We Ain’t Dead yet

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

When I was growing up, it was taken for granted that eventually the USSR would win the cold war.

Look, we knew what was happening abroad. The US had feckless leaders, and it was too soft. The USSR took and took and took, and the USA just kept folding before it as whole countries were swallowed. Eventually the USSR would get tired and swat the US. And that would be the end. We’d be living under tyranny. A boot stamping on the human face, forever.

That was fifty years ago, and we’ve all passed a lot of water since then. We know now that the USSR was a hollow shell. They took what they could, but they really couldn’t do more than they did. They simply couldn’t. They didn’t have the ability. They didn’t have parity with us, let alone superiority. They were — as the Chinese said — a paper tiger.

And then … Japan was going to eat our lunch economically. Somehow that also didn’t happen.

Oh, yeah, and France was going to beat us to the internet, because the government was funding their entire effort, and they already had so much. It didn’t happen.

Then there was China. They were so organized, so stronk– we know that they are in the process of falling apart. They are, as Dave Freer told me, 20 years ago, like a beautiful lacquered vase, full of cracks underneath the finish. We might be in trouble, but they… oh, boy.

As for corruption…. well, there’s always been that. My friend Charlie was talking about (local) stolen elections back in I’d hazard the 70s. And the late great Lou Antonelli talked about cleaning up the elections in TX.

We’re two hundred and fifty years old, and we’ve already had a civil war. And yeah, government here as everywhere is full of crooks and cheats. And sometimes the cheats win.

Thing is we’re not alone in our trouble. Right now, all over the world, there’s this huge fight going on, because technology has turned from mass and centralized, and politics and society hasn’t adapted, because cultures turn kind of slow. And have a heck of a turning circle. Kind of like my old Suburban with a front end shoved in and the bumper missing. (I bought it that way.)

But like that old Suburban (gee, I wish I had a picture of it!) we take a beating and just keep on ticking.

In every adventure group, there’s the wild card. We’re the wild card of nations.

Our end has been predicted over and over, but you know what? We’re still alive. And we’re going to stay that way.

And through disaster and horror, and hopefully NOT another ACW, we’re going to get this show back on the road. We’re going to dust off the constitution and we’re going to survive.

I have seen so many science fiction anthologies claiming the US will be gone by its three hundred anniversary.

But we’re not going to be. As countries crumble around us, and as turmoil engulfs us, we’re going to survive.

We were born in chaos, birthed in confusion, and survived in improbability.

This country was made for our times.

Sure, things are going to get kind of rough. But we’re going to survive. Even the current bunch of Kakistocrats. We’re going to survive worse too, if it’s waiting for us ahead.

And we’re going to the stars.

Be not afraid.

183 thoughts on “We Ain’t Dead yet”

  1. “I thought you said he was dead”.

    “He was but he got better.” 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

    Liked by 2 people

      3. I’d be 2.5 times the age my father made it to, and 25 past Mom’s age. Not gonna happen. OTOH, I expect to be around for the sesquibicentennial (sounds better than a quarter millinneal) celebration.

        Do you suppose we could burn effigies of FICUS a la Guy Fawkes? Asking for a friend.

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          2. So here’s my suggestion, as many of us are ornery creative -type rascals anyway: how many versions of the “Fifth of November” rhyme can we launch abroad this election year?

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            1. Well, here’s the original to start with. Note that being a folk poem in the first place, there’s likely to be multiple versions out there.

              Remember, remember!
              The fifth of November,
              The Gunpowder treason and plot;
              I know of no reason
              Why the Gunpowder treason
              Should ever be forgot!
              Guy Fawkes and his companions
              Did the scheme contrive,
              To blow the King and Parliament
              All up alive.
              Threescore barrels, laid below,
              To prove old England’s overthrow.
              But, by God’s providence, him they catch,
              With a dark lantern, lighting a match!
              A stick and a stake
              For King James’s sake!
              If you won’t give me one,
              I’ll take two,
              The better for me,
              And the worse for you.
              A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,
              A penn’orth of cheese to choke him,
              A pint of beer to wash it down,
              And a jolly good fire to burn him.
              Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!
              Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!
              Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!

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              1. First mod:

                Remember, remember!
                The fifth of November,
                The Biden treason and plot;
                I know of no reason
                Why the Biden treason
                Should ever be forgot!

                Creepy Joe and his companions
                Did the scheme contrive,
                To rig the Country and Voters
                All up alive.
                Threescore lawsuits, laid below,
                To prove old America’s overthrow.
                But, by God’s providence, him they catch,
                With a dark attorney, frauding the match!

                A stick and a stake
                For Our Citizen’s sake!
                If you won’t give me one,
                I’ll take two,
                The better for me,
                And the worse for you.

                A rope, a rope, to hang the anti-Pope,
                A penn’orth of cheese to choke him,
                A pint of beer to wash it down,
                And a jolly good fire to burn him.
                Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!
                Holloa, boys! holloa boys! Let liberty spring!
                Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!

                Liked by 1 person

  2. Oh, yes. My sister said to me once: “We are the only country who has never bowed to a monarch or a dictator. We don’t have a history of it and we’re not ever going to do it.”

    We just don’t have that kind of constitution, as they say. Heh.

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        1. Including the Premier of China.

          They don’t bow in China. They’ve adopted the western custom of shaking hands.

          His idiot handlers confused China and Japan.

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  3. If all this chaos leads to us going to the Stars, I’ll take it. It would be so worth it.

