"25 or 6 to 4" (opens in separate window)
cheer the government surveillance?
friday, may 3rd, 2024
They are wearing us down with shocking headlines and opinions. They come daily these days, with increasingly implausible claims that leave your jaw on the floor. The rest of the text is perfunctory. The headline is the takeaway, and the part designed to demoralize, deconstruct, and disorient.
[FULL TITLE: "Now We Are Supposed to Cheer The Government Surveillance?"]
A few weeks ago, the New York Times told us that “As It Turns Out, the Deep State Is Pretty Awesome.” These are the same people who claim that Trump is trying to get rid of democracy. The Deep State is the opposite of democracy, unelected and unaccountable in every way, impervious to elections and the will of the people. Now we have the NYT celebrating this.
It may be too late to get the American people to wake up. The conditioning is relentless and many are already horribly deceived.And the latest bears notice too: “Government Surveillance Keeps Us Safe.” The authors are classic Deep Staters associated with Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush. They assure us that having an Orwellian state is good for us. You can trust them, promise. The rest of the content of the article doesn’t matter much. The message is in the headline.
Amazing isn’t it? You have to check your memory and your sanity. These are the people who have rightly warned about government infringements on privacy and free speech for many decades dating way back.
And now we have aggressive and open advocacy of exactly that, mainly because the Biden administration is in charge and has only months to put the final touches on the revolution in law and liberty that has come to America. They want to make it all permanent and are working furiously to make it so.
Along with routine warrantless surveillance, not only of possible bad guys but everyone, comes of course censorship. A few years ago, this seemed to be intermittent, like the biased and arbitrary actions of rogue executives. We objected and denounced but generally assumed that it was aberrant and going away over time.
Back then, we had no idea of the scale and the ambition of the censors. The more information that is coming out, the more the full goal is coming into view. The power elite want the Internet to operate like the controlled media of the 1970s. Any opinion that runs contrary to regime priorities will be blocked. Websites that distribute alternative outlooks will be lucky to survive at all.
To understand what’s going on, see the White House document called Declaration on the Future of the Internet. Freedom is barely a footnote, and free speech is not part of it. Instead it is to be a “rules-based digital economy” governed “through the multistakeholder approach, whereby governments and relevant authorities partner with academics, civil society, the private sector, technical community and others.”
\This whole document is an Orwellian replacement of the Declaration of Internet Freedom from 2012, which was signed by Amnesty International, the ACLU, and major corporations and banks. The first principle of this Declaration was free speech: don’t censor the Internet. That was 12 years ago and the principle is long forgotten. Even the original website has been dead since 2018. It is now replaced with one word: “Forbidden.”
Yes, that’s chilling but it is also perfectly descriptive. In all mainline Internet venues, from search to shopping to social, freedom is no longer the practice. Censorship has been normalized. And it is taking place with the direct involvement of the federal government and third-party organizations and research centers paid for by tax dollars. This is very clearly a violation of the First Amendment but the new orthodoxy in elite circles is that the First Amendment simply does not apply to the Internet.
This issue is making its way through litigation. There was a time when the decision would not be in question. No more. Several or more Supreme Court Justices do not seem to understand even the meaning of free speech.
The Prime Minister of Australia made the new view clear in his statement in defense of fining Elon Musk. He said that social media has a “social responsibility.” In today’s parlance, this means they must obey the government, which is the only proper interpreter of the public interest. In this view, you simply cannot allow people to post and say things that are contrary to regime priorities.
If the regime cannot manage public culture, and manipulate the public mind, what’s it there for? If it cannot control the Internet, its managers believe, it will lose control of the whole of society.
The crackdown is intensifying by the day. Representative Thomas Massie shot a video after the Ukraine vote for a total foreign aid package of an astonishing $95 billion. Vast numbers of Democrats on the House floor waved Ukrainian flags, which you might suppose smacks of treason. The Sergeant-at-Arms wrote Massey directly to tell him to take down the video or get a $500 fine.
Instead of fining democrats for waving flags, the House Sergeant at Arms just called and said I will be fined $500 if I don’t delete this video post.
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) April 23, 2024
Mike Johnson really wants to memory hole this betrayal of America. https://t.co/5DPWoo4cLwTrue, the rules say you cannot film in a way that “impairs decorum,” but he simply took out his phone. The decorum was disturbed by masses of lawmakers waving a foreign flag. So Massie refused. After all, the entire disgraceful scene was on C-SPAN but the presumption is that no one watches that but everyone reads X, which is probably true.
