To what are you currently listening?

[Vetus Ordo]

Economically, I think, the world is dependent on the West.  The global economic paradigm is based on consumerism and growth.  If the West collapses economically, that's going to sting everyone everywhere, and the receding tide will strand all boats.

This was true of the past but not anymore. Asia has surpassed us already, we're just pretending it hasn't happened. The future of the world's economy lies there.

It's possible that the West could disintegrate culturally and still remain economically aloft.  With a precise ideological purge of its members, the U.S. military could become the Praetorian Guard for a non-constitutional government.  But I don't see how Islam in such a situation gets anywhere without nuclear weapons or excellent military tech.  Even with a unified ethos.  If an economic collapse is avoided, brute military might will be the decider of things.

The West without its culture and faith will collapse even if it has all the technology in the world. It becomes an empty shell.

Islam wasn't supposed to take over the Persian and Roman empires with just a bunch of camels, scimitars and bows and yet they managed it. Ideas win in the long run, not money and technology.

[Mono no aware]

Asia has surpassed us already, we're just pretending it hasn't happened. The future of the world's economy lies there.

But isn't Asia dependent on Western consumerism for much of its economy?  This is a global network of a paradigm, and no regional economy is self-sufficient.  The fact that Americans are largely vapid, wasteful, and consumerist drives many an Asian sector.

The West without its culture and faith will collapse even if it has all the technology in the world. It becomes an empty shell.

Islam wasn't supposed to take over the Persian and Roman empires with just a bunch of camels, scimitars and bows and yet they managed it. Ideas win in the long run, not money and technology.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki changed all that.  The noble Japanese spirit and ethos, so fierce and ferocious unto itself, could simply not withstand the vaporizing of Japanese cities.  The emperor was made to renounce his divinity, and God was dead.  Technology can do that to you.  If the chips get down, it will do the same to any fanaticism in the service of Allah.  The faith and culture of the "greatest generation" that scorched the Japanese was a weaker faith and culture.  The fighter planes of the kamikaze pilots had "ye are gods who are free from all human longings" inscribed on them.  The nose art of American bombers had Vargas girls.

[Lydia Purpuraria]

Asia has surpassed us already, we're just pretending it hasn't happened. The future of the world's economy lies there.

But isn't Asia dependent on Western consumerism for much of its economy?  This is a global network of a paradigm, and no regional economy is self-sufficient.  The fact that Americans are largely vapid, wasteful, and consumerist drives many an Asian sector.

The West without its culture and faith will collapse even if it has all the technology in the world. It becomes an empty shell.

Islam wasn't supposed to take over the Persian and Roman empires with just a bunch of camels, scimitars and bows and yet they managed it. Ideas win in the long run, not money and technology.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki changed all that.  The noble Japanese spirit and ethos, so fierce and ferocious unto itself, could simply not withstand the vaporizing of Japanese cities.  The emperor was made to renounce his divinity, and God was dead.  Technology can do that to you.  If the chips get down, it will do the same to any fanaticism in the service of Allah.  The faith and culture of the "greatest generation" that scorched the Japanese was a weaker faith and culture. The fighter planes of the kamikaze pilots had "ye are gods who are free from all human longings" inscribed on them.  The nose art of American bombers had Vargas girls.

Good points.

The fighter planes of the kamikaze pilots had "ye are gods who are free from all human longings" inscribed on them.  The nose art of American bombers had Vargas girls.

This is quite the juxtaposition you've depicted here, PdR! 

[Heinrich]

The faith and culture of the "greatest generation" that scorched the Japanese was a weaker faith and culture.  The fighter planes of the kamikaze pilots had "ye are gods who are free from all human longings" inscribed on them.  The nose art of American bombers had Vargas girls.

I come to respond, not to defend the Empire of Usury against the pagan land of the divine wind. I won't even defend the generation that gave us FDR and all his trappings. However, the majority of the American fighting men were devout Catholics and even honest heretics. Not sure how living in bamboo huts in the 20th century and cutting off the pinky finger for missing a math problem is school is superior.

[Mono no aware]

I come to respond, not to defend the Empire of Usury against the pagan land of the divine wind. I won't even defend the generation that gave us FDR and all his trappings. However, the majority of the American fighting men were devout Catholics and even honest heretics. Not sure how living in bamboo huts in the 20th century and cutting off the pinky finger for missing a math problem is school is superior.

The bamboo huts of the rural Japanese peasantry would not have been much different from the ramshackle cabins of indigent hillbillies in Appalachia, or the tar-paper shacks of the descendants of slaves in the deep South.  Rustic poverty afflicts most nations.

In terms of faith, you raise a good point.  There were doubtless many devout Catholic and Protestant soldiers on our side.  But in a land of religious pluralism and freedom of religion, one's faith is not as intrinsic to one's nationalism as the rites of Shintoism and Buddhism were to the Japanese.  I think their culture was more of a seamless garment.  Not monoform, but an organic growth and a hallowed tradition that you don't get with ideas of melting pots and love of novelty in a country founded only a couple centuries ago on revolution and vague deistic mentions of a "creator" in the documents.

Also, in terms of the Catholics, Vatican II was just two short decades away.  I'm not saying the generation that fought WWII didn't have the faith, but I think there's some truth to the theory that their faith was fideistic, and learned from rote memorization of things that had lost a lot of meaning in the modern age.  Purely anecdotal, but my mother and her seven siblings all testified to this, and they kept or loss their faith to varying degrees (from sedevacantist to Novus Ordo to atheist).  One thing they all agreed on was that things like "Q. Who made me?  A. God made me" didn't do much for them.