    If not, tough lets go anyway, have to stop that climate change on Alpha Centauri for the sake of the children you know. 

    Liked by 1 person

  4. This a modern day Labors of Hercules situation with the house called United States.

    Slapping some different color paint around isn’t going fix the holes in the walls, the leaky roof, busted floor, bad electrical, cracked foundations, termites, backed-up sewer, lack of doors and the squatters cooking meth in the basement while arsonists are roaming the neighborhood.

    It’s a full bore teardown and rebuild job.

    To save the people or any core ideas, the restoration crew will have to give up the idealistic Queensberry Rules and may have to consider going full Crusader or Wallachian till the job is done.

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    1. Yeah, it might be might be pretty rough. At least one engine out, leaking oil, fuel down to fumes, and the brakes flaming so hot a tire pops… but a landing is a landing, and even bent up, it counts. And with a bit of work, the ship will even fly again, too!

      ♪ One of our planes was missin’. two hours overdue… ♪

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        1. Unless you are my age you can only imagine what that song means to me. I was a child during WWII, a child born in 1936. This pilot was a hero to so many and the song still gives me chill bumps. Thanks for posting it.

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          1. While I didn’t live it, my father was a boy during WWII, and my grandfather was one of the hundreds of machinists who made parts for the first atomic bombs. Apparently, each individual machinist received the material and the specifics and tolerances on the single part they were supposed to produce. They had no idea at the time what the part did, or what they were making it for, other than a military requirement, and they weren’t supposed to talk about it with anyone.

            I grew up reading stories about WWII battles and heroics. That’s probably one of the strong patriotic influences I had.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. Yep. I grew up reading about WWII, and my high school library had a huge selection of WWII naval history for me to work through. Something about having a naval NJROTC unit in house…

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            2. Same here – born a bare ten years after it was all over, parents were teenagers during it, and many of my teachers and older neighbors were veterans. Movies and TV series all about it … basically, marinated in WWII culture.

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              1. Pretty much the same, although I was born the year it was over. Watched Victory at Sea and The Silent Service (the US TV series), every show.

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    2. ALL of the alphabet agencies need to be disbanded. We can then reconstitute a couple of minor agencies to deal with international intelligence, interstate commerce/environment, interstate criminal investigations (though give the proliferation of interstate information sharing already available outside the feds we probably don’t even need that), and someone to take over dignitary protection. Pretty much everything else should be, and the 10th Amendment says can be legal only by, the states or the people themselves.

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      1. I suspect that what needs to be done is a reset every 50 years back to the bare Constitution. A complete wipe of the Federal Register and the elimination of all federal laws. Disbanding of all departments and agencies. The elimination of all cabinet positions. Congress required to start from scratch, and laws voted on individually, no consolidation packages.

        The American citizens deserve a Year of Jubilee.

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        1. Most of the cabinet positions are the heads of departments. Get rid of the departments, and the cabinet positions go along with them.

          Liked by 1 person

            1. I would be perfectly content to let them stay as the Department Of Defense, provided that they remembered who they were supposed to defend.

              Maybe we should rename then to the Department of Self-Defense?

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              1. I consider the NRA, NAGR, and the bunch of other 2nd Amendment supporters to be the Department of Self Defense. And, even though they vary widely by how efficient they are, they’re still much more efficient than anything the U.S. Government has.

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  5. I’m reminded of Biden and the leftists complaining that the population doesn’t realize how good we have it. “We have the best economy in the world!” Dude, that may be, but it was better 4 years ago. You’ve presided over jack [organic waste material]. Just because everyone else is worse doesn’t necessarily mean we’re actually in a good place. QUIT GRADING ON A CURVE!

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  6. “Look, we knew what was happening abroad. The US had feckless leaders, and it was too soft. The USSR took and took and took, and the USA just kept folding before it as whole countries were swallowed.“

    And yet, when lightning struck, and the Wrong President (much like Mr. Trump, which ought to prove a warning and a reminder to us all*) turned the tide. We won the external war.

    Which should have been a clue, that the U.S.A. was riddled with traitors from within. Sometimes I put my roaring 20s tinfoil hat on and speculate whether the country that fed the Soviets abroad while half-arsedly fighting them at the same time weren’t distracting us from the fight, but keeping TWANLOC brigades leashed.

    Mrs. Hoyt is right, America is her own worst enemy. Not her government. Not even, God save us, the managerial ruling caste distributed amongst all the bureaucracies, public and private.

    So it’s up to Americans rescue Uncle Sam from ourselves. Civil War 2.5 (Are we only up to .5 after the Covid Wars?) is fought within every American heart, family, and neighborhood. And like every other fight like that we win, they lose, because (Happy Pascha-week, orthobros/sisters!) because the big fight is already won.

    (*Mr. Reagan brought us wide open borders, massive immigration fraud, no-fault divorce, and Dr. “Tortures Puppies to Death” Fauci. He was good at what he was good at, and he loved our country. And yet. Mr. Trump is worse, and possibly better. It’s not a binary, folks.)

    Liked by 1 person

  7. Over 40 years ago, a saintly pastor who had a ministry to people on Capitol Hill shook his head and told the young (but already outmoded) me that people would be shocked at the extent of the corruption in the Federal government. 

    I’m inclining more and more to the view that actual corruption has grown in proportion to the size and complexity of government since the New Deal. Add in the penetration of the government by the Soviets from the 30’s to the end of the Cold War, the suborning of the wider liberal establishment by Moscow documented by Vladimir Bukovsky, etc., etc. It’s been an unholy mess for a long time.

