Book Review: "Disintegration" by Andrei Martyanov

Indicators of the Coming American Collapse

THE SAKER • MARCH 1, 2021

• 2,100 WORDS • 11 COMMENTS • REPLY

This is the third book by Andrei Martyanov that I am reviewing, the first one was “Book Review – Losing Military Supremacy: the Myopia of American Strategic Planning by Andrei Martyanov”, while the second one was “Book Review: Andrei Martyanov’s The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs”. I also interviewed Andrei about this second volume here. The book I am reviewing today, “Disintegration: Indicators of the Coming American Collapse” can be pre-ordered from Clarity Press here and from Amazon here.

If the first two volumes mostly focused on issues of force planning and military power, this third volume addresses the wider context and shows example after example that the United States is not only failing at its attempts to remain a world hegemon, but the US is, in fact, in a process we could call “full-spectrum collapse” or, like Martyanov, simply “disintegration”. Specifically, the book looks into the manifestation of disintegration in the following spheres:

1. Consumption

2. Affluenza

3. Geoeconomics

4. Energy

5. Making Things

6. Western Elites

7. Losing the Arms Race

8. Empire Über Alles – Including Americans

9. To Be or Not To Be

10. Conclusion: Not Exceptional, Not Free, Not Prosperous – Not America?

These are tantalizing subject headings which I will not further describe because I really want to really encourage as many people as possible to read this book. Why?

Mainly because while Martyanov’s first two books were dealing primarily with military and geostrategic issues, this one goes much wider and looks at the wider socio-cultural reasons which create the context for such a dramatic lack of real military capabilities.

A month ago I wrote an article I called “Zone B Exists, Thus There Is Hope, I Promise You!” in which I tried to show that the pseudo “reality” in which most people in the West are artificially kept in by the most effective (and insidious) propaganda machine in history is not the “real reality” at all! Not only that, but that most of the planet has been living in “Zone B” for quite a while. In fact, this “Zone B” has already moved on, even if the legacy ziomedia never reports about this.

Well, you can think of Martyanov’s books like the perfect example of a “Zone B book”: not only does Martyanov debunk most of the myths of the US propaganda machine, he contrasts these delusions with examples from the real world.

You could buy only one or two of Martyanov’s books, and each of them stands on its own, but I really think of them as a trilogy which should be read and discussed by as many people in the West as possible. In fact, you could think of them as each a kind of “crash course on debunking delusions and returning to reality”. The overarching message of all three volumes is this: “People of the United States, your ruling elites are lying to you just like the chamber orchestra on the Titanic that was playing music while the supposedly “unsinkable” Titanic was sinking!”.

Interestingly, Martyanov adds that, of all nations, Russians understand these processes better than anybody else because they too suffered the same fate during the “democratic nightmare of the 1990s” (I would add that descendants of White Russians like myself also remember the “democratic nightmare” under Kerenskii in 1917). Martyanov writes:

“The collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic catastrophe which followed taught Russians a lot, and also left an aftertaste of the humiliation of losing power – a process the United States is going through right now”

Truth be told, Martyanov is hardly the first person to have mentioned the uncanny similarities between the Soviet Union of the late 80s, or the Russia of the 90s, with the US of the last two decades (or more). For example, Martyanov mentions Dmitry Orlov whose many books have looked into what he calls the “stages of collapse” (financial, economic, political, social, cultural and, later, he added ecological) and have become a precious analytical tool for many researchers. Many decades earlier, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whom Martyanov intensely dislikes, also often mentioned that the West of the 80s reminded him of the Russia of the early 20th century. This is just to illustrate Martyanov’s point that,

“Speaking in layman’s terms, the Russians get it. They, unlike any other people in the world, can relate to what the United States is going through right now. Russians can read the signs extremely well, while the U.S. elite not only has no experience with it, but is completely insulated from understanding it. This is America’s tragedy unfolding before our very eyes. Not only is America’s crisis systemic, but its elites are uncultured, badly educated and mesmerized by decades of their own propaganda, which in the end, they accept as a reality”.

I couldn’t agree more. I would also add that those Russians who write books and articles desperately trying to warn the people of the US of real catastrophe taking place do that not because they are hostile to the United States, but precisely because they are sympathetic to the people of the US. The flag-waving pseudo-patriots who accuse these Russians of being “anti-American” simply don’t understand the “evil Russians” they hate so much (mostly because modern Russia under Putin has been fantastically successful, in spite of sanctions, threats, subversion, etc., while the US is in agony – that is why these folks are willing to believe anything bad, no matter how self-evidently stupid, about Russia and/or Putin).

Yes, of course, Russians hate and despise the US ruling Nomenklatura, just as they despised their own, Soviet, Nomenklatura. But that in no way implies what many mistake for “anti-American” hostility.

In my almost 58 years of life I have been blessed with the chance to travel a lot and speak six or so languages, yet I have never come across what I would call “anti-Americanism”. Even in countries supposedly hostile to the US the actual focus of the anger and disgust of people are the actions of the AngloZionist Empire, the ugly parasite feeding off its US host. Take a country like, say, Brazil. Anti “yankee” feelings have always been strong there, yet Brazilian musicians are known to beautifully fuse US and Brazilian music (see this superb example). The same is true elsewhere: people hate US policies, but very rarely the people of the US. Right now, judging by the Runet and emails from friends, Russians mostly feel pity for the people of the US, not hate, and this is so because they “get it” as Martyanov correctly states. Of course, there are stupid and/or bigoted people in all countries and I am sure that there are those who hate the United States as a country, but I am confident that this is a small minority. There is one interesting category left: those who become critical of the US society after having lived in the US; a famous example of that would be Sayyid Qutb.

None of that is meant to whitewash all the violence and ugliness of the short but extremely violent US history. But violence and ugliness exist in the history of probably every country on the planet (there sure was plenty of violence and ugliness in the history of Russia!). True, the US was probably one of the most bloody and violent regimes in history, but that violence ought to be attributed to imperialism and capitalism and not to something unique to the US (the British Empire was possibly the most criminally violent in history). Even more important to the understanding of US history is that most of its violence had its roots not in national or racial causes, but in the many social or, better, class struggles which peppered the history of the US. Again, discussions of class issues have been comprehensively blotted out from all the school books in Zone A, depriving those who had the misfortune to be educated in the West from one of the most important tools of political and economic analysis.

The importance of the above cannot be overstated and this is why Martyanov comes back to the topic of the education of the western ruling classes over and over again. In the last pages of Disintegration Martyanov writes:

Thus, no viable ideas or solutions to the current unfolding economic, social and cultural catastrophe can originate within these elites, who see the world only through the Wall Street and New York Times lenses. Real intellect, courage and integrity are simply not there: they all have been traded for the perks and sinecures of what many correctly describe as the Washington D.C. blob, whose only purpose for existence is self-perpetuation.

