Hezbollah have got a whole warehouse full of angry beardy mullah guys like this one.
After seventy-six years of continuous struggle against all it neighbours, and countless deaths, the putative Jewish state of Israel has finally, at long last, and for all eternity earned the right to exist...for a few years more.
This irrevocable and permanent right to exist on ancient Biblical lands, has been secured, at least for the next few months, by the brilliant victories that Mossad and the IDF have scored over Hezbollah, the main threat to the state of Israel for the last 20-30 years.
After Israel wiped out most of the lower and middle management of the group by simultaneously exploding hundreds of pagers and transistor radios, and then annihilating its top leadership with airstrikes, the total and everlasting right of Israel to exist can no longer be challenged until the end of time, or 4-5 weeks, depending on which comes sooner.
The death of Hezbollah's supreme leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in a bunker-busting missile strike, means that no one will ever again even think of contesting the right of Israel to root itself in the lands formerly occupied by Palestinians...at least for the next few days.
This large hole has become the foundation for the existence of Israel beyond the end of time itself, possibly for the next minute or two.
Every day, there is a shitload of naive, blind, and stupid talk about anti-immigration on the internet. In fact, it has increasingly become like a kind of mental and emotional spam, clogging up the mental and emotional pores of millions of depressed and irritable people. Luckily, most people in the wider world are just too drained by normie considerations to get sucked in, but many aren't. So, for those poor cursed and entrapped souls, here is the low-down on anti-immigration:
"Anti-Immigrationism is just the way "Anti-Immigration" people accept immigration."
Yup, you got that, and I know it hurts, and you are not ready to accept it. You are already reaching for your bag of copes. That'll make everything alright again, at least for a short time. Go for it, bro. It sucks to have your feelz attacked. But let's press on. Yes, Anti-Immigrationism is just the way "Anti-Immigration" people accept immigration.
"Hey, this doesn't even sound logical!" But it is, so that cope is not going to work either. Let me explain the rather simple mechanism: There are several stages to accepting new things. A generally used conventional formulation is:
Denial, Anger, Depression, and Bargaining, followed by Acceptance.
There are other ways to put this. Personally, I think complaining, moaning, kvetching, and signalling play a bigger role, but there you go. Accepting new things, especially things like mass immigration that break our connection to the eternal, is just hard. But ultimately accepting facts on the ground is always going to be easier than not accepting them. As for changing them, now, that's the hardest part -- but who really wants to go there.
With immigration what we inevitably see is the following pattern: moaning with a bit of shrieking, but nothing of real substance happening. Politically, this sometimes transitions into people voting for certain parties or individuals who promise to shut the borders or to even reverse migration. Usually, you need a few migrant outrages, riots, crime waves, etc., to get this started, but often the resilience of the public to such stimuli knows no limits.
In the more extreme cases, some parties or politicians might even get elected on the promise to do "things," and some of those "things" might even get done...a bit, for a time at least.
But there are some things they’re simply NOT going to do. That includes putting real pressure on "reforming demographics." the fundamental problem, as that would cut too much into feminist freedoms and individual choices. God forbid! Don’t piss off the voters FFS!
So, putting all your remaining copes to one side, what does this mean? Well, obviously it means fertility rates staying around 1.5 kids or less per woman in most of the West. That is a 25% or more generation-on-generation depopulation and an eternally shrinking and aging economy. That is, without mass immigration.
At least we're not South Korea, where fertility is now down to 0.8 and a 60% generation-on-generation depopulation, which is why the North (1.8) will win.
NK Ultras: objectively the best Korea
So, without doing anything radical that would instantly piss off the voters and crash the debt-laden economy, what is the solution? -- sorry, what is "the solution”? -- as quotation marks are essential here.
It is to generally allow mass immigration, while either hiding or downplaying it a bit, combined with efforts to "tweak" it a little to make sure the migrants aren't too unpleasant, badly behaved, or alienated. Not to mention the occasional token "hard-line," "anti-immigration" gesture. Remember "Build the Wall" and "Muh Rwanda" anyone?
This kind of fudge approach represents the utilitarian maximum of the "greatest possible happiness for the greatest possible number" with emphasis on "possible." Effectively everybody’s kind of, sort of, but not really happy. But anything else would cause a ruckus.
This, then, will be the pattern of the next 30 or 40 years of politics. To REALLY stop immigration there is only one way -- a wholistic approach enforced with almost North Korean levels of authoritarianism.
This would mean closing the borders and sending the migrants back. But it would mean so much more too. It would mean reforming society drastically to restore fertility to the healthy level of 2.1 kids per woman. A big ask from a crowd of Taylor Swift fans!
The nannying costs of attending Taylor Swift concerts are minimal and falling.
Restoring healthy fertility would take some doing. Either, you would have to recreate a “trad” society in the modern world, with all its inducements to breed. (Imagine what that would look like without LARPing). Or else you would need to literally set up "breeding factories" of some kind, where women were “forcibly” impregnated to some degree. Horrific by our standards!
The most politically acceptable version of a demographically positive future would be a tech solution of using artificial wombs to raise eggs into embryos and human beings. But how does even that -- or any of this -- sound to normies today? Pretty crazy, right? But, guess what, the alternatives -- including the path we are on now -- is immeasurably more extreme and radical.
Conclusion: only a tyrant or a totalitarian system dedicated to the goals of healthy demographics has any chance of survival into the 22nd Century. Anything else will simply be a camp for mass immigration that will eventually run out of populations to import, while also having near zero continuity with its past. In fact, any such society can be guaranteed to virulently hate its past, or, more accurately, its "former host body."
In fact, I think we got there early:
This prognosis includes even scenarios where populist "nationalists" (Trump, Farage, Orban, Meloni, or even Putin) are elected.
This is because populist anti-immigrationism, without a wholistic solution, is simply just the rather odd way that anti-immigration people accept immigration. We have to conclude that secretly they love it.
Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Neokrat and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. As there is absolutely zero reward for writing honest content like this, support his work by buying his book here(USA), here (UK), and here (Australia). or by taking out a paid subscription on his Substack.
If you are thinking of buying a Tesla Cybertruck, which retail from around $90,000 in the US, you might want to consider the case of one dissatisfied customer, Ramzan Kadyrov, mass murderer and Putin henchman.
Kadyrov, who is strong on his meme game, recently acquired some Cybertrucks and immediately fitted some of them out with additional armour and machine guns, then sent one to the Ukraine, putting the whole thing on social media. This then led to the vehicle being "mysteriously" disabled.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has accused Tesla CEO Elon Musk of “remotely disabling” his Cybertruck, which had been sent to the frontline of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Kadyrov claimed Thursday that the vehicle, which he said had been outfitted with a machine gun and was “performing well in combat,” had been shut down, adding Friday that he had sent two additional Tesla Cybertrucks to the frontline.
Kadyrov claimed that the vehicle was a gift from Musk, something that the Trump-and-Putin-supporting tech billionaire denies:
“What Elon Musk did was not nice. He gives expensive gifts from the heart and then remotely switches them off.”
Whether Kadyrov's claims are literally true or not, this story at least suggests that the technology now exists for Cybertrucks to be remotely monitored and controlled by the company that made them.
Due to micro technology, 5G, and satellite internet constellations like Starlink, it is entirely possible for Tesla and indeed any other major car company to sell you a car and then to monitor exactly how you use it and interfere with it. Kadyrov may not be the most truthful witness, but his story at least exists within the realm of technological capability, and the likelihood and certainty of such things can only increase with time.
Tory Party leadership frontrunner Robert Jenrick has some questions to answer after it was revealed that he has pocketed at least £75,000 of "dark money" from what appears to a chain of shell companies traced back to the British Virgin Islands, a notorious money laundering and tax-avoidance centre.
The Conservative leadership contender Robert Jenrick has accepted £75,000 in donations from an indebted company, which received an undisclosed lump sum from an untraceable BVI-listed entity.
The Spott Fitness has no employees, has never made a profit, and its most recent accounts show it owes £332,000, raising questions about the ultimate source of the funds.
In February this year the company accepted a loan from Centrovalli, a firm based in Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. The amount borrowed has not been declared, but typically these corporate loans are made against assets. In this case, it is unclear what assets the company has.
The documents state that a company called Saffron Group acted as a director for Centrovalli. Saffron Group is a high-end tax specialist that offers services for clients in Switzerland, the BVI, Hong Kong and Israel.
Moshe Freed, one of the principals at Saffron Group’s parent company Intertax, is named as the sole director of a now-defunct firm also called Centrovalli Ltd, which is registered in the UK.
