Onward ho! End of year wrap-up and a look ahead to 2025
It’s the end of the year and so I’d like to wish a happy new years to everyone: here’s to the beginning of 2025. B said it best that 2025 saw a remarkable and precipitous decline of the West into tyranny and illiberalism.
Given the bizarre coordinated nature of every Western nation’s mirrored crack downs on fundamental freedoms like freedom of speech, the total delegitimization of democracy and elections, the absolute spiteful disgust that our ruling elites have shown to the common man, the farmer, the blue collared laborer, the wage slave—given all these things, and how remarkably coordinated they have been across the governments of the West, 2025 has taught us that the entire Western order must necessarily be taking direction from a centralized node of governance somewhere. That somewhere may be in the backrooms of the WEF or Bilderberg or what have you, but the rule by fiat from above is now clearer than ever.
Quoting Mearsheimer, B writes: “Most horrifying though is the breakdown of humanitarian concepts the 'west' once claimed to hold high. Mearsheimer says it best when he decries the the moral bankruptcy of the West”:
Given the West’s presumed commitment to human rights and especially to preventing genocide, one would have expected countries like the United States, Britain, and Germany, to have stopped the Israeli genocide in its tracks.
Instead, the governments in those three countries, especially the United States, have supported Israel’s unimaginable behavior in Gaza at every turn. Indeed, those three countries are complicit in this genocide.
Moreover, almost all of the many human rights advocates in those countries, and in the West more generally, have stayed silent while Israel executed its genocide. The mainstream media has made hardly any effort to expose and challenge what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. Indeed some key outlets have staunchly supported Israel’s actions.
That’s right—2024 was the year of unvarnished genocide, and what’s more: it was the total white-washing of said genocide by the bought-and-paid-for corporate media.
More than anything else, I declare year 2024 as the death of mainstream media. Never before was their bias, their criminality and total hostility to truth more openly obvious, more flagrantly flaunted by them. Scandal after scandal marred the last few remnant crumbs of credibility that remained, from covering up Biden’s clear dementia, presidential incompetence, and family crimes, to covering for Israel’s genocide all year long, with ‘creative’ formatting and syntax tricks, as well as lack of any impartiality or ability to question the State Narrative. They have exposed themselves as nothing more than an antiquated soapbox of disinformation and narrative control. This year was truly the long-overdue—and much-earned—death of mainstream media as an institution.
Virtually everything of note, any newsworthy revelation or exposé, was broken on either Twitter, Substack, or associated ‘citizen journalist’ haven. People are tuning out more and more from corporate legacy programming in general, whether it’s MSM or Hollywood or even major sports—with recent headlines reporting NBA viewership down by 50%, for instance.
I proposed a couple articles ago how the world is now entering a period of strongman lawlessness due to the systemic breakdown of previous international institutions and guardrails which have held some semblance of ‘order’ across the globe. Now it’s becoming nearly passé to speak of, and actually carry out, illegal seizures of land, occupations, etc. From Israel’s demarche on Syrian territory, to Turkey’s brazen calls for revanchism, to Trump’s sudden and inexplicable rousts around the annexation of Greenland and Canada—the lack of international order, the lack of spine in ‘rule of law bastions’ has become nearly surreal.
Megacorporations are merging to become dominant monopolies only to stand a chance against other all-powerful consortiums, all the while just the top ten stocks now control nearly 40% of the stock market:
Power is consolidating into ever fewer hands as the world teeters on the brink of chaos.
Taibbi calls it America’s ‘craziest ever’ year, citing Washington Post’s year-end wrap up:
WaPo echoes my opening:
Millions of Americans have stopped following the news, many because they’re so certain it will be bad news that they’re tuning out. They’re missing out. It’s easy to lose sight of the reality that it’s never been a better time to be alive. The poorest Americans have access to better medical care than the richest royals did a century ago…
No, they’re not missing out—and no, they’re not tuning out because of an absurd fear of ‘bad news’—they’ve tuned you out because you’re criminal shysters.
