Monday, December 17, 2018

Why all the homeless shelters going up in Queens?

The answer is simple:

First, it means more client voters for local electeds of the Democrat party who are more than happy to play the benevolent little father (or little mother) for a group that will vote for them out of self interest, i.e. more free stuff. Better still, voters, who for the price of a sandwich and a pack of cigarettes, can be taken around to more than one polling place (nowadays in regular cars and vans as buses are too obvious) so they may vote early and vote often- for the righteous candidates, of course.

Second, it's about introducing a more transient group of people en mass to destroy any sense of community and neutralize community opposition to our political/managerial establishment's schemes. Atomize the towns and neighborhoods into numerous, small identity/special interest/grievance groups so as to divide and conquer.

Third, Crony capitalist tax payer wealth extraction.This is also sold as part and parcel of our Potemkin Village booming economy, new constructions, creating jobs, encouraging more tourism and whatnot. The hotel/motel owner operator is guaranteed to fill all his rooms and make big profits off our tax dollars. Of course, said hotel/motel owner is expected to make a nice financial contribution to the Democratic party and campaign contributions to local Dem electeds. Sounds almost like some kind of sordid bribery and money laundering scheme, no?



Donald Cavaioli

Monday, December 10, 2018

The Managerial State's Great Robber Baron Swindle

In summary:
I've long noticed that many, if not most, of the leaders of the early twentieth century progressive movement came from the wealthier classes of Americans and others like Al Smith being a New York City Tammany Hall politician. An organization within the Democrat party not known for honest dealings to put it mildly.

The obvious question which should be asked is why would rich people be so concerned with the plight of the poor and working class? One cannot truly know what is in the minds and hearts of others but an indication may be found by observing their actions and the consequences of those actions. My own admittedly cursory examination of the subject shows some evidence that self-interest, detrimental, perhaps even intentionally so, to the interests of those for whom ostensibly this progressive enterprise was undertaken, was the true motivation. Others may have been motivated by promoting new, sciency-sounding crank economic and social theories like the efficiency movement that either did not work as advertised or caused unintended consequences.

Nevertheless, we may note the stated intentions and goals, but always in the end, must judge by the actions and results. We must be able to distinguish between words and deeds to understand intent and motivations and know who is really the boss and who is just the employee.
Recall the old adage that if something to too good to be true, it probably isn't so beware of those who promise to do good things in return for power and always look closely for the strings when discerning who the puppet is and who is the true villain.


Postulated Motivations:
It is natural for we humans to want to protect whatever power or wealth we have, no matter how great or even humble, and to ensure that power and wealth is transferred to our own genetic descendants. But the greater the wealth and power, the greater the drive to protect them from outsiders.
To the old money elite and ruling class, the industrial revolution in the light of a laissez-faire political and economic system brought a new breed of nouveau riche entrepreneurs who hailed from the lower classes into prominence that could topple the old guard from their thrones. The lower orders seeing this might forget their station and reach for the brass ring as well as a growing middle class with more potential threats from which to contend with. Not to mention new strains of socialism and anarchism imported from Europe that were starting to make trouble.

The old guard rulers were no fools. Knowing that wielding a naked iron fist to protect their interests by enforcing a social caste hierarchy could prove disastrous. Therefore a soothing velvet glove that the masses would find palatable and cooperate with had to be found to cover the iron fist. Even more to the point where the working and middle classes would eventually, voluntarily agree to remain within their respective classes. Then some means must be found of co-opting or managing the socialists making them into useful tools for the ruling class.  What that velvet glove would be follows.

Further in detail:
My theory is that the progressive movement primarily operated by the old money ruling class establishment of the late 19th, early 20th century had as one of its goals to completely stifle all social mobility as a means of protecting their own wealth and power from potential challengers. Therefore, they rather cunningly couched their machinations in the honeyed tones of concern for the poor and workingman, appealing to their ignorance, vanity and envy by castigating those troublesome upstart nouveau riche whom they termed "Robber Barons" and then smeared them as the most odius of villains solely responsible for any all the problems of the poor and working class. But not to worry, the old money rich would come to the downtrodden's rescue.

Thus the ruling class connived the electorate into giving more power to the growing managerial government to redress the working man's grievances on his behalf. The poor, the ruling class promised, would benefit from the unfairly gained wealth of these Robber Barons which would be redistributed to the poor as some form of justice. Or at any rate simply taken away. Although many of these Robber Barons, really entrepreneurs, themselves who rose to success and wealth from humble beginnings is forgotten in the righteous mania to punish them for the sin of success and make examples of those who dare to buck the system by following the entrepreneurial example.

