For the extreme, for the beta male whose life is already in ruins and can’t do any worse, move to a new city, at least 1000 miles from your home. You don’t want it to be easy to go back. For the advanced version, move overseas. Everyone who knows you as a total skeezy loser is now gone, and you are free to tell people you are the man that you’ve always wanted to be. Since they don’t know any better, they take you at your word, while you act the part accordingly. Soon enough, you actually ARE this man, and you can’t believe everyone fell for it. You are now getting laid and have cool friends. Mission accomplished.
The downside is being far away from your old friends and your family. Some people are just homebodies and can’t hack it, and will cry every night if they’re not in the place they happened to grow up. Oh, well. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Which do you want more, to stay in a comfortable social-poverty that will never change for the rest of your life, or make a radical change and start getting actual attractive women to willingly submit themselves to your every desire?
* Turn off your TV. All current TV and movies are propaganda meant to induce sheep like depressed isolation from others. Same goes for current music, most is super faggy beta shit. Same goes for porn, the eskimos are pushing hard to make us think that cuckold and interracial mandingo porn is what women want, and to make us feel like we aren’t good enough. Also the classics never go out of style for a reason, check out old (pre 1960) movies and books for your entertainment fix.
Socialize. Just go outside.
Game all girls. ALL. From 5 year olds to 80 year olds, even your mom and your sister. Good practice and they all enjoy it. They should be giggly when you come around.
Fuck yes to lifting. More testosterone and the gainz will give you confidence.
Get a hobby. Just got a springer 1911, taking girls shooting is a great date demonstrates mastery and your outdoors being active.
* A badass haircut that shows style and assholery is the SS/fascist/Nazi cut. There are a few versions of it, but they are all distinctly for pure and handsome white males, which should warm your shitlord heart.
* LBF, I’d put weightlifting no higher than #2. For immediacy & urgency, #1 is always going to be putting yourself into the DIRECT PHYSICAL PROXIMITY OF THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES. You can’t get laid by your computer, but you can get laid with that cute nurse when you’re volunteering in the hospital on evening shift, or by that cute lifeguard at the swimming pool if you work for Parks & Recreation, or by that cute sales gal at the mall if you’re a security guard. DIRECT PHYSICAL PROXIMITY. Then once in their direct physical proximity, just start saying sh!znat like “Hello!” in a masculine voice.
* Good point about facial hair. When I’m on vacation I get tan and only shave once every three or four days. Girls stare at me from across the street, much more than when I’m pale and clean-shaven. Even if I eat a huge lunch that makes my gut stick out, they can’t look away.
You can take it too far though: after a week, stubble becomes a beard, and interest drops off a cliff. Wierd how it happens, but you can notice it. I can’t imagine how all these hipsters get any poon: they must be jerking off.
And don’t dress like a boy. A stylish shirt launches more gushes than six-pack abs. Wear a shirt with a collar, and trousers even in summer. Shorts and T-shirts are for when you’re changing your oil. If in doubt, ask yourself… WWDDW.
What would Don Draper wear?
In one episode he gets a 3am booty call and gets out of bed and puts on a suit.
Her (giggling): Do you sleep in that?
DD (stone-faced): I’m vain.
*Sex*
* Approach everyone. Once cuties start giving you attitude you’re on the right track.
* Embrace and live by the Platinum Rule – DO WHATEVER YOU REALLY WANT TO DO WHENEVER YOU WANT TO DO IT. Tattoo this on the inside of your forehead.
Now in the short term you may need to work up to be in a position to execute on the Platinum Rule, but that is living by the ethos of the rule. Go and live by it.
* “It’s amazing how much of this natural attitude is beaten out of young white boys via parents, church, society, school.”
You raise a good point. But as a father it is a trick to balance things right. I want to instill White values in my 9 year-old son without turning him into a docile beta with a herd mentality.
