Two Sides

In this dispute there are two sides.

I say this because telling you the other side gets a vote is stupid. We all know that. They have seized the levers of external power, and are doing their best to convince us — and perhaps have already convinced themselves — that only they get a vote.

Honestly at this point in their descent into madness while dragging us along for the ride, it’s hard to know what part of this is crazy propaganda, and what part is what they believe.

Except that I’m fairly sure there is a demoralize and cause to desist campaign going on by those slightly more competent services that until recently were forbidden from working in America.

And of course, it’s working because people born and raised here are so bizarrely unused to psy-ops and being messed with.

So, I feel it’s my duty to remind you that we also get a vote. Oh, maybe not in the vote-box (Considering PA also has enlisted into the full vote fraud operation.) But we get a vote. They can issue commands, but we don’t need to obey. They can forbid this and that, but they’re going to have a hell of a time doing so when it’s things necessary for life.

Remember the left, like our — special needs — European cousins has no idea of the geography or exigencies of life in America. Most of them are denizens of big cities or so stupid that without their trust funds they’d already have died from not knowing how to walk and chew gum at the same time.

So, you know, they don’t understand that no, we can’t make do with renta-a-mopeds when the grocery store is a minimum of a half hour drive down the freeway. They don’t understand that no, delivery trucks can’t be all electric. They don’t understand that if you forbid airplane flights, people will get pretty pissed at not being near aunt Minnie in her final moments.

They don’t know who we are or what we do.

Their crazy dictates can’t work here. Truth be told, they can’t work anywhere, which is why Europe — Europe! — is one step from open war, stopped only by the fact that they only have pitchforks to go after the bastages with, and that they bought the “climate” BS so long that they now probably also don’t have cars to drive to their capital.

But Europe could get that far, because in Europe you can accommodate that sort of insanity that much farther without the wheels coming off. Even their “rural” folk are closer to urban than most of our country. And they don’t routinely need to go the distances we do to transport everything from produce to packaging materials.

We can’t. They try that, the wheels come off. They come off fast enough that they won’t be beyond retribution.

And we’re armed. They know that. Which is why they’re buzzing on about guns, again/still trying to find a way to convince us to give it all up.

If you think they’re going to come door to door, you’re out of your mind, worse than the left. Note the left hasn’t done that. They haven’t done that even in the cities that are nominally wholly under their control. Because if they do that, they — even they — know will light the fuse and they won’t be able to put it off again.

My guess, if I had to make a guess, is that the reason they killed that poor elderly man in Utah was because he was talking about his guns and was a gun nut. And they though this would maybe scare the other armed to the teeth people.

It doesn’t seem to have worked. In fact, the result of their new offensive on guns, is, at a guess, that credit card reading machines in every gun shop across our great land, are smoking.

And make no mistake, the possession of guns by we the people (how many no one knows. I mean, a lot are at the bottom of lakes and rivers. People, learn to boat) is the ONLY thing keeping the second civil war from erupting.

They have a mental plan for this and it’s roughly covalent to how they seized Russia. Starve, send the army in, destroy, etc. etc. etc.

But those dang guns, and those dang Americans are in the way.

And we’re going to continue being in the way. Yes, their goal is to starve us of fossil fuels. People, we are Americans. You and I and the little aardvark in the corner know d*mn well if they make it uncomfortable enough, we’ll come up with solutions. For all I know there will be crazy guys in a shop in a corner of every town pounding out steam engines and dropping them into re-fabbed junkyard finds. Or other things we can’t even imagine. But two guys tinkering about will figure it out, and that night word will go out “Hey, they have a new car that” and copycats will spring up.

You know it, I know it. The big idiots in charge know it too.

They know we get a vote. Which is why they keep trying this and that, and talking really big, but not getting to do anything, other than, well, take the economy into the ground. They’re good at that. They do that as a default, even when they think they’re making things good.

But the thing is, as an aunt of mine once put it, the bad here is still better than the good most places. And as Trump showed in 16, if we wrest control from the left’s dumb and greedy little paws, America comes back like that. All we need is the boot to lift off a little. Or to press down harder and make us go … inventive.

But the thing is we go inventive by default.

Which, again, is why they’re trying so hard. Oh, you think the Roman Empire (guys thinking about it, or this being exactly like the fall of Rome) came up naturally on social media everywhere at once?

You are adorable, do you guys know that. Sweet Summer Children!

