
Julian Macfarlane
NEWS FORENSICS
Classics Reposted
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REPOSTED BY DEMAND:
Culture Death
The new age of decadence
ORIGINALLY RUN ON JUL 19, 2025
The decadence of the West
It is hard for the West to accept the decadence of its culture, its moral and social decay.
The rise of Russia and China and the Global South economically and culturally threaten Western assumptions rooted in faux civilizational values and fake history.
Civilization requires slaves. Human slavery is wrong, insecure and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends. Oscar Wilde (again).
Of course, Wilde is talking about Western civilization. He knew no other.
Among the tests of an authentic “civilization”, logically speaking, should be respect for diversity of ideas and values – all that constitutes the “other”. Another marker is respect for truth. Still another is the ability to acknowledge mistakes.
Does the US qualify?
How about its leaders?
Does it matter?
Vladimir Putin is someone who passes all these tests, which means…
…he is hated in the West, left, right, and center.
There is no defending Putin’s war. It is a disaster for Ukraine, for Europe, and for the Russian people themselves.
· Putin’s regime murdered Alexei Navalny. His death in prison is a testament to the thuggish, cowardly nature of Russian authoritarianism.
· Navalny’s courage exposed Putin’s gangster state. That’s why they silenced him—through poison, imprisonment, and now death.
· Putin has systematically crushed every vestige of democracy in Russia. Opposition figures are jailed, media is muzzled, and protests are met with violence.
· Russia under Putin is a police state. Dissent is treason, truth is suppressed, and fear is the currency of control.
· Putin presides over a kleptocracy. He and his cronies have looted Russia’s wealth while ordinary citizens struggle.
· The opulence of Putin’s palaces and the fortunes of his oligarchs are built on corruption and the theft of Russia’s resources.
· Putin is a cynical autocrat who uses nationalism as a shield for repression at home and aggression abroad.
· His regime is defined by lies, violence, and the grotesque accumulation of power and wealth.
That covers a lot of territory. Putin is definitely a Big Bad.
Who wrote it? Some NeoCon in Trump’s team? One of Biden’s team? Some nutcase, who didn’t take the 15 minutes of internet time necessary to debunk each of these claims, or at least identify the lack of real evidence to support any of them?
Nope. The author of this tripe is a well-. educated man -- Syracuse University, Berkeley, Yale, Stanford, fellow at this place and that place. He’s Clinical Professor Of Communications at the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California. He’s published everywhere and writes regularly for Huff Post. At least eight books, if I count right. He’s considered “Left Wing”. He is an icon of AltMedia.
Wait for it…..
Robert Scheer.
There are so many others like him, all with credentials that give weight to their opinions within their respective constituencies. But few are as intelligent or as experienced as he is – right about many things – just wrong on Russia and Putin.
John Mearsheimer is like that.
After so many appearances on the Duran, Larry Johnson’s site and elsewhere, he needs not introduction. mean he needs—just like Jeffrey Sachs, a Full Professor at Columbia and media and academic luminary who wrote:
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a crime. It violates the UN Charter, international law, and the most basic norms of civilized behavior,
The “Judge” and Larry Johnson and the Duran boys genuflect and kiss the ring.
Which is to say that they defer to academic authority, which is holy in the public mind and media of any kind.
If you go to an AI and ask about Putin, it will also give you opinions identical with those of Scheer, Mearsheimer, Sachs and the rest of the pack – because that is the consensus view in all disciplines. It is a priori. You must run with the pack or be eaten by it.
In the case of an AI such consensus is understandable -- it is a machine, and its answers are determined by a program using available data which channels cultural beliefs.
An AI does not think critically –ergo it is not intelligent. Just an idiot with a lot of information, which it doesn’t’ really understand.
We are supposedly the best educated — ever.
But is this “civilization”?
Wilde was right. It is just decadence. Another word for cultural death.