But it's not just the money that is dark. Janrick, who is of Welsh ancestry, has an American Jewish wife who is raising his children in the Jewish tradition, but has recently been campaigning hard on his "English identity."
In recent decades major powers, like Russia, America, and China, and lesser ones, like Israel, the UK, and Iran, have used the doctrine of "Strategic Ambiguity" to maximise the benefits of their perceived military power, while minimising the costs. This ambiguity has created an increasing number of geopolitical grey areas in the World, such as the one that led to the war in the Ukraine and could threaten war over Taiwan. Colin Liddell argues that "Strategic Ambiguity" is essentially dishonest and dangerous, and that the way forward is to create greater clarity over geopolitical grey areas and spheres of influence. Otherwise the alternative is WWIII.
A talk given by Matt Godden at a recent meeting of members of the British Democrat Party, explaining how the Stephen Lawrence case and the subsequent MacPherson Report led to an extreme asymmetry on the way that different groups are policed in the UK, leading to accusations of two-tier policing.
One of my favourite "midwit" Substacks is Noah Opinion. I don't mean "midwit" as a pejorative, by the way. It is certainly a step up from the majority of half-wit or no-wit content, so subscribe here. In fact, the guy writes good economic analysis and is pretty factual in the same slightly disturbing way that AI is factual.
Anyway, right now he is taking a shot at JD Vance for pushing the "Haitians are Eating Our Cats Meme":
"I’m not throwing around the word 'fake' lightly here. What I mean is that the story about Haitians eating pets was a combination of deliberate fabrication and completely baseless stereotype-driven panic. Vance, in particular, appears to have deliberately amplified rumors that he knew were very likely false. When journalists started asking police and local government officials in Springfield about the pet-eating rumors, they found no such incidents. JD Vance, pressed to back up his claims, cited a police report by a woman who claimed that her cat had mysteriously vanished and might have been abducted by her Haitian neighbors. The cat was found in the basement shortly thereafter..."
Yeh, I'm pretty sure this checks out, even though to some it will sound a bit like autistic nit-picking. Noah obviously views JDV as a douchebag. My own view of the guy is still up in the air, although my working hypothesis is not very complimentary.
But what is really going on here at the meta level?
"If you don't let racist people vote for racist things then you don't really believe in democracy." True or False?
The only options I gave people were "True" and "Also True," and -- guess what -- the results 100% aligned, as you would expect them to, although the tick box split was 70/30.
This is a bit how Western Liberal Democracy works. People are not allowed to vote for certain things, and one of the things you are not allowed to vote for the most is anything specifically "racist," like political parties dedicated to preserving the racial character to a nation.
This is something I characterise as the "individual's link with eternity." We all like the fact that, say, a thousand years ago there were people who, despite various superficial differences (like being covered in mud, half-starved, or believing in witchcraft, or maybe even "eating the dogs"!) at least looked like us.
Retrograde demographic continuity is OK but not anterograde
We are also all attached to the idea of such people existing 1000 years henceforward. But this most natural of aspirations is politically denied us in the West and constantly undermined by the way our societies are run.
Of course, there are short-termist, petty economic reasons of social-cohesion for that, but this also creates a wellspring of untapped feeling and sentiment that a skilful politician will find ways to tap. This is essentially what the relatively new phenomenon of Populism is. Trump demonstrated the playbook in 2016 with his "Build the Wall" schtick, and that is what Trump and Vance are doing now with the "Haitians are eating the pets" meme.
By floating these ideas, the populist gives "racist people" (probably the majority) a proxy way to vote for "racist things," or at least to think they are.
The problem here is that it is a proxy, and therefore the thing that people really want is not clearly stated and agreed on with the politicians in question by the "democratic contract" of the election.
Brexit is a good example of how this sort of thing can go wrong. It is well known that very few British people actually wanted to leave Europe. What they did want was an additional barrier against mass non-White immigration from across the Channel.
Yes, British people were quite clearly "racist" and wanting to vote for "racist things" (to use those terms unpejoratively). But they were simply not allowed to -- again for various normie reasons -- so, instead, populism seized on the idea of Brexit, and although it succeeded in removing Britain from Europe, it actually worsened the immigration and identity problem, with Third World immigration to the UK shooting up under the same Tories who secured Brexit.
In fact, that is precisely the reason they lost so badly at the latest UK election. Thanks to this, it is now increasingly hard to think that Britain 1000 years henceforward will be populated by people who physically resemble the majority of the inhabitants today.
In the case of Trump and Vance, the hysteria and proxy "racism" they are whipping up against Haitians may energize the vote and may help them to win, but don't expect such a proxy contract like this, based on sub-racist dogwhistling, to be honoured. Trump is too much of a normie pragmatist to let that happen.
"Racism" won't work unless democracy works, and democracy won't work until "racist" people are allowed to vote directly for "racist" things.
Years of the GOP exploiting sub-racist feelings while flooding the job market with migrant labour shows that there are no backdoors or shortcuts to actually constructing a society based on an "eternal identity."
Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Neokrat and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. Support his work by buying it here(USA), here (UK), and here (Australia).
Over the years I have seen and heard everything in the Dissident Right (DR), which I now regard as a defunct and dysfunctional construct. Although it is well past its sell-by-date and in dire need of replacement, it nevertheless retains its slimy grasp on the levers of radical critique.
There are reasons for this but they are not the subject of this essay. Instead, what I want to focus on here is the anti-Semitic tendency in the DR and why it exists.
First of all, Anti-Semitism or what I call the "Grand Semitic Panotheory," is totally wrong. While Jews, individually and collectively, have done "bad things" at various times and places, they are not responsible for all the bad things that are happening to the West (basically <1.5 fertility, mass immigration, and drag queen story hour). OK, maybe the last one!
Despite the essential wrongness of this panotheory, it nevertheless retains an iron grip on DR minds. Why is that? The answer is simple but has a few moving parts, so pay attention.
The key to this conundrum is sociodynamics, which is, cue Wikipedia:
"...the study of the behavior of groups and of the interactions of individual group members, aiming to understand the emergence of complex social behaviors among microorganisms, plants and animals, including humans."
The DR is a social phenomenon. What makes it different, however, is that it is also an anti-social phenomenon.
The people in the DR are the "debris" of the modern West (I am using all these descriptive terms unpejoratively, although it may not seem like it). They are, and many of them will admit this themselves, misfits, loners, failures in various aspects of their lives, etc. Often they are just autistic or asymmetrically talented. You get the picture.
Social lubricant for the frens club
The substance from which the DR is built is thus antisocial people. However, the DR is also paradoxically social. But this socialness is largely an effect of technology.
The past 20 years or so has seen a massive leap in connecting people through technology, more specifically the internet. "A rising tide lifts all boats," as they say, and this wave of technological socialisation has socialised even the anti-social! In fact, it may even have socialised them more, as only the truly antisocial have the time resources to be fully socialised by tech.
The dual anti-social and over-socialised nature of this group of people may well explain its love of "sock names" and avatars. A normally socialised person has little need or inclination to hide behind a fake identity, unless there is a direct reason to do so. But this sort of thing is obviously much more appealing to a technologically over-socialised "anti-social person."
But how does this feed into anti-Semitism? To understand that we have to examine the social dynamics that occur when typical Dissident Righters get together on the internet in chats or streams or Twitter spaces. I have seen the lot. Needless to say, this is far different from a normal, healthy social interaction.
Firstly, almost everyone will be anonymous or cloaked to some degree. Secondly, the mere act of socialisation, even the ersatz one of online interaction, will produce excessive amounts of nervous energy and anxiety. Thirdly, due to the anti-social route that their intellectual development has taken, they will generally be "unique" or "crankish" in their ideas, concepts, or ways of looking at the world. These will also be marinaded more in emotion and psychological reaction, rather than comprising precise data, rigorous logic, and a belief in objective truth.
But none of this necessarily predisposes people to anti-Semitism. What does is the dynamic of the interaction.
Due to the antisocial nature of Dissident Righters and their prior solipsistic development, they are almost guaranteed to disagree about almost everything in a socialised situation. Just listen to any DR livestream that brings together a number of individual Dissident Rightists. They all have their unproven and often unprovable "crackpot" theories on almost anything, including things that have happened just a few days ago.
For example, one will say that the Deep State tried to assassinate Trump -- twice! -- while another will say that Trump arranged his own assassination attempt, either because (a) he's in with the Deep State, or (b) he's fighting the Deep State, etc., etc.
Endless extraneous speculation presented as fact and unfounded, unverifiable hair-splitting is the inevitable result of this, with everybody diverging and getting on each other's tits. Constant disagreement and reversion back into anti-socialness is the natural outcome. But there is a way in which this can be prevented, namely to find something that all parties concerned can loosely agree on, or at least pay lip service too.
