Yes, I'm back. Welcome Caribbean reasons episode 81 and I'm back from a kind of forced hiatus. You see after the last two or three shows I was contacted very insistently by Russia state authority for artists and I am now registered with them as a voice performer, categorization voice performer, traditional bard hip-hop style. And as part of my union membership, it's a matter of workers' rights. I had no choice. I had to take two-week summer hiatus. Part of my education, to meet Alexander Dugin in his dacha outside Khabarovsk. We went salmon fishing, he harvested salmon roe. He knew how to cure it with salt. We had oil wrestling. It was a kind of summer camp, many discussions, including his opinions on Atlantis and surfing. I think he calls it Atlantis or Atlanticists, I don't know.

But now I am back with a historical show about Robert Guiscard, and this very long show you will forgive if I do not use power voice, you are used to, I cannot for such a long time. Robert Guiscard, man of power, adventurer of William the Conqueror of southern Italy, or maybe should be other way around because it was William the Conqueror who took inspiration for his courage from Robert Guiscard. It is true. Every time William the Conqueror felt his bravery failing, he steeled himself with example of Robert Guiscard, who started his freebooting buccaneer's adventure sometime before 1066. Although in fact both men completed their Norman conquests around this time, so in the 1060s, but the 1000s is a great era of Norman expeditions.

Maybe if you take a period especially from 1050 to 1100, it's time of momentous changes in European and world history and at center of all these developments, for example, conquest of England, the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily and the foundation of states there, which if you take, for example, also the liberation of Sicily from the Muslims starting in the 1060s, this was really the first crusade, you can think. And then, of course, there is the schism between the Eastern and Western churches and the Norman's excuse me, are at the center of these great moments, and Robert Guiscard is the mover, the genius center of the center. But very few know of him now, the details of his life, and even lovers of history, so I have this brief introduction to him.

But first, I will spend some time on a segment or two, everyone now talking about South Africa, and I was thinking, in show I will talk of the Muslims, for example, the Greeks, the Lombards and the Normans and Where are all these now in South Italy or Sicily because at time I talk these are the main powers But now where are they the Muslims had been in Sicily for example over two centuries They had their own states there much of the island was Majority Muslim, but now where are they the ones in Sicily? I mean they disappeared their culture and self-identity as a people they were extirpated now, maybe Maybe some convert, I'm not saying they were exterminated physically, some convert to Christianity, they become Sicilian, others move to Tunisia, they become Tunisian, but

the Sicilian Muslims and their great city Palermo, now completely gone. The Normans, they had their own kingdoms in the south of Italy and in Sicily, the Lombards had states for four or five hundred years, longer than America has existed, not just the constitution but the settlement of America. The Lombards had been there a long time, I'm saying, they had forged union with the Italians so that you could speak of a kind of Italo Lombard population in all of the south of the peninsula, they had a stronghold at Salerno, it's a beautiful city, this is Salerno on the southwest coast of Italy, close to Naples and Amalfi, but Salerno, a beautiful city with palaces and villas and this, and they disappear as a state and then as a self-conscious people. There's almost no trace of them left.

Yes, there's Lombardese called North Italy and so forth, but nobody really identifies I'm a Lombard and so forth. At the time, they had existed as a people with their own names, and they had maintained their Germanic customs and laws. Right now, there are again just some personal names left. Actually, an interesting one is Bonaparte. That is a Lombard name, and so Napoleon Bonaparte is of ultimately Lombard origin. But I say this in my book. There is the dizzying revolutions and the changes of peoples and states and of lands. It's very disorienting when you look. appearance and disappearance, it made me feel actually sorry for the past. I feel a great sadness when I think of these things. So yes, I will ask, will the Dutch and English continue their existence in South Africa a

hundred or two hundred years from now? But even aside, and you will forgive me, this show will have many tangents and many asides as they come to me because I don't really like to do a book report or biography. You can go to book I recommend for that. For example, the book is John Julius Norwich, The Normans in the South in two volumes. I highly recommend. I have previous show on this. But in this episode, I will focus on Robert Guiscard or Robert the Fox. But to return to tangent, you look at past of Europe and you see colorful diversity of many peoples and states and principalities and is it really a victory for all the peoples I mention now to have melted, for example, into the Italian identity exclusively, or even the regional Sicilian identity.

And please forgive, I ask my Guido and Dago friends, to forgive this question. Because the same thing, of course, happened all over Europe, and maybe most shamefully in Germany, where there had been hundreds and hundreds of different statelets and princes and overlapping sovereignties, where so many old things besides that also were lost even after World War II, like Jung said, there were old men in Germany who knew where ancient things were buried and now this knowledge is lost. And I ask you, what is nationalism? This is a difficult question. And for the last few years, a certain faction, both in major press and also online among and ons in a different way, but there has been spreading, you know, the popular meme nationalism for every people.

Every people deserves its own state in this, nationalism in every nation. And if you think about this, it's just a senseless idea. And Yoram Hazony has been spreading this, if any of you happen to remember him, he was the conservative flavor of the month, maybe a year or two ago. Note you see he was interloper du jour I think in 2019 and since then he's been replaced by other face lords who seek to ride the frog on energy in other paths. But the fact he was spreading this idea should give you an indication of its origin because I will say I believe it is Israeli idea. In other words a lot of the outright discourse about nationalism and even a lot of white nationalist ideas have been spread at times in hidden form by Israelis online or by others unwittingly on behalf of Israel.

And I tell you, this is truth. I remember I was in 2000, I don't remember the year, 2008 or 2009, 10, I forget, in Argentina. I think for several years I spent there and Buenos Aires is crawling with Mossad. And to be fair, it's crawling also with Hezbollah and some others and who knows what they do to each other there, they have their reasons for being there, but I remember meeting an Israeli who posed as part Serb of indeterminate origin, but I know he was Israeli. You know, when I meet people, I often lie about my name and background so I can easily tell when others are doing it. He was using some of the same evasions I normally use to hide my identity, but I could tell he was Israeli from his mannerisms and his accent and so forth, and he was exceedingly

interested in my so-called hard right ideas. Now, I would never call myself that, that is slander. I am more, you know, I would say a center right or a moderate centrist even, this is what I call myself, but others use bad words about me like hard right. And so he was very interested in this and in steering discussion to matters of nationalism and white nationalism and ethno-states in this. And even before 2010, I mean to say, they have shown great interest in this for the obvious reasons. And I tell you it's a bad idea because this nationalism in every nation, which you can understand why they are pushing it, but there's nothing to answer, for example, should the Norman or Lombard or Greek cultures in South Italy, should they have been dissipated and absorbed into an Italian identity?

Not to speak of the other regional Italian, you know, so you meet a girl from Verona, she will say, I am proud of my city, I am Veronese, I like Verona. She might even tell you, I do not like the Italian state, there are still strong regional identities all over Europe, but should these disappear? And I concede, for example, in this case, that before the era of Italian nationalism improper, these identities like Norman and so forth mostly had disappeared. But still from the point of view of nationalism as such, where would you stand on that? Should those exist or should, because an Italian nationalist would say they should not exist. So how does this position, nationalism in every nation, help you answer?

For example, do you side with Catalans or Basques for independence or with Spanish nationalists and denies them independence, because both positions can be argued from point of view of so-called nationalism. What is the people that should have the states, or would you stand in regard to Hungarian or a secular minority in Romania, or on question of Northern Ireland? Many such cases all over Europe. How does nationalism in every nation, a Zionist doctrine, because that where it comes from again, how does it help you answer any of these difficulties? It doesn't? I tell you it does not because it's a simplistic abstraction of an ideological, universal kind, in a bad way, universal kind, and in effect who you side with has less to do with moral

principle of this kind in the abstract than who is on whose team. And this question may be not allowed to be asked, and you have always to look at historical context for this question, right? For example, so why Christopher Hitchens, why he sided with invasion of Iraq? Because he was a Trotskyist, and I'm not making this up, but this is his own words. He wanted to come to the aid of the PKK, the Kurdish Socialist Nationalists, because they had been on team left since forever, and he wanted to help his allies. Similarly, The Basques and the Catalans, I do not support their so-called nationalism, despite the fact that Catalonia arguably has a claim to historical independence and an even better economic moral justification. For example, they don't want to be drained by Madrid.

