This morning I’m having loving thoughts along the lines of Heinlein’s “The Year of the Jackpot” but you know in the end SMOD always leaves us waiting with sandwiches by the phone.
Mostly to be honest I’ve had about enough of pudding heads. It didn’t occur to me till I perused the comments after doing righteous battle with the laundry this morning (Or “why is this so late. Laundry. piles and piles of it. I’ve tried to convince husband to be nudist but he pointed out then we’d have to wash upholstery, and he’s not wrong. Sigh.) that I am in a very weird position, not just because of where I grew up but when I grew up.
As Tom Simon pointed out — and the reason I keep screaming my generation and his are not boomers (never were, regardless of the boomers attempt to integrate us, so they can claim not to be older than dirt.) I remember when boomer stopped at around 56 and the real boomers called MY generation mean things and basically spoke of us as they now speak of millenials.
Look, the boomers by and large fell for the Soviet/commie lies. This was, in no small part the fault of the Greatest Generation (a name bestowed by boomers to appease their memory of how they treated their parents. Sigh.) The boomers were children of veterans who came home in horror at the war and also probably — at least the thinking ones — having trouble justifying our alliance with Russia while putting down the Nazis. (This apparently is because FDR liked the USSR and thought they had great ideas. And before you tell me we couldn’t have won the war without the USSR, let me point out given how communists operate and how effed up the USSR was, you might as well say we couldn’t have won the war without our foot in a bucket of cement.) So they were soft on communism, and allowed our already thoroughly infiltrated universities/Democrats (Heinlein said communists were in control of the Democrats already. I have no reason to doubt him) to indoctrinate their kids with the glories of communism. (Partly because our own CIA believed it. Question, were our intelligence agencies always working for the enemy? Don’t answer that. I like sleeping at night.)
And the boomers (no, not all) grew up with the idea that there was some kind of moral equivalence between us and the communists (at best. Those were the “right wingers” or center right.) And that in the end some kind of soft communism was the answer. Hence shows like Star Trek, which btw is what our idiots are trying to implement with their Great Reset. (The number of idiots on FB saying “Communism could be like Star Trek”. Yeah. Except it never is, because it can’t actually be. And yes, I liked Star Trek as a show, but I choose to believe it was just the military that operated that way. Frankly, until they ran their mouths on stuff like “There is no money” decades later, that’s how the show came across, because even in a show the idiocy in the writers’ minds wouldn’t work.)
No, not all the boomers. But generational culture has its own gravity, and that was the understanding at the back of the boomers’ heads. No big surprise they embraced various forms of chemical escape. Or at least the less moral did. Because I mean, what else were you going to do until perfect communism arrived and you became kind of symbiotic to a universal brain?
Note this is at a the back of a lot sf books of the time, and the only one that has an explicit rejection is Heinlein.
Our kind? We grew up when the summer of love had turned into the winter of STDs, when the pot smokers had turned to the harder stuff and become their families’ tragedies, or the world’s greatest hypocrites, who cleaned up during the week, but were still totes hippies on the weekend. We saw the devastation of collectivism lite, in the US under well, everyone from Kennedy to Carter, and in the rest of the world more so, with boots on.
So, much to the boomers’ shock and disappointment, we cut our hair (or permed it), put on nice clothes and went to work. We laughed at the communes, ignored the sit ins (or in my case once started a riot to end one. Shush you. I told you there were a few of those.) We rejected the leftist philosophy. Some of us were convinced by our teachers and universities that there was a “third way” of a little bit of socialism (akin to just putting the tip in, or perhaps “a little pregnant.) Or at least we pretended to to pass college. And some of us just grew more mullish and tired of the bullsh#t every day.
Add to this that I grew up in Europe. More than that, I grew up in Europe in a country being manipulated by the USSR.
Was the ancien Portuguese regime a horror? Sure. But honestly, most of its crimes were throttling the squid farms on Mars. As in, they destroyed potential and those with potential. (Or mostly they sent those with potential running to other countries.)
Mostly they squatted on the economy, preventing it from getting a breath, encouraged the predominance of the “old families” that were in their pockets, and kept the rest of us very very poor, under the excuse of keeping the foreign influences (and ungodly ones, too) out.
I.e. standard fascism (actually in the FDR mold, without the protections of a US Constitution. I swear to you Salazar cribbed FDR speeches. I know because I found old magazines and papers.) But without a military component and enforced in the usual haphazard Portuguese way.