Listen, the comparison of America to the Roman empire was a favorite of the Soviet agit-prop thing, here and at home. “The decadent Roman Empire” made their people PROUD of not having the minimal comforts needed for life, much less the type of wealth we have. It made it seem like there was virtue in living in stack a prol apartments and eating rotten beets while standing in line for clothes.

We were never the Roman Empire. We were never an Empire. Sure, sure, garrisons in other lands. And tell me, did they even suppress anti-American sentiment, let alone install our hand picked puppets? Bah. Trust me, I was in Germany in the 80s. No. No, our garrisons did nothing except stand ready to defend the populace.

As for buying from other lands — dudes, that’s commerce! Only the dirty communists think of that as oppression. America’s appetite for cheap gauds and trinkets has spread the most prosperous of times across the world.

Sure, we buy cheap. Again, commerce. But there are always the dodos invested in fair trade also known as “paying more than you need to, because it gives you warm and fuzzies.” Because some people are like that.

However, our cheap is the expensive of other countries, and again, spread prosperity across the world.

What we don’t do is send our armies in to strip the locals of anything valuable to us.

In fact, the Roman Empire is closer to the Soviet Empire, spreading across the Earth to get bread crusts for those at home.

An American empire, operating the same way, wouldn’t be able to feed the country for a month, after the commies destroy food production at home.

And opening the borders isn’t going to do to us what it did to Rome. Americans aren’t disarmed. More importantly — trust me — is the fact American sons and daughters still served in the armed forces until very recently. So America is full of veterans.

In Rome most of the legions by the end were pretty much foreign. Though there was provincial too. Only we don’t have provinces. All our veterans are right here, in possession of know-how and armed for bear.

But yeah, they’re trying to make you think we’re just like Rome. We’re doomed, and we should give up. And that’s why that meme came up. And some of you rockheads are spreading it instead of thinking and pushing back.

Look, right now they can’t push further. They can’t. Yes, they can cause confusion and destruction and they can fake elections. (Maybe. I still say it’s going to take faking 400 million votes for the Bidenfuhrer. And then we win that battle by virtue of “eyes on your face.”)

But they can’t seize the total control they want.

We are not early-twentieth century Russia. We’re not like any of their models. And we’re damn flexible and inventive. Which they’re not. And scares them.

So sorry to interrupt your doom podcast broadcast into your head 24/7 by the enemy, but the fight isn’t lost. Hell, the fight is damn near won, though the mop-up will be a right bitch.

They had to lock us up and take all sorts of blatant measures, after four years of 24/7 everywhere propaganda and the cooperation of the deep state in it, to make it appear Trump was corrupt and in the pay of the enemy (Dear Lord, they had to pick Russia, because they’re stupid, and didn’t realize we were all looking at it and going “that makes no sense.” Because in their minds we all naturally hate Russia, since they never got what we hated/hate is communism. Sigh. Such special children. Makes me think the Spartan methods of culling had a point except “addled enough to be a commie” doesn’t show at birth.) And then they still had to fraud at the last minute, in front of G-d and everyone. Because their most extensive and “diverse” (WTF does that even mean) network of fraud came up short.

After unprecedented propaganda war on all Americans, and trying to put the country under house arrest.

Note also that all their powers of propaganda have failed to gin up a second scare. And note that their attempts to re-ignite the “summer of fiery love” have been limited and looked at as crazy.

They aren’t winning. They can’t win. The truth is all their agendas and five year plans always fail. Always. The fault is usually of wreckers and hoarders of course, though everything from agriculture to foreign enemies can be named.

The truth is their program can’t work. And we’re not about to let it anyway.

Because we have agency.

We’re the people who didn’t let them keep the lockdown going forever. (Yes, they really had planned on that. Lock us down, move us to their “15 minute” cities, and make us eat bugs. Go and look at the media of two years ago. They weren’t subtle and they weren’t hiding. They saw it so close they could taste it. Hence “new normal” (Spit))

We’re the people who have thwarted them at every turn, and looked at their clever propaganda operations and made up memes to mock them.

Because we’re American and they — poor sods — have forgotten they are.

Go be inventive, devious, and always, always:

Go be ungovernable.

That will do!

Book Promo And Vignettes By Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike

Book promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion.SAH

FROM CAEL AMARI: Oathbound: An Age of Shadows Story

Life is short in Signe’s village. Monsters and undead infest the unforgiving mountains, and a brutal winter is prowling at the door. But when her closest friend is murdered in secret, Signe must undergo a dangerous journey in order to find the truth — and exact justice for the dead.

