Living in Interesting Times

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

We live in interesting times. Oh, not in the Chinese sense but in the funny fantasy novel sense.

Over the weekend the usual hodge podge of commie fronts and losers got together to protest kings. In the US which has never had a king. In the rest of the world, too, where the cowards changed the name to “No tyrants.”

The US doesn’t have a tyrant, either. You can usually tell when a country has a tyrant. There’s capitals with barbed wire and troops guarding it, because tyrants are afraid of their people. They might also lock up their people with curfews and rules against getting together. And, oh, yeah, they definitely control what can be said on social media. The boldest ones will have policies against sharing disinformation and might even hire an evil Mary Poppins avatar, a Mary Scolddins, you could say to determine what information the darling little peasants can even see and which is stomped on.

Arguably — looks at the UK — countries where they had the no tyrants protests have both a king and a tyrant (Hello Two Tier Keir.)

And then … and then they have the unmitigated purple-painted gal of saying that these were the biggest protests ever — ignoring the tea parties, where not a single one of us was paid for attending only — and that Trump has no support because there were no counter protests.

Dude, dudettes and dudelings, what kind of counter protest do we make to pure fantasy?

They’re out the streets, claiming Trump is a king and they don’t want kings. This while their bought and paid for federal judges (or the ones drunk on racialist nonsense) run around stopping Trump at every jointure, in things they plain have no jurisdiction over, like who can be sent back to their country of origin when here illegally, or where he can send the national guard. (As my veteran friends keep saying, federal judges are not and have never been in the direct line of command for enlisted.) They’re screaming Trump is a king, when he’s there for another three and a half years, and never said he’d rule by pen and phone, isn’t keeping people locked up or forcing them to inject experimental drugs.

People, if Trump is a king he’s a lousy one. I’d expect a lot more cloth of gold and the designation of his son as his successor, at a very minimum. And if he’s a tyrant, he’s failing to tyranize in a totally American way.

So when they’re protesting against their illusions — the same people, I’m sure given htey’re older than dinosaurs — who failed to protest Clinton taking droit due skeevy on a subordinate and Obama “ruling” as he said via pen and phone…. what do they want us to counter protest?

Do they want us to hold up signs saying “Trump for king?” WHY? We’re the original, non adulterated “leave us the f*ck alone” individualists. We have never hankered for a king. We never even, in a very Roman turn, deified our presidents. Oh, sure, we sometimes call Trump God Emperor, but that’s a joke (though it’s possible the left doesn’t know that. They are remarkably lacking on sense of humor, like all possessed. The devil, after all, can’t laugh.) We never said that he was sort of a god, standing above humanity. That was them talking about Obama. (Never was so much adoration lavished on so unworthy a subject. Caligula might have been despicable, but he wasn’t the little man who wasn’t there.)

I finally had a great idea, should they ever have another of these again. Next time they have one of these, we should immediately counterprotest with “No Unicorns either.” And “Down with Pegasi” And “Chimera have to go.”

Or perhaps just stand around with signs that read “No old hippies.” “No 50 year long LSD trips.” “Better mental health” and the like.

Because if beardo the weirdo is demonstrating against what doesn’t exist the only defense is to point out it doesn’t exist. With various degrees of wit. And I fear mine is lacking as I’m unslept, have been fighting bureaucracy for a week, and have a hard day of travel ahead.

Do you have more witty ways to respond to the floridly delusional who still haven’t come down from that trip they started in the 70s?

I’m all antecipation.

At least these interesting times are written by Terry Pratchett — note that having demonstrations about something that doesn’t exist is vintage Pratchett — not, say, C. M. Kornbluth. It could be worse. Though we’re at serious danger of giving ourselves an injury through excessive laughter.

119 thoughts on “Living in Interesting Times”

  1. “You can usually tell when a country has a tyrant. There’s capitals with barbed wire and troops guarding it, because tyrants are afraid of their people. They might also lock up their people with curfews and rules against getting together. And, oh, yeah, they definitely control what can be said on social media…”

    Hmm, what a wild imagination you have Sarah. That never (cough, cough, 2021) happened…, EVER!