That successful entrepreneurs is proof that a classless, laissez-faire system where success for anyone is possible or at worst, there would be jobs available with the prospect of social mobility, competitively priced goods that are more affordable for the poor and an overall higher standard of living makes no never mind. For there is no appeal more powerful than an appeal to the most base of human instincts such as envy, greed and the mind numbing emotionalism of an evil to be vanquished, a war on poverty to be fought or existential threat to be destroyed. Why, these Robber Barons somehow amassed their ill gotten fortunes by plundering the poor when not trying to outright kill the poor by pollution, dangerous working conditions or shoddy products. Why, the modern progressive liberal thinks, who wouldn't want to kill their employees and customers? That would be obviously and absurdly counterproductive.This can only be liberal projection for whom violent fantasies are a not so guilty pleasure.

All this is not to say that those entrepreneurs labeled as Robber Barons were perfect angels, nor is all legislation regarding trusts, working conditions and pollution unnecessary. The State and the laws and their enforcement mechanisms are a necessary evil and is charged by the citizenry to act in their best collective interests. Otherwise a stable, healthy and prosperous society would not be possible. 
But no system is perfect. Too much of a good thing can turn bad if the citizenry in a constitutionally limited republic or democratic society grow lethargic and do not use due diligence and common sense in exercising their rights and responsibilities as citizens. Power should be granted to leaders grudgingly, only as much as necessary for the problem at hand and after it is fully demonstrated to be absolutely necessary with the proviso that it can be taken back.

It is indisputable that nobody who ever got rich through licit free enterprise had ever made anyone else poor. Or that a potentially dangerous industrial work environment be shown as excessively hazardous, with only a few exceptions, with noticeably higher percentages of worker injury that fully excludes worker error must be noted.
For what motive management would have to want to murder their own employees or customers for that matter and explain why factory owners and management would knowingly poison the air that they themselves breathe and water they themselves drink as all of this makes no rational sense.

In the end analysis, according to the prevailing pop culture history, the sins of the Robber Barons were they got rich, they were mean and they were racists. The former two is the noise of cognitive dissonance and the latter is at best irrelevant and at worst complete nonsense. But all in all, it worked. This nostrum of homicidal maniac capitalists is still today unthinkingly accepted as irrefutable fact. The Robber Barons were held up as an unspeakable evil that must be shunned and thus discouraged any of the lower classes from following their example. The lesson taught was that it is  more moral and good to remain a poor and powerless victim in your own social class after all.

Methods and results:
The lesson was the carrot of superior morality but a stick was still needed to reinforce it.
The income tax is a means by which the working class would find it difficult to accumulate or pass much of the wealth the accumulated to their heirs that would be capital enough to start a business that would potentially pose a threat to already established corporations who already exist with the approval of the political establishment. The income tax was sold and accepted as "making the rich pay their fair share". But consider that at the time of the passage and ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1913, the rich then were apparently not effective in stopping it despite their apparent wealth and presumptive power and today the already very rich wholeheartedly support the progressive income tax and that they not only pay their fair share but amazingly enough, they say they do not pay enough. This is even as they fight tax bills in court with IRS and refuse to instruct their accountants to limit deductions to increase their tax bill. It's the actions that count, not the words.

Excessive government regulations that create further barriers to the upstart requiring more capital to comply with regulations as well as the cost of lawyers and consultants to help navigate byzantine regulations. All of this was sold to the working man as necessary for his safety, to maintain some kind of unspecified fairness and to punish those mean capitalists for being dour misers.

However, the most potent method is the negative aura that surrounds all business people as mean, greedy capitalists who are always exploiting their workers for their dirty profits, polluting the planet, etc- so you don't want to be that guy. Being poor is much more praised and seen as more virtuous so it is better to stay in your respective socio-economic class, or else.

New Deal, Same Old Con:
It really makes no rational sense but it made some kind of emotional sense to the masses of workers who in the 1930's enthusiastically gave the political managerial ruling class all the power it craved (and more), even to their own detriment, for the vicarious pleasure of watching their New Deal rulers make a show of punishing the corporatists and heart-warming fireside chats that made the workers feel better or something or other.

But make a show was all it was. Behind the scenes, a new relationship between the growing managerial capitalism, banks (and even academia) and the growing managerial state was taking shape in the grim shadow of the second world war. Once having reached the top, the already successful were ready to kick the ladder down behind them and that suited the managerial state just fine as long as they were willing pay the piper (who called the tune) to be allowed to dance.

And the Beat Goes On...
For the corporations and banks, the obligatory political donations, paying prominent politicians exorbitant speaking fees  and lobbyist gifts to buy influence with the political establishment are now simply the cost of doing business. Wisdom would suggest that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em and there's no point in fighting a battle you can never hope to win. Especially if you have no army of your own.

For the political managerial establishment, it is easier to control a handful of large corporations than hundreds of thousands of smaller businesses and as well line their pockets in the process. Therefore, it is in the managerial state's own interest to keep the business herd well culled and perhaps well abed with. All in all, it was a match made in heaven....sort of.