I would only add that there is a karmic irony in the fact that it is precisely because these ruling classes have no other purpose in life than self-perpetuation (and consumption, I would add) that they are driving themselves, and the country which they exploit, into extinction.

Conclusion: these are “must read” books for all of Zone A! (and even Zone B!)

Finally, it is precisely because Martyanov’s books are like “messages from Zone B” that I urge every person living in the US or in the EU to read them. As I said, each of these books stands on its own, but together they reach a kind of intellectual critical mass which makes them truly “must read” books, especially for those who hate their ruling regime but love their country.

These books are all pretty short, very well written, they have decent (but not perfect) indexes and are an easy read. If you want to get a superb summation of what is really going on in the United States (as opposed to the frankly laughable AngloZionist propaganda or the inchoate and outright childish slogans of the flag-waving “Trump patriots”) – read these books. If you have brainwashed friends, give them any (or, better, all of) these books: they are like a “crash course in reality studies”. If you have family members who still believe all the nonsense about “American exceptionalism”, challenge them to read these books.

Folks living in Zone B would also immensely benefit from reading Martyanov’s books. Not because these books will tell them much they weren’t already at least vaguely aware of, but because these books are also a very truthful “state of the United States” kind of SITREP. In my experience, while most folks (at least the well-read ones) in Zone B do mostly understand that the Empire is dead (or very close to death) and while they also feel the US are undergoing a massive internal catastrophe, most of these folks in Zone B do not fully appreciate the magnitude and severity of these crises. For them too Martyanov’s books will be an eye opener. This is also why I hope that all three of Martyanov’s books will be quickly translated into Russian: they will become instant blockbusters and, what is even more important, they will be read in Russian academies and universities. French and Spanish are another two languages I hope that these books will be translated into.

But, most of all, I hope (against any common sense or logic) that these books will be read by truly patriotic US officers, force planners, analysts, political decision-makers, etc. Right now, there is a real threat of these folks stumbling into a shooting war with Russia which the US will never survive (nor would Russia or much of the rest of the world, of course). But even if by some miracle this potential war remains non-nuclear, the US will still be destroyed, at least as a functioning country, by Russian conventional capabilities. This is the single biggest danger and possible disaster authors like Martyanov are so desperately trying to prevent: a major war caused by a clueless ruling Nomenklatura involving a country (the US) which has never fought a defensive war in its history and which has never experienced real warfare, especially not against a competent adversary. I can only add that in case of a conventional war, Russia now has the means to defend not only her airspace, but a conceptual “Russian border proximity zone” of roughly 800km-1000km (and this range is steadily increasing). The US cannot. Neither can the EU or NATO. And for all the silly MIC+Pentagon promises of super-duper missiles, this is not something which will change in the short to medium time frame.

The more people in the US realize this, the better the chances avoid a terrible catastrophe. Hence the timely importance of Andrei Martyanov’s books.

https://www.unz.com/tsaker/book-review-disintegration-by-andrei-martyanov/

Disintegration by Andrei Martyanov.docx

Monday, 1 March 2021

Happy Birthday Birdemic: One year into the global totalitarian coup…

It was a year ago that I noticed that the global totalitarian coup had-happened; with the excuse of the Birdemic – but clearly never caused by it.

I had been expecting something of the kind for a few months; but I had supposed the fake-rationale would be some ‘climate emergency’ rather than a supposed-germ.

So… It was a bit more than a year ago that we in the UK began a three-week ‘lockdown’ – just to ‘flatten the curve’ and spread the load of cases…

Yet, of course (because this was a coup, not a disease); restrictions/ compulsions on life have never been removed and are still increasing – and this will continue.

And, of course, a year down the line; still, almost nobody has noticed the coup.

Everything has changed; yet, for the mass majority of the population; nothing has been learned.

One can perceive this indestructible obliviousness in all kinds of human interaction. And if people have not noticed yet, they never will notice.

The World is willingly, indeed aggressively, participating in a system of unconstrained lies and delusions, with no understanding and no end in sight (except, sooner or later, collapse and mega-death).

These are the plain facts of our situation: now, as then.

Therefore, there is no point is talking about "what can be done", practically, to reverse or even ameliorate the situation – because the magnitude of scale and profound depth of the global situation itself is utterly invisible and denied.

(Including by nearly-all of those who affect to address ‘the crisis’, when they are merely quibbling about sub-micro-issues.)

What has happened in the past year dwarfs in scope anything that has happened in human history: thus our main difficulty is in sheerly acknowledging and comprehending it.

Happy Birthday Birdemic.

https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2021/03/happy-birthday-birdemic-one-year-into.html

One year into the global totalitarian coup.docx

The Vaccine (Dis)Information War

C.J. HOPKINS • FEBRUARY 23, 2021

• 1,600 WORDS • 109 COMMENTS • REPLY

So, good news, folks! It appears that GloboCap’s Genetic Modification Division has come up with a miracle vaccine for Covid! It’s an absolutely safe, non-experimental, messenger-RNA vaccine that teaches your cells to produce a protein that triggers an immune response, just like your body’s immune-system response, only better, because it’s made by corporations!

OK, technically, it hasn’t been approved for use — that process normally takes several years — so I guess it’s slightly “experimental,” but the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency have issued “Emergency Use Authorizations,” and it has been “tested extensively for safety and effectiveness,” according to Facebook’s anonymous “fact checkers,” so there’s absolutely nothing to worry about.

This non-experimental experimental vaccine is truly a historic development, because apart from saving the world from a virus that causes mild to moderate flu-like symptoms (or, more commonly, no symptoms whatsoever) in roughly 95% of those infected, and that over 99% of those infected survive, the possibilities for future applications of messenger-RNA technology, and the genetic modification of humans, generally, is virtually unlimited at this point.

Imagine all the diseases we can cure, and all the genetic “mistakes” we can fix, now that we can reprogram people’s genes to do whatever we want … cancer, heart disease, dementia, blindness, not to mention the common cold! We could even cure psychiatric disorders, like “antisocial personality disorder,” “oppositional defiant disorder,” and other “conduct disorders” and “personality disorders.” Who knows? In another hundred years, we will probably be able to genetically cleanse the human species of age-old scourges, like racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia, etcetera, by reprogramming everyone’s defective alleles, or implanting some kind of nanotechnological neurosynaptic chips into our brains. The only thing standing in our way is people’s totally irrational resistance to letting corporations redesign the human organism, which, clearly, was rather poorly designed, and thus is vulnerable to all these horrible diseases, and emotional and behavioral disorders.