    I do love your slogans, but really no unicorns? I like unicorns. How about, “Down with Hydra! End SMERSH! Hey hey, ho ho, the IRS has got to go!” or better yet, “End S.H.I.E.L.D.!”

    Liked by 4 people

  2. Here’s a slogan or two updated from the 60’s:

    Come Alive! You’re in the Balance of Nature Generation!

    Have your say [but] – There are no Kings!

    etc.

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      1. oh thats funny,

        how about a 60 something white guy sick and tired of the bullshit with a hint of i hate every single last one of these azzhats and would just as soon push em in a pile with my D6 hightrack at full throttle

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          1. Folks are trying to explain to you that your suggestions for mass violations of various laws are unwelcome.

            At least wrap it in some humor boilerplate about “in that novel folks are writing….”.

            But if you truly think that way, perhaps seek out some other site that wants that sort of thing. I am reasonably certain neither hostess or typical reader here are interested in such activities in real life.

            Or just admit you broke rhetorical wind.

            Liked by 3 people

          2. Read the room, Tommy. Even at MSB they smacked you down periodically, and this group is far more “conservative” in that sense.

            Liked by 1 person

        2. Not Russian. IQ is too low, plus he probably doesn’t know any C++ or how to field strip an Kalashnikov.

          I’d say Q-tip Boomer that was too lazy to earn a few bucks carting around signs on Saturday because he was too busy watching sports ball. Or maybe the local rally site was too close to a elementary school.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Despite my earlier comment, I suspect that he’s exactly what he says, and hasn’t learned that ridicule is far more effective against these types of buhffoons than treating them as something to be taken seriously.

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            2. Aye, that’s my guess.

              Started reading this on my Kindle, and I thought he was advocating spraying rice on them. Now, that would be confusing as hell.

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    3. I know it’s tempting, but please don’t let your frustration get the better of you.

      There’s time for that later if they can’t be persuaded by other means.

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      1. The solution is just to wait.

        After 4 or 5 more boosters and annual flu shots, the ignorant will vanish themselves or be unable to stand more than 10 minutes.

        Except for voting and consuming resources, they are mostly harmless. Just think of them as they are like the Black Knight in Monty Python, not dead yet….

        Liked by 2 people

    4. That’d be a negative there ghost rider. Calling for death of political opponents doing silly things is not a conservative calling card. Or a (small L) libertarian. Or constitutionalist or whatever we are calling ourselves today (homo sapiens supremacists? Eh, whatever). That’s a common trope of a rather different party. One what marches under the sign of the donkey. When it’s not the hammer and sickle, or black and red panties on a stick, et cetera.

      We are NOT in a shooting war. We are not in any internecine political struggle with guerilla operatives on both sides taking potshots at passing postal employees. We aren’t in the apocalypse where rule of law is a thing of the past and morality is by rule of the strong. We aren’t the plucky underdog resistance fighters assassinating our way to the moral high ground.

      We are bloody Americans ya daft duck. We don’t do IEDs for the DEI (ever notice that little mirror gem?). We don’t do vigilante violence against potentially violent idiots. Even paid protester agents provocateur. We have rule of law, which is a damned fine thing and I highly suggest you read up on it.

      It is the getting away from rule of law that’s the problem. Well, that and too many dumb laws, but that’s beside the point. Rule of law means what happened in DC: Safer streets, lower violent crime, fewer drugs, fewer bum related badthings, less losers lighting random things on fire, and the relative absence of thieves and thuggery has been even lauded by liberals themselves.

      Don’t be the Bubba, bub. Eschew the utter foolishness that is calls for violence on, what, a bunch of crusty old hippies channeling their 60s and 70s protest highs, back when they could actually get laid without extensive chemical support and things were just far out and great, man. They look friggen ridiculous. They sound about the same, too.