But I don't support them and I don't support Scottish independence either, because they are left aligned. They are mass immigration aligned, right? If you go to, let's say, even Madrid, you will see relatively few migrants, but Barcelona and Catalonia are crawling, just crawling with migrants and Pakistanians, this you no longer hear Catalans spoken, and also therefore there is a stench lingering in the city and so on, but they are also EU aligned. So in other words, the EU sees use in promoting these older and fractious smaller nationalisms, Because essentially it's breaking up major European states, this is how the EU sees it. The EU wants to break up major European states that could provide a resistance to its central

rule and then you replace them with these weaker dependent client entities that are not really states. They would be more like fad identities, oh I am Catalan and this. Does this sound familiar? Because this is what American state also does. For example, proliferation of fractious sexual identities and racial minorities and so forth. And so from point of view of practical politics, you have to side against these, which are all supposedly nationalist independence movements, right? But regardless, who you should side with is not answered by simplistic formula, nationalism in every nation. And of course, if you were to ignore the global team alliance, as I mentioned, there is also in each of these cases and many others, you could quibble almost without end on who has

the better claim to the more primal nationalism and so on. Does Spain come first or does the Basque or Galician identity come first? But nationalism is, in my view, more a method or form of mobilization internally rather than some team that you can orient yourself around. So for example, in South Africa, I support Boer nationalism, but I don't support Zulu or Xhosa nationalism. By the way, there is no coherent position where you could support both, although from the point of view of nerdoid moral abstraction, it should seem that you should. And I support a Boer nationalism of the kind where they continue to rule over the entire nation, not a rump state around Cape Town or Johannesburg or this, but the entire nation

and to have ownership direct over the natural resources that their ancestors won by their enterprising manhood in taking the land, rather than those resources going to corporations that belong to certain minority factions. By minority, I don't mean racial minority, by the way. Whether this pans out or not will be decided in battles, not by me or you saying something. And you will see soon when I talk on this show, the second half, about Robert Guiscard, whose people, the Normans, faced at least at one point a war of extermination against themselves and a battle that really decided whether they were to remain in Italy or would all have to flee or whatever. I think it's good that these things are decided by war, actually, and anyone, such as the

United States, any power like this that postpones the will of God in deciding these matters through open conflict is in fact imposing death on the world or any region where these conflicts are frozen. But maybe, I think, we'll not be much longer able to do this, America under Kamal or this. So in any case, regarding the troubles of South Africa, I direct you to Twitter, to two accounts. One is called Kobayashi's Basilisk, and he has a megathread of videos of happenings from South Africa that you will not see on television news. It's up to over 3,000 retweets, last I looked. And on the other hand, my old friend Loki Julianus has a good recent thread with a document of articles of prior riots in South Africa from some decades ago, because the province

now in disturbance has been at this for a long time, has been very similar to this. There's much you're not seeing. A lot of the violence is also black on black, because many blacks take vigilante action against filthy communists. They don't like them either, you see. So look, it's time for Sigurillo, I will be right back. Yes, something Western liberals sweep under rug is the suffering of particular black sub-communities and tribes at the hands of Marxoid despots that the CIA and England and the Soviets installed in Africa. The Rhodesian farmers, for example, did not have it too bad. They left the country, that's not so bad, they generally found good homes in England or the United States or elsewhere. But the Matabele, for example, the Matabele tribe was genocided by Mugabe and many such

things all across Africa and some of the blacks in South Africa don't want this to happen to them. I saw tweet from someone, I think South Africa or Johannesburg in 1960 versus today, two pictures side by side with the caption, what happened? Well, I tell you what happened, well, it's not demographics. Some of you may want to jump to that answer, right? Or even the left may even like that answer. They sometimes talk about demographic, but because the demographic was just as bad back then as now. So it's not the form of government, I think, either. It's not economic system. It's one thing, whether it's white supremacy or not, under whatever form of government you have. Where there is white supremacy, there is prosperity, order, and liberty.

And where there isn't, there are varying shades of despotism and despair and backwardness. Was it in Africa or in the Americas? But white supremacy is not quite the same thing as white nationalism. So anyway, that's a different and longer talk. But I recommend book if you want to see how and why this change happened, this decline, almost terminal decline of South Africa. You look R.W. Johnson, South Africa's Brave New World, the beloved country since the end of apartheid, published first in 2010, I think. And this is a normie-friendly book, if you want to aware a normie friend or family on problems in South Africa and why such a mess. Now, you remember in 2010, you still had people like Ginsberg of the Extreme Court, who died recently as a result of sex magics.

I performed the Portuguese Prosti, if you remember, but there were people like her who wanted to use South Africa as a model, and many people are finding clips of luminaries also of the Shibu establishment, who quite recently promote South Africa paper toilet parchment, or excuse me, is also called the Constitution, promoted as a model for America and so forth. I understand why Ginsburg did that, because she believed in colored third world revolution. The left believes in substantive things of this kind, while the right talks like Scalia about process and procedure. And Scalia's as good as they come on the right, but you see why there is no hope with the right, as it has been constituted so far. But it was obvious, of course, to anyone reasonable well before 2010,

what was going on, the far murders, Not to speak of the black-on-black violence, which also kills tens of thousands, but at least by then it should have been clear, and I'm not a big fan of this writer R.W. Johnson because he's an English who opposed apartheid. So you know, what did you expect would happen, Johnson, if you end apartheid? People have a kind of silliness. They believe in pure, natural right. They cannot accept that in this fallen world, and I'm talking from a purely liberal point of view now, which I don't share, but you can make this case to a liberal. We live in a fallen, imperfect world where your idea of natural right cannot exist in a pure form and bad things like apartheid are necessary because the alternative is worse.

Maybe you and I know these arguments, but you can remind them not to be such sticklers to moral principle. But regardless, for this very reason that I'm saying now, this book is good to offer to Normie because it's, again, it's by an anti-apartheid English who nevertheless saw what a disaster post-apartheid South Africa was becoming. So again, very good to introduce Normie to that. Now, I happen to think apartheid didn't go far enough, but enough about that. Now I found very interesting in the beginning of this book, when R.W. Johnson discusses the background of the ANC, and this is the black nationalist communist party of course, but their founders all studied in Moscow and speak Russian, Chris Honey for example.

Forgive if I repeat myself, it's more than 80 shows now, so some repetition is inevitable and is strange, as soon as I do a show I really forget what I talked about. I don't know why, but I try not to repeat myself ever, but it's bound to happen sometimes. So anyway, if you want to find the root causes of failure in South Africa, it's not hard to see it in such facts. What I mention now, the fact that the founders of the ANC all spoke Russian, it's the actions of international Marxism, which saw class warfare as only one branch of its activities, That saw Third World Color Revolution again as by far the most important branch, and the wealth transfer from the Global North to the Global South was its ultimate aim.

And I repeat, this is also the aim of the supposedly neoliberal ideology known as Rawlsianism, the followers of John Rawls, which are so numerous in a legal and academic world. But really what Rawlsianism represents is the inner victory of Marxism over liberalism, where liberal notions are repurposed to Marxist ends, and where liberal arguments are now used to support global wealth transfer that had always been the aim of international Marxism. So what gets now, for example, called CRT, which the opponents of CRT should really find their own and better words, why don't you just call it racial hatred, or if you cannot say anti-white hatred, which is what it is, at least call it racial hatred, do not use your enemy's pretentious language, but CRT so-called is just the application of this

Rawlsian-Marxist program within the boundaries of America itself, and will have as a final step the opening of the borders to 100 million African migrants. But the racial warfare angle was always part of Marxist world effort, and I would say arguably its most important tool as well as its ultimate aim, and it's interesting in this regard also that the ANC was funded by Sweden. So Sweden gave as much as or more money to the ANC than the Soviets even. And I say in a recent tweet you can find communiques from South Africa officials in late 1970s and after. And I mean major officials like PW Bosta who was later prime minister and at this time I think he was Secretary of Defense equivalent saying things like we have more to fear from the Americans than from the Russians

Because America has always been spreading this destruction and rot through the world And I would argue the United States more than Soviet Union is the proximate cause of what you're seeing happen now in South Africa As well as the massacres and the bloody civil war that will follow there It will surely follow there as sure as it will follow in the United States itself And this is not something I want, by the way, but the matter is settled with the racial and ideological mobilization of the past two or three decades, there is no way to get out of it now. And by the way, when I go back to talking about its Marxist origins and so forth, this does not mean that you can fight it now by pointing these origins out in, let's say, a middle of an argument in front of normies.

The genealogy of it, the genealogy is not so much important. In fact, you should perhaps not use the word Marxist as this. But that is its origin, and I have nothing but contempt, of course, for the GOP apparatchiks who completely ignore this looming danger of it's going to be an exceptionally bloody – it's not just racial – so people who think it's going to be purely racial war are wrong and then the other people on the other side who think it's going to be purely ideological are also wrong. It's a kind of racial ideological war such as you found in colonial Africa, an Afro-Marxist war you could say, and GOP apparatchiks who ignore this and talk about tax cuts and use the same rhetoric they had before Trump, they just try to go back to that. We know they are pathetic.

But also pathetic are their opponents on the so-called post-Trump right, which actually does not exist, or post-liberals, as they call themselves sometimes, who to oppose the pathetic RNC establishment, they talk instead about raising taxes, as if that will make an impression and makes them win, or they talk about tax credit for children, or how they will raise corporate tax rate, or banning porn, or use strange words like neoliberalism or engagement with socialism and class analysis and this. I mean, it's pathetic. It's a pathetic discourse. I talked to friend from ex-Yugoslavia, I would not say from where, and actually more than one friend from there tell me that America remind them in so many way of Yugoslavia in the 1980s, even the late 1980s.