However, this relationship was and is largely kept from the plebs of working and middle classes. Corporations and banks were and still are made out to be a sort of Neo-Robber Barons but now serve as sock puppet villains to misdirect the public's attention away from who was really pulling the strings. But what corporation or bank complained? After all, it's better to be a sock puppet villain in managerial state hell with a few privileges and profits not enjoyed by the proles rather than a victim of unfettered competition in a free enterprise heaven. For example, today, Silicon Valley tech corporations, not only dutifully pay tribute to their political overlords for the usual perks and privileges, but receive federal tax dollars as virtually paid federal employees and carry out a censorship and de-platforming reign of terror on behalf of governments, of the United States and others.  The tech companies do the dirty work and take the blame but they get to keep the money and monopolies in return. Phaemon's dog was right.

All the while all concerned pretend this be the actions of private business. Sorry folks, capitalism and all that, you know, and being a "free" country nothing your government can do (when the tech giants censor and de-platform gov't designated targets). Or, don't worry folks, we'll haul the scoundrels up before a congressional committee and really yell at them (when banks obey regulations and the CRA making sub-prime loans to stay in compliance). Even if you're set up by the managerial state to be the bad guy everybody hates, there's the compensation of limited competition, government contracts, golden parachutes, and receiving government bailouts for being "too big to fail" for all of which the managerial state pushes the blame off on their sock puppet villains- a small price to pay. Yes, Phaemon's dog was genius after all.
And the general public, ever on the scent for new Robber Baron rascals to hate just lap it up and never notice the sly, skillful hand of the managerial puppeteer at work.

Neo-Feudalism and Final Victory
Make no mistake, it really isn't a partnership of equals, it is, in fact, a feudal relationship of lord and tithe paying crony capitalist vassal. Whereas the vassal may conduct his own affairs to some degree and have influence in court, the lord exercises the real power and has the final say and the vassal is, in the end, obedient to his lord's command. The difference between power and influence is a significant distinction that should not be overlooked.

To demonstrate who in fact holds the whip hand, there are always the federal attack dogs of the Security and Exchange Commission with its vague insider trading laws for naughty Wall Streeters. The FBI, who could prosecute the recalcitrant miscreant for vague racketeering laws or lying about crimes the FBI cannot prove said miscreant committed along with sundry process crimes. If the federal government needs flimsy or even contrived evidence, it has plenty of phone records and e-mails to look in to create probable cause. If all else fails, there's always Congressman Swalwell's nukes. If the lord can giveth, then the lord can sure as hell taketh away or vaporize your ass.

It is truly then, better to be the sock puppet villain in the hell of negative public perception than to be cast into the void, financially ruined, end up doing time in the federal pen and thus figuratively share Palinurus' sad fate. Whereas Phaemon's dog always eats well even if he does sometime get rapped on the nose to keep the masses happy.

The managerial state has now reached the comfort level where the old velvet glove can now sometimes be safely taken off, the iron fist revealed there for all to see, and when used on designated "bad people"such as the insidious Orange man, the masses are now so well trained as to believe it as a victory for themselves and cheer heartily never thinking that same iron fist could as well be used on them. Nobody ever thinks themselves as bad people.


In Conclusion:
Lesson learned as now it is well known by all that the nail that sticks up will be hammered down by the velvet gloved iron fist of the ruling class and not only is there little recourse but that the masses will cheer as the nail is driven down. The ruling class might have had to let a few newcommers in, here and there, over the years, made accommodations with other global power brokers but overall, they succeeded in not only in cementing their hegemony but have succeeded in freezing almost all social mobility, diminishing the wages and living standards of the working class and reducing the size of the middle class. Mission accomplished...for now.


Donald Cavaioli

Saturday, December 8, 2018

The Liberal Emoter's Inconsistency and how He Squares that Circle

Ever have a debate with a liberal progressive and notice that whatever argument you present, no matter how well reasoned or proofs provided, their response is to ignore it and act as if you said something completely different? Or how they could argue against something in one case and situation and in another case, same situation, and either turn a blind eye to it or justify it contradicting their previously held position.

The reason why is simple. The progressive liberal did not actually read or listen to you in the normal sense of determining the main idea of the paragraph or follow the reasoning. No. They skimmed through and only picked out words and phrases that emotionally triggered them just as in any given situation, they only consider how they feel about it, not what they rationally think about it.

The liberal progressive does not think or reason, they emote, and their reactions and positions are based on a set flow chart of approval for who they feel is always good and disapproval for who they feel is always bad.

There are those whom the progs collectively view as good and support for whom demonstrates the liberal prog's virtue to his fellows and maintains their status in the liberal progressive herd cult. Those whom the progs collectively view as bad must be always condemned and castigated no matter the facts and circumstances, even if the bad guy does some good, also to maintain their status in the progressive group as a good person.

