It is apparently that sort of day. Sarah is well, the cats are well through no fault of their own, Dan is not allowed to lift that, my husband very kindly bought me a new smartphone which has occasioned significant maledictions at programmers and is now mostly beaten into shutting up, but at least the weather is fine.
So, for your entertainment, here are a few pictures of interest. If you should feel so inclined, drop a few words about what is happening, perhaps a flash fiction or a scene, in the comments.
Fairly late last night, Sarah dropped me a note asking if I could put something, anything, up today.
This is anything.
The various cat anecdotes include “You’re playing with knives.” addressed to Circe, Muse, and Indy. To which I pointed out that they come pre-equiped with knives, so this is hardly an unusual thing. These, however, were box cutters, and we prefer the cats to stick to smaller blades. (Like the ten on their front paws.)
Then The Wolf tried to steal peaches, and I told him he was taking after his big sister, and he was very affronted.
Between packing and cats, the House of Hoyt’s internal appearance is currently best described as “Possibly en route to Oz”, and between de-cluttering, cats, and dogs, the House of Assistant’s internal appearance is “Accompanying the Hoyts to Oz”, so I shall leave you with a photo of a fine fellow who fails to feline, and who has discovered that de-cluttering is not a cat friendly activity.
In the 2000 election my brother told me he didn’t understand why I was so worked up. Both the candidates were basically technocrats and their program was very similar.
As we’ve come to find out, he was right. Wrong also, of course, but ultimately right.
Of course there were differences between Bush and Gore, beyond the question of which noses would be on the through. The left in the US seem to be the only true believers in communism left in the world. Even those at the top seem vaguely shocked when they try to implement extreme left measures and not having the success they’ve been assured should come. One must blame the universities. The rest of the world, by and large, those on top are aware that communism doesn’t work, it’s just a racket to keep the masses down. The intellectuals still believe, but that’s because by and large they need something to put their faith on, and religious faith is considered uncool.
Anyway, for one, Gore was industrial strength stupid, and wholly sold on using the climate cult to stomp on us, completely unaware of repercussions.
But other than that, and as far as we can deduce, they believed largely the same things and were largely “technocrats.” I.e. they believed in rule by the “educated class” and the “experts” who could “solve all the big problems.” And they shared — as we can tell from Bush’s post-presidency friendship with Clinton, of all people — a certainty that the little people should be ruled and not listened to.
The problem of course is that Obama was brought in by the same people. Who are the faces behind the Junta now. As well as those controlling most of the world. Badly.
Part of the hatred for Trump — particularly among the University educated class — is a sort of back-of-the brain certainty that he’s ruining the program. It’s the only reason I can find for the frothing mouth and glazed eyes, the screaming of how terrible he is and how he’s going to burn down the world, when he’s been president once, and all he did was stop the waves of illegals, stop the wars, and make us energy independent. This is terrible?
Yeah. For the international would be technocrats it is. You see, they need to dislocate people, make them rootless and disconnected. They need to herd masses of people here and there like sheep — a technique for breaking up nationalities that has worked since the ancient world (except, by and large, on the Jewish people) — broken from traditions/beliefs/ customs and social bonds. Only then will the masses be utterly dependent on their wisdom and able to be indoctrinated in the new beliefs of the….
Well, they don’t call it that, but of Homus Sovieticus in a new suit and tie, with a bit of computer savvy.
It is essential to them to make as many people as possible dependent on pay offs that are wholly divorced from labor or production. They need you to have nothing to live for. To, as they put it, own nothing and (pretend to) be happy. Only then can they direct every minute instance of your daily life.
Why? Well, they’ll give you all sorts of reasons. By and large the same reasons as communists: it’s a more efficient way to allocate resources, so we don’t all starve when the (non existent) population bomb goes off. It’s best for us to be kept in hygienic surroundings. It’s best to not let us get racist/sexist/homophobic ideas. Etc. etc. etc.
In other words, you’re a sheep they want to feed what they want, shear when they want, and eat when they want.
A curious thing happened on the way to the technocracy, though.
Humans don’t herd well. You can break humans and give them Stockholm syndrome, but you have to be offering something pretty strong for them to attach onto. Which “own nothing and be happy” ain’t.
Humans are in fact refractory apes, and have been breaking out in rebellion all over.
And the technology never worked as the technocrats thought. You see, they’re not in themselves technical. They just thought they knew how to control humans through tech.
They’ve already failed. Oh, they’re fighting a rearguard action, composed of vote fraud, violence, lawfare, spying, etc. etc.
Their problem is that it’s already out in the open, because they are fairly desperate. And the more it’s out in the open, the more horrified people become at the smile on the face of the tiger.
In a way the covidiocy was their high water mark, the complete coup of the technocracy. It worked, but not uniformly, only briefly, and the actual compliance outside big cities was — as I found out — notional. Their attempt to roll it into a “climate emergency” lockdown was shrugged off. Their attempts to spook us into locking up again have been… laughable.
As almost always, but now faster, the humans failed to comply.
Plus they burned their “expert rule” by revealing most “experts” are no such thing.
