Yes, there is a real post coming, but this needs to be said.

For those who are new around here: Normally between my birthday and either Christmas or New Years (honestly, depending on how I feel!) I have a book on sale every five days.

Remember, even if you already have the ebook, you can buy it as a gift then schedule delivery Christmas morning. They’ll never know you bought on sale.

I’m trying to concentrate on first in series (even if it’s the only in series.) And I’m saving Witchfinder to come out just as I release Witch’s Daughter (yes, it’s close. Yes, I’ve actually been sick, not just auto immune, because Dan is under the weather now. Of course, as usual it’s I’m flopping on the floor, half dead, and he goes “I think maybe possibly I need some ibuprofen” but it’s enough to tell me it’s a virus or something.) Hopefully in a couple of weeks.

HOWEVER today is one of those rare days that two books are on sale, so….

NOTE THIS IS THE LAST DAY FOR DARKSHIP THIEVES AND THE FIRST FOR DRAW ONE IN THE DARK.

Darkship Thieves

Athena Hera Sinistra never wanted to go to space. Never wanted see the eerie glow of the Powerpods. Never wanted to visit Circum Terra. She never had any interest in finding out the truth about the Darkships. You always get what you don’t ask for.
When an intruder in her bedroom forces Athena to flee her father’s luxury cruiser in a tiny lifeboat, her escape leads her straight to the legendary Darkships—mysterious vessels that steal Earth’s power supply. And into the life of the pilot of the Darkship.

Thrust into a hidden asteroid colony and hunted by powerful enemies, Athena discovers shocking truths about her father’s empire and her own identity. As she navigates this dangerous new reality, what began as a fight for survival becomes a battle for freedom that could transform humanity’s future.

Winner of the Prometheus Award—a pulse-pounding space adventure where liberty hangs in the balance and nothing is as it seems.

Draw One In the Dark

Deep in the Colorado Rockies, Kyrie Smith has mastered the art of keeping secrets: like how she turns into a panther at will, or how she’s trying to solve a string of shifter murders while serving up the daily special. But she’s not the only one with something to hide.

Take her coworker Tom Ormson—your typical guy next door, if your typical guy could transform into a dragon and might have accidentally killed someone. Then there’s the lion-shifting cop investigating the murders, a guilt-ridden father, and a trio of dragon shifters hunting for something called the Pearl of Heaven.

As if navigating a world of supernatural intrigue wasn’t complicated enough, Tom’s falling for Kyrie, discovering powers that shouldn’t exist, and learning that trust is a two-way street paved with decades of secrets. In Goldport, Colorado, where the coffee’s always hot and the shifters are always watching, solving a murder might be the easiest part of Kyrie’s day.

Welcome to small-town life where everyone has something to hide—and some of those secrets have scales, claws, and a tendency to roar.

Recently husband and older son were having one of their financial planning discussions. This is fairly normal.

If you’ve read “Rich dad, poor dad” — I haven’t, but I’ve heard enough about it second and third hand to know what’s in it — the idea is that there are “rich” mindsets and “poor” mindsets.

Broadly speaking it is correct. “Poor” people — who might temporarily have lots of money — have habits that involve short term gratification, avoidance of risk etc. But I’m not a 100% sure those are all in the brain. I like Terry Pratchett’s theory of the boots because it makes more sense. Sure, poor people know they can buy these super expensive boots that last forever and they can will to their kids. The problem is that they can’t afford them. So you have to solve the physical poverty before you solve the mental glitch. I will however admit that the mental glitch often follows the physical one, and can in fact cause the “having money” condition to be temporary.

The men were discussing it, because our entire family has “mental glitches” of very poor people, though we haven’t been that for a while. Dan and I get it from our mothers (even though his mother was not raised poor, but her parents were) and we passed them on. Our glitches are also covalent with ADD though, making one wonder which came first. Yesterday, during my epic fight with the gazebo (I won, which I think makes me a legendary D & D fighter. I’d like some songs about my prowess as a barbarian warrior, honestly!) Dan came out to ask me a question and looked down in dismay at six garden shears on the ground. “Why do we have six?” “Because I threw the seventh away. It was really really dull and rusty.” (I wasn’t cutting the metal gazebo with those. I was cutting the wisteria that was interlaced all through it. We’ll see if the wisteria can be moved (I plan to roll for son with shovel) to new gazebo’s place. If it can’t, I’ll just put a trellis up there. The gazebo whose screws had rusted, forming a less fragile bond than the REST OF IT had to be dismantled with hatchet, tin snips and the big hammer. Yes, you’re getting this post late because I hurt. All over.)

The truth is that’s the ADD tax. Over the last ten years we’ve moved…. a lot. And those shears ended up in boxes and the boxes in places not even G-d himself could have guessed. The end result is that I bought another one. Which is fine. What isn’t fine is that I kept them all. And this has happened with clothes. Dishes. Cooking pots (I need to replace all of mine, honestly. With ONE coherent set.) implements. Office stuff (I have no idea where the keyboard for the remarkable went, and I must find it.) Etc. etc. etc. Which means our household holds about 10x what it should. Everywhere. Which in turn costs us money both in mortgage and in time consumed cleaning and organizing and– And yes, that is totally a neurological problem made financial drain. (I am, at least after the garden stuff and painting outdoor stuff is done) turning my hand to getting rid of stuff. The local Good Will should be happy. Because if we move again (we should really. For one this yard is not acceptable for someone who has a lot of books to finish) I want to make sure we’re not buying a house for stuff we never use and can’t find.

Which brings us back to their conversation and one conversation I had last night with a fan.

Older son said something like “There are a lot of rich people with no money, and a lot of poor people with a lot of cash, but it all resets, inevitably, because of what’s in the head.”

And I thought “that’s true” then made the leap to other things. What other things? Well, last night I had a conversation with a young fan who said there were a number of times in his career when he was set up to fail so they could “get rid of him.” This is a young man who is fairly successful for his generation. (Yes, he is looking. Any of you young women out there who are looking also, drop me a line, okay?)

But it was his experience that made me go “uh.” Let’s say he’s not in the type of profession where you’d expect that. But I think it’s an absolutely universal experience for us, Odds and Weirdlings who “think too much.” All of us were so setup at least once sometimes more. I think some of them I completely ignored simply because I’m that oblivious mentally.

I’d already been thinking about that, from husband and son’s discussion. About the fact that mental habits influence a lot of things, not all of them financial. And sometimes we need to be aware our mental habits are detrimental.

Most of you — most of me — had/have careers that falls short of our potential. Now, that could be said of everyone, and a lot of us also suffer from gifted child syndrome. Because we were identified as exceptional early we feel we should have achieved MORE. But that’s not the way the world works and “If you’re so smart why ain’t you rich” is a cliche for a reason. There are lots of things that go into being successful, and they’re not just “potential.”

But a lot of us fall short of ability and DEMONSTRATED ability, too. How come?

Well some of it, speaking for self, is inability in some parts of our would-be job. Like, I suck at self-promotion, which, yes, was important even in the days everyone was trad-pub.

But there is more to it. Oh, yes there is…..

Look, guys, most of us make people uncomfortable. No. Sorry. It’s a fact. Part of it is because we don’t read the “monkey signals.” No, I’m not talking about other people as being monkeys. In this sense we ALL are. Humans are actually great apes (or at least pretty good ones) but I’m referring to us as monkeys because it’s clearer. Humans are apes/monkeys. We’re primates. And the brain doesn’t override everything. There are signals at a non verbal level, that range from gestures to other physical attributes. Dave Freer once explained to me why men love women with long hair even when it annoys the women. He said it’s a social signal from before there were clothes. Or really humans. Long, clean hair means high status, because it means you have enough “subordinate monkeys” to pick your hair clean of parasites for you. Of course that no longer applies, but the back brain doesn’t know that, and so guys go gah gah for women with long, well groomed tresses, because it means no more dominant female will kill the babies they sire on that woman.