Special Article
Help me finish this. Buy us— Chappy, Ichi and I – coffee so I can pay my air conditioner bills and keep on working at the computer.
Click HERE to buy us coffee and get the new Special Article!.
Trump's Fake Offer
Yesterday, after working on SouthFront’s video on Gaza, I posted about the current complexity of the geopolitical scene.
The crazies have taken over that Asylum where they lock away the people of the Western World — and are attacking the sane.
Hamas is fighting for the Palestinian people. But really they are fighting for all of us. Their freedom from the madness is ours.
We have gone from a President with half a brain, which is a charitable estimate, to a President with no brain at all. American democracy was always a joke. Now the farce has moved to travesty. To be a politician you must first be lobotomized.
The US is an oligarchy controlled by a donor class, who use their money to control government and siphon more money from ordinary Americans and people in other countries. They don’t need that money. They just like to see the numbers in spreadsheets .
If you want to know who killed Charlie Kirk-- it was them. Perhaps not directly. But in the end, they are responsible, no matter who pulled the trigger, an upset MAGA supporter or a MOSSAD pro.
But face it – Kirk was becoming a liability for lots of people. Who knows who did it? Somebody does. But you will never find out.
Not that Charlie Kirk didn’t set himself up .
Here in Japan, the have a thing about the seasons. Each season has its modality. Fall, also - and soon the darkness of winter.
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smooth’d his wrinkled front; Shakespeare. Richard III.
Is York (Richard III) Donald Trump?
Trump is much worse than the much maligned last of the Plantagenets and has murdered more people. Nobody knows if Rick III had the Little Princes killed. But we know the Donald has presided over the deaths of countless children.
And it’s getting worse.
As you have seen, Trump’s new “plan” offers Hamas nothing at all —since Israel does not accept a two-state solution and the US is agreement-incapable.
The Zionists have made clear that they their goal is a Greater Israel-- all of Palestine, including the West Bank and Gaza, the Golan Heights and adjacent Syrian territory, Southern Lebanon and its border areas with Israel. One might ask why they want the Middle East when they have all of the United States of America.
Zion will allow only those Palestinians to stay that it needs for slave labor. The rest will be forced to leave or starve or be killed. Hamas fighters who surrender will likely be killed — or executed under the new law passed by the Knesset.
Oddly, enough, the PLO in the Westbank support Trump’s plan— maybe because they know Hamas will never agree. But that kissing Trump’s ass pretty much guarantees that Palestinians in the West Bank will back Hamas.
Israel’s vision of Gaza’s future is exactly what Hitler envisioned for Russia—with Russia absorbed by Greater Germania. Yes, that’s what the Nazis called it - a term you don’t hear too much because it is recapitulated in the idea of “Greater Israel”. Hitler’s concept and Netanyahu’s — and Trump’s —are identical.
Take the land, leave a few alive as slaves, and kill or expel the rest. That’s the Zionist “final solution”.
Nazism was never an ideology-- it is a supremacist mental disorder...National psychopathy. Like I said, the crazies run the Asylum.
But Israel cannot accomplish its goals without US help. It must overcome Hezbollah, Iran and the Yemenis —and it cannot do that without American money and weapons —and the US entering the fray on its side. As the Nazis relied on the malleability of the German people, the Zionists rely on the apathy of the American public.
But supremacists all have a basic weakness— their confidence in their own superiority — they will attack Iran soon, sure that THEY have a lock on American government policy.
Except this time, Iran is more than ready.
Was Charlie Kirk a victim? We will never know. But one thing is clear —his death and the way it has been used politically is a sign that this winter will truly be one of discontent.
Many analysts are increasingly suspicious of Zionist involvement. Netanyahu’s passionate denials of involvement ….hmmmm… say no more…
Ballistics, bullet trajectory, and the professionalism of the murder point away from Tyler Robinson. There is also Zionism’s long history of international murder. But that is not really the point. We knew they were murderers. What is more important is the way he will be used to somehow justify war abroad — and at home.