Hard work? Yes, I want to teach my son the value of putting his best effort into his endeavors, of a job well-done, of the satisfaction that comes from solving a difficult problem or building something from nothing.
Sacrifice? Yes, I want to teach my son that some sacrifices now will pay off later; the pain of getting hurt while training jujitsu, saving his money for something big and more expensive rather than blowing it on lots of little things right away, doing things for your family because you love them.
I’m trying to work in the appropriate dose of some jerk-boy mentality into my son’s upbringing, but it’s a tricky balance in my experience so far.
There is a time and place for ZFG, but “do whatever you want whenever you want to do it” isn’t a good lesson.
After all, I’m trying to raise a White man, not a nigger.
Posted inDating|Comments Off on How Can A Beta Male Change His Life?
Chaim Amalek writes: “The goyim need an ADL of their own. But what can be the Goldman Sachs of the goyim? The goyim also need a movie studio or two of their own making white-friendly entertainment.”
Comment: Team White gets to decide what are its interests.
Team White has decided that too many migrants have come into Europe.
That’s it, case closed. We have decided that there are too many of them.
The fact that someone disagrees with this summary statement of White interests – that someone disagrees with this, does not alter it! That disagreement only and simply indicates that there are different interests, for different groups of people. But we already knew that.
Or perhaps White people are only just now LEARNING that different groups of people have different interests – and that Team White has its own.
White people have their own interests. Those White people who want to be White, have decided that there are too many foreigners in their countries.
What more is there to say? For so long now, White people have not recognized, much less promulgated, their own interests!
White people have had a serious crisis of identity. They have forgotten who they are. And but now they are remembering.
We say that we don’t want any more foreigners living amongst us, and that there are already too many.
If someone feels differently about the situation, that is their business – but it would be courteous of them to participate in the Conversation as an adult, and respect the stated positions of the other participants.
So i will repeat. The stated position of White people in their own lands, is that there are too many foreigners living among them. White people will not accept any more, and further, will not accept those already there.
Comment: “They grew up behind The Wall which Stalin had built – the Wall which protected them from The Poz.”
From Breitbart: East European political leaders and their media allies have attacked ‘politically correct’ Germans in the wake of the New Year’s Eve migrant sex assaults in Cologne and other cities, labelling the assailants “nothing but hyenas”.
In a huge “we told you so” gesture, politicians from across Eastern Europe have turned their fire on the German state’s welcoming and tolerant attitude to the migrant crisis. Having warned Chancellor Merkel that her actions and the politically correct tyranny of media opinion risked bringing Europe to ruin, they now feel vindicated by events in Cologne, reports Spiegel Online.
Robert Fico, the left-nationalist Prime Minister of Slovakia, told a televised debate that the media plays down the problem as migrants are a “protected species”. Using Cologne to support his argument, he has called for an urgent EU summit to deal with the cultural and security issues thrown up by the ongoing migrant crisis, including the creation of “parallel societies”.
Mr. Fico said Slovakia would not tolerate women being insulted in the streets, nor insular Muslim communities. In his support, Slovakian media outlets slammed the politically correct media in Germany and a naive “subculture of do-gooders”.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán feels equally vindicated. He used the occasion of his weekly radio broadcast to speak of the crisis in liberalism that meant reporting the sex assaults in Cologne had been suppressed in Germany. He said it showed that the media is more free to speak in Hungary than in the West, and that his government is right to be calling for a halt to immigration.
The strongest language was used by Zsolt Bayer, a friend of Mr. Orbán and co-founder of his Fidesz Party. Writing for Magyar Hirlap the journalist known for his trenchantly right-wing views described the Cologne assailants as “North African and Arabic animals – nothing but hyenas”. He added that Mrs. Merkel is letting her family and children get eaten by them.
Another Hungarian media outlet wrote:
“There are no bastards on this earth more abominable and more destructive than these liberal pigs who are digging Europe’s grave.”