    I think that Ms. Sarah is right: it’s not that there’s more corruption, it’s that the powers-that-be have lost control of the flow of information and are thus losing control of “The Narrative.”

    Liked by 2 people

    2. }}} I’m inclining more and more to the view that actual corruption has grown in proportion to the size and complexity of government since the New Deal. 

      Corruption is endemic to government, and consistently ties into the proportion of its size and complexity — anytime, anywhere. There are rare, occasional exceptions (I think the FF’s were probably more immune to corruption, but even there, I cannot say for sure)

      Certainly there was plenty of corruption during the civil war, with bad food being sold to army procurement agencies and then distributed to the troops.

      This is part of the reason why I assert that Grover Cleveland was the last truly Great PotUS we had — yeah, back in the 19th century.

      I’m put in this mind due to two quotes from him found in his Wiki entry:

      A ——

      In 1887, Cleveland issued his most well-known veto, that of the Texas Seed Bill. After a drought had ruined crops in several Texas counties, Congress appropriated $100,000 (equivalent to $3,391,111 in 2023) to purchase seed grain for farmers there. Cleveland vetoed the expenditure. In his veto message, he espoused a theory of limited government:

      I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the general government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that, though the people support the government, the government should not support the people. The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.

      B ——

      “When we consider that the theory of our institutions guarantees to every citizen the full enjoyment of all the fruits of his industry and enterprise, with only such deduction as may be his share toward the careful and economical maintenance of the Government which protects him, it is plain that the exaction of more than this is indefensible extortion and a culpable betrayal of American fairness and justice … The public Treasury, which should only exist as a conduit conveying the people’s tribute to its legitimate objects of expenditure, becomes a hoarding place for money needlessly withdrawn from trade and the people’s use, thus crippling our national energies, suspending our country’s development, preventing investment in productive enterprise, threatening financial disturbance, and inviting schemes of public plunder.”
      — Cleveland’s third annual message [e.g., “State of the Union”] to Congress, 12/6, 1887.

      =============================

      He seems to have been the last PotUS to truly, completely comprehend the proper limits to the Federal Government’s power.

      I love Teddy, but all the modern alphabet agencies started under his auspices. The Dems then took that and ran with it, first under Wilson, then under Teddy’s cousin (Coolidge and Hoover were generally less corrupt and tried not to increase the size all that much, but neither did they shrink things substantially — I’m pretty sure the initial efforts of the FBI to grow its power were under Silent Cal…)

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    1. As long as we don’t have to do that again.

      This time they need to save themselves from their masters’ Islamic invasion, we have our hands full right now.

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  11. “When I was growing up, it was taken for granted that eventually the USSR would win the cold war.”

    We grew up with two very different expectations. I grew up taking for granted that the U.S. and the USSR would have a nuclear war and the American survivors would rebuild over the ashes of what was left. Heck, most of my training was to prepare for that in the event that I wasn’t barbequed and blown to smithereens by a direct hit, or irradiated to death from the fallout. And I still to this day think He did some behind the scenes divine intervention to prevent it.

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    2. There were some accidental *very* near misses. I’ve been told that in one instance, a US nuclear-armed bomber actually launched to go attack its target (the launch codes were transmitted due to some sort of electrical problem, from what I understand), and was in the air for 15 minutes before they got it the right code to come back to base.

      I’ve also occasionally observed that if any country *other* than the US had been the one to develop nuclear weapons first, then Hiroshima and Nagasaki would not be nearly unique events.

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      1. When did it happen? Because that is literally the plot of Fail-Safe, published in 1962. Of course, in the novel (and movie) the bombers don’t get the recall codes…

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        1. That I don’t know. The guy I was talking to claimed that he’d been working at a USAF base that had a similar incident, but caught it before any planes launched. Then he mentioned that there was an actual launch at *location*, and that the plane was in the air for 15 minutes before it was recalled. He didn’t say when it had happened.

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        2. It’s also the plot to Dr. Strangelove, also, mind you. Just less overtly seriously.

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          1. No, in Dr. Strangelove General Ripper went ‘a little funny in the head’ :-D and ordered his bomber wing to go blow up commies. In Fail-Safe an electronic component burned out and the GO code, instead of the RECALL code, was sent to some of the bombers holding at their fail-safe points as part of a routine alert drill.

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      2. We were also very very close to it thanks to MacArthur. According to some, closer than during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

        When MacArthur saber rattled and claimed an intention to go across the NoKo border into China, that was at a time when the relations between Communist China and Socialist Russia were fairly good. Any invasion of China could readily have triggered WWIII.

        This was one of the major reasons why Truman stomped on him so hard. He almost started a nuclear-age World War.

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    3. Me, I grew up with the knowledge that the Soviet Union existed and was very bad, but I didn’t feel in any personal danger from it.

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      1. When was this? I grew up in the 60s-80s — and, while I did not fear it in the 60s, it was primarily because I was young. And, in the 80s, the merdia were attempting to paint Reagan as a warmonger and certain to bring us into WWIII. The 70s, the “time of detente” was certainly the only era when relations were not blatantly on edge, and even then, that was at the time when it seemed that the elites had convinced everyone that the USSR was going to win. That was why they were so pissed with Reagan, he went out and raised on the USSR’s busted flush.