The thing that serves this function best is Anti-Semitism, and its simulacrums, which include hatred for "evil elites," "bankers," "globalists," George Soros, or even "lizard people."
But why does Anti-Semitism serve this apparently unifying function? There are two obvious reasons: one is that it is nebulous enough, and two is that it provides a convenient "common enemy" to a group of people who would otherwise be in a state of enmity with each other.
Also, Anti-Semitism comes in all shapes and size, and levels of irony, and just the right amount can be applied to keep almost any discordant bunch of people together. You can even criticise the Nazis and the horrors they perpetrated, while still pointing at "too many Jews" in the Hollywood or banking. Or you might just say that Israel is a "criminal state," or gets "too much attention" on the news, etc.
The nature of the Grand Semitic Panotheory also means that you can link Jews to almost anything, from "running" the porn industry to being the "hidden hand" supposedly controlling the British Royal family -- all the while adding that they're either in it for (a) immediate gain, (b) long-term economic or political control, or (c) something much more sinister.
Don't expect people whose intellectual development has been driven by solipsistic emotions to be able to question or vet much of this. The only modulating influence will be in each group collectively deciding the correct amplitude of Anti-Semitism to keep the party going. In some DR groups they might be ready for the "hard stuff," the real "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and "Hitler was right" stuff, while in other groups it might be the low-calorie, more plausible Anti-Semitic pop, "Israel is using the United States" or something like this:
It is the very versatility of Anti-Semitism that means it can fix and fill any crevice and crack between all the "crackpots" who make up the DR. It is an effective emollient and lubricant, helping these generally shy, awkward, and argumentative individuals to all rub along together and enjoy, at least for a time, the warm, sweaty embrace of socialisation.
Instead of Dissident Rightists evolving their critique through a healthy clash of ideas and the elimination of contradictions and falsehoods, they reach a lazier synthesis through consensus on a fake idea that maintains their transient camaraderie.
Unfortunately, these pointless social clusters then end up blocking the doorway and corridor down which healthy critique and dissidence has to travel.
Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Neokrat and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. Support his work by buying it here(USA), here (UK), and here (Australia).
This is about the largest money-laundering casino on US soil that ever existed and its deep connections to Bitfinex/Tether, FTX, Donald Trump, US elections, Russia, Wirecard, intelligence agencies and the most powerful/dangerous gangster in the world: Semion Mogilevich.
In 2014 the largest Bitcoin exchange at the time, Mt Gox, went bankrupt after having lost 744,408 Bitcoin in a theft by two Russians. Alexander Vinnik pleaded guilty to laundering $9bn. His exchange BTC-e (WEX) is now controlled by Konstantin Malofeev of the Russian security agency FSB.
Vinnik has ties to FSB-linked Semion Mogilevich, “the boss of all bosses” of the Russian mafia, whose crime organization has immense global power and reach, and is connected to intelligence agencies and politicians around the world. He has made alliances with Italian, Chinese & Japanese organised crime groups.
Mogilevich is the preeminent money launderer of his generation and traffics in weapons, narcotics, oil, etc. He pulled off a $5bn Czech fuel tax fraud, a $150m US stock scam (YBM Magnex), laundering $10bn through the Bank of New York. He employs PhDs and the North-Korean-linked Lazarus hacker group.
By 2001, $70 billion had already been laundered through Nauru alone, a tiny Pacific island. Mogilevich was put on the FBI "Top 10 Most Wanted List" but was later removed and former FBI director William Sessions became his lawyer. He allegedly made a deal with the German Bundesnachrichtendienst (German Federal Intelligence Service) and is close to Putin.
One party that wanted to save Mt Gox was Sunlot Holdings, a group centred around Brock Pierce and John Betts. Sunlot was incorporated in Cyprus, a country described as "a Russian bank with dirty money posing as an EU state." When Cyprus was bailed out in 2013 the Bitcoin price surged 178%.
Brock Pierce is at the base of many crypto companies, being the co-founder of Tether, BlockOne & Blockchain Capital (which funded Coinbase, Bancor, BitGo, Blockstream). Pierce’s company IGE acquired Gamecliff from Brendan Blumer in 2005 and they later became co-founders of BlockOne.
Steve Bannon joined IGE in 2005 and got venture capital and Goldman Sachs to invest $60m. Breitbart was indirectly connected to Sunlot and via Jonathan Curshen (jailed for 20 years for stock fraud), Bannon also has ties to Mogilevich. Bannon’s associate Guo Wengui AKA Miles Guo is implicated in a $1 billion (crypto) scam.
Sunlot Holdings’ advisor was former FBI director Louis Freeh, the first FBI director to go to Russia in 1994. In the 90s he also set up the first International Law Enforcement Academy in Hungary and met Viktor Orbán, who Mogilevich seems to have ‘compromised’ via Dietmar Clodo when he lived in Hungary.
After the FBI, Freeh started a consultancy firm called FSS with Stanley Sporkin (who used to work for the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the CIA) and Eugene Sullivan, a judge and former general counsel of the ultra-secret National Reconnaissance Office. They worked with William Sessions at Gavel Consulting.
In 2014, the year of Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, the first stablecoin Tether was launched by Brock Pierce & Co. When Tether faced banking issues in 2017, they moved their money to Noble Bank, founded by Pierce & Betts. Freeh’s colleague Eugene Sullivan was on Noble Bank’s board.
In 2018 it was again Louis Freeh who wrote Tether’s attestation report on behalf of Freeh's consultancy firm FSS. 2014 was also the year that a casino was built in Saipan by Imperial Pacific, which on paper was "the most successful gambling operation in history" handling more than $2 billion a month in bets.
This casino had very prominent advisors and board members who were also associated with Tether. Indeed, Louis Freeh & Eugene Sullivan, but also former CIA director James Woolsey and Haley Barbour, whose clients Mikhail Fridman and Dmytro Firtash are suspected frontmen for Mogilevich.
Both Woolsey (implicated in a $1 billion green energy scam) and Sessions were part of GlobalOptions Inc, a "private front for the CIA/FBI" run by former secret agent Neil Livingstone. Barbour connected his client Firtash to Livingstone who tried to negotiate a very sensitive “Project M” (=Mogilevich) with the US Department of Justice.
Freeh also represented many clients with ties to Mogilevich, e.g. Fridman, Prevezon (Pyotr and Denis Katsyv) and Andy Khawaja’s Allied Wallet, a client of Wirecard, where Firtash and German and Russian intelligence operatives had accounts. Wirecard’s COO Jan Marsalek was a Russian spy.
Freeh was also implicated in the Mueller report for ties to Russian organized crime. Journalist Adam Levine confirmed that Bitfinex had a "banking relationship" in Macau where Imperial Pacific has its fraudulent origins and three Portuguese banks linked to Bitfinex’s shadow bank were active.
Casinos allow dark money to go from one party to another, using gambling as a cover. Donald Trump once received a "loan" from his father in that way, and more recently received donations via Imperial Pacific. Mark Brown headed Trump’s Saipan’s casinos and worked in Macau for Steve Wynn, a client of Freeh.
Trump has deep ties to Mogilevich, for example via Felix Sater and Bayrock, via a Russian gambling ring run out of Trump Tower and via 1,300 real estate transactions that were all cash purchases made by anonymous Russian-mobster linked shell companies. CraigUnger wrote a book about it.
Michael Milken invented the junk bonds that were used to buy out Las Vegas’s mob-owned casinos by people like Trump and Wynn, initiating the $160 billion Savings & Loans scandal, which was a conspiracy between corrupt politicians and businessmen, organized crime, and intelligence agencies.
Bannon was involved in meetings between CIA-tied Erik Prince and George Nader to influence the 2016 US elections on behalf of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, with Putin’s approval and with Kirill Dmitriev to establish a backchannel between the Trump administration and the Kremlin (see the Seychelles meeting). Andy Khawaja claims the 2016 elections were bought by the UAE and the Saudis with more than $100m of donations to Trump. Others corroborate his story. Nader (now jailed) wanted to use Khawaja’s payment engine, but found an alternative. Dmitriev (ex-Goldman Sachs) is close to Alisher Usmanov.
Mogilevich is also close to Usmanov, who co-founded DST Global with Yuri Milner, a venture capital firm that invested in many US companies (Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb). DST’s team came almost entirely from its proxy, Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs and Jared Kushner's Cadre served as DST's funding vehicle.
