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"I am a professional fantasy novelist, and I can’t come up with shit that’s as implausible as what the average dorky leftist accepts as gospel."

So if TMI was "our Chernobyl" and Vietnam was "our Afgh" how come we're still standing 50 years later, while the USSR did last a mere half-decade after theirs?

Saudi-shmaudi: with the US being the top oil producer in the world and Soviets cheating OPEC like mad they are getting more and more irrelevant every day.

And while screaming "THE SKY IS FALLING" is fun, "the sky has been falling for 50 years and is gonna totally-totally fall in the next 50" doesn't have the same ring to it.

UkraineIsFucked says

"I am a professional fantasy novelist, and I can’t come up with shit that’s as implausible as what the average dorky leftist accepts as gospel."

Ha!

Really another example of Prog Thinking, just on a different tack.

RWSGFY says

So if TMI was "our Chernobyl" and Vietnam was "our Afgh" how come we're still standing 50 years later, while the USSR did last a mere half-decade after theirs?

Saudi-shmaudi: with the US being the top oil producer in the world and Soviets cheating OPEC like mad they are getting more and more irrelevant every day.

And while screaming "THE SKY IS FALLING" is fun, "the sky has been falling for 50 years and is gonna totally-totally fall in the next 50" doesn't have the same ring to it.

Judge by the effect on society. Just like the USSR in the late 80's, people in the USA are tired of sacrificing for world hegemony. When is it "their turn" to enjoy the fruits of victory from the end of the Cold War? The distrust of government and the belief that the government is corrupt and in fact a bunch of evil child molesting, moloch-worshipping satanists is at an all-time high. Every institution in this country, be it schools, hospitals, police, etc. is distrusted.

TMI was our Chernobyl, in the sense that the core completely melted down. Unlike the Chernobyl reactor, TMI had full containment - the "corium" is still smoldering in the basement to this day, instead of being blown across the northern hemisphere like at Chernobyl.

We're still standing because we had, and to a large extent, still have, unlike the USSR, the power of global seignorage, which allows us to use the rest of the world to subsidize our wars, mistakes, and other idiocy. If the USSR ran Bretton Woods and the Petrodollar, do you think they would have fallen?

Now, in his august wisdom, Bidet has weaponized the dollar system. This means that the dollar is toast, and Triffin's Dilemma will ultimately resolve - hint: not in our favor.

Movie Review: Civil War

Ok kiddies. Just got out of the theater after watching this.

If you think this film is basically Red Dawn with Based vs Libtards, it's not. The pre release trailers and ads were that way to get as many butts into the theater seats, is all.

Still, it's not something you'd fall asleep in the theater while watching. It's damn good. I would be shocked if they don't get at least one Oscar nomination for Director or cinematography. The footage is a lot like that in Saving Private Ryan. Very much like it.

It's basically a story shown and told from a photojournalist's perspective. They are intentionally vague about who is running the Feds and who the rebels in terms of real world 'red' vs 'blue'. It's more like the Potus is a quasi-dictator who is serving a third term and that even got the Texans & Californians to team up to overthrow him. Basically, Deep State Taking The Gloves Off vs the rest of America. And that is really a guess on my part - they don't want you to really dwell on it.

But what the film really concentrates is the on-the-ground horrors of what a civil war would be like. Mogadishu comes to America! This is where the Saving Private Ryan-esque filmmaking kicks in. They don't spare the violence at all. And not just visually but also excellent use of sound.

Then again, I did see it in IMAX. Maybe that impacted my experience a little. :)

I was impressed despite the fact movies about journalists don't impress me usually.

So unless you were seriously jonesing for civi war porn like Red Dawn is cold war porn, I can tell you it is worth seeing.

Oh, and no woke. At least I didn't notice any.

RWSGFY says

What is our Afghanistan and Chernobyl? Have they happened yet?

Afghanistan is our Afghanistan. Maui and Palestine Ohio were fairly small, but highly embarrassing.

What precedes a big change is when the media can't bring consensus any longer. We're there. I don't think are many people that still believe the propaganda. It's taken FOREVER for people to wake up to it, but they have.