        Liked by 1 person

  12. Apparently, there are videos of Chinese kids bouncing balls and jumping rope with uncanny synchronicity going around on tiktok right now (my very young coworker showed me a video of some pudgy no-namer freaking out over them on her phone [I don’t watch tiktok]) and all I could think of was that it was propaganda. Feed these videos to our youth to make them scared of the Chinese who are obviously better than them at everything, who master these weird techniques in preschool and are going to take over the world since kids in all other countries are useless, lazy, layabouts! But she also mentioned she did not know why suddenly these videos were being fed into her video feed.

    I wanted to sigh and explain that China actually kind of sucks and is in the process of a catastrophic falling-apart, but I’m never at my best at 7:30 in the morning.

    Liked by 1 person

        1. Same here. In some ways more horrific than Lovecraft’s various sanity-destroying eldritch abominations.

          And it’s the sort of horror that gets scarier the more you think about what’s going on.

          Liked by 1 person

        2. Sheesh The Chinese mimic Camazotz, Our brahmandarins like NICE, INGSOC, the Ford and Firemen to deal with books. It goes on and on. Is there any dystopian nightmare that these statists types won’t latch on to from Literature? I know they are rather lacking in creativity and Intellect, but come on…

          Liked by 1 person

          1. When I read Atlas Shrugged a couple of years ago it occurred to me that some people might have read it and thought James Taggart was the hero.

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            1. The Reader thinks that the average college student today would think the hero was Wesley Mouch.

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              1. I was invited to a Gulch equivalent, once. Turned them down after the inviter made some offhand comment about how the people there rely on him for everything so they don’t dare argue with him.

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                  1. Indeed, and that was only one statement. I knew this guy and knew about his Gulch for years before he said that. I still have friends who think he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.

                    I understand he is tired of it and trying to sell the land.

                    Liked by 1 person

    2. It’s the sports kindergartens, where the kids don’t learn to read and write, and where they often get permanent injuries. They prey on kids who are from poor families and are early developers, and the kids are put in boarding schools that are also all sports, no education. They get abused in various ways, and it makes the USSR and East German sports schools look like bastions of enlightened student athleticism.

      There was a famous interview with a former Chinese sports star who begs in train stations, because he doesn’t know anything about any subject, including basic math, and his injuries are so bad he can’t do manual labor.

      Liked by 2 people

        1. Yup, that was one of the episodes of The China Show that made me want to kill something.

          And it is so counterproductive. Sports are complex. You need a ready, agile brain. And muscles work better with alternation of rest and work, so you would think that any pragmatist would figure out that the kids need book learning at their school.

          But it is all corruption, all the way.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. I enjoyed those two guys’ ADV China channel from a few years ago, but my time for watching youtube is limited these days. They are a really great source of real information on China.

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      2. And this is why a country as big as mainland China has such a hard time fielding athletes… Because the state chews up and eats little kids, and only a few survive these state sports schools.

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  13. Three strangers strike up a conversation in the airport passenger lounge in Bozeman, Montana, awaiting their flights.One is an American Indian passing through from Lame Deer. Another is a Cowboy on his way to Billings for a livestock show and a third passenger is a fundementalist Arab student, newly arrived at Montana State University from the Middle East.

    Their discussion drifts to their diverse cultures. Soon, the two Westerners learn that the Arab is a devout, radical Muslim and the conversation falls into an uneasy lull.The Cowboy leans back in his chair, crosses his boots on a magazine table and tips his big sweat-stained hat forward over his face. The wind outside is blowing tumbleweeds around, and the old windsock is flapping; but still no plane comes.

    Finally, the American Indian clears his throat and softly speaks, “At one time here, my people were many, but sadly, now we are few.”

    The Muslim student raises and eyebrow and leans forward, “Once my people were few,” he sneers, “and now we are many. why do you suppose that is?”

    The Montana Cowboy shifts his toothpick to one side of his mouth and from the darkness beneath his Stetson says in a drawl,”That’s ’cause we ain’t played Cowboys and Muslims yet, but I do believe it’s a-comin”.

    We “ain’t” played cowboys and Congress yet either. That may also be on the horizon.

    Ditto cowboys and Chinese.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Reminds me of the refrain from what is known in my family as ‘The Happy Song’: Raise our flag up to the sky, How many of them can we make Die?!

      Liked by 1 person

      1. If WordPress cooperates, here’s the link. From 2001, but a lot of it applies to today:

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  16. I think that the 2016 election was one of those elections that was The People showing those in charge that they weren’t happy with the way things were.

    How else would someone like Trump have ever gotten elected, period? (Note, I’m a fan, but I know his flaws and issues. That he was the best of the two candidates both times is sad.)

    The problem is, Those In Charge took the wrong lesson from it and instead of trying to figure out what they did wrong, they doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on all of their stupid. Which is how we got a turnip in human form in the White House.

    This election cycle is going to be interesting, and I hope that Trump wins with enough of a landslide that enough people have a Moment of Clarity and realize just how stupid they had been.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I hope it’s a landslide as well.

      Of course, with all the garbage happening and Biden’s low-ratings, I’m thinking that even if Biden won “fairly”, plenty of people (including Democrats) would cry FRAUD.

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      1. The biggest problem is that…well, there’s tofu with more wit and charm than Biden and everybody knows it.

        If he gets reelected, it will be because the fix was in-the only question is what kind of fix was involved.

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    3. The only lesson they learned was how much fraud they needed to steal the election. Satisfying the electorate, or the citizens of this country, had absolutely no bearing on their lessons.