Our people — Odds — tend to be blind to that stuff. Oh, we have some of it, not all. And we’re utterly incapable of knowing when someone is doing monkey-aggression or monkey-dominance at us. It’s not that we’re not one of the species, it’s that we’re usually so far inside our own heads we’d need a seeing eye dog to find our way out. So we ignore the signal. And the other person interprets it as either aggression or insubordination. And then the war is on. And we are completely oblivious to it, and wondering why this person is so bent out of shape, because we were doing the thing and thinking about the thing.

And then, being us, when we find ourselves in a situation where we were setup to fail, we assume this is because we’re not good at the thing. Not that we were setup to fail and the problem was that we weren’t doing the monkey-dance right.

Look, in the eighties there were a lot of books like “dress for success” and yeah, we probably need those too. Because most of us just throw clothes on to cover everything. Took me years — years — to realize that dressing from thrift stores was fine, but I should prioritize things that were or looked new. Because people absolutely judge you at the subconscious level of you wear older clothes. I.e. they immediately assume you’re not that successful.

So, there are books out there on how to dress. Dress the best you can and usually a level above your work.

Behavior? Well, I know you’re there to do the thing. But you know? You still need to play the monkey games. You just do.

You’re not going to do it well absent a whole brain transplant, but I find a lot of books on how to succeed like “seven habits” are highly effective in telling you how to pretend to play the monkey game.

Let me explain, the seven habits type of thing never work for me. Actually trying to live by those “how to be highly successful” things completely short circuits what I do well and the other stuff doesn’t work for me for various reasons.

However, PRETENDING to follow the seven habits signals to your co-workers and bosses that you’re a very serious, very competent monkey who should be advanced with all possible expediency.

Ultimately I’ve noticed, by watching husband’s career, the people who get the highly valuable player treatment aren’t usually even that competent. (Some are okay. The vast majority would be better as plant food. I killed some of them under deeply hidden names in my books, because they annoyed me that much.) But they are very good at stuff like: be seen to come in early. Be seen to stay late. (Even if you do f*ck all of consequence in the middle.) Dress well. Speak well. Act like you know everything.

The last one is where our people fail, by and large. Because we tend to love our fields and be so deep in them that we’re aware of all our flaws.

For that, I need to advise you to look at how the people around you perform. What we told Bob last week about “Yes, you’re highly verbally fluent and language competent. Have you met the rest of humanity, much less the rest of humanity in the sciences?” Like that. Don’t make excuses for your colleagues. Don’t go “Yeah, Ezechiel is an idiot about this, but he’s the exception.”

Because of the obsessive nature of this group, I’d bet you you’re HIGHLY competent. Compared to everyone around you, including your bosses, always accounting for experience differentials.

Yes, you see every mistake you make. Sure. But again, you’re human. That desire for perfection is why you’re highly competent. But no one is ever PERFECT.

Keep things in perspective. Because being highly competent while acting nervous and insecure is how you get to the point that other people’s monkey brain marks you as not just a threat, but one that can be easily taken out.

Save yourself from that. ACT like what you are: highly competent. Because you are. And if you have to study some of the poseurs at work, or books on success to figure out how to do that? Fine.

Inside, you’re allowed to be as trembly as you wish. But on the outside?

Well, there’s that other saying from the eighties: Fake it till you make it.

I’m here to tell you that eventually your internals catch up with the fake facade. It finally happened five years or so ago.

BUT until it happens? Fake it till you make it, my friends, fake it till you make it.

You might not speak monkey-brain, but you can at least learn to translate.

Go.

*I won’t lie. I came up dry this morning, mostly because I have two novels being loud at me. But I remembered this post and decided to check how close my predictions tracked. Well… pretty well. And it explains why the left has no idea who we are and what we’re up to. That their projection of their beliefs onto us are sometimes tragic and hurt everyone is unfortunate. But they’re the ones who silenced and continue to silence all opposition. (Openly so, under the Auto-Pen administration.) There’s not much we can do for that. And it sets in motion certain inevitable mechanics. – SAH*
Most humans want to fit in, and will go a long way to fit in.  In fact, most if not all dictatorships in the 20th century depended on this impulse.  “You don’t want the neighbors to think you’re a bad person” or mutatis mutandi, Jew/Jew sympathizer/wrecker/hoarder/saboteur/running dog of the imperialism/etc etc.

No army in the world can hold even a small mutinous fraction of a large population in subjection, if they are not held back by internal controls and stops, and the ancient social-ape impulse to be liked and accepted by the band.

What strikes me when reading books about the holocaust or the various communist massacres is not that these were horrible people and monsters.  It’s that 99.9% of the people involved were just “human beings” put in a position where the unthinkable had become normal, and there was no one to say “oh, wait, this is objectively not only evil, but one of the craziest things ever.”

The same instinct that made us civilized, that creates rules of behavior like “I will not kill and eat the neighbors” can be turned around completely on its head, where killing and eating the neighbors, or at least their children, is acceptable, as something you do to survive.  (See holodomor.)  In that case, of course, it was needed to survive, because you and yours were being deliberately starved.  However, the fact humans can do things like that then move on, get past it, go back to normal life, tells you how plastic humanity is, when faced with times/a community gone crazy.

Manners, good behavior, lack of social aggressiveness, all of that which we take for granted is in fact, completely part of the “we all do this, and that’s how we fit in society.”

And in the west at least, for a long time, it has been part of the public facade that we’re a meritocratic society, that people will succeed or fail, sure, with some element of luck, but mostly based on what you can do, what you know, and how hard you’re willing to work.

Now all of us have been in jobs and situations where … we knew it wasn’t precisely so.  Sometimes it was simply that, you know, the editor’s ex-roommate or the boss’s son in law were going to get promotion and advantages no one else could have.  This happens, and is, unfortunately human.  You lumped it, and you moved on, looking for another situation where your talents were better appreciated.

In the last few decades, in certain industries and certain fields of endeavor, it would slowly (or fast, in my case, since I’d seen the movie before) dawn on you that you weren’t going to get anywhere if your political opinions weren’t left.  It became clear, hearing say editors talk, that the furthest to the left, the better — which is why some bright lads and lassies formed the “young communists club” for science fiction writers, AFTER the wall fell, and by the time it was formed not one of them under 30 — but if you believed in the free market, individual freedom, and despised the idea of benes for protected classes (even if — particularly if — you fit at least two of them) you’d better keep your opinions to yourself and pretend you were too stupid to understand politics.  Because the moment you revealed your politics your career was done.

This was particularly insidious because the pretense wasn’t that it was your politics.  Even the people shutting you out might not realize that’s why they were doing it.  The fact is that the left has erected a facile self-image as both concerned underdogs (they’re not, they’ve had most of the power most places since world war II) and the “smart” ones.  In fact, of course, they are not that.  All of us, even the blind ones, could see the writing on the wall.  It took a thoroughly disconnected geek not to perceive leftism as a social positional good. Most of us aren’t that.

The people who embraced the “easiest setting” of life as a leftist intellectual were two categories: The first is the genuine good boys and girls.  In this case “good” doesn’t imply moral.  It implies people in whom the fitting-in impulse is stronger than thought.  They are the kids teachers’ loved and parents praised.  They instinctively figured out leftism was how to be “good” and therefore followed it.  The other category, of course, are the amoral SOBs, which usually went the furthest.  They knew how the wind blew.  They were smart enough to know it was wrong, and that communism was the charnel house of history.  The brightest might even know why and that the corpses inhere from the principles.  But they didn’t care.  The way to the top of most professions (except some stem) was to play that game as hard as they could.  What if they were screwing future generations.  They’d got theirs.  I have no proof, but I have long suspected this second group were the ones that were catapulted to leadership.