In Romania, former President Traian Basescu said his country, like other Eastern European nations, would oppose a European Union quota system for refugees. He said Muslim migrants were brought up in the spirit of the Koran and could not adapt to European culture.
The leading Conservative-Liberal Romanian MEP Traian Ungureanu has described Mrs. Merkel and her open-door invitation to Germany as the “disaster of the century”. He also criticised “official censorship” of the events of Cologne he says prevails in Germany, adding:
“Every protest, every hint against gang rape is immediately classified as racism or extremism. It is the duty of public bodies to hide the facts and to deny.”
Posted inEurope, Germany, Islam|Comments Off on Hungarian Paper Slams Merkel: ‘No Bastards On Earth More Abominable Than Liberal Pigs Digging Europe’s Grave’
New York Post: Controversial firebrand Ann Coulter’s new book, “Adios, America,” argues that fettered immigration is destroying the country by driving down the salaries of the middle class while increasing their tax burden. And it’s the elites on both sides — right and left — who are making it happen. An excerpt:
This is “Goodbye,” America. Adios. Paalam Na. No further warning will be issued.
For 40 years, the people have tried to tell politicians they want less immigration, but the politicians won’t listen.
Every single elite group in America is aligned against the public — the media, ethnic activists, big campaign donors, Wall Street, multimillionaire farmers and liberal “churches.”
They all want mass immigration from the Third World to continue. Both political parties connive to grant illegal aliens citizenship and bring in millions more legally, and the media hide the evidence.
Their game plan is: Never allow an honest debate on immigration.
Only in the case of immigration is the public systematically lied to from every major news outlet. They tell us, for example:
Polls show the public overwhelmingly supports “comprehensive immigration reform.”
No poll shows this. The Left uses polls to manipulate public opinion, rather than quantify it. Typical is a Brookings Institution Poll that asked respondents to choose between two ways to solve the illegal immigration problem: “Arrest and deport all those who are here illegally” or “Provide an earned path to citizenship.” Absolutely no one has proposed that we deport all those here illegally — much less “arrest” them. But can’t I be against amnesty without voting for rounding up illegals at gunpoint? No! Look at the menu — no substitutions!
Immigrants are doing jobs Americans just won’t do.
Americans are perfectly happy to do all manner of jobs — they just won’t do them for $7 an hour. Unions used to care about that, but now they just want political power. Democrats want the votes; certain business interests want the cheap labor. So both parties have conspired against the middle class.
Amnesty will be fantastic for the economy.
Unless we’re talking about the Mexican economy, this is patently ridiculous. Adding another 30 million poor, unskilled, non-taxpaying, welfare-receiving people to America is good only for government workers and employers who refuse to mechanize their operations or pay Americans one dollar more.
Hispanics will never vote for Republicans unless they pass amnesty.
First of all, moron Republicans: If they can’t vote, they can’t vote against you. Second, Hispanics who are citizens don’t care about amnesty! They’re already in. They vote 8-2 for the Democrats because they like big government. In 2011, 73% of California Hispanics said they’d support a candidate who wanted to “secure the border first, stop illegal immigration, and then find a way to address the status of people already here illegally.” In a 2014 Univision poll, 58% chose “Require border security first” over “Pass immigration reform.”
Americans are under no moral obligation to grant amnesty to people who have broken our laws.
The American electorate isn’t moving to the left — it’s shrinking. No minds have been changed. Democrats just brought in a new group of voters whose minds don’t need to be changed.
Back when Democrats still claimed to represent working Americans, they opposed illegal immigration. Since being taken over by the Far Left, all that matters to them is changing the electorate to one that doesn’t mind liberal insanity.
A nation’s immigration policies are at least as important as, say, going to war. But the media have decided that who gets to live in America is none of America’s business.
The public can’t be trusted with the truth. Go back to the kids’ table. The grown-ups are deciding this. Anyone who challenges the elite consensus on immigration will be swarmed with blitzkrieg attacks.