Oddly, WaPo includes this uncharacteristic admission of Russia’s innocence:
Also important is admitting mistakes and learning from them. The Editorial Board was wrong to assume that Russia sabotaged the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline. It turns out, as The Post has reported, that the likeliest scenario is that Ukrainians, hoping to lessen European dependence on Russian gas, were behind the attack. That doesn’t mean Washington should cut off Kyiv, but it’s important to call out allies as well as adversaries when they err.
Well, if that ain’t jarring!
The truth is, the older fogeys among us will recall that current events are in many ways a replay of the turbulent ‘70s. Even the institutional march toward anti-democratic norms began with the Trilateral Commission’s seminal The Crisis of Democracy of 1975, whose central thesis was:
The report observed the political state of the United States, Europe and Japan, and says that in the United States the problems of governance "stem from an excess of democracy" and thus calls for actions "to restore the prestige and authority of central government institutions."
Read that again: the problems in our society stem from an “excess of democracy”, according to the elites who govern our world. Recall the Trilateral Commission was founded by Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski—the latter being worth remembering particularly on a day of global mourning for Jimmy Carter’s death: Brzezinski was Carter’s National Security Advisor.
As such we can view today’s events as informed by the uncertain ‘70s, with the stagflation of the ‘80s likely to ensue as our own direct parallel continuation—lest Trump, by some miracle, shake things up. And just like globalism, offshoring, and the dotcom tech bubbles momentarily shored things up in the ‘90s, our tech elites are scrambling for some form of AI tech boom to resuscitate the corpse of our economies.
But there’s great reason to be excited for the future in 2025: the fall of many tyrannical, anti-democratic Atlanticist regimes is nigh. Whether it’s the leaders themselves or the legislative chambers, everything from Canada, France, Germany, UK, and beyond are in turmoil—and that can only be a good thing, as the tide of populist forces may again make record inroads. 2025 will likely be the year the opposition parties can no longer simply be ignored or swept under the rug, as AfD, FPO, PVV, NR, Reform UK, et al, continue to surge ahead against all illegal roadblocks and sabotage. We’re already beginning to see the dominoes fall in the peripheries—Georgia, Romania, South Korea, nearly Moldova, etc. The stalwarts are next, with Trump’s demolition of the Democratic Party being the first ice breaker.
Recall that the whole system hangs by a tiny frayed thread and all it takes is one small push from Trump to demolish the last remnant of European ‘integrity’ while energizing the opposition toward a final breakthrough. With the European energy crisis now coming to a head vis-a-vis Ukraine’s gas cancellations, Fico’s reprisal, Trump’s threats for Europe to buy American energy, things are set to sizzle in 2025.
Most importantly, 2025 will bring us the most decisive and significant culminating apex of the Ukraine War saga. One way or another, events that happen next year will determine the fate of not only Ukraine, but all of Europe and humanity as a whole. That’s because the Ukrainian war, as is known, is little more than the proxy conflict for a wider global metaphysical clash of opposing belief systems and ideological architectures: the victor will determine the direction for all humanity for the next century. Like many major conflicts, however, there exists a non-zero chance that no “clear” victory will emerge from this conflict, but rather something more confused, incomplete, and unsatisfying, which will be analyzed and dissected for decades to come.
As a final send off, I’d like to share two New Years addresses which highlight the split. First is Zelensky, who dedicated the latter half of his lengthy screed to garbing the famed Soviet Motherland monument in the flags of Atlanticist countries.
AI dubbed version:
And most importantly, there was a slew of boilerplate speeches from all the top figures—Putin, Medvedev, Belousov, et al. But only one address captured the real tension and anxiety of the times, that of ex-DPR Prime Minister Alexander Borodai.
I’d like to leave you with this more balanced reflection on the state of things. Though it may sound solemn, or even ominous, it is the only take which accounts for the true seriousness of the dangers lying ahead, and the momentous changes yet to come; if there’s only one address you listen to today, let it be this one:
That said, Happy New Year to all. Here’s to 2025!
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That talk of Borodai was chilling. I know this is odd, since I am a retired US infantryman. But my thoughts are with my Russian brothers in the field. Victory against the Nazi's and a quick return to your loved ones. I wish I was a praying man, but I can only extend my hopes.
Happy New Year, Simplicius. Thanks for all your hard work through 2024. Quite a year!