Clearly, GOP speaker Mike Johnson doesn’t want his perfidy this well-advertised. After all, it was he who shepherded the authorization of spying on the American people using Section 702 of FISA, which 99 percent of GOP voters opposed. Just who do these people think they are there to represent?
It’s actually astonishing to do a conjectural history in which Elon did not buy Twitter. The regime monopoly on social media today would be 99.5 percent. Then the handful of alternative venues could be shut down one by one, just as with Parler a few years ago. Under this scenario, closing the social end of the Internet would not be that difficult. The domains are another matter but those could be banned gradually over time.
But with X rising in a meteoric way since Elon’s takeover, that is now far more difficult. He has made it his mission to remind the world of core principles. This is why he told the boycotting advertisers to jump in a lake and why he refused to comply with every dictate by the despotic head of the Brazilian Supreme Court. Daily he is showing what it means to stand up for principle in extremely hard times.
Glenn Beck puts it well: “What Elon Musk is doing in both Brazil and Australia is this: He is simply standing where the Free world used to stand. They have moved, not him. They are the radicals not him. HAVE THE COURAGE to remain standing, unmovable in the truth that can never change and you will be targeted and eventually change the world.”
Censorship is not an end unto itself. The purpose is control of the people. That is also the purpose of surveillance. It is not, rather obviously, to protect the public. It is to protect the state and its industrial partners against the people. Of course, just as in every dystopian film, they always pretend otherwise.
Somehow -- call me naive -- I just didn’t expect the New York Times to be all-in on the immediate establishment of the surveillance state and universal censorship by the “awesome” Deep State. But think of this. If the NYT can be fully captured by this ideology, and probably captured by the money that goes with it, so can any other institution. You have probably noticed a similar editorial line being pushed by Wired, Mother Jones, Rolling Stone, Salon, Slate, and other venues, including the entire suite of publications owned by Conde Nast including Vogue and GQ magazine.
“Don’t bother me with your crazed conspiracy theory, Tucker.”
I get the point. What is your explanation?
© 4.24.2024 by JEFFREY A. TUCKER, "Brownstone Institute".
A Day In The Life.
Up at 8a on Friday -- it was nice sleeping "late" -- I went thru my BS finger stick routine to check my BSL (Blood Sugar Level) and recorded it on my Diabetes 2 chart, made coffee, took two 50mg Tramadol and a 300mg Gabapentin for Sciatica pain, fired-up the Win-7 Pentium HP desktop to let 32 million lines of code load, had a couple smokes in the 67° garage and checked the leftover errands list.
There are only two genders.It was a nippy 49° outside, so I fired-up the condo furnace and garage heater, had some wonderful Kona Coffee, then scanned the news and weather sites, and tuned into the "Chris Stigall Show LIVE" (CS Show) from 6-9a, and then the "Chris Plante Show LIVE" (CP Show) 9-12noon, and finally to the Rob Carson Show LIVE (RC Show) 12-3p.
I had the last Apple/Raisin Fritter for breakfast, scanned the news headlines -- so much lunacy out there -- and just relaxed listening to the "CP Show", and doing a few small chores. Same ol', same ol' crap in the news. Blech. Sherry called and is stopping by to pick me up, go with her to Daughter Holly's nearby local Virtue Market Shop in Hallam, and drive over to Flinchbaugh's Orchard & Farm Market to get some goodies. And then back to my place and relax.
She arrived around 1:30, looking great despite her dental surgery's swollen R/S face -- hard for me to tell -- we left for Virtue Market Shop, then over to Flinchbaugh's and finally back to my place. Just as planned. And a good time, as usual. She left around 5, and I continued to enjoy the nice day and fresh air until temps began quickly dropping 15° at 7p. I closed down, had some dinner, caught the news, and watched Discovery's "America's Backyard Gold" until 11p, and bagged it for the night.
Awake at 8 and up at 8;30a on Saturday, a cool, 51° with a forecast high of 58° -- before the upper 80s/lower-90s get here for the next 8-9 days. From Spring right into hot and humid Summer. Shit. For a late lunch, I broiled a 5oz (1½" thick) Filet Mignon (Allen Bros Steaks), on KerryGold-buttered Rye, and the last of the Red-Skinned Potato Salad, for lunch. Damn, that was GOOD steak. I sure remember how to season, time-cook and serve the medium-rare best-of-the-best.
I did some condo chores, some paperwork and computer maintenance work, skipped dinner, opened the last bottle of LaCrema Chardonnay, and watched History's "Ancient Aliens" Marathon until midnight, and bagged it for the night.