That's what happens when they have to pretend not to know what a man or a woman is, or had to pretend that the pandemic was as serious as it was, it the monkeypox hoopla was killed quick as soon as gay men were caught infecting children and dogs. Our media insists on talking endlessly about unimportant trivial issues endlessly and they have been caught lying multiple times without apology, not just important things like Ukraine, but over trivial stuff like transgendered bathrooms are a real important thing.

FPV drones coming for these two tacticool idjits in 3,2,1...

Given that Hollywood became the unofficial propaganda arm of the U.S. military & security agencies after WWll you can be CERTAIN that the timing of this movie, and the gist of the script, are no accident. Somebody wants this narrative inserted into the national consciousness at just this moment.
I predict some recognition during the awards season for the same reason, that has to be a cinch to finagle for whoever took over for Epstein.

If you watch it and find yourself sitting next to a Millennial Karen, be sure to shout 'wolverines!' during the battle scenes.

stereotomy says

Triffin's Dilemma

Learn something new every day on Patrick.net

Reserve Currency Paradox
Becoming a reserve currency presents countries with a paradox. They want the "interest-free" loan generated by selling currency to foreign governments, and they need to be able to raise capital quickly because of high demand for reserve currency-denominated bonds. At the same time, they want to be able to use capital and monetary policy to ensure that domestic industries are competitive in the world market and to make sure that the domestic economy is healthy and not running large trade deficits. Unfortunately, both of these ideas—cheap sources of capital and positive trade balances—usually can't happen at the same time.

This is the Triffin dilemma, named after Robert Triffin, an economist who wrote of the impending doom of the Bretton Woods system in his 1960 book, Gold and the Dollar Crisis: The Future of Convertibility. He pointed out that the years of pumping dollars into the world economy through post-war programs, such as the Marshall Plan, was making it increasingly difficult to stick to the gold standard. The country had to achieve this by instilling international confidence through a current account surplus while also having a current account deficit by providing immediate access to gold.

Issuing a reserve currency means that monetary policy is no longer a domestic-only issue—it's international. Governments have to balance the desire to keep unemployment low and economic growth steady with its responsibility to make monetary decisions that will benefit other countries. The reserve currency status is, thus, a threat to national sovereignty.
https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/1011/how-the-triffin-dilemma-affects-currencies.aspx

And this is why BRICS is nothing but PR bullshit.

Nobody wants to trade enough with their currencies bilaterally because of this, either.

The Triffin Dilemma could have been solved if the US didn't piss away the profits from seigniorage, but invested it to build up its own economy and workforce. If the US had expanded its domestic economy (US workers, US factories, US resources), then the additional cash could have funded the expansion of the world dollar economy without excessive inflation. The US didn't do this - it got lazy, and hollowed out industry and much of what else made this country great.

The US pissed its privilege away and then some. Now the currency will fail, like a great slow motion catastrophic train wreck. The US had a chance to be the true hegemon, like China in the Middle Ages, but now it will suffer the fate of other empires of greed.

stereotomy says

Now the currency will fail, like a great slow motion catastrophic train wreck.

Yes, but the rest of the worlds' major currencies will probably fall first. The liabilities of the eurodollar market of debts non-Americans owe themselves is twice or more ($70T - $90T) than what the US government does. So they need to print more of their own money to buy dollars to just service that debt - not pay it off but just service it. On top of that, they need to raise their domestic interest rates or see capital flight right at a time when they can not let that happen.

This is what the BRICS fluffers do not get or simply refuse to admit.

In the movie there's a scene where the reporters are trying to buy gas. The gas station owner tells them 300 will only buy them a sandwich: ham OR cheese.

Then Kirsten Dunce says: "Canadian' and the dude changes his tune.

In a real civil war scenario, the Canadian dollar would be worthless too as 90% of Canada's GDP is now tied into America's.

richwicks says

Afghanistan is our Afghanistan. Maui and Palestine Ohio were fairly small, but highly embarrassing.

Our Afghanistan is a fraction of their Afghanistan in lost lives and materiel. Maui and Palestine Ohio are two nothingburgers blown out of proportion by chicken littles.