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      1. Which is yet another sign of just how much trouble our establishment is in.
        I saw the election and even pundits that were normally smart about things were saying “how can a racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic guy like Trump get elected?!?”
        The answer is simple-people are upset and the E!Republican’s destruction of the Tea Party movement made Trump inevitable. And the circumstances of this election are such that even a HINT of fraud is going to make the Second Summer Of Love coming up look like a wet firecracker.

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          1. }}} Every confirmed instance of fraud in this election should be accompanied by the perps hanging from trees and light posts.

            The following is written by a law professor and former deal of a law school, discussing all the irregularities in the 2020 election.
            Note that none of it is “proof” — it’s all limited to “Things that make you go, ‘HMMMM.’ “

            But the sheer number of them make it clear that it was a banana republic grade election, at best, and the results almost certainly fraudulent, though not provably so… and, frankly, that it is likely to result in a civil war if it happens again.

            ‘The Most Secure Election in American History’
            https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20588/most-secure-election

            Liked by 1 person

            2. Apparently WPDE did not like me linking to a certain post on Monster Hunter Nation. Where it can be found on the Best Of MHN page under ‘Politics, Fisking and Idiot Trolls’, 6th and 7th links.

              As Larry observed almost 4 years ago, if those really were random, unintentional election ‘anomalies’ you would expect at least A FEW to have gone in Trump’s favor.

              But, nope. Every single one of those suspicious election ‘glitches’ favored Biden and the Democrats.

              There’s statistically improbable, and then there’s ‘violates the fundamental principles of the universe’ improbable.

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              1. There’s the number of discrepancies, there’s the sheer number of different types of discrepancies, both of which scream that there was something seriously wrong in each instance. Like Larry mentioned, these are red flags that demand in depth investigation as to their causes, in an honest environment. There is a non-zero possibility that they could have been honest variations in normal voting. But the massive obfuscation, delaying, obstruction of any kind of honest investigation, much less court trials in these cases argues that the DNC, the progressive Left, the Statist Swamp, the GOP RINO elites, all knew that it fraudulent, and did everything they could to prevent investigation of it. Even supposing that 3/4ths of the votes in question were honest, in each contested state, the ones that were fraudulent were enough to throw the election.

                2000 Mules was an excellent movie, even though it’s not legally admissible in a court of law. The few investigations that have managed to get through, most point to a probability of significant fraud; and are promptly buried. We KNOW that China flooded the U.S. with fake drivers’ licenses and ID forms immediately prior to the election (the FBI didn’t completely bury that investigation.) Of course Joe Biden has Xi’s back, Xi got him in the Oval Office.

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                1. One proton in a billion cubic light-years of space is non-zero.

                  The odds that the 2020 election was legitimate are substantially less than that.

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        2. }}}  “how can a racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic guy like Trump get elected?!?”
          The answer is simple-

          a — he’s not “racist, sexist, homophobic”

          b — WE know you’re lying through your teeth when you claim that.

          Liked by 1 person

  17. The problem is, Those In Charge took the wrong lesson from it and instead of trying to figure out what they did wrong, they doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on all of their stupid. Which is how we got a turnip in human form in the White House.

    Yep. They could have looked over their party and said, “We need a better candidate,” then gone out and found one. But noooooo. 

    It isn’t about what the public wants, or the country needs. It’s about winning at all costs. 

    The Republicans aren’t about what the public wants or the country needs either. They seem to only care about their personal position at the trough. 

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    1. I think the Republican rank and file are far more about what the country needs than anything coming out of the Democrat party. The GOP leadership, outside of the Trump camp and a few outliers, are largely DNC enablers and hungry pigs waiting for their Demo overlords to drop them some scraps. Hate to say it, but one of the best things that could happen to America would be for some irate Japanese pilot to fly a 474 loaded with fuel into a joint session of Congress being addressed by Ol’ Crepey Joe. Thank you, Mr. Clancey, for that image.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Alternate universe where “404” is a famous jet airliner rather than a notorious web-page error code?

        I see a four way political division in this country:

        The GOP base thinks that the Democrats suck because they’re a bunch of insane America-hating commies, and that the GOP establishment sucks because they’re spineless fake-conservative wimps who would rather cozy up to the Dems than do anything to successfully advance conservative policies.

        The GOP establishment thinks that the Democrats suck because they’re Democrats, and that the GOP base are revolting peasants who suck revoltingly, such that the GOP establishment would marginally prefer to ally with the Democratic party establishment instead.

        The Democratic party establishment thinks that the GOP base sucks because they’re ultra-MAGA monsters in subhuman mutant form, that the GOP establishment sucks because they’re too beholden to the monstrous GOP base, and that their own Democratic party base sucks because they’re a bunch of semi-useful idiots and wet-behind-the-ears kids.

        And the Democratic party base thinks that the Democratic party establishment and the whole GOP suck because they’re all “right wing,” and the only sin they recognize is to be “right wing.”

        Like

    2. There was no one else that was remotely acceptable to the leadership and the base. Harris was the anointed one in 2020, but Gabbard utterly destroyed her in the second debate. Gabbard (and one of the men, whose name I can’t remember) might have had more appeal to the political center, but the base is so out there that neither one of them was acceptable to the base. That left Biden as the only one able to survive the disaster that was the Democratic Primary of 2020.

      The Democratic bench for the Democrats was destroyed when Obama was in office. And the 2020 Democratic field was the result.

      Remember that this is the primary that had a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination (Julian Castro, iirc) declare in complete seriousness during the first debate that “reproductive justice” needs to be available to transwomen. ”Reproductive justice” is a code phrase for abortion when the left doesn’t want to actually use the word. And transwomen don’t have wombs.

