The Thirty Tyrants

[osan]

This article is well worth the read. This is just the first few paragraphs. It's pretty ugly stuff, so be warned.


The Thirty Tyrants

The deal that the American elite chose to make with China has a precedent in the history of Athens and Sparta

BYLEE SMITH





In Chapter 5 of The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli describes three options for how a conquering power might best treat those it has defeated in war. The first is to ruin them; the second is to rule directly; the third is to create “therein a state of the few which might keep it friendly to you.”

The example Machiavelli gives of the last is the friendly government Sparta established in Athens upon defeating it after 27 years of war in 404 BCE. For the upper caste of an Athenian elite already contemptuous of democracy, the city’s defeat in the Peloponnesian War confirmed that Sparta’s system was preferable. It was a high-spirited military aristocracy ruling over a permanent servant class, the helots, who were periodically slaughtered to condition them to accept their subhuman status. Athenian democracy by contrast gave too much power to the low-born. The pro-Sparta oligarchy used their patrons’ victory to undo the rights of citizens, and settle scores with their domestic rivals, exiling and executing them and confiscating their wealth.

The Athenian government disloyal to Athens’ laws and contemptuous of its traditions was known as the Thirty Tyrants, and understanding its role and function helps explain what is happening in America today.

For my last column I spoke with The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman about an article he wrote more than a decade ago, during the first year of Barack Obama’s presidency. His important piece documents the exact moment when the American elite decided that democracy wasn’t working for them. Blaming the Republican Party for preventing them from running roughshod over the American public, they migrated to the Democratic Party in the hopes of strengthening the relationships that were making them rich.

A trade consultant told Friedman: “The need to compete in a globalized world has forced the meritocracy, the multinational corporate manager, the Eastern financier and the technology entrepreneur to reconsider what the Republican Party has to offer. In principle, they have left the party, leaving behind not a pragmatic coalition but a group of ideological naysayers.”

In the more than 10 years since Friedman’s column was published, the disenchanted elite that the Times columnist identified has further impoverished American workers while enriching themselves. The one-word motto they came to live by was globalism—that is, the freedom to structure commercial relationships and social enterprises without reference to the well-being of the particular society in which they happened to make their livings and raise their children.

Undergirding the globalist enterprise was China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. For decades, American policymakers and the corporate class said they saw China as a rival, but the elite that Friedman described saw enlightened Chinese autocracy as a friend and even as a model—which was not surprising, given that the Chinese Communist Party became their source of power, wealth, and prestige. Why did they trade with an authoritarian regime and by sending millions of American manufacturing jobs off to China thereby impoverish working Americans? Because it made them rich. They salved their consciences by telling themselves they had no choice but to deal with China: It was big, productive, and efficient and its rise was inevitable. And besides, the American workers hurt by the deal deserved to be punished—who could defend a class of reactionary and racist ideological naysayers standing in the way of what was best for progress?

The rest may be read at https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/n...thirty-tyrants

[Brian4Liberty]

The philosophy of “greed is good”, as practiced by our kleptocracy.

[phill4paul]

5 star. And I agree with treatise. There is traitorous activity in the business and political circles that are worthy of an ignoble end in front of a firing squad.

[acptulsa]

It lays out a persuasive case. And taking things further explains other things, like how Trump and the media all suddenly fell silent about North Korea. He even explains why the MIC would be on board.

The time is ripe to boycott Amazon and China.

[Occam's Banana]

Excellent article. Straightforward and efficiently written, without hyperbole or breathless bombast.

Even the analogy with Critias' Athens is well-considered (though I suspect it's going to take a good deal more than a year to depose our current oligarchs, if it happens at all).

[osan]

5 star. And I agree with treatise. There is traitorous activity in the business and political circles that are worthy of an ignoble end in front of a firing squad.

Precisely. And what does that spell? FASCISM. Actual, real deal, no farting around fascism. Sadly, the impact of the word is grossly discounted due to the primally ignorant ab/overuse by the lamers of the "left". Those stooges have managed to so destroy the salience of "fascism" that when we come face to face with actual examples, the most appropriate word no longer has the oomph to convey what we are actually experiencing.

