was noticeably absent from a daily briefing about the Wuhan virus in Minnesota recently. A credulous Minnesota media repeated his lie that he was observing Good Friday, no questions asked.

The real reason for his absence was that he was caught out in a lie the day before, Holy Thursday, denying he'd predicted there would be 20,000 dead in Minnesota. To which Tom Hauser said: "We have it on tape."

There were no Easter greetings to the Christians of Minnesota by the Governor. They're the enemy and I don't exaggerate. If you think I do, may I suggest you haven't been paying attention? 

Later on Good Friday he tweeted a picture of himself and his daughter, both moronically wearing face masks outdoors. Some observance of the Ultimate Sacrifice, God become Man and slaughtered for our sake. That I'm no longer a Christian (but not an atheist) makes no difference in being able to recognize the calculated slight. Perhaps it heightens it.

I'm able to see clearly how the Regressive Left weaponizes one religion, while denigrating others, in particular the one which is responsible for the creation of America, modernity itself and which no amount of Third World immigrants can sustain. 

Which is the point. 

Their goal is to attack and discredit the very notions upon which America was created. In Minnesota, they're succeeding, in no small part because of a weak, insipid and cowardly entity known as the Republican Party of Minnesota, its elected officials, adherents, donor and lobbyist class. 

If you ever find yourself in a foxhole with one of them, put a bullet in the back of their head. Don't aim for the brain, you'll likely miss that small target; focus on the brain stem.

They're reptiles, after all. 

* * * * 

As everyone knows by now, the City of Minneapolis, in cooperation with the terrorist affiliated CAIR, has commanded that the call to prayer be blared out in the squalid ghetto known as Cedar-Riverside during Ramadan. Everyone in that area who isn't a Mohammedan is oppressed in public. They don't matter. 

What's happening in our midst in Minnesota has been played out repeatedly in Europe. There's one playbook and it's being run here with frightful little opposition, thoughtful or otherwise. You can read all about it in Douglas Murray's book "The Strange Death of Europe."  

* * * * 

There's little public or organized opposition to the exaltation of Mohammedism over Christianity or indeed any other religion. There should be and I've done my bit, will continue to. The insistence by Muslim immigrants wherever they land in Western countries that they're special and needs must have unique accommodations is a demand made by no other group. It deserves to be rejected out of hand. 

Islam isn't special except in its depravity.

Allah was a desert moon god before Mohammad coopted the concept and incorporated it into his derivative religion, a mish mash of Christianity & Judaism, brought forth in the 7th Century and then spread by violence, slaughter and conquest. As you read this, the Muslim slave trade thrives in North Africa. Don't expect Gov. Walz or the local  media to mention that, however.  

* * * *

There are a number of brave citizen groups throughout the state who fight back against being replaced, being ethnically cleansed in their homeland and the homeland of their ancestors, being told that cretins like Ilhan Omar are more American than they and their families are. They are right to resist, to object and to reassert that this country belongs to them and to those who, as President Trump is frequently wont to say, love our people and our values.

They adjust to America; we don't adjust to them. Within reason of course: it's mostly Protestants who get publicly drunk now on Saint Patrick's Day.

Somalis aren't the only Muslim subgroup in Minnesota but they're certainly the largest and most visible. Why, then, do they commit so much crime? Why is welfare dependency so great? Why, still, do 80% of them not speak English at home? All of this goes unreported, of course, because it conflicts with the corrosive narrative pushed by the Cathedral.

These are legitimate questions a free people can and should ask. You'll be punished, on or off line, for doing so but you simply have to persist. After the name calling, the Cultural Marxists have nothing.

Not being afraid is their greatest fear.

Vandana of Varanasi

I encountered her by accident: the reason one travels.

I was staying in a flat outside of the noise and din of Varanasi, the holiest city of Hinduism, far removed from my first visit to Mother India in the deep south of the country, the state of Tamil Nadu, locus of the glory of the Hindu religion and her temples, away from the slaughter and destruction of the Muslims further north, that fake religion of peace which threatens the civilized world wherever it spreads, like a virus.

Here I had gone north. The difference was substantial but similar. The ear piercing cacophony of Indian traffic is an assault when first encountered. Then, like everything in life I suppose, one gets used to it and the noise fades to mere background. I've become adept at the notorious Indian "head wobble" signifying something (yet I somehow manage always to know when to deploy it), as well as making way for cows on the road. Don't pet them, by the way.

