“Every ancient religion has its own myth about the end of the world.” – Ghostbusters
I guess communism doesn’t work on paper, either, if that paper is in a history book.
This week I finally got a copy of the novel The Three Body Problem by Chinese author Cixin Liu. It won the Hugo® award for best novel in 2015. I consider winning the Hugo® faint praise.
Mainstream science fiction has long since ceased being a genre about the interplay of science and humanity. Today, it has become a way that woke Leftist editors can select Leftist authors to present a Leftist viewpoint. So, it’s like being a freshman in college, but with extra steps.
There are notable exceptions (John C. Wright comes to mind), but most of the books I see on bookstore shelves today are far inferior to the product of 20 or 30 years ago in every respect. Heck, they even took the hot chicks in bikinis off of the covers.
Conan would often swing his sword at his opponent’s ankles. That way they were de-feeted.
I did sit down and devour (I got it on Saturday and finished three-quarters of it that day) The Three Body Problem. I didn’t get a chance to finish it today, but I’ll have to say I’ve enjoyed very much what I’ve read so far.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but I certainly wasn’t expecting Cixin’s first scene to confront a painful era in China’s past. The opening few chapters took a very difficult look at the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution was when, after being pushed aside for a bit, Chairman Mao decided to pour gasoline all over China and set it ablaze.
Cixin’s didn’t spare detail, showing the brutality and unthinking violence of the Cultural Revolution.
What was the Cultural Revolution?
Mao used youth groups to rebel against the communist leaders that were insufficiently Maoist. What was Maoist? It varied. The results, however, didn’t. It was a reign of internal terror that started in 1966 and reached a peak in 1969. The only thing that finally ended it was Mao’s death.
The leader of China put out a little red book, just like Mao’s “Quotations from Chairman Mao”. It’s called, “That’s what Xi said.”
The Cultural Revolution was a religious war. How was it religious, since the commies were officially atheist?
Because Leftism had become their religion. Mao was their savior. And by burning and destroying the past, they were bringing about a cleansing fire that would destroy the world.
As many as (high estimate) 20 million Chinese died one way or another in Cultural Revolution. They died in all the usual ways: via massacres, struggle sessions, or cannibalism.
Children turned in their parents. Anyone objecting was, of course, a dangerous counter-revolutionary and was either killed or imprisoned or forced to watch re-runs of The Jimmy Kimmel Show.
Cixin’s book brings all of this home with stark reality. Sometimes it takes fiction to turn the cruel sterility of a Wikipedia article into something a human can relate to. This confirms, though, several basic thoughts:
- Leftism is a religion.
- The goal of Leftism isn’t the betterment of man: the goal is an apocalypse where everything impure is burned away. The goal is to immanentize the eschaton to lead to the final worker’s paradise.
- The number of victims is irrelevant. Everything and everyone is fair game.
- The rules in play are the rules of today, there is no consistency as definitions always change.
- I like pizza.
Leftist Catechism: Thy jab and thy booster, they comfort me, they maketh me to deny statistics and seek peace in the Pfizer.
As I’ve written about before, Leftism is also a religion built upon self-loathing. They actually hate themselves. Why throw themselves in front of cars? Their life is pain. They want to die. At least then they could stop watching Stephen Colbert, which makes the sweet release of death sound good.
Leftism isn’t really a political movement. Leftism is a religion. That alone makes it very strong. In most cases, if a religious fanatic is prosecuted, what will be the outcome? The fanaticism is, in their minds, justified – the purification of mankind has become their religion.
In one sense, the failure in Afghanistan isn’t really a surprise because of just this principle. The United States spent 20 years trying to convince a group of religious people that their religion and tribal affiliations weren’t important, and that they should replace it with BLM®, fast food, Dancing With The Stars™ and a good credit score.
- No Afghani soldier wants to die for LGBT+© rights in Afghanistan.
- No Afghani soldier wants to die for the latest Xbox® release.
- No Afghani soldier wants to die for the Afghani teen girl robotic team.
Come on down to Hakim’s discount emporium! The best prices on gently-used weapons in the tri-nation area.
Why did Afghani soldiers disappear? They really weren’t fighting for Afghanistan, they were fighting to make Afghanistan more like, oh, a mall in the suburbs in Indiana.