Up at 7:30a on Sunday, to a very foggy, heavily-overcast, 56° morning. A ***DENSE FOG ADVISORY*** was posted to the local weather websites. I upped the heat slightly, opened and made new 100% Single Bean Kona Coffee, and an Apple & Raisin Fritter for breakfast. BSL = 110pts = good number. After finishing a small pile of paperwork, I checked AccuWeather's site for the bad news: we're going right into the upper 80s/low-90s of mid-Summer, and it looks like Spring is over. Sucks to be us.
Sis stopped by for a visit, I got a little gardening done, and got my files ready for the 1:25p Dr's app't, tomorrow. After dinner, I watched the news, and watched Motor Trend's "Garage Squad" for a while, but remembered it was just another NBC (Nothing But Crap) Night, for TV. By 11p, I'd had enough, and unplugged.
Up at 6:15a on Monday, to a sunny, warm 59°, clear skies and record-breaking temps today and tomorrow. No furnace or garage heater needed. After making coffee, I fired-up the trusty Ol' HP Compaq 6000 x64 Pro MT PC desktop, running Win-7 Pro x64, had a couple smokes in the garage, and tuned into the "CS Show LIVE". With the same old crappola in the news -- anti-Semitic mob rule on campi (as Rush used to say) -- and the
elitesdumbshits in charge at the colleges/universities can't figure out what to do. Jeeez, this isn't rocket science, idiots. Expel them, break some heads and send a couple hundred to the local ERs. Pretty simple stuff.
Oh, Woe Is Me!
By 10:30a, it was already 81°, and quickly climbing. I got the weekend's mail, brought in the garbage and recycle bins, and left at 12noon, for my usual Monday run to DeVono's Cleaners and to the Apple Hill Medical Center Complex, and my 1:25p app't. Midday traffic was heavy, as usual, and the PCP's (Primary Care Provider) app't went well. He had a student intern with him, who was a nice lady. I had another stop to make on the way home, and although I had the front garden's irrigation system on 'Auto', I had to do some serious hand watering, due to the 90° heat (only 45% humidity) on a dozen transplants from last week's electric wire trenching, which I abandoned when I got the Solar Lamp Post Light at Home Depot. Air quality = POOR; not good for me.
I had a FIVE GUYS Dbl-Cheeseburger and Fries in the late afternoon, did some computer driver updating, HD (hard drive) defragging, HD optimization, skipped dinner and watched the evening news. After switching to History's "UnXplained Mysteries" until 12:15a, I bagged it for the night. My cleaning lady's in at 8:30a.
Up at 6a on Tuesday, with the alarm, to a sunny 61°, I made Kona Coffee, fired-up the desktop, had a couple smokes in the garage and scanned the news headlines. The BS college occupation is in full force, at the Columbia shithole, and IMO, it will get much worse over the coming Summer. They are destroying the American University System, to "save it and make it better". Forget 'liberals'... the LEFT is here and in control! Meh; time for an ultimatum, and then break some heads. Send a few hundred of the subhuman miscreants to hospital ERs, and this crap will stop.
JoAnne arrived at 8:30, got her work done and left around 11:15. I gave her a "Red Sunset" Maple seedling I'd grown from a germinated seed spinner, last Spring, from one of our "RS" Maples here at the CHCA Complex. She and Tim don't have any Maples on their large country property, so hopefully, it'll have a good home there. I'll look thru the gardens to see if there are any more who need 'rescuing' and my care until next year. I left at 12:30p for Weis Market and Rite Aid Pharmacy. By 1p, it was 86° and rapidly climbing, so I had some lunch, closed the condo's electric shades, and had a nice one hour snooze on the LR couch.
I watched the 6p news, had dinner, and tuned into History's "Curse of Oak Island" until 10, and switched to "The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch" until 11p. The weather stations forecast severe t-storms w/ 1" hail, so I quickly garaged the Jeep as the rain arrived. No hail, thankfully. All the news programs, on every channel, were all about the arrest of hundreds of terrorist punks at Columbia U, in NYC. Yawn. Break some skulls, cops. They have guns and other weapons. They're not students! Lights out.
The revolution will betelevisedcatered.Up at 7:30a on Wednesday, a sunny 64° morning, forecast to be in the mid-80s. I made coffee, had a couple smokes in the crowded garage, tuned into the "CS Show LIVE" until 9. More news about "terrorists, anarchists, protestors etc"; I guess that'll be going on all Summer long, and probably into the demonKKKrats' coming convention, in Chicago. It'll be fitting if it's as bad as the 1968 Dem Convention was. THAT, I'd truly enjoy. I remember 1968 very, very well. King assassinated, RFK assassinated and the Dems' Convention riots... what a year that was.