The insurgence — the real one, not the one they tried to gin up as an excuse in 2020 — is alive and well, composed of set faces, clenched fists and feet planted in the ground, refusing to be moved.
I don’t know if they’ll manage to fraud themselves into power in November. They might. But it will do them a whole heap of no good, you know?
In China rulers lose the mandate of heaven. Throughout the west… you can piss off people enough that they don’t put up with your bullsh*t anymore. So it’s been throughout history.
The only remarkable thing about our would be expertocracy is how fast they burned a clout that took them a hundred years to create.
We are not sheep. We are not in the mood to be herded. We are not going into their profoundly stupid future.
We are chaos. We are liberty. We are — us here — Americans.
You know the party games, right? With the cups, and the kid puts a pea under one, and switches them around, and then reveals that it’s under a different cup than you thought? Or makes a quarter vanish then pulls it from behind his friend’s ear?
Look over there! Lake America! Look over there! Horrible President Rankings! Look over there!
And everyone is looking. Over there.
I established a habit back in the first term of President Trump of when my leftist acquaintances started screeching about something inane, going to check the Executive Orders page at the White House Website. (I am a classical musician: of course I have leftist acquaintances. The real trick is telling which are truly leftist and which are situationally leftist to stay employed.) We have several interesting Executive Orders this week, among the mundane, expected, and distracting. There’s the one about beef trimming imports, there’s the Space Academy which is to be under NASA interestingly enough, and then there’s the National Emergency.
I do not know if this means that no one can build a solar plant with solar panels from the PRC, or if it means that no one can buy solar panels from the PRC if they will be grid tied, or something else entirely. I do not know if this is the reason for renaming Lake Ontario, so everyone is looking the other way and screeching, or if something else is. But I find it interesting that the first I heard of this was bopping over to the White House website to see what Executive Orders were up.
If you do speak fluent electrical and national security (Jeff maybe?) and you feel like you can translate, maybe you’d be willing to do so in the comments?
And if you know of something else that Pres. Trump is distracting from, drop that in the comments, too, assuming it’s public knowledge, of course, just not widelyknown public knowledge.
More applicable than ever now when those few of us somewhat at risk are being prevented from taking our chances with a new type of common cold and paying the the price in complete economic destruction and underhanded seizure of private property — what do you think ruining city real estate values and destroying businesses is? — and while maniacs are blaming invisible monsters of oppression for individual actions and wanting to destroy all of society the name of Marxism. It’s time to stop that sh*t. Only individuals have rights, and among individual rights are “to be able to make choices the bien pensant disapprove of.- SAH.
The left is very adamant about charity not coming “with a sermon.” It is most of their excuse for wanting government not churches to preach.
But while I understand the convinced Christian’s need to preach and to save everyone from hell, which if you believe it is an eternal sentence and an awful one is mere human decency, I don’t understand the left’s similar need to ensure that everyone lives “a decent life” by its lights.
They refuse to understand that just as people are entitled to disbelieve and deny eternal salvation (and if you’re a Christian you know they are entitled to that. It’s called free will. Just as they’re entitled to sin. Doesn’t make it right. They’re still entitled to it. You can’t force anyone to be holy) they can refuse to live a middle class life. (Or better. The left keeps imagining that middle class is much further up than it is. Possibly because so many of them these days are spoiled rich kids.)
This came to mind last night, thinking of someone in the comments (sorry, I don’t remember the name) who said that maybe 10% of the homeless were aggressive and dangers to themselves and others. Others simply were mentally ill or caught in the trap of child support but behaved like decent human beings.
The child support thing is iniquitous, and usually on both sides. No, seriously. Women on the make will drive a man to ruin to finance her lifestyle in the name of “the children.” Men on the make still find ways not to pay, and if the woman is decent and doesn’t want to turn her kids’ life into unending strife she ends up living in poverty to provide for the kid. I’ve known this on both sides, partly because it’s impossible for a judge to adjudicate fairly without truly knowing the parties involved. Partly because scammers gonna scam. (It’s almost like no-fault divorce and marriage as a transitory fancy is a bad idea particularly when there are children involved. Never mind.)
The mental health… I’m fairly sure there are still services available should someone need them and know how to look. And perhaps without the noise of the violent it would be easier for those people to find help.
But I still wonder if the mental health issues are such. And I wonder about other things like “but what if people just want to live like that?”
I have learned through rather bitter experience that you can’t help everyone and also that what you want for yourself and your life is not what other people want. Some people will do the absolute minimum to keep a roof over head and food on the table, even if the roof is leaky and substandard, and the food is whatever and they never do any house keeping and live in what can only be described as utter squalor.
I found long ago that given the absolute same income as someone else, we tend to live better. Why? because we work beyond the money we have. I don’t mean just that we work to get out of that level of poverty, I mean that we will trade time for the money we don’t have.
So, when my husband was the sole provider because my writing wasn’t selling yet, I made a lot of my clothes, refinished furniture and, of course, cooked absolutely everything from scratch. Other than our cars, which we always bought used and fully paid for and drove into the ground, we easily kept up with our dual income friends. Why? Well, not child care was part of it, but furniture, clothes and food were the other part. It’s just cheaper to do for yourself.
