Update from the Archdruid Greer

[johnhemming2]

One video alone cannot be taken as evidence.

One video alone may not be taken as proof, but it obviously is evidence (even if it is manufactured which at the moment I do not think it is).

[woodburner]

If you think White Helmet videos are not theatrical presentations, you really need to do more research. But then that will be highly unlikely.

[johnhemming2]

By definition it is evidence. How reliable the evidence is is another question. It is a simple question of the meaning of words.

[Little John]

https://www.ecosophia.net/the-choice-of-a-canon/

[Lord Beria3]

My latest Greerist post on FI:

https://forecastingintelligence.org/201 ... d-w-mccoy/

[Little John]

That was an interesting read LB.

[Lord Beria3]

Cheers... need to write my next one soon, the technological disruptions looming with the context of the wider limits to growth megatrend which I expect to kick in next decade.

Reading Greer's comments, a few gems...

Tude, I hear the same thing from pretty much everyone I know who works in the academic industry. I hope you’ve prepared a fallback plan if your university job goes away; the economics of the academic industry are very fragile just now, and it wouldn’t take much to cause cascading bankruptcies and mass layoffs across university systems…

[Lord Beria3]

https://www.ecosophia.net/bad-faith-and ... airstyles/

Greer's latest... superb as usual.

[Little John]

Yes.

I particularly enjoyed his hilarious existentialist critique of Trump haters.

[emordnilap]

Excellent.

[clv101]

Outstanding.

[Lord Beria3]

https://www.ecosophia.net/an-astrologic ... ress-2018/

Greer's latest... a few superb moments, here are the highlights.

the opposition to Trump will make the same mistake that doomed Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions. Having convinced themselves that everyone who matters hates Trump, they have forgotten that they have to make their case to the people who actually matter in the 2018 midterm elections, the ordinary voters—many of whom have done very, very poorly under the policies the opposition to Trump supports, and are showing very little sign just now of being willing to shut up and do as they’re told by their soi-disant betters.

An effective challenge to the Trump administration would start by figuring out why so many voters were so desperate for change that they were willing to vote for Donald Trump in order to get it. It would then offer them solid reasons to think that their situation will actually change for the better if they vote for an alternative. Such a challenge has yet to be mounted, either by the Democrats or the old guard of the GOP; slogans tattered with years of hard wear and well-rehearsed shrieks of outrage have taken the place of any more effective approach, and Trump’s approval ratings have climbed steadily as a result. The Democrats still have time to slap themselves awake and do something that won’t simply lead them on a march to defeat in 2020, but the window of opportunity is narrowing with each passing day.

What will Trump be doing while his opponents scream into an echo chamber? My guess, based on the Sun’s position conjunct the ascendant from the twelfth house side, is that he’ll be reconnecting with his base. He got into office by giving voice to the economic concerns of millions of Americans who had been shut out of the political conversation by a bipartisan elite; as he faces the first major electoral test of his administration, the 2018 midterm elections, it would make sense for him to do more of what won him the election, get outside the Beltway, and get a sense of the concerns, issues, and slogans that will energize his base in 2018 and 2020.

Bills have been introduced that would legalize industrial hemp production, on the one hand, and turn the regulation of marijuana over to the states, on the other. Trump has already said that he supports the latter bill—and there are potent political reasons why he should do so. First, states’ rights are an easy way for Trump to appeal to his base; second, pushing for de facto legalization would appeal to a great many voters who usually side with the Democrats; third, following up a change in the marijuana laws with commuted sentences for everyone in federal prisons who’s there for marijuana possession and other nonviolent crimes would be hugely popular among those demographic sectors that are overrepresented in that end of the prison population—sectors which by and large vote Democratic much more often than not.

Done skillfully enough, Trump’s support for reform of the marijuana laws would cut off hiss opponents at the knees and tilt the midterm elections solidly in his party’s favor. What’s more, if the Democratic establishment reacts to this as it’s done to Trump’s other policy proposals, and opposes these reforms solely because Trump supports them, the blowback from Democratic voters could split the party right down the middle, plunging it into internal conflicts that would make Trump’s reelection campaign in 2020 a walk in the park. The only constructive option the Democratic establishment has in the face of that gambit would be to get out in front of the GOP and support the proposed bills even more enthusiastically than Trump does, and even then Trump would still be able to take credit for it all. I’m guessing that this is what Uranus in the 11th predicts; that’s a guess, but it would be exactly the kind of unexpected move Trump likes to do, and it would be wickedly effective at blindsiding and embarrassing his opponents.