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. The important thing at the moment is to defeat this common-flu-like pestilence that has no significant effect on age-adjusted death rates, and the mortality profile of which is more or less identical to the normal mortality profile, but which has nonetheless left the global corporatocracy no choice but to “lock down” the entire planet, plunge millions into desperate poverty, order everyone to wear medical-looking masks, unleash armed goon squads to raid people’s homes, and otherwise transform society into a pathologized-totalitarian nightmare. And, of course, the only way to do that (i.e., save humanity from a flu-like bug) is to coercively vaccinate every single human being on the planet Earth!

OK, you’re probably thinking that doesn’t make much sense, this crusade to vaccinate the entire species against a relatively standard respiratory virus, but that’s just because you are still thinking critically. You really need to stop thinking like that. As The New York Times just pointed out, “critical thinking isn’t helping.” In fact, it might be symptomatic of one of those “disorders” I just mentioned above. Critical thinking leads to “vaccine hesitancy,” which is why corporations are working with governments to immediately censor any and all content that deviates from the official Covid-19 narrative and deplatform the authors of such content, or discredit them as “anti-vax disinformationists.”

For example, Children’s Health Defense, which has been reporting on so-called “adverse events” and deaths in connection with the Covid vaccines, despite the fact that, according to the authorities, “there are no safety problems with the vaccines” and “there is no link between Covid-19 vaccines and those who die after receiving them.” In fact, according to the “fact-checkers” at Reuters, these purported “reports of adverse events” “may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable!”

Yes, you’re reading between the lines right. The corporate media can’t come right out and say it, but it appears the “anti-vax disinformationists” are fabricating “adverse events” out of whole cloth and hacking them into the VAERS database and other such systems around the world. Worse, they are somehow infiltrating these made-up stories into the mainstream media in order to lure people into “vaccine hesitancy” and stop us from vaccinating every man, woman, and child in the physical universe, repeatedly, on an ongoing basis, for as long as the “medical experts” deem necessary.

Here are just a few examples of their handiwork …

· In Norway, 23 elderly people died after receiving the Pfizer vaccine. However, according to Reuters’ “fact-checkers,” it turns out, old people just die sometimes, especially in nursing homes, from a variety of causes … unless they haven’t been vaccinated, in which case they definitely died of Covid, regardless of what they actually died of. For example, a 99-year-old man suffering from dementia and emphysema, who tested negative for the virus three times, was added to the “Covid deaths” figures because a nursing home doctor “assumed” it was Covid (which GloboCap has expressly instructed him to do).

· In Germany, 13 of 40 residents of one nursing home died after being vaccinated, but this was just a “tragic coincidence,” which had absolutely nothing to do with the vaccine.

· In Spain, in another “tragic coincidence,” 46 nursing home residents who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine died within the course of one month. A further 28 of the 94 residents and 12 staff members subsequently tested positive.

· In Florida, a healthy middle-aged doctor died from an unusual blood disorder two weeks after receiving the vaccine, but, according to the experts, the sudden onset of this rare immunological blood disorder (i.e., immune thrombocytopenia) “should not be interpreted as linked to the vaccine,” and was probably just a total coincidence.

· In California, a 60-year-old X-ray technologist received a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. A few hours later he had trouble breathing. He was hospitalized and died four days later. His widow says she’s not ready at this point to link her husband’s death to the vaccine. “I’m not putting any blame on Pfizer,” she said, “or on any other pharmaceutical company.” So, probably just another coincidence.

· A 78-year-old woman in California died immediately after being vaccinated, but her death was not related to the vaccine, health officials assured the public. “(She) received an injection of the Covid-19 vaccine manufactured by Pfizer around noon. While seated in the observation area after the injection, [she] complained of feeling discomfort and while being evaluated by medical personnel she lost consciousness.” Despite the sudden death of his wife, her husband intends to receive a second dose.

· A former Detroit news anchor died just one day after receiving the vaccine, but it was probably just a coincidental stroke, which the “normal side effects of the vaccine may have masked.”

· Also in Michigan, a 90-year-old man died the day after receiving the vaccine, but, again, this was just a tragic coincidence. As Dr. David Gorski explained, “the baseline death rate of 90-year-olds is high because they’re 90 years old,” which makes perfect sense … unless, of course, they died of Covid, in which case their age and underlying conditions make absolutely no difference whatsoever.

· In Kentucky, two nuns at a monastery died, and more than two dozen others tested positive, in a sudden “Covid-19 outbreak” that began two days after the nuns were vaccinated. The monastery had been completely closed to visitors and Covid-free up to that point, but the nuns were old and had “health issues,” and so on.

· In Virginia, a 58-year-old grandmother died within hours after receiving the vaccine, but, as Facebook’s “fact checkers” prominently pointed out, it had to be just another coincidence, because the “vaccines have been tested for safety extensively.”

And then there are all the people on Facebook sharing their stories of loved ones who have died shortly after receiving the Covid vaccine, who the Facebook “fact checkers” are doing their utmost to discredit with their official-looking “fact-check notices.” For example …

OK, I realize it’s uncomfortable to have to face things like that (i.e., global corporations like Facebook implying that these people are lying or are using the sudden deaths of their loved ones to discourage others from getting vaccinated), especially if you’re just trying to follow orders and parrot official propaganda … even the most fanatical Covidian Cultists probably still have a shred of human empathy buried deep in their cold little hearts. But there’s an information war on, folks! You’re either with the Corporatocracy or against it! This is no time to get squeamish, or, you know, publicly exhibit an ounce of compassion. What would your friends and colleagues think of you?!

No, report these anti-vaxxers to the authorities, shout them down on social media, switch off your critical-thinking faculties, and get in line to get your vaccination! The fate of the human species depends on it! And, if you’re lucky, maybe GloboCap will even give you one of these nifty numerical Covid-vaccine tattoos for free!

C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing and Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. His dystopian novel, Zone 23, is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. Volumes I and II of his Consent Factory Essays are published by Consent Factory Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amalgamated Content, Inc. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org.

https://www.unz.com/chopkins/the-vaccine-disinformation-war/

The Vaccine (Dis)Information War.docx

Facts about Covid-19

Updated: February 2021;
Languages: CN, CZ, DE, EN, EO, ES, FR, GR, HE, HU, IT, KO, MS, NL, JP, PL, PT, RO, RU, SE, TR

Fully referenced facts about covid-19, provided by experts in the field, to help our readers make a realistic risk assessment. (Regular updates below).

“The only means to fight the plague is honesty.” (Albert Camus, 1947)

Overview

1. Lethality: According to the latest immunological studies, the overall infection fatality rate (IFR) of covid-19 in the general population is about 0.1% to 0.5% in most countries, which is most closely comparable to the medium influenza pandemics of 1957 and 1968.

2. Treatment: For people at high risk or high exposure, early or prophylactic treatment is essential to prevent progression of the disease. According to numerous international studies, early outpatient treatment of covid may reduce hospitalizations and deaths by about 80%.