However, the self image of both groups is that they were the smart ones, the caring ones, and — this is very important — the SANE ones.

This meant the minute you outed yourself as not belonging to either group, as in fact, having too many principles for your own good, you were considered stupid, uncaring (racist/sexist/homophobic) AND insane.  So it was easy enough to exclude you “per cause.” “Yeah, so and so is a good writer/worker, but he/she is insane.”  “Difficult to work with.”  “Couldn’t be part of the team.”  “Isn’t googly.” (Follow that link if you have a strong stomach.)

I’ll never forget — pre twitter — the day I voiced a mildly non-conformist opinion in an email list for female writers.  I don’t know which was crazier: the public pile on, inferring things about me that my worst enemy couldn’t say, or the private panicked emails, saying “I agree with you, but…”

There is a term for this.  It’s preference falsification.  And in totalitarian societies it can be so total that each individual can’t figure out that his opinions are in fact the majority and only a small minority at the top actually believes the opinions they enforce.  It’s what explains Ceausescu and his equally brutal wife being beloved figures in the morning, and cooling piles of bullet-riddled meat by the afternoon.  It’s also what gave us Trump’s victory.

Since then… things have changed.

Look, I kept my peace for many years, and because I couldn’t pretend to be a liberal (because, reasons.  I know too much about the nature of the beast.  I like to sleep at night.  More importantly, I like to look at myself in the mirror in the morning.  Putting on makeup by touch is possible, but can yield inconsistent results) I pretended to be apolitical, and would let political references, jokes and barbs roll off my back.  Now, that required me to work mostly in historical fiction, of course, but that was fine.

It was only two things that allowed me come out of the political closet — besides something that was either my subconscious or perhaps the divine applying iron-clad boot to my behind — a) the existence of indie.  b) the fact that the left had gone so far they were demanding vocal endorsement.  And that I couldn’t give.

Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.

Even after Trump’s victory most people held their social facade.  If you were in a certain set of professions you’d never (still) admit you voted for Trump.  Wild horses couldn’t make you. For one, you’re probably addicted to food on the table and a roof over your head.  For another, the left is so busy demonizing everyone who voted against Hillary, that it would be the same as stepping forward and saying “Yes, I’m racist, sexist and homophobic.”  EVEN if objectively not only are you not any of those, but there is no evidence Trump is any of those. (I was told there would be prison camps.  Honestly, worst Hitler, EVER.  Not even Hillary’s promised “adult fun camps.”  Sheesh.)

But the left has now gone as zany everywhere and publicly as it’s been for years in my field and covertly.  (As for my field it has gone…. I think it’s achieved terminal velocity on the way to insanity.)  You must loudly proclaim your hatred for Trump, you must exhibit something like Tourette’s about everything the man says and does, no matter how unimportant.  And you must at all times proclaim yourself of the body and stamp out heresy with all your being.

Of course this sends all the wrong signals.  A confident ideology doesn’t engage in heretic hunts, and tolerates the philosophical fringes.

But more importantly, what the left is doing is sending out the same signal I got loud and clear five or six years ago “you can’t pretend well enough for us to leave you alone.  You must join, or we’ll destroy you.  We’ll make sure you never work in this town/business/field/world again.  We’ll leave you nothing, not even your reputation.”

What they’re forgetting, again, is that freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. Or put another way, if you take away everything because someone failed to conform PERFECTLY, then you leave people free to act the way they always wanted to.

And us, on the right?  Us, the damned?  We were never “good boys and girls.” We were just conforming enough to fake it.  A lot of us were the people who cut classes, spit in the teacher’s eye, and still had straight As.  We are the people who have spent a lot of time infiltrating YOUR organizations, just so we could survive.  And, oh, yeah, we do have a moral code.  And it’s not yours.  And you’ll never get us to kiss ass again, because you’ve proven yourselves unstable, narcissistic buffoons.

We’re evil you say?  We’re crazy?  We don’t play well with others?

Aw, shucks, honey.  That was us being good.  But you wouldn’t leave us alone.  And now many of us are coming to the conclusion the masquerade isn’t worth the reward.

We’re looking at all the work we put in not to disturb you, and the things you call us, nonetheless, and we’re going “Oh, yeah?  You think we’re bad?  You ain’t seen nothing yet.  Shiny.  Let’s be bad guys.”

The only question is how fast what I think is a majority gets there.  But the worm is already turning, and you can’t stop it.  Screaming and name calling will only increase the speed of the turn.

You’d better learn to swim, or you’ll sink like a stone.  For the times, they are achanging.

Which means someone has plans to kidnap me and go have some fun for the day. Probably a couple of museums and dinner out.

Anyway, I might finish a chapter on Orphans of the Stars (because I like sleeping at night, and the book is a tyrant) but I ain’t writing a post today.

To compensate…. Well, I wrote this song that sounds like a gurrrrl powah song, until you realize it’s called Athena’s Song. By that point, if you’ve read Darkship Thieves, you’ll be giggling like a little girl. Yes, even if you’re an older man.

So, without further ado: Athena’s Song:

And if you haven’t read Darkship Thieves, this is your lucky day. Yes, I know I was supposed to have Witch’s daughter out by now and was going to put Witchfinder up for 99c. Well, that’s been delayed a couple of weeks, mostly due to my getting sick. I seem to — knock on head — be getting over it by now, and the book is back, so… (It got all muddled, when I was sick.)

Anyway, for now, I started my Birthday-to-New-Years 99c sale with Darkship Thieves. IF I didn’t screw anything up, it will be for sale by the time you read this.

Athena Hera Sinistra never wanted to go to space. Never wanted see the eerie glow of the Powerpods. Never wanted to visit Circum Terra. She never had any interest in finding out the truth about the Darkships. You always get what you don’t ask for.
When an intruder in her bedroom forces Athena to flee her father’s luxury cruiser in a tiny lifeboat, her escape leads her straight to the legendary Darkships—mysterious vessels that steal Earth’s power supply. And into the life of the pilot of the Darkship.

Thrust into a hidden asteroid colony and hunted by powerful enemies, Athena discovers shocking truths about her father’s empire and her own identity. As she navigates this dangerous new reality, what began as a fight for survival becomes a battle for freedom that could transform humanity’s future.

Winner of the Prometheus Award—a pulse-pounding space adventure where liberty hangs in the balance and nothing is as it seems.

What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word,
As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee.

Save that quote as we’ll return to it before this is over. For now let’s look at two other observations on hatred. In The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Heinlein says it is easier to get people to hate than to love. Easier to get them to hate the enemy than to love their country (or their ideas, or their future. Or whatever.) As we know this is correct, because the left has run on it for centuries.

Rogers and Hammerstein, who could write great songs but were no political philosophers, on the other hand, thought that hatred had to be carefully taught. This is … what’s that word? Oh, yeah: Idiotic. Humans hate as easily as they love. Both are part of the same thing: of being social apes who defend their own and protect against the enemy.

If you want to know Europe’s geography of hatred look to the borders. Where countries meet, there are battle lines, fought out and back and forth over time. And there are proverbs “From Portugal neither good demons nor good matrimony” “From Spain neither good wind nor good marriage.” Every border in Europe. (And I’ll admit that finding myself in the middle of a group of Spanish speakers makes my blood pressure rise. I think it’s because it’s so similar and yet not and I don’t understand all of it, which spikes the anxiety. This is made worse by Castellano which hisses. Look, I grew up with cats.)

Hatred like love requires proximity and pervasiveness, and that you KNOW the other people. This is why, btw, the program that I first came here under as an exchange student could only be started by Americans. Because it assumes knowing the other better causes you to love them. It’s …. not right. It’s easier to hate them, particularly if they’re similar enough to annoy you because they’re not right.