      Nuts to the violent invective. Use your words, sprog. And not to whine about such utter petty douchebaggery. Use them for positivity. You know what is best in life, right?

      Meh, it may sound petty, but disappointing humorless scolds never gets old. Living a proud life, upright and dependable, making cute little babies with your beloved spouse and raising them to be fine, strong gentlemen and ladies. Laughter and kindness. Contentment and purpose. That stuff? They hate it with all the fires of a thousand molotovs. They envy it secretly, because it represents what they will not and cannot allow themselves to have.

      Winning is us living our best lives, without fear of their hate. Winning is sharing our joys and happiness with others, and enticing them towards a better future. Winning is being strong enough to have mercy on a defeated foe that shows contrition. Winning is not falling for the con.

      They want us to be violent. This has been stark reality since J6. They want us to be unthinking, reactive, and predictable. We aren’t because we are free.

      It takes strength and courage to be the better man. Because yes, we can still be hurt. We are mortal. So are our loved ones. But we must be strong enough to protect them as well as we can, and courageous enough to let them take risks regardless.

      Let them speak. Let them protest, but may it be peaceful. The more they show the world what they are, the less power and relevance they have at this point. Well that and the less money they have. Recent news has suggested that there might be good news on that front in the coming days.

      So let it be said: no to the call for deaths. That’s dumb. Stop it. Do better.

      Liked by 5 people

      2. The Reader thinks and hopes you are right. But he is still keeping his clothes and weapons where they can be found in the dark.

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  4. I will worry about a Trump dynasty when and if Eugenie de Bourbon or the eldest of Eduoard Hapsburg’s daughters goes to college in the US and Barron Trump starts dating one or the other.

    Liked by 5 people

    1. I forget if the daughter of the Japanese emperor is still single.

      Definitely would not work out very politically, because the Emperor is a religious position at least as much, sorta a Shinto pope.

      I have a vague sense that they have enough of an age gap that it would probably be important to them.

      As a joke, it feels slightly more informed than Meghan Markle’s allegedly serious thinking.

      Liked by 2 people

        2. I thought they were debating that – whether to allow princesses to be in line for the throne – back when she was young and the only kid the Emperor had.

          Liked by 1 person

  5. So when they’re protesting against their illusions — the same people, I’m sure given htey’re older than dinosaurs — who failed to protest Clinton taking droit due skeevy on a subordinate and Obama “ruling” as he said via pen and phone…. what do they want us to counter protest?

    The real enemies don’t mind. They want you pointing and laughing at the distraction while winding up for the knuckleduster.

    https://www.nysun.com/article/canadian-town-shocks-property-owners-warnings-actually-owned-native-tribes-major-court-ruling

    Homeowners in a coastal city in British Columbia, Canada are reeling after being informed by the city that, following a recent court ruling in favor of the area’s original Native American inhabitants, the “validity” of their property ownership may suddenly be in doubt.

    Land acknowledgement + Seamless AI alteration of property deeds (already documented by me as implemented by law in CA and elsewhere) = “Wake up to eviction, one property at a time”. Or maybe several; the slowed down processing for rebuilding in Maui and LA County (despite a public letter to LA County Board of Supervisors celebrating improving processing) should make you go “Hmmmm.” 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

    🎶Black-pilled just another word

    for seeing what is real🎶

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    1. Or you can be “Blackrocked” by the WEF, Larry Fink and buddies.

      The whole “No Kings” is distraction for real evil.

      Somebody should have asked the Q-tips for their vax/flu-passports to see if they were up to date.

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      1. Um. That article took a twist I wasn’t expecting.

        Canadian citizens cannot let this stand, 100%. What it sets up for future native native claims are a threat to all of Canada. But OTOH …

        “It could be more of a Tomahawk v Tong War.“

        –

        PTB have a problem with kowtowing to multiple masters (Native Peoples and CCP) that aren’t the Canadian people.

        While reading (not, not, absolutely not proposing) my thoughts were initially two fold. “What do they want? Another native war?” Secondly, “A lot of SS-12’BD will occur.” (Shoot-Shovel-12’BucketDigger.” Worse case on confiscation … They wouldn’t get any intact improvements.