3. Age profile: The median age of covid deaths is over 80 years in most Western countries (but 78 in the US) and only about 5% of the deceased had no serious preconditions. The age and risk profile of covid mortality is therefore comparable to normal mortality, but increases it proportionally.

4. Nursing homes: In many Western countries, up to two thirds of all covid deaths have occurred in nursing homes, which require targeted and humane protection. In some cases it is not clear whether the residents really died of covid or of weeks of stress and isolation.

5. Excess mortality: Up to 30% of all additional deaths may have been caused not by covid, but by the effects of lockdowns, panic and fear. For example, the treatment of heart attacks and strokes decreased by up to 40% because many patients no longer dared to go to hospital.

6. Antibodies: By summer 2020, global hotspots such as New York City and Bergamo had reached antibody seroprevalence levels of approximately 25%. Capital cities such as Madrid, London and Stockholm were around 15%. Large parts of Europe and the US, however, were still below 5%. Above about 30%, a significant slowdown of the infection process has been observed.

7. Symptoms: Up to 40% of all infected persons show no symptoms, about 80% show at most mild symptoms, and about 95% show at most moderate symptoms and do not require hospitalization. Mild cases may be due to protective T-cells from earlier common cold coronavirus infections.

8. Long covid: About 10% of symptomatic people report post-acute or long covid, i.e. symptoms that last for several weeks or months. This also affects younger and previously healthy people with a strong immune response. The post-viral syndrome is known from severe influenza, too.

9. Transmission: According to current knowledge, the main routes of transmission of the virus are indoor aerosols and droplets produced when speaking or coughing, while outdoor aerosols as well as most object surfaces appear to play a minor role.

10. Masks: There is still little to no scientific evidence for the effectiveness of cloth face masks in the general population, and the introduction of mandatory masks couldn’t contain or slow the epidemic in most countries. If used improperly, masks may increase the risk of infection.

11. Children and schools: In contrast to influenza, the risk of disease and transmission in children is very low in the case of covid. There was and is therefore no medical reason for the closure of elementary schools or other measures specifically aimed at children.

12. Contact tracing: A WHO study of 2019 on measures against influenza pandemics concluded that from a medical perspective, contact tracing is “not recommended in any circumstances”. Contact tracing apps on cell phones have also failed in most countries.

13. PCR tests: The virus test kits used internationally may in some cases produce false positive and false negative results or react to non-infectious virus fragments from a previous infection. In this regard, the so-called cycle threshold or ct value is an important parameter.

14. Medical mismanagement: In the US and some other countries, fatal medical mismanagement of some covid patients occurred due to questionable financial incentives and inappropriate protocols. In most countries, covid in-hospital mortality has since decreased significantly.

15. Lockdowns: In contrast to early border controls, lockdowns have had no significant effect on the pandemic. Rather, the WHO warned that lockdowns have caused a “terrible global catastrophe” and according to the UN, lockdowns may put the livelihood of 1.6 billion people at acute risk and may push an additional 150 million children into poverty.

16. Sweden: In Sweden, covid mortality without a lockdown is comparable to a strong influenza season and close to the EU average. About 70% of Swedish deaths occurred in nursing facilities and the median age of Swedish covid deaths is about 84 years.

17. Media: The reporting of many media has been unprofessional, has maximized fear and panic in the population and has led to a massive overestimation of the lethality and mortality of covid. Some media even used manipulative pictures and videos to dramatize the situation.

18. Vaccines: Due to their rapid development, little is yet known about the long-term effectiveness and safety of the covid vaccines. Following several deaths, Norway advises against RNA vaccination in frail persons over 80 years of age. Some other groups of people are also advised against RNA vaccination because of possible complications.

19. Virus origin: The origin of the new corona virus remains unclear, but the best evidence currently points to a covid-like pneumonia incident in a Chinese mine in 2012, whose virus samples were collected, stored and researched by the Virology Institute in Wuhan (WIV).

20. Surveillance: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden warned that the covid pandemic may be used to expand global surveillance. In several parts of the world, the population is being monitored by drones and facing serious police overreach during lockdowns.

See also

1. On the treatment of Covid-19

2. Studies on Covid-19 lethality

3. The evidence on face masks

4. On post-acute (“long”) Covid

5. On the origin of SARS-CoV-2

https://swprs.org/covid19-facts/

Facts about Covid-19.docx

Talent Returned to God: Rush Limbaugh

Gregory Hood, American Renaissance, February 19, 2021

(Credit Image: © SMG via ZUMA Wire)

The title of the late Jerome Tuccille’s book about libertarianism was called It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand. For conservatives, the same could be said of Rush Limbaugh. Neocon or paleo, white advocate or “movement conservative,” Christian or agnostic, capitalist or protectionist, it’s hard to find anyone on the Right who didn’t spend some time listening to the EIB Network.

I began listening in high school. No one told me about Rush Limbaugh. I wasn’t politically active. I just found him scanning the stations, as I imagine most others did.

Rush (I can’t help calling him “Rush”) was always on in the background during my first job in the conservative movement. Later, I’d go to work for the man who helped write his second book, See, I Told You So. For more than a decade in “the movement,” someone would email me at least one Limbaugh clip a week. These people would have wildly divergent views, but they all listened to him. I never thought about it at the time, but Rush Limbaugh shaped the ideological sphere that I worked in. Without him, no conservative movement, and without a conservative movement, no me — or those like me.

However, I never read Rush’s books, I never considered myself a “dittohead,” I wasn’t a dutiful listener, I never called in, and I didn’t even know Rush Limbaugh had a TV show until, for some reason, I read Al Franken’s subtly titled Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations. But he was just always there. For those who truly were fans, it must seem as though a planet has vanished.

When I heard he had died, I was astonished that it actually hurt — as if I knew the man. Rush had the skilled host’s ability to forge a real connection with his listeners. It felt like I knew him. He was the soundtrack for a young adulthood spent in conservatism. Older conservatives must feel this more intensely.

Robert Hampton accurately notes that Rush Limbaugh was the rare figure who could unite most of the Right. We can tie ourselves into ideological knots trying to explain this, but I think his secret was simple. He really had “talent on loan from God.”

It wasn’t about ideology. His ability to inform and entertain was why, during any long drive between the hours of noon and three, I’d find myself desperately searching for whatever station was carrying Rush. He had to be there somewhere. He’d make a road trip bearable.

Radio is hard work, and Rush Limbaugh was a master with a voice made for it. He somehow managed to use brutal humor with just enough irony that he didn’t sound angry. He sounded like he was having a good time, and therefore, listening to him was a good time.

You truly appreciated his artistry if you tried the competition. When Al Franken tried to start liberal talk radio with “Air America,” it was embarrassing. The message was awful, of course, but that wasn’t the problem. It was the dead air, awkward pauses, and lack of preparation. Bad radio, just like bad conversation, is painful to sit through.