It was also a massive amount of work. Particularly since I was trying to break into writing, and was getting up every day at five am to write for two hours before the routine with the kids started. I remember years of being short on sleep and going to bed with a long list of work that still needed to be done and I hadn’t got to in my head.
Was it worth it? Well, it was for me. I don’t like living in squalor. I wanted nice furniture and a nice, clean house. And I wanted my kids to have good food.
All of which amounts to: it was for me. It might not be for someone else.
It took me forever to figure this out. Let’s say the dime only dropped in the last ten years. So, I kind of get the left not “getting” it.
Partly because if you come from a background where everyone worked a lot all the time to secure the best lifestyle they could, it’s almost impossible to visualize someone wanting to live in what we’d consider unacceptable circumstances. Or perhaps not even “wanting” as fundamentally not being willing to pay the price to get a better situation.
Look, I’m not even a hundred percent sure of that last one. We tried for decades with someone, and everything you gave that would bring a better life got either broken or ignored or thrown away. Perhaps there is a Petersonian thing there, of people believing they only deserve to live at a certain level and anything above that making them uncomfortable. (Peterson says in terms of people not taking necessary meds, etc, that having seen our own brokenness and that we’re often untruthful and evil — even when we don’t mean to be — we think we don’t deserve to be well, etc.)
Or perhaps it is simply that doing anything, even using the thing that makes it easier is too much effort.
I’ve said before that I think the vast majority of people don’t feel the need to work above a subsistence level and that those of us who do are the mutants. I still believe so. In evolutionary terms, if you continued hunting after you had mammoth in your cave, you were just going to deplete the game and end up starving eventually.
That’s not the way it works now, but the human brain is not a thing of the industrial revolution.
I believe a great number of the people who live in “chronic poverty” are in fact at the level at which they wish to be/the level for which they’re willing to work. The left keeps coming up with increasingly fancier explanations, which are now devolving to “invisible demons” of oppression (seriously, in our society? Besides, if societal disapproval caused you to be poor, then a lot of gay people would be historically poor, instead of statistically at the top.)
It never occurred to me that a lot of people who are “homeless” might fall into the same category. By which I mean the ones who aren’t crazy, addicted or dangerous to others. Maybe what they have and what they do is the level they wish to live at. Or at least it’s comfortable enough they don’t wish to do anything to get out of it. But it makes sense. After all, by the numbers, these people already live better than your average medieval peasant. At which point, honesty, my only problem with their choice is whatever help they get that is non voluntary, i.e. taxation, not private charity. If they’re living like that and it’s their choice, and they’re wholly financed by private charity? Don’t care. None of my business. Everyone has the right to go to hell in the way of their choice.
What disturbs me about the left’s inability to recognize that choice is that those choices end up being financed from my purse, and the purse of the others who choose to work. That they are in fact holding up a gun to the heads of working fathers and mothers and demanding money to keep people who (what was Occasional Cortex’s cutesy phrase, exactly, I can’t remember) “aren’t willing to work” in the level of comfort they are okay with.
And then the fact that those people aren’t living at what the left thinks American middle class level should be, in a decently ecologically approved house, with the car and the organic meals and full health insurance, the left will come back and demand more. More and more money to pour down the hole of trying to change people’s choice on what they consider an acceptable level of comfort and living. What they aren’t willing to work to get out of. What, in fact, they’ll preserve if they get more “help” by doing even less to help themselves.
That’s what I object to. I object to the use of people’s choices to blackmail other people out of theirs.
I object to this holy crusade of the left that turns anyone who has less than you into a de-facto saint who needs to be championed, while you need to be tormented because you worked (or your ancestors did) to get to a level you consider acceptable.
I object to this Christian heresy with no redemption, no hope, no future, and no one being good or holy except those who envy and live at the expense of others.
I don’t think there’s ever been a civilization as rich as ours, but even in rich civilizations of the past, there were people who lived at all levels. And though social motility was smaller or slower or hidden, it was possible. It could happen. It might take multiple generations and grim determination, but it happened. Just the same, there were any number of people who were satisfied once they reached the “we’re not starving” level and went no further.
There still are. In the infinite variety of humanity, what you consider comfortable I consider insupportable. And it’s not just poverty, either. I’d probably die if forced to live the life of a socialite, forever minding what people thought, and having to have the latest styles. I don’t want that. I’m not interested.
In the same way I suspect any number of the “poor” would think I was crazy, keeping the work hours I do, and taking time to refinish furniture, or clean, or… Because they don’t feel the need to it.
And that’s their right. They are entitled to live as they want and to do just the minimum to get there.
And the left is NOT entitled to use holy envy to make everyone who wants better and works for it to feel guilty. Nor are they entitled to rob us to finance the lifestyle of people who don’t want to make any extraordinary effort and feel fine the way they are.
And it’s time we stopped this nonsense.
You choose what you want to sacrifice for what. I will willingly sacrifice time and effort for a clean and decent house. You won’t because you place more value on time on the sofa watching your favorite program? You do you. Just don’t ask me for money to get you a better house.