So now you imagine idiocy of this fake discourse. If it's 1989 Belgrade, and you're talking about banning porn and raising the tax rate a little bit or cutting it a little bit. It's pathetic all around. The push against so-called CRT is the only interesting thing around right now. Rufo doing a good job, but it's only interesting insofar as it manages to mobilize white America to its self-defense, because I believe it will have to fight for its life. So regardless of what I say, I only have small comedy show and so on, but I know who is in American government. They are mentally ill, they are evil people who are frothing at the mouth for blood. And so it will be decided in war, and wars are decided in particular battles of various levels of intensity. That depends.

I was thinking it could be like Argentina in 1970s, but lately I come to think it'll be much more vicious than that, because there was no, there was not such a personal racial element in that as there is now. It will be some combination of that and Bosnia, I think. But it will be on the backs of chosen men, men chosen by divine favor to bring victory or not. That is what will decide the future, not what I or anybody else says. In this way, study of great military leaders of history are very important for men of action. I fear some of you do not realize how much, for example, confidence and perseverance it takes to win in such wars. Because even somebody like Robert Guiscard, who I talk on show, who had a life of almost

uninterrupted achievement, he had one almost uninterrupted rise, one victory after another, but at times he had various serious setbacks, frequent revolutions against his rule, frequent some major setbacks in battles in Sicily when he was trying to take it over. yet to juggle numerous uprisings and battles simultaneously. And I think maybe many do not realize the confidence and energy that is required for victory. It's about energy. For this reason, I've been very glad of example of Trump. There could have been no better example, Trump who showed such energy even at his age before the Grays poisoned him, or I assume, I don't know what really to neutralize him. But this example, shining example of energy, much more important than any policy decision or speech.

But enough about him and about this, I will talk about Giscard next. And on the other hand, if you would like to hear alternative theory for troubles right now in South Africa, I will mention just in passing at the end of this segment, I have a friend who wants to blame everything on the Afrikaner brother bond. Now before you dismiss this as a shit-lib feint, which was my first reaction also when I heard this, and this organization, many of you may know, is a fraternal society for Afrikaner nationalists, and in reality it's a secret society with also an outward face many such have, and it's widely blamed by leftists for all sorts of inequities and such both in apartheid in South Africa and after. But this friend's point was that this secret organization, the Afrikaner Broderbund, that

it arranged the constitution and the transfer of power rather cynically, with an agreement that its members would protect only each other and each other's property, but would sacrifice the common man, the run-of-the-mill Afrikaner, in other words, would be sacrificed, and that they would completely abandon all political and social protections for him. So I am not convinced by this, but I will see if this friend want to come on show and discuss this among other things. I think you could see how it could be true because maybe they calculated, well, we will end apartheid and this terrible international attention and pressure on us, but still manage to preserve our power and wealth and so forth. It's an arrangement very similar to what KGB tried to do at the end of Soviet Union when

And they said, well, let everyone else be fucked. The Soviet Union will fall apart, but it is our job as the KGB to preserve our power and property and that of party members. And that did not work out too well, and I don't know if this theory about Afrikaner Broderbund is true in the first place. I myself have always been very sympathetic to them, and I have known members and have liked them quite a bit. But I may invite this guest on my show. He say he read some book recently about this. I don't know. In any case, on next segment, I turn to more exciting topic of historic great men of power, Robert of Hotville, known as the Fox. I will be right back. Robert of Hotville, or you can pronounce it Hotville if you want, H-A-U-T-E-ville, place in Normandy, his family estate.

He became leader of Norman, you know, Hotville like Hotlanta, but he become leader of Norman Conquest in South Italy and he become the founder of states. And this question of what it takes to found a new state. The highest honor for a mortal man is to be the founder of a state. This is very important and you can learn much more about this, of course, from studying histories than from studying tomes of abstract theorizing about what is the genealogy of men and such. If you want to truly deconstruct men, you look at foundation of states and of religions. It shows you origin of men more than anything else. But nevertheless, I do not want to give you book report. My main source for this is what I told you before, the Norwich books, which you should

read yourself, but I think in the beginning it's worth to read the famous description that Anna Komnena, the daughter of the Byzantine emperor, that she gives this famous description of Robert. This Robert was a Norman by descent, of insignificant origin, in temper tyrannical, in mind most cunning, brave in action, very clever in attacking the wealth and substance of magnates, most obstinate in achievement, for he did not allow any obstacle to prevent his executing his desire. His stature was so lofty that he surpassed even the tallest, his complexion was ruddy, his hair flaxen, his shoulders were broad, his eyes all but emitted sparks of fire, and in frame he was well built where nature required breadth, and there was neatly and gracefully formed where less width was necessary.

So from tip to toe this man was well proportioned, as I have repeatedly heard many say. Now Homer says of Achilles that when he shouted his voice gave his hearers the impression of a multitude in an uproar. But this man's cry is said to have put thousands to flight. Thus equipped by fortune, physique and character, he was naturally indomitable and subordinate to nobody in the world. natures are ever like this, people say, even though they be of somewhat obscure descent." And that you can read from the Alexiad. And it's very funny what Norwich says about this, she says, her description fascinatingly combines the contempt of one born in the purple for an upstart, the hatred of a loyal daughter for her father's arch enemy, the admiration of any intelligent observer for unquestionably

great men, and an element of that uncomplicated sexual attraction to which Anna remained all her life deeply and unashamedly susceptible." It's very nice. It's a very entertaining book, by the way, with very un-PC observations such as on the characters of peoples when Norwich reflects on the fact. So there was at one point a figure of trouble to the Normans, and he disappeared, and people People guessed that they poisoned him and Norwich goes on a side about how, no, no, they couldn't have poisoned him because at this stage in their history the Normans were still very much men of the north and poison was not part of the repertoire, only force. Of course later when they established a court in Sicily, Norwich continues this, I'm paraphrasing,

He said they had adopted all the habits of an oriental court complete with intrigue and poisons, but at this point they were honest, forthright, frank Northmen and they couldn't have poisoned such and such. It's a very good book and very nice description that he quotes from Anna Komnena's Alexiad, a history she wrote of this time. And I will remind you briefly of historical background to these conquests I will describe. The Normans had been invited to South Italy by a Lombard supposedly to help protect pilgrims to Monte Gargano in Apulia, which was at that time an important holy site for all Christendom. And let me just remind you, because I will speak throughout show, but Apulia is the heel of the boot of Italian peninsula and Calabria is the toe of the boot pointing at Sicily.

But Sicily at the time had been taken already for two centuries by Saracens or Muslims who were using it as a base for raids not only in Italy but across all western world, I mean the coasts of France and so forth, and in fact they had even sacked Rome in the late So in some sense the invitation had been to protect both pilgrims and in general also the all South Italians from Saracen raids and this invitation supposedly took place in the year 1016 which is also the date of birth of Robert in Normandy. But in fact the invitation had a somewhat ulterior motive which it was given by Lombard noble and his intention was to use the fighting prowess of the Normans, which was by then already famous, but he wanted to use them to get independence for his fellow Lombards from Byzantine occupation.

So again, just to remind you briefly, the Western Roman Empire of course fell, the Lombards were one of the tribes that invaded overland about 500 years before these events and they were one of the tribes that stayed in the Italian peninsula. they had lived probably also in North Germany or Scandinavia. But they invaded at the invitation of a disgruntled Byzantine general, and they occupied various parts of peninsula, but they sconced themselves in the south eventually. And thereafter followed many struggles as the Byzantines or the Eastern or surviving Roman Empire, they tried to re-establish rule over Italian peninsula, but really they managed to hold on mainly to the south of it and to Sicily, which since antiquity had been known

as Magna Graecia, or the Greater Greece, and had been settled by Greeks since ancient times, which is why you know you have cities Syracuse, or you have Naples, Neapolis is original name and so forth, and why the people in this area spoke Greek and followed Eastern right Christianity. But like I say, they lost Sicily to the Muslims and they never managed to get it back. So at the time of the coming of the Normans, starting in 1016, you had these powers, the Byzantines, the Lombards, which is to say also the Italo Lombards, because after such a while, many hundreds of years, they had formed a kind of union with Italian nobility. Despite the fact that the Lombards had kept their names and in large part also their Germanic laws and customs and so on.

And then there was also the Saracen enemy in Sicily, on top of which you had the constant meddling and the interests of the Papacy that had lands, including in South Italy, and then of course of the Empire, which is to say now the Holy Roman Empire, the remnants of Charlemagne's Western Empire, which was ruled from Germania and which would occasionally cross the Alps with armies of various sizes to protect its interests in Italy. And generally, for legitimacy and recognition to be given, an emperor had the power to confer baronies and such. If you wanted to be a ruler, it wasn't just enough to conquer, you had to have it recognized by being invested by the emperor or the pope. And this is true, of course, not just in Italy but elsewhere.