Hey, a long-time, good friend of mine -- H/T to ppc -- has a great idea to end all the criminal, illegal, alien invaders coming across the Rio Grande River: stock it with hungry alligators from Texas and Louisiana! Genius!
Sherry arrived at 1p, and we had 3+ great hours together, before she had to go. I had some dinner, caught the evening news, watched Discovery's "Expedition X" and "Ghost Stories -- House Calls" until 11:30, and bagged it for the day.
Up at 6:30a on Thursday, another sunny, humid, 64° morning, forecast to be 90° by midday . A nice 72° in the condo, I kept the blinds closed to keep it cool and dry, as humidity levels were over 50%, and that bothers my COPD, along with pollen levels etc. After making coffee, and filling the old Starbucks Cannister, a gift from Sis back in the early 80s, with AAA Kenyan Coffee, I ordered 2lbs more of Kona "Rise & Sine" and 1lb of Monarch Estate Gesha Peaberry, from Monarch Coffee Cop, in Hawaii. I still have 5-6 lbs of assorted 1-lb bags in my garage top loader freezer.
If you have a dog or dogs, be aware of this red flag.
After listening to the "CS Show" from 6-9, and "CP Show" 9-12, I left around 12:30p to get some errands done. With Sherry having more dental surgery today -- getting gum stitches removed -- I'll check-in with her later today. By 1p, temps were up to 84°, and climbing. I opted to stay inside, and will do some pollen-cleaning off the Jeep's drive-side windshield and wiper. It's just smearing from the yellow pollen's oils.
After a 3hr snooze on the LR couch, I did a couple of light condo chores, skipped dinner, watched the evening news. and switched-over to Discovery's "Misfit Garage" until 11p. Lights out.
Tomorrow starts a new week here in the "Journal", and I've got another clear week, other than the usual errands etc. Hopefully, Sherry and I can get together at least once this coming week, and get some walking time done in the nearby park.
We're All Gaza Now.
Trump was right- again. Only 3 years ago our country was MAGA. America was great again. The economy, prosperity, inflation, interest rates, jobs, incomes, the border, crime, peace around the world.
Three short years later we’ve gone from MAGA to Gaza.
[FULL TITLE: “We’re all GAZA Now.” Trump Was Right. One Rigged & Stolen Election Has Turned America Into a Third World Craphole."]
Trump was right about a lot of things. Here are just a few.
Trump predicted if the border was open and millions came into our country illegally, we’d be turned into a third world craphole. It happened exactly as he predicted. Look around.
Illegal aliens are murdering Americans from coast to coast. Illegals are fighting with pipes and belts in the middle of a major street in Midtown Manhattan. Cops are being beaten by illegal aliens in broad daylight in the middle of Times Square. Illegal alien squatters are stealing homes. Fentanyl is killing hundreds of thousands of our children.
One of my best friend’s children just died of a fentanyl overdose only days ago. Where do you think fentanyl comes from? The open border.
And then there’s the protests at Columbia University with angry mobs chanting “Death to Jews” “Death to America” and “We are Hamas.” Nothing like this has ever happened in the history of America.
U.S. Senators are now demanding President Biden send National Guard to protect Jewish students at Columbia U. This is happening in America?
Don’t look now but my alma mater Columbia U. has become “Hamas with a really bad football team.”
Now these Jew-hating protests are spreading to elite colleges across the country. And to the home of Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer who just happens to be Jewish. Who saw this coming?
President Trump saw it coming.
Remember President Trump’s so-called “Muslim Travel Ban.” He told us: Don’t let bad people, with evil intent, from terrorist nations, into America.
Trump’s point was, they will bring their hate with them. They will not blend in, as prior immigrants did. They will destroy our cities- which will be turned into dangerous “no go” zones. They will stir hate and division. Crime will explode. They will kill Americans- specifically Jews.
Don’t look now, but this is exactly what is happening.
The real name of Trump’s Executive Action was “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.” It was simply an Executive Action aimed at keeping bad people with evil intent (and hatred for Jews, Christians, America and Western Civilization) out of the USA.
It wasn’t “racist.” It wasn’t aimed at Muslims. It was aimed at terrorists, criminals and people with hate in their hearts, coming from the worst terrorist nations in the world. It was aimed at keeping our citizens safe and keeping us from becoming a third world craphole. Like Gaza.