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        1. The last time TPTB caught a 3S in $TINY_TOWN, a D4 Cat did the middle part. The actual shooter got a “guilty but insane” ruling.

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        2. Worse case on confiscation … They wouldn’t get any intact improvements.

          No, the worst case is they get a property that’s been turned into Love Canal Canada.

          Liked by 1 person

  7. My favorite thing is the UK people trying to avoid offending their monarchy by changing the name of their protest. Even Pratchett would boggle at that, fiction having to be believable and all.

    Liked by 2 people

    2. What’s even better is that they still kept the “No Kings” name for the protests in Canada, which has the same monarch that the UK does.

      Liked by 1 person

  8. I’m sorta worried about PhD apartheid.

    The movement controls, the employment restrictions, and the effective denial of franchise.

    Now, the self-managemetn of faculty at university is probably something we ought to understand as conditional on ‘as long as they do not make a bunch of people outside care’.

    That said, I’m ninety percent sure that the fuss I have put up over everything on that topic is merely a matter of me being intoxicated on theory, and stewing in my own metaphorical drunk.

    I think the AI debate is intractable, on the basis of a) I can find a lot of people proxying opinions on it in place of stuff they feel they cannot talk about b) it is not a narrow technical discussion because ‘big positive consequences bro fr fr ‘ means that many are emotionally scaling their emotional estimates off of previous ‘expert’ interventions in market and off of perceived previous perceived questions of machines. c) There are maybe around or over a hundred different ways to map topics onto the dispute space, with no consistency to established political factions. d) It largely does not matter, because the resolution is not going to be some big political decision.

    Anyway, my one good idea on this was circling back to Norton.

    My natural reaction is to reee at the democrats for even starting along this line of legal theoretic argument. I basically have intense views on how the executive power works.

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    1. With all that’s going on in academia, the value of a PhD seems to be dropping faster than [Searches for good metaphor. Got it:] MSM’s credibility. What’s the value of an exclusive club that “nobody” wants to belong to?

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    1. given what “pineapple ” is vernacular for in certain communities… “he luves in a pineapple under the sea” takes on a whole.new meaning

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    2. That’s the sort of thing—and sign—that makes me wonder who the protestors are trying to persuade or intimidate. Or is it performance art, or a sort of “Ghost Dance” of the Left?

      Liked by 2 people

      1. It’s intended, as far as I can tell, to say “this is what the Right is claiming is so scary and violent — aren’t they silly.” Very similar to the nimrod journos filming themselves in broad daylight and “oh, what a scawwy war zone.”. They don’t show their faces after dark when the black bloc are out.

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    3. Yes history has it’s eyes on you, and it’s laughing it’s ass off.

      You’ll notice the sign says HISTORY, not HERSTORY….. what kind of liberals are they?

      Also, where did all the money go?

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  11. We don’t see Trump as a King, but I suspect that many of them see the Democratic Party as a collection of “god-kings” (who are never wrong).

    Liked by 3 people

    1. I think they are looking for Plato’s Philosopher King archetype. The problem is that those make Hen’s teeth look common, as well as hitting the lottery look unremarkable. On top of that, finding a successor (if you should hit the 1 in a couple hundred million in your search for the first Philospher King)) is like flipping 64 heads in a row. Not impossible, but so improbable to not have it happen the 15 billion years or so of the Universe’s existence.

      As usual Reality brings their wonderful castles in the sky tumbling down. They just can’t admit it as they have sufficient hubris to think they (and their descendants) can easily fill that requirement. As per usual, those whom the G*ds would destroy, they first make mad.

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        1. Indeed the Cinncinatus model is a good one. the problem is that in a generation the number of Washington/Cinncinatus may be 0 and even if there are a few finding them and convincing them to serve is a challenge.

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  12. They’re theocrats, a pernicious form of aristocrat. Since they view themselves as the font of legitimacy, any authority outside the gang is ‘arbitrary’ and ‘illegitimate’. Therefore they have created a king in their own mind because Trump has acted without deferring to them, the ‘holy rulers’.

    Liked by 2 people

  13. If I have a choice between going to a protest (or counter-protest) and something else, I’m generally going to choose the latter. Especially if it involves camping or something fall-related.

    Get outside into nature, at least when nature is being benign. It’s fun.

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  14. NO ILLUMINATI

    SEE THE FNORDS

    This would be fun because it would force the MSM to explain what fnords are and why you’d want to see them.

    Liked by 3 people

        1. “MARVIN THE MARTIAN IS NOT MY PRESIDENT!”

          To which Trump would probably respond by ordering the Department of War to get cracking on the Iludium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator…

          Liked by 1 person

    2. That kind of protest disruption is fun.

      Last time the local hair-on-fire brigade held public protests about one of the churches in town, a bunch of the students at the Christian college here came with their own signs.

      Which were better than the Leftists’ signs because even back then and in person the Left can’t meme.

      The protest disruptors’ signs that I remember best were “I don’t know why I’m here” and “Stop the War in Azeroth”

      Liked by 3 people

        1. My mom has a shirt that says STOP PLATE TECTONICS. Funny thing is, when she was studying paleontology in college, plate tectonics was still considered a whackadoodle theory…

          Liked by 1 person

          1. I was in school (junior or senior HS, not sure which), and the local library had a book that ridiculed the idea that plates could move. Something about how basalt can’t do that, dummies.

            One of the better in-jokes in Chrichton’s Andromeda Strain was making fun of the old trope that “The human nucleus has 48 chromosomes, and here are the pictures to prove it!” Followed by “The human nucleus has 46 chromosomes and here are the pictures to prove it.” [Narrator voice: they were the same pictures.] Chrichton wrote it as [main character’s] Law “All scientists are blind.”

            I pretty much walled his Congo for electronic bafflegab, but he did have his points. To be fair, other books have had unfortunate howlers. I wonder if Jeff Cooper ever commented to RAH about the Adopted Daughter gunfight in Time Enough for Love. Just read that section, and cringed at the concept of shooting the villain’s pistol out of his hand.

            Liked by 1 person

        2. Who knows. I suspect they grazed beside the nauga herds- although my grandparents had a stuffed nauga (it was a publicity stunt) that kind of resembled a WB Tasmanian devil.

          Liked by 1 person

  15. If it non-happens again, we’ll probably deal with it just the way we did this time. By going to work or staying home to catch up on our sleep, or perhaps with a really good book say, “No Man’s Land” series.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Somehow I have transgressed and I have a comment that is in Moderation. WPDE etc. If one of the moderators could free it up in their copious spare time ( :-) ) it would be appreciated.

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    1. I tried 3 times to post a comment, and only after I changed (bowdlerized) “l*ftists and l*sers (BIRM)” to “buffoons” did the “Reply” link stop endlessly circling the drain.

      WPDE. With extreme prejudice. And pain.👿

      Liked by 2 people

  18. Actually, I think these are Interesting Times. In the Chinese sense.

    Don’t you mean Karen Scolddin?

    I saw a video with one of those ‘protesters’ claiming they’re going to fight fascism with socialism. “Fascism IS socialism, dumbass!”

    (Still can’t post comments from Sarah’s web page)

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    1. You can spin many Leftroid heads with a simple change of 2024 to 2028.

      Beware of flung poo. (Leftroid martial art)

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      1. I’ve dealt with flung poo before. Usually somebody’s doggie doo. Idiots don’t seem to understand that I can easily have that DNA tested (a little pricey and time consuming) and identify and prosecute them.

        What’s more concerning are those crazy homicidal maniacs that do drive by shootings. None of them seem to care if they hit my house or the neighbors’.

        There are some interesting substances you can put on the signs to inconvenience any would-be vandals. Axel grease being a nice start.

        Trail cams work so-so depending on the model. And you do have to periodically go download and clear the memory for those. (House is 1600 feet from the road and the cams.)