The city is also known as Benares, Banaras or Kashi. Puts me in mind of Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul. Some of our world cities have long histories behind their current label.

Except Rome, eternal Rome.

As Mark Twain said: “Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend  and looks twice as old as all of them put together!”

India is Hindu. I've only ever been there to observe. And learn. I'm not a convert. Isn't learning enough?

* * * * 

Like some story board from a movie, I met Vandana on one of my last days in Varanasi. I was staying in a VRBO above where she lived, tight against the ghats on the Ganges, the owner a literal descendant of Indian royalty. The dismantling of them by Nehru is second only to his agreement of the partition of the subcontinent. Some crimes cannot be forgiven.

* * * * 

I had two keys. The first let me out of the yard of my flat, into the back, toward the river, the Ganges, universally called "Ganga" in India. That name was foreign to this foreigner. What do they know? I preferred my own pronunciation but never spoke it. When in Rome. 

The second key was to a gate that allowed me to climb down the steep steps to the Ganges, steep as in if you fell forward you'd be dead by the time your carcass flopped onto the landing. A shabby death, as a dear friend of mine might call it.

When I looked right, instead of left, that's when I saw Vandana. The steepness of the steps never changed in either direction but there were fewer of them to the right than to the left.

I'm not entirely sure why I climbed those steps to the right but I did. She spoke limited English but I spoke no Hindi. She was a bright young girl, self possessed and charming and with a modicum of English. "Hey mister!"

She took me left, around the corner where the steps ended and then showed me a litter of puppies. Other Indians immediately crowded round as she showed them off to me. Here's a white guy, an obvious visiter (no matter where I travel abroad I don't think of myself as a tourist. Some may find that a conceit; I think of it as a mindset). Four, or six, I can't remember. Cute as only dog or cat babies can be.

After making nice for awhile, I told Vandana that I had to be off to the Ganges. We'd rounded back around the corner and she invited me in for chai into, apparently, her family's home. I declined with all the graciousness that pigeon English and hand gestures could muster. She understood but asked if I was on WhatsApp. I confessed I was and so phone numbers were exchanged.

* * * *

I dropped off several kilos of puppy chow to her before I left Varanasi. One can only do so much, but wherever one is, one should do that much, at home or abroad. I also gave her a 500 rupee note (with my right hand, by the way, never the left). She knew at a glance what it meant and thanked me, profusely if she had had her way but I made my exit quickly. Many people live for thanks while I've always found it a personal indictment.

* * * * 

Vandana texted me via WhatsApp for awhile after I returned to America, always calling me "uncle," a term of respect for older men who are not literal family relations. I responded as best I could, given the language and age barriers. After some time, she went silent. I don't know if her family could continue to afford an internet plan or not. Food first.

* * * * 

I don't know why Vandana returned to me, why I'm only writing about her now for the first time, more than a year later. Possibly because I know I can't travel this spring (Berlin/Vienna), although I always go to India in the Fall, which is still likely to happen, so I'm not sure that's it. 

Likely it's because when people ask why I "vacation" so much, as opposed to what I do, which is travel, she's the reason. 

CPAC: The Potemkin Village Of Conservative, Inc.

Viruses are lately much in the news and as if taking its cue from that, CPAC opened this week in Washington, D.C. An annual event for some years now, it has become a bloated farce of Conservative, Inc.'s attempt to survive the Trump years by fooling its too often gullible base by appearing to represent genuine conservative change. It does nothing of the sort, of course, but one has to give it credit for the sheer size of the gaslighting effort.

Previously CPAC was mostly a DC gathering for the 30 and under conservative crowd to get drunk and laid. Who could begrudge them that except MNGOPe types who'd do well to do either or both more. Then CPAC got monetized by Conservative, Inc.

Last year, Google was a major sponsor of CPAC. What more, really, is there to say? A major tech company, the most powerful tech company in the world, which consistently deplatforms conservatives and dissidents, ponies up to put on this farcical show.

This is akin to a Code Pink conference being underwritten by Lockheed Martin or Raytheon. Nothing is too stupid or contradictory for the odious lobbyist Matt Schlapp, head of the American Conservative Union, the headwaters of CPAC.

The fundamental problem with CPAC, apart from the obvious grift, is its determined insistence to avoid topics of real interest to Americans, the most important of which is immigration--both legal and illegal--and how demographic replacement could shortly make it impossible to elect a Republican president again. The corporate money behind CPAC doesn't care if America becomes a Third World hellhole.