Trump was right.
Why do you think all of this hate and anarchy is happening right now? Because we opened the borders and welcomed everyone in. No one was vetted. We have no idea who is a criminal…who is a murderer…who is a terrorist…who hates Jews….and who wants “Death to America.”
Biden (and his boss Obama) opened the borders and let the whole Middle East in- with no questions asked. How many are Hamas? Hezbollah? ISIS? How many have criminal records? How many have an unnatural hatred for Jews, Christians and America?
Did anyone think to ask, before we let them into our country?
And let’s not single out radical Islam. Letting in MS-13, gangbangers from prisons around the world, and Chinese military-age males is just as stupid, reckless and dangerous.
Trump understood. Not everyone is alike. Not everyone should be allowed into our country. It’s a privilege to become an American. We have to investigate people who want to come in- to make sure their values are compatible with America, American exceptionalism, freedom, and democracy.
Now you’re seeing the results of unvetted open borders on the streets and college campuses of America. It didn’t start with Biden. It started with Obama. Obama opened the floodgates for eight long years. He let millions of illegals in.
Now Biden (and his boss Obama) have accelerated the foreign invasion on STEROIDS.
Now for the first time in the history of America, there are protestors openly screaming about murdering Jews. Coincidence?
Now for the first time in the history of America, we need National Guard troops to protect Jewish students. Coincidence?
Now for the first time in the history of America, there are Jewish professors demanding police escorts to walk onto their own campus. Coincidence?
Now for the first time in the history of America, mobs of thugs are attacking the homes of Jewish US Senators. Coincidence?
Biden (and his boss Obama), Kamala (the border czar who has never been to the border), DHS chief Mayorkas, and the entire Democrat Party have sold out to China and the Mexican Drug Cartels. They’ve taken billions in bribes.
And as a bonus, Democrats are betting millions of foreign voters means there will never be another Republican president.
They’ve turned us into a third world craphole. They’ve invited and welcomed in people who want to murder us. All of us. Not just Jews. Jews are just first on their list. They don’t just hate Jews. They hate Christians. They hate Americans. They hate freedom.
Open borders are why things have suddenly changed so dramatically.
That’s why a country that has always treated the Jewish people the best of any country in the world…a country that has never shown hatred for Jews…never seen protests against Jews…a country that has shown overwhelming support for Israel from the first day…
Is suddenly seeing anarchy and revolution in the streets…hatred for Jews…chants of “Death to America”…and crime exploding in big cities, run by Democrats, and filled with newly arrived illegal aliens.
Biden (and his boss Obama), and the entire Democrat Party have imported Gaza into America. And now the chickens have come home to roost.
Trump was right. America may never be the same.
We’re all Gaza now.
© 4.25.2024 by Wayne Allyn Root, "Root For America".
Emergency-O-Rama.
The plum blossoms are ready to pop here. You can feel your blood rising. The evening sun lingers a little longer every day. Normally you’d celebrate, but not this year of roaring portents and evil juju. History doesn’t stop to catch its breath for a moment. The tiny glowing diode deep in “Joe Biden’s” brain dims a bit more each day (pause) while low men and women in high places trifle with the fate of the nation. Everyone dreads what’s coming. “We’ll certainly never forget the dark days of June 6 -- January 6th, excuse me.” — President “Joe Biden”
Which, judging by events of the week just past, looks like a worse summer of civil chaos than 2020 was. Some entity — say, the checkbook of George and Alex Soros, maybe? — has funded the spring mustering of student mobs in support of Hamas seeking to drive wicked Israel into the choppy Mediterranean. What you’re seeing, though, is probably not what you think you are seeing in all that. The kids are mere digits in a cultural algorithm playing out as New Age dumbshow.
I doubt that three-quarters of them actually give a flying fugazy about the Palestinians, and even fewer could find Gaza on a map if you water-boarded them. They affect to be intersectional victims of the universal oppressor, but in so far as many of the rioters are girls of the Ivy League, or comparable redoubts of privilege -- little blue-eyed, blonde-haired muffins raised on pony club, Hermes, and artisan granola -- there must be something else going on. That something else is probably sex, which is so problematical now in any traditional frame of a man getting it on with a woman that the American birth-rate is going to zero.