You see what you want and you pay the price. And the do-gooders can go take a flying leap. As long as your hand isn’t in my pocket, I don’t care.
(This is still not the intended post for today, it is, however, the one you are getting. Perhaps next week, requires more research.)
Some friends have been encouraging me to write about how to manage cross culture marriage, since I was just giving advice to one’s granddaughter and the other’s duct tape grandson, on the occasion of their marriage, on how to not commit spousal homicide. Years ago, you see, two college music students who were perhaps a touch idealistic in spite of my having been accused since early teens of being a cynic and him having survived a civil war in his teens, decided we would get married.
Both sets of parents, his from across an ocean, mine from across the state, were against this.
Both sets of parents lived to regret being against this. But a lot of our friends and family failed to sustain cross culture marriages, and we learned a few things along the way.
Herewith, the one thing to consider when taking on a spouse from another culture.
It isn’t you: it’s custom.
It almost never is you. Whatever it was, it wasn’t personal TO you. He’s appalled that you expected him to garden because that’s women’s work, and he knows nothing about it, and it’s emasculating. He’s appalled that you went alone to work in the garden because that’s dangerous and women get killed doing that. Neither is about you and what you did. (Not our examples, but actual real world examples.)
Americans are very much “If work needs done, get it done, if you are remotely physically and mentally capable of it, and if you are not, figure out how to do it anyway.” Most of us have very few fears of physical danger (or are prepared to protect ourselves against it) from wild beasts or other humans. We might have psychological hangups about some tasks, but other than bearing and nursing children, there is very little that either sex won’t do if needs must. We generally expect that a man who lives alone figures out how to do laundry or hires it done, and that a woman who lives alone figures out how to change her car tire or hires it done, and if you can do it alone you can do it with a spouse as needed.
One early point of contention in our marriage was the kitchen garbage. This wasn’t even wider culture: it was just how our parents did it. His mother ruled the kitchen, and anyone else entered it only under her watchful eye. I don’t think my mother-in-law would have permitted my father-in-law to take out the garbage: he knew nothing about garbage, would have done it wrong, and anyway, he was the vice-principal of the boarding mission school they lived at and in the main school building, and he walked out the internal door from their apartment living room into the school hall without ever stepping outside.
On my side, my father walked out the door to work every morning at 8:30 am and took the garbage with him, as the kitchen garbage was two steps from the mudroom, and the outdoor bin was next to the garage door. So early in our marriage, I had lifting restrictions from pregnancy, and was rather pissed off that my husband was walking by a full garbage can on his way to work and not emptying it. He was rather shocked that I expected him to notice it was full and empty it. Now, as a bachelor, he had figured out cooking, and he certainly emptied his own garbage can then, so . . . he’d reverted to the assumption of childhood role model behavior.
Neither is morally wrong, neither is culturally wrong (unless you’re my mother-in-law or my mother) in and of itself, and more importantly, neither of us had the bad sense to think it was personally targeted. Once it clicked, he noticed sometimes that the garbage needed to go out, and I pointed it out to him when he didn’t, with no rancor. It was just a thing. A rather ridiculous thing, but the garbage got taken out.
You cannot of course tolerate abuse in a cross cultural marriage, any more than any other marriage, but you DO need to specify what abuse means, because different cultures have different definitions. This needs to be done in advance, with cool heads, not in a moment of passion, and preferably with a trustworthy counselor (I’d advise a preacher who has worked abroad or in our internal other-culture pockets) present. That’s an awkward one to negotiate. Fortunately, the USA has pretty solid laws on “This is assault” and doesn’t put in exceptions for “Unless applied to your spouse,” that you can reference, and not make it personal. You obviously don’t think this person would do that, or you wouldn’t be marrying him or her, but customs are different, laws are different, so lets go over exactly what these are, because they aren’t inherently grafted into the brain when crossing the national border.
And I mentioned in that last paragraph internal other-culture pockets. Those, those are a big thing no one warns about. We are all as American as apple pie (with cheese or without?), but we are not at all culturally unified in the particulars. In the grand scale, yes, generally, but in the household details? Not at all. Does your spouse-to-be do St. Nicholas gifts, Three Kings gifts, Christmas Eve gifts, or Christmas Day gifts? Or some other holiday gifts entirely? Are they only for children, for adults, for everyone out to first cousin? Are cards to be sent, and by whom, and for what? Thank you notes handwritten or by text message? There are lots of little cultural differences to note in marriage, and best to assume good will at all times when something isn’t done the way you believe it ought to be, and then talk it over with a cool head.
After all these years, we ended up with Thanksgiving being my mother’s traditional family meal, Christmas breakfast and New Year’s Dinner my father’s (yes, my parents were also from two different cultures), and Christmas Day being my husband’s, with nachos, which belong to none of us from culture except by being Americans who appropriate all, for Christmas Eve. (I mentioned musicians at the start, right? Christmas Eve supper has to be flexible: eat early, eat late, eat between, reheat.)