It can be difficult to discuss America’s immigration policies when it’s considered racist merely to say, “We liked America the way it was.”
The media convince people to believe lies by the simple process of repetition: Diversity is a strength! We’re a nation of immigrants! It’s a crisis to have people living in the shadows!
I don’t mean to be obtuse, but why is it a crisis that illegal aliens are “living in the shadows”? I forget. We need to bring in more people who will drive down the wages of our fellow Americans because — why again?
It is not a crisis for Americans that other people have come into their country illegally and now find it uncomfortable to be living here breaking the law. It’s supposed to be uncomfortable to break the law. Perhaps illegal aliens should have considered that before coming.
Americans are being asked to respond to the world’s oldest joke: A guy kills his parents, then throws himself on the court’s mercy as an orphan.
How did all these illegal aliens get into “the shadows” in the first place? They weren’t kidnapped and dragged across the border. They came here. At most — and this is dubious — it’s a crisis for the illegal immigrants.
But “living in the shadows” is evidently better than living in Guadalajara, otherwise, there’s an easy solution.
Living in the shadows doesn’t seem to be much of a crisis even for them.
Americans are being asked to respond to the world’s oldest joke: A guy kills his parents, then throws himself on the court’s mercy as an orphan.
Any amnesty is an inducement to illegal aliens. If you choose to argue it’s not, I refer you to history. This is not the first time Americans have been promised secure borders in return for amnesty.
The 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli Act, also known as “The Charlie Brown and Lucy with Football Act,” was supposed to end illegal immigration forever: Give us amnesty one time, then: Never again.
Illegal immigration sextupled.
Contrary to everything you’ve heard, the only options are not: Amnesty or deporting 11 million people. There’s also the option of letting them stay in the shadows — or the same thing we’ve been doing for the last 30 years.
Americans are under no moral obligation to grant amnesty to people who have broken our laws. “The moral thing to do” is usually defined as “following the law.”
Historically, Democrats have found it fun and profitable to bully Republicans into taking suicidal positions. This latest push for amnesty is approximately the Republicans’ fifth mugging.
As with all disastrous legislation, Republicans are being told, “We have got to do this yesterday!”
Debate any urgent liberal demand long enough, and the problem usually just goes away.
The fact that Democrats want 30 million new voters is not a good enough reason to ignore the law and screw over American workers, as well as legal immigrants already here.
How about Republicans try this: We’re not giving you anything — not even half — because there’s no reason to do so.
Posted inAnn Coulter, Immigration|Comments Off on Ann Coulter: With amnesty, elites conspire against the middle class
The Freelance COTW winner is “Anon” (of course) from S. Sailer, ridiculing the “nation of immigrants” platitude and describing the emerging entity I like to call the “Globo-Homo Elite”:
The problem.
If the premise is ‘America is a nation of immigrants’, then America is no longer America unless it keeps taking in more immigrants. And it means immigrants are ‘more American’ than those with deep roots here. So, native-born Americans must reverse-assimilate to the world filled with potential immigrants.
It’s like if man is defined as a consumer, he must keep buying (even stuff he doesn’t need or can’t afford) to be a man. US, as currently defined, must keep consuming immigrants.
The elites prefer immigrants cuz the immigrants have no roots, claim, and memory in America that boost goy nationalism. Instead, the immigrants are merely grateful to the sector of America
(the globo-elites) that facilitated their easy entry.
Also, the immigrants’ children, being raised on PC, are useful as agents who spread America-style ‘culture and values’ back to their home countries. A kind of neo-imperialism.
Look at Mexico. Its ‘values’ are becoming more globo-Americanized with stuff like ‘gay marriage’ in urban areas.
In a way, the ‘anti-American’ and pro-minority aspects of PC fool the children of immigrants into believing that the New American culture and ‘values’ are on their side and empowers them against ‘racist’ whites. After all, ‘leftist’ Obama is president, a development that suddenly made so many nations pro-American even though Obama is merely a servant of Jewish-homo oligarchs who seek to weaken the national sovereignty of every nation but Israel.
In truth, PC is really designed to aid globo-minoritarian-elitism in every nation but Israel.
What does American-style PC do in Russia, Iran, Mexico, Vietnam, etc?
It promotes homos allied with the globo-US empire.
America is a nation of colonists, to which immigrants were later added, often at great social and fiscal costs. And never more costly than now, when the bulk of the immigrants are as far from the White European gene/culture norms as is possible.
***
There were more freelance comments around the alt-web worth showcasing. This one by Curle (at LOTB’s) is pretty funny. He recaps president Butt Naked’s recent State of the Banana Republic address.
Here’s a recap: blah, blah, blah
Diversity is our strength . . . blah, blah, blah
Did I mention that diversity is our strength? . . . blah, blah, blah
You know, few people remember that diversity got us to the moon . . . blah, blah, blah
We could go to the moon again if we were only more diverse . . . blah, blah, blah
If we become really, really, really diverse we might even make it to Mars . . . blah, blah, blah
Some people [dog whistle Donald Trump] don’t value diversity enough which you know, is our strength . . .
blah, blah, blah
INNER VOICE: Boy, the lighting in this place makes Michelle look pretty weird, especially when she’s clapping overly hard and has that frantic look on her face . . . blah, blah, blah
Some day I won’t be President . . . [INNER VOICE: Nooooooooo!!!!!]
“Diversity is our strength” is the Prime Lie of our age. Which should make it ripe for incessant, unrelenting, merciless mockery, if our comedians had any balls and weren’t just shills for the shitlib Narrative.
***
The Anti-Gnostic makes an astute observation about the ruling class putsch to overthrow America’s native White stock and turn the country into a soulless market bazaar.
In the space for “about me,” she wrote, “I [live] in the usa,
USA as flophouse/shopping mall. Ask a native white or black American in my home state where they live and they tell you, “Atlanta,” or “Dahlonega” or “Brunswick.” Americans are apt to express regional pride: the South, the Appalachians, out West.
But to immigrants it’s all one undifferentiated, AMERICA!, and they gravitate to wherever their patronage networks are or the green card-spouse, etc. and drift around from there. Never really settling in, adopting a consumerist, shallow, secular lifestyle. The perfect citizens for an all-grasping federal government and its mega-corp sponsors.
The math is quite simple. The more Diversity in America, the less America in the Diversity. But math class is hard, for Dems and GOPe alike.
***
Finally, a Very Special FCOTW goes to SOBL1 (you can follow his Twatter feed @SOBL1) for one of the pithiest and truest descriptions of the current US political parties.
The Blank Slate Left = The Boot Straps Right
The ignorance on the cucked Right about race and genes nearly equals that found on the Left. Race Creationism schmaltz top to bottom.
COMMENTS:
* Vaclav Havel wrote the following in 1979. Was he writing about Communism or about 2016 America?
Quote:
“The post-totalitarian system touches people at every step, but it does so with its ideological gloves on. This is why life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies: government by bureaucracy is called popular government; the working class is enslaved in the name of the working class; the complete degradation of the individual is presented as his ultimate liberation; depriving people of information is called making it available; the use of power to manipulate is called the public control of power, and the arbitrary abuse of power is called observing the legal code; the repression of culture is called its development; the expansion of imperial influence is presented as support for the oppressed; the lack of free expression becomes the highest form of freedom; farcical elections become the highest form of democracy; banning independent thought becomes the most scientific of world views; military occupation becomes fraternal assistance. Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing.”
* The internet has created the opportunity for a nationalism without borders. Globalism is here to stay. Blood and soil is over. We must adopt the nomadic, endogenous strategy of the heebs.
* Nonsense. This is our land. I’m starting to pick out the houses and property (and women) of the local shitlibs that I plan to appropriate, come the Nationalist Revolution.
* We white goys are the new Jews — tarred with the ineradicable blood guilt, greedy hoarders of ill-gotten resources, not permitted a homeland, restricted access to higher education and the professions, not permitted to defend ourselves during the periodic pogroms.
* We were the only people in the entire history of the species whose consciences were haunted by the conditions of their underclasses and their serfs and their slaves. And now they’re laughing at us for having been such hopelessly naive & foolhardy marks.
* As a young boy, I was very impressed by the American space program of the past. There wasn’t any diversity on the original nasa engineering teams. All the astronauts were almost the same too. Not that only Americans could make it to space, but I think they all had a very similar way of thinking about things which aided them immensely.
* This is why I pray that no Western country makes it to Mars under present social arrangements. I don’t begrudge the Chinaman or even a Congolese making it to there on his own merits. But at this juncture a US or France space program is sure to give the honor of of first human on Mars to a darkie or a female.
* The best way to defeat POZ is to give it a good shove in the direction it’s already heading. a guaranteed-to-fail womens’ mission to Mars would be a glorious fitting end to the absurdity.
* How do you counter a pretentious girl who refers to you as “child” and “little one” when talking?
* Agree and amplify. Call her mommy. Ask her “Will mommy please illuminate?” or “Will mommy be okay if she is gang-raped by Muslims? Will she still be the same mommy?”
You could also be sure to hit on other women when you are out with her and let her know she really is not all that meaningful in the first place.
* In addition to “Auntie” & “Mom” [even “Grandma”], relentless ribbing about her cats [or dogs – whichever she has]. How she’s getting her degree in Cat Lady Studies and she better change that cat litter and she really needs to get a blood test for Toxolasma gondii & ringworms & hookworms & whatnot. Also tease her about her student loan debt: “Now that you’ve got $250,000 in student loan debt, you’re gonna do what with that Summa Cum Laude in Cat Lady Studies – ride the pole down at Guido’s t!tty bar?”
* Laugh and walk away, saying “Goodbye, little girl. Call me when you’ve grown up.”
She’s clearly projecting her own insecurity about her own maturity. So use that. Keep calling her “little girl” and “silly immature brat” if she persists. But disengage and ignore.
* If you know how to read between the lines, AMC channel is very Sh!tlord. Also the reality programming on places like the Discovery Channel – Alaskan Bush People is addictive, and the Alaskan Trains/Railroad thingamabob is pretty good [albeit with too many nogs]. And of course Survivorman [although Les Stroud’s son is a pozzed out little punk & Stroud oughtta smack the sh!t outta him – I’d pay to watch an episode like that].
* Every war that has ever been fought has been between people who are diverse. They have never been fought by people over their similarities, never by people for being too much the same, but always and always only over their differences. Over people being to different. EVERY SINGLE WAR. Yet somehow diversity, with the very cognate word ‘divide’ in it, is somehow strengthening to you? No, Unity is strength, not diversity, not division. Unity.
* The 17th Century English Civil War was fought between people who resembled each other pretty closely. I suppose you could expand your diversity criteria to include religion. To my mind, the lesson here is that it’s hard enough to maintain peaceable order between people who resemble each other–importing people who are quite different makes a hard task even more difficult.
* Australia has been very selective in who is allowed to come in and are extremely good at catching illegal immigrants. The result is great wages. Wish we had that in the US.
* People of Middle Eastern race, be they Muslims, Jews or Christian (Gypsies, Lebanese like Carlos Slim), have conclusively and repeatedly proved that they are far too ethnocentric too live amongst people of European race in a mutually beneficial manner.
Frankly, Jews have done far more harm in Western lands than Muslims have, even if their support for immigration and multiculturalism is discounted. Their influence in entertainment, academia, media and entertainment caused the sexual revolution, the decline of nationalism and ethnic self respect on the part of European peoples, the removal of Christianity from the public sphere, and the demonization of anyone who objects to these developments. Their control of finance has consisted of series of mass thefts on a scale not seen since Joseph corned the market on food. Their influence on politicians has resulted in wars and foreign policy entanglements which benefit only Jewish interests.
Good fences make good neighbors, and the Mediterranean Sea is an excellent fence. People of Middle Eastern race should move back to their own side of the fence, unless they are willing to utterly assimilate and abandon their own ethnic identity for the ethnic identity of the land in which they reside – something which [Lawrence] Auster, for instance, never did.
According to Trip Advisor, there are 3073 reviews of the Dachua Concentration Camp, with an average rating of 4.5. That means excellent. Well worth the money.
Similar Things to Do in Dachau according to Trip Advisor:
* Dachau Palace and Court Garden
* Familienbad Dachau
#1 of 1 Spas & Wellness in Dachau
* City Pub Dachau
#1 of 3 Nightlife in Dachau
“Best Bar in Dachau”
* Weinraum – Culinarium – Vinothek
#2 of 3 Nightlife in Dachau
“Extravagant gut”
Shisha Bar Rotana
#3 of 3 Nightlife in Dachau
Posted inGermany|Comments Off on Dachau Concentration Camp – #1 Of 8 Things To Do In Dachau
Blog: I was very nervous and apprehensive as I waited for the bus, and a group of teenagers noticed my discomfort. One of the boys reassured me, telling me, in German, that they were all going to Belsen, where they apparently lived, although they were attending school in Celle. I wondered how it must feel to live less than a mile from the location of a former concentration camp where 100,000 innocent victims of the Nazi regime lost their lives.
I got on the 12:05 bus and told the driver that I wanted to go to Bergen-Belsen. He asked me in German, “Which one, Bergen or Belsen?” Although Americans talk about Bergen-Belsen, there is no such place today. Bergen and Belsen are two separate towns and each of them has several bus stops. Thank God, I knew the German word for Memorial Site (Gedenkstätte) or I might never have made it there because the driver spoke no English.
On the bus, I observed a sign that said “Rote Karte fur schwartze fahrer 30 EURO” That means that the fine for riding without a ticket is 30 Euro. A person who rides without a ticket is called a “black rider.” I wonder how long it will be before this term is changed because there are now a lot of African immigrants in Germany.
Posted inGermany|Comments Off on Last Bus To Bergen-Belsen
Far from tourist crowds and souvenir shops, the Buchenwald Memorial and concentration camp sits as a silent reminder of the horrific acts of Hitler and the Nazis during World War II. Buchenwald was the largest concentration camp on German soil, established in 1937. It is estimated that over 230,000 prisoners passed through its main gate, including 350 western Allied prisoners of war, and over 50,000 prisoners perished in the forced labor camp at the hands of the Nazis.
While it does not compare in scale to Auschwitz in Poland, the inmate camp at Buchenwald is quite large. Visitors can see the main gate, original fence line, detention cell building, canteen, crematorium and pathology department. The foundations and ruins of several original buildings can be seen as well. Expect to spend about three hours touring the inmate camp. Guided tours are offered for a fee, and an audio guide can be rented as well. Given the graphic nature of the camp, this attraction is not recommended for travelers under age 14.
Buchenwald is definitely well worth the trip from Berlin, and offers a unique experience that travelers will never forget.
Posted inGermany|Comments Off on Last Train To Buchenwald
My wife and I went by train from Krakow to Oswiecim this year. It IS very slow as some have suggested, but if you’ve used trains around Poland you’ll know that this is the general pattern anyway, IC “TLK” trains excepted. After travelling on a modern Czech train from Prague over the border to Katowice (with delicious meal of Goulash served at the seat by a charming and friendly hostess) the Katowice to Krakow train was a whole different kettle of fish, and the Krakow to Oswiecim service uses the same basic loop of lines (Trzebinia to Krakow was common to both) for much of it, as well as the same slow and hard-seated trains. As has been suggested before, there are toilets on the train (just as well for the journey time!) but no refreshments, and no first class accommodation either in many (but not all) cases. (Note to smokers: generally the whole train piles out at Trzebinia for a ciggie and a stretch of legs).
