by Holly the Assistant
Picture credit to Caitlin Walsh
All right. We had our various pity parties–or not–time to find our boots and lace them up again and get back to work.
Now, there is no easy route. There is no Great Leader who will wave his magic wand and make everything right. There’s no Chosen One who will assemble his followers and fix the world. It’s a lovely trope in fiction. In reality, that isn’t how it works. Never has been. Fixing anything is messy and it’s a group project, and we all hate group projects. (And I’d wager that every one of us has ended up doing everyone else’s work at least once.)
On the bright side, though, it’s a project that breaks up in to small bits really well, and your bit can succeed without relying on everyone else’s bit being done correctly. You can make real progress.
On the down side, you will get attacked. For those still raising children, or not financially independent, you need to be more cautious. (I’ve watched the attacks happen to a local friend of mine running for local office. Relentless, and at least one went viral nationwide, which didn’t actually fix the slander.)
Snelson had some great suggestions in the comments yesterday. If what he’s doing is something you can do, go forth and do. If you can show up to local party meetings–and I don’t care which party–and get involved, annoy people, keep them on track, get them off track, go do that. If you can run for a down ballot office, my hat’s off to you, and please be braced for impact.
If you can copy HSLDA’s tactics for your local city council, or your state legislature, or your school board, and run a news list, and tell everyone who really cares about issue XYZ when they should show up, call, email, write, about that issue, do that. I mean, if you can find a passion for . . . deregulating food from home kitchens, get a group of people together who care about that issue. Or for allowing hens in city limits–you can definitely get a list for that. Or for improving county election security. Or, there’s a nascent movement I spotted for, how was that phrased, “The other twenty-nine kids’ right to learn” about de-mainstreaming disruptive children. That’d be a good issue to be involved with.
If you have the pocket books to hire the lawyers and sue, and you find standing, go you forth and do just that. I suspect that certain big figures from the MAGA movement have attorneys combing everything today.
If all of that’s too public, I want you to think of whisper campaigns. Not actually whispering–that would defeat the purpose. Not shouting either, that’s rude. But comments that seed doubt. “Funny how everything that passed and everyone who won in our state is something China cares about, isn’t it?” “I don’t know anyone who voted for X, do you? Do you know why they did?” “Why hasn’t that guy resigned from his megachurch position? Is he a Christian Nationalist?” You’re just asking questions. Totally reasonable questions. Look at the person, or the issue, find what the other side would just ask questions about if they weren’t in favor of, and ask those questions. That’s how that game works. I’ve had good luck with persuading perfectly normal Democrats against mail-in ballots before by asking why abusive spouses should get to vote their victims’ ballots. “I mean, if he’ll hit her for cooking his steak wrong, then he’ll definitely force her to vote the way he wants.”
Now for your own family, I want you to start thinking practically. We’re all (almost) preppers here anyway, right? I think this is the biggest conglomeration of “Actually this is how to survive a week long power outage” people that isn’t a dedicated prepper website. So make sure that’s in order. Make sure you have what you need if your bank account gets hung up for a couple days-we had an internet outage here a couple years ago that shut down all the banking in town, my credit union stayed open on the honor system but most simply closed doors, only stores that could deal in cash and checks and had cashiers who could do math stayed open. Make sure you have what you need if your power goes out–we know corrupt government is associated with lack of basic services–see South Africa for details. Make sure if the garbage trucks don’t come for a month you have a plan so you don’t get rats. Not apocalypse, just . . . lack of services on schedule. My in-laws get city water only occasionally, so they and all their neighbors yell to each other when the water comes on and fill all their storage containers. Basic big city third world stuff. Charge your phone battery and your backup battery when there is power. Not Mad Max, Kinshasa on a Tuesday or Johannesburg on a Wednesday. If you normally rely on a big freezer, be prepared to cook and can without power if you don’t have backup power for it.
Make yourself a network of people. Who can come over with a chainsaw if there’s a tree down in your yard? Who can you go over to with a chainsaw if there’s a tree down in his yard? Networks are vitally important when you’re in a low-trust situation. You have to know who will help and who will steal. You need to know who will give you a reference to a real roofing company. You need to give references to your mechanic, your roofer, your driveway paver, and you need to give business to your network’s references. Don’t hire based on “I did an online search and got quotes.” Hire on “I know a guy.” Not least because the fall-out of failing as a “known guy” is no more jobs, not dissolving the company and starting a new one. This is not the American norm, but it is the way most of the world gets people who do things. And our unassimilated immigrants are doing just that–giving work exclusively to people in their trust network, while we’re . . . not.
Yes, this means you-YOU!-have to talk to actual human beings.
We didn’t pick this, but we’re here.
There’s no man coming on a white horse to save you. But you don’t need one of those, anyway. Get your saddle on your own horse and ride.
Excellent!
“There is no Great Leader who will wave his magic wand and make everything right. There’s no Chosen One who will assemble his followers and fix the world.”
I live by (among other passages) Psalm 146:3. “Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no help.”
It’s up to us. It was always going to be up to us.
Let’s ride.
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Agree 💯. Some will disagree with this, but mental and spiritual fortitude is something I’m working on at least as hard as I’m trying to stock up on beans and rice and canned chicken. Emotions are powerful, but they’re not reality. I was not given a spirit of fear, but if sound mind and sober judgment. It’s up to me to remember that and act accordingly.
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If you annoy that Lady, you’re axing for trouble.
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My furnace went out last March. After months of calling and getting references, bring ghosted and ignored, when it was supposed to freeze I did the repair myself.
The only company that was referred came with the repeated warning that he was unreliable. Boy, that was sure accurate.
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Well now that shock has worn off people are realizing the numbers make no freaking sense.
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What, again? Nooooo . . .