One explanation for the insanity of Vatican II is simply that the ecclesiastics' hold on the faithful had been slipping away in the previous decades, and they were grasping desperately for ways to remain relevant.  Not that they succeeded—it was obviously a colossal failure.  But it points backwards to previous failures.  I realize some see it as a sudden rupture: everything had been great before, and Vatican II was the result of a diabolical infiltration: marranos, Communists, Freemasons, Luciferians, &c.  And I realize the statistics show Mass attendance and vocations in good shape before the council.  However, I think the concern was that when the surface was scratched, the faith of many Catholics was superficial or obligatory or merely a cultural vestige.

[Heinrich]

I come to respond, not to defend the Empire of Usury against the pagan land of the divine wind. I won't even defend the generation that gave us FDR and all his trappings. However, the majority of the American fighting men were devout Catholics and even honest heretics. Not sure how living in bamboo huts in the 20th century and cutting off the pinky finger for missing a math problem is school is superior.

The bamboo huts of the rural Japanese peasantry would not have been much different from the ramshackle cabins of indigent hillbillies in Appalachia, or the tar-paper shacks of the descendants of slaves in the deep South.  Rustic poverty afflicts most nations.

In terms of faith, you raise a good point.  There were doubtless many devout Catholic and Protestant soldiers on our side.  But in a land of religious pluralism and freedom of religion, one's faith is not as intrinsic to one's nationalism as the rites of Shintoism and Buddhism were to the Japanese.  I think their culture was more of a seamless garment.  Not monoform, but an organic growth and a hallowed tradition that you don't get with ideas of melting pots and love of novelty in a country founded only a couple centuries ago on revolution and vague deistic mentions of a "creator" in the documents.

Also, in terms of the Catholics, Vatican II was just two short decades away.  I'm not saying the generation that fought WWII didn't have the faith, but I think there's some truth to the theory that their faith was fideistic, and learned from rote memorization of things that had lost a lot of meaning in the modern age.  Purely anecdotal, but my mother and her seven siblings all testified to this, and they kept or loss their faith to varying degrees (from sedevacantist to Novus Ordo to atheist).  One thing they all agreed on was that things like "Q. Who made me?  A. God made me" didn't do much for them.

One explanation for the insanity of Vatican II is simply that the ecclesiastics' hold on the faithful had been slipping away in the previous decades, and they were grasping desperately for ways to remain relevant.  Not that they succeeded—it was obviously a colossal failure.  But it points backwards to previous failures.  I realize some see it as a sudden rupture: everything had been great before, and Vatican II was the result of a diabolical infiltration: marranos, Communists, Freemasons, Luciferians, &c.  And I realize the statistics show Mass attendance and vocations in good shape before the council.  However, I think the concern was that when the surface was scratched, the faith of many Catholics was superficial or obligatory or merely a cultural vestige.

We simply have to come to an understanding, however, that comparing even the assumed superficiality of the True Faith to a fake religion en masse within a highly fatalistic society is like comparing a bruised apple to a squished banana on Arkansas asphalt in August. One piece of fruit has the sweetness of Truth, albeit in a state of decay, yet still infinitely pleasing to the Almighty with one devout Ave Maria. The sizzling, onyxed potasium, on the other hand won't even attracted soul chickens. In other words, one devout Catholic on our side is worth more that 10 divisions of fake religion bushidos on the other, no matter how naturally ordered.

[Mono no aware]

We simply have to come to an understanding, however, that comparing even the assumed superficiality of the True Faith to a fake religion en masse within a highly fatalistic society is like comparing a bruised apple to a squished banana on Arkansas asphalt in August. One piece of fruit has the sweetness of Truth, albeit in a state of decay, yet still infinitely pleasing to the Almighty with one devout Ave Marai. The sizzling, onyxed potasium, on the other hand won't even attracted soul chickens. In other words, one devout Catholic on our side is worth more that 10 divisions of fake religion bushidos on the other, no matter how naturally ordered.

If we are comparing the truth of one faith to the falsity of another, then yes, the true faith is the superior.  My comment was merely on the cohesive nationalist aesthetics of Japan versus the secularo-religious paradigm of the United States.  In any case, both societies devolved, because the Western power won and it Westernized the other.  Perhaps that was the will of the Almighty.  Whether the U.S. triumphed in the Pacific theater because Catholics were praying for it, I am unqualified to determine.  Pax.

[Lydia Purpuraria]

[Bassline attributed to ]

[DigitalLogos]

The Hillbilly Thomists released another album this year. I loved their first one.

This is my favorite track off of it so far.

[mikemac]

They are good.  I had to hear some more of them.  They do a good job of "Over Jordon".

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVTOUWhox-w[/yt]

[mikemac]

Actually it's not called "Over Jordon", it's called "Wayfaring Stranger".  The best version that I've heard of it is done by Hayde.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWIaeQFcbYg[/yt]

[Tennessean]

[yt][/yt]

[red solo cup]

[DigitalLogos]

New Alan Jackson song. I'm really loving this.

[Tennessean]

Alan Jackson's been away for a minute. Glad he's back, because I don't recognize country. I have to listen to the Mexican stations just to hear something close.