Mostly we were very, very poor. Appalachia might have looked down on us.
On the other hand, there was worse in Europe, even in the sixties. Like the Soviet prisoners. And the USSR needed control over Portugal.
Oh, not for Portugal. They took a bunch of our stuff, sure, but mostly they wanted the African colonies.
And I watched how they went about it. And I saw how the US fell for the “But the African colonies just want to be free.” Which might have been true, of course. Some surely did. But they weren’t organized, and they had no idea how to be free. So most of the “movement” was by communists who were, yes, agents of the USSR, whether cognizant of being so or not. (And most of the African ones were cognizant.)
So when the USSR succeeded in their revolution (mostly, alas, a revolution by the Portuguese deep state, who were being cut back by Salazar’s successor. Not cut back enough, because that would involve shortening them. The man was no Trump. But he was kinder, gentler, and wanted Europe to like him. And thus the deep state was upset at losing a little bit of power, and hey! Communism. We could be kings. Yeah) in Portugal, it meant that Africa went from being colonies of the Portuguese to being saratrapies of the USSR and Cuba.
The hell of the seventies in Portugal was that Russia didn’t even really want Portugal. They just wanted Africa, and therefore were willing to pervert the Portuguese wish for freedom to get control. I was shot at as a sidebar in the history books. Gives me the warm fuzzies, it does.
But at the time, of course I didn’t understand any of this, partly because no one talked about it. I did understand stuff like science fiction books going up 500x in price. I did understand the store shelves being empty and us being told that it was the fault of hoarders and wreckers. I did understand that. Yes. I also understood forbidding opposition speech, while making speeches about Freedom. I did understand that my teachers worshiped the USSR while talking about internationalism. I did understand that they talked about the US being imperialist while Russia had an actual empire.
And other things, like noticing that the same slogan and even the stupid red carnations were the same in a lot of revolutions around the world. And that Jimmy Carter got his speeches word per word from the same writers that wrote the speeches for Portuguese communists.
Which means I look at Putin and I don’t see some kind of nationalist hero and defender of Christianity, as pudding heads do, but as a KGB man, deploying the same old, same old KGB tactics, and pretending he’s a nationalist and a hero of the faith. DO keep up. Some tanks going into Ukraine flew the old Soviet flag. That tells you where Putin’s heart — as far as he has one — resides. His speeches often let drop his continuing butt-hurt that the Soviet Union lost. Because he imprinted on the Soviet Union as a young monster, and he wants to restore it as an old monster. He’s still and will always be a monster. The closest he comes to loving something bigger than him, it was a corrupt, miserable empire that enslaved half the world.
Now does he deserve a US intervention? Sure, but which US?
Look, we have problems, right here in Libertyville, okay?
Boy, have we got problems. And for once, thank the good Lord, we have these problems in common with the rest of the world.
I’m not thankful that we fell enough for the communist lies to have the same issues. I’m thankful the rest of the world is finally joining us in “No, I won’t.” Sure took them long enough.
But they are, finally joining us. Partly because the communist/socialist/collectivist/centralist lies have finally become florid enough to be obvious.
Partly because they grabbed the US, so the US isn’t helping as much as it used to. And socialism is not self supporting.
Put it another way: They’ve been living in our basement, raiding our fridge, and daydreaming about how great their hippie commune would be if we let them move there.
Only now, we’ve run off to join the hippie commune, the fridge is empty and growing mold, and the basement is starting to look dirty. And they’re starting to wake up.
Or rather, the working class, the people who make things actually work — to the extent they do, in Europe — are starting to wake up. And they want the fricking college professors to shut up and hand back the economy.
It sort of makes you wonder how fixed the elections have been in other places for generations. Not as obviously as here, but I don’t think they needed to fraud as openly as here, because different cultures.
The truth is in most of Europe the normal people can no longer afford to live, and it’s getting worse every day. And the covidiocy revealed that the smile on the face of the tiger is just the better to eat you with.
They might not understand that socialism is a lie, but they do understand that globalism is. And that technocracy is and that “rule by experts” is long on the “rule” and short on real knowledge.
From what I understand even Russia is having problems with the real workers revolting.
Which is what Putin’s jolly war was supposed to help fix. The only provocation he had was thinking he could get away with it now, but maybe not next year. And the reason he thought a short victorious war would fix it all is because he thinks of the USSR past as “glorious” and “everyone was happy then” because he is also a delusional pudding head. Just one cunning enough and evil enough to be in power in the smoldering ruins the USSR left.