When the "bad guys" do something the progs collectively do not like and it is the worst evil ever perpetrated in human history and cannot be condemned harshly enough. But if the "good guys" do something bad, in fact the same action as would be in the "bad guy" case, then it must be good but only in the "good guy's" case.

It's all feels, image and keeping in the good graces of the progressive herd. Thought, reason, logic and intellectual consistency never enters the equation. The approval of the herd and the good feels of belonging to the herd cult in good standing and being seen as dedicated to an approved cause greater than the individual liberal progressive is all that matters.

So even if logically inconsistent to the point of mind destroying cognitive dissonance, the liberal progressive shifting positions and goal posts makes a weird sort of consistency when analyzed this way.

However, let's get back to the liberal progressive response to a reasoned argument not having any bearing or relationship to said argument.

When confronted on these non sequiter responses, the progressive liberal will hide behind a response of you using "dog whistles", saying one thing but secretly saying whatever the prog imagines you really mean, requiring an absurd, convoluted cryptography to discern. In fact, the prog has no acutal response and knows on some deep level his position or argument is patent nonsense. The "dog whistle" retort only makes for a puerile pseudo-intellectual cover for a flimsy, poorly thought out  position. 

What this really means is that on some level, the liberal progressive actually understood what you said and meant but his emotional programming overrode logic. He therefore uses the "dog whistle" dodge to square the circle between reason and emotion. After all, the liberal progressive ideology is perfect, the liberal prog is super smart (one gets a free 30 points added to one's IQ just for joining!) and thus is never wrong as well as always being on the right side of history- no matter what facts and reality itself says. How can they lose?

In the end, we must admit it is useless to argue from a position of fact and reason with an ontological emoter of the left and instead should concentrate on attacking the flaws of their ideological cult. Not to convince or convert the leftist/liberal/progressive which is near impossible and only rarely happens, but to sway the moderate normies away from supporting the goals and agenda of the prog cult.


Donald Cavaioli





Wednesday, December 5, 2018

The Peasant Mindset II: The Tolerance of Tyranny Curve

In a previous post, I discussed what I referred to as the peasant mindset in that most people will behave like servile peasants under a master. This is to be expected as we humans are social beings having evolved in small hunter-gatherer tribes with a Pareto distribution in the leader-follower percentage. A tribe cannot function with too many leaders and not enough followers since all members of the tribe working together are essential in the overall survival of the group. This is hard wired into us but as diversity in any species is likewise essential to allow for changes in the environment and ecosystem, there will be a percentage of outliers- the individualist of whom a larger than average percentage of such minarchists in late eighteenth, early nineteenth century north America who founded our constitutionally limited republic.

As I stated earlier, the follower or peasant needs a master to follow or in our present case, a managerial ruling class, and will not mind strictures on their personal liberty even preferring a strict ruler over a lax one who is likely to be overthrown. After all, only strong rulers and leaders attract followers. So the ruler who promises his peasant the most benefits may tyrannize over them as much as he can. That is as long as the peasant's table has some food on it, the ruler keeps some of his promises of largess, or the iron rice bowl has a few crusts of bread in it, the individualist minority who resent being lorded over are ignored by the majority of peasants who will deem them fools or insane.

However, depending on the majority peasant's level of servility, if the master lets his peasants starve too long and beats them too hard, after a time even the most servile ones start to think the situation over. Here is where things get interesting.

If one were to plot a graph of peasant loyalty versus living standards we would see that strangely enough, the peasant's displays of loyalty to their rulers increases as their living standards decreases. This is in the hope of reversing the situation as perhaps the rulers are doubting the loyalty of the followers and is rightfully punishing them or are unaware of the peasant's dire straits. In either situation, the peasant hopes his rulers will act to alleviate the situation. This loyalty curve will continue to increase along with the master's complacency until a critical mass of peasants realize their bowls are empty and they have nothing left to lose. Then the ignored individualists' agitations against the master start becoming more popular, the loyalty curve suddenly changes sharply downwards to zero and a revolution starts brewing. If the rulers, sensing this, tries to make concessions to their peasants, this ruler is seen as weak and the revolution comes sooner rather than later. Otherwise this popular discontent may long simmer without boiling over until the situation somehow improves and the peasant loyalty curve increases to normal or a breaking point is finally reached.

What we see today in France is just this breaking point situation with the yellow vest protests. This is the potential start of a revolution, peaceful or otherwise, with the ruling class there pushing their ethnic French population too far with policies they do not want and realizing they have little left to lose. Let us hope the situation is resolved peacefully.

Countries like Italy and the United States are starting to support populist candidates outside of the mainstream of the ruling class parties to effect peaceful change necessary to curb the excesses of the ruling class through the ballot box. Let us hope this will be successful for a ruling class that ignores the will of the people, thwarting all attempts at redress of grievance and peaceful change, is a suicidal folly as it can have the dire consequences of making violent revolution inevitable.