Credit Image: © Mariela Lombard/ZUMA Press

But it wasn’t just talent. Radio seemed to come so easily to Rush because he clearly worked hard for every program. That in itself is a lesson for success no matter what your calling.

Still, we have to ask two questions: What did Rush Limbaugh do with his incredible power and what will happen to the conservative movement now?

On race, Rush Limbaugh went about as far as you can go and stay on the air. I recall several attempts to get him kicked off or go after his advertisers because of “offensive” comments. He always survived. It wasn’t just because his assistant “Bo Snerdley” (James Golden) was black, but because Limbaugh had a way of talking about racial differences that was politically incorrect but dodged the core issue.

Rush would cover racial double standards, crime, drugs, and immigration (the last, far too late in his career), but would rarely talk about race explicitly. Part of his mastery was an ability to shift a conversation into “safe” territory after a dangerous beginning. He knew the limits. That’s a gift, but also a failing. What’s the point of having a platform if you won’t use it for something important?

What kept Rush Limbaugh from being truly mainstream was pointing out that the media were rooting for a black NFL quarterback. In 2003, he lost his job as a commentator at ESPN after he said black quarterback Donovan McNabb wasn’t that great. Now, journalists regularly tell us that Colin Kaepernick, who isn’t nearly as good as Donovan McNabb, should be on the field as a kind of moral duty. Some even compare the thoroughly mediocre Mr. Kaepernick to Tom Brady, arguably the greatest NFL player ever. If anything, Rush’s observations and the reaction to them were prophetic.

Oct 2, 2003; Philadelphia, PA; Hannah Sassaman with the Prometheus Radio Project protests against Rush Limbaugh outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center where Limbaugh was the keynote speaker for the National Association of Broadcasters. (Credit Image: © Alejandro A. Alvarez / Philadelphia Daily News / ZUMAPRESS.com)

Despite his timidity on race, Rush Limbaugh drove people our way, especially in his later years. When, during the 2016 campaign, he read a Sam Francis essay on the air, it was like a gear shift for the movement. I felt goosebumps as I wrote a news story about Rush reading Sam Francis. Suddenly, this wasn’t “conservatism” anymore; we were “nationalists.” I can’t imagine someone like Sean Hannity making that shift.

But what did he accomplish? He helped create conservative media and a “movement,” but that movement didn’t accomplish much. Peter Brimelow argues that Rush was largely silent on immigration at a time when it could have made a difference. Rush connected with the American working man, but he told them to vote for the party of neoliberal economics, foreign wars, and faux populism. He was a safety valve, taking the justified anger of American whites and wasting it on unimportant battles.

There was the occasional offensive comment or culture war skirmish, but Rush Limbaugh never explained to listeners that the real issue is race. This is ironic because he lost his job at ESPN because of the race taboo. I suspect he really wanted to be “mainstream.” He made it and then lost it; maybe this cowed him.

Once you have nothing to lose, you’re free. We’ve all known for a long time that Rush Limbaugh was dying, and he knew it too. It’s to Donald Trump’s credit that he honored the man when he could. We all knew it was goodbye.

February 4, 2020: Rush Limbaugh receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom. President Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union address in the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. (Credit Image: © White House/ZUMA Wire/ZUMAPRESS.com)

I’m forgiving (perhaps too forgiving) of those in prominent positions who see but don’t speak, because they think they need to build a platform, bank account, or professional credibility before they can tell the truth. I don’t tell people to charge the machine guns.

But what about Rush Limbaugh? The jackals are spitting on his grave and calling him racist anyway. Why not go out fighting? Why not call on his listeners to battle for their people and the birthright that was stolen from them?

I suspect that Rush, with that optimism of his, really believed in colorblind conservatism, though he may have had some misgivings. Just before the election, the last time I listened to him, he said that perhaps “we” had lost the country. Rush was usually so optimistic that this struck me, but it was only a passing comment. To admit that the issue was race, not “conservatives” versus “liberals,” would have been a repudiation of everything he’d preached for decades. Few men can do that. I don’t blame Rush.

Over the years, I’ve heard countless conservatives say we have “lost” the country. I always ask them what do we do now? They have no answer. They are wedded to a system that is destroying us. Rush didn’t have an answer, either.

What will conservatives do now? Conservatism will probably be worse without him. Charlie Sykes, a supposed conservative whose career consists of bashing conservatives, said on state media outlet NPR that Limbaugh’s legacy was “playful bigotry.” At The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf said Limbaugh hurt conservatism and fueled “divisive racial paranoia.” Peggy Noonan, incredibly, is using Rush’s death to suggest bringing back the “Fairness Doctrine” because America is now “more polarized, more bitter, less stable.” This would drive conservatives off the air.

We’re getting different variations of “The Conservative Case Against Conservatives,” with Regime mouthpieces telling whites that we have a moral duty to surrender our country in the name of social peace. The surrender always goes one way. Conservatives are willing to increase censorship, thus denying the GOP base even symbolic victories, even as elected Republicans push unpopular economic policies.

Whatever his failings, Rush at least told conservatives that they were right to feel they were being treated unfairly. He told them the media really was deceiving them. He showed whites that the system is hypocritical about “equality.” Almost no other conservatives go that far.

Some say that Rush Limbaugh dumbed down the conservative movement, but he was a talk show host. It wasn’t his job to promote intellectual conservatism. He delivered simple, solid messages with humor and skill, and that’s more important than writing another weighty tome only your friends will read.

The real problem is that conservative intellectuals are cowards who have no theory of power, no answers for contemporary problems, and no program except nostalgia. There are plenty of American intellectuals on the Right with sharp insights, but they are mostly castaways from “the movement.” The American conservative movement is defined by its purges of interesting, original, and brilliant intellectuals in favor of gelded embarrassments desperate for a pat on the head from journalists.

Raw populist energy, and even inchoate opposition to “liberal elites” is more productive and intellectually defensible than almost anything National Review has produced since it purged Peter Brimelow and Joe Sobran. The concept of the political is defined by the difference between friend and enemy, and Rush Limbaugh helped Americans make that distinction, at least partially. I’ll take Rush over self-described “intellectual conservatives” any day. A rant from one of his callers is more insightful than a typical National Review editorial.

There may be some hope. I note with satisfaction that one of those who may inherit the golden EIB microphone is Mark Steyn, another writer too good for National Review. Mr. Steyn is no Rush on the air (no one is) but he’s a great writer and is at least aware of the demographic crisis facing the West. Perhaps he can help steer his audience in a good direction.

On television, we have the lonely voice of Tucker Carlson attacking our hostile elites and broaching topics no one else will. We also have some movements and platforms emerging from the wreckage of the Trump Presidency, including Revolver and a revitalized Chronicles.