Think of hominid bands. The biggest threat was your closest neighbors, which well…. raiding and such being what it was, were probably just like you genetically.

You don’t have to be taught to hate. Hate happens when two groups, similar enough and yet different, are competing for the same resources. That’s it. Love happens in similar circumstances, where there’s no competition.

Part of the reason America managed at least SOME degree of cultural integration is that the resources were so abundant, and that it was colonized by a big lump of the same culture (two big lumps of closely related cultures, if you consider the German influx large enough) and then a lot of groups SO DIFFERENT that there was no “hook” for the hatred. They were simply too different.

(This incidentally explains why the English hate the French but LOVED the Arabs. This crazy Arabophillia wasn’t found in the peninsula where memory ran deep and there were enough remnants that Arabs were understood and different enough to be hated.)

Heck, there wasn’t a lot of hatred against the King and England in America. Probably a lot more love than hatred. Until the king started stomping around. (Hence the quip in TMIAHM which is a roman de clef of the American revolution. In TMIAHM the stomping around is provoked and calculated. It probably didn’t have to be in the revolutionary war.)

Anyway, what does this matter?

Well, first you have to understand the left runs on hatred. No, seriously.

You see, the latest incarnation of its ideology, communism, with the USSR as its flagship, imploded drastically, so they have to keep hatred flowing towards their opponents, so that its thralls don’t escape the dying vision for a vision that works.

Some of their hatred is organic. The beliefs of Marxism provide hatred and envy aplenty. After all, being an economic ignoramus but a for-real poisonous neurotic, Marx knew the reason he wasn’t king of the universe was the vast conspiracy of how society was organized. The whole “class war” thing is designated to make you hate a collective enemy. So that comes naturally to the devotees of the cult.

On top of which there’s the fact that the ideology makes perfect sense in an intellectual way “if only everybody.” If you have the type of mind that doesn’t realize that never in the history of ever has “everybody” done something, including not cutting off their own nose to spite their faces, i.e. if you life so much inside your own mind that you have no idea other people aren’t widgets, you’re going to hate people. It would be so easy if they just got with the program, abolished private property and looked after each other! Obviously their not doing it means they’re evil. You’re going to hate them. Particularly the ones you think “benefit from the system.”

So their hatred is organic, and ridiculously easy to point at whoever is the hatred of the day. The truth is they hate even the classes they’re told to love. Over my many years in the arts I met a lot of open Marxists. Become friends with one of them and behind the scene you find they hate every possible identifiable minority, as well as the majority, of course. The more new agey of them dream of “Earth changes” that will wipe out the majority of the population while leaving them (and I want to point out for disambiguation these are by and large people who need help crossing the street without a guide) both untouched and in charge. Because of course, they’re smart. (That’s the other illusion of Marxism.)

Now, the other thing you have to understand is that the left KNOWS they’re the good people. THE REALLY GOOD PEOPLE. After all, they want to share every bit of wealth and look after the disenfranchised. (Which includes them, for… reasons.) So they’re good. Their enemies, meanwhile, the ones who refuse to share and be equal, they’re evil people. Self-explanatory. Therefore, if they have all these hates…. the right must be based on MORE HATE. In fact the only reason we don’t want to share and sing Kumbaya is because we are racist, sexist, homophobic and hate EVERYONE.

The left is so sure of it that Obama’s bullshit about people in rural areas clinging to their bibles and their guns and their fear of people who aren’t like them — regurgitated stuff from college. And not deep stuff from college, mind — was kindness itself, cutting those haters some slack.

And this is why their latest attempt to destroy MAGA — a coalition that both scares them and baffles them — is trying to make us hate Jews.

Why Jews specifically is an utter puzzle, unless the whole thing is actually run by Russia, who seem to have a Jewish obsession for reasons I can’t explain without a deep history of Russia. (And I ain’t doing that.) There are indications that way. But I think it’s too simple. I mean sure, the Russians would jump after that like a rooster after a berry, but if you think the Russians are our only enemies…. well! (And I’m almost sure Obama himself was a Muslim Brotherhood construct, so they can do stuff, yes.) And most of them are — for reasons of their own — obsessed with Jew hatred. (The exception is the Chinese, for whom we’re all inferior round eyes, every single one of us.)

However, if you’re thinking that MAGA is falling apart, you must be listening to on media propaganda too much. Why? Because MAGA isn’t talking heads. MAGA isn’t the “online discussion.”

MAGA is — as I told you when all of you were sure Trump was washed up. Another such online operation before the 24 election — a thing of the rest of the country that has had enough of the democrat bullshit. (And it took them long enough to get fed up, honestly.) Making one’s own country great again shouldn’t be controversial, unless you’re a foreign invaders. So people screaming at it are self identifying, and people see that.

As I told you back in the days of “DeSantis is the new face of the right” ya, no. Stop falling for stupid propaganda. I have nothing against DeSantis (he annoys me in some ways. But in some ways he annoys me less than Trump. So.) but in the country at large, those not extremely online, he was a “Who?” which is much worse than being hated when it comes to political prospects. Yes, the extremely online left hated him. The extremely online right loved him. For the guy who came to fix my oven he was a “Who? Oh. The guy in FL. I guess he’s okay.”

The coalition wasn’t being ripped apart. Some idiots (or evil people) had convinced Ron he had a chance, so he was trying, but in the rest of the country he had no purchase. None at all. Online? Oh, hell, if you went by online commenters he was already elected president, no question.

This entire Jew hatred thing? Same thing. Exact same thing.

And part of it is that proximity thing. Look, yes, America has a lot of Jewish people. Most of the visibly different Jews, though? The identifiable Jews? Urban. (Might be genetic. Would explain why I long for the skyscrapers. ;) Note that’s a joke.) And because they’re a middleman minority, they tend to strive and get to prominent positions.

All of them? Don’t be an idiot. No, not even most of them. For some reason my Jewish friends are as broke as I am. But enough for people to be able to point to positions of prominence and see Jews in them.

Historically there’s a ton of reasons why Jews would end up in prominent positions in the 20th (and from the 18th on) centuries. Including the fact that almost all governments tried to prevent them from doing things like owning land. (There were exceptions, yes, but not worth mentioning.) And the fact that the majority they lived among could be stirred to hatred if they became too visible (see massacre of innocents, Egypt, but really, all of the middle ages.) meant that they specialized in professions that were portable. You could leave at any minute and take your knowledge with you. (Also give gold to your kids for important life events — this is a thing in my family, but I suspect it’s true in all of Portugal, honestly — because if you have to pick up and go you won’t go destitute.)

There were other reasons, like the fact most of Europe hampered itself with “Christian” laws against lending at interest. Without the Jews it’s doubtful that the renaissance could have happened.

Anyway, so the culture, as a culture — it is a culture though one with a million faces, because each small group took from the host country — was perfectly poised for industrialization and intellectual professions becoming the pinnacle of the modern world. Oh, and understood finance.

So, yes, there are a lot of Jews in visible, prominent positions. And a lot who live a day at a time and paycheck to paycheck. It doesn’t take a grand conspiracy. Just a complicated and fraught history and a stubborn streak a mile wide, which MIGHT be genetic.

Again the point/problem with that is that they’re highly visible in cities and in certain fields. (Look, bucko, if Jews really ran the world in a grand conspiracy none of them would work in publishing. Not a single one. There ain’t no money in it. There are however a lot of neurosis. Which seem to be genetic, as well but might be cultural.)

Jews are not highly visible anywhere else. They’re not highly EXISTENT anywhere else. Not as a visible cultural minority.

They exist mostly in academic settings and urban settings. There aren’t very many of them in the US. There aren’t very many of them in the world, for that matter.

So is there a great upswelling of Jew-hatred in the right in the US? No. There is Jew-hatred in Academia because they’re being carefully taught to excuse one of the most barbaric attacks of modernity and somehow blame it on the victims. And there are minorities in urban settings who’ve been taught they’re government clients and that if they don’t get their “due” it’s other minorities fault.