Peter Thiel started to invest in bitcoin in 2014. He also backed Cadre and is close to DST. Palantir was funded by the CIA's venture capital arm In-Q-Tel. Palantir and Bannon were involved in the FaceBook-Cambridge Analytica (CA) scandal. CA’s largest shareholder was Vincent Tchenguiz, Firtash’s partner. Thiel worked at CIA-linked Sullivan & Cromwell (S&C), the law firm of FTX, Goldman Sachs & DST.
S&C is accused of having co-conspired in the FTX fraud, for example, via Ryne Miller who worked for FTX & S&C. S&C sold FTX’s assets at big discounts to Novogratz’ Galaxy Digital, another S&C client.
Bitfinex issued their LEO token on 8th May, 2019, the same day that FTX was founded, resulting in a $1 billion bailout by Galaxy-and-Thiel-backed BlockOne & FTX. BlockOne and Bitfinex share a founder (Pierce) and FTX and Bitfinex shared a bank (Deltec). Deltec granted FTX a $2bn credit line.
FTX & Binance (via crypto trading firm Cumberland) were the largest recipients of Tether, which serves as (Russia’s) money-laundering vehicle. Research shows Tether and the bitcoin price are correlated. Wirecard was a card issuer for crypto firms and when Wirecard went down, Tether started to ramp up.
Christopher Bauer died aged 44 under suspicious circumstances in the Philippines. He was Wirecard’s contact for the late Boris Berezovsky and Badri Patarkatsishvili. Both are mentioned in Heidi Blake's book "From Russia with Blood," covering fourteen Russian-linked deaths on UK soil.
Russia and other authoritarian regimes have been able to undermine democracies by buying influence in Western countries (via venture capital funds, hedge funds, real estate, etc), often via opaque constructions with the help of elite lawyers, lobbyists, bankers & shadowy businessmen, who all benefited.
Crime groups and private mercenaries are used to influence elections, destabilize and loot countries, and fund covert operations to pursue and protect political and national security interests. Putin had used the German company SPAG to launder the narco money from the Columbian Cali Cartel via Mogilevich et al.
The CIA also made many alliances with drug lords and crime groups, a market worth trillions a year. Wall Street, Big Tech & the US Military-Industrial Complex, which are deeply intertwined, are engines of the debt-ridden US economy and key to protect the US dollar as reserve currency.
Crypto is part of this (geo)political battle. Mogilevich’s biggest nemesis, the late FBI agent Bob Levinson, warned about the dangerous gangsters that his former bosses (Freeh & Sessions) later started to ‘protect’ & features in a documentary ("The Billion Dollar Don") with Mogilevich’s only ever interview.
Originally published as a Twitter thread. Some minor editing.
Richard Spencer, the internet personality, former Russian asset, andcotton millionaire (once his Mum dies), has shocked his followers by admitting that he only ever watches gay porn.
The shocking revelations came in a livestream Spencer held with a select group of his "pay-pigs" that later surfaced on YouTube:
In the audio, Spencer can clearly be heard saying the following:
"If you see porn now, it's all gay porn. I mean wherever I go, it's gay this, gay men doing this. Is there any hetero porn out there? I haven't seen it."
According to ChatGPT, "adult websites indicate that gay content accounts for approximately 5-15% of their total views or content offerings," so it is extremely unlikely that Spencer would randomly encounter gay porn everywhere he went, unless he was specifically seeking it out or hanging round with lots of gay men.
Of course, this does not mean that Spencer is actually gay. There might be completely innocent reasons for hanging around with lots of gay men while exclusively watching videos of naked dudes exploring each other's bodies and vulnerabilities. I just can't think of any.
In yet another desperate attempt by all White people everywhere to be "special," a White person wanting to be special in America, has wandered onto Donald Trump's golf course with a gun, hoping to shoot the Presidential hopeful.
The White Person in question, who has a long, unsuccessful history of trying to be special, was prevented from doing something extra special by some boring nobodies who were just doing their jobs -- although some of them possibly get up to some pretty weird shit on their time off. As for me, I collect stamps.
This latest desperate and radical attempt by White people to be special follows another such attempt by another White person, who recently forced the World's media to pay attention to his silly antics by carrying out a ridiculous space walk.
This dumb and possibly self-destructive behaviour came hot on the heels of yet another White person trying too hard to be special. In this case, a White person in Belarus pumped himself up with steroids so much in an attempt to be "unique and interesting" to the point where he simply exploded into a giant puddle of steaming proteins.
Often this desperate need of all White people everywhere to "stand out a bit" can be channelled into relatively harmless areas, like weird food fads, such as drinking raw milk infected with botulism, or getting an embarrassing tattoo that later causes easily-treated necrosis, but more often than not it can prove deadly or at least tedious.
Scientists studying the phenomenon have blamed a mysterious condition called "the Faustian Spirit," which seems to afflict White people, for this malaise. While others have linked it to the period of extreme boredom caused by the Chinese-leaked coronavirus and the resulting lockdown.
Whatever the cause of this malady, keep a vigilant lookout for it. If you see any White people trying to be special, immediately tell them to calm down and remind them that their chances of being truly special are actually less than winning the lottery or being hit by lighting.
Also point out the subtle joys and slow rewards of being a drab member of the undifferentiated mass of dull humanity.
Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Kenya's President William Ruto have signed a deal in Berlin to allow in skilled and semi-skilled Kenyan workers into Germany. A number of 250,000 was initially mentioned but has now been disavowed.
The labour deal was signed in Berlin by Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Kenya's President William Ruto. Germany agreed to ease some of its immigration laws to enable Kenyans to find employment in Europe's biggest economy. Authorities in Berlin will also consider extending temporary residence permits for Kenyan workers who have secured an approved job. Kenyans will also be issued with long-term visas to study or do vocational training in Germany.
"On the expiry of the long-stay visa, Kenyans may receive a temporary residence permit for study purposes in Germany for up to two years," the agreement states. The temporary residence permit may be extended if the purpose of residence has not yet been achieved but is achievable within a "reasonable" period, it adds. According to the deal, IT specialists from Kenya will be allowed to enter and work in Germany, even if they do not have formal qualifications.
Both governments will support the immigration of skilled workers who have finished vocational training or earned a university degree, as long as their qualifications are recognised by the relevant authorities of the other party.
The agreement will also simplify the repatriation of Kenyans who are in Germany without legal permission.
In addition to tech workers, examples of the work the Kenyans will be doing mentioned in the article include bus drivers, doctors, nurses, and teachers.
Following setbacks in regional elections, the German government had recently signalled towards a stronger stance on immigration. This migrant labour deal seems to contradict that. But it should also be noted that what Germany is trying to implement here is low-social-impact "managed migration" on a supposedly temporary basis for the purpose of filling gaps in the labour market.
In this respect, it has some similarities with the "Dubai Model" of mass migration, whereby Third Worlders are essentially brought into a country to relieve the natives of the bother of having to get out of bed in the morning to do a full day's work.
Inevitably, this news item will be weaponised to paint a polarising picture of the Western nations as "ZOG-controlled" dupes undergoing a concerted plan of racial replacement. Our advise to Germans who don't like this labour deal is to stay calm, avoid Kremlin brain hacking, and vote for the AfD.
How could they not want to fuck each other senseless?
It is widely acknowledged that there are few women more beautiful, alluring, or spell-binding than Laura Loomer. Not only is she Jewish, but she is also far-right, a combination that would make any man go weak at the knees.
Now, in the wake of Catgate, the whole world is asking the question, has she won the heart of the next President of the free world, Donald Trump?
The pair were seen to be "intimate" recently at an event held in New York to celebrate the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. The couple could barely keep their hands off each other, as the lenses of the assembled paparazzi clicked and flashed.
Loomer is a well-known MAGA superfan whose love of "The Donald" is only equalled by her love of Q-tard conspiracy theories; while Trump is known to have attracted the ire of his steely Slovakian bride and former First Lady Melania, who refuses to be seen in public with him and, according to unsourced gossip on the internet, rejects his fumbling embraces in the bedroom.
There is even speculation that Loomer could fill the First Lady slot in a future Trump Presidency. So, is Trump now a "Loomer coomer," enjoying the hot, sensual embraces of this most passionate of women, and is she as crazy between the sheets as she is in the streets?
According to the Daily Telegraph, a man of Pakistani background, Ehsan Hussain, has been charged with stirring up racial hatred against his own people:
An Asian man used the fake name Chris Nolan on social media to stir up racial hatred in Birmingham during the summer riots, saying: “We need to take back what’s ours.” Ehsan Hussain, 25, used the name to post messages calling for disorder during disorder that spread across Britain.
The messages appeared on a Telegram chat group called “Southport Wake Up”, which had more than 12,000 members. Screenshots of the messages, obtained by police, show Hussain urging people to “conquer Alum Rock”, a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood, saying: “Sick of these smelly scumbags”.
