I want to thank William Bond for enabling me to start posting again - previously he'd been posting for me for years, now I can do it myself, which is convenient & saves him all that work.  William Bond is a great man, the Prophet of Matriarchy, the main Founding Father of Matriarchal thought in our present age.

    Coming up strong is our dear friend Ajax the Great.  He is a wise man, high education, brilliant brain, one of the smartest men I have ever known, a reincarnation of Buckminster Fuller & becoming a leading voice of the Matriarchal Movement.

    Just recently he's started posting here - Hallelujah, which brings great wisdom to the site, such valuable insights on both present politics {what an expert!} & Female Empowerment {he is a rare male to understand & accept the necessity of this.  He is on the side of Truth, not one gender or another.}

        I have much to say to you friends & much to add to this blog currently.  This is just a small update, will be back shortly......Blessings from Rasa.

    

Neoliberalism: The Religion Of The World, Flesh, and Devil

By Ajax the Great

(Originally published on The Chalice And The Flame blog)

Neoliberalism.  It is a rather obscure-sounding term with a somewhat nebulous meaning.  It's anonymity and vagueness shroud it in mystery.  And yet, it is the very ideology at the root of most, if not all, of the modern world's problems.

So what is it, exactly?  It is best defined as a dogmatic belief in the inherent superiority and supremacy of unfettered free markets and privatization (and commodification) of nearly every single thing in the universe.  Inequality, however extreme, and even greed itself is recast as virtuous.  The rich and the poor deserve their lot in life, because reasons.  Poverty is in fact a feature, not a bug.  People are just objects to be used, as are animals and Mother Nature herself.  Citizens are reduced to mere consumers and wage-serfs, if not full-blown slaves.  And like the robber barons of old, today's high priests of neoliberalism are totally fine with robbing from the poor, giving to the rich, and torpedoing what's left of the middle class.  The only difference is that nowadays they typically do it with a smile and a veneer of pseudo-progressivism, while laughing all the way to the bank.

Neoliberalism's warped and twisted code of pseudo-ethics harbors a massive, gaping void that is essentially a moral black hole, since this ideology lacks a truly moral and spiritual component underneath it all.  Its entire foundation is shaky, empty and morally bankrupt, totally rotten to the core.  And yet, it has such mass appeal on both the (pseudo-)left and right of the political spectrum that it transcends that very spectrum.  And while neoliberalism is clearly the darling brainchild of patriarchy, it is such a wily and devious shapeshifter that it even transcends patriarchy itself as well.

From Reagan to the Clintons, Thatcher to Blair, Milton Friedman to Thomas Friedman, Greenspan to Powell, Facebook to ExxonMobil, Purdue University to Perdue Chicken to Purdue Pharma, Trump to Trudeau, and Boris all the way to Natasha, it seems like no mainstream or pseudo-alternative politician, ideologue, technocrat, maven, or tycoon has been able to avoid being infected by neoliberalism to one degree or another, and sucked into its lifeless, soulless abyss.

(Trump, with the notable exception of opposing some of the "free trade" component of neoliberalism, otherwise supports essentially all of the rest of their evil and demonic agenda in practice, his disingenuous rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding.  And ALL neoliberals, Trump included, are largely anti-union in practice, if not also in theory as well.)

Though secular in nature, neoliberalism has all of the zeal of a religion, even a fundamentalist one.  And its dogmas have basically become the new orthodoxy from about 1980 onwards.  And we can thus conclude that neoliberalism is essentially the religion of the world, the flesh, and the devil, filling the voids left by the implosion of the mainstream patriarchal religions.  One can even call it a cult as well.

In Christian theology, the "world, flesh, and devil" have traditionally been considered the three primary enemies of the soul, as a sort of "unholy trinity".  Now, I believe that there is some nuance to this in that the world is only evil because of who rules it (i.e. the devil who works through men, particularly the oligarchs and their sycophantic lackeys), and the flesh is only evil when we choose to make it that way, since matter is essentially just a slowed-down form of spirit.  Neither of these first two are inherently evil in themselves.  But under the current regime of patriarchy, living exclusively for these two is believed to ultimately lead to the third member, the devil.  Or wetiko, if you prefer.  Whatever it is, it is pure evil energy that cannot ever be redeemed.  And neoliberalism, in its sheer vileness, vainglory, and wanton idolatry of money and worldly power above all else, effectively worships all three members of this unholy trinity.

The rise of selected flavors of Christian (and other religious) fundamentalism since the 1980s has not stemmed the tide of neoliberalism, and the two increasingly seem to be joined at the hip nowadays.  And while patriarchy is currently in its death throes as we speak, the implosion of patriarchy and patriarchal religion is clearly non-linear, erratic, and chaotic.

And most notably, the recent rumors of neoliberalism's supposed death from the COVID-19 pandemic have been greatly exaggerated.  And by that, we mean that, if anything, neoliberalism has actually GAINED strength overall from the lockdowns and related restrictions which effectively robbed from the poor, gave to the rich, and torpedoed what was left of the already shrinking middle class.  And not only did these draconian measures not appreciably save lives in the long run, they actually cost lives, particularly among poorer people and people of color who got the brunt of both the virus itself AND the collateral damage disproportionately shunted onto them while the affluent got to "work from home".  There was certainly nothing genuinely leftist or progressive about doing that!  And the vaccines have been not only a major cash cow for the oligarchs, but also are (via mandates, "passports", and segregation) increasingly becoming a weapon of power and control over the masses, especially via divide-and-conquer.

And, of course, Women have gotten the brief end of the stick from the pandemic response as well.  Lockdowns have increased male-on-female domestic violence and Women have lost more jobs than men have as well.  And school closures have also forced Mothers to either 1) stay home with the kids and lose income as a result, or else 2) take on a triple burden by trying to juggle it all at once.  There is clearly nothing at all feminist about these policies, but rather these are things that neoliberalism salivates over the most.

TO HELL WITH NEOLIBERALISM!

Why We Still Need A Universal Basic Income Guarantee Now More Than Ever

By Ajax the Great 

Originally posted on The Chalice and the Flame blog. 

I have repeatedly noted before why any serious proposal for a pragmatic utopia would require some sort of unconditional Universal Basic Income (UBI) Guarantee for all.  At least as long as we still have a monetary system, of course, and it will be quite some time before money can be phased out completely.  And in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the lockdowns, and their grisly social and economic aftermath, it is more crucial now than ever before.  

To wit:

1. First and foremost, "It's payback time for Women".  Recently, a Woman named Judith Shulevitz wrote an op-ed titled thusly, arguing in favor of a Universal Basic Income Guarantee for all.  Her feminist argument for a UBI, which I agree 100% with, was that such a thing would provide long-overdue compensation for Women's unpaid work (i.e. housework and caregiving) that society currently takes for granted and considers a "free resource" for the taking.  As the saying goes, there are two kinds of work that Women do:  underpaid, and unpaid.  While that is true for some men as well, it is overwhelmingly true for Women.  Thus, her argument makes a great deal of sense overall, and I agree.  It is indeed LONG overdue.  And it applies a fortiori now in light of the fact that Women got the worst deal of all from the lockdown-induced job losses, the often triple burden for Mothers at home, the gnawing forced isolation from the support system of other Women, and the increased exposure to domestic violence during lockdown.  Lockdown is patriarchy on crack, basically.
2. Men are becoming increasingly redundant in the long run due to technology, globalization, and the overall ascendancy of Women.  When men are no longer artificially propped up, they will fall--and the bigger they are, the harder they fall.  And this will only increase in the near future.  This is a potential ticking time-bomb that must be defused sooner rather than later.  Men become extremely dangerous creatures under either of two conditions:  1) when they have too much power relative to Women, and/or 2) when they are desperate for money.  Ever see the 1996 film Fargo? Indeed, a Universal Basic Income is one of the best ways to tackle the second one.  Again, it only applies a fortiori now.
3. A UBI is far more efficient in theory and practice than much of what currently passes for a social safety net these days, and would have far less bureaucracy.  No means tests, no discrimination, no playing God.  It's simply a basic human right, period.  And it would be far less costly in the long run.
4. As Buckminster Fuller famously noted, there are more than enough resources for everyone to live like a millionaire with today's technology.  And he said this back in the 1970s, mind you.  And the specious notion that everybody and their mother must "work for a living" is not only outdated, but is also seriously classist, ableist, and ageist, and by extension indirectly sexist and racist as well.
5. Poverty is a razor-sharp, double-edged sword, spiritually speaking. Being attached to riches is clearly counter to spirituality, but then again, so is being attached to poverty. Either way, it's the *attachment* that is the problem.  And poverty today is largely if not entirely man-made via artificial scarcity.
6. We would all be better off on balance, spiritually and otherwise, if material poverty were eradicated--and a UBI is the most efficient way to do so. As William Bond (and others) noted, with today's technology that is certainly doable, but for the greed of the oligarchs at the top who control the system. And that in turn is a result of patriarchy, given how men tend to see war and scarcity as inevitable, so they create a self-fulfilling prophecy as a result.
7. With an unconditional UBI instead of means testing or other conditions, gone will be the perverse incentives that exist under the current system that trap too many people in poverty today.
8. Negative liberty and positive liberty are NOT opposites, but rather two sides of the same coin.  Indeed, one cannot be truly free if one is systematically denied the basic necessities of life.  And truly no one is free when others are oppressed in any way. 
9. Inequality, at least when it is as extreme as it is today, is profoundly toxic to society and makes the looming problems/crises of climate change and ecological overshoot that much more difficult to solve.  This is over and above the effects of poverty alone.  And a UBI can dramatically reduce both socio-economic inequality as well as absolute material poverty.  (And when funded by an Alaska-style tax on fossil fuels, it can also double as a Steve Stoft or James Hansen-style carbon tax-and-dividend as well.)
10. We consume and waste a ludicrous amount of (mostly fossil-fuel) energy in the so-called "developed" world, and much of that wasteful consumption can be curtailed simply by making it so no one has to "work for a living" unless one really wants to.  Just think of all the energy spent (and commuting to and from) unnecessary work at a job you hate, to buy stuff you don't need, to impress people you don't even like.  A UBI could thus greatly reduce our carbon and overall ecological footprint in the long run.
11. And finally, one should keep in mind that, as Carol Brouillet has noted, the literal and original meaning of the word "community" is "free sharing of gifts".  What we currently have now under patriarchy/kyriarchy is more of a pseudo-community in that regard.   And that needs to change. Yesterday.  The exchange economy of capitialist patriarchy has failed us, and we need to rediscover and re-create the gift economy in its place.  A UBI will make the transition much smoother and more peaceful that it would otherwise be.  (Some ultra-purist radfems may disagree of course, but they are in the minority even among the radical feminist community.)

Perhaps Bucky's other prediction, that Women would take over the world, is a prerequisite for his vision to be fulfilled?   Honestly, it can't happen soon enough!

In other words, it would be a win-win-win situation for literally everyone but the 0.01% oligarchs at the top.  So why aren't we doing this yesterday?  Because that would make far too much sense.  To quote Buckminster Fuller:

We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.

In fact, one could argue that two of the most toxic, outdated, and specious ideas ever conceived by the patriarchy (aside from the central doctrine of male supremacy itself and the entire "dominator" model, of course) are that "everybody and their mother must work for a living" and that "everybody must procreate."  And both are now literally KILLING this very planet that gives us life.  Thus, on balance, a Universal Basic Income Guarantee for all is a good idea regardless.  Again, it's a win-win-win situation for everyone but the oligarchs.  And the only real arguments against it are paternalistic and/or sadistic ones, which really means there are no good arguments against it in a free and civilized society.  

So what are we waiting for? Let the planetary healing begin!

Female Empowerment Still Our Only Hope

Just a reminder to everyone that despite current events, or rather a fortiori because of current events, we need Female Empowerment more than ever before.  While a full-blown Matriarchy is still a while away and we seem to be heading into a new dark age of totalitarian technocracy (i.e. the so-called "Great Reset"), Women must never give up and let their hard-won progress thus far be eroded any further.  After all, all oligarchies, plutocracies, kleptocracies, and technocracies (or all of the above) are patriarchal at their core.  As a man I obviously don't have nearly all of the answers, nor do I claim to truly know the details of how to do it, but what I do know in my heart of hearts is that only Women collectively can truly halt and reverse for good the utterly dark and dystopian future to which we are otherwise headed, Goddess willing.

Now is NOT the time to sit on one's laurels, give up hope, or make the perfect the enemy of the good in any way.   Nor is it the time to take advice from fools, charlatans, mouthpieces of the oligarchy/technocracy/ patriarchy, or an even worse category:  the vile and demonic Phyllis Schlafly types who masquerade as feminists (or even as self-proclaimed Radical Feminists) but are really patriarchal to the core or otherwise throw other Women under the bus for their own worldly gains, often disguised as concern-trolling.  A good litmus test for that latter category is how they react to the works of the author Mark Regnerus, as anyone who agrees with his poisonous words are not really feminists and do not support genuine Female Empowerment.  Which by the way, is both individual AND collective empowerment, NOT an either/or. 

Bottom line, Women need to get into as many positions of power as possible, in as many places at as many levels as possible, as quickly as possible.  Time is running out.

So go forth and make old Buckminster Fuller proud!  The Future is Female.

(See also a previous article here as well for a more detailed discussion on the ultimate kill switch to smash the patriarchy.)

Patriarchy Has A Kill Switch, And We Already Know What It Is

By Ajax the Great

(Originally posted on The Chalice and the Flame blog)

Author Yuri Alexandrovich wrote a great article recently for Medium, in which he articulates something that we all intuitively know (but often don't want to say out loud) about the patriarchy and how to end it.  After first establishing that patriarchy is inherently evil (and thus cannot be redeemed), he then goes on about what holds it all together.  This thing that holds the entire construct all together is its sine qua non and thus is it's own Achilles' heel, and that thing is control of female sexuality, and the primary tool used to control that is slut-shaming.  That is, the shaming of Women for expressing their sexuality in the way they choose.  And thus the "kill switch" is to put an end to the utterly backwards and outmoded practice of slut-shaming once and for all.

Wait, what?  There is still slut-shaming in 2021?  Absolutely.  It has diminished somewhat since the (largely male-defined) "sexual revolution" half a century ago, to be sure, but it is still there. The double standard still exists, and it has in fact become more of a double bind in which Women are expected to be "sexy" (as defined by males) but not sexual by their own definition.  And ending it is thus the unfinished business of both feminism and the real sexual revolution for Women.

(That's not the only double bind here, there is also the historical one in which Women are expected to both obey men as well as also be the "gatekeepers" of sex, with no way to opt out of either contradictory requirement.)

As Yuri Alexandrovich himself says:

So here is our kill switch: we stop telling women when, where and with whom she is allowed to get involved romantically. Her body, her choice. And she is perfectly capable of making it a responsible choice, thank you very much.

And lest anyone misunderstand his words, read too much into it, or try to put words in his mouth:

NOTE: This is not to suggest that anyone should change their own behavior. We do whatever we are comfortable with. That, of course, includes staying monogamous, still a perfectly valid choice. But it can not be justified as a moral choice anymore -- rather, it is a personal preference.

Female sexuality (or more accurately, female-defined sexuality) is an extremely powerful force to be reckoned with, which is why the patriarchy has gone out of its way to suppress it (and/or supplant it with male-defined sexuality).  As I have noted before, the suppression of Women's sexuality was not entirely about maintaining control over the male bloodline (though that was originally a major part of it), but more generally about power and control over Women directly, as well as over other men indirectly via artificial scarcity.

In a similar vein, patriarchy's favorite brainchild, capitalism, needs scarcity (whether real or artificial) to function.  That is how the oligarchs control the serfs.  And the kill switch of capitalism is thus to give it the one thing it cannot surivive--abundance.  The analogy should be apparent now.

Ending slut-shaming will not end patriarchy overnight, of course, but is nonetheless necessary for it to end sooner rather than later.  And if we wait until we return to full-blown Matriarchy before liberating Women's sexuality, we will never be ready, as Women's sexual liberation is a key step on the path to Matriarchy.  That is, if we make the perfect the enemy of the good, we ultimately end up with neither.

One thing needs to be clear.  As hard as we fight for the right to say "yes" to sex, we must also fight twice as hard for the right to say "NO" as well.  The LAST thing we want is for sex of any kind to be perceived as mandatory, so enthusiastic and mutual consent must be a precondition for all sexual acts, period. And that is true for both Women and men, by the way.  Also, we must be careful not to fall in the trap of the "reverse double standard" that has become in vogue in some circles these days (Oprah and Dr. Phil, I'm looking at YOU!), in which men are the ones vilified for their sexuality while Women are ignored (if not celebrated) for doing the same exact things.  Doing so is a sure path to a sort of "reverse patriarchy", not the Matriarchy proper that we should be aiming for.  The same goes for a "reverse double bind" as well.

Put simply:  Women should have the absolute right to be as sexual--or not--as they themselves want to be, without the need for justification or apology to anyone, period.

So what are we waiting for?  Kill Switch Engage!  Let the planetary healing begin!

Afghanistan: A War We Lost Before The War Began

By Ajax the Great

(Originally posted at the True Spirit of America Party blog in two parts.)

PART ONE (August 12-16, 2021)

The headlines these days about Afghanistan have been quite sobering to say the least.  It looks increasingly likely that this 20 year old quagmire of a war will end the same way as the Vietnam War did.  "Operation Frequent Wind" certainly comes to mind, not least due to the frequent windbag politicians who got us into this inherently unwinnable mess that had literally no practical exit strategy to speak of.

Like Vietnam on crack, this is "a war we lost before the war began", as Phil Ochs put it in his song "White Boots Marching In A Yellow Land" about that other unwinnable quagmire.  Afghanistan has been called "the graveyard of empires" for a reason, after all.  The moment President Bush decided to force regime change in Afghanistan, as opposed to simply going in to fight al-Qaeda and bring Bin Laden to (rough) justice for 9/11, that was a "mission creep" that created a dangerous power vacuum and basically dug our graves over there.  Yes, the Taliban were and still are backwards, brutal, violent, repressive, theocratic, misogynistic, and even totalitarian, but guess what?  The Taliban was never really a material threat to the USA, and the local "allies" (read: warlords) of ours that de facto replaced them in nearly all of the country outside of Kabul have thus created a chaotic anocracy, which basically translates to "pick your poison".  Eventually, Afghanistan even became fertile ground for ISIL for a time, who as we have seen is far more evil and dangerous than even the Taliban.  And if and when the weak Kabul government and military finally rolls over and plays dead for the Taliban, remember:  if they do it after 20 years, then no matter how long we stay, whether 10, 20, or even 100+ years, the end result would be the same regardless.  At best, the USA only delayed the inevitable, at a massively unacceptable cost of blood and treasure.

Yes, in both of these wars, our troops technically won every single battle.  But in the long run, as the famous quote says, "Yes, I know.  It's also irrelevant."

So yes, the TSAP still, albeit with a heavy heart, fully supports America's troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.  As a wise man once said recently, if Afghanistan falls to the Taliban after 20 years, it does not mean that we left too early, but that we left 19 years too late.  It is tragic and heartbreaking indeed that it was basically all for naught, as the part about bringing al-Qaeda and Bin Laden to justice would not have required forced regime change in Afghanistan at all.  Bin Laden was hiding out in Pakistan for most of the time, after all, and nearly all of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi nationals.  (That was of course memory-holed as quickly as Bin Laden's family members were surreptitiously whisked out of the country back to their home country, Saudi Arabia.)

We have said it before, and we will say it again.  There is NO (Western) military solution in Afghanistan, period.  Or Iraq, or Syria, or anywhere else in the region, basically.  The closest thing there is to a solution would be for us to give every *woman* an AK-47 or M-16 and tell them to take over their country and mow down anyone who stands in their way.  Let Allah sort it out.  Problem solved.  But the powers that be over here would of course not be too keen on that idea.  After all they wouldn't want women in THIS country getting any ideas, now would they?

If and when the Taliban returns to their old tricks of brutal and misogynistic repression, then WOE to any cowardly Afghan men that fail to protect their women and children!  And by rolling over for the forces of evil, they make a mockery of our troops as well.

The best way to support our troops is to bring them home alive, and stop abusing them in these unnecessary quagmires of choice that really only benefit the oligarchs.  The best time to do it was 20 years ago. The second best time to do it is right now.

UPDATE:  On August 15th, the capital Kabul has effectively fallen to the Taliban, and President Ghani has fled the country in fear as his own troops basically rolled over and played dead.  This highly unfortunate turn of events has happened at a much faster pace than anyone had predicted.  But the hypocrisy of those Republicans who blame President Biden for this sad state of affairs is quite rich considering that Biden not only followed the very same troop withdrawal plan set by Trump himself, but actually pushed back Trump's withdrawal deadline by nearly four months.  Yes, really.  Like Vietnam, as the saying goes, America may have won every battle, but in the end, that's also irrelevant.

I mean, you KNOW it's bad when Ron Paul (and/or his son Rand Paul) comes across as the voice of reason!  And whether you love him or hate him, it is clear that throughout all 20 years of this ill-fated war of (mostly) choice, while both Democrats and Republicans alike would mindlessly flip and flop around, Paul has basically been on the right side of history all along.

Getting out of Afghanistan is the ONE thing that Trump, Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Ron/Rand Paul could ALL agree on.  Even if Trump denies it now.

And finally, as for America's very clear moral obligation to the Afghan people that we would otherwise leave behind, we believe Emma Lazarus said it best:  "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...I lift my lamp beside the golden door."  In other words, "refugees welcome".  The Kabul airport must be secured now to allow safe passage out of the country.  Beyond that, after the current evacuations and rescue operations are complete, that is it.  It's over. 

After 20 years of this infernal quagmire, C'EST FINI!

As the late, great Major General Smedley Butler famously said, "TO HELL WITH WAR!"

PART TWO (August 22, 2021)

With America's longest war in Afghanistan coming to an inevitably disastrous end after 20 years, it is worth noting all of the things that had been memory-holed about its origins.  The 9/11 attacks that had been used as a pretext for the initial invasion had always been under a cloud of suspicion as possibly being an inside job (to one degree or another), or at least that the whole story had not been told about it.  But for argument's sake, let's just take at face value for a moment that these horrific terrorist attacks were entirely perpetrated by Osama Bin Laden and his vile al-Qaeda henchmen as per the official story and ignore their undeniable Saudi connections.

First, Senator Ron Paul had his own plan by October 10, 2001 on how to deal with these terrorists and bring them to justice that would not have even required so much as an invasion, let alone regime change in Afghanistan.  Per the US Constitution, there is a remedy for bringing such non-state rogue actors to justice, known as the "Letter of Marque and Reprisal", which Ron Paul supported.  It would have put a bounty on their heads and thus authorized not only the military but also privateers from anywhere in the world to go on a manhunt and get these perpetrators.  And it would have been far cheaper and with far fewer casualties as well.  But clearly this proposal fell on the very deafest of ears, because reasons. And as they say, the rest is history. 

Secondly, Jordan Schachtel points out that within the first week of damaging aerial bombing by the USA and NATO in mid-October 2001, the Taliban were actually willing to negotiate an offer to turn over Bin Laden to a neutral third country to be put on trial there, in return for us ending the bombing.  Had President Bush actually taken them up on that offer, the war would have ended in ONE WEEK instead of 20 years, Bin Laden would have been brought to justice, and tens of thousands of causalities on both sides and trillions of dollars could have been averted.  But Bush, clearly under the influence of Cheney and the neocons, arrogantly rebuffed their offer and continued to escalate the war, because reasons. And as they say, the rest is history.

(The Bush administration and the corporate MSM deliberately conflating the Taliban and al-Qaeda, who at best grudgingly tolerated each other as co-belligerents against the West, certainly contributed to this strategic blunder and folly of epic proportions.)

Thirdly, not long after that, during the early stages of the ground invasion of Afghanistan in December 2001, Bin Laden was once again in America's sights.  He was apparently hiding in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan, heading rapidly towards the Pakistan border. But the powers that be "accidentally" lost him and thus let him and his buddies escape into Pakistan, and did not even bother to have our troops so much as cross the border until nearly a decade later when, under the leadership of President Obama, he was ultimately snuffed out by the US Navy Seals on May 1, 2011.  Why it took that long can only be explained by the Machiavellian powers that be wanting to prolong the war for their own nefarious gains, because reasons.  And as they say, the rest is history.

Fourthly, anyone who claims to have supported this war on feminist grounds (as if wars for imperialistic white-savior conquest could ever be feminist) should answer the following question:  why did our government not simply arm and fund the WOMEN over there, instead of forcibly installing and propping up a corrupt male-dominated puppet government that was left utterly dependent on a male-dominated foreign power for all of 20 years?  Nevermind, we already know the painfully obvious answer.  Because reasons.  And as they say, the rest is history. 

And finally, unlike today, at least Vietnam and Iraq both had a "decent interval", as President Nixon called it, between the completion of America's troop withdrawal and the shyt really hitting the fan over there.  In both cases, it was about two years.  Had we just pulled out much sooner while the Taliban was still weaker, that would have likely been true for Afghanistan as well to some extent.  We had numerous opportunities to make a fairly clean break and temporarily "save face" at a cost of significantly less blood and treasure, but chose not to, because reasons.  And as they say, the rest is history.

And if you still think this was all about 9/11 or "making the world safe for democracy", well, we've got a nice bridge we'd like to sell you.  As Major General Smedley Butler once famously said, "War Is A Racket".  And as he also said at the end of his book:

"TO HELL WITH WAR!"

But alas, of course his words of wisdom also fell on the very deafest of ears ever since.  The neocons on the right, the "bleeding heart interventionists" on the pseudo-left, and the oligarchs' mercenary-industrial complex that they serve and who ultimately profit very, very handsomely from it all, will see to it that this racket never ends on their watch.  Because reasons.  And as they say, well, the rest is history...

UPDATE 1:  The ever-insightful Peter van Buren wrote an excellent article about the war's history as well.  Food for thought indeed.  We know all too well what happens when we ignore the lessons of history. 

UPDATE 2:  On August 30, 2021, the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan was completed, one day before the official deadline of August 31.  That is, the very last US troops have now finally left Afghanistan for good.  As tragic as the circumstances were in which we left, sooner or later it had to be done.  And now, it is finished.  This time, let us actually LEARN and REMEMBER the lessons that we should have learned after the tragic fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975.

Who's Afraid Of An Aging Population? (Updated for 2021)

By Ajax the Great

(Original version posted on The Chalice and the Flame blog by Ajax the Great)

I had long wondered why so many men, especially the elites, are terrified that our overall population is (gasp!) aging. It is not just because they fear that their economic Ponzi scheme of necrotic growth for the sake of growth will unravel, though that is clearly part of it as well. No, I think that their real fear is that the Crones (i.e. Women over age 50 or so) will have an *unprecedented* level of power due to relative strength in numbers, and thus so will Women in general. That is because Women are living longer than ever before, as well as having fewer kids. And the men are getting scared.  Hence the recent push to whittle away Women's reproductive rights, eventually including most if not all birth control as well.

Additionally, with birthrates declining over time, and each new generation thus slightly smaller than then previous one, that effectively means that there will be fewer younger Women relative to slightly older men, giving younger Women that much more bargaining power in the dating market despite an overall surplus of Women in general.  Thus by the 2030s, Women will get the best of both worlds, and be even more empowered as a result of such demographic trends.

(Note that this also means that statistically more younger men will be "mentored" by older Women in that regard as per the laws of supply and demand, which would also help further accelerate the transition to Matriarchy as well.)

Ah, you say, but what about the supposedly legitimate economic fears of an aging (and eventually shrinking) population?  Well, a recent study came out that found that such fears are essentially overblown.  In fact, moderately low fertility (i.e. between 1.5-2.0 children per Woman) and a shrinking population would actually maximize living standards for the general population.  Another recent study found that there is essentially no robust correlation between population aging and economic growth, contrary to what many people seem to believe.  Not to say that an aging population will not pose some challenges, but on balance the benefits would outweigh such drawbacks.  And our Monetarily Sovereign federal government can easily absorb the fiscal costs of aging such as pensions and healthcare.

Oh, and by the way, there is that elephant in the room--make that the elephant in the Volkswagen--OVERPOPULATION.  Left unchecked, it will destroy the very planet that gives us life.  While technology (and Monetary Sovereignty) can largely solve the foreseeable economic challenges of aging and declining populations, the same cannot really be said of the intractable ecological problems of overpopulation.  And the only ethical way to do this is to voluntarily have fewer children, i.e. well below the "replacement rate" of 2.1 or so.  According to the best evidence, the best ways to accomplish this is 1) female empowerment and 2) poverty reduction, since after all, the number one cause of overpopulation is the MEN who force, coerce, deceive, and/or brainwash Women into having kids that they otherwise would not have (or much sooner and closer-spaced than otherwise).  Seriously. 

Sorry fellas, but the truth hurts.

So what about countries like Japan, Italy, Greece, Spain, etc. with so-called "lowest-low" total fertility rates below 1.5?  Yes, it is likely that they will hit a sort of short-to-medium-term "pothole" on the road to sustainability if they stay below 1.5 for too long.  Their populations' aging and decline will be significantly more rapid than for countries with TFRs between 1.5-2.0, and may be more difficult to adjust to from an economic perspective.  Well, the answer to that, again, is increased Female empowerment.  We see that European countries with greater Female empowerment and more generous social safety nets for Mothers and children tend to have higher fertility than those with less female empowerment and stingier safety nets such as Spain, Italy, and Greece.  Even though all of those countries have TFRs below replacement, Northern and Western Europe are generally around 1.6-2.0 while Southern and Eastern Europe are generally significantly below 1.5 children per Woman.  

And now the USA, thanks in part to the pandemic and the lockdowns, birthrates have REALLY crashed through the basement.  The estimated TFR for the USA in 2020 is as low as 1.64, a record low.  And no sign of reversal anytime soon.

The proof is clearly in the pudding.

Make no mistake, if Women were to take over the world tomorrow, the global TFR would plummet to 1.5 or lower almost overnight.  But it would not stay below 1.5 for very long, as it would gradually rise back up to around 1.5-1.9 where it will remain for at least a generation or two, and eventually rise to around the replacement rate of 2.1 after the population shrinks significantly over time.  And honestly, it can't happen soon enough.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again.  We must leave room for Nature, lest Nature not leave room for us.  We have been warned, decades ago in fact. 

As the great Marianne Williamson once said, at this juncture of history we are now at the "menopause" of humanity, in which what we really need is fewer babies, and more wisdom.

In other words, VIVE LA FEMME!  Let the planetary healing begin!