Slow going, yes – but also fascinating, as almost the whole journey, once you leave Krakow and the suburbs, is a completely different experience for those used to French/German/Swiss – even the less flashy commuter end of Italian – standard of European railways: stations that are literally in the middle of nowhere and those using them have to traipse miles over fields and cross umpteen overgrown disused lines to stand on the few square metres of basic tarmac that counts as a station. Others with more of a station that is either red rusty or falling to bits. Factories, clearly abandoned, where once there was work, line the tracks. Dozens upon dozens of overgrown lines with just one in each direction still used.
I’d say those who are visiting Auschwitz and thus have a social/political history interest would find the railway journey fascinating. The chilling reminder of the Nazi regime at the museum contrasted with the decaying remains of Communist Europe that followed, just from looking out the window.
Posted inPoland|Comments Off on Last Train To Auschwitz
If I asked you what most defines Donald Trump supporters, what would you say? They’re white? They’re poor? They’re uneducated?
You’d be wrong.
In fact, I’ve found a single statistically significant variable predicts whether a voter supports Trump—and it’s not race, income or education levels: It’s authoritarianism.
That’s right, Trump’s electoral strength—and his staying power—have been buoyed, above all, by Americans with authoritarian inclinations. And because of the prevalence of authoritarians in the American electorate, among Democrats as well as Republicans, it’s very possible that Trump’s fan base will continue to grow.
Political pollsters have missed this key component of Trump’s support because they simply don’t include questions about authoritarianism in their polls. In addition to the typical battery of demographic, horse race, thermometer-scale and policy questions, my poll asked a set of four simple survey questions that political scientists have employed since 1992 to measure inclination toward authoritarianism. These questions pertain to child-rearing: whether it is more important for the voter to have a child who is respectful or independent; obedient or self-reliant; well-behaved or considerate; and well-mannered or curious. Respondents who pick the first option in each of these questions are strongly authoritarian.
Based on these questions, Trump was the only candidate—Republican or Democrat—whose support among authoritarians was statistically significant.
So what does this mean for the election? It doesn’t just help us understand what motivates Trump’s backers—it suggests that his support isn’t capped. In a statistical analysis of the polling results, I found that Trump has already captured 43 percent of Republican primary voters who are strong authoritarians, and 37 percent of Republican authoritarians overall. A majority of Republican authoritarians in my poll also strongly supported Trump’s proposals to deport 11 million illegal immigrants, prohibit Muslims from entering the United States, shutter mosques and establish a nationwide database that track Muslims.
And in a general election, Trump’s strongman rhetoric will surely appeal to some of the 39 percent of independents in my poll who identify as authoritarians and the 17 percent of self-identified Democrats who are strong authoritarians.
What’s more, the number of Americans worried about the threat of terrorism is growing. In 2011, Hetherington published research finding that non-authoritarians respond to the perception of threat by behaving more like authoritarians. More fear and more threats—of the kind we’ve seen recently in the San Bernardino and Paris terrorist attacks—mean more voters are susceptible to Trump’s message about protecting Americans. In my survey, 52 percent of those voters expressing the most fear that another terrorist attack will occur in the United States in the next 12 months were non-authoritarians—ripe targets for Trump’s message.
Take activated authoritarians from across the partisan spectrum and the growing cadre of threatened non-authoritarians, then add them to the base of Republican general election voters, and the potential electoral path to a Trump presidency becomes clearer.
So, those who say a Trump presidency “can’t happen here” should check their conventional wisdom at the door. The candidate has confounded conventional expectations this primary season because those expectations are based on an oversimplified caricature of the electorate in general and his supporters in particular. Conditions are ripe for an authoritarian leader to emerge.
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