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      1. “Well what about this, even though you can’t have an abortion, not having a womb, we can all agree that you have the right to have an abortion.”

        That’s how that part of the skit goes, right?

        Like

  18. Before there were the colonies in the America’s, crossing the ocean blue was unobtainable. Until it became known it could be done. Took a bit to get the information out there. Was extremely difficult and dangerous. But by all that is holy, it could be done. People essentially sold themselves, and their families, into slavery (indenture, often slavery by another name) to do so. Once they got here, still wasn’t easy, even for those who had the means to pay or work their way.

    This is what it is going to take for us to take to the stars. Just need to prove that it can be done. By someone, not the government. Information won’t be slow. It will explode out. Won’t be easy. Won’t be safe. Guarantied people will indenture themselves to get them and their families out there (now called “employees”) if they can’t get on their way any other method. Won’t be safe or easy when we get where we are going. Maybe that is just orbital settlements. Maybe lunar settlements. Governments can’t claim stellar bodies or part of, who says you and I can’t? I’m would claim it for me and mine. My work. Mine. Won’t be easy to keep. Triple S works there too (although probably a step between first and second S, and redefine second S, to actually eliminated the end result before employing Spreading the evidence into growing soil.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Maybe turn the second S into a C for compost, such as used for an overly inquisitive journalist in <i>Footfall</i>.

      Liked by 1 person

  19. Those are rocks standing on rebar, made that way to look like a crop from a mile away, or from an aircraft. If you squint. Which is what the official inspectors apparently do. They squint while the local guys put money in their pocket.

    This is what they’re doing in China instead of actual crops and tree planting. It’s some quite threadbare pretense of eco-rehab, done because the soil is so poisoned even weeds won’t grow in it, but the central government commanded the provinces grow crops and plant trees.

    So the next time somebody quotes a number or a statement from China to you, show them this picture. Row upon row of rocks on sticks, acre after acre, because one level of government had to produce a faintly believable lie for another level of government.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Yep! Cult of personality, not a single truth from top to bottom, commanding the impossible, whipping up the fires of revolution… Except that last one’s not working as well in China as it seems to in the US. Alas.

        Liked by 1 person

            1. Hey, they are trying their own version of the Great Leap Forward here as well-just call it the Green Leap Forward, as they work to utterly wreck our economy by replacing efficient large scale power sources with intermittent, unreliable wind and solar, while refusing to be build new CO2 emission free nuclear plants because such large scale CO2 emission free energy “doesn’t serve the cause of social justice”.

              Liked by 1 person

    2. Every word they say is a lie, including and and the, but it’s actually worse than that. I’m starting to stop paying attention because it’s not even funny. I’ve moved on to US firms and their trillion dollar maturity wall. Folly, folly, folly.

      Liked by 2 people

    3. Which makes me remember myself as a student of the Russian language at the University of Illinois, sitting there listening to Aleksandr Zinoviev tell about how all the statistics in the USSR were faked from top to bottom, which meant that nobody from the General Secretary to the floor supervisor in a factory knew anything about what was going on. This presentation was in the late 1980’s, amidst Gorbachev’s reforms.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Pretty much as I understand it to be in China today, with literally no one willing to tell Xi anything he might not want to hear for fear of suddenly suffering from terminal cranial lead poisoning. A dictator, in complete isolation from reality, “leading” over a billion (maybe; China lies) people, with operational (again, maybe; see “lies” above) nuclear weapons, and financed/supported in bioweapon research by “genuises” like Fau(st)ci. What could possibly go wrong?

        Liked by 1 person

  20. There’s a table-top miniatures game called Infinity (ILOH has played it) made by a company in Spain. It’s set in a semi-distant future, and has factions that are loosely based on existing countries or groups. For instance, Yu Jing is based on the idea of a China that eventually managed to bring the rest of Asia under its sway. Pan Oceania is most of the rest of the planet.

    But the US isn’t a part of “Pan-O”…

    I have a sneaking suspicion that the game’s developers didn’t want to deal with how a future US would fit into their world. It’s the 800 pound gorilla of the modern world. How do you deal with that in a future setting that still maintains links to the modern world?

    So they arbitrarily wrote it off. Some horrible disaster was experienced a while back that devastated the US, and the surviving Americans are cleaning it up. On their own.

    I’m amused by the authors’ side-step.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. If I remember right, it was basically “global warming that the stupid Americans thought would never happen got them and since they didn’t worship at the throne of ALEPH, that really screwed them over.”

      My particular little retcon if I was going to do something about it was that a sublight (not using the wormholes) colony ship left during this era and they’ve returned just as everything went insane.

      Like

      1. The info I had on what happened to the US was never that detailed, and always very vague. It could have been climate change. Or it could have been a war. Or it could have been something else entirely. It’s also odd that ALEPH would be presented as a genuine potential benefactor, since it’s always had a sinister edge in its manipulations of the various factions. ALEPH thinks it represents humanity’s best interests. But it tends to be a covert “ends justify the means” organization. Backlash against ALEPH control is one of the biggest reasons why the Nomads exist.

        What is telling, though, imo, is that Pan-O didn’t promptly try to move in when the US suffered its disaster (under the guise of “humanitarian relief”). That would seem to be Pan-O’s usual modus operandi, but they didn’t do it in this case. So I’m pretty sure that the writers just didn’t want to deal with the US and all of the complications that could potentially cause (particularly US players unhappy about the treatment of their country).

        How would your colony ship idea differ from Ariadne?