It’s just that sort of mismatch that occurs when we look at Leftism. Sure, some Leftists are basket cases that couldn’t exist outside of their mom’s basement and her boyfriend supplying xim/xir unlimited Cheetos®. But there is a dedicated core that believes in Leftism with all of their hearts, and are fully committed to it.
Is it possible to have that level of dedication on the Right?
It is. In fact, I believe it will be inevitable. Is there an apathetic center? Yes, but there’s never been a time when the center really mattered, outside paying so little attention to the issues that they make elections exciting.
The Leftists use the term “reactionary” to describe opposition to their atrocities. That’s what the Cultural Revolutionaries called those they killed: Reactionaries.
The Reaction will take place and will have all of the fervor of the Left, and twice the guns. If it comes down to an attempted Cultural Revolution in the United States, the Left will find we’ve seen this movie before.
A crusader walks into a bar, the bartender says, “What do you want?” The crusader: “Jerusalem!”
This is a repeat of history: every time the Left has gained power, in the end, it has lost it. In Paris, eventually, the communists gave way to Napoleon. In Russia, it lasted longer but eventually proved itself to be bankrupt. In China, after Mao died, it was transformed, bit by bit. Maoist China would have executed Cixin Liu for writing The Three Body Problem. The state-socialist-market economy that’s replaced Mao is okay with it.
I am likewise certain that the United States will be changed by the coming crusade against Leftism. It certainly won’t look the same after it’s over.
It won’t have Leftists, for one thing.
Just wanted to drop a line and say I have been a fan of your blog for sometime. Your grasp on world history combined with your biting and hialrious satire is a breath of fresh air in a time when most of the air smells like baked chicken s#it in August. Semper Fi. Prepare Accordingly.
Thank you! I visit your place on a regular basis, too!
Why wait for the rush? Be ahead of the trend. Fight Leftism now!
It’s too early to fight leftism now. Oh sure, you can poke them and prod them…pick a few off here and there. The best plan is to slowly ratchet up the harassment; they will get hysterically aggravated. That’s when they go full bezerker and lose the ability to function as a cohesive unit. Then you kill them all. It will be magnificent.
TL;DR: We have to wait for it to get much, much worse before we can try to make it better.
Yup. It’s never too early to stock up!
I call them the “Cult of Woke” and I always know if I’ve met a fellow traveler because the light goes on and they nod. Otherwise it engenders confusion, and I go into “guarded mode”. When the New Gestapo catch me, it won’t be because a clueless git turned me in for a $10 Starbucks gift card.
There is no middle ground – no neutral participants – when one side won’t take surrender as an option. When you join the left (or more likely, are assimilated so they “leave you alone”) you either prove you belong by constantly spouting the narrative, or better yet turning in nazis, or you *are* the enemy. It’s why the clueless normie will end up on the right, and why the right would be wise to use such as cannon fodder only. I bet those people intersect heavily with those who are fully vaxxed; at least today.
Sadly, the assimilated normie will eventually succumb to the lies they are forced to repeat and become true believers. Very few escape the Cult of Woke, but some do make it. It starts the same way all deprogramming begins: they get separated from the herd, see life outside the cult, and when they return they suddenly recognize that “something is off”, and they are surrounded by crazy.
There is a reason they refer to MAGA as a cult: they project. Always.
The Normie won’t realize what went on until they’re painted into a corner. And maybe not even then.
The Commies thought they could take over Germany in the 1920s through revolution and degeneracy but Uncle A proved them wrong, at least for a few decades.
Many don’t know there was an actual commie coup tried in Germany. Ours just want to put a vax-port system in place. Oh, and control every aspects of our lives.
******
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THANK YOU!!!! -JW
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*****
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Based on my experience, BOLCHEVICS are stuck in a “two-year old’s center-of-the-universe” tantrum.
Lacking experience outside their need to force everybody to cater to their instant-gratification snibblings, they throw tantrums and stamp their little feet and hold their little breath until they get their way.
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My method for dealing with a two-year old — I ignore them.
I also think withholding food, booting them outside at 4am to do the chores, and forcing them to care for food-producing and working animals adds to their real-world maturity.
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(I also think ‘health-care’ comes from my garden, working in it and eating from it.)
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Mike Rowe says something along these lines:
* you never see rioters in shop class
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After a certain age, the tantrum phase gets habitual.