Sword’s justice, if need be.

Yet sometimes justice is not what one finds at the end of an oath of vengeance, and sometimes, it takes more than a blade to ensure the dead are truly at rest.

Rooted in a Dark Age inspired world, with nods to Old https://amzn.to/3EZFyJuNorse, Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian legend, OATHBOUND is a standalone dark fantasy novel.

FROM RACOUNTER PRESS, FEATURING STORIES BY ALMA BOYKIN DANIEL G. ZEIDLER AND MORE: Space Cowboys 3: Return of the Bookaroo

When there are no frontiers left on Earth, humanity will head to the stars.
And the cowboys will be there, riding herd on rockets, asteroids and whatever animals make it to space with us.
Join these 10 authors as they tell the stories of life, death, justice and the struggle to survive on humanities next frontier.

BY Z. M. REMNICK: The Wedding of Light and Shadow (The Seelie Court Book 5)

Emma Greer is a Champion of the Mortal Realm against the forces of the Fae—and her life is now a mess. She sees things that no one else sees, hears voices coming from the shadows, and senses danger in things everyone else considers ordinary. She feels like she’s going insane as she tries to go about her every day life with the forces of the Fae swirling around her.

In the midst of all this, Emma receives an offer to run security for a wedding in Estes Park. The pay is good, and it includes a free week at the Stanley Hotel. It seems like a no-brainer to Emma. Then she finds out that the wedding is between two fairies of different courts—and if it doesn’t go off without a hitch, it could start a cascade of destruction that will shatter the Fae Realm and send ripples into the mortal world that will bring everything into chaos.

Keeping a couple dozen fairies out of trouble in a Colorado tourist town is difficult enough, especially when aided by a security team of questionable loyalty. But then a critical member of the wedding party disappears, and foul play is suspected. Can Emma find the missing Fae, keep the wedding from turning into a battle, and make sure that the bride and groom get to “I do”? To do so, she must master her own powers and take the next steps to understanding her destiny.

FROM DALE COZORT: Through the Wild Gate

Robinette Thornburg, the half-human daughter of ultra-rich Robert Thornburg, thought she was fully human, just weird, for the first twenty-one years of her life. She went to expensive private schools, then Harvard. On her twenty-first birthday, she learned that she was half Mangi, the result of an encounter between her father and a primitive near-human woman from the Wild, an alternate reality North America where primitive humans arrived half a million years ago, but no modern humans ever did.

FROM KAREN MYERS: The Chained Adept: A Lost Wizard’s Tale

MEET A POWERFUL WIZARD WITH UNANSWERED QUESTIONS–AND AN UNBREAKABLE CHAIN AROUND HER NECK.

Have you ever wondered how you might rise to a dangerous situation and become the hero that was needed?

The wizard Penrys has barely gained her footing in the country where she was found three years ago, chained around the neck and wiped of all knowledge. And now, an ill-planned experiment has sent her a quarter of the way around her world.

One magic working has called to another and landed Penrys in the middle of an ugly war between neighboring countries, half a world away.

No one has any reason to trust her amid rumors of wizards where they don’t belong. And she fears to let them know just what she can do — especially since she can’t explain herself to them and she doesn’t know everything about herself either.

Penrys has her own problems, and she doesn’t have any place in this conflict. But they need her, whether they realize it or not. And so she’s determined to try and lend a hand, if she can. Whatever it takes.

And once she discovers there’s another chained adept, even stronger than she is, she’s hooked. Friend or foe, she has questions for him — oh, yes, she does.

All she wants is a firm foundation for the rest of her life, with a side helping of retribution, and if she has to fix things along the way, well, so be it.

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Deep Pinkhttps://amzn.to/45iCJOq

Like all Private Detectives, Seamus Lebanon [Leb] Magis has often been told to go to Hell. He just never thought he’d actually have to go. But when an old client asks him to investigate why Death Metal bands are dressing in pink – with butterfly mustache clips – and singing about puppies and kittens in a bad imitation of K-pop bands, Leb knows there’s something foul in the realm of music. When the something grows to include the woman he fell in love with in kindergarten and a missing six-year-old girl, Leb climbs into his battered Suburban and like a knight of old goes forth to do battles with the legions of Hell. This is when things become insane…. Or perhaps in the interest of truth we should say more insane.

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: sticks