Ann Coulter will never be more right than when she says immigration is "the" issue because immigration decides all other issues. It's irrefutable & Ilhan Omar is Exhibit A to this proposition.

CPAC today is utterly uncontroversial: socialism bad! free markets rules! Visit our vendors in the hallways to buy your tsotchkes that reinforce your Boomer mindset. "It's all so tiresome."

Nikki Haley, real name Nimrata Nikki Randhawa (see how that works?) hosted the official "Welcome Reception" according to CPAC's official agenda posted online. Did she charge $100,000, her usual speaking fee? She's a neocon as well so that's great.

This isn't to say CPAC is a complete wash. Sometimes interesting people who speak about relevant topics are not screened out. President Trump is scheduled to speak and it would be bad form not to.

Nigel Farage, Lee Smith, Andy Ngo, Saagar Enjeti, Sen. Josh Hawley, Gordon Chang, are among the quality speakers allowed by CPAC to make it appear authentic.

Pete Hegseth will speak as well (in the "FOX Nation" booth, subscribe now!) about his book, "In The Arena: Good Citizens, a Great Republic, and How One Speech Can Reinvigorate America," the paperback edition of which came out three years ago, in February, 2017. Okay. Everybody into the pool.

But the bad outweighs the good. Just days ago CPAC credentialed well known Leftist Jared Holt who engages on hit jobs on people on the Right, as well as another man who's a certified Antifa activist. Molly-Jong Fast is speaking as I write. If you don't know who these people are, that's by design. When you know, you realize that CPAC enables the enemy which, necessarily, makes them the enemy as well.

You won't see Michelle Malkin, the bravest conservative in the nation, Ann Coulter, always redeemable by her writing on immigration or even Laura Loomer (don't care what you think of her) who was thrown out of CPAC last year. What gatekeepers on the Right?

As ‪@NickJFuentes said recently: "Free speech is essential in so far that we use it to challenge the status quo. CPAC wants to control the narrative so that regular people aren’t exposed to true right wing and nationalist positions."

* * * * 

Closer to home we have our own iteration of gatekeepers and faux conservatism, The Center of the American Experiment, which I call, more accurately, the Center of the American Boomer.™ I endeared myself to it by writing honestly when Sen. Tom Cotton addressed their annual dinner, three years ago this June, by writing "Tom Cotton Red Pills The Center of the American Experiment."

I haven't said this before but I wrote that article because neither John Hinderaker, president of the "activist think tank," nor Scott Johnson wrote about the substance of Sen. Cotton's remarks. Both praised his credentials (by their insecurities ye shall know them) and how pleasant & funny he was: a good time was had by all. Pablum, perfectly in keeping with Center's mission to be impotent but liked. Don't get me started on the cowardice of Hinderaker when it comes to Kim Crockett. 

Now, by invitation only, which still costs you $75 (what grifting?) we have this upcoming:

And who isn't for fweedom? Certainly not gullible Boomers!

Charlie Kirk is a joke who makes Mark Zuckerberg look human. He's head of Turning Point, USA, the cringe astroturf group that exists to make Boomers think they're not, in real time, losing their country to the Third World. Unlike Michelle Malkin & Nick Fuentes, he's not America First. 

Candace Owens is an accomplished chameleon grifter: look up "Social Autopsy," her stillborn website designed to dox people who anonymously engage in wrong think. Before realizing where the money was, she trashed tea party patriots specifically and Republicans generally. This is her third, five figure, appearance at the Center of the American Boomer.™ She's peddled the "Blexit" farce, where large number of blacks will vote for Trump. This wasn't proven by the results from 2018 but no matter. She also married a white dude, something sure to go down well in the hood. Only Minnesota Boomers would fail to recognize a fraud of this stature. 

David Prager, son on Dennis, is also speaking to the blue rinse haired crowd that makes up this "VIP event by invitation only $75" event. He's the son of Dennis. Last year the Los Angeles Times reported that "Tax filings show $237,500 went to his [Dennis] consulting firm. An additional $155,700 went to Prager’s son for help with fundraising." Cool, cool. 

The outlier in this group is David Horowitz who is a stronger conservative than any of his co-attendees. "Fight fire with fire" is his mantra, something necessary, needed and true to our times. 

He's a wartime conservative; the rest peacetime. 

Buy their books, pay the entrance fee. Pretend you're saving America. 

Attend CPAC or believe they speak for you.

Whatever.