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  21. Yeah, for all the chatter online about the “protests,” I saw exactly zero effect in my day to day life. Even the TV news that is always on in the break room at work ignored them in favor of the local college sports rivalry. I myself spent the day with my fiancee, and we had a good time meeting up with her friends for them to prepare their traditional Filipino dance for our wedding.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. The local (alleged) newspaper claimed that 500-600 people showed up at the Flyover Falls rally. That would be about 0.8 to 1% if the county population–I’ve seen guestimates that 0.4% participation is believable in blue cities, and F-Falls ain’t blue.

      The photo accompanying the 4 line on-line article showed a dozen people, not close together at all. (The Portland paper claimed 40K for theirs. Using the 0.4% value makes it quite interesting. 10 million people? Eh?)

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      1. I have relatives involved. They stated there were 145 people at their local protest (in a small New England town) and how nice it was to get out and protest against fascism with like-minded folk.

        And yes, they have always been like this. We avoid talking politics with them.

        Liked by 1 person

  22. Following the term for the old Twitter’s self-exiles, can we start calling this bunch the “nokings” as now-fled paleo-Twitterers are sometimes known as “blueskies” (rhymes usually with “brewskis”)..?

    Then we can start twitting them about stuff like that thing the other day…

    “The yellow-scarved noking is an odd bird indeed, found rarely but visibly in very small flocks in its natural habitat of crossroads and streetcorners. Tends to be white about the head, and to call out rhythmically or erupt in wild squawkings. Most populations today seem to be in slow decline…”

    Liked by 2 people

  23. PSA-

    HOLLY FROST HAS INTERNET ISSUES, TODAY’S POST WILL BE LATE!!!

    She is having much argh over this, Sarah will be home “soon,” too, and I’m giggling because this is such a neo-sneaker-net setup to the gremlin Murphy getting involved….

    Have all the secondary routes of communication!

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Same here.

        Makes mommy very grumpy because I’m the one who generally has to deal with the Murphy’s. Son is picking up some of the slack. After all I won’t be around forever.

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      3. We recently drove through the town of Murphys, and there was indeed a law practice named for the town.

        If their slogan isn’t “For when it all goes wrong,” they’re missing out.

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      1. :looks off into space:
        I just HAD to taunt Murphy….
        (As I told her when she work-around-ed contact to me, “hey it actually posted! Was expecting it to get in moderation!”)

        Will pass on.

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        1. Lots of times my moderated comments wind up not being that important for me to say soon, or there is an easy way to understand the problem that went over the threshold, and I feel like rewriting.

          Liked by 1 person

  24. This is brilliant:

    we should immediately counterprotest with “No Unicorns either.” And “Down with Pegasi” And “Chimera have to go.”

    Or perhaps just stand around with signs that read “No old hippies.” “No 50 year long LSD trips.” “Better mental health” and the like.

    I kinda hope there is another one, just so this sort of counter-demonstration can happen. Hopefully you’ll permit me to shamelessly disemminate my own (similar) thoughts on the subject: https://thedismissive.substack.com/p/late-to-the-revolution

    That said, my friend Nathan has concerns and I think he raises good points. He has long discussed a phenomenon he calls the protest scam, whereby operatives on the left stage or amplify protests to fabricate public demand for leftist aims, giving elected officials cover to abandon moderate positions under the auspices of reacting to public pressure. This functions as a workaround to nullify electoral outcomes that don’t favor Democrats. To that end, it’s probably wise not to be entirely dismissive of the protests.

    Having put that out there, the No Kings event seemed most prevalant in jurisdictions where Democrats are going to ignore Republican gains anyway. At the same time, at least in print it seems the even did draw numbers. I was looking at past protests, and 5 million (the median estimate) is actually really high. At the same time, it’s distributed. (Yeah, I keep going back and forth.)