It worked as an infant, so BOLCHEVICS see no reason to change behaviors.
Unfortunately, their limits abruptly terminate against the realities of inflated/valueless fiat currency and the extremely harsh reality of the non-sustainability of stacked deep inside the sardine-cans of cities.
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In my experience, BOLCHEVICS thrive in cities for one reason — as a cog in the hive, they are anonymous.
Demanding absolute authority while evading responsibility, they hide.
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And yet, after a term of servicing ‘the public’, they hope to emulate Glorious Leader chinesium joe biden and hussein o’bama and o’casio-cortez, adored and well-compensated for all their sacrifices to further TheCause.
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I see nothing of value in BOLCHEVICS.
Parasitic, they suck and steal but contribute nothing.
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And then, there is the problem of disposing of their corpses after their ‘use-by’ date.
My guess is that the intention was “a pencil.” Even though there is a fairly famous libertarian piece called “I, Pencil” (the theme of which is the degree of automatic, voluntary cooperation that occurs in free markets), I don’t think that title would really fit in the meme.
Mike Rowe – now there’s a winner. Great guy.
Hmm, food deprivation. Are you sure they wouldn’t like it?
While we wait for the coming reaction to leftist religion, it is worthwhile to consider the statistical current shifts of American religion in general. The abandonment of Christian moral precepts along with the loss of adherents to Christianity itself is a very worrisome trend, throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
https://www.arizonachristian.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/CRC_AWVI2021_Release03_Digital_01_20210512.pdf
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/its-not-just-young-white-liberals-who-are-leaving-religion/
https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top
Although church attendance is declining, there are many people who are now “home” churching. In anticipation of the coming persecution, and due to a lack of faithful biblical preaching in the local churches, our family is one of those forming small house churches.
I wish your efforts well.
Also, those whose husbands still want them to answer polls, answer randomly. Chaff FTW
Big Data only works if you cooperate.
Kindvof like vampires
Yup. A good and moral people are required to make this place run.
John, your virtuosity has always been amazing, but this is your first that I remember that bridged across two languages, one of them non-Western. I’m sure you’ve done it before, but I am simply failing to remember, among the other things I’m failing to do at my age. Anyway, sir, if you were a gymnast, I think they’d be saying that you really “stuck that landing.”
And that’s why I love you guys! You get these horrible jokes!
Communists have always lost power, because verbatim communism is not actually meant to be a system of government, it never has been. “Communism” is a WEAPON used by tyrants to obtain power at the expense of the gullible, poor, and evil/anarchists, under the guise of a glorious workers’ revolution. This is why the main supporters of the “revolution” are often executed or imprisoned shortly after power is taken.
Yup. Orwell was a committed commie until he went face to face with them during the Spanish Civil War. Then? Animal Farm.
In “My Mind on Trial”, an autobiography by Eugene Loebl, I read the following (IIRC) “Comrade, there are times when the Revolution needs heroes, and there are times when it needs traitors.” Traitors, that is, to explain why and how the glorious future promised by the revolutionaries had not arrived on schedule, and might be somewhat longer delayed. The traitors; they wrecked it. And as a loyal Czech Communist, he was willing to play the role, at his trial, if only he could figure out what he might have done to deserve it.
https://www.commentary.org/articles/seth-cropsey/my-mind-on-trial-by-eugen-loebl/
Exactly! Biden is quietly looking for some to hang.
Re: Stuart Scheller (Lt. Col, USMC, resigned):
“I don’t need a single dollar. I just need every single person that’s willing to go back outside the wire every single day to wear a blue collar, and just go into work every single day and feed their families,” he said. “Those are the people that I need. Follow me and we will bring the whole f****** system down.”
Do we really, really want to bring the whole system down? I’d be a lot happier about this if he were to say “we can build an alternate system, of freedom, honesty, and mutual respect, independent of the corrupt bankers and the generals.” Or, really, anything that provides a vision of a better way to live, not blind destruction.
Afghanistan was widely known to be widely corrupt. Now, we’ve all seen how a corrupt government can dissolve when external support is removed. How will we govern ourselves, when the next wave of truth is revealed? We don’t have (in my experience) the wide network of kin, clan, and/or tribe. Can we build something that works as well?
I watched his recording. I think we can build a new structure, but I think it will be tough to get there. As long as people don’t understand the real cost of “free stuff” – we’ll be headed back into the same hell.