Everyone gets their special holiday foods, even if it’s not on the day it was originally eaten on. And now, I want nachos. I’ll have to settle for chili, since it’s already cooked. Close enough, right? (Actually, I really want Christmas fish rolls, but I am not deep fat frying anything in the summer. There are limits to my crazy.)
There is a proper post in composition, but as my brain refused to write posthaste this morning, it will be posted at the posterior part of the day.
In the mean time, possess your souls in patience. As it gets messy if you aren’t patient, and possessing other folks’ souls is theologically contradicted by all religions of which I am aware.
(Seriously, y’all, I have NO idea how Sarah manages multiple thoughtful, complete, competent coherent posts each week.)
The night after the election, I found myself on a facebook battle with what I suppose we must call an “ally” (white savior, much? Or in this case het savior?). I.e. the daughter of a friend took it upon herself to warn us that now that Trump had won, they were going to be going door to door to round up all the gay people and put them in camps.
I confess I would have been more puzzled by the deranged idea if it weren’t for the fact that I had heard this before, about W. In fact, I more or less walked away from a friendship because this woman was offended at my calling her idea that Bush was going to put all the gays in camps “fever swamps.”
I wasn’t as plugged in when I first came to the US, mostly because my husband was almost aggressively apolitical, but I suspect there was the same nonsense about Reagan, particularly when the crisis hit.
This is because the left has no imagination. Or perhaps because they’ve gone well beyond trying to sell their idea, which we’ve all known is poison since the soviet union fell (or at least all of those who escaped the public indoctrination camps long enough ago) and into scaring several groups of people into thinking that the other side means them ill. Which is how we got Biden’s eructation “They’re gonna put you in chains.”
The thing that amazes me about this is how these people — even otherwise intelligent, well informed people — never walk back from the cliffs of insanity. I mean, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who met the “they’re going to kill all gay people!” panicked people after the election in 16.
So– have any of those people ever walked that back? One? Just one? Any of them ever said “Uh. Trump actually has gay people in his administration. I guess I was wrong?”
None that I know of.
And this gives me an insight into how poisonous ideologies bent on totalitarianism take control of people.
For decades we’ve wondered how the Germans, some of the most civilized people in Europe at the time, could have committed the atrocities of WWII. Honestly, they too don’t seem to know how that happened, and in Germany, among the older people in the eighties, you got the sense of their still not being sure how it got that far.
BTW, I BELIEVE the people within sight and smell of the camps who said they didn’t know what was going on there.
No, I don’t believe they didn’t know, or weren’t able to put it together. I BELIEVE they’d convinced themselves they didn’t know what was going on there. Because they couldn’t live with knowing, and admitting they’d been supporting and aiding evil would break them. So, in self, preservation, they “didn’t know.” Hysterical denial is a thing.
You see, the people who HAVE to have noticed that Trump isn’t rounding up gay people to put in camps, can’t admit it to themselves, because if they did they would have to admit they were duped and completely fooled.
For instance, the young lady on election night, was telling me that Trump holding up a rainbow flag on stage was a “codded message” because “he held it upside down.” When we pointed out that a) the rainbow flag doesn’t even have set colors, much less an up and down. b) there was an inscription on the flag (I THINK LGBT for Trump) and the inscription was right side up, she retreated to “the flag wasn’t made by a real gay person.” Which…. well. I presume the flag was made in slave factories in China, like so much of such things. Also, how do you certify a real gay person? Is there a central authority? The mind boggles.
This young lady isn’t stupid. Intellectually lazy, poorly educated, but not stupid. Which means what?
Well, her peer group, her social credit, the people that pass themselves as trend setters and really smart in her groups, all told her that Trump was going to round up gay people. To admit they were wrong would have broken her. So. She had an investment in believing it. It made them tell her she was “smart” and “connected.” To suddenly doubt them would make her an outcast. And of course, the media sells these points over and over and over again.
And the more you buy from them, the more you realized they’re wrong, the more you have to tell yourself you believe the next big panic to come down the pike. Because if you don’t, you have to admit you were wrong before. Your own sunk costs hold you captive. You can’t admit you were encouraging evil people and supporting them, that you were their willing dupe, so the side you’re fighting must be even worse than you suspected, and it must be horrible 24/7.
I believe this is the key to why the good people on the left — and there are still good people there — are still going along with the insanity.
Craziness after craziness has come and gone, including the fact that they tried to impeach Trump because Biden DID blackmail Ukraine. Insanity after insanity and obviously cooked evidence.
More importantly things have come out about the abortion factories that are Planned Parenthhood outposts. Tearing babies out in bits so you can sell the bits for profit, to the corrupt oligarchs of China. Insanity like Kermit Gosnell, or that guy that kept babies in jars in the back of his car and his garage. This is the stuff of true evil, the stuff of mass murderers, the stuff of horror. How can people face with this continue saying that we should have late-term abortions, and that it’s the mother’s word that determines if a creature is human or not? HOW?
More importantly, how can writers of science fiction and fantasy look at aborted-baby-parts sold to China to (supposedly) keep the decrepit communist horrors alive another decade and not go “That’s the stuff of vampire legends. Those weren’t the good guys.” If they fact that fact, they’ll realize they owe Elizabeth Bathory an apology.