Booger says

Take out Cook county and most of IL should be on this map south of I-80 and West of I-39. I have an M plate in my driveway right now. I know these government types inside and out. I am one. I can get pulled over with open containers in my car and the cop just says "John Doe, go home." No, I don't do this.

I don't get people that commit crime. Petty violations like speeding (I don't do that) are fine by me. I know plenty of people that have a road soda and never get pulled over. Talking with local cops, they just don't want to enforce anything. Their bad day can end up with them in jail over a speeding violation. That's where we're at. I'm a geezer when it come to driving, but most people know this and give zero fucks knowing the cops won't do shit if they do reckless things on the road, which is generally job #1 for cops.

https://open.substack.com/pub/theamericansun/p/civil-war-a-lazy-movie

People don't realize in a civil war the military would prob collapse.

US troops, uniquely, are cycled such that there's no regional or ideological cohesion. Infantrymen won't follow the 3rd or 4th LT who's cycled in within 5 years to fight their own people.

50%+ desertion.

This was a policy the US adopted starting in ww1 so that none of units would become regional militias post-war.

They didn't want troops more loyal to their officers in the 3rd Alabama Rifles than the federal government. So they formed "All American" Divisions.

Troops from New York, California and Alaska would serve in the same platoons and their officers cycled from a common pool.

This meant the first civil war could never repeat where entire states took their troops away and had coherent units.

The thing is this also meant the US could never have the cohesion in it's fighting force that the British or the Germans had.

Germans consistently outfought the US in all conditions... because their soldiers and officers knew each other for decades, many were schoolmates

So you had Germans who'd known eachother since gradeschool under officers who were often town heroes in their little German burgs... vs. recent US immigrants next to ohio corn kids, who often didn't even train together or just met their officers a month ago.

The thing is this doesn't even secure the nation from civil war.

The states still have their national guard units who ARE loyal to their state, just because wilson didn't give them 10 more divisions or let the states gain power doesn't mean he took their militias.

So if a civil war does happen, and the federal government tries to employ the national guard... they only imediately have access to the national guard units...

WHO ARE ALREADY MAXIMALLY LOYAL TO THE STATE THEY'D BE DEPLOYED IN

if the feds tries to use the regular military who're randomly mixed from the entire country against say a resistance movement in Pennsylvania... it's very likely those units would face 50% desertion as everyone who either sympathizes with the rebels or doesn't care evaporates

American infantry had one of the highest desertion rates of any power in ww2 due to the morale problems america's messed up unit cohession and bureaucratic culture causes.

Til the 1950s American deserter gangs ran the underworld of Paris and raided military supply convoys.

So the Feds have no regional units they can deploy against rivals. They can't send Connecticut Rifles into West Virginia, & The National Guard will actively resist fed attempts to exert control...

What do the feds have that's loyal?

Less than 100k Federal Agents.

East Germany has over 1 informant or secret policeman per 50 people. And they collapsed.

America has fewer than 1 federal agent per 3400 Americans...

They can't actually exert force against anything but isolated dissidents... Even low level resistance would break it.

https://substack.com/@anarchonomicon/note/c-68946665

@AmericanKulak any relation to you?

DemocratsAreTotallyFucked says

AmericanKulak any relation to you?

Nope.DemocratsAreTotallyFucked says

US troops, uniquely, are cycled such that there's no regional or ideological cohesion. Infantrymen won't follow the 3rd or 4th LT who's cycled in within 5 years to fight their own people.

The only thing I would say as a caveat is the Nasty Guard, which has a disproportionate allotment of combat units and heavy equipment. Those are indeed local, at least at the company/battalion level. By virtue that they have to live in the nearby area to drill regularly, and they can be called up by Governors, which would lead to some interesting cases of Federal vs. State obedience.

I agree with most of his points. The big whopper being the widespread firearms ownership, and that Guard depots have basically a night watchmen or two.

There is no law prohibiting state military/paramilitary units. Creating these units should be a top priority of Patriots.

AmericanKulak says

There is no law prohibiting state military/paramilitary units. Creating these units should be a top priority of Patriots.

State Defense Forces exist, too. Small by NatGuard standards.

Guarantee that if civil war broke out there would also be guerilla units made up of law enforcement officers, many of whom have military experience. They would all resist a federal govt initiated civil war.