“Communism is power based upon force and limited to nothing, by no kind of law and by absolutely no set rule.
The dictatorship of the proletariat is nothing else than power based upon force and limited by nothing, by no kind of law and absolutely no rule.
We must combat religion. This is the ABC of all materialism and consequently of Marxism.
Down with religion. Long live atheism. The spread of atheism is our chief task.
Communism abolishes eternal truths. It abolishes all religion and morality.”
“We, of course, say that we do not believe in God. We do not believe in eternal morality. We repudiate all morality that is taken outside of human, class concepts. We say that our morality is entirely subordinated to the interests of the class struggle.
Communists must regard themselves as free, indeed morally obligated to violate the truthfulness, respect for life, etc., when it is absolutely clear that a great deal more harm [to Communist objectives] would be done by adhering to such principles than by violating them.
That is moral, that serves the destruction of the old society. We must repudiate all morality which proceeds from supernatural ideas, or ideals which are outside class conceptions. Everything is moral which is necessary for the annihilation of the old exploiting social order and for uniting the proletariat.
In what sense do we repudiate ethics and morality?
In the sense that they were preached by the bourgeoisie who declared that these were god’s commandments.”
Lenin
Yup. And what always follows? Atrocity.
>“Is there an apathetic center? Yes, but there’s never been a time when the center really mattered, outside paying so little attention to the issues that they make elections exciting.”<
All we need is for the “center” not to oppose us. They don’t even have to help. Just stand down.
Considering the alternative, what the other guys have on offer… well, that shouldn’t be a tough choice for them. It will be easiest for many people to just do nothing – let the inevitable happen. And that is enough.
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Great article, sir. Thank you.
Same goes for the previous piece, a very timely bit of inspiration. Greatly appreciate you allowing us a peek into the man behind the myth (or is it legend?), as it were, getting to see a bit of the Wilder backstory & family history. And Secondhand Lions, a great movie I haven’t seen in ages, added to the re-watch list.
Glad to have you in this fight, sir. You are greatly appreciated. We need more like you.
Thank you so much – I appreciate the chance to do my little part. It’s especially good knowing that none of us is alone.
“Our cause is terrible, complete, universal and pitiless destruction…Let us unite with the savage, criminal world, these true and only revolutionists of Russia.”
“The revolutionary is a doomed man. He has no personal interests, no business affairs, no emotions, no attachments, no property and no name.
Everything in him is wholly absorbed in the single thought and single passion for revolution.
The revolutionary knows…he has broken all bonds which tie him to social order and the civilized world with all its laws, moralities and customs with its generally accepted conventions.
The object is perpetually the same: the surest and quickest way of destroying the whole filthy order. The revolutionary…despises and hates the existing social morality..For him, morality is everything which contributes to the triumph of the revolution. Immoral and criminal is everything that stands in his way.
The revolutionary must be tyrannical toward others. All the gentle and enervating sentiments of kinship, love, friendship, gratitude, and even honor must be suppresed in him and give place to the cold and single-minded passion for revolution.
Do not pity…Kill in public places if these base rascals dare to enter them. Kill in houses, kill in villages. Remember those who will not side with us will be against us.
Whoever is against us is our enemy. And we must destroy enemies by all means.”
Sergei Nechayev
This comment just won’t stick on approve . . . let me try this . . .
John, it actually is a religion, with a liturgy, a dogma, and (increasingly) an Inquisition.
People should more carefully educate themselves on Mao and his policies. A lot of people died as a result of a belief in a man and his ideas.
John, it actually is a
religionChristian heresy, with a liturgy, a dogma, and (increasingly) an Inquisition.FIFY
Fake Christianities sans Christ eat their seed corn and go rancid fast.
If I achieve nothing in comboxes but encouraging people to think through what the pop cult terminology they’ve unthinkingly absorbed means, I shall not have lived in vain*.
Vaccine
religion
technology
racism
mask
(*On the otherhand, I could be the paradigm of ACKSHULLY. Ah well.)
And Stalin. And Pol Pot . . . there seems to be a pattern.
Thanks for the book recommendation re: The Three Body Problem. My humidor : good book ratio has been out of whack lately and this book will help resolve that>
Exactly! I’ve got other recommendations, whenever!