To our ruling class here in New York, beware how you treat the working and middle classes, especially the white plebs you demonize, forcing them to accept and pay for your globalist policies of open immigration balkanization, degrading their standard of living with your overwrought environmental policies and subsequent increases in the cost of living. They will indeed notice how the rulers and elite of New York will not live under the same strictures and privations as they will do. And although they cheer your policies now, continue down this path and sooner or later they too will don yellow vests.


Donald Cavaioli

Thursday, November 29, 2018

The Differences between Models of Power and Models of Persuasion

In summary:
Government as we have here in the U.S. has a legal monopoly of the use of force and violence only allowing the citizens the right to use force in their own defense, in certain and specific situations. Governments are organized into (in the case of democracies) legislatures, courts and executive bureaucracies to carry out all its functions and logistics. Government is therefore a model of power and organization, able to compel its citizens to obey the laws by threat of force.

Business has no ability to use force to compel a citizen to purchase any of its goods and services. Businesses use advertising and salesmanship to convince the citizen to patronize them. Their purpose is to create wealth and make a profit. Businesses can further be organized into bureaucratic like managerial structures to handle large scale complex and specialized operations. Business is therefore a model of production and persuasion.

Business can only persuade or influence government but at all times, it must be noted that government has power which can be used against a business or individual and therefore always has the upper hand.


Further:
It is a widely held belief that there is a golden rule where the man with the gold makes the rules. This is mostly false. Mao Zedong was more correct in noting that power flows from the barrel of a gun.

In the first case, the man with the gold, absent any means of force, i.e. the means or ability to kill others or otherwise make credible and enforceable threats, is limited to using his gold to persuade people to obey his will or influence their actions. Hence, this is a model of persuasion or influence. Businesses, from the one man shop up to the largest corporation or any bank, are primarily models of production and also of persuasion and/or influence. One is free to, or not, purchase any goods or services and the business or bank has no recourse by which to coerce the recalcitrant citizen into making a transaction or taking out a loan.

The man with the gun, or means of force whereby he can kill others and has some kind of monopoly on the use of force and violence is a model of power. Governments have a monopoly on the use of force in so far as they can punish their citizens for transgressions of law by means of fines (forcibly taking money)  and imprisonment (forcibly restricting freedom of movement) or by execution and are therefore models of power. '


How this affects us in NYC:
We need to understand these distinctions in order to have a clear view of the current situation we face as New Yorkers and as U.S. citizens. In order to solve a problem, one must first identify and understand what the problem is, the components making up the system, how the components are related to each other and how they function together.

We here in Queens can rightly see the developers and real estate industry (REBNY) as problematic in light of the current residential building rampage with ever rising housing costs and an infrastructure insufficient to the ever increasing population density. We may be tempted to believe that REBNY  actually runs the political establishment with all city officials as being their employees. This is a convenient smokescreen for the city government, which as a model of force which always has the upper hand but acts as the passive victim and REBNY, like corporations, banks and Wall Street brokerage houses play the villains. REBNY can only buy influence which as the Knights Templar learned with King Philip IV of France or more recently Martha Stewart, that influence not only has its limits but can be revoked at the pleasure of the man with the gun.

In conclusion, we must hold our elected officials accountable for the actions of business interests that are detrimental to our community and responsible for reigning in the excesses.


Donald Cavaioli





Wednesday, November 28, 2018

The Great Guy Syndrome

Here in New York City as in the rest of the country we have a problem with the elected political establishment not being responsive to the will of the citizen voter. One of the most important reasons is that elected politicians have an incumbent re-election rate of 90% or more. In many cases, we give electeds a virtual lifetime appointment to office no matter how they behave in office. Then worse, when the elected either retires or dies in office, we vote for another member of their family making an entrenched political dynasty.

Call it "the great guy syndrome". If one were to ask their neighbors' opinion on politics they would invariably say that all politicians are crooks, incompetents or in the pockets of their donors and would express amazement that people in other districts or states are such idiots to vote the wretches back into office. All the wretches except their politicians because their politician is a great guy and they can't wait to vote him (her or it) back into office.

What the great guy voter never realizes that all the other people he views as idiots who keep re-electing losers to office also think their politician is a great guy and can't understand what's wrong with everyone else as well. So we end up with re-election rates of 90% or more and nobody can ever figure out why nothing changes.

The great guy syndrome also causes voters to treat their electeds like rock stars because they're great guys rather than employees hired by the people of the district or the state to represent the community and it's interests.

Really, the important thing to remember is the people are the boss and elected politicians are our employees, hired by us in elections, and whose paycheck comes from our tax dollars. (H/T Mitch Waxman)

The problem with this current situation is that an entrenched politician with a virtual lifetime sinecure, like any employee the boss does not watch over, will begin to slack off of his responsibilities. If the employee realizes the boss will never fire him, he will lose any and all respect for his boss who he will then take every advantage of and virtually rob blind.