On social media, the Right has been held back through deplatforming. If there were no corporate repression, media podcasting would belong to the Right; Patreon-socialists like Chapo Trap House are a stale echo of pioneers like TheRightStuff.biz. With free speech, we win.

It’s not just because we have something to say. It’s because those on the Right aren’t trapped by political correctness or victimhood competition. We’re free to be funny. Rush’s slashing, scornful, sarcastic approach that mocked respectability turned him into America’s Anchorman. It’s how he won an audience of millions. We all draw on his approach, even without realizing it. Rush was devastating on the attack, but he did it with a smile. Instead of a crazed man ranting about the world going to hell, Rush had you roaring with laughter as he casually dismantled his foes — having done careful research in his few hours off the air.

Ultimately, I don’t think Rush could reconcile his beliefs with what is necessary. America will not be saved by conservatives. Conservatives can’t win. I wonder if they even want to win. The best among them, such as the late Roger Scruton, want to live in a certain kind of society but lack the will to do what is necessary to create or preserve it. They are content to lose politely.

I’m not. You’re not. We’re nationalists for a nation not yet born. We’re soldiers in a political war for civilizational survival. We’re not staffers in a moribund movement trying to get a lobbying job. Rush Limbaugh influenced me. He influenced all of us, even if you don’t fully realize it, but he was never part of what we’re building.

I’ll always remember how Rush would make my friends and me laugh, I will marvel at his skill, and admire his bravura. I wouldn’t be here were it not for him. White advocates have a lot to learn from his rhetorical approach.

Unfortunately, we have nothing to learn from his ideas: his patriotism for a country that has ceased to exist, his repetition of clichés about “free enterprise” and “limited government,” his refusal to talk about race. There is no more time to play coy; the clock nears midnight. Rush remained silent when there was nothing to lose.

Rush Limbaugh failed, either because of timidity or intellectual shortcomings, but we should be charitable to his memory. He taught us an important lesson. Even in mortal combat, we can laugh at our foes and mock their pretensions. It’s all they deserve, and it’s the best tribute I can think of for America’s Anchorman.

Rush Limbaugh, RIP. I didn’t expect to say this, but I will miss him.

Talent Returned to God: Rush Limbaugh – American Renaissance (amren.com)

Talent Returned to God – Rush Limbaugh.docx

"Imaginary and fictitious"

A clinical lab scientist tests 1,500 positive Covid-19 samples and finds nothing but common influenza viruses.

I’m a clinical lab scientist. I have a PhD in virology and immunology. I’m a clinical lab scientist and have tested 1500 “supposed” positive Covid 19 samples collected here in S. California. When my lab team and I did the testing through Koch’s postulates and observation under a SEM (scanning electron microscope), we found NO Covid in any of the 1500 samples.

What we found was that all of the 1500 samples were mostly Influenza A and some were influenza B, but not a single case of Covid, and we did not use the B.S. PCR test. We then sent the remainder of the samples to Stanford, Cornell, and a few of the University of California labs and they found the same results as we did, NO COVID. They found influenza A and B.

All of us then spoke to the CDC and asked for viable samples of COVID, which CDC said they could not provide as they did not have any samples. We have now come to the firm conclusion through all our research and lab work, that the COVID 19 was imaginary and fictitious.

If it looks like a hoax, and it smells like a hoax, and 1,500 lab samples determine that it’s a hoax, then Occam’s Razor strongly suggests that it’s a great big hoax.

I am no virologist, but as a competent logician, my inclination is to hypothesize that the C19 virus is a genetically modified version of the flu. This explanation would account for a) the unusual symptoms, b) the anomalies related to the viral samples, and c) the massive decline in conventional flu cases

http://voxday.blogspot.com/2021/02/imaginary-and-fictitious.html

Imaginary and fictitious the Kung Flu.docx

RUSH LIMBAUGH WAS GREAT WHEN DEMOCRATS WERE IN THE WHITE HOUSE

Rush Limbaugh Was Great When Democrats Were in the White House Comments for Rush Limbaugh Was Great When Democrats Were in the White House Print Rush Limbaugh Was Great When Democrats Were in the White House

Culture Politics

Rush Limbaugh Was Great When Democrats Were in the White House

Rush Limbaugh has died at age seventy.

Whether or not one agreed with him, Limbaugh was long unavoidable for those who had any interest in political commentary—especially during the 1990s. Limbaugh had a very long career, but his peak in terms of talent and relevance was likely during the Clinton years.

In his early years, I didn’t even know Limbaugh had a radio show, because I was in school when his show aired on the radio. Like many people, I only became aware of him when his syndicated television show premiered in 1992. For many of us who fancied ourselves opponents of "big government," Limbaugh seemed like a voice of consistent dissent in the early years of the Clinton administration.

Limbaugh was relentless in his mockery of Clinton and in contradicting the administration’s message. Limbaugh would even hilariously impersonate Clinton with a mock Clinton voice.

Because he was criticizing the administration in power, Limbaugh appeared to be a true dissenter. He seemed to oppose everything the federal government was doing. He was even seemingly good on foreign policy, questioning the Clinton administration’s policies in Bosnia and Iraq. In late 1993, National Review labeled Limbaugh as "the leader of the opposition." This seemed appropriate and true.

By the late nineties, I was listening to a fair amount of Limbaugh’s radio show, largely because I worked as a contractor in janitorial and landscaping services. That meant a lot of driving around in my pickup truck. And that meant a lot of AM radio.

As a clueless teenager, and later as a clueless college student, I thought that those people who opposed the regime and its schemes would always do so, regardless of who was in power. As the Clinton years ended and the Bush years began, I would learn the error of my ways.

As the Bush years began, Limbaugh suddenly took on a different tone. He was supportive of the administration’s plans and programs, even when they were very similar to those of the Clinton years. Things became far worse after 9/11. At that point, Limbaugh became a full-throated defender of the administration, pushing for every scheme the White House was pushing, and advocating for a full-blown GOP-controlled police state.

In other words, Limbaugh became insufferable. He was no longer funny or biting. He was just another shill for the regime, with a small token bit of skepticism thrown in to maintain some semblance of independence from the official messages coming out of the White House.

By then, of course, I had learned my lesson. Having first begun to participate in political debates during the Clinton years, I thought that those who criticized the administration’s abusive and overreaching policies did so out of some sort of principled ideological view. I thought these people agreed with me that it was important to not turn around and take the opposite positions just because "our guy" is in the White House. Thanks to Limbaugh, I learned what a hopelessly naïve position that was.

It turns out that opposition to the regime among many of these people only matters when "their guy" is the president. The rest of the time, we’re supposed to just do as we’re told and push the official position, because if we don’t, then we might as well be pushing for the bad guy.

At least, that’s the message that was received from Limbaugh’s complete about-face in 2001, and the lesson always stuck with me.