Other racist messages, Hussain’s contribution to a conversation he had with two other users, included: “We’ve got a Blues match on Saturday; we can do a part 2 on Saturday get these p--- scums out.” He also wrote: “Birmingham first! We need to take back whats ours” and “we doing p--- bashing”.
None of this makes any kind of sense unless you assume that Hussain is either insane, or that he was doing this as part of a paid operation.
As is already well documented, the recent riots in the UK were essentially triggered by Russian-aligned influencers on social media.
+++Update+++18th Sept+++Update+++
Subsequent stories suggest that Hussain was attempting to lure White rioters into an ambush.
Western historians and analysts have always failed to comprehend Russia. Among many other things, its imperial nature has been puzzling to Westerners. For obvious reasons, there has been a tendency to compare it to Western colonial empires. As a prominent historian of Russia - Richard Pipes, once noted unlike Western colonial empires which first became nation-states before embarking on imperial expansion, Russia was an empire from its inception.
This lack of understanding arises from our persistent adherence to a linear view of history and the assumption of a unified humanity progressing along a single path. However, such perspectives are fundamentally flawed. To truly grasp historical processes - particularly when it comes to understanding Russia - we must adopt a cyclical and modular view of history, as articulated by Oswald Spengler. This approach recognizes that different cultural/civilizational realms operate according to their own unique rhythms and internal logics. By embracing this perspective, we can gain deeper insights into Russia's historical trajectory and, crucially, make more accurate predictions about its future. The current unfolding of world events, particularly Russia's invasion of Ukraine and more generally its stance in the global arena, present a fascinating test case for historical and cultural analysis. In this context, the theories of Oswald Spengler, a profound philosopher and historian, offer a unique lens through which we can view and understand these dynamics. Spengler's magnum opus, "The Decline of the West," posits a cyclical theory of civilizations, arguing that each civilization has its own distinct inner workings and lifecycle, akin to biological organisms. According to this theory, each civilization goes through equivalent stages in its lifecycle, akin to the life stages of an organism - birth, flourishing, maturity, stagnation and decline. In other words each civilization acts as an independent module. They do, of course, interact with each other, like different organisms interact with each other during their lifetimes, but their life trajectories, like those of each individual organism are self-contained. Which brings us again to the topic that had perplexed Richard Pipes and other Western historians of Russia. The confusion from comparing imperial Russia to Western colonial empires arises from assuming a linear progression of history for the whole humanity. Understanding however, that Russia finds itself in a phase of its lifecycle, which is not equivalent to the phase of the Western Civilization being compared to will resolve the confusion. Spengler concentrates mainly on three cultural realms in his comparative analysis of civilizations; (i) Classical Graeco-Roman which he calls Apollonian, (ii) Middle Eastern which he calls Magian and (iii) Western Civilization which he calls Faustian. Separately, he touches upon Russia too, which he correctly believes is a cultural realm distinct from the West, with its distinct inner soul that differs from that of the Faustian Civilization. Oswald Spengler, in his analysis of historical patterns, equates the Merovingian era in Western Civilization to the period extending from Ivan III's reign to the Time of Troubles in Muscovy/Russia. He perceives these epochs as pre-cultural – i.e., the precursors to the upcoming development of their respective cultural realms, the eras in which the unique world-feelings of the cultures do not yet manifest themselves. Accordingly, the following period of Romanov Dynasty in Russia is equivalent to the Carolingian era in Europe. Therefore, the 20th-21st centuries of Russian history encompassing the Soviet era up to the present day Putin’s Russia represent the post-Carolingian age in Europe that transitioned into the Ottonian era and later the Age of Crusades. The corresponding 10th-12th centuries marked the birth of the Faustian Culture in Europe, a period where the distinctive Faustian world-feeling began to manifest itself, setting the stage for the whole trajectory of the Western Civilization that followed. At the same time, that was the period when the future European nations began to form - the process initiated by the division of the Carolingian realm into East Francia (predecessor of Germany) and West Francia (predecessor of France). Through this lens, the enigmatic nature of Russia's imperial character from its very inception begins to make sense. It is as if one were puzzled by why European (Faustian) Civilization emerged as an empire, exemplified by the Carolingian Empire. However, this analogy reveals a deeper truth: 'Russian' is not analogous to 'German,' 'French,' or 'English.' Russia is not a nation-state but an entire cultural and civilizational realm - a realm that is in the early, formative stages of its lifecycle, comparable to post-Carolingian/Ottonian Europe. Thus, Russia as a cultural entity is more akin to Europe as a whole rather than to any single European nation. Just as Europe eventually gave birth to distinct nations like Germany, France, and England, so too must the Russian realm undergo its own process of nation-formation. The future might see the emergence of distinct identities within this realm - perhaps Uralians, Siberians, Ingrians, and Novgorodians - each as a unique national unit within the broader Russian civilization. This perspective not only clarifies Russia's historical trajectory but also suggests the potential paths it may follow in the future. To more accurately trace Russia's historical path to its present state and to forecast its future, we must delve into another key concept in Spengler's philosophy: Pseudomorphosis.
Cultural Pseudomorphosis
Quite presciently and to the point, Oswald Spengler saw Russia's attachment to Europe initiated by Peter I (in fact, the process began even earlier during the reign of his father, Tsar Aleksey Mikhailovich) as artificially imposed and European culture as totally alien to ordinary Russians. He termed such cultural amalgamation where a certain cultural realm is forced to express itself under alien cultural forms imported or imposed from elsewhere as Pseudomorphosis. Oswald Spengler thus predicted a century earlier that Russia will be moving away from the European (Faustian) Civilization and asserting its own unique identity. One vivid example of historical Pseudomorphosis is the pre-Islamic Middle East, which Spengler called Magian Culture, being dominated by Rome and hence forced to express itself through the forms of Graeco-Roman (Apollonian) Culture, which was entirely alien to it. Only with the advent of Islam did the Magian Culture free itself from Graeco-Roman influence and could express itself organically in line with its own nature. It is therefore quite likely that Russia is undergoing a process similar to that which the Middle East underwent in the 6th and 7th centuries, when with the rise of Islam, it emphatically asserted its own nature. As a matter of fact, throughout the centuries of Roman rule and domination of the Classical cultural norms the Middle East was seething with apocalyptic hatred towards Rome and everything Roman. In this regard, Islam can be viewed as the consummate form of expression of the deepest longings of the Magian world. At the same time, it was the medium through which the ressentiment towards the Graeco-Roman culture manifested itself. The intensity of that ressentiment was huge due to centuries of cultural suppression under Rome and being forced into the mold of the forms of Apollonian Culture, which were unnatural to the Magian Culture. This explains the enmity the Islamic (i.e. Magian) world today manifests towards the West, which is represented by Christianity and which they view as the continuation of Rome. The Magian world, in a sense, projects to Christianity and the West its deeply ingrained and centuries-old hatred towards Rome. If Russia is undergoing a similar process it means that the Russian realm will also be imbued with deep apocalyptic hatred towards the West in the same way that the Magian world hated Rome. Apart from the cases of Magian world being under the shadow of Graeco-Roman (Apollonian) Culture and Russia being under the shadow of Western (Faustian) Culture, another historical example of Pseudomorphosis is the Carolingian era, when the Carolingian kings, most notoriously Charlemagne, imposed Roman-Byzantine architectural traditions, cultural and religious norms on a population which still existed in its pre-cultural phase and to whom those cultural impositions were alien and felt unnatural. And this particular example of historical Pseudomorphosis is indeed more similar to the Russian experience. Later historians came to refer to that period, spanning the 8th and 9th centuries in Europe, as the “Carolingian Renaissance”. However, such a term, which is used to define that epoch, is in reality a misnomer. Rather than embodying a true cultural awakening it was a fleeting and artificially imposed intellectual flicker, limited only to a handful of educated elite. Instead of representing a new cultural phenomenon, the period was more an attempt to recreate the older Roman-Byzantine culture. This cultural revival did not penetrate deep into Carolingian society and soon after all its effects were gone by the 10th century. In the words of the Benedictine monk Walahfrid Strabo (808 - 849):
"Charlemagne was able to offer the cultureless and, I might say, almost completely unenlightened territory of the realm which God had entrusted to him, a new enthusiasm for all human knowledge. In its earlier state of barbarousness, his kingdom had been hardly touched at all by any such zeal, but now it opened its eyes to God's illumination. In our own time the thirst for knowledge is disappearing again: the light of wisdom is less and less sought after and is now becoming rare again in most men's minds."