Material and substantial non-equivocation is the only solution that stands any chance of helping us at this juncture. This almost certainly means hot warfare and we have been so thoroughly conditioned against "violence" that I suspect we no longer have the stomach for that which is needed - the actual killing of the guilty parties and the sending into exile of their families. I am old and rotten as hell, meaning I'd have no problems "correcting" the likes of Pelosi and McConnell, reducing their kin to penury, and removing them from American territories. But one man cannot do what is needed. Armies of men with the sand to spill the blood that needs spilling in the face of a circumstance and a "system" that no longer works in a way even remotely resembling what was intended.

Until the tyrants are killed, and I am unequivocal in this, we will continue the death spiral, which now takes us perilously close to the hard deck at a dizzying rate.

I've written this here many times before, for it bears repetition: Theye are playing for keeps and they will have your ass in a sling before they are done. The time for diplomacy is long past. If you don't want to end up as an abject, then at the very least you better pray that someone starts arresting the guilty, trying them, convicting them, sentencing them, and executing them without mercy, save that they be put to death quietly, clinically, and with rapidity. Sounds harsh? You bet. That's the bed we made for ourselves and now it's time to lay in it. We've been dancing to the piper's music these last 120 years and more, and now he's come for his due. The party is over and we will pay, either in the blood we spill pursuant to freeing ourselves from the vampires, or in the misery we will have so richly earned as we slip below the surface for the last time. You may think this ie melodrama, but I assure you that what I say is precisely that which awaits us all, if we shirk the responsibility to ourselves, each other, and our posterity. Hell, we're 90% there already, but that last 10% is the real bitch in all this.

Most Americans are just too damned naive and consequently stupid to know what it's like to live under real and bald-faced, 1984-style tyranny. The reason I know is that I spent a couple years worth of time behind the so-called "iron curtain". I saw first hand the privation and fear of people who, if they said the wrong thing or complained about the idiocies of the ever infallible "state", would be called to answer for their transgressions with punishments and "reeducation". Few in America believe it is possible to happen here. They are dangerously deluded.

The era of Biden, for however long it lasts, should prove droll.

[osan]

The time is ripe to boycott Amazon and China.

The time for that is over. Other remedies are needed at this point.

[osan]

Excellent article. Straightforward and efficiently written, without hyperbole or breathless bombast.

Even the analogy with Critias' Athens is well-considered (though I suspect it's going to take a good deal more than a year to depose our current oligarchs, if it happens at all).

I don't know who is this Lee Smith, but he has certainly got something on the ball.

[phill4paul]

Precisely. And what does that spell? FASCISM. Actual, real deal, no farting around fascism. Sadly, the impact of the word is grossly discounted due to the primally ignorant ab/overuse by the lamers of the "left". Those stooges have managed to so destroy the salience of "fascism" that when we come face to face with actual examples, the most appropriate word no longer has the oomph to convey what we are actually experiencing.

Material and substantial non-equivocation is the only solution that stands any chance of helping us at this juncture. This almost certainly means hot warfare and we have been so thoroughly conditioned against "violence" that I suspect we no longer have the stomach for that which is needed - the actual killing of the guilty parties and the sending into exile of their families. I am old and rotten as hell, meaning I'd have no problems "correcting" the likes of Pelosi and McConnell, reducing their kin to penury, and removing them from American territories. But one man cannot do what is needed. Armies of men with the sand to spill the blood that needs spilling in the face of a circumstance and a "system" that no longer works in a way even remotely resembling what was intended.

Until the tyrants are killed, and I am unequivocal in this, we will continue the death spiral, which now takes us perilously close to the hard deck at a dizzying rate.

I've written this here many times before, for it bears repetition: Theye are playing for keeps and they will have your ass in a sling before they are done. The time for diplomacy is long past. If you don't want to end up as an abject, then at the very least you better pray that someone starts arresting the guilty, trying them, convicting them, sentencing them, and executing them without mercy, save that they be put to death quietly, clinically, and with rapidity. Sounds harsh? You bet. That's the bed we made for ourselves and now it's time to lay in it. We've been dancing to the piper's music these last 120 years and more, and now he's come for his due. The party is over and we will pay, either in the blood we spill pursuant to freeing ourselves from the vampires, or in the misery we will have so richly earned as we slip below the surface for the last time. You may think this ie melodrama, but I assure you that what I say is precisely that which awaits us all, if we shirk the responsibility to ourselves, each other, and our posterity. Hell, we're 90% there already, but that last 10% is the real bitch in all this.

