Jul 14, 2022·edited Jul 14, 2022Liked by Ryan McEntush
This post reminds me of the structure described by Strauss in "Persecution and the Art of Writing": McEntush's brilliant, painfully accurate and frightening analysis is structured in reverse: the key truths are at the bottom:
"The United States has systematically traded our own critical material supply chains, once the envy of the world, in exchange for a lie. Out of sight and out of mind, we declare environmental and labor victories while outsourcing the ugly side of modernity to the downtrodden around the world, subject to odious forces beyond their control."
It's obvious that McEntush is using some of Strauss's playbook because he knows that the truths he needs to tell will be met with hostility by our master class who control the narrative and have created the desperate situation in which we find ourselves--which McEntush outlines so clearly.
Other highly likely suppositions, ie that the environmental movements are almost certainly receiving substantial secret funding from Chinese Communist sources, and are without doubt aggressively advancing Chinese interests, are soft-pedaled and mentioned a few times but in a very subdued way.
The situation McEntush describes is an emergency!
We are on a fulcrum of history--this level of profound, pervasive control of the next technology is what causes changes in the players who dominant the current order: whether stirrups for fast-moving cavalry, oar-driven ships that can out-maneuver opponents, iron versus bronze and steel versus iron, gunpowder used to propel projectiles in cannons and hand-held firearms, steam power, iron-clad ships versus wooden ships, air power, missiles, nuclear weapons . . . China's control of these metals already suggests it's game over.
McEntush also makes it clear that civilisational self-delusion is the core reason why America and the rest of the progressive West is in such peril. Just as we now understand that the late Roman Empire fell from within, not because of suddenly superior Germanic tribes, American decline is essentially suicide.
And in sharp contrast to the purposeless, self-hating, endlessly squabbling West, the Chinese have been acting on their clear sense of purpose for over a generation: as McEntush notes, Deng commented on the strategic significance of China's possession of rare earths in 1992--before most people had even heard of the Internet.
We're probably not going to save ourselves, and China probably will rule the world by 2035, but we have only ourselves to blame, and full credit to McEntush for sounding this very clear warning while, late in the day as it is, there is still time. Kudos!
One comment. One. This needs political attention. It needs to be viral. While Roger Pihlke and others write compelling pieces exposing the many fictions in much of the climate change story, including the catastrophic scenarios. Not going to happen. And maybe the Western world will wise up and lead the reinvention and revival of nuclear power, which could make China's bet seem like so many other 'well, that did not go as planned' bets. Still, time to make this part of the political discussion. Seriously folks. This is frightening stuff. Far more than Al Gore's nonsense about boiling oceans. Inconvenient that he didn't/couldn't say where.
Control the Metal, Control the World
This post reminds me of the structure described by Strauss in "Persecution and the Art of Writing": McEntush's brilliant, painfully accurate and frightening analysis is structured in reverse: the key truths are at the bottom:
"The United States has systematically traded our own critical material supply chains, once the envy of the world, in exchange for a lie. Out of sight and out of mind, we declare environmental and labor victories while outsourcing the ugly side of modernity to the downtrodden around the world, subject to odious forces beyond their control."
It's obvious that McEntush is using some of Strauss's playbook because he knows that the truths he needs to tell will be met with hostility by our master class who control the narrative and have created the desperate situation in which we find ourselves--which McEntush outlines so clearly.
Other highly likely suppositions, ie that the environmental movements are almost certainly receiving substantial secret funding from Chinese Communist sources, and are without doubt aggressively advancing Chinese interests, are soft-pedaled and mentioned a few times but in a very subdued way.
The situation McEntush describes is an emergency!
We are on a fulcrum of history--this level of profound, pervasive control of the next technology is what causes changes in the players who dominant the current order: whether stirrups for fast-moving cavalry, oar-driven ships that can out-maneuver opponents, iron versus bronze and steel versus iron, gunpowder used to propel projectiles in cannons and hand-held firearms, steam power, iron-clad ships versus wooden ships, air power, missiles, nuclear weapons . . . China's control of these metals already suggests it's game over.
McEntush also makes it clear that civilisational self-delusion is the core reason why America and the rest of the progressive West is in such peril. Just as we now understand that the late Roman Empire fell from within, not because of suddenly superior Germanic tribes, American decline is essentially suicide.
And in sharp contrast to the purposeless, self-hating, endlessly squabbling West, the Chinese have been acting on their clear sense of purpose for over a generation: as McEntush notes, Deng commented on the strategic significance of China's possession of rare earths in 1992--before most people had even heard of the Internet.
We're probably not going to save ourselves, and China probably will rule the world by 2035, but we have only ourselves to blame, and full credit to McEntush for sounding this very clear warning while, late in the day as it is, there is still time. Kudos!
One comment. One. This needs political attention. It needs to be viral. While Roger Pihlke and others write compelling pieces exposing the many fictions in much of the climate change story, including the catastrophic scenarios. Not going to happen. And maybe the Western world will wise up and lead the reinvention and revival of nuclear power, which could make China's bet seem like so many other 'well, that did not go as planned' bets. Still, time to make this part of the political discussion. Seriously folks. This is frightening stuff. Far more than Al Gore's nonsense about boiling oceans. Inconvenient that he didn't/couldn't say where.