It was this medieval overlapping sovereignty situation with many interests and factions vying, which is what I hope to return also to our world, some kind of multipolarity. Not because I resent American or liberal world order rule, although that too I don't like it because I think it promotes dysgenics and decay. But because I think there is such a thing as a virtuous disorder, political confusion where great men can come and have opportunities for action and adventure. And what struck me in study of life of Robert Giscard, you know, is the modern propaganda on this, on pre-modern life, because I was reading his life and there is such contrast in possibility of paths and opportunities as opposed to a modern man, and a modern man's

future is much more constrained and his situation is much more static, right? So the propaganda is the opposite. The Republican, I mean small-r Republican propaganda, is that in the benighted and obscurantist former times, the world was static, it had no progress, and a man had no opportunities, that he was oppressed and humiliated by entrenched powers. But that the modern world and the republics and its supposed freedom, that democracies bring progress, that they bring endless opportunities for advancement and for rising, and somehow The implication is that life is exciting and this, and it's just such a complete inversion of the truth, such a huge lie told by modern democracy, right? Because you see the life of Robert Giscard, but maybe even of a minor knight in his employ,

or anywhere else in Europe, someone who you would have never heard of, let's say. And not only is there nothing like that now, the possibilities that such a man had at that time, but I think it's even pathetic to call life what people have now. You know how some thrower around the world having a life in these, it's really an insult to life. A life is what Robert Guiscard had, or even one of his minor knights who is totally lost to history. He rose up from poverty and obscurity to become founder of states who defeated both the Western and Eastern empires, he held two popes basically hostage, he routed the Venetians on sea and so forth, and he did it all while enjoying himself. In any case, I take quick smoke again and I will be right back.

I think I may have spoken too swiftly when I implied that only the Pope or Emperor could confer titles. This, of course, is not true. Local nobles could do so as well, and often they did so illegally. They conferred titles that were not recognized by others, but generally a Duke, for example, could appoint barons, create new baronies, and these would have to be recognized by all if they were tied within this chain that rose up through the ranks to the emperor. But generally speaking, for extensive conquests of this type, especially where you despoiled others – barons, dukes, counts, and even princes of their principalities – for your conquests to be legitimized, they would have to be recognized by pope or emperor, preferably by emperor.

In any case, Robert Guiscard was born in 1016, the sixth son, I think of eight or nine sons to a quite minor noble from Normandy, tankard of Hotville. Griscard was his eldest son by his second marriage, but in the overall scheme, he was the sixth son, so he was not set to inherit very much at all, and in fact, there was not much to inherit to begin with, because look, now when you think this, when I say, oh, he was born to a noble, a shit-lib or a small-R republican might say, Bep, there you go, he was born a noble. Well, what about the serfs, everything you've said up to now regarding the great opportunities for adventure and advancement, that was only open to the nobles and not the serfs. Well, this is false. You know, there were many nobles and this was a rather minor baron.

He did not have a great estate and suddenly he did not have enough even to provide for all the children he had, so his sons mostly had to leave home to seek their fortunes or they would starve. And by the way, if you want to talk about serfs and so forth, the premodern world, especially in times of upheaval, many undistinguished commoners, I mean of undistinguished background, which discard wars for all purposes, but many of such became great men. I mentioned Cola Derienzo on previous show, I think he was the son of just a minor craftsman. Or in Japan even, you have Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who basically united Japan at the end of 1500s, end of a warring states period. And then even he invaded Asia in an early attempt at greater Asia co-prosperity sphere.

So no, actually, many commoners rose up in pre-modern time, and often they become ennobled for glorious military service and come to think of it, just to counter this modern republican against small r and progressive democratic slander, just to counter it for a moment, how do you think the nobility arose in the first place? Often through glorious military service you would get sent by the king to the edge of the domain and you would distinguish yourself and after winning a match you would become – you know, you would come for a noble title and you could rise up through that. After all, it's much better, I think, system of merit than when modern people talk about meritocracy and this IQ crap, which measures how well you do in office intrigue environment.

But in case of Robert again, he had perhaps at most a horse and a name, but not much other property to go on when he set out south across the Alps to join his brothers in Italy, which he did in 1046, so I guess at age of 30. So you can say, yes, this is an immigrant success story. He went south to Italy as an immigrant. Please tell Cato Institute this. He went there literally to do a job Italians wouldn't do, which, you know, the Normans were there as mercenaries, but they soon also became pirates, brigands, thieves, robbers. They inflicted pillage on the countryside, the peasants and the churches were burned to the ground, you know, worse than the Saracens pillage even, and they had of course been contracted to fight the Saracens, but now they became worse than them.

So you know, this is true, it's an immigrant story. So you know, the Normans were the big snoods. So anyways, the time Robert got to Italy in 1046, Normans had already set up two statelets, whose foundation I think I may have discussed on previous Norman show, I don't know. But basically, as a result of their illustrious service on behalf of certain local Lombard lords, they had been given two fiefs at Aversa and at Melfi, which are on the western and eastern sides of southern Italy respectively, Melfi being basically in Apulia, again the heel of the boot, the top of the heel of the boot, and it was to Melfi that Robert went because at the time it was ruled by one of his half-brothers, one of Tancred's other sons.

If you think this is perhaps another example of privilege, in some sense it is, as a matter of prestige, but not really as a matter of this brother, you have to think again, this brother would absolutely not help Robert, and Robert was even thrown into a dungeon because of fights they had, but he would help him out almost not at all. First of all, there were other Normans who were waiting for their share of land and who had a lot more experience, so it had never been tolerated for an upstart, just a guy who just arrived to get a piece of land and so forth. And second, they saw a brother often was seen as a potential rival, so to get rid of him actually and to put him out of sight, Robert was sent by his brother, the ruler of Melfi,

He was sent to Calabria, again this is the toe, to continue the Norman war and the raiding there among the Greek Byzantine communities. So again this is northern Calabria with Robert first sent on campaign, not quite the tip of the toe but you could think of the beginning of the toe maybe where Robert was sent to an absolutely fetid valley in Calabria filled with malaria, baked by sun, with almost no opportunities to expand or do anything. Many other men probably would have languished there, but he simply ignored his post and he moved to nearby mountain and started to raid happily from there. And it is in these exploits where basically he rose from nothing, he fought almost alone in the beginning, but by his wits and the strength of his sword and as a land pirate

or brigand basically, you know, he could make a wonderful movie just from this early period of his career. probably the most exciting part, the promising beginning. And this is when he acquired this name, Guiscard. It's cognate with wise. Guiscard, wise. Same as the fox or the cunning, because of quite a few tricks he played. But if I describe these tricks to you, you are used to watching Hollywood movie or thing like Ocean 11 and heist movie and this. So maybe your standards for tricks are very sophisticated, but basically it was setting up very smart ambushes and things like, okay, one of the famous stories was the Normans wanted to capture such and such monastery that was very well fortified on top of mountain. There were not enough of them. They couldn't capture it by force.

This was Giscard and his gang. So they would send some, let's say, to Norman. They would go unarmed and tearfully, They asked the monks for services for one of their compatriots who had died. So they go up the mountain, seemingly unarmed with a coffin, and once inside of course, it turns out inside the coffin there was a guy who was very much alive and he had been resting on the top of a stash of weapons under the coffin. So they take the monastery without a fight through trickery. And then there are many such abusing ambushes that Robert planned, so he acquired this name of Guiscard, and I will not go through all his rise to prominence, but he fought very well and very exciting skirmishes and battles with great energy, unrelenting energy, and

amassed wealth from raids up and down Calabria until the time came in 1053 that the Normans faced the greatest danger they ever had, the ones in Italy, I mean, an energetic pope, almost as energetic. Pope Leo IX decided to raise up a great alliance to kick the Normans out of Italy for good. There were many reasons he decides this, but basically it's because the Normans had been growing too strong, they were too smart, they were encroaching finally in the north on papal lands, and the condition of Christianity in South Italy was a complete mess even outside of the Norman problem. The simony was rampant, tides were not being paid, the rule of celibacy was being ignored completely, the Lombards at no time actually accepted celibacy even later I think.

And really the Italian population was sending disparate appeals to the new pope that the Normans were basically destroying everything. The Pope asked the Byzantines for aid, and he has litter basically saying that Normans were doing big snood chip outs. They are basically high IQ, big snood, well the high IQ makes all the difference, right? But they were burning churches, raising them to the ground, raping, pillaging, torturing, making it impossible for pilgrims, and all of this. So a gigantic army was amassed by the Pope from all over Italy, and this papal army included also several hundred Swabian Germanoid shock troops. They were frightening tall physiques. Think Neanderthal Styrian, like Schwarzenegger in his prime, the Swabians.

And remember, I didn't know this, but despite being northmen, the Normans were actually stocky. I didn't know this, but Norwich explains they were closer actually to the Greeks of Italy in build, stocky and strong and such. I mean, overall, not Robert himself, he was a very tall northman. But the Normans on the whole were stocky, whereas the Teutonic Swabians I just mentioned, the mercenaries at the core of the Papal army were all giants in this battle. And the plan was for this Papal army to link up with a Byzantine army that was moving up from the very south of Italy, from cities in Apulia that the Normans had not yet taken from the Byzantines. One of these cities is Bari. It's a nice city even today, but Bari

was long the last holdout of the Byzantines in Italy. So this is famous battle of Civitate. It took place in Apulia, near the city called Civitate. It's a very famous medieval battle. play June 17th, 1053, and it was really a war of extermination so that every adult Norman male had to be called because the stakes were so high. The Pope himself took part in the battle, very dramatic. I mean, think of the difference of this time when the Pope himself would take the field. Not part, but at least he witnessed it from nearby, the ramparts of the nearby city of Civitate. But compared to all the commander-in-chief now, they use the word commander-in-chief to make you think of Washington cross Potomac. But of course, American president and no other head of state takes part in battle.

But at this time, even the popes did. To much criticism, by the way, it should be said. Because after the disaster that the people are being cured, there were critics of this pope who said, you see, the pope should not have been militant, and this is God's punishment for the pope taking the field of battle and so forth. But this was not the last time a pope would fight. Later famously, Julius II, the Renaissance pope, he was also warrior pope. But what a difference I mean to say to these mother emasculated so-called heads of state or commander-in-chief, okay, compared to medieval Pope. But in any case, there was this immense battle for survival the Normans had to undertake. They were the ones who attacked first, they were hungry, they were running out of supplies,

and on that day, the Norman army attacked first on the right flank, facing the Italians and Lombards of the Papal Army, and they won quite a quick victory against them because Italians and Lombards did not fight well, they did not fight in formation, and Normans were extremely brave, physically strong, but also extremely disciplined in their ranks. So they quickly won victory on the right flank against the Italians and Lombards. And in the middle, however, it did not work out so well. The Swabians held out very strong against the Norman middle. They were giant men who fought with two-handed sword and with courage and discipline. The Normans were shocked by this. Who are the Neanderthal Schwarzenegger, they were tearing them apart.

So Robert's brother Humphrey led the Norman middle flukelessly again and again against the Swabian, Styrian Neanderthal, but nothing came of it until finally Robert, he leading the left flank, who had been in reserve, he entered the battle to help his brother, and one of the main chroniclers of this famous battle, his name is William of Apulia, who is chronicler in general of Norman conquest, he has to describe this an extended Homeric simile to glorify this event, the entry of Robert into the battle, because Robert fought like a lion in battle, and just single-handedly was crushing skulls, cutting them in half with spear impaling them and this in battle, crushing them, their throat with sword. And William Apulia has a wonderful line about how glorious victory was shown to go not to

the overgrown giants, but to those of more moderate stature, I'm quoting almost directly, so thereby glorifying, you know, man-lit victory again, although Robert himself was very tall, but the Norman as a whole were man-lit compared to the Swabians. So the Norman right flank now also joined the battle, they had dispersed the Italians and Lombards and they rejoined the fight and together they annihilated the Papal army finally and what was left of it because they had to annihilate it because the Swabians were so arrogant, they were actually the ones who had goaded the Pope into battle, told him do not negotiate with this Norman scum, they were so arrogant and fierce that they would not surrender even though they were mercenaries and also they fought to the last men.

All the Swabians were killed. So in this way the Normans won the Battle of Civitate, which Norwich and other historians also believe was as decisive as the Battle of Hastings in England. So in this case, although the Normans had been in Italy for some time, this was an attempt to remove them, but after this their position would never again be challenged in this way. They had never had to fight for their survival again. They had consolidated their presence. And the people of Civitate, seeing their victory, not wanting to be spanked by Normans, they handed over the Pope to Norman and, you know, they were actually extremely religious people. So although maybe someone else would have mistreated the Pope, they did not.

They treated the Pope with great honor and very politely, extremely politely, held him prisoner of sorts, while never calling it so, but held him prisoner at the city of Benevento, which is in southern Italy also. This was a papal city, and there were such things, you know, cities that had been granted papal protection. But in any case, this was the first time Robert held a pope hostage, essentially hostage, but it would not be the last. And the Pope was held and he was allowed to receive guests and exercise his papal authority and so forth, but he was not allowed to leave until basically an agreement was reached between the papacy and the Normans. And it would come to it actually some years into the future that the Pope would have to

turn to Robert and to the Normans as the champions of the church. And so they shifted from deadly enemies to friends. And I will be right back to, you know, I don't want to cover every detail of Robert's career, to tell you a bit more about his rights to greatness. So right now I must take a phone call with Hitler in Waldivian forest. I'll be right back. Come back to show. You will have noticed that in the all-important Battle of Cevitate, which was supposed to be a papal Byzantine alliance, but the Byzantine army never showed up. They never made it on time, and then they did not want to face the Normans alone, Not yet anyway, the Pope had been captured, so it was a moot point, but the recriminations that followed from the loss at Civitate,

recriminations, I mean, between the Papacy and the Byzantine Empire, this had quite a lot to do with why there was a schism between the Eastern and Western churches the following year, in 1054. It was not the only reason, of course, there had been serious cultural and theological differences Already, and in particular, the patriarch of Constantinople and some other of his peers, they didn't feel like obeying Rome. On the other hand, the popes were getting ever more arrogant, especially this pope, Leo IX and his type of reformer pope, who had promoted this idea of papal supremacy and infallibility that had not really existed in the same way before. For example, before Leo IX, emperors could interfere in the papal election. They had to approve it, I believe, and so forth, but that changed.

There was this new idea of papal supremacy, and the Easterners did not like this, the Greeks. The culture in Rome was also very different, very dogmatic and legalistic, whereas in Byzantium this Greek culture of disputation had never really stopped since antiquity, or even if it had stopped, the Byzantines wanted to roleplay at it, so they resurrected it. So in Constantinople, the love of theological speculation and argument, at that time this was taken to be outrageous by the legalistic Roman church. But the quarrel, the political quarrel over the Normans, who had not only inflicted the terrible loss on Papal Byzantine Army, but they were now taking over one small Byzantine outpost and city after another in southern Italy, and they were imposing Latin rights

and such things whenever they could. This added extra pressure because the Roman Church was okay with it, but not the Constantinople Church. So the pressures of this, they pushed the relationship over the edge, and then when three papal legates, they visited Byzantium in the summer of 1054, and it was exceptionally a bad match because on both sides you had the pure priestly types, which is to say bigoted human types. In other words, both the Orthodox Patriarch and the papal emissaries were very intemperate and dogmatic ideological men, and the emperor was unable to restrain them. He wanted alliance with the Pope and vice versa, but not possible because their representatives or emissaries were these types. So basically it ended with both of them excommunicating each other.

They used extreme language with, you know, the papal legate calling his opponents bestiferous pimps and Mahomedans and all this. And in fact, in theory, this event could have been ignored. It still could be ignored right now because Pope Leo died, I think right before this meeting, and so the delegation was no longer valid, and the Legates didn't have the power to excommunicate in this way, but like I said, the cultural, theological, political underlying reasons remained, so there was never any real unity again, even later when the Eastern Church made formal obeisance, I believe, to Rome, but it didn't matter, so they never united. It does remind me of this idea, though, that the theological type of man, the bigoted priest,

I believe he has ascendancy also in our time, and many right now talk about how this wook cult is a religion and so forth, but I don't think it's really a religion. I think it's rather that our world is so effeminate and corrupt that it allows priestly types of men to rule. So they do it through these various manipulations of language and of doctrine and really is this rule of dogmatism and bigotry, but not because a new faith is born that anybody would seriously want to embrace, it doesn't offer any kind of redemption or absolution or solace to anyone, but simply because our world with its faggotized office manners, you know, open conflict completely banned. This new poster, Valoric Fire, has very interesting theories about the duel and how the duel was

a foundation of so many conflict resolution disputes, you could say, was through the duel and that's a manly open way to settle a question. And instead, in our world, the duel is completely, could be an alien institution, and instead its office manners and its backbiting and this. And so by a different path, it has managed to raise this priestly type of man to a position of cultural, social, political prominence. So it's interesting question to ask. What do you get if you have a rule by this priestly type of man without a religion? And I think it's maybe something very much like what exists now. In other words, the priest can rule even if they're strictly speaking, no religious or metaphysical belief at all.

Norwich's description of these disputations in Constantinople led to the disaster break in Christianity, but his descriptions reminded me very much of the types of men you see now. These catty, intolerant, capricious, backbiting types. But when I look at Robert, on the other hand, or other Norman or Frankish or Greek adventurers of this time, it's almost like another world, you know, oh this type of man doesn't really exist now, I don't recognize him or if he does exist maybe I've known some people like this but they're playing video games and banging sleuth or they go into military but then they play video game and bang sleuth and become this and they're not seeing any opening for their talents in the kind of lame, safe, post-industrial world in the West now.

You read about them in history, men again like Robert, and you almost don't recognize, whereas I read this disputation of how the two churches split and I said, oh, I've known 20, 30 idiots just like this, you know. So anyway, now to return to story, by let's say 1057, a few years later, Humphrey, who had been the head of the Normans in Apulia, he had died and Robert had now inherited the leadership by a series of events that I don't want again to do book report and get into the details for you, but because the papacy was involved in a life and death dispute with the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV, and so the papacy didn't have anywhere else to turn, the Pope, the new Pope, Pope Gregory VII, he had the broadness of mind, and he's one

of the great Popes of the Middle Ages, by the way, maybe I do special Popes show another time. My favorite popes. You know, Pope Julius II made visitors kiss his syphilitic toe. This is very nice. It's very nice. It's not as nice as the Dukes of Ferrara. They like to watch horses fuck in public square. But this is Italian style. I joke. I love my Italian friends. Please, doggos, do not get upset. Anyway, so this Pope Gregory VII had the broadness of mind to realize that the Normans, who had previously been so hated that the Pope and the church wanted to exterminate them from Italy, but he realized, well, wait, they could be champions of the church and of Rome, so he switched. He made them his allies. And so by this time, again, by a series of various, there was no other choice for who

should become leader of the Normans other than Robert. His record of conquest and raiding was distinguished by this time. So after his half-brother, Humphrey, had died, who was not really his friend, nevertheless he inherited leadership of the Normans, and the Pope saw an opening to create alliance both against Byzantium, which was necessary now because of the schism, but also against the Holy Roman Empire that was actually threatening to replace the Pope with its own anti-Pope. And of course, Robert and the Normans didn't want this because they may not have liked the Pope as an institution maybe, but they did not want the German Emperor or the Holy Roman Emperor with an army in Italy meddling, and inevitably that would have meant meddling in their own affairs in southern Italy.

So they made alliances with the Pope, but there were many such cases, by the way, of anti-Popes and Popes and multiple Popes during this century. I think at the beginning of the story, I tell you in the 1040s, maybe I have the decade wrong but there were three popes and they were vying against each other. But maybe this tradition should come back. Maybe Orban should refuse to recognize Pope Bouncer Frankist and should arrest him, imprison him politely in Buddha Castle, and then install Archbishop Richard Williamson as the true pope. Why not? it's very traditional, fed cats, Vermula fed cats, do you object to this? But anyway, so the Pope, Pope Gregory VII decided on this reverse course of alliance with the Normans, invested Robert, Robert Guiscard, the leader of the Normans with more

titles and in this case certain titles, so he become Duke of Apulia, he become more certain in his position, and he was promised also the ownership of Sicily if he should manage to wrest it from the hand of the Musulman Moor. And so this is the start of the conquest of Sicily and this papal Norman alliance. Probably I would say the Normans would have tried to conquer it anyway, but now they could be sure that their conquests would be recognized, it would be really there. So really, this was the First Crusade, preceding the Crusades in Middle East, of course, and it was contemporaneous with the attempt also to take back Spain from the Muslims, which was not completed, as you know, until 1492. So the traditional start of the Reconquista, the taking back of Spain, it was very early

with the Battle of Covadonga in the 700s. So northern Spanish kingdoms were actually always free. But in 1030, so in the century we're talking about, the Caliphate of Cordoba, it fell apart and it divided into many parts. So the Reconquista proper only started after, essentially around this time, momentous time in centuries that I'm talking now, the millennium really. And now, by the way, we have other millennium century, what will happen now? But anyway, so Reconquista proper only started after end of Caliphate of Cordoba in the 1030s, excuse me, and northern Spanish kingdoms start serious expansion to the south, serious resettlement of the land, slow war, and knights from all over Europe arrive in Spain and Catalonia on small squadrons or even individually to help fight.

But the first totally successful crusade is this, the Norman Conquest of Sicily, which started in earnest in the early 1060s and was already, for example, an early decisive battles of Cherami were Robert's brother Roger. He won against a Saracen Muslim force many times his size. I think I talked this on previous show, I don't remember, but this conquest was likely of much use also in the battle for England, by the way, because the Normans, who of course had been maritime Vikings in their remote past, but after settlement in Normandy, they lost their maritime navigational traditions, and by this time they had to rediscover the importance of a navy. And this was very clear to them in their attempts on Sicily.

They discovered they could not maintain supply lines and such without a navy, but they discovered with Byzantine help, for example, how to transport horses on boat. This is not straightforward. There's a technique to how you transport horse on boat. And some say this knowledge was used in William the Conqueror's invasion of England at the Battle of Hastings, since many veterans from southern Sicilian campaign, Norman veterans, they took part also in that invasion of England. It's strange how people can lose its signature skill, in this case seafaring and navigation, but then it can regain it later. The subject, by the way, in military history of carrying horses on boat. It's very interesting, an extremely long subject.

For example, I believe, together with historian Robert Drewes, that the Aryans carried out many of their expansions in the Bronze Age from ship. In other words, the Greeks arrived in Greece with ships and with horse on boats. And on the other hand, they also invade India from the sea. unusual argument, maybe, but I think it's true, because Vedic Aryan language, Vedic Sanskrit, contained some Mesopotamian loan words of a type that some linguists think, with good reason, could only have been picked up by the Aryans if they had actually lived for a while in Mesopotamia. And so what likely happened is Aryans came from the north, had a sojourn in Mesopotamia. And then from Mesopotamia, how do you get to India?

Well, it's very difficult to cross over land because Iranian terrain very hard, especially for chariots, which was of course how they expanded at the time. You cannot really cross that terrain and the desert with chariot. For Alexander to cross Iran to get to India was very difficult even in his time with cavalry, which did not exist, let's say, in 1500, 1200 B.C. and so forth. So how do you reach India from Mesopotamia if not over land? Well, there were old trade routes, actually, maritime trade routes already. So very conceivable to think that the Aryans from Mesopotamia embarked on boat with their chariot and that is how the Indus Valley civilization was invaded, destroyed and so forth. This is start of Aryan invasions of India.

This is very interesting and there is considerable archaeological evidence to this effect also where they have a picture of a boat with a horse on it. So this is very old technology that at the time it temporarily lost and then re-found again. So now where was I? I must return to the story of Robert. So Robert left the conquest of Sicily to his brother Roger, mostly. His brother Roger would actually end up as the founder of a separate kingdom on that island on Sicily, and Roger would be the grandfather of Frederick II, the greatest and most magnificent genius of all medieval emperors, and one of Nietzsche's heroes. And if you want to read about him, there is Ensk Antorovich's book Frederick II, but that's for another time.

So Robert starts this conquest of Sicily, relearns the importance of a navy, but he He had to return frequently to Italy mainland because Robert, that is, faced very often intrigues and revolts by the Lombards, led by his brother-in-law. So constant revolt on mainland occupied Robert's attention when he was not occupied in new conquest. And I should say it's funny, Robert Guiscard had had a previous wife of Norman origin and And he had a son with her, Bohemund, who had become a great and famous crusader. Robert Guiscard's son Bohemund was one of the leaders later of the first crusade and he was the prince of Antioch, the first Christian prince or the first Christian kingdom in the Altrimar, the crusader states in the Middle East. That's his son Bohemund by his first Norman wife.

But Guiscard left his wife because he felt that as a ruler of a primarily Lombard Italian a realm in Apulia and Calabria, he needed to be more accepted by the locals who were always restive, always ready to revolt. So he left his first wife under some pretext that they were, it was a consanguineous marriage that had been related. It was not true, he made it up, but he left her and he married a certain Sikel Gaita, who was the daughter of the Lombard, main Lombard leader, Gaimar of Salerno, the most important Lombard prince in South Italy, all of Italy, actually. And this solved Robert Guiscard's problems for a time, well enough. But I say it's a funny story because this woman, his second wife, Sikelgaita, was real Amazon. She was gigantic, a gigantic body built like Brunnhilde or Helga.

She wore armor, so much like that dike from Game of Thrones or other. But a real life Amazon, she commanded warriors in battle. She could crush your skull with a hammer, she had the voice of bear, and legend has it that she later saved the day at the important battle of Durazo, on which I will say more in a moment. This was later when Robert Guiscard campaigned against the Byzantines. But their spawn, Robert Guiscard and his second wife Sicalgaita, was not up to par, nor which He guesses in unpeasily eugenic term that Norman and Lombard blood attenuated each other. So the children of the second marriage were not so strong. Whereas Guiscard, the poor-blooded Norman progeny, as well as that of his brother Roger, they became very famous with many powerful excellences.

But his son was this sickelgeiter, who was a very weak leader, and he ended up basically losing all of his father's gains. So, although Robert Guiscard's lifetime achievements were wonderful, he did not manage to found a lasting dynasty in Apulia or in southern Italy because of the weakness of this union. They did not make strong sons. In any case, as I say, this cynical marriage to the daughter of important Lombard prince, it got Guiscard some goodwill from the natives that he was now ruling, but not for long, as you see, because apparently throughout his rule he faced revolts basically every few years. Either the Lombards or the Italian Greeks or even his own Norman relatives, they frequently revolted. And so much of his reign, when he was not conquering Sicily or South Italy, was taken

up with this, with putting down one revolt after another. And I point this out because it's very special and crucial part of his character to understand. And also of his brothers, Rogers, who was similar in this way. Crucial part of understanding Norman rule, in Italy at least. In England, the Normans were a little bit more cruel and brutal, but in Italy, both of them, Robert and Roger, were extremely clement, whether it was very merciful, whether it was in putting down these revolts or in conquering the Saracens in Sicily, they did not engage in massacres, they did not engage even in serious reprisals against their enemies and tortures and such, quite the opposite. Not that they never did such things, and it certainly wasn't that Robert was for example

a mild-mannered man, he frequently went into rages like Anna Komnena says, he had a tyrannical disposition. But this clemency was cold-hearted policy of state, and the price he paid in Italy was that the same people he spared, they frequently ended up leading new revolts later. And by the way, when I say spared, it's not just that he didn't kill them. He didn't even despoil them of their lands. So he would have a cousin revolt against him, and he would let him keep his lands in his castles. But even so, he was clement because the alternative would have been to be like the Lombard rulers of Salerno, which is to be vindictive and brutal against an uprising, the rulers always faced uprising in southern Italy.

Well, the Lombard rulers when they faced this, they were vindictive, they took their revenge to such an extent that yes, it may feel good when you do that, and even in one direction it will secure your rule better for a while. You will face revolutions less often than Robert Guiscard faced revolutions. But it would also seriously make you hated and therefore limit the extent of your rule, which is why Lombard principalities in South Italy, although they were often led by capable men like Guy Marst, Robert's father-in-law and also his previous employer, but they never really managed to expand very much because they lacked, look I mean okay to be fair they lacked other things too, they lacked the fighting skill of Norman Caliber and other things,

but in political and diplomatic terms they lacked this crucial quality of clemency that This is so important for conquerors, and in Sicily, it was also an absolute necessity because despite amazing victories there, where you read how with a few hundred knights Roger was able to vanquish armies many times his size, more than once, while having minimal or no casualties. But the small number of men he had meant that, yes, he could win these battles, but he could not rule such a large island only with repression and brutality. He had to make use of locals. So this is what I say that this clemency and in the case of Sicily, where it show itself as a religious tolerance, it was absolutely necessary part of art of rule when you are such a minority.

To the extent that after 1060s or so, I think, Robert Biscard always had loyal citizen contingent to his army. You can win over allies this way. And this is quality shared with the Romans and with other expansive and conquering peoples. It's quite a different and practical hands-on understanding of origin of universalism from what you may hear. Many of you may have read, for example, H.B.D. Chick, who somebody say is a middle-aged Dravidian man. I don't know if this is true. But she's an important blogger. Many people like H.P.D. Chick, but she talks of such things like altruism, the evolution of altruism, and the degeneration of that into pathological altruism among people of the West. You may have read this, the high null line in this. You may have heard these words.

But I believe that model of understanding where does Western Universalism come from, I think rather it comes from what I say, not what H.P.D. Dichik say, with the development of manorialism and so forth. Studying the Romans and studying what Gobino says about conquering races is much more revealing, I think, about origins of Western, and by the way, other kinds of universalism. And you see the wisdom of their policy, I think, also contrasts nicely, I mean, the wisdom of the Norman policy, it contrasts with the perversion or the parody form of universalism that you see practiced, for example, now by the American ruling class, which tries very hard to ape this kind of Roman Clement behavior and this universalist mentality,

but in practice it doesn't work because in practice the peasant American ruling class is just so petty and vindictive and so ineffectual and random in its actions that they simply cannot find allies abroad who fear or even respect them. But as the critics say, people abroad learn America is treacherous to friends and harmless to enemies, right? It's the worst thing you can be. And I know why it happened, because American ruling or other occupational class, they confuse cause for effect, right? You look outside, you see street wet, and you think that the street being wet causes the rain. And so you go next time and you wet the street with a hose, thinking this will bring the reign back, right? Think Amy Chua saying that she wishes that America could give the world citizenship like

the Romans did and believing this will make you world ruler. So this is your elite, you see, this kind of – it's sometimes also called cargo cult thinking. This might have to be a longer segment on its own to explain in detail. But America's idiotic occupational class somehow thinks that if you play act or cargo co-caulted acting universalists, meaning you mouth these platitudes and affect allegiance to them and demand allegiance to such principles from others, that this will bring about the same effect of extending real rule as Normans or Romans or frankly in our time Russians as they manage to do, to extend their rule over motley peoples who for mysterious reasons for now remain loyal to them. Americans are unable to do this.

with something like the Philippines or Cuba nearby and the continental extent of America is merely because of settlement of the original stock, America not do well ruling or managing other peoples because it does not really understand, HPD check notwithstanding, America does not understand this, what universalism really mean. But like I say, this is a longer topic. Maybe I take a short break before a final segment on the life of Robert the Fox. During the life of Robert Biscard, one thing struck me most of all how different his possibilities are from the cramped, stifling world present to average Western men now. And in principle, there's no reason why any man of his age couldn't have done what he did in his time, and many other things too, I mean if he was endowed with a similar

nature and capabilities. And yes, his family became distinguished in Italy. By that it means his brothers of his own generation, who had also come from the same poor and originally undistinguished family. It's not as if their father got him connections in Italy or anything, and for whatever reason, genetic lottery win. Almost all the sons of Tancred, of Othveil, pretty much were amazing, energetic men of almost genius intelligence, certainly genius level in Robert Case and of his brother Roger, but again the contrast to today's possibilities are quite depressing and there isn't anyone, I know many of you believe some conspiracy theory exists, but there's no one in charge, there's no billionaire, nothing like this, who has the freedom of action and I will repeat

that even an African tyrant, let alone somebody like Robert or later Columbus or other in medieval Renaissance times. But I know some of you want to believe this, but the scarier reality is right now no one is in charge, everyone is an incompetent slave in the West. So none have even the freedom of motion of Mugabe or a general butt-naked, you see. But unlike those who believe in systems and so forth, I believe it's a kind of psychological shackling and self-castration that is the cause of all this. In other words, if there were men with even a quarter of the ambition of a Guiscard, even on the other side, even people opposed to the things I believe in, things would not be like this. A Brennan, not Brennan of course, because he mentally ill, ideologue, and this he probably

Muslim, I don't want to get into what Brennan gets into, you know, with he has dildo, whatever, But someone, I mean, in a position of Brennan's stature, if they had ambition, they could see the opportunity and take it. A small man like General Miley, instead of saying the things he does to ingratiate himself to a fat HR bitch, if he said, someone like General Miley rose up and said basically everything Q and MAGA does, and I mean somebody from the deep state, whatever you want to call or the leftist establishment side or the bureaucracy, but someone of high position. If they said these things and became a popular champion, it would take them a few weeks to overtake all of America if he wanted, or he could wait until next election as a formality if he wants to follow procedure.

But I mean they would think, why should I be part of a hated minority regime when I And I can make my rule secure like Putin's. And really, the first faction of American establishment that realizes this could have it all. You could have it all rather than, you know, look at Assad. He's a minority regime, one I happen to like because he protects the lives of Alawites and Christians in Syria. But he is a weak regime. He does not have support of majority population. He's not like Putin or Erdogan on a firm and secure footing. So hence, you know, the very bloody and destructive civil war in Syria. Minority regimes are weak. And in the United States it's even worse because I don't think basis of support of ruling regime is as big proportionally in America as Assad is in Syria.

In America, you know, Assad is actually quite loved by the Christians and the Alawites. In America they are heated and there is an indifferent small professional class that go along with the regime but don't really care about them. And then there are minorities that again go with them because they're being paid off essentially. But the equivalent of American regime would be if Yeltsin managed somehow through fraud or force to preserve himself in power in Russia, right? So maybe he could have done this for a while. But eventually, an official from his rickety, corrupt, hated minority regime would realize, wait, this guy Yeltsin is hated, we are all hated, we cannot do anything we want or most of the things, the only thing left on this course, the only path actually left to us

is to declare formal war on the Russian people on top of the de facto war we are carrying. So let me depose this sham, I'm speaking in the abstract now as this hypothetical member of the Russian deep state in, let's say, the 2000s or the 90s. And he would say, let me depose this sham and rule as a popular leader. And of course, this is what Putin did before Yeltsin could continue. And he brought part of the Russia deep state and a few of the plight oligarchs with him. And he became a beloved leader. Maybe his rule is a bit weakening now, but it's been more than 20 years. And if it is weakening now, it is not because of how it was established, but because of perhaps mistakes he made recently. But in any case, it would be easy in America to do this as well or to do what Erdogan did.