How does a young woman get it on with so many collegiate men vying for gay brownie points these days, or going for the grand prize in transitioning? Why, it’s a non-starter. So, instead, you go slumming among the savages, those hairy, dumb brutes on twerk-alert, dripping testosterone -- illegal aliens, student third-worlders, BLM alumni, hardcore hoodlums. They don’t know nuthin ‘bout no pony club, but they will rut like Bilberry rams until the ladies fall away crosseyed. Affecting to be a lesbian only makes the game more piquant. And if you forgot your birth control, for some reason, there’s always the abortionist.
Any time there are brownie points at stake, you know the game is actually for status, and where status is the game, fashion is the currency. Thus, the dress-up in Arab keffiyehs, the charming head-scarf denoting allyship with Hamas. Beats the heck out of those flitty N-95 masks from the 2020 Covid nights of roistering in the Seattle CHOP and trying to burn down the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse in Portland.
Rioting gives young men of the toxic persuasion opportunities to flaunt their moxie in acts of derring-do, brawling with the cops, dancing on top of cars, ripping down chain-link fences, flinging gasoline bombs. So much the better for getting the ladies’ attention. Look what I can do! And the keffiyeh accessorizes well with black bloc riot garb. For the muffins, wearing it is great practice for the utopia-to-come when they must don burkas under submission to Sharia. Will Hermes put out a burka?
So far, the spring rioting has mostly been fun for the rioters. Unlike the J-6-21 “paraders,” locked up in the putrid DC jail for years pending trial, the Hamas frolickers are at near-zilch risk of any serious consequences. Few will even be suspended from school. They are doing exactly what the schools trained them up for: destroying Western Civ, one acanthus leaf at a time. According to the shadowy stage-managers behind “Joe Biden,” this will save our democracy.
That and stuffing Donald Trump in jail for the rest of his natural life. Alas, the lawfare cases cooked up toward that end appear defective to a spectacular degree. It really says something about the true authors of these beauties brought by Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, Fani Willis, and Jack Smith. I speak of the behind-the-scene blob lawfare ninjas Norm Eisen, Andrew Weissmann, Matt Colangelo, and Mary McCord, who wrote the scripts for all four of this year’s big elephant trap cases against the former president. You have to wonder how that bunch made it through their law boards. The current extravaganza in Manhattan that centers on alleged book-keeping errors in furtherance of an unstated federal offense is due to go on a few more weeks. The howling errors of both the prosecution and Judge Juan Merchan are so extravagant that the proceeding looks like it was cribbed from the pages of Lewis Carroll.
Yet, there is near unanimous sentiment that the Trump-deranged New Yawk jury will convict, no matter how much more idiotic the case turns out to be. By then, we will be verging on summer. The college campuses will be shuttered and the youth-in-revolt action will necessarily move to the regular streets. Whichever way the verdict goes in the Alvin Bragg case, epic looting and rioting will commence.
Sometime this summer, I predict, the Mar-a-Lago documents case will get tossed on something like malicious prosecution. Jack Smith’s DC case, kneecapped by SCOTUS, won’t start before the November election (or maybe ever) and ditto the Fani Willis fiasco in Atlanta. George and Alex Soros will pour millions into box lunches for the kids burning down what’s left of the cities and the demure gals of the Ivy League Left will find plenty of love in the ruins.
The two major party conventions in July (Republican) and August (Democrat) are sure to out-do the 1968 lollapalooza in Chicago (I was there) in mayhem and property damage. “Joe Biden” -- really the blob behind him -- will ache to declare a national emergency, perhaps even a second emergency after the recently unveiled “climate emergency” supposedly pending any day. The USA will be in an historic horror movie you could call Emergency-O-Rama. If you think the financial system, and the US economy that has become the tail on the finance dog, can survive all this, you will be disappointed. The army may have to step in and put an end to these shenanigans. Don’t think it can’t happen.
© 4.26.2024 by James Howard Kunstler, "CLUSTERFUCK NATION".
And Who Are You?
Every once in a while, someone expresses to me the feeling that all is lost. Politics and current events are a daily gut punch, and it is impossible to avoid the cultural revolution exploding just outside our windows. These are, indeed, troubling times for weary souls.
It is no longer sufficient simply to turn off the television, avoid the Internet, and head out to the closest wilderness trail in search of momentary respite, if not tactical escape. Because Western Marxism seeks to politicize everything, it is increasingly difficult to find suitable refuge from the abhorrent hordes of “climate change” cultists, pronoun-obsessed wackadoodles, virtue-signaling simps, racial grievance monsters, Hamas enthusiasts, and other angry, “woke” trolls. While we endure the peak surges of Marxist globalism — a totalitarian system destined to crash from the weight of its own contradictions — it can feel as if we are drowning in unrelenting waves.