To sum up, then, the next three months will see Trump a little less outspoken and a little less central to America’s collective conversation than he’s been of late. The trade wars now under way will continue, causing some disruptions in the supply of goods and services here in the US and some expansion in the supply of jobs. More of Trump’s agenda will get traction in Congress, and there’s the possibility of a significant shift in US drug laws and federal prison policies as a result. The economic news will be dominated by dramatic swings in stocks and other speculative vehicles, with some big winners (especially in tech industries and vaporware generally) and some big losers (especially in smokestack industries and ventures vulnerable to foreign trade barriers). Trump’s opponents will by and large devote their time to preaching to an assortment of Democratic choirs, Congress and several federal bureaucracies will pound their collective chests at each other like a couple of quarreling silverback gorillas, and the rest of the country will swelter through a difficult summer, caught between the grinding weight of too much debt and the maddening chatter of an increasingly self-referential media industry.

[Lord Beria3]

My latest Greerist post...

https://forecastingintelligence.org/201 ... g-pillars/

[Lord Beria3]

Latest comments from Greer:

Valenzuela, many thanks for this! You’re being charitable in saying that the Mexican election isn’t getting much attention in the US; as far as I can tell, most people in the US don’t know that Mexico has elections, much less that there’s one about to happen. We’re astonishingly ignorant here in the US these days. AMLO’s rise, which I’ve been watching via foreign media, does seem to be another step in the implosion of the neoliberal consensus — and good riddance to that.

Omer, that’s a complex question. I expect to see some improvement in the manufacturing and light-industry sector in the US, driven by trade barriers that keep China and a range of other countries from being able to flood our markets with low-priced goods; at the same time, the financial sector of the economy is going to take a hit, possibly a very large hit, as global money flows reorganize themselves away from the US. Thus working class Americans will be saying that times are good while the middle and upper middle classes will have a very different opinion! My take more broadly is that the economic unraveling that began in 2008 still has quite a ways to go, and the recovery of US manufacturing and light industry is a matter of rebalancing from an artificially depressed condition, rather than a general rebound in the wake of a round of catabolic collapse.

Dropbear, I wish he’d shown more backbone toward the Pentagon, which is still way too invested in boots on the ground in the Middle East. Other than that, his administration is hitting its stride, and starting to accomplish some of its goals, especially in terms of ending the various trade arrangements that shipped so many US jobs overseas. He’s done a fair number of things I disagree with, but frankly he’s done better than Obama did at this point in their respective presidencies — and of course there’s a fair amount of entertainment to be had watching his opponents throw one shrieking two-year-old tantrum after another.

Grandmother, my take is that the FBI and various other parts of the Executive Branch tried to throw the election to Clinton, and failed. That kind of thing happens, especially when the election involves important issues that could influence the division of the spoils in a big way. As for the proposed merger, I wish he’d simply get rid of the Department of Education altogether. The more centrally managed US education has become, the worse it’s become, and as I’ve argued in blog posts in the past, a case can be made that this is a straightforward cause-and-effect relationship.

Monk, Europe is dying on the vine. In Yeats’ words, only dead and drying sticks can be tied into a bundle, and the artificial unity he predicted — we call it the EU nowadays — is the sign of decay setting in. Faustian civilization, to use Spengler’s term, was never going to last long, because its basic thrust was toward infinite expansion, and once that fails for good, down it goes. That leaves the older civilization of Islam — Spengler’s Magian civilization — and two not-yet-formed great cultures, one in Russia, the other in eastern North America, to pick up the pieces. None of those three is part of Faustian civilization, though the latter two both have a Faustian intelligentsia as temporary upper class and suffer from a certain amount of Faustian pseudomorphosis.

As for social justice, it’s already dead. It’s been a zombie for some time now, shambling mindlessly onward and devouring brains. 😉 It never was much more than an excuse for middle class intellectuals to parade their supposed moral superiority to the working class, and that’s way past its pull date at this point. I’l be discussing this in more detail in an upcoming post.

[Little John]

I found this especially interesting:

Monk, Europe is dying on the vine. In Yeats’ words, only dead and drying sticks can be tied into a bundle, and the artificial unity he predicted — we call it the EU nowadays — is the sign of decay setting in. Faustian civilization, to use Spengler’s term, was never going to last long, because its basic thrust was toward infinite expansion, and once that fails for good, down it goes. That leaves the older civilization of Islam — Spengler’s Magian civilization — and two not-yet-formed great cultures, one in Russia, the other in eastern North America, to pick up the pieces. None of those three is part of Faustian civilization, though the latter two both have a Faustian intelligentsia as temporary upper class and suffer from a certain amount of Faustian pseudomorphosis.