And the reason our pudding heads would love us to join in the jolly war against Putin is that this would give them a brilliant chance to stomp on domestic opposition too. (And the same for Europe. At this point there’s a great confluence of Pudding Heads.)
They don’t really give a damn about Ukraine. They don’t like freedom anyway, so why would they want it for anywhere? But a war of the powers would give them an opportunity to stay seated.
Yes, Putin is a horror. Yes, Ukranians should fight him with all their might. They know that. They know his kind. Yes, individual Americans are free to support it as much as they want.
Our pudding head Junta, which is in occupation of DC, should stay the hell out of it, and if they try to join officially should have their snout hit repeatedly with a 2×4. Made of titanium.
“But what if Putin nukes us?” Well, I wish I could say he wouldn’t, however note the Junta’s big worry — they’re honestly Pollonium Pudding Heads — is you keep your mask on in the bomb shelter.
However, there is a good chance that Russia’s nukes, like the rest of their military equipment is either defective or has walked away, or yes. And any improvised container nukes are likely to not be particularly efficient. (Because, you know, getting containers into our ports might take months. And a container headed for say NYC might end up anywhere else.)
But yea, we might lose a city or two (I wish I could say we won’t.)
Does that mean we should fall in line and go to preventive war?
Question for the class: Would it prevent the nuking or precipitate it. Yeah. Likely the second.
So, if we are nuked? First, if they take off DC (and I wish my friends nearby would work remote for a good long while) remember to send them a thank you note.
Of course, then thank you note should be on the tip of a missile that takes off wherever Putin is. (And if Russians are smart, they should take an extended vacation away from the old monster.)
Our answer to his bluster and screaming about nuking us should be “Don’t start none, won’t be none.” and that has a better chance of stopping the nuking for long enough till he can’t.
Till he can’t? See how the entire industrial world (I know nothing about Africa, but they only marginally fit that definition) is experiencing a workers revolt.
The oligarchs wouldn’t be acting this crazy if they didn’t know they’re in eminent danger of being toppled. And trust me, they have better sources of information than you or I or, of course, our very own pudding heads.
So, there’s a chance that if Ukraine lasts a little longer, the world will change. And very dramatically at that, in a reversal of the centralization of the 20th century.
Now, that means it will become an unholy mess, I grant you, because well, people don’t go rational all of a sudden. (Or often ever.) So lurching to a form of government that works will produce some terrible injustices, some horrors, and some reversals to the leftist model.
Here’s the thing: I hope the US can do this with a minimum of chaos, and that our defense and military will remain operational. I’m very afraid at this point we’re headed — at least temporarily — for a Starship Troopers model.
But I’m hoping we can avoid imposing it on the rest of the world. I’m hoping we can avoid sending our boys off to die for other people’s freedom.
Why?
Because that too is a centralized system. And what it does is give the statists of the world something to point the masses to as the source of their misery that isn’t the true reason they’re miserable. Because they’re not miserable, mark you, because of the US. They’re miserable because of technocracy, “rule by experts”, oligarchy, all under collectivist soft-Marxist philosophies.
The more they can get people to blame us, the less likely it is the whole Marxist illusion will drop into the midden of history. Where it belongs, if we’re to avoid mass dying.
Now, I do realize in a world with nuclear weapons, other people might feel we should intervene, etc. I don’t hate people who claim that. I think they’re wrong, but I do understand their concerns. And heck, I have more in common with them than with the pudding heads who think Putin is our fren. They are about at the level of the people wearing Che shirts, and they should examine who this person is. And realize what they think they know — unexamined — is just good old Soviet agitprop.
As I learned, in the Sad Puppies debacle, the enemy of your enemy is your enemy’s enemy, no more, no less. Unless they share your principles, and your honor, they are in fact more dangerous to you than an honest enemy.
Stop painting Putin in freedom colors, and finding justifications for him. He has entire departments to do that for him. And they send over enough trolls to do that on our blogs. If you pay attention (or have recently read The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, you sometimes catch the weird word choice and syntax (though not as obvious as in TMIAHM, of course.) You might also note most of the names doing that are either new, or– Well, let’s say I didn’t approve most of them, which means either they have a work around (unlikely) or they’re part of their troop who changes their name to spