11 Comments
Oct 23Liked by Love Thy Neighborhood, Chad F. Kennedy

The Company’s tactics remind me of the story of Judas and the woman anointing Christ with expensive perfumed oil. John 12: 1-8. When the woman anoints Christ, Judas says that the oil for anointing should have been sold and the money given to the poor. But Judas was a thief and a betrayer. He sought to line his pockets with the money.

Like Judas, the Company drag-and-drops the poor in the name of charity, invoking the moral sense of kindness and mercy, but they really seek to rob us of our identity for their own gain.

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Oct 23Liked by Love Thy Neighborhood

The Company will replace the Longshoremen too in about ten seconds - and they would’ve done it had not their candidate been locked in a looming, tight race with their nemesis.

I’m not sure what the answer is but I’m fairly sure it’s *not* “let’s find loopholes and rely on The Regime to uphold the rules against their own interests”. Eventually, it will probably come down to a significant external shock and then a lot of violence. Things like this always seem to.

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Oct 23Liked by Love Thy Neighborhood

Nicely written article. What is your sense on the important part of the Springfield Drag 'n Drop? That is, there is some line-go-up GDP boost and some cheap labor. It appears that it is highly subsidized, so while line-go-up on GDP line-go-up-too on debt. No? So, for the line-go-up piece of the manager's dream, how long before that doesn't pan out? Am I wrong here? Is this drag 'n drop going to be economically viable for some period of time?

Then there is the clear population replacement of importing a new people for new and improved voters. That seems like a permanent change with ever compounding dividends. So is this the only reason they are doing it?

A general strike seems like a great idea as does dealing with local politicians who ticket take to make drag 'n drop viable. The former requires massive organization. Any ideas there as well?

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Oct 24·edited Oct 24Liked by Love Thy Neighborhood

I might have accidentally provided an answer, see my other top-level reply. (Apologies in advance for the verbosity, if you're short on time, skip to "ok ok.")

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Oct 23Liked by Love Thy Neighborhood

Homo economicus was a nice touch.

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Oct 23Liked by Love Thy Neighborhood

This is the dividing line between Left and Right in modern America, to my view: is it appropriate to begin deporting all of the illegal migrants who have come in?

The question is so AWFUL to progressives they mention the possibility like it's a bad thing... but in middle America (where I live) most folks-black, white, office, warehouse, husband, wife-think that this is just the ticket.

It's almost time to move this into the policy arena, in my opinion. Stitch the wound... then deal with the lingering infection.

https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/is-trump-an-incipient-fascist-dictator?r=1neg52

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Oct 23Liked by Love Thy Neighborhood

Fantastic piece.

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"They got absolutely stomped by the likes of Wal-Mart and Amazon, and now vape shops and tattoo parlors wear their storefronts like skinsuits." Don't forget medical marijuana dispensaries.

But this line, "A man’s identity and his community — his family, faith, culture, language, ethnicity, race, etc. — function as the coarse burlap sack that prevents him from passing smoothly and quietly through the channels of the global economy," is the thesis statement and really hits home, literally. I always knew this on a more abstract level in the background, that the point of globohomo was making broad markets more efficient to extract wealth from the populace...

Hell, I've even had the exact Civilization metaphor you made here before, personally, where I realized I was purpose-building every city for a larger empire machine. This is "military town," this is "food town," this is "commerce town" and as a set, they'll function as organs for a larger body and then I'll crush the Aztecs in tech and beeline to boats and yada yada. Then one day IRL I was like... is this how America really works? Pittsburgh just exists to ironmaxx so our civ-unique building Northrop can crank out tanks? Does Michigan just exist to breadmaxx to feed scientists in the academy to produce Great People?

And then I had the thought/nightmare, what if this is how the *global* economy works? Do China and Mexico just exist to produce the resources for American tech gains? But... those are *people,* with *cultures.* Of course, if they wanted to spread culture, we're already culturemaxxing in Hollywood, just export them records and films... FUCK, WE DO.

Ok ok that's fine as far as tracing the traffic and logistics goes, but why is that being done at scale? Why crush the cultures of these smaller units? And I think this is where you nailed it: "the coarse burlap sack that prevents him from passing smoothly and quietly."

That's when the full implication of globalization clicked for me, reading this article, maybe because you chose grain specifically. But it reminded me of a time I took my kids grocery shopping, and I told them to get the bigger box of cereal because it was cheaper. The kids saw that the box was bigger, and cost more, and asked me "How is that cheaper!? It's not, it's like $3 more!" I said No no, look at the sticker carefully, in small numbers at the bottom it has the cost per ounce, and the bigger box gets you more weight of cereal for less money. Then they asked "how come they do that?" and I said Because after they make the cereal, they have to make the bags, and the box, and put the boxes on trucks, and all that work *also* costs them money. But they have a giant silo of cereal at the factory, so if I make less work for them to do by buying fewer but larger boxes, I'm saving them the cost of making more bags, more boxes, and some effort loading onto trucks. So they're happy to charge me less for the cereal inside.

And now I realize, global cultural homogenization is what achieves this. More humans and labor in bigger batches to ship saves them the effort in the scope of selling the product: human labor, and human consumption. Sick.

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Oct 30·edited Oct 30

Just wait until we get commercial gene editing. Then the real horrors get unleashed, and homo economicus becomes flesh.

We already have the first steps with this in the trans movement. Every aspect of a person will be removed and packaged and commoditized. Similar to how the trans movement attempts to commoditize sex. All of the genders in the world, all equally marketable.

Look at how our culture has gone from authenticity to profilicity. Don’t like your online persona? Just destroy one account, make a new one, and you’re a new man… errr.. xer.

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If something is profitable, perhaps there is no way to oppose it without being more profitable. Maybe there can be a ways of making traditional societies more profitable.

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Oct 30·edited Oct 30

In the olden days, kings made damned sure their merchants didn’t run wild, if at all possible. The 20th century was the end of the merchant rebellion started in the 17th.

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