What should be done is for we the people to grow some backbone, take charge, and act like the boss.

Watch over your elected employee and hold him accountable if he fails to represent your interests or follow through on campaign promises. If he doesn't work up to standards, vote him out no matter how much you personally like him or his party affiliation, the platitudes or ideology. Vote for a candidate of another party if necessary to send a message to your preferred party and let them know why. Better luck then to the next candidate. No excuses.

Limit electing any candidate for office to two terms only! Maybe he is a great guy working miracles for your district so let him run for another office and be a great guy there. Don't let them sit in one office too long becoming indolent and disrespectful of the constituents.

It can be done.


Donald Cavaioli

Monday, November 26, 2018

Bill de Blasio: Progressive Liberal. Man of the Left. Deal With It.

To my fellow New Yorkers, denizens of Queens County still clinging to the "muh real progressive liberalism" nostrum and desperately promulgating the notion that our mayor is some kind of counterfeit progressive liberal in the vain hope of salvaging your political cult and snowflake egos from ruin: You're wrong. de Blasio is a progressive liberal and meets or exceeds all left wing checkpoints.
All you're doing is making yourself look pathetic.

All that you see before you in our city today that dismays you, causes the most deepest existential angst, shaking the core of your belief system, is exactly what a Marxian collectivist ideological system of government would bring: Equality and justice defined as equality of outcome requiring wealth redistribution and elevating the stupid and incompetent to positions they cannot achieve through merit, economic strip mining through highly regulated, select crony capitalist vassals and foreign investors, that the delusional are accorded high social status and the rest of us must validate their lunacy, and multicultural balkanization turning us into a third world borough. It's a socio-economic slow motion train wreck that can't end well.

What you're mostly whining about based on comments I have read in other blogs, is that although you've all drank the progressive kool aid and paid lip service to these programs, even virtue signaled your asses off in hopes of gaining good thinker brownie points, it has not worked out to your benefit. Your little tin gods took no notice of you and your prayers.

In fact, in some cases, you find yourself on the wrong end of the stick. You were hoisted on your own liberal petard and are now suffering a severe case of butthurt aggravated by sour grapes. Sorry you didn't make the cut but that's socialism: Where you're more likely to end up as the zek in the camp or the body in the ditch rather than the commissar or apparatchik living the high life with the beautiful people. Luckily, it hasn't gone that far...yet..., but it still sucks to be you. Maybe if you just keep mindlessly babbling about republicans' fault and "Orange man bad" then you'll feel better.

de Blasio never fails to support any of these progressive liberal points and as a member of the ruling elite, the boss, he gets to decide proper interpretation of the liberal religion, what to give to whom and who gets royally fucked over to pay for it all. You, me and the rest of us are just plebs who are expected to sit down, shut up and do what we're told by our betters who alone decide what's best for us.

So don't hate the player, hate the game.



Donald Cavaioli



Sunday, November 25, 2018

The Peasant Mindset

To open, a brief summary of the following post would be this: Most people are inclined to be followers, live within the collective rules of the herd under the control of a strong man leader, rather than be free thinking individuals. I call this the peasant mindset. For as Gaius Sallustius Crispus is quoted as having said "Few men desire liberty, most men wish only for a just master".

The original Americans of the colonial period were exceptions with a nearly half the population being free thinking, I don't want to obey anyone, individuals. This is why such a substantial percentage of the colonists were such people, 40% to 45% of whom actively supported or actually fought the American revolution, were here to get away from the strictures of the old world. But subsequent waves of immigration brought more of the average population of the peasant mindset into play and this is, to some extent, responsible for the size and power of our present managerial state.

I would correct Sallust in that most men wish only for a just master but cannot imagine their existence without one and will demand to be ruled by any master, just or not.

The original Americans, who can be thought of as ethnic Americans (mostly WASPs) differed from their more servile British Isles and continental European cousins in one crucial way more so than their ethnic differences. It was his independent, non serviam attitude. The sort of people who could not tolerate a master to obey or betters to grovel before even if they were an ocean away and fought a war of independence to have nothing to do with the old world and its strong man monarchies.

However, after gaining independence from Britain, the ethnic Americans, mostly WASPs, though, in the early to mid nineteenth century needed more people to settle the frontiers as the United States expanded under the imperative of manifest destiny and more low-skilled workers to fill the factories springing up as a result of the industrial revolution. And although the WASP ethnic Americans may have wrinkled their noses in disgust (perhaps arguably with good reason) at the waves of German, Irish Catholics and later Southern European, mostly Italian Catholic and Eastern European Jews, the WASPs couldn't get enough of them. What they perhaps had no way of knowing was that the immigrants they imported were more different from them than appearances or language would suggest. Not simply ethnically although that is a significant difference, but more that the large majority of immigrants were of the peasant mindset and could never be (or even want to be) the go-it-alone, leave me alone, non serviam individualists that generally characterized the ethnic Americans.