That’s it.

So where is the upswelling online coming from? Mostly from outside. From the left, of course, because they do hate Jews because they’re convinced all Jews are capitalists, and they hate them people with money. If only they gave everyone everything! Then they could have a paradise! And from abroad who think they can push on these divisions to stop America unflopping itself and making itself a beacon for the world. The reason they think they can push on this and make it happen is their OWN cultural blind spot.

You see very European country including (particularly?) Russia, but also most (if not all) Middle Eastern countries are ABSOLUTELY convinced that the people running the news, etc. are super smart and completely know what’s going on in their own country. Instead of, as in the US, being a minority of grifters hired for political allegiance to the left. They also think (as we’ve run into with the French gigolo who commented here once) that our media MUST be run by the government or at least controlled by it, else how would they “know what to say.”

This results in them buying every lefty narrative about the right and ALSO believing it must be much worse. (“If this is what they’re allowed to publish.”) Which means they know that half the country is racist sexist homophobic, and flying those flags is a great way to divide the right and destroy America, making it go to war against itself, particularly what the Europeans (but particularly Russians) firmly believe is the entire financial elite.

It’s an illusion chasing stupid. But it’s very loud and some of you people keep getting all nervous-nellied over it.

Go out and talk to normal people, outside college campus and outside the extremely online community. It’s nonsense.

There simply aren’t enough Jews to hate in the rest of the country. (Oh, there are plenty, they are just …. not culturally visible. They look, act and are just like everyone else, without that little bit of difference that stokes suspicion or hatred.)

And the lefty media no longer has the unified megaphone power to make Jew hatred a thing everywhere, as they would have (did have) early in the twentieth century.

And MAGA? MAGA is fine. We might occasionally get mad at Trump, but he’s better than the alternative. And if he falls, we’ll find someone who gets up the left’s nose even more. He’s not our leader. He’s our flag. Something the left utterly fails to get, because they run to “great leaders” the poor idiots.

Weirdly the Jew Hatred attempt is being run with minority flags. This is an attempted dual piece of social engineering by the left. First because they know the indoctrination in school worked and people shut down if asked to be “racists”. This might no longer be true, btw, but the left moves slowly. So if you want to stoke ethnic hatred you need to use ethnic minorities.

Second because they realize they’re in danger. Their various sympathy ploys for the illegals haven’t worked. Being idiots, they don’t realize this is not racial but cultural/situational. People don’t like illegals because they are illegal and by and large are here to TAKE ADVANTAGE of the US social net, unlike immigrants of old.

BUT the left thinks this is racism against Latins (they’ve tried to convince me of this online. It’s hilarious) so therefore they are trying to defuse that by having someone with a Spanish last name stoke up Jew hatred to redirect. The same with the black chick.

This must be sop in some old soviet agit prop book, because it’s ALWAYS one of the marks it’s an op run by that side. It just makes things weird in America, without doing what they want, but hey.

As for the Jews, my biggest problem with them is that they fell for the media psy-op when they landed in the US: the media psy-op that told them the right hated them. (Oh, some did. As did some of the left. Maybe most.) And so they are fearfully clinging to the left.

There might also be, in people who mated for intellectual excellence for a long time a touch of the ’tisms (naaaah) so they believe what the left says about themselves, and therefore they’re all for inclusiveness and love and restorative justice. Sigh.

They’re also, you have to understand this, culturally very against demonizing any group or turning against it. Possibly because they know the results of that in their own history. It’s almost like the guy who told us to love our enemies and pray for those who would hurt us was one of them. (Seriously. So annoying. Yes, I am one of his followers. But I have the right to find Him super-annoying.)

They are…. waking up. Slowly. One by one. Slightly hampered by cultural assumptions, high buy in of academia and being urban. But they are waking up.

Which probably is another reason the left is pointing at them and shrieking kill.

Look, the left is in disarray. They have no ideas. People keep defecting.

Breaking up the right is their last best hope.

It won’t work. It won’t work because you can’t break what was never one piece. The right right now is “I don’t know what I want, but it’s not what the left is offering.” That’s it.

That type of pissedoffness won’t break, because it’s not together.

When things calm down, when victory is more obvious, when being on the right has its own perks, THEN it’s time to worry about where the movement is going and try to steer it. To the extent a group of individuals who are very individual can be steered. At least keep it out of the deeper ditches, and keep the “converts” i.e. lefties from making it exactly like the left.

For now? this is the latest lefty psy-op. Best handled by laughing, calling them names and moving on.

It won’t last long. It’s already losing purchase. But it will last longer than say “the economy is dying, we must now vote left” because it’s a favorite among the left. You see, they really do hate Jews, mostly because they convinced themselves the “Palestinians” are underdogs. (That or a perpetual fascination with tyrants and destructive people.)

And now we return to the top. Peace: they hate the very word. Because they define themselves by their hatred and their opposition to something or someone.

So they must keep peace at bay by hating those they were designated to hate. Just like the whole Montague and Capulet thing. And it no doubt was very useful to the patrician of the city to have these powerful families enmeshed in endless brawling. Just like the international would-be rulers think if they only make America fall abrawling they can rule the world.

They can’t. And the fact they think they can is the measure of their lack of understanding of the world.

Don’t be like them. Be aware there is life beyond online psy ops.

Go live it a bit.

UPDATE: While I was doing yard work — I hate yard work, and I forgot to get an audio book for the mind while I did it — it came to me I’m being an idiot. This is not primarily, or possibly even, about dividing the right. Well, not for the left in the US. (The Russians are trying to put their oar in and are as usual misreading everything about the US.) No. The left thinks we hate Jews, sure. (And everyone else.) But they also think we hide it so well. Hence “dog whistles.” No. This is PRIMARILY and perhaps above all about stopping the American Jewish exodus from the democrats.
You see, they took the mask off rather dramatically after 10/7 and a lot of people woke up. A lot of them are volunteers and donors. A lot others are academics and writers. The left wants them to think the right is even MORE anti-Semitic than they are, to stop that hemorrhaging.
Extra reason for our commentariat on the right, Jewish and not, to take a deep breath and see through the psy-ops. Then point and laugh, boys, (and girls. And small winged animals.) point and laugh.

Book Promo

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

FROM PAM UPHOFF: Dumas (Machine World Book 1)

Dumas house Zeller. A Servants bastard who was caught using Mentalist Powers and chipped. Still brilliant, but without Power, with speech issues, sold . . . But he’s got a Grand Plan . . .

A small part of the Baranov Family has been kicked out of Baranov House after their son is accused of improprieties with the Family Head’s daughter. Retreating to their old hunting lodge on a low population World, with their old servants and a couple of new ones, they’re going to find themselves right on the spot when the Machines arrive.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Sleigh Bells and Wedding Bells

Amaryllis and Chris have been in love since…forever. Even if Amaryllis didn’t realize it until Chris fell off a ladder. A year later, they’re working and planning toward a wedding. Eventually. When they get enough money built up, and can take the time to do it.

Unfortunately, Amaryllis forgot Thanksgiving. Her mother decided that since she forgot it, she could make it. And that would have been fine, if the turkey hadn’t suddenly been the worst thing ever.

Now, she’s got three weeks to plan her own wedding, and only four hundred dollars to pay for it. But she’ll manage. It’ll work.

It just has to.

FROM SHAYNA DAVIDSON: Whisper and Flame: Cast by Lies

When a Truthseeker collapses near death on her doorstep, Elaina knows she should walk away.

Instead, she saves him.

Now her quiet life in the forest is over—and the secrets she’s spent years hiding are under threat. The Order of the Vigilant Flame wants answers. The man she saved, Reynold, suspects she’s more than she seems. And the truth? It’s bound in silence, hidden by magic, and dangerous to reveal.