In a related historical parallel, the Petrine period in Russia during the 18th and 19th centuries mirrors this phenomenon. When the term “Russian Culture” is invoked, it often conjures the artistic and intellectual feats of this era. Yet, this celebrated "Russian Culture" bears a striking resemblance to the ephemeral "Carolingian Renaissance”. Like in the latter, the cultural achievements of the former were external impositions completely alien to the indigenous populace. They flourished transiently among European settlers and a small, Europeanized elite in St. Petersburg. And similarly, like the effects of the “Carolingian Renaissance” were neutered by the early 10th century, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia marked the beginning of a rejection of European cultural impositions. Putin’s Russia, in essence, is but a continuation of this cultural ebb, a natural gravitation away from Western (Faustian) cultural influences. The 10th century in Europe, following the decline of the Carolingians, was a period of cultural interregnum. It was a time when the Byzantine-Roman influences had receded, yet the region had not yet cultivated its own distinctive cultural identity - an identity that would later emerge in the 11th and 12th centuries with the advent of Romanesque architecture that transitioned into Gothic architecture and formation of a new Germanized Christianity - the first true manifestations of the Faustian spirit. Russia, in its current state, is traversing a similar path. The entity once celebrated as “Russian Culture” is undergoing a process of negation. The country has drifted towards a less cultured state, where the norms of the prison and the thug increasingly overshadow the refined and the elegant, where cultural creativity is almost non-existent and traces of that “Russian Culture” have all but disappeared. In a sense, Russia is returning to its natural self - to the barbarous state of pre-Romanov Muscovy, shedding the last bits of Petrine Pseudomorphosis. The words of Walahfrid Strabo are also perfectly applicable to the present-day Russia: “the thirst for knowledge is disappearing again: the light of wisdom is less and less sought after and is now becoming rare again in most men's minds”.
Parallels between Carolingian Era in Europe and Romanov Era in Russia
The comparative analysis of the Carolingian epoch in Europe and the Romanov era in Muscovy/Russia reveals striking parallels, not only in their temporal location at equivalent phases of the lifecycle of their respective cultural realms, but even in the specifics of the events that came to define their rule. The Carolingian ascent began amidst the fractured landscape of the Frankish Kingdom, torn by civil strife at the cusp of the 7th and 8th centuries. Here, the Carolingians, initially serving as mayors of the palace under the Merovingian kings, began to cement their influence. The position, initially a service role, morphed into a hereditary seat of power under their stewardship, subtly underlining their burgeoning authority. Yet, their dominion was initially restricted to only parts of the Frankish realm. The waning of the Merovingian dynasty presented an opportune moment for the Carolingians. It was during this period of decline that they engaged in a decisive struggle against rival aristocratic families. Their victory was epitomized in the figure of notorious Charles Martel, who, by 718, had established himself as the de facto ruler of the entire kingdom. Mirroring this historical pattern, the rise of the Romanov Dynasty in Muscovy unfolded under similar circumstances. The turn of the 16th and 17th centuries in Muscovy was a period marred by political crisis that came to be known as the Time of Troubles by later historians, a turbulent epoch following the end of the Rurikid dynasty's longstanding rule. This era was characterized by political instability, power struggles, and a void in leadership. It is here that Boris Godunov, once the mayor of the palace akin to Charles Martel, emerged as a key figure. Before ascending to the throne himself, Godunov played a pivotal role at the court of the last Rurikid tsar - Feodor I. However, unlike his Carolingian counterpart, Godunov's ambition to establish a lasting dynasty was thwarted. The murder of his only son plunged Muscovy into deeper chaos, paving the way for the Romanovs to ascend as the new ruling dynasty amidst the upheaval. The existential crises that engulfed the Frankish Kingdom and Muscovy during their respective periods of upheaval also bear striking resemblances, each marked by external threats in addition to internal turmoil. In Francia, the encroaching Arabs, having already seized Spain, were inching further northward. This surge was dramatically halted at the Battle of Poitiers in 732 by Charles Martel. This decisive victory not only stemmed the Arab advance but also safeguarded the nascent Faustian Culture of Europe from subjugation by an alien civilization. This moment in history was pivotal, as it averted a potential Pseudomorphosis similar to that which had overtaken the nascent Magian Culture under Roman dominion centuries earlier. In a parallel historical vein, Muscovy during the Time of Troubles teetered on the brink of conquest by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Such a subjugation would have ensnared Muscovy under the shadow of Faustian Culture, echoing the Roman influence over the Middle East. However, history repeated its act of defiance as the Muscovites, akin to the Franks in 732, repelled the foreign assault, preserving their independence. The Battle of Moscow in 1612 can stand in Muscovy’s annals as the Battle of Poitiers does in Europe’s. Moreover, Dmitry Pozharsky can be regarded as the Russian “Charles Martel”. Yet, the aftermath of these watershed battles unveils an intriguing historical irony. In both the Frankish and Muscovite realms, the dynasties that ascended in the wake of military triumph - the Carolingians and the Romanovs, respectively - embarked on endeavors that seemingly contradicted their forebears' struggles. Rather than fortifying their unique cultural identities, they initiated the imposition of the very foreign cultural elements their predecessors had militarily resisted. This led to the emergence of cultural Pseudomorphoses within their realms. What sets these instances apart from the Pseudomorphosis in the Magian world is the manner of their inception: while the Magian world was subjugated and transformed through physical conquest, Francia and Muscovy voluntarily embraced these foreign cultural impositions after having successfully repelled foreign invasions. In the annals of history, the Carolingian era in Francia and the Romanov period in Muscovy/Russia thus emerge as mirror images of one another, particularly in their ambitious projects to infuse foreign cultural norms into their realms. Both Francia and Muscovy grappled with similar challenges: a widespread lack of literacy among the populace, and more critically, among the clergy. This illiteracy was compounded by the clergy's deficiencies in moral conduct, discipline, and knowledge. Addressing these issues was crucial. Charlemagne, a figurehead of this era in Europe, pioneered the establishment of numerous cathedral and monastery schools. These institutions were not only for future monks and clergy but also for the laity, fostering a culture of education and enlightenment. Both the Carolingians and the Romanovs launched extensive initiatives to rectify moral conduct, restore ecclesiastical discipline, and restructure the church hierarchy. Moreover, a pivotal issue in both realms was the reliability of religious texts, which had deteriorated over time. Therefore their efforts also encompassed the correction of religious texts and the alignment of rituals with canonical law. In Muscovy, such efforts culminated in the 17th-century religious schism initiated by Patriarch Nikon's reforms. These reforms, aimed at aligning Muscovite rituals and religious texts with those of the Greek Orthodox Church, led to the emergence of the "Old Believers", who adhered to the traditional Muscovite customs and rituals. Charlemagne and Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich of the Romanov dynasty shared a profound interest in reforming the church and maintaining unified practices. Charlemagne, upon discovering discrepancies between Frankish and Roman liturgical practices, sought guidance from Pope Hadrian, leading to the adoption of the Dionysio-Hadriana, an authoritative book on canon law which served as the main source for ecclesiastical legislation. Similarly, during the reign of Alexei Mikailovich in Muscovy, Patriarch Nikon engaged extensively with the ecumenical patriarch and Greek clergy in Constantinople, aiming to harmonize Muscovite Orthodox liturgy with its Greek counterpart. In both realms, foreign missionaries and theologians played instrumental roles. Irish monks in the Frankish Kingdom, akin to Ukrainian theologians under the Romanovs, were the chief educators and reformers. The Irish missionaries were pivotal in establishing Medieval Latin for church and literature and in developing the Carolingian minuscule writing style, which became the standard in medieval Europe and is the direct ancestor of modern-day Latin script. They were instrumental in unifying church practices and correcting religious texts. Similarly, in Muscovy, Ukrainian influence was profound in shaping literary Russian and Church Slavonic, and Ukrainian theologians were key in the reforms that aligned Muscovite Orthodoxy with Greek practices. It is noteworthy that beyond religious and educational reforms, both Charlemagne and Peter I sought to transform the very fabric of their societies, extending their influence to the private lives and mindsets of their subjects. Peter I's insistence on Western attire and grooming for Russian state officials exemplifies this. Charlemagne's capitularies, the most famous and extensive of which is Admonitio Generalis, is an equivalent example from the Carolingian realm. Through them Charlemagne sought not only legal reform but also what in his mind constituted moral and religious rectitude among his subjects. What unites Charlemagne and Peter I is the fervor and a sense of higher purpose with which they imposed the reforms, and with them alien cultural norms, on their subjects who were unwilling to accept them. This of course was also accompanied by extreme brutality. Especially the reign of Peter I was defined by widespread persecution and cruel coercion on par with what is usually associated with Stalin’s rule in Russian history. Likewise, Charlemagne’s methods of wresting the old pagan practices out of their subjects and introduce Christianity into his realm were also notable for their cruelty and uncompromising intensity. One is reminded of the Saxon Wars (772-804) as one of the most notable instances of Charlemagne's forceful spread of Christianity. A particularly brutal episode was the Massacre of Verden, in which Charlemagne ordered the execution of thousands of Saxons. This event was not only a political act of suppression but also a grim message about the consequences of resisting Christianization. Earlier, in his campaign to suppress Saxon paganism, as a symbolic act, Charlemagne had cut down Irminsul, a sacred tree which Saxons revered.
Cutting down of Irminsul: Charlemagne forces Chrisitanity upon Saxons
Imposition of Greek liturgical practices and European social norms in Russia during the 17-18th centuries was also accompanied by brutal coercion. One is reminded of the persecution the “Old Believers” faced after they refused to accept Nikonian reforms in 1654. The most outspoken of them were sent to the stake, others to the furthest corners of the Tsardom, often never to return. An episode notable for its brutality was the massacre of the Solovetsky Monastery in 1676 that occurred after seven years of siege in response to the monks’ steadfast refusal to accept the modified liturgical practices and texts. Moreover, out of desperation the “Old Believers” resorted to the most dramatic form of protest imaginable - i.e., self-immolation. The old Muscovite period of Russian history literally ended in flames. The protest during this period was not merely against religious changes, however, but represented a broader defiance against the imposition of foreign European cultural norms that were deeply alien to Muscovy. The "Old Belief" became the symbol of this defiance, representing a fight to preserve the very essence of Muscovite identity. The struggle against Europeanization - i.e., Pseudomorphosis, found its most dramatic expressions in the social upheavals of the time, such as Stepan Razin's Rebellion (1670-1671) and Pugachev's Rebellion (1773-1775), both brutally crushed by the state. Among those who clung to the old Muscovite ways, there was a growing sense of loss - an awareness that something fundamental to their identity, something intrinsic to their very soul, was being forcibly stripped away. The desperation of this cultural and spiritual struggle is poignantly captured in the words of Archpriest Avvakum, the spiritual leader of the "Old Believers," who pleaded with Patriarch Nikon, his nemesis: "You are Russian! Why do you need these Greek manners?" This cry of anguish encapsulates the deep-rooted tension between preserving a unique cultural identity and the pressures of imposed change, a tension that defined the era of Pseudomorphosis in Muscovite/Russian history.
Patriarch Nikon introducing the Church reforms
In essence then, the Carolingian and Romanov periods are historical parallels that unraveled in different centuries and locations, yet at the equivalent stages of the lifecycles of their respective civilizations. Each dynasty, in its quest to uplift and transform its society, embarked on a comprehensive journey of cultural, educational, and religious reform, which subjugated their respective realms to alien cultural forms. The Muscovite/Russian Pseudomorphosis therefore bears a closer resemblance to the Carolingian experience than to the Middle Eastern one. Unlike the Magian realm, which was compelled to develop under the influence of the alien Apollonian Culture due to physical conquest - first by Alexander the Great and later by Rome - Russia was never subjected to such direct domination by a Western power. Similarly, Carolingian Europe was never physically conquered by Byzantium or the Arab Empire. In the case of the Magian realm, the imposition of alien cultural forms was enforced by a conquering force, making it an externally driven transformation. In contrast, both Muscovy/Russia and Carolingian Europe experienced a form of cultural Pseudomorphosis that, while influenced by external forces, was ultimately an internal decision, shaped by their own historical circumstances and choices.
Liberation from Pseudomorphosis and the age of ressentiment
The end of the Carolingian era in Europe, which was followed by the rise of Ottonians in East Francia and later of Capetians in West Francia, marked the liberation of the Western (Faustian) spirit from alien cultural forms imposed on it earlier. The newly born Faustian Culture began developing its own natural forms of expression. The Romanesque that later transitioned into Gothic architecture and the accompanying emergence of a new Germanized Christianity, which starkly differed from Graeco-Byzantine Christianity, were the first manifestations of this newly liberated Faustian spirit, reflecting a uniquely Western (Faustian) world-feeling. This liberation from the imposed Greek-Byzantine cultural forms imposed by Carolingians was also symbolized by acts of historical defiance. A striking example is the veneration of the Saxon chieftain Widukind, who fiercely resisted Charlemagne’s brutal Christianization campaign during the Saxon Wars. Although Widukind was ultimately forced to submit to Charlemagne’s rule and accept baptism in 785, marking the formal subjugation of the Saxons, he later became a symbol of Saxon resistance and independence in the post-Carolingian era. Revered as a hero in the Faustian world freed from the stifling influence of the Carolingian-imposed Pseudomorphosis, Widukind's legacy lived on through the Immedinger family, a powerful clan in early medieval Europe that traced its roots back to him. Remarkably, this defiant leader who once stood against Christianization was later canonized by the very institution he had opposed - the Catholic Church. This ironic twist reveals a profound truth: the Christianity that emerged in post-Carolingian Europe was not merely a continuation of the religion imposed by Charlemagne. Instead, it had been transformed and Germanized, reflecting the liberated Faustian spirit and a distinctly Western world-feeling. Widukind’s canonization, therefore, was a symbol of the triumph of a new cultural identity - a Germanized Christianity that honored its heroes according to its own values and worldview, free from the constraints of its earlier Pseudomorphosis.
The Saxon chieftain Widukind, who resisted Charlemagne
The distinctiveness of this new Germanized Christianity became increasingly evident in the mounting tensions between the Western Latin rite and the Eastern Byzantine rite during the 9th to 11th centuries, ultimately leading to the Great Schism of 1054. This schism, which formally separated Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism, was far more than a mere disagreement over rituals or doctrinal nuances. It marked the culmination of a profound cultural rift - a clash between two fundamentally different world-feelings. The schism represented the revolt of the emerging Faustian spirit against the foreign Greek-Byzantine influence that had previously constrained it. This was not just a religious split but a declaration of cultural independence, as the nascent Western (Faustian) Culture asserted its distinct identity against an imposed heritage that never truly resonated with its nature. Importantly, the liberation of an emerging culture from the grip of Pseudomorphosis often unleashes a deep-seated hatred and ressentiment toward the dominant culture that once suppressed it. This phenomenon can be observed across various historical contexts. During the Roman rule, the entire Middle Eastern realm, subdued under Roman authority, was suffused with an apocalyptic hatred for Classical Civilization and all that Rome represented. The rise of Islam, with its ethos of Jihad, was the Magian soul’s violent response to this subjugation - a dramatic act of cultural self-liberation from the bonds of Graeco-Roman influence. The enduring animosity that Islam harbors toward Christianity, even today, is rooted in this ancient trauma of Pseudomorphosis. By directing its hatred toward Christianity, Islam sublimates its deeper resentment toward the Graeco-Roman Civilization, which it perceives as embodied in the Christian faith. The rapid spread of Islam across the Roman Middle East - from North Africa and Egypt to the Levant - was fueled, in part, by this deep-seated ressentiment. For instance, the Monophysite Christians of Egypt, later known as Coptic Christians, who harbored a profound resentment toward Roman-Byzantine rule, welcomed the Arab invaders with open arms, eager to throw off the yoke of their former oppressors. Similarly, the Crusades, which coincided with the Great Schism, can be viewed as an outpouring of the Germanic world's ressentiment toward both Islam and the Byzantine Empire - two forces representing the East (i.e., the Magian world) under whose shadow the Faustian spirit had long been stifled. In fact, in the Germanic Europe of the time, the Byzantine world was despised nearly as intensely as the Muslim world. This animosity was starkly illustrated by the Fourth Crusade, which was directed not against Muslim lands, but against the Byzantine Empire itself, culminating in the brutal sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders. The Crusades can therefore be seen as the Faustian world’s emphatic rejection of the Eastern cultural dominance that had constrained it for centuries, marking a decisive moment in the assertion of Western identity and independence.