        Liked by 1 person

  21. What the heck kind of crops are those supposed to be???

    One of our 6th graders could CGI a more believable field during study hall, for crying out loud. - For all they might stink at synchronized ball bouncing. 

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    1. Cotton? China is a leading producer.

      That’s my best guess since I used to work in real cotton fields. I guess their preharvest defoliant worked… LOL

      Like

      1. Boy did it ever! Better than the stuff I saw advertised down in Midland, TX one year. (Although the commercial for boll accelerant was more memorable – it was set to “Hall of the Mountain King.”)

        Liked by 1 person

  22. America is a big giant tent. Fifty test beds for society. The blue states are screwing up and the red states are not. People go where it is prosperous, they support that prosperity. The government is what it is a necessary evil, but still inherently evil, that’s why it’s supposed to be small. That’s why the states are supposed to be fifty experiments and the people could chose which one they prefer. They are doing that, and it is starting to affect the blue states bottom line, face it it makes it much harder to steal from the government if that government has no money. All the craziness they are doing now is destroying them and their brand. Only an insane Jew would for vote a democrat right now.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Only an insane Jew would for vote a democrat right now.

      Much of the current insanity including the antisemitism is funded by wealthy, insane, secular Jews. Soros and the Pritzker family leading the charge…

      https://moonbattery.com/pritzker-family-helps-bankroll-pro-hamas-demonstrations/

      I’ve never understood that level of craziness. “I hate my people so much, I’m going to fund their opponents or oppose them myself.” But it happens time after time, causing a backlash against the majority of Jews and more problems overall.

      It’s an f’ed-up situation. I asked a Jewish buddy and he replied, “Some people want to play as gods or think they can outsmart God.”

      Like

      1. It’s all Gnosticism. Soros is trying to immanentize the principles he laid out in the Alchemy of Finance; much like Adolph, he wrote it all down before he did it. The Pritzkers are just very strange, lot of body dysmorphia in the clan.

        Liked by 1 person

    2. }}} People go where it is prosperous, they support that prosperity.

      Unfortunately, this is not how the liberal mind works. They leave their self-created hellhole for someplace better — like people from Cali moving to Nevada and Arizona — then they vote for the same imbecilic policies and leftist assholes who screwed up the place they came from.

      PostModern Liberalism is a Social Cancer.

      Literally, not figuratively…

      Liked by 1 person

  23. Team ObamaBiden used VE Day to publicly throw Israel under the bus again by openly stating they are withholding not only bombs but artillery shells that Congress directed be sent to Israel without conditions and which Israel had already agreed to purchase. They did so to prevent Israel from destroying Hamas so that Hamas can survive to massacre Jews yet again.

    The people running the administration share the ideology of the evil we defeated in Europe in WW2, and are now open about it. Biden and the people puppetting him should be wearing Swastikas as their party and ideological symbol.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. }}} Team ObamaBiden used VE Day to publicly throw Israel under the bus again by openly stating they are withholding not only bombs but artillery shells that Congress directed be sent to Israel without conditions and which Israel had already agreed to purchase. 

      Isn’t it interesting how this was an impeachable offense when there was a PotUS with an (R) after his name, but how it’s A-OK when he has a (D) after his name?

      Welcome to the ObamaNation.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Obloodi Heile posted too soon. Already impeachment article ready to file (filed?) against Biden on the withholding of arms appropriated by congress for Israel. In addition 24 (last I saw) democrats are also stating Biden needs to reconsider. Will that translate to impeachment votes? I’d be shocked if it did.

        Besides who wants Biden impeached before Kamala is impeached. Unfortunately can not impeach her for being a bimbo idiot without two brain cells to rub together. (Pretty sure between the two of them. they don’t have two brain cells. But still neither can be impeached for that.)

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  24. The people running the administration share the ideology of the evil we defeated in Europe in WW2, and are now open about it. Biden and the people puppetting him should be wearing Swastikas as their party and ideological symbol.

    Maybe they could put swastikas on the Ukrainian flags they are flying in Congress.

    Kinda clashes with the rainbow pins, but hey, they need to up their flair count if they want to keep their phoney baloney jobs. And whoever said being a member of Congress would be easy? Lucretive, perhaps, but easy? Or in good taste? 

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    1. They should put swastikas on their Ham-Ass flags and stupid Naruto headbands.

      If the idiots trying to re-enact 1930s Germany can’t remember that American Jews are armed, they will find out. The hard way.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I actually a bit surprised that I have yet to see a “Palestinian” with a swastika in that triangle. Whether by pro- or anti- “Palestinian” types.

        Like

    1. Saw a reporter calling the ‘protesters’ “40-year-old unemployed losers”.

      Dude, that IS their job. They’re being paid to riot. They’re just not very good at their jobs.

      Like

      1. Well, if a Main-Stream News reporter said that, then it would likely mean that Main-Stream News is getting tired of the protesters. [Evil Grin]

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        1. ‘Twere an independent reporter guesting on Jesse Watters.

          Yeah, I know, I’d rather watch Lou Dobbs and Tucker Carlson but Lou Dobbs got canceled for telling the truth about Dominion and Tucker Carlson got canceled for telling the truth about COVID.

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          1. The local independent TV news station here in LA County has been surprising me. While some of the stuff that they show is pure demonstrator propaganda (usually demonstrator official statements, or “man in the street” stuff of students who just happened to be demonstrators before the police moved in), they’ve also had quite a lot from students and faculty who were frustrated and angry with the demonstrators. They also included student in the street stuff where Jewish students pointed out that “river to the sea” espouses genocide, and using it should get the demonstrations shut down by the university leadership.