These newly arrived and minted Americans would live together in their own ethnic enclaves and even after generations and most would move out of their ghettos but many would still cling to the "old country ways" and refer to themselves as hyphenated Americans. This might be a survivable problem as mostly they at least adopted a veneer of ethnic American WASP culture, work ethic and sensibilities yet they were still of the peasant mindset. Them and most of their descendants. This would eventually break the American experiment in self-governance and a constitutionally limited republic, concepts for which the peasant minded had no use for.

So these new Americans wanted and needed a master and could not imagine a world where they did not cower before their betters. If a strong man ruler and his court was not provided, they would select masters from among their own ranks. From here arose machine politics and identity politics with all its attendant corruption and the unaccountable to any law ruling class who we now see today. This does not trouble much the peasant minded then as now as long as master is of their hyphenated American or whatever identity group, gives them a pat on the head once in a while or an extra crust of bread now and again.

Of course, this was with the full cooperation with the ethnic Americans, especially the northeastern blueblood establishment types, who in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, saw this as a vehicle to protect their power and interests from the socially mobile and the nouveau riche upstart plebs (whom they smeared as Robber Barons) with the progressive era and the New Deal. In effect, jumping out in front of the immigrant imported socialist parade and leading it themselves. In doing so, the Blueblood Masters began eroding wealth creation in favor of wealth redistribution and free enterprise gradually replaced with centrally planned managerialism. Liberties and natural rights were gradually curtailed while the U.S. Constitution was stood on it's head where the Bill of Rights are not restrictions on the power of government but privileges grudgingly doled out to the pleb masses by the federal government. Throughout it all, the peasants neither noticed nor cared. They had their strong Master to watch over them.

If the peasants wanted a strong master in return for meager entitlements and doled out privileges, the self-appointed blueblood WASP overlords and later the hyphenated American machine politicians who supplanted them would be more than happy to crack the whip.

But in their zeal to embrace various shades of Marxism, both the WASPs and hyphenated American machine bosses failed to realize that in the aftermath of the 1965 Hart Cellar Act, they themselves could become the target of the new waves of peasant mind immigrants that they championed. They once again used their old tried and true trick of jumping out in front of the latest My Nation of Immigrants parade in the hopes of leading it. It would become the identity politics parade.

Through all this, those loyal peasants of European descent are increasingly being discarded in favor of  more pliable third world peasants more accustomed to strong man dictatorships. It has always escaped the notice of the peasant minded that when the master finds better slaves or the old slaves are no longer of any use, then the master will dispose of the old slave with not a single care or concern.
It will not, however, diminish the loyalty of the descendants of earlier waves of European immigrants. They will never learn.

So here we stand today with a managerial state growing in power inevitably from authoritarianism into totalitarianism, run by a ruling class increasingly socially and culturally isolated from the plebs over which they govern. All with the consent and full approval of the peasant minded majority. However, with identity politics gaining more power, supplanting the old left-right paradigm, the old, white democrat party leaders will be increasingly pushed aside in favor of the new Identity/Grievance Masters. These new Masters will denounce new identity enemies- judged by the color of their skins, not by the content of their character and further discard wealth creation in favor of even more wealth redistribution and wealth extraction all to benefit their own identity group. Blissfully unaware of, or incapable of understanding the dangers of destroying opportunity for the competent and productive, punishing success and the danger of ever growing public debt and fiat currency. That their policies will cause the jobs of the working class and middle class to be lost to other countries is of no concern to them. Somebody will have money they can leech off of and the enemy must be destroyed. The concept of fishing out the pond never occurs to them.

They will also grant a series of special rights and privileges for the benefit of and to placate various identity/grievance groups and set them on disfavored identity groups. The European descended peasants will desperately try to virtue signal and try to keep up with the ever shifting narrative to show their continuing fealty to the new ruling class with spaniel like fidelity but to no avail. The old enemy, the bourgeois entrepreneurs, have been long destroyed and their descendants, the crony capitalists are servile, tithe paying vassals (the managerial state always needs a rich source of other people's money) so it's on to destroy the new enemies: The middle class and working class of European descent.

An enemy class against which to struggle is a necessity of any Marxian ideology. It's divide and conquer to maintain ruling class hegemony. But yesterday's noble heroes will be morphed into tomorrow's implacable villains and the pattern later repeated yet still, the peasant minded will never learn. They will continue to play the new Master's game, never realizing he could be next for the block as the Master tries to evade the consequences of his foolish and greedy policies which will eventually cause the downfall of us all.

We are heading for interesting times indeed.


Donald Cavaioli



Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Left from Right and Nationalism too

It's a curious thing when you think about it.
Most people do not know or are confused about what is the political left and the political right but it is really simple.

Most people view nationalism, fascism and nazism as belonging to the political right. This is incorrect. In order to have totalitarian systems like fascism and nazism on the right of the political spectrum, said spectrum must be bent into a horseshoe or circle to mate them up with totalitarian communism.