And while on that, China, which has been their beau ideal since the Soviet Union collapsed, a place where, supposedly, communism worked (which in part caused them to decide it’s whiteness that causes communism not to work.), has been revealed as basically as evil and corrupted and as ethnically driven as Hitler’s Germany. But you’ll still hear “good people” on the left tell you that the Chinese aren’t racist and that’s why they do “so well” in Africa. I know. I’m related to one of those.
Then there is the multiple insanity of the Obama administration, from Fast and Furious which left hundreds if not thousands of Mexicans dead, on a psychological gambit that anyone out of Obama’s freshman-in-college circle would tell him was not going to work. Or Benghazi where he let good men die (and went after a man who made a movie about Muslims in the US, where we’re supposed to be able to say whatever we wan, as an excuse) so as not to admit we still had problems with terrorism, and potentially jeopardize his re-election. And ten the Iran bullshit. I have to tell you I can’t decide whether Obama was always Iran’s puppy, and simply had to pay back, or if he is just a raging idiot. But it’s one or the other, plus a lot of evil. He flew PALLETS OF CASH to the evil oligarchs of Iran who crush their own people under an iron yoke, while screaming death to the US and Israel. He did this in exchange for a meaningless promise they wouldn’t develop nukes, which is mind-boggling stupid and evil. And he thought that was his signature deal, his apotheosis. And the trained seals saw nothing wrong with that.
Then there is the fact he subverted our judicial system and our investigatory agencies to attack his political enemies.
And all this is as nothing compared to 2020, where they — desperate, and realizing that the technology is moving people away from the conditions that foster central control, i.e. packed cities, largely illiterate workforce, repetitive mindless work in large conglomerates run by the same clock — decided to pull all the stops.
The jury is out on whether they meant the covidiocy to be a sophisticated psy-ops. I’m sure it was just that on the part of China. And very sophisticated indeed, to the point that around February I was very worried. To be fair, this might be fostered by the fact that the casualties were worst in China due to their truly appallingly bad level of hygiene and pollution. That said, by March it was obvious to me — and I’m not a trained intelligence officer — that the illness would not be half as bad as they were touting, and would probably amount to “a bad flu.”
I find it amusing that if the CDC is right and the cases in which COVID-19 was primarily responsible for the death of the patient are 6% of the total reported, it comes to exactly my prediction when we were pushed into lockdown: 10k people, more or less. Which, yes, is very sad, but it’s the number of people who die of the flu every winter.
However, whether our authorities were duped or malicious, no one can pretend at this point that between the continuing semi-lock down and the orders to mask up while there’s no proof the masks do anything, and there is plenty proof they aren’t necessary among school children, it becomes obvious that whatever else this is, it is a malicious attack on our society and economy. An unprecedented attack, never before performed by a sixth column on any nation.
So, why do so many people — particularly on the left — believe that Winnie the Flu has killed 30 million people? Well, because they have to. Otherwise they’d look like idiots. (BTW it didn’t take a genius to figure out if the homeless and the poorer countries in Africa where China has a presence weren’t dying like flies, the illness was NOT that dangerous. I know it didn’t take a genius, because I figured it out. So why did people hysterically fall for it? I don’t know. That one has me stumped. And why are so many people holding onto the lie? Because they also can’t figure out how they fell for it.
And now we have the riots. And you need to be a particular kind of stupid and indoctrinated — say a CNN reporter — to believe they’re mostly peaceful. Most of us who live in blue cities have found our lives changing, our daily routines being calculated to stay out of the path of the crazy (which gives me PTSD from 70s Portugal.)
And there are people defending the looting as “taking back what’s theirs.” Because apparently mostly affluent, college-educated white kids and/or petty criminals have the “right” to whatever they want from stores. Since that stuff is made by elves and represents no human effort or investment.
Then there was trying to turn Kyle Rittenhouse self-defense shooting into “white supremacy.” Because apparently killing a white pedophile rapist who is trying to brain you with a skateboard means you believe the only good people are blond. Or something.
And then yesterday there were two shootings of Trump supporters. Note that there isn’t any excuse for those. You can scream they’re “white supremacists” but even if they were, that might be a stupid opinion but it — or black supremacy, or all the other crazy floating around — aren’t capital crimes. But the truth is, there is nothing to indicate that. They were just political opponents of the left. That’s it. And as much as the left would like it to be otherwise, that is not a capital crime.
So, to the good people of the left: your side has now descended into killing people who disagree with them politically.
And don’t tell us that’s necessary, because otherwise you’ll die under Trump’s iron boot. His first four years seem to show that means you’ll do well financially and frankly, your primacy in academe, entertainment and the media remained unchallenged.
So why? Why the desperate panic? Is it because you KNOW now you were duped? Because the accumulation of the things you did in good faith has been revealed to be support for the monsters? And you refuse to admit it — have to refuse to admit it — or you’ll have to break your image of yourself as sophisticated and compassionate? So you must fight very hard, because another four years of Trump will only reveal to what extent you’ve been duped; to what extent your thought leaders have lied and screwed everyone over?