As they investigate a string of murders, Elaina and Reynold are drawn into a deeper mystery—one involving unnatural creatures, corrupted runes, and a name uttered like a curse: Whisper. Elaina isn’t the only one keeping secrets, and the cost of unraveling the truth may be more than either of them can bear.

But the only way out is through the fire.

WITH STORIES BY ZAN OLIVER AND LEIGH KIMMEL: Steam Rising: Tales of steampunk and wondrous inventions (Raconteur Press Anthologies Book 35)

Steampunk. It’s not just a genre, it is science fiction in its purest form. In this collection, you will read of the ways that technology could both help and harm mankind. Steam power took a special kind of bravery to use and master, and the people who live in a steam-powered world adjust to that need: engineers, inventors, tinkerers and experimentalists of every kind and every manner imaginable.

Within, you will meet clockmakers and war-widows, steamship captains and airship pilots; you will see wailing engines race and clanking automata strut. Hurry on! The engineer is feeding the coal, and says she’s raring to go.

See that red lever over there? Grip ‘er tight, and heave forward the throttle…

FROM JOHN BAILEY: The Error of MechaTexzilla: A Parody of Galactic Proportions, Barbecued to Perfection (The Fantasy Books)

When an alien empire sets out to conquer Japan but crash-lands in Texas, their dream of galactic domination turns into a smoky mess of barbecue, bad deals, and mechanical mayhem.

Meet Emperor Blorg the Inefficient, who mistakes Godzilla movies for documentaries. Buddy Ray McCoy, a Houston con man who can sell a spaceship faster than a used car. Sandra Jo Pickett, a rodeo queen turned “intergalactic business consultant.” And of course, MechaTexzilla — a brisket-fueled mechanical monster with the soul of a smoker and the heart of a cowboy.

Together, they’ll battle rival aliens, rogue robots, and Texas bureaucracy in a parody that collides Godzilla, Hitchhiker’s Guide, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? with a healthy serving of mesquite smoke.

In space, no one can hear you chew.

FROM JAMES DAIN: You Always Kill the One You Love: A Dark Psychological Thriller of Love, Lies and Murder (Twisted)

DAN THOUGHT HE’D GOTTEN AWAY WITH MURDER. BUT DID HE?

Dan believed he and Sandra were Soul Mates—until she betrayed him. Now, with her blood on his hands, he’s on the run, desperate to reach a remote cabin where he hopes to disappear.

But his plans unravel when he encounters Babe—a woman who looks exactly like Sandra, but damaged, lost and unable to remember her past.

As they travel a dark highway together, Dan must decide: is Babe the second chance he’s been hoping for, a way to undo his crime and reclaim the love he destroyed? Or is she a figment of his tortured mind—or something far more terrifying?

You Always Kill the One You Love is a hypnotic, dark psychological thriller in the tradition of Daniel Lehane, Megan Abbott, and Alex Michaelides—a haunting exploration of obsession, delusion, guilt, and the razor-thin line between love and destruction.

Book 1 in the Twisted Series: dark psychological suspense novels where the narrators are not detectives—but the very people committing the crimes. Each book is a noir crime thriller steeped in moral ambiguity, unreliable truths, and shocking twist endings.

BY OTIS ADAELBERT AND ALLEN S. KLINE, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: The Secret Kingdom (Annotated): The classic pulp lost civilization adventure

Scientist-adventurer Alfred Bell didn’t go to the unexplored depths of the Amazon for adventure, not even for glory — he simply wanted to find and catalog species of flora and fauna the civilized world hadn’t yet discovered. But when he finds a man about to be attacked by a wild beast, he doesn’t hesitate, and with a rifle shot he saves a life and forever alters his own.

For Bell didn’t just save a man, but a king, a king of a civilization that does not want to be found by the outside world. Being imprisoned in a hidden mountain city wasn’t such a bad deal, though — after all, the king was his buddy, and suddenly having six adoring wives could have been worse. Now if only the high priest of the kingdom wasn’t trying to kill him…

• This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction giving genre and historical context to the novel.

FROM BRIAN HEMING: The Lives of Velnin: Final Life: A fast-paced epic fantasy adventure of swords, love, magic, and battles

Swords. Love. Magic. Epic Battles. Reincarnation.

The recording cut off with the image of a blast of white-blue flame. I sat up from my stasis chamber, looked at the inscription, and read, “Velnin.” So, I was the last—number 9. My other remaining brothers had either died too fast to leave dying words at all, or been killed in stasis before this last one had died.

Velnin awakes in a stasis chamber deep in a hidden cave base, with only the memories of his first brother Velwin, and the dying words of three more. On his ninth and final life, Velnin must unravel the mysteries of what has happened to his missing brothers, retrieve his legendary blade Swelfalster, and decide where his true love and loyalty ultimately lies—whether with the charming Princess Aloree, the swordfighting Dark Empress Soraina, or somewhere else entirely.

Combining ancient history with swords, love, and magic, Final Life is sure to please fans of swords & sorcery, adventure romance, and military fiction alike.
A fast-paced epic fantasy of swords, love, magic, and battles.

Praise for The Lives of Velnin:
“Interesting questions of identity and other surprises await” -Bill Hiatt, author of the Spell Weaver series.
“excels with fast paced action.” -Anthony Alves, author of Blood and Qi.
“Incredibly fast-paced, with just enough romance thrown in to have you rooting for the characters immediately.” -Sam M. Ridge, author of Swirls of Shadow.

FROM Z.M. RENICK: Traitor’s Blood, Traitor’s Magic (The Seelie Court Book 6)

Saoirse is an investigator for the Seelie Court and a shapeshifter whose True Form lets her appreciate freedom as few others can. She catches criminals whose recklessness would endanger the good of all the Fae and still has enough free time to enjoy the liberty of the skies in her hawk form. It’s a good life, allowing her to forget about the evil done by her parents and grandparents.

But when Saoirse is accused of participating in a plot to destroy the Seelie Court, it all comes crashing down. Fleeing cries of “Traitor” from her fellow investigators, Saoirse runs to the mortal world. She seeks the help of her friend, Champion of the Mortal Realm Emma Greer, as well as her partner Kenneth and her mortal lover Shane, to prove her innocence. But the more she learns, the more trapped she becomes. A powerful enemy seeks to destroy her, and both her family’s crimes and her own nature are conspiring to help him. Can Saoirse save herself and return to the Seelie Court? Or did her traitor’s blood doom her efforts before they even began?

FROM DALE COZORT: New Galveston Book 1: Operation Croatoan

In February 1939, with World War II looming, the US Navy held a massive naval exercise in the Caribbean, involving almost fifty thousand sailors and marines. President Franklin Roosevelt personally attended.

In this alternate history novel, the US of 1939 disappears at the peak of the exercise, along with the rest of the New World. In its place is a New World still inhabited only by Indians.

While the US remnants try to make a new home for themselves, Nazis, Fascists and Japanese Imperialists scheme with Aztecs and other Indian powers to take over the resource-rich and now nearly defenseless New World.

Nazi Germany pours resources into it’s navy and into an advanced new generation of cargo planes. By summer 1941, the Nazis are ready to move. A mysterious “Operation Croatoan” is at the core of their schemes. Milo Gentry and a handful of other Americans race to figure out what the Axis powers are up to and stop them.

FROM BLAKE SMITH: A Kingdom of Glass: A Novel of The Garia Cycle

In a kingdom of secrets and silk, one girl must choose between duty and her heart.

Zara has spent eleven blissful years in the sun-drenched kingdom of Garia, where she rides free across a vast grassland, shoots her bow beneath starlit skies, and calls her foster family’s castle home. But when a royal summons arrives, her golden world shatters like spun glass.