    Point being, the left has shown that it has an effective mobilization mechanism. They’ve staged three nationwide events approaching 5 million participants just this year. For comparison, the estimated peak participation for George Floyd protests was just half a million. Granted, there were protests for 2-3weeks, but I think it’s reasonable to assume that it was mostly the same people showing up day after day. Figures showing that upwards of 50x that many participated were based on self-report surveys and include anyone who thought changing their profile picture counts.

    What does it mean that Democrats have figured out how to get New Yorkers, Californians, DCers, and Chi-Townies to flood the streets on command? I’m not entirely sure. It doesn’t seem particularly useful on a national scale. I’d be really interested to know what others here think.

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    1. I don’t know what I think.

      Partly that is a sleep issue, partly it is because I am in the middle of reorienting myself from confusion on some long term personal projects.

      With protests, there are questions of what the most useful intelligence source would be, and what the expense of the necessary additional information would be for that.

      Geofencing seems to be a niche topic in protest estimation and reporting, so maybe there is not a lot of systemic fraud going on with geofencing. However, geofencing data at a bunch of sites would need some trustworthy eyes on the ground to evaluate factions from.

      If the left is losing their minds enough worse, the pattern of fraud in their claims would change in unpredictable ways, that would invalidate brack projection of truth from what has been said.

      I forget the numbers I had once for US incarceration rate across the various kinds of holding. I’m wanting to say 4 million, half more conventional prison, half not.

      If true, five million would have some scale. However, I would have a bunch of “saus?” thoughts. Any method of electronically estimating could be vulnerable to manipulation, and it has been a short time for a purely human estimation using expert human analysts and trustworthy ground sources. Recall that criminal conspiracies with electronics supplied by the PRC have had banks of sim cards raided in New England. Such conspiracies are probably also in other locations.

      (These were the phone banks that were used for swatting congressmen.)

      I have questions about methodology. Since information warfare environmnet, my default would probably be to assume that someone far away has some sort of scheme to play me, and I am better off thinking about the rest of my work week.

      If the weekend was more than nothing, the underlying factors that caused it to be something would later become apparent in other ways. Things seen and things not seen in the variables that people are not responding to or very likely to respond to.

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    2. Money. Money and mischief. Money, mischief, and maleducation. Probably some other M words, too.

      See, a lot of those protests are organized. Paid actors, trained in what to say and do. Agents provocateur in actuality. There’s been little bits of evidence here and there, the pallets of bricks, the buses that show up on regular time full of people that end up at the protest. The protests ending at certain and synchronized times. These are the actions of those with an agenda, money, and the logistical infrastructure to make it happen.

      The second bit, mischief, is what happens in large cities (all democrat controlled for a long time now). Protests that turn violent, and during said violence opportunists strike to steal. Also, various criminally minded souls get out to destroy and burn. Usually after the looting, but sometimes before. The rioters know what the looters are doing, and vice versa. There is some crossing of lines here, some comingling of the two. They know they will likely receive no legal repercussions.

      The latter is indoctrination. Think student protests. These are the ones “educated” to believe quite ludicrous things. Things like 59bazillion genders are legit and a real thing, but sex is not. Things like blacks are less able and intellectual, so don’t challenge them with harder stuff but let them pass in ignorance (this is actual racism, even though race itself does not exist). It spawns from leftist professors, who are paid through grant money and donations from other leftists, some of which comes from government funds provided specifically for leftist causes.

      Said causes are packed to the gills with nuttery. DEI, wokism, glowing bull warmening, green nude heelism, -ismists, LGBBQ, anti-Christians, history revisionists, critical theory, and more. It is not just in schools, but in mass media and entertainment. Viz the long slide into irrelevance of Hollyweird for its girlboss single plot stupidity. See also the collapse of mass media, like CNN, which was one of the reliable, standard of news networks. The failure of newspapers is long over and the dinosaur media networks of ABCNNBCBS are so far past their expiry date that you can smell it through the screen.