I never bothered to tune back in during the Obama years to see what Limbaugh was up to. I suspect he was back to pretending to be a dissenter as during the 1990s.

To his credit, in recent years, Limbaugh showed signs of figuring out—finally—that the "deep state" is not the good guys and that all those CIA and Pentagon officials he’d been cheering for all those years were maybe not the selfless patriots he apparently long assumed them to be. He seems to have figured out that the Dick Cheneys of the world are maybe not friends of the American people.

But for the most part, his legacy was one of being proregime when the GOP is in and being antiregime when the GOP is out. Given that he was an entertainer, of course, it’s hard to fault Limbaugh too much for this. He was just giving his audience what it wanted. And what his audience wanted was a simplistic yet incoherent idea which maintained that things are mostly fine when Republicans are in office, but that the world is mess when Democrats win the White House. He was clearly very successful at delivering the message.

https://mises.org/power-market/rush-limbaugh-was-great-when-democrats-were-white-house

RUSH LIMBAUGH WAS GREAT WHEN DEMOCRATS WERE IN THE WHITE HOUSE.docx

Obituary for Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh has died.

Up until this morning, he was probably the most influential man alive. Despite his direct influence waning, he is a man who shaped an entire generation of conservative thought, for better and worse.

He was an American icon, he was a genius, he was a sellout and a glutton who wasn’t willing to do the right thing when it was hard.

As an adult reflecting on my childhood, I’ve come to believe that much of my brain’s wiring was influenced by Rush Limbaugh. I try to keep personal matters off of this site as much as possible, because it doesn’t matter who we are, what matters is our plan. But I have said before that as a child, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother.

My grandfather died very young, not long after sixty. Grandma had the radio on all the time, in the house and car, and back then, it seemed like Rush Limbaugh was on all day long.

Here’s an archive show from 1990. Just to give you an idea of what was going on in the background when my brain formed.

People aren’t really aware now, but in the Bill Clinton years, Limbaugh was basically a proto Alex Jones. He would talk about the New World Order conspiracy to build a global government, freemasonry, and communism being a Jewish conspiracy. He would mix that with the standard pre-William Buckley type conservative views on race and sex.

In the early 2000s, he was having some personal and professional problems, and he got the opportunity to sell out and promote those wars that George W. Bush did for the Jewish Lobby.

Even when Rush was selling out, the thing that he was preaching would have been good if it wasn’t a big scam. That is to say, it wasn’t like Charlie Kirk promoting gay anal sex with men in Africa and saying that liberals are the real homophobes. He was not polluting values in the way that modern “conservatives” do, he was simply lying. There is a qualitative difference there, and the record should show that. Rush never promoted homosexuality, feminism, or race mixing. He never tried to change traditional American values, he just used traditional American values to push a bizarre Jewish agenda.

The Bush Wars were sold as some sequel to the Crusades, and as a Liam Neeson style revenge fantasy against evil towel-headed beard men. If it was real, it would have been awesome.

But, it was not real. And now that he is dead, he will be forever remembered as someone who told lies to people who trusted him.

Start at 5:25 on this clip from an interview that was recorded in 1988, when I was four years old.

He says: “Jewish Lobby.”

He says: “You can say ‘Jewish Lobby’ anywhere but New York, and nobody will notice.”

That’s the world of American conservatism that he inherited and became the standard bearer of. It was a culture where you could say “Jew.” And at his death, if you say “Jewish Lobby,” people do a lot more than notice.

Rush was always fat. Eventually, that fatness polluted his soul, and he used his genius for evil.

For a while in the early 2000s, he wasn’t doing political talk radio. In 2003, he briefly did sports talk on ESPN, and he was probably the first person to be canceled for racism.

He said:

I don’t think he’s been that good from the get-go. I think what we’ve had here is a little social concern in the NFL. I think the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. They’re interested in black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. I think there’s a little hope invested in McNabb and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he really didn’t deserve. The defense carried this team.

That was in 2003. He lost a bad job for saying something true.

He would soon get a good job for saying something false.

He went back to political talk, and started shilling these wars.

But this is the headline on HuffPo:

The Jews are not grateful.

It is impossible to imagine what the world would have been like without him. It’s almost certain that naturally conservative people would not have been so gung-ho about the wars. What he did was work a kind of voodoo on people, and transfer the fear of communism and the trauma of the 911 attacks into a paranoid fantasy that enveloped the minds of the average white working and middle class American.

He bought the ticket and took the ride. Or rather the reverse. He took the ticket money and got ridden around like a donkey by a bunch of Jews. These Jews were doing massive wars, and he sold them. This man convinced people that Iraq – a third world country where people were riding camels through the streets of the downtown of the capital city – was going to invade America.

Imagine selling that idea. You have to be a genius to be able to get people to believe something so moronic. There was a Philip K. Dick style surrealism to this man’s voice being in everyone’s head through the Bush years, preaching a paranoid delusion that served the interests of an alien ruling class.

The human brain does not have a defense mechanism against radio. If a man is good enough at it, he can make people’s subconscious minds believe that his words are their own thoughts. Rush Limbaugh was the best there ever was.

He was a genius, turned evil by the sin of gluttony. He is survived by four wives. He was humiliated for illegal Viagra while on a sex tourist vacation in the Caribbean. He was addicted to pills. He was a typical loud, messy fat person, who happened to be a genius capable of hypnotizing tens of millions of Americans into thinking Arabs were going to ride camels across the Atlantic Ocean and force us all to live under Sharia Law, which by his telling, was basically the exact same thing as communism – somehow.

For me personally, he was something different, of course. Every cultural figure has an effect on both the culture and on every individual in the culture, and these are going to be different things. When you’re a child, a droning background noise of someone ranting is going to do even more extreme things to your brain. I cannot even imagine the number of hours I must have absorbed of Rush Limbaugh when my brain was forming. I like the way my brain has formed.

Go read the Wikipedia list of his “views.” He was saying “sexual consent” is a fantasy hoax up until this morning. He was correct on all of the core issues. He puts Breitbart to shame. There was no apology for racism or sexism or “homophobia.” There was a lot of good in Rush Limbaugh, and that is why he is such a truly tragic figure.

What we must learn is that the wages of sin is death. Everyone dies, but I can’t stress the importance of this enough: what you do changes the world. Everyone changes the world, by doing whatever they do, and whatever they don’t do.

Rush is dead now, and it’s up to God to judge his soul. But it’s my job to judge his life. I should be able to write a glowing review of the life of a man who was a right-wing icon of my country. I can’t write a glowing review of this man’s life because he let his sin swallow him up. He was a glutton who wanted comfortable rides and big buffets and buckets of pills and big fake titty hookers jiggling around. He was basically a Nero type figure, fiddling around while the country burned.