Please allow me to offer a lifeline. I know of no better daily exercise than to spend time (1) repairing and maintaining your relationship with God, (2) helping and protecting the members of your family, (3) testing and strengthening your own character, (4) improving your mind, and (5) healing your physical body. I have found that if a person works on these goals each day, it is much easier to silence outside noise and find peace.
There are two chief reasons why this is so. First, these five exercises are not easy, and they are not meant to be. You could spend every second of every day dedicated to any one and never accomplish the task. Maintaining a good relationship with God? Priests and pastors struggle to do so all their lives. Helping your family? That responsibility never ends. Improving your character? Even honorable people sometimes fail to do what is right. Becoming a better thinker? Learning new things requires patience and diligence. Remaining healthy? The older a body gets, the more committed a person must become to engage in regular physical activity. No matter how simple they might seem when reading these words, every one of these five activities requires tremendous energy and time.
The second reason this daily routine will reward you with a sense of peace is that none of these extraordinarily difficult tasks requires you to submit to the madness of the outside world. Think about the personal responsibilities I have listed: God, family, character, mind, and body. No matter what level of external chaos afflicts us, we are always in complete control over how we choose to interact with God, how we aid our families, how we weigh what is right and wrong, how we use our brains, and how we direct our bodies to persevere. No Marxist subversive or government agency can dictate to us how we perform these duties. They will certainly tell us that they have authority over how we pray, how we live, what we teach, what we know, and how we choose to protect our families. But what they tell us and what they can make us do are entirely different things. I would suggest that when untrustworthy people insist on interfering in the way you perform these daily resolutions, you consider their intrusion a test and an opportunity to strengthen your own self-purpose, commitment, and character. Outside forces cannot diminish us when we use adversity to grow. After all, as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.
It does not matter how late in life a person learns to take these five daily exercises seriously. Once they become a part of your routine, you will see the world with more clarity. What is more, you will soon realize that almost everything you do in life gives you a chance to improve one or more of these personal responsibilities. When you are confronted with something uncomfortable or demanding, you will begin to ask yourself how the challenge before you might provide the perfect opportunity to enhance your relationship with God, reinforce the foundations of your family, test your character, help you learn, or make you stronger. Eventually, more and more of the craziness in our world will disappear as the goals you set for yourself lead you down a richer path.
Three of the most difficult questions in life are deceptively simple: (1) Who are you? (2) What makes you happy? (3) What do you want out of life? When people try to answer these questions honestly, most fail. To be sure, many great philosophers spent lifetimes trying to answer these questions for themselves and also came up short. It is genuinely perplexing that so many of us know so little about ourselves. Yet it is equally uplifting to realize that if we spend more time and energy finding those answers, we will be more fulfilled human beings.
I will suggest to you that the surest path toward discovering such important answers lies on the same path that is created when you make these five exercises part of your daily routine. In this way, turning these goals into personal responsibilities will not only insulate you from the political discord of the outside world but also help you finally understand and appreciate why you are here on this planet at this moment in human history. Sometimes we are the ones most culpable for hiding our true purpose from ourselves. Likewise, when we truly know who we are, there is little in this world still to fear. Relief lies at the far end of self-discovery.
Writer Jonathan Jones recently recounted an interesting story that involved Seattle Seahawks Pro Bowler DK Metcalf and a group of teenagers. As Metcalf passed the group outside a football stadium, one of the boys taunted him by telling the superstar, “Jalen Ramsey’s your dad.” Metcalf stopped, looked at the teen, and calmly asked why the kid had insulted him. After the boy insisted that Ramsey is a much better player than the talented Metcalf who towered over him, the Seahawks wide receiver asked earnestly, “And who are you?” While the rude fan quietly answered that he plays high school football, the rest of the boys understood Metcalf’s point and teased their friend. The poised Metcalf looked at the lad again, wished him good luck, and walked away.
I don’t know what Metcalf believes or how he conducts the rest of his personal life, but he handled that situation with boatloads of character. More than that, he asked the right question — a question that immediately humbled an overconfident teen: “And who are you?” Only those who have spent the time and energy reflecting on that question can provide a confident answer. And those who don’t even know themselves have no business telling others who they may or may not be.
Looking around the world today, it is clear that few people actually know who they really are. The world is awash in generations suffering from identity crises, struggling with addictions, and enduring (often self-imposed) psychological traumas. Government leaders encourage this madness by exacerbating social conflict at every turn. Any human society obsessed with pronoun games is a society devoid of true purpose and bereft of honest self-reflection. In an era of fake news and official propaganda, authority figures do little but distort truth.