This makes no sense whatsoever.

Looked at this way, if A. (nazism, fascism) = C. (totalitarian collectivist state)
                               and B. (communism) = C. (totalitarian collectivist state)
                             Then A. (nazism, fascism) = B. (communism)

Therefore all three systems belong on the left of the political spectrum where left is defined as centrally managed and controlled economic and social, collectivist states. Otherwise the political spectrum twisted into horseshoes, circles, pretzels and mobius strips can tell us nothing as they have no definable left or right nor a coherent definition thereof.

The purpose of this spectrum is to organize data into an easily readable form  and allow for new systems to be easily identified on the spectrum as any good graph or chart should do. Bad charts, graphs or spectrum lines are invariably the work of grifters and mountebanks working to deceive others.

This horseshoe, pretzel, multidimensional axis tesseract construct is usually the argument of leftists who at the political family function do not want to be seated at the same table with cousin Adolf and cousin Benito. Nobody likes losers, especially leftists who are obsessed with being "on the right side of history" but they are part of the left, or alt-left if you will, so suck it up, leftie.

An Aside: The Z-man, no leftist he, had a recent blog post podcast on this subject, buying into the fascism is on the right notion in a way which I found to be a bit obscurantist, in that he emphasized the economic aspect and totally ignored the social aspects of individual liberty and property rights. So by claiming the spectrum is not universally applicable, considered only economics, and can only be understood within some arbitrary frame of reference, he renders the entire concept irrelevant and it should logically be discarded in favor of "some guys who think one way" and "them other guys who think another way". Further conflating the bad rhetoric of "progressive liberals are the real Nazis" used by conservatives with the political spectrum itself and appeal to academic authority as support is a fallacy. Had he proposed that identity politics has now rendered the old left-right paradigm obsolete, then there is something to consider and debate.
Now I like the Z-man and read his blog daily and will continue to do so finding much to learn or better articulation of ideas I already had and usually agree with him but this time, I respectfully disagree.

So what is the political right?
Simply put, those who want smaller governments with more emphasis property and individual rights. This would make libertarian anarchists (not to be confused by leftist fake anarchists who want a totalitarian communist state) the extreme right and the diametric opposite communists.
Then the right is less based in an ideology to arguably none at all and is really more of an attitude or preference. What organizational ideology can describe "leave me alone"?


This is not to say that a right wing government cannot arguably be authoritarian as long as it is a one party system that practices laissez-faire social and economic policies and only controls political dissent. Such a government would be placed nearer the center right.

 However, Burnham's and Francis' works regarding the managerial state would predict that eventually the State apparatus will grow and move towards greater control over economics and social matters developing a more comprehensive governing ideology and thus morph into a left-wing state. Even minarchism faces this prospect over the long term unless the citizenry takes the effort to prevent it. The United States today faces this problem due to the long term apathy and complacency of its citizens.

So what is the political left?
The left can be said to be based on organizational ideologies as a necessary blueprint to create a centrally controlled and managed collectivist state. The collectivist state, in order to manage and control not only the economic system but the social system, must use the force of an authoritarian or totalitarian government apparatus to enforce the dogma of its governing ideology. Control can only be maintained by force to ensure complete compliance with the State.

Again, this is not to say all left-wing governments are necessarily totalitarian but some amount of force, be it government force of law or social pressure from the majority of citizens who desire this form of government with its attendant political and social controls. We must also recall that there is a center to the political spectrum with shading to the moderate left or moderate right is necessary.


Now we have an actual straight line left-right political spectrum that makes sense where the extreme opposite ends are in fact the opposite of each other: totalitarian collectivism opposite libertarian anarchy, with shadings in between. And so we can see that fascism and Nazism belong on the far left of the spectrum and just to the right of totalitarian government controlled communism at the extreme left.

That is unless National Socialism with the emphasis on Socialism wasn't your first clue and no, Mussolini and Hitler were not kidding when using it.

Now on to nationalism.
Nationalism is not an political ideology at all but a preference much like being a fan of a sports team. It does not belong on the left or the right as either can be a nationalist as much as a fan of, say, the NY Giants can be someone of the right or the left, Democrat or Republican or whatever.
Even Stalin pursued a policy of socialism in one country and blatantly appealed to Russian nationalism during the second world war or as the Soviets called it: "The Great Patriotic Struggle".

To call nationalism a right wing ideology and tie it to those two most serviceable villains, Hitler and Mussolini, is the result of the post World War II European left's attempt to smear nationalism and even today to make it a scare word in order to sell their globalist/internationalist snake oil.

Once you look at this logically, this way is simple, coherent and makes the most sense.

Donald Cavaioli

Fear Response

On the internet, there is no end to conspiracy theories on any topic imaginable and there is no serious or concerted attempt made to censor ...