Thrust into the cold, formal courts of the East Morlans—a realm of rigid etiquette and deadly politics—Zara must navigate an arranged marriage to a stranger, reconnect with a family she barely remembers, and survive the unforgiving world of noble society.

Gone are the warm winds and open skies of her beloved home. In this land of marble halls and suffocating tradition, every word is measured, every gesture scrutinized, and falling in love might be the most rebellious act of all.

As court intrigue swirls around her and threats close in from every side, Zara must discover who she can trust—and what she’s willing to sacrifice—to reclaim the freedom she left behind in the endless plains of Garia.

Some cages are gilded. Some prisons are palatial. But Zara’s heart belongs to the steppe.

Perfect for fans of court intrigue, swoon-worthy romance, and heroines who fight for their own destiny.

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: No Man’s Land

Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.

On a lost colony world, mad geneticists thought they could eliminate inequality by making everyone hermaphrodite. They were wrong. Catastrophically wrong.
Now technology indistinguishable from magic courses through the veins of the inhabitants, making their barbaric civilization survivable—and Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Kayel Hayden, Viscount Webson, Envoy of the Star Empire—Skip to his friends— has just crash-landed through a time-space rift into the middle of it all.
Dodging assassins and plummeting from high windows was just the beginning. With a desperate king and an archmagician as his only allies, Scipio must outrun death itself while battling beasts, traitors, and infiltrators bent on finishing what the founders started: total destruction.
Two worlds. One chance. No time to lose.

Volume 1
The Ambassador Corps has rules: you cannot know everything, don’t get horizontal with the natives, don’t make promises you can’t keep.
They’re a lot harder to follow when assassins are hunting you, your barbarian allies could kill you for the wrong word, and death lurks around every corner.
The unwritten rule? Never identify with the natives.
Skip’s already broken that one.
Now he’s racing against time to save his new friends from slavery—or worse—while dodging energy blasts and political intrigue. One crash-landed diplomat. A world of deadly secrets. And absolutely no backup.

Some rules are meant to be broken. Others will get you killed.

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

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

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

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: DELIGHTFUL

Understand: I’m not saying that the economy is in good shape. It’s not. The amazing thing after the abuse it’s been put through in the last 20 years, but particularly the last five, it’s amazing we still have an economy. As in, at least the shell is still standing and hasn’t crashed spectacularly into the dust.

And the reason it’s still standing, I think, as far as I can tell, is that all other economies, the world over, are in worse shape. (Despite all the talk of Russia stronk and China stronk, and South Elbonia stronk.) All of them are made up of more bullshit, obfuscation and stupid than ours.

I’ve been saying for years now that we’re walking over an abyss, and the only thing preventing us from falling is that we haven’t looked down, yet.

In an economy based on fiat and the perception of value, the perception is really really important. Which is why its best not to dissect it too closely.

But Biden — or his autopen — came really close to putting an end to us. Look, yes, we are a middle class couple, we have savings. We are in the time of life when we don’t eat a lot — certainly compared to the early Obama years, when we had at least one teen in the house and initially two — and we don’t have expensive tastes. I will grant you the last few years have involved house repairs and unexpected overseas trips. But still — By the end of last year, I had that rushing headlong into the abyss feeling that if Kamala won we’d be in real trouble for our monthly expenses come the middle of this year.

So did Trump solve everything?

That sound you heard was my bitter cackle. Last I checked, Orange Man Bad was many things, but none of them was “magician.” Nor did being elected furnish him with a magic wand to put everything right by waving it mid air.

And what he’s facing….

Well, it started with…. a lot (We’ll go with a lot) of illegals who are not your standard immigrants to this country, but are here for the benes. They were recruited to come and live off the fat of the land. Since the Obama years, the third world has been blanketed in pamphlets proclaiming that if they come here social justice demands we treat them like kings, and after all the streets are paved in gold, etc. Then there is our craptastic educational establishment. Our hiring systems corrupted by H1B visas (which invites the cheating and corruption of credentials and ability of the third world in.) Our insanely overextended, weirdly administered corporations, some of them already part of the third world corruption system.

There’s other things, like the entire DEI edifice which enshrines incompetence — because hiring or promoting for any reasons other than competence enshrines incompetence — and which penetrates everything. And then there’s catastrophic innovation, which is leaving all of us breathless and feeling like the ground is continuously being yanked out from under our feet. One minute we’re exclaiming in glee at something we can now do, the other confused because the way we’ve always done things is completely altered and we need to learn it all again.

There’s our social interactions and the fact the young people are marrying late, which affects the birth rate and everything else.

And there’s 2020 that ate our confidence in all our institutions and mass communication instruments.

All of which reflects on the economy.

Then there’s stuff like, of course, we’ve de-industrialized to a stupid level, and we must decouple from places like China before their number is fully up. (Beyond the fact that they’re massively unreliable and outright dangerous for things like medicine and defense tech.) This is at the heart of it the reason for the tariffs. We don’t have must time and we must hard-decouple from China, before we’re forced into a harder decoupled, or are pulled into the whirlpool of destruction China is about to trigger. It’s also why we can industrialize faster and better with new tech. Unfortunately that requires better transportation technology and better transportation in middle-of-nowhere-flyover. In fact, those are all things we need yesterday.

It’s too bad Trump doesn’t have a magic wand because what this administration is trying to do is akin to rebuilding a 747 in full flight, without letting it crash. I salute their optimism and can do attitude, and I hope they realize most — if not all — of what they have to do is remove as many impediments as possible, getting rid of as many parasitic structures as possible, and then getting out of the way as American innovation and chaos bursts forth to make everything anew.

So, yes, thank you. I’m not such an idiot as not to realize the economy is still in trouble. I don’t think anyone is.

But I will note that the Democrats are, right now, as we speak, running a full tilt propaganda action to convince us that: a) the economy is Trump’s fault. b) everyone blames Trump for the economy c) if the republicans can’t fix everything within the next year they’ll be punished by the mid terms.

Is any of those true? Much less all of them?

I don’t know. And neither do you. I know they’re quoting surveys, but look, I was born at night but not last night. At this point without a full crawl through the stinking bowels of surveys and polls — and sometimes even with — I don’t believe it.

I particularly don’t believe it when the narrative is everywhere at once, practically in the exact same words.

I PARTICULARLY don’t believe it when they’re basing all this on socialists winning in their blue enclaves of fraud. Or are using that to try to stampede us into believing this everywhere-at-once narratives.

In fact, guys, there might be a pony under all that sh*t. But the sh*t is piled sky-scraper high, so the pony is tiny by comparison.

That I can tell in real-people interactions, everyone pretty much is very aware that the economy is not in great shape and not all is fixed. Job seekers are super-cautious and — still — most job opportunities are largely fictional.

However, the feeling I get is that most people are still drawing a deep breath and going “Hey, at least I can afford to eat! And the prices aren’t doubling every time I go to the store.”

Nothing is sure, nothing is trusted, but there’s the feeling we’re not diving headlong into the abyss anymore.

And there’s a deep, deep distrust of the left, in general.

Look, there’s a big danger in this. Most of how we got in trouble and let the long march in the institutions go on is that we voted for the Republicans because the left wanted to outright surrender to the USSR. This means the Republicans who wanted to go “command economy” but slower got elected despite us not liking them a bit.

In the same way, I suspect we have to elect people who aren’t the rabid dog left, which gives the stupid right a lot of leeway. We’re going to need a ton of luck not to let that take hold.

That is at least as big a danger as the economy turning mobius strip and doing the utterly incomprehensible before we get any kind of hold on it. Or of China finally crashing, before we can afford for them to.

However, most people don’t seem to be idiots. Most people seem to be aware that the economy was in very bad shape and is going to take time to fix.

I don’t hear anyone screaming out for socialism except the ones who have always been doing so.

Chill. This whole “We have to fix everything right now” is part of the left’s usual propaganda to create a sense of panic, and part their attempt to seed the acceptance of massive amounts of fraud in 26.

Let’s hope the administration knows they’re preparing next-level fraud. Again. And is ready to combat it.

And ignore the propaganda.

You guys tend to get the impression that I’m Mary Sunshine. At least I assume so, from how hard some of you try to spook me/worry me.

The point is I worry just fine on my own, thank you so much. I’m a raging depressive, and I inherited the paranoia from Mom’s side of the family. I wake up knowing that the world is ending in mere minutes, and that everyone is going to blame me for it.

I’m not actually joking when I say I spent years psyching myself up before entering parties, large meetings, or rooms where I was supposed to be on a panel by saying “Of course they don’t all hate you, you idiot. Most of them don’t know you. They have to know you before they can hate you.”

I apply this type of reasoning to just about everything that panics me or depresses me, which might create the erroneous impression I don’t know things can go wrong, or how badly things can go, or–

This is why I don’t get spooked at things like ante-fa. Because I was spooked, then I poked around and saw that they only operated in areas where the authorities were on their side. And even then, they couldn’t spread thinner than 3 cities or so at a time. This tells you it’s no groundswell movement. Heck, it’s not even as big as the fairly manufactured unrest of the 70s. Because of the way that the news and media worked back then, the people on the street seemed to feel more sympathy for the 70s bs than anyone does now. (No. I don’t know if that was true or the fact that the media and news of the time lent themselves to manipulating the history of the period, as well.)

Or the reason I didn’t lose all hope in people over the Covidiocy. Yeah, I know. It sure did seem like everyone was onboard. Only we drove if not quite coast to coast close enough, which allowed us to see how widely the nonsense was ignored, and how p*ssed people were on it. After all, it’s very easy to think everyone is onboard with it when places like Twitter and Facebook were censoring any posts questioning it. (At the order of the administration — bah. What DDR bullsh*t.)

This is the reason I know the groyper bs isn’t taking hold pretty much anywhere except with the extremely online showing how extremely online they are and edgy. And bots. And foreigners. And foreign bots. Because the general attitudes on the street haven’t changed. (I talk to EVERYONE. Inquisitive ditsy granny. And Dan has always talked to everyone. Even worse (le gasp) I listen in on everyone’s conversations, in grocery stores and diners and … everywhere, really. I count it as part of my preparation to write, but it sure does help with reality check.

Sometimes it’s glaringly obvious the difference between online and normal street level interest in something. De Santis won the online poll for president. Everyone knew Trump was past and DeSantis was the new, new thing. And then– And then it wasn’t a thing. Which I knew because repairmen and store clerks responded to DeSantis name with “Who?” The more informed said “The guy in Florida?” but the less informed asked if he was a singer. There was no way that was going to beat Trump’s name recognition. This is beyond any merit. I’m not going to debate the merits (again) and I never even got into the merits. Why? Because it didn’t matter. No one was going to be able to roar Trump off the track in 2024. And the democrats made it impossible for him NOT to run and to stay home playing with his grandkids. But I remember the meltdowns when I told you this. And all I was saying was “it doesn’t matter. It’s all online and it’s memorex.”

In the same way, I’m not crazy worried about illegal immigration. Yes, I know the elites had the bright idea of replacing Americans with malleable foreigners. But other than some crazy enclaves that tide as turning, and the crazy enclaves won’t be able to keep it up forever. I have the advantage, perhaps, of having seen this abroad too. People are fed up with the mass immigration thing. All over the world. And the sentiment has percolated. People are resisting.

As for the US, if anything the situation was worse than anyone thought. But I can see the shift. On the street, on the ground. How many are self-deporting? How many more will leave as benefits dry up?

Things are becoming clear around the edges, sideways. Like, apparently we were paying for most of the “insurrection” and the left “resistance” which puts an entirely new spin on everything. I mean, communists have always done revolution for wealth, but I didn’t realize it was all being funded on the back of the American taxpayer.

Are there still things that worry me? Of course there are. Some of them panic-worry me.

Take Trump’s idea of sending a 2k check to every American or or 50 year mortgages. TBF he always talked of profit sharing, and he’s also speaking of paying back the debt. Still, it’s a bad precedent, and a bad thing from the inflation pov.

Then there’s the 50 year mortgages, just as the prices were starting to go down on houses. what’s next? Generational mortgages as in Japan?

Actually I DO know what’s driving this. They need — NEED — the economy to be okay by the midterms. And since most of what they’re doing takes effort and TIME they’re trying to do some cheap magic tricks up front, to take the pressure off.

I wish them well, but I worry.

I also worry about the obviously still rigged vote, and the fact that any of hundreds of federal judges can now tell the President what to do, including on matters of military command. That is utter nonsense and if it goes on, it actively damages the republic to a level nothing else can.

Except to avoid appearing a dictator, Trump has to let this play and only the (compromised, you know they are) court can stop the nonsense. Will they? I worry.

I assure you that I have days of bottoming-out worry, which is when the close-in-readers discord group throws chinchillas at me.

What’s holding me together with those worries? Well, this is not the Trump of 2016. It’s not even the Trump of 2020.

I don’t trust experts, but I do trust “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” and Trump was bitten and bitten hard. He’s not only seen the elephant, he’s gotten a kick from the front paw.

And sure, he’s older, but he’s not stupid. And he knows his safety and the safety of his family literally ride on his being able to pass the presidency to a friendly. And probably getting a bigger majority in 2026.

And that’s the thread of hope I’m holding onto. I’ll add that for the last 11 months by and large the administration has been ahead of my worries, and stopping them in ways I can’t even tell.

And they still have datarepublican up their sleeve.

Let’s consider that everything seems to be coming apart because it is: it’s coming apart for left, because their entire method of controlling “reality” and making their theories seem plausible or their system possible and inevitable. Without controlling information, they can’t control people or maintain their grip on regions, let alone the country.

Yes, they still have power. Yes, they are going to “win” some. But they’re no longer the big scary. The truth is they never were. We were just financing the war on … us.

Does this mean I don’t worry? People. I’m a nervibore. I live on my nerves. of course I worry.

But I fact check my worries. And right now the prognosis is cautiously optimistic, but frustrated.

Why should people have babies?

Let’s face it, the little critters leak at one end and the other, and being a parent is an exercise in spending three to five years in smelliness and grubbiness. I remember days I didn’t even know what I was washing off my hair (but knowing my boys, it was probably peanut butter.) I remember the disturbed sleep patterns. I remember worrying obsessively about them. (Okay, that was last week.)

So, why have kids at all? Why does anyone bother.

Because we’re finite beings who dream of the infinite.

We know, at least if we’re adults, that we will eventually die, that the world will churn on without us. The chances of my great grandkids, should I have them, remembering my name, let alone who I was, what I thought, what I wanted are very small. And past that those chances are known.

In fact, a hundred years from now no one will remember us. (Unless, of course, you sell really bad copper.)

Having children won’t change that, but there is the thought something of yours will go Not the DNA so much. Looking at 23 and me, that fades out to “human genetic soup” really fast.

But if you have kids, or make a connection with other people’s kids (people will still need to have them!) something of you might go on. Could be something like your recipe for pineapple upside down cake, or your horrible taste in shoes, or the way you make animals out of q-tips to amuse a visiting kid through a rainy afternoon. Or it could be that truly bad pun you once made…. But something will go on. Or there’s a good chance it will. Two thousand years from now, someone will tell their toddler “Americans are chaos!” and the toddler will wonder what an American is. You know, just like my dad told my son “Legionaries don’t cry.”

Something will go on. Might be fractional. An expression, a way of looking, a glimmer of you.

There is that hope at least.

And that hope is the best we can do, as mortal beings who dream of the infinite.

It allows us to imagine ourselves infinite.

And it’s the best we can do.