For these reasons, any person who can answer those three deceptively simple questions above is light-years ahead of the great majority living with some form of agony today. And the most effective way of reaching those answers is to take seriously your personal relationships with God and your family and to improve daily your personal character, body, and mind.
Doing so creates a kind of moral armor that allows a person to confront even the worst adversary with a humbling question: And who are you? Most have no good answer.
© 4.28.2024 by J.B. Shurk, "American Thinker"
Pep Talk on a Dark Day.
You realize, don’t you, that what’s going on in our country is the collapse not just of an empire, or an economy, but a comprehensive paradigm of human progress. The hallmark of post-war life in Western Civ was supposed to be a return to sanity after the mid-twentieth century fugue of mass psychotic violence. The wish for just and rational order was not entirely pretense. But that was then. Now that we are going medieval on ourselves, the not-so-ironic result will be our literally going medieval, sinking back into a pre-modern existence of darkness, superstition, and penury, grubbing for a mere subsistence in the shadow of scuffling hobgoblins, our achievements lost and forgotten.
We live in an age of full spectrum deception.What’s most appalling is that our governing apparatus is visibly willing that to happen. When Barack Obama warned America to not underestimate Joe Biden’s ability to fuck things up, was that some kind of joke? After all, it was Mr. Obama and his fellow blobsters — the cabal of Intel spooks, covert Marxist bureaucrats, lawfare ninjas, globalist megalomaniacs, post-liberal think tankers, weapons grifters, degenerate billionaires, and assorted mentally-ill camp followers — who inflicted Joe Biden on the body politic. And then ran him on the country like some demon algorithm designed to wreck the USA as fast as possible.
The source of anguish in all that is the struggle to understand why they would want that to happen. What debauched sense of history would drive anyone to such lunatic desperation? It’s a cliché now to say that the Democratic Party has turned its traditional moral scaffold upside down and inside out. It acts against the kitchen table interests of the working and middle classes. It’s against civil liberties. It demands mental obedience to patently insane policy. It’s avid for war, no matter how cruelly pointless. It’s deliberately stirring up racial hatred. It despises personal privacy. It feeds a rogue bureaucracy that has become a veritable Moloch, an all-devouring malevolent deity. And now, rather suddenly, it aligns itself with a faction that seeks to exterminate the Jews.
And how did the opposition to that epic divergence into bad faith turn so flabby? How did the Republican Party roll over and wheeze so feebly while the FBI ran amok swatting grandmothers in dawn raids, and the US attorney general made justice a whore, and a Republican Congress allowed the Frankenstein agency of Homeland Security to flood the country with its enemies and give them gobs of operational cash? If Mr. Trump was unappetizing to them as a leader, why were they unable to produce an alternative figure of standing and stature at least equally resolute? They look like traitors and cowards.
For the moment, the country lies mired, inert, and demoralized in the face of those terrible mysteries. But events are still tending and the hidden hand of emergence still operates backstage, preparing surprises for us. You are necessarily aware that the center did not hold. It’s even hard to locate where the center used to be with the action so heavy on the far-out margins. You’re watching drag queens importune young children to shove all the Jews into the sea. And the kids are sitting next to their mommies. What happened to the mommies’ brains that permits them to think this spectacle is okay? How will the mommies ever get their minds right?
In some quarters, a great rage is building. Not a few resent the overthrow of common sense, common law, and common decency. You better believe they will be aiming to do something about it. They will stand up for their dignity, their culture, their history. Virtue isn’t dead; it’s just broke down on a lonely highway waiting to hitch a ride back to where the lights are still on. Don’t forget that this really is the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Meanwhile, prepare for action. It’s obvious that the enemies of the people don’t intend to rest. They are going to try to play out this string to the last move because otherwise a lot of them will be going to jail, or might even hang for their wickedness. Once they turned criminal, there was no turning back. They have dishonored themselves and they’re trying to dishonor their country.
It’s true nonetheless that we’re moving into a new disposition of the human project. It’s going to be smaller and leaner, and not nearly as complex as the tottering Rube Goldberg apparatus we’re currently trapped in. We don’t know yet what the shape and texture of that America is going to be. As the sage Yogi Berra observed, our whole future is ahead of us. If you’re not among the insane, have faith. We’ll get there and everything is going to be all right.
© 4.29.2024 by James Howard Kunstler, "ClusterFuck Nation".