            There was also a short bit where a reporter with a camera crew was asking why he couldn’t use a walkway that the UCLA encampment had blocked.

            And the customers that have said things to me about the demonstrations make it clear that they’re not friends of the demonstrators.

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            1. Me too. I sometimes show the opening of his Black Monday episode to the class when we talk about the Great Depression. I also remember when his father came on and talked about everything he’d seen.

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  27. So…

    Remember the classic image by Larry Elmore on the cover of the D&D Red Box edition that featured the muscular fighter (seen only from the back) versus the red dragon? WOTC has apparently revealed – via the release of a new miniature – that this fighter is, in fact, a woman! And not only is she a woman, but she has *always* been intended to be a woman, even way back when Larry Elmore first drew her! A miniature of a rather chunky looking woman has been released depicting the character.

    Of course, there are few flies in that ointment.

    First is that the thing Elmore *always* does when he’s drawing a woman is to give her shapely legs. If there’s muscle tone, it’s minimal. The leg might be thin, or it might be thick. But it will be shapely. And at least one of them will probably be partially (or fully) uncovered.

    Second, (and I just discovered this) there was apparently an action figure of this character released quite a while back. Said action figure is a man.

    Third, the news of this has caused Elmore himself to make a statement on the matter confirming that, yes, the character was drawn as a man, and was always understood to be a man back in the day when he still did artwork for TSR.

    Or in other words, to the surprise of no one, WOTC is being stupid woke, and blatantly lying to everyone by claiming that they’re not changing anything.

    In other news, Michael A. Stackpole, whose name used to be virtually synonymous with Battletech novels (and is probably a large part of why the novels were as successful as they were) has similarly popped up to tell a newer Battletech author that no, the character Anastasius Focht was never intended to be trans, or to serve as a metaphor for trans.

    Between stuff like this, and the push in the video games industry, it’s starting to feel like lots of sound and fury. Eventually it, too, will signify nothing. But hopefully we don’t need to wait long for that to happen.

    Like

    1. Junior, I have been following the trials and travails of gaming on The Tube of You. Related to the fine article on economics earlier this week, it is amazing to me that these companies are working very hard to drive away their base in the name of “current thing”.  And not just passively trying – actively doing so, to the point (as noted above) of effectively reinterpreting past events for the purposes of being “modern”.

      The wheels are starting to come off that bus, as the growing layoffs in the industry are showing. By rejecting their fan base, they are pandering to a much smaller base which apparently are not purchasers of the product. It does two things. As has been noted multiple times here, it opens a door for the growth of content creators. And it breaks the loyalty the old customer base had, and with it the need to continue to purchase the next version or edition.

      My prediction? New releases of such franchises will slow down to a minimum, if at all. The secondary market of previous editions (and, as I have recently realized, the 3D printing market) will be taking off.

      Like

      1. Also making the rounds is the news that conservative UK blogger Sargon of Akkad has an evil slave driver named after him in a 2020 Warhammer 40,000 novel. Apparently there’s a character named Sargon Aggad (as noted above, an evil slave driver) in the novel. And the author has a habit of inserting woke stuff into his 40K novels.

        The response from Sargon, aka Carl Benjamin, was to ask for a description so that he could paint up a miniature. 😋

        But seriously, this is the kind of thing that should get an author banned from ever writing again for a franchise. It’s a potential lawsuit risk if the target doesn’t take it as well as Sargon is.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. The second one. I got mugged by plot bunnies on the way to work because of an image I saw on Law Dog’s blog.

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  31. }}} Oh, yeah, and France was going to beat us to the internet, because the government was funding their entire effort, and they already had so much. It didn’t happen.

    BWAAAAAAAhahahhahahaaaaa!!! This was the early-mid 1980s — I remember how France was creating their “Minitel” system, that would, among other things, replace physical phone books. They were going to put them in every home in France, and they would also sell them to everyone, so they made like 5-6 million of the things, even though they only needed like a half million to a million for the French homes.

    Problem was, they got rapidly surpassed by the technology — like within about 6 months, so no one wanted to buy them. The French took a major bath on them, it would seem.

    EXCEPT… Not so much.

    About 2y later I heard about California’s new school initiative (face it, there’s one every year, in many states), where they were going to put “a computer in every classroom” (that was before they were prevalent in every home, of course). They had arranged to buy about a million computers for this purpose.

    THEN the piece showed a picture of the computers they had bought for the purpose.

    Yyyyyyyyyup. You guessed it… They were the French Minitel systems that France could not sell to anyone with any brains. This, of course, does not include state government educational officials. Well, any governmental officials, generally, but certainly it applied to Cali’s educational idiots.

    And, of course, while I don’t know the final disposition, my own suspicion, from being closely involved in IT, is that those boat-anchor systems — with
    a — their total incompatibility with literally every other major computer system (e.g., either the Apple ][, the IBM PC, or even the still fairly limited Apple Macintosh) meant they had zero software of significance

    b — tech that was, by then, more than 3y out of date, and not an open system (hence unable to be reasonably upgraded in any way, such as the Apple ][ — then the educational standard — or the IBM PC)

    Well, I’m betting they all — every single one of them, almost — sat in the classrooms gathering dust.

    But the French governmental economic boondoggle-disaster that was the Minitel development was rescued by.. another incompetent governmental initiative.

    Quelle Suprise?

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