Most Americans are just too damned naive and consequently stupid to know what it's like to live under real and bald-faced, 1984-style tyranny. The reason I know is that I spent a couple years worth of time behind the so-called "iron curtain". I saw first hand the privation and fear of people who, if they said the wrong thing or complained about the idiocies of the ever infallible "state", would be called to answer for their transgressions with punishments and "reeducation". Few in America believe it is possible to happen here. They are dangerously deluded.

The era of Biden, for however long it lasts, should prove droll.

I'm an old $#@!. Well, 56. Old enough that I don't give a $#@! if things 'go hot.' And it is past the point in which it should have. We have a full-on Marxist cabal working within the Gov. at EVERY level. Industry and tech giants that are on board. A media that is OWNED.
I've, honestly, been examining the China influence for quite some time. Beating my head against the keyboard. This write up sums up much of my fears.
There IS treason. Of that I have no doubt. China has long been our ways most deadly enemy. They have played the long game. And they are moving in on the king.

[osan]

I'm an old $#@!. Well, 56. Old enough that I don't give a $#@! if things 'go hot.' And it is past the point in which it should have. We have a full-on Marxist cabal working within the Gov. at EVERY level. Industry and tech giants that are on board. A media that is OWNED.
I've, honestly, been examining the China influence for quite some time. Beating my head against the keyboard. This write up sums up much of my fears.
There IS treason. Of that I have no doubt. China has long been our ways most deadly enemy. They have played the long game. And they are moving in on the king.

I just clicked off 63 on 2/1. If we're going to fight a real fight, I wish we'd get on with it as I'm getting close to my expiration date for suck work.

I am no longer smart enough to be afraid. What have I to lose, besides my life? Not much. Nobody will give a $#@! when I'm gone and I prefer it that way. I've never been good with good-byes. So I'm precisely the thing Theye should fear. Doesn't matter how fast they kill me because I guaRONtee I will take at least one of them with me. I'll be damned if I let fifty years of combat arts training go to complete waste.

[phill4paul]

I just clicked off 63 on 2/1. If we're going to fight a real fight, I wish we'd get on with it as I'm getting close to my expiration date for suck work.

I am no longer smart enough to be afraid. What have I to lose, besides my life? Not much. Nobody will give a $#@! when I'm gone and I prefer it that way. I've never been good with good-byes. So I'm precisely the thing Theye should fear. Doesn't matter how fast they kill me because I guaRONtee I will take at least one of them with me. I'll be damned if I let fifty years of combat arts training go to complete waste.

Amen.

[Working Poor]

5 star. And I agree with treatise. There is traitorous activity in the business and political circles that are worthy of an ignoble end in front of a firing squad.

Well as we all know a large percentage of the traitors have themselves surrounded by the national guard. I guess we need to wonder which way the guns will be pointed when they start shooting.

[A Son of Liberty]

Well as we all know a large percentage of the traitors have themselves surrounded by the national guard. I guess we need to wonder which way the guns will be pointed when they start shooting.

They won't be pointed in the direction of the people who sign their paychecks, you can rest assured.

[acptulsa]

I don't think anyone knows which way they'll be pointed. I personally think they won't all be pointed the same direction, if it does come to that, and I think some of the people will rethink which way they should be aiming those rifles as things progress.

We, the People of the United States have a unique heritage. An effort has been made to erase that heritage. The sociopaths are moving as though that deed is a done deal, but sociopaths tend toward overconfidence.

Even so, they clearly aren't sure, or they wouldn't be attempting a purge of the Guard.

[Anti Globalist]

Well as we all know a large percentage of the traitors have themselves surrounded by the national guard. I guess we need to wonder which way the guns will be pointed when they start shooting.

Stands to reason that those guns will be pointed at us since I'm sure the NG right now is being vetted to only have people that are Democrats and supporters of Biden.

[A Son of Liberty]

Here's the preceding article from the same author:

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/n...e-tom-friedman

[osan]

5 star. And I agree with treatise. There is traitorous activity in the business and political circles that are worthy of an ignoble end in front of a firing squad.

Gallows. Far more indicative of their dishonor.

[pcosmar]

Well as we all know a large percentage of the traitors have themselves surrounded by the national guard. I guess we need to wonder which way the guns will be pointed when they start shooting.

Folks should be talking to those young folks.. Some of them were raised with some sense.

[Pauls' Revere]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurr...10_August_1792