As I said in the beginning, Hamas is fighting for all of us - for you and me. Their fight is our fight. If they lose, we all lose, and future generations will pay the price.
Coffeebuyers!
First, a BIG thanks to you. As I think I wrote the other day, Chappy is finally free of his drug resistant Mansoni tapeworm. The vet bills were humungous but your donations helped a lot.
This little boy has survived a lot, starting with that broken hip, which most cats don’t recover from without lifelong complications.
He is doing fine. Sleeps with me and Ichi and helps me write. It has taken a long time to win his trust. (He is, first of all, a feral cat!) . But he really wants and needs a lot of love.
Although he is only three and Ichi is fourteen he is very good at persuading Ichi to play by jumping at him, then lying on his back, and exposing his tummy so that Ichi jumps on him and then chases him. Ichi gets both mental and physical exercise — and ,as you know from my notes on longevity, those things and lots of love will keep him alive and well longer.
Human beings are supposedly more complicated — but not really. We are kept alive by activity - mental and physical — and emotional support — kindness and love. If you have those things, you are rich.
I appreciate the support so much. And today I reached 4,200 subscribers. A long way to go to 5000, of course — but progress. I couldn’t do that without you!
I may not be the best or smartest analyst in the business but I have the best supporters.
Special article finished and being “tidied”. Got it down to 28,000 words—or about 130 pages, but it’s still pretty readable. I am proud of it. But…ohhhhhhhhhhhh…so many typos.
Longevity Notes
One of those conditions is stroke, which certain occurred — but for different reasons and much more rarely.
The Paleolithic Lifestyle Mitigated Risks of Stroke
Diet: The Paleolithic diet was highly varied but generally consisted of wild game (lean protein, high in omega-3s), fibrous plants, fruits, nuts, and seeds.
Very low in sodium: No added salt.
Very low in refined sugars and carbohydrates.
High in potassium and fiber.
This dietary pattern is strongly associated with low rates of hypertension and atherosclerosis.
Physical Activity: Life was physically demanding. Constant walking, gathering, hunting, and foraging meant a high level of lifelong fitness, which protects against vascular disease.
Absence of Industrial Pollutants and Smoking: They were not exposed to tobacco smoke or significant air pollution.
Lack of mental stress. Paleo people lived in “bands” rather than tribes — that is small groups, often 30 to 50 people, in close proximity to other bands with whom they had amicable and cooperative relationships. These were “reverse dominance” societies, without hierarchy.
While the highest mortality was for the young, people who survived the onset of sexual maturity were pretty stress-free. They “worked” less than 14 hours a week, did a lot of singing and dancing and playing and used humor to diffuse disputes.
Respect. The longer someone lived, the more respect they got. Aging was Saging!
Oh, and no taxes,internet, smartphones, or traffic.
Next time…the caveats.
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3 comments
illya kuryakin
cracks me up…thank you for the heads up about LJ, RS et al …
I only wish we had leaders as capable as Putin is.
Interesting that McFarlane’s repeat of the quote about US civilization is attributed to Wilde, Shaw or Russell. Typical of anglo-saxon arrogance which in its ignorance also thinks that the US and Britain won WW II. With some diligent research it would be clear that this quote came from the French statesman Clemenceau. As for the cult leader Kirk’ s murder, it is far more likely that inland forces wanted him out of the way (like the case with JFK), because of the power accorded to him by Trump. If the resistance against Trump cannot get at its chief goal, it will strike against his chief representative.
Quote:
“An AI does not think critically –ergo it is not intelligent. Just an idiot with a lot of information, which it doesn’t’ really understand”. But that is exactly its function.
Reactionaries are promoting its use because it can be fed the “correct” notions about everything, namely that what falls within their dogma. It is the foremost indoctrination method available until each citizen gets inoculated at birth with a lifelong device that instructs him/her how to think and act (science can do everything and grows to finally end life on earth-unless we resist forcefully).