The Russian Crusade against the Faustian West
Russia, after shedding its European veneer with the Bolshevik Revolution, has entered its own Age of Crusades or Jihad, driven by a profound sense of gloating, revenge, and apocalyptic hatred toward Western (Faustian) Civilization. This Jihad mindset originates from the emphatic liberation of a young culture from the shadow of an older, alien culture - i.e., from the mental suppression of Pseudomorphosis. In fact, one could argue that Russia declared its Jihad against the West as early as the Bolshevik Revolution, with the declared struggle against "Capitalism" being a symbolic rallying cry for a broader crusade. For the Russians, "Capitalism" was a euphemism for Western Civilization itself. By counterposing "Communism" against "Capitalism," they were, at a deeper level, counterposing Russia against the West. This crusade initially employed covert means, such as supporting and financing revolutionary movements aimed at destabilizing Europe through the Comintern. It is also during the Soviet period that Russia becomes the vanguard of the Third Worldist ressentiment and loathing against Western Civilization, peddling the “anti-colonialist” narrative, which in reality is an explicitly anti-western and anti-white narrative aimed at harming the West. The Second World War, known in Russia as The Great Patriotic War, can be seen as the first overt Crusade against the "infidel" West, albeit under a different guise. Many in the West are still perplexed by why Russia, which "fought against Nazism" and helped "defeat it," now employs similar, if not worse, tactics in Ukraine. The reality is that Russians view the Second World War through a completely different lens. For Westerners, it was a battle against an internal phenomenon that organically emerged within the Faustian Civilization. For Russians, however, WWII and the "fight against Nazism" represented a broader struggle against the West itself. This is the context in which the cult of victory in The Great Patriotic War must be understood in Russia: it is essentially a religious cult of Crusades, a Jihad against the Faustian West. Moreover, present-day Russian critiques of Western phenomena - such as liberalism, the LGBT movement, and woke culture under Vladimir Putin - are a continuation of this civilizational conflict. While some Westerners may interpret Russian criticisms as aligning with traditional European values, the reality is that these phenomena are viewed by Russians as emblematic of European culture itself - a culture they regard with deep-seated animosity. This perspective conflates disparate Western phenomena, from Nazism to LGBT rights, into a single category of European-originated ills, reflecting a fundamental difference in interpretation between Russia and the West. For Europeans, these are clearly separate and starkly opposed phenomena, but for Russians, who view them from the outside, they are all manifestations of a singular, alien European culture, which they deeply loathe. Russians do not despise Western "decadence" out of empathy for the West; they despise these phenomena precisely because they are European. If Europe were traditionalist, they would loathe and criticize European traditions and customs just as they did during the Soviet era. Back then, the main rallying cry against the hated Faustian World was not its decadence, as the West had yet to manifest the phenomena it does today, but rather "Capitalism." In Soviet rhetoric, "Capitalists" was synonymous with "Westerners." Today, they label Westerners as "gays," for example, but the essence remains unchanged. Putin's era should therefore be seen as the continuation of Russia's "Crusade" or "Jihad" against the West, marked by an apocalyptic hatred against Faustian Civilization, as it frees itself from the last remnants of European Pseudomorphosis. The invasion of Ukraine must be understood in this light, as part of a broader historical process. The Russians’ enmity toward Ukrainians is akin to the hatred of heretics who have abandoned the "Russian World", which, deep inside, for Russians is a euphemism for a distinct Muscovite-Russian Culture that counterposes itself against the Faustian Culture and is involved in a deadly struggle with it. Various Russian political commentators, Russian clerics and the entire Russian Orthodox Church indeed explicitly frame this war as a “Holy War” and a confrontation with the West. Putin himself has called the war against Ukraine, and by extension the Western coalition that supports it, a civilizational struggle against the West. Russian society today exhibits many characteristics reminiscent of the Crusader spirit that dominated early medieval Europe. In those times, crusaders were granted extraordinary privileges: their lands were protected in their absence, and they received absolution for past crimes and violence, making joining the Crusades an appealing option for many knights and princes. Similarly, in modern Russia, former convicts who join mercenary groups like Wagner, or the Russian army itself, receive preferential treatment. Upon enlisting in the war against Ukraine - framed as a modern-day crusade - they are pardoned for their crimes and, upon returning, are promised advantages such as priority in university admissions or job placements. This preferential treatment mirrors the incentives that once drew European crusaders into battle, underscoring, yet again, the presence of the militant, crusading mindset in Russia's ongoing battle against the West. This militant mindset is also deeply intertwined with the role of religion in Russian society, particularly the Orthodox Church’s justification of militarism. Many in the West, and even in Ukraine, are shocked by how the Russian Orthodox Church not only endorses the war but also goes so far as to bless soldiers and consecrate nuclear weapons. A striking example is the recently built Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces, which is dedicated to the military - a concept utterly alien and appalling to Western and Orthodox Christians alike. Equally perplexing is the veneration of Stalin among devout Russian Orthodox believers. Despite Stalin's brutal persecution of the Church during his reign, where priests were tortured and killed, he is now honored, with some even creating icons of him - one of the greatest persecutors of religion, and Orthodox Christianity in particular.
Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces
However, when we step back from a linear view of history and adopt a cyclical and modular perspective, these seeming contradictions begin to make sense. In this phase of its cultural lifecycle, Russia’s approach to religion mirrors that of other nascent cultures during similar stages of their development. Just as the Catholic Church once incited believers to join the Crusades and Islam called its followers to Jihad, the Russian Orthodox Church now plays a similar role in rallying support for Russia’s own "holy war." The veneration of Stalin, too, aligns with this pattern and instead of being contradictory, in fact, makes perfect sense. He is seen not simply as a political leader, but rather as a symbolic figure - a personification of the Russian soul who, through his brutal measures, tore away the vestiges of European Pseudomorphosis. In this light, Stalin’s reverence within the Church echoes the veneration and canonization of Widukind in post-Carolingian/Ottonian Germany, a leader who in his lifetime had fiercely resisted Charlemagne’s Christianization efforts. Deep inside for Russians, Stalin represents a pivotal force in their cultural history, a figure who embodies their defiance against the much hated Faustian Civilization and, more importantly, who realized their deepest desire - i.e., revenge against the West fueled by an apocalyptic hatred against it. All this suggests that the next stage, and possibly the consummate stage, of Russia’s shedding away its Pseudomorphosis will be the emergence of a uniquely Russian form of Christianity - a Russian "Gothic Christianity" of sorts, one that is organically suited to the Russian soul. While it is difficult to predict the exact contours this new religious expression will take, a close study of the "Old Believers" could provide some clues. Their practices and beliefs, rooted in a pre-Petrine, pre-Westernized Russia, may offer a glimpse into what a truly indigenous Russian Christianity might look like. This evolution of Russian Christianity will eventually trigger a schism within the broader Eastern Orthodox Christianity, comparable in its historical significance and intensity only to the Great Schism of 1054. And the catalyst to this will likely be the granting of autocephaly to the Ortodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) in 2019 by the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople. The Russian Orthodox Church's refusal to recognize this autocephaly has already led to tension with the Ecumenical Patriarchate and other Orthodox Churches in Europe. While Russia may accuse Ukraine of schism, it is, in fact, Russia that will be eventually separating itself from the broader Eastern Orthodox Christianity. As Ukraine moves closer to Europe, reaffirming its connection to the Greek Orthodox tradition, Russia may be on the path to developing a distinct form of Christianity, one that is uniquely Russian and resonates more deeply with its cultural essence.
Conclusion
Russia has long been a source of bewilderment for Western observers, its behavior often confounding those who view it through the lens of a linear historical narrative and the concept of a unified humanity. Much of this confusion arises from our adherence to this flawed perspective. In contrast, Oswald Spengler's cyclical and modular view of history, which posits that civilizations are self-contained entities with their own unique inner workings and equivalent phases of development that are separated temporally and locally, yet are morphologically equivalent (i.e., birth, fluorishing, maturity, stagnation and decline) - much like autonomous organisms - offers a more illuminating framework for understanding Russia, its societal mindset, historical trajectory, and its fraught relationship with the West. The Western perception of Russia has largely been shaped by the artificially "Europeanized" version of the realm that emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries. However, this European veneer was a superficial imposition on a populace whose cultural roots were fundamentally different. History has shown that such imposed identities are unsustainable, and it was only a matter of time before Russia began to shed this facade and revert to its natural, pre-Romanov self. This process has been unfolding over the past century. The Bolshevik Revolution marked the beginning of Russia's gradual liberation from European Pseudomorphosis, a process that continues today under Vladimir Putin. In a broader historical context, Putin's Russia is simply advancing the path initiated by the Bolsheviks in 1917, as that cultural realm turns its back on the West and reclaims its unique civilizational identity. This Russian path, distinct and resolute, is inevitably marked by a fierce civilizational confrontation with the West, driven by an intensity comparable to that of Jihad or the Crusades. It is a reality that Western nations must come to terms with in their interactions with Russia. Oswald Spengler's insights and his cyclical view of history are crucial for us to understand the deep-seated longings and motives of an adversary that has long waged a "holy war" against the West, manifesting in various forms over the past century. By adopting this perspective, we can better grasp the nature of the challenge we face and, ultimately, devise a more effective response to prevail in the deadly confrontation that lies ahead.