      The npcs as a meme is based on some form of reality that is commonly recognized. Like all tropes and stereotypes, it came from somewhere. You may or may not have seen all the major news sources parroting the EXACT same lines before, in near synchrony enough that they’ve been scrambling to change it (but slowly, they’re old and not too bright). It has been happening for decades. When you look at New Yuck, Californicator, the swamp, and the Beta-Chi-towners, these are folks who have been taught, trained, and surrounded by the lie for their entire lives.

      Their teachers taught them that white men are evil, and they believed. The tv taught them that rethuglicans were going to throw granny off a cliff, and they believed. The movies taught them that the other side was naught but evil, stupid, -ist, nahzzies, violent, male, and all sorts of bad things. These people haven’t interacted with the other side in any meaningful way to the point that they don’t even realize that we are human anymore.

      The three general groups have a fourth column, but it is weaker and smaller. That is the above. Many of them, so held within the echo chamber they hardly ever even have an unapproved thought. Of course they flood the streets on command. It’s part of the cult. They believe that if they do this thing, good things will eventually happen (see: climate cultism). They believe in the power of protest to change things- and it has.

      But the wheel is always turning. Things just don’t work the way they used to anymore. These rent-a-mobs are seen. They are real. As are the criminal opportunists. As are the student/professor group. And so are the forgotten few, the last of the head-in-the-sand normies and unthinking npcs.

      What it means is they still have funding sources, administration, infrastructure, logistics, and can get the deed done. They’ve perfected a tactic that has worked many times in the past, but now it is showing signs of failure. It’s not working like it used to. They get their crowds, but they are lesser and the inorganic bones beneath the beast are showing. The façade is crumbling, the mask is falling, and the con is being exposed.

      For what it’s worth, that’s my take on it. That and a couple of bucks might buy you a decent coffee somewhere.

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    3. My modded comment wound up being a very calculated but vague “I dunno”.

      I would want to be very clear on methodology to assume that anything happened at all. I can see a sigint investigation, or a humint investigation as an estimation source. Sigint is vulnerable to spoofing. Humint, if it has been done quickly, may depend on the biases of the humans doing it.

      If it was unusual, a question would be ‘why now?’

      considering lead time, we could be talking about someone discovering a motivation in spring or so.

      Looking at people now, there are like two new motivations. One being ‘use it or lose it’ on some of the dark money sources. Second being the Eurowackjobs, and especially over the Jews.

      But, boring answers like PRC and Qatar are probably still plausible when we circle back to lead time.

      Schmaur and No Kings, if we assume a secret master plan, could be a genius plan with a hidden extra element not yet apparent, or possibly we are talking about a disoriented person’s strategy.

      Problem with a very long lead time hypothesis, over some time scales decision making on this sort of messaging scheme by Democrats is not going to be strictly stable.

      Democrats are definitely having some stress, and some emotional reactions, so there are many explanations which cannot yet be excluded.

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  25. My idea of a counter protest would be to set up across the street a table and chair (a la, “Louder with Crowder”), and put a sign on the front “You’re Funny / You Make Me Laugh / Prove Me Wrong”). Then just sit back with my cup and thermos of coffee, point, and laugh. And wait for the reactions.

    (and FYI, I would have some sort of protection with me. Yes, I occasionally like to poke the bear. But I’m not stoopid about it)

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        1. (grin) them

          I had the opportunity long ago to mock some hard-left picketers.i got a whole crowd doing the calk/response

          Seek!

          Hellllp!

          ….

          SEEK!

          HELLLLLLLLLLP!

          and the gesture, of course, was double tallman.

          ….

          I suppose “Hail Hygene!” might also work.

          ….

          I may someday get my head busted. I expect it will be an -epic- story.

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          1. When/If it ever happens, make it epic, indeed!

            With pics!

            Something to tell the g’children, “there I was, surrounded….!”

            (PS – Haven’t I seen your “callsign” on TAH? Small world)

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  26. “Don’t take the brown acid” is an oldie but a goldie.

    (Should be ‘don’t take acid;’ but start where you are, I guess. Can’t believe that stuff—to say nothing of heroin!—came back.)

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