When I was four years old, you could say “Jewish lobby” everywhere in America, except New York, and no one would think anything of it. Rush Limbaugh said AIDS was a hoax and that black people were stupid, but if he would have kept saying the one thing that needed to be said – “Jewish lobby” – his life would have become a lot less comfortable. It no longer would have been a life for a fat man bobbing around on pills. He’d have had to have lost that weight for all the ducking and dodging he’d have to be doing, and dumped the pills for fear they’d dull his reflexes. He wouldn’t be able to roll up to the buffet in a limousine.

Let’s learn a lesson:

You should live your life as if everything you do is going to be written in your obituary.

You’re going to die some day, but the choices you make will shape eternal reality. Some day, that sky is going to open up, the light is going to shine on all of us, and the dust will settle. Everyone will be forced to see things as they are. History will not be kind to Rush Limbaugh.

We all sin. But we must recognize it as sin, and not let the sin become who we are. When you sin, you must recognize it as sin, internalize the recognition of it as sin, and don’t ever let the sin overtake you. Don’t ever be defined by the sin. Don’t ever get fat and don’t ever shill for the Jews and their lies for the sake of comfort.

God will forgive a lot. God will forgive anything, in fact, save for one thing: He will not forgive a failure to ask to be forgiven. We are all sinners, but we must define our sin and not let our sin define us.

Today America mourns the death of Rush Limbaugh. And today Rush Limbaugh mourns the discovery that in Hell, the pills make the pain worse, the hookers are all trannies, and the buffets are riddled with maggots.

(Republished from The Daily Stormer by permission of author or representative)

https://www.unz.com/article/obituary-for-rush-limbaugh/

Obituary for Rush Limbaugh.docx

In Athens, Global Warming snow blankets Acropolis.

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Snow covers the ancient Acropolis hill in Athens, Tuesday, Feb.16, 2021. Unusually heavy snowfall has blanketed central Athens, with authorities warning residents particularly in the Greek capital’s northern and eastern suburbs to avoid leaving their homes. (Antonis Nikolopoulos/Eurokinissi via AP)

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Heavy snowfall blanketed the Acropolis and other ancient monuments in Athens, caused power cuts and halted COVID-19 vaccinations in the Greek capital on Tuesday as the weather brought many services across the country to a standstill.

Greek media reported that three deaths in separate parts of the country were linked with the bad weather. State ERT TV said two elderly men with breathing problems died after their mechanical respiratory aids stopped working due to power cuts, and a farmer on the island of Crete was found dead in a snow-covered area near his sheepfold.

While western Europe got some respite from winter weather, temperatures plunged in the southeast of the continent and storms also battered Turkey.

The snow, an unusual sight in the Greek capital of more than 3 million residents, also stopped most public transport services. Hundreds of toppled trees downed power cables, causing blackouts in several suburbs, while one area on the city’s northern fringes was declared in a state of emergency for the next month. Some of the affected suburbs were also left without water.

Snow is common in Greece’s mountains and in the north of the country, but much rarer in the capital. Some Athenians emerged cautiously outside, snapping photos on balconies and in the streets.

The snow arrived as Athens and several other parts of Greece remain in lockdown to curb coronavirus infections. Schools and most stores are closed, and residents must stay indoors during a nightly curfew.

Some children skipped online classes Tuesday to play in the snow. Adults also went out to play, with some digging out skis to use on the capital’s hilly slopes. One man skied along Pnyx hill in central Athens, near the Acropolis.

Norwegian Ambassador Frode Overland Andersen tweeted a video of himself skiing down a hill in the suburb of Filothei with his teenage daughter.

“Challenge accepted,” he wrote, after a friend in Oslo challenged him to prove it really was possible to ski in Athens.

“It was the best day at my home office during the lockdown so far,” the ambassador told The Associated Press. “Sadly, my skis took a rather hard beating, so I will be waxing and prepping for next season.”

Outside the parliament building, orange snowplows cleared streets of ice and snow, while presidential guards, dressed in traditional pleated kilts and pompom-tipped shoes, were given heavy woolen overcoats.

The cold snap, which has already caused snowstorms around much of Europe, kept temperatures hovering around freezing in Athens on Tuesday but was expected to lift abruptly with highs of 14 degrees Celsius (57 degrees Fahrenheit) expected on Thursday.

In neighboring Turkey, heavy snow and blizzards forced the closure of a highway in northwest Turkey. Around 600 vehicles were stranded on a nine-kilometer (six-mile) stretch of the snow-covered road, and another 800 other vehicles were stranded elsewhere, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Sections of Greece’s main north-south highway were also closed until early Wednesday, leaving about 300 lorry drivers stranded at a highway access point outside Thessaloniki, in northern Greece. Most ferry services to the islands were canceled, while flights from regional airports to Athens were disrupted.

Greek Fire Service spokesman Vassilis Vathrakoyiannis said the service had received hundreds of calls for assistance in greater Athens.

https://apnews.com/article/snow-blankets-athens-halts-vaccinations-be193363451279cc4d105d025d0fb2b6

GLOBAL WARMING Attack on the Acropolis.docx

Shocking: MI Senate Majority Leader Caught On Camera Confessing Jan 6 Riot Was Staged To “Secure A Trump Impeachment” — And Mitch McConnell “Was Part Of It”

by A.M. Smith a day ago

In a bombshell new video, the Senate Majority Leader in Michigan, Mike Shirkey, is secretly recorded confessing that the January 6 U.S. Capitol takeover was “staged” in order to secure an impeachment against President Trump.

He went on to claim that, not only was it “pre-arranged”, but Mitch McConnell was “part of it”.

In the video, an unknown individual asks Shirkey about the events that occurred in DC on January 6. “That’s been a hoax since day one, that was all pre-arranged,” replied Shirkley.

He then admits that the violent actors came in separately from the rest of the crowd. “They came in on separate buses, that was all, you know, you know, arranged by somebody who was funding them,” said Shirkey. “Why wasn’t there more security? It was ridiculous, it was ridiculous, it was all staged.”

When asked if DC Mayor Muriel Bowser had any influence in the situation, Shirkey said that “she’s just a puppet.”

Shirkey also said that Republican Senator Mitch McConnell “was a part of it.”

“He was the one that was part of the decision making on how much security they had on staff. I think he wanted to have a mess,” said Shirkey.

The full hour-long video was posted on YouTube by the Hillsdale County Republican Party. At some point in the conversation, Shirkey admitted that the protest “wasn’t Trump people.”

https://en-volve.com/2021/02/15/shocking-mi-senate-majority-leader-caught-on-camera-confessing-jan-6-riot-was-staged-to-secure-a-trump-impeachment-and-mitch-mcconnell-was-part-of-it/

Jan 6 US Capital Riot Was Staged To Secure A Trump Impeachment.docx