Is it because you are in MacBeth’s position:
By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good, All causes shall give way. I am in blood Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er. Strange things I have in head, that will to hand, Which must be acted ere they may be scanned. Is it? I would remind you how that story ends. I would also remind you that like the Germans you can choose not to “know” of the atrocities committed in your name. But the more they escalate, the more they will become obvious, and the more the atrocities will mount.
Your side has destroyed the most vibrant economy in the world, and is already killing people with famine in the third world every day. If allowed to continue, they will bring the famine here. And they might end civilization.
And they’re shooting people on the streets for having a contrary opinion, even while destroying the work and livelihood of millions.
At which point do you say enough?
None of those death camps could have stayed in business if everyone around, all the decent people, had advanced on them and said “Stop it. Enough is enough.”
All they had to do was admit they were wrong and had supported evil.
So, what will do? Will you smell the smoke and tell yourself you don’t know what it means?
Or will you have the courage to face your own darkness and walk forth into the night?
Yesterday, I saw the first harvest warning from local law enforcement. The annual harvest has started, slow down for farm equipment, your itty bitty plastic car will not beat a two lane wide hunk of slightly rusty metal older than you. More politely worded, of course.
The schools are gearing up to start: Bus Drivers Wanted!, law enforcement checking the school zone signs still work, the big downtown college welcome back fair, where local vendors show off what they have available to separate the college students from their financial aid, er, show off their wares, and the state fair is advertising heavily for the upcoming festivities.
Climate wise, it’s still summer. The hottest days of the year should lie ahead. (This year has been a touch odd, weather wise, here. Not unprecedented, just not normal. Eh, it’s one of those states where the ‘wait five minutes and it’ll change’ really does apply to not liking the weather.) The garden’s been weird, and the late frosts and birds wiped out all the tree fruit so far.
For a long time, as home schoolers, we met the back to school season with rejoicing: cheap notebooks and the good pencils! National and State parks empty of people! Weather still good and crowds gone! But as the kids grew up, it started to affect us more: back to school also meant return to enrichment activities, early enrollment college classes, actual regular college classes, etc. Now it’s fitting in a couple responsibilities I have to local and state youth organizations that need to get wrapped up before the youth are tied up in school, and the opening of the local civic symphony season.
Which is, that last, why you’re getting a fairly short note today. I’m running off to a pre-season music workshop this morning. Sarah is . . . I think working on furniture, weather allowing, though she might be supervising house painters and flooring contractors. I got an update on a book last night, along with “ragweed pollen, my head is killing me”, so she’s still alive, though the ragweed should probably be watching for axes.
If you are in the areas that have been burning and are now getting the misnamed monsoon thunderstorms, please keep your eyes open for burn scar mudslides. I know of at least one road closed indefinitely in my region. If you are in the area of I-70 that decided to wash out, be mindful of your roads, as well.
And please keep us posted, all you with medical events and natural disasters. We do note and worry about you.
(A Blast from the Past from https://accordingtohoyt.com/2018/08/28/the-masks-are-coming-off/ Huns, I am having a wild time looking back at what was going on in previous Augusts on my Blast from the Past days. Plus ca change, plus ca reste la meme. Although I think we see it a little bit more easily now, since we’re looking.)
For years, being a conservative or — in my case — a libertarian (no step on snek) in the arts, in writing, in publishing, in any cultural enterprise was an exercise in going insane.
You knew what was going on in private, you knew how hard they could hit on what absolutely minor and ridiculous points, but the public in general was not aware of any bias, and if you complained, they thought you were paranoid.
This was particularly the case when you were small potatoes, or when what they were doing was rejecting short stories or asking you to change your books.
Sure, I could sense the principles behind it, and how changing my books would make them say something I didn’t want to, but at the same time there was the weird feeling “um… is this true? Or am I imagining it? I’m a small-time writer, writing in a tiny-small-time field. How could they possibly micromanage it to this extent?”
It was particularly hard for me because I grew up under socialist (national then international) regimes, with occasional outbreaks of outright Ocasio-Cortez er… I mean Communism. This both allowed me to see the holes in it (no, truly, even at 13 or so, studying Marxism in five high school courses will cause you to see the holes) and, once I’d decided I was against it (I was actually fairly left, in the US meaning until my mid-twenties. Couldn’t help being. Young, stupid, and raised in a soup of leftists “facts”) I started seeing all the little ways the establishment — educational, cultural, arts — pushed people towards the idea of for lack of a better term “the inevitable certainty of Marxist victory.” The inevitability and echo chamber are essential, because Marxism is not particularly convincing if you look at it. If you’re sure it will triumph, though you’ll pick up a vast majority of “the scared” (which are way more than the “convinced”)who want to be eaten last or not at all by adopting the philosophy now and being strident.
So, coming from that background, my “feelers” detected all sorts of things.
In my entire — 34? well, if you count hidden pen names and work for hire more like 40 novels, but never mind — I had very few edits. Mostly the books get copy edited, not edited.
About 3 books were “edited” which amounted to “remove this scene, move that one” “I don’t think this sentence says what you think it does” and “this will heighten tension.” Those were as far as I could tell very innocuous.