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Well now that shock has worn off people are realizing the numbers make no freaking sense.
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I remember those graphs from the 2020 election from multiple swing states that showed a Trump win before the counting “stopped,” and then suddenly showed a Biden win a few minutes later. This time, the votes could have been front-loaded to prevent such suspicious graphs from being disseminated once again.
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I couldn’t even look at the news until this morning. Here in CA, it’s an unmitigated disaster. I think I scored a perfect 0% on everyone/everything I voted for or against.
Best I can do is quote John Carter, “I still live!”
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You haven’t caught the news about Prop 40 failing, and Prop 42 passing?
I’ve seen quite a few posts on X freaking out about the stupid Californians who were so stupid that they wouldn’t even vote for the billionaire tax that would have (supposedly) solved all of the state’s problems.
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Missed that. That’s a little consolation, but even Governor Nuisance came out against 40.
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It’s California. We take our wins where we can get them. :P
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Same here in Oregon; x3 (pretty sure we all voted straight ticket republican …) OTOH did not expect any difference. I would have been please if Drazen had won, but was not expecting her to win, despite the polls stating race was dead heat. Oh, over 90% of the counties, including which ever county Salem is in, did not vote democrat. Koteck won because of Portland/Ashland/Hwy-30-county-corridor metro, Lane (Eugene/UofO), Benton (Corvallis/OSU), and Deschutes, counties.
About the only thing we have a chance with on our ballots, and iffy at best, is any measures we vote on. We scored 100% there. Only because there were no measures to vote on this election.
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Country boy here, I agree that you should always be prepared (at least as much as you can) for disruptions in power, food supplies and anything else you might need. Lucky to have been living in a generally quiet, conservative area for all these years and know a lot of the people around me. Small town (don’t blink, you’ll go through the 4-way stop) and people here still go to help their neighbors when there is need.
I know many are not so well placed but a network of friends you can count on or help when they need it is something to have if you can. Can’t do much about the political situation in this state except stay on these people as much as possible. This is a solid red county like so many others, it’s the massive metropolitan areas that skewed the election (only 14 counties in the entire state managed to burden us with that corrupt Acton)
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“There is no Great Leader who will wave his magic wand and make everything right.”
And anybody who says he’s that guy… is not that guy. Important safety tip.
I’m going to say here that politics is downstream from culture, so the trim-tab on the rudder of the Great Ship of State is… wait for it… writing.
Right now as I type, every major film studio, gaming studio, streamer, newspaper and publisher in the West is BLEEDING red ink. They are dying. It’s a fricking mass-extinction event. Because they can’t (or won’t) write.
Who’s coming up behind them to gather up all the goodies?
WE ARE. Us. The fricking hated Sad Puppies Adjacent freaks who can’t understand that The Left is all that is good and wholesome in society. The ones who dared to call bullsh1t on the Bigs.
We’ve already been laboring in the wilderness all these years, getting nowhere, reviled when we’re not being ignored. Which is fine with me, I don’t write for money or approval. There isn’t any. I write because I write, at this point. I’ll keep on writing, because that’s what I do. I write.
And -what- am I going to write? ANYTHING I WANT. Karen is not my editor. (Apologies to any ladies named Karen out there who are not demanding to see my manager. I don’t invent the memes, I just say them. ~:)
For the most part what I love to write is deep philosophy dressed up in science fiction with some humor. What I don’t write is scolding. There are enough scolds already. So Our Hero is going to choose the do the right thing, and the Bad Guy is the one doing the wrong thing on purpose.
I think that’s not the worst or most pointless thing I could be doing. Maybe/could be a reader will be moved to do the right thing by Our Hero doing it. You can’t really ask for more than that.
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“Right now as I type, every major film studio, gaming studio, streamer, newspaper and publisher in the West is BLEEDING red ink. They are dying. It’s a fricking mass-extinction event. Because they can’t (or won’t) write.”
Tangential, and on the culture side more than politics, but I’m astounded at how many big Hollywood projects (and video games) fail because they skimped on the writing. Writing is the easy part! There are tons of talented writers out there, they’re hungry for work, and they are cheaper than the craft services budget (or so I gather).
I get that it’s easy to judge bad scripts in hindsight, and that the director, the actors, and the producers are all pulling in different directions, some good and some bad. But when you run Star Wars into the ground because you decided to wing it instead of writing the trilogy in advance, or when the DCEU ends with a whimper because you couldn’t even settle on a proper reboot plan, something is seriously wrong.
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“We’re all (almost) preppers here anyway, right?”
I’m a little more toward the hoarder end of things, if I am honest. Possibly some dragon ancestry… ~:)
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I was thinking the other day that I might like to live in a tinyhouse–and then reality kicked in and said I would need storage for all my stuff. Food, mostly. Medical supplies. No way even a hint of that would fit in a tinyhouse. I would need a root cellar half the size of my current house, at the very least. It rather negates the idea.
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If one does not have faith in the Bible, perhaps one can have faith in the America that can be, the America that should be.
Joshua 1:6 (ESV) states: “Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them.“
Psalm 118:6 (ESV) states: “The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?“
1 Corinthians 16:13 (ESV) states “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.“
And so we must. Each according to his or her faith.
May God bless us all with what we need.
Maybe this old poster will help:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Four-Freedoms-OWI-composite-poster-1943.jpg
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I suppose from my perspective, I’m pretty siren there was serious cheating in the election. Now, it’s completely opaque and un auditable so we’re stuck with them. But the question becomes, what are things one can do to prevent the next election being fraudulent, without access to the courts or the executive?
That’s a real question. I’m sure there’s something, but I’m not sure exactly what, yet.
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A lot of people are notcing Trump has been very calm and quiet lately.
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