But the problem is the lack of confidence, the ambition. And I'm telling you your rule by nobodies, people like Bezos, who instead of true power, They want acceptance from Hollywood and this. It's perpetual high school complex for American occupational class. Otherwise, like I tell you, all it would take is one man of high position from so-called deep state or permanent bureaucracy, call it whatever, who says roughly the same things that Trump does. Maybe doesn't go MAGA the whole way. Maybe goes MAGA 75%. You know, I don't say 50-50 because I believe actually manga and Q are the true voice of the American people and the overwhelming majority. And what you call Blue America is actually a minority faction.

But if one of them from this minority faction picked up the popular mantle, they could make the rules secure. But why don't they do this? Because you are ruled again by half men. It's basically ball-less men, men of no balls at every so-called elite level of American society. But anyway, this is tangent. But in my book I discuss briefly somebody like Pedro de Alvarado, a conquistador, right-hand man of Hernán Cortés, who was in some ways very much like Robert Guiscard, the charismatic, fiery man of Panache that even looked similar, a born conqueror who refused to confuse himself. He knew what he was. refused to confuse himself for something else in that case. So you know, he founded basically the nation of Guatemala and I think Honduras as well,

but he was just uninterested in ruling it and he was always planning the next conquest until finally he died when he was about to embark on a conquest of China. And Giscard reminded me very much of this. In fact, they died in very similar circumstances, I will tell you in a moment. But Giscard, like Pedro de Alvarado, had very little interest in administration, in governing. This was boring. He was a born pirate and conqueror. He left administration to others. He was a conquistador. And after the many adventures I mentioned already, he decided one day to invade Byzantium proper, to cross the Adriatic Sea to the Balkans, and eventually to install himself as Eastern Emperor, meaning really Roman Emperor. It was a wild project. No one else would have dared it.

And the details about why are interesting, but I leave them for your reading. But in short, he used a succession crisis as justification. And the real motive, well, there are a few real motives why he wanted to do this. In part, it was because he had never liked the Greeks, right? They were always his original enemies in Italy. But the second reason is that many of his enemies had taken refuge across the Adriatic in what is now Albania. It was at the time Illyria, a Byzantine possession, and his enemies, including relatives who had revolted against him and other rivals, they had taken refuge there and were constantly causing trouble, presented a threat to him. He wanted to eliminate them. But the most interesting reason Norwich gives is that the Romans, excuse me, I keep confusing

Romans and Normans, but the Normans had always, despite the political enmity to the Greeks, they had been attracted to Byzantine and Greek culture. It fascinated them. They wore Greek fashions, they presented themselves often in Byzantine style, and Norwich has this remarkable line how everyone who comes in touch with the Greeks, whether it's the Romans, the Turks, the Slavs, and he has this, I'm paraphrasing, I think he says, even the invincible confident Normans and a kind of cultural inferiority complex when it came to the Greeks, anyone who comes in touch with them, always trying to copy the Greeks in some way and such. So now it's true that in a limited regard Nietzsche disagrees with this idea.

He says the Romans were not in fact attracted to Greek culture in the way normally thought by most. But in other cases that Norwich named it is true, I believe, this desire to ape Greek fashions, Greek culture and so forth, and Nietzsche himself makes a similar point about how the French and also the Germans, how much they dominated culturally and intellectually when they had no political power. But then having political power is in some cases inverse to the cultural and philosophical influence you have. Not so in all cases, of course, but for peoples like the Greeks, it is true. Even in the Byzantine phase, and even in moments when they were politically not very strong, they continued to exert this fascination on outsiders.

And again, same for French, in their politically weak moments, their culture became ever more resplendent and attractive to outsiders. And how the Normans deal with this complex, they dealt with it by invasion. It's a funny line he has. So again, I will not go through all the detail of Robert Guiscard's campaign in the East, except to say that he did put the Byzantine emperor to flight, and in the middle of this, in the middle of the campaign, he had to return to Italy to save Pope Gregory VII from a German imperial invasion. So Henry IV, the Roman emperor, Western Roman emperor from Germany, he finally decided to invade. So Robert Guiscard, he returned to the Italian peninsula to march on Rome to confirm the

Pope in his power and to prevent the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV from installing an anti-Pope. And Guiscard was successful in this adventure as well. So basically, in very quick succession, he put the two Emperors of Europe to flight and He also marched into Rome in triumph to establish the Pope and his power in what in Norwich she calls the pinnacle of his glory. So my story of Robert discard life will have to end here. So the Byzantine campaign ultimately failed, but that's because Robert died of sickness. It was a plague that stopped it, similar to how Pedro de Alvarado was trying to embark on conquest of China and I think he died in a riding accident, a similar type of unfortunate accident in this case stopped great ventures.

In this case there was an epidemic, a plague that stopped this most magnificent Norman expansion, at least in its first stage, because there was a second stage of Norman history in southern Italy, later in Sicily is where the Norman kingdom established by Robert's brother Roger. It's shown for over a hundred years, very bright as well, with magnificent cultural, scientific, philosophical output and artistic output. But for now, a plague, probably it was typhoid, it put an end both to Robert life and to Norman plans to capture Byzantium and basically to Norman glory in South Italy for a time. And I will upset my Byzantine partisan friends with this speculation, but is it worth it to ask, would it not have been better for the Normans to succeed?

Maybe this would have prevented the fall of Constantinople to Islam centuries later. Maybe the Western nations would have been more likely to help a Norman-Latin Byzantium. Who knows? I think it would have been better, maybe. I don't know. But in any case, this is the story of a penniless brigand and horse thief, as Norwich calls who was able to rise, to put emperors to flight, to hold the most magnificent medieval pope as his client, and to forge new states out of nothing, out of the confusion of southern Italy. This is a political and military career, as happens maybe once or twice a millennium. And I found very interesting, you know, why it is that Norwich, in praising the life of Robert Guiscard, what he says were his most important qualities.

So it's worth to read for you from the book when Norwich talk about assessment of Robert discard life. First he called Anna Komnena. Now Robert, as rumor insisted and many said, was a most exceptional leader, quick-witted, good-looking, courteous in conversation, ready to repartee, loud voice, easily accessible, very tall in stature, his hair always close-cut, long-bearded, always anxious to maintain the ancient customs of his race. He preserved the perfect comeliness of his countenance and figure until the end, and of these he was very proud, and his appearance was considered worthy of kingship. He showed respect to all his subordinates, more especially to those who were well-disposed towards him. On the other hand, he was very thrifty and fond of money, very businesslike and greedy

of gain, and in addition to all this, most ambitious. And since he was a slave to these desires, he has incurred the serious censure of mankind. That is Anna Komnena's judgment. She was the Byzantine princess. And Norwich does not agree with this. He thinks her description is accurate in some way, but she is too chauvinistic and contentious an observer to recognize the measure of Guiscard's greatness. A man who began his career as a penniless brigand and horse thief and who ended it with both emperors simultaneously on the run and the greatest of medieval popes in his power deserves a mightier tribute than this. Robert had found South Italy a confusion of races and religions of principalities, dukies and petty baronies, all of them endlessly, pointlessly at loggerheads.

He left it welded together into a single state. He has been taken to task, well, I will not read his whole judgment, it is quite long, but this important part that I must tell you, what Norweg think is Robert Giscard's most important qualities. He said, for the rest he had to rely solely on his natural gifts, his faultless generalship allied with a superb diplomatic sense, his toughness and resolution in war, his mercy and generosity in peace. His genuine piety on one hand, which he somehow managed to keep above and apart from his brilliant handling of successive popes, and on the other, that easy tolerance and eclecticism which often kept him on better terms with his Italian, Greek Lombard and even his Saracen subjects than with his Norman vassals.

He also possessed, to an extraordinary degree, those two qualities of temperament which perhaps more than any others, the superb self-confidence that melts away doubts and difficulties and allows ambition to keep pace with imagination and this inexhaustible energy that never failed until in his 70th year death overtook him. Robert never lost that streak of cheerful irresponsibility with which he began. He was the rarest of combinations, a genius and an extrovert. And as the chronicles close on his life, they leave us with the picture of a gigantic blonde buccaneer who not only carved out for himself the most extraordinary career of the Middle Ages, but who also, quite shamelessly, enjoyed it. So that is from Norwich's book.

I leave you to read it, but think what he say, energy, confidence, cheerfulness especially are infectious, especially among downtrodden, depressed people. So yes, he was a happy warrior and I hope for this again. Trump only a small taste, but look how much he, a real estate developer could achieve with the same combination of extroverted cheerfulness. But I hope for rather something greater, a great dux, a duche who will infect nations with fire of cheerful conquest again. Maybe he heard speech from last decade, this young dux. He heard somebody say, yes you can, si se puede, why not? Or maybe he read my book. But either way, I think this because the world is weak, men are tired, and when they are

So especially then they orient themselves as if by magic and on the personality who can inspire this who can bring back Vital energy in them. I hope for this but very good until next time BAP out