Only two books had rewrite requests, and both of those, had I followed through on the rewrite would have changed the books completely, in one case yeah, to fit with feminist and “race” narrative (they wanted the Masai woman from the first book to accompany the two white guys to India on the adventure because “she’s as good as they are” — which no one was disputing, though perhaps less equipped for yet another culture change — and when I objected that if we took her to India we would get into issues of Indian racism, I was told that only whites were racist), and in another case to have my character LEAD rather than oppose the future analog of the French revolution. My refusal to do those re-writes, because then the books would say what I didn’t want them to say severely damaged, if not broke, my relationship with the respective publishing houses. (Yes, and I know some of you will recognize the book and go, “but that was… it can’t be.” What you don’t get is that I don’t have that big a name, and that the house isn’t MAJORITY libertarian/conservative. It just allows it and it depends on who you’re actually dealing with.)
But this was all done covertly, behind the scenes, and of course none of us could talk. First because we’d seem like paranoid loons. I mean, we’re complaining about things no one saw.
Second, because we would never work in that town again.
As this started to change, so did the pressure on writers become more open and more obvious.
And boy, do they micro manage. Yep, at that level. None of their “intended” bright future can be questioned, not even the incidental bits, like “a female president wold be the best thing ever.” or “Leftists are always wonderful.”
And no, of course they’re not doing it on purpose, in the sense that they’re not trying to consciously push every little detail of the message. That would be exhausting, and also require them to be super-geniuses (they aren’t.) I’ve known and been friends with a lot of lefties before the current frothing times. Haven’t dropped them, though some of them have dropped me. It’s not that they consciously police every detail. It’s that they are immersed in this “vision” that includes every little detail of the socialist paradise and its coming, and they absorb the latest directive from the echo chamber. So when they see something against that, they flinch and want the painful part removed. Like, in the French Revolution book, I suspect someone looked at how I was denying that equality of outcomes was a good thing, and got very upset “no, no, she’s supposed to be supporting these.” probably even considering what I had done an error, not an intended thing.
But that’s traditional, and look, guys, I have friends in journalism and in education, and I know they get the same exact pressures. “No, no no. You can’t teach that. You must teach this.” “No, you don’t want to report that. Or at least remove this word. Otherwise it gives people the wrong idea.”
Heck, sometimes headlines get changed and strange assemblies to discuss some current events get caught (so much of these when kids were in school.)
So here’s the bad news: our culture has been immersed for almost a 100 years in a cohesive, monolithic narrative. A narrative that moved steadily left, with no relenting. This is why those of us who are older than about 35 grew up in a world where voicing a dissenting — conservative or libertarian — opinion got you labeled “crazy”and “uneducated”. If you were denying what everyone knew, confirmed multiply from unrelated fields like news, research (oh, so easily manipulated, particularly in the soft sciences) and entertainment, then obviously you were either crazy or uneducated or, yah, stupid. This is how leftism became a positional good.
The good news? The barriers are coming down, the doors are blowing open, and now we know we’re not alone, we know we’ve been lied to and manipulated. Sometimes we don’t realize the magnitude of the manipulation which, yeah, can be staggering.
And yeah, I know, some people on the right are convinced indie channels like Amazon are out to get them. We know facebook and twitter and yeah Google are.
I contend Amazon isn’t — yet. None of the cases I’ve seen are convincing. Also, when it comes to indie publishing, they can hit a few, mostly on covers and titles, but they can’t do this kind of micromanagement that trad pub does. Why? Because they can’t. Because they’re not dealing with 10 or even twenty books a quarter. To police every indie novel, every story that goes up? I would take a massive work force, and not the third-world-country-uncertain-in-English one that Amazon hires.
Won’t happen. Not saying that we don’t need alternatives, and yeah, we’re working on that.
But that’s exactly the thing. PRECISELY. In exact detail. There are alternatives. Or there will be, once things become untenable. And as the masks come off, as each corrupt medium and source goes full turnip, people shy away from it. Not just us, mind you, but the Muddled Middle. How many people think CNN is reliable anymore? The crazier they go, the more they make their agenda obvious, the shakier they get.
And when they reach a certain point, alternatives become viable. Even when we think they can’t. Look at journalism, which we thought was immovable. But it’s not.
The USSR had to regulate typewriters, because they were dangerous to its stability of uniform message. So were copiers and mimeographs. Mimeographs, which in the west caused only a ripple of really bad fanfic could bring the ability to control information down. Then fax machines came in and it was goodbye.
The current technology has issues, but one thing it’s doing is making it difficult for the left to maintain the unified narrative and view of the world without which it CANNOT survive.
Sure, I won’t guarantee they won’t win some elections. Given their amazing fraud machine, they might even win most of them. And yes, I know how dangerous that is, because it can take us into actual blood on the streets and much much worse, a reaction-regime which is not America in any recognizable way.
But in the end, regardless of how rocky it gets, we win, they lose. Because they can only survive where every voice repeats the same and logic never intrudes. And that’s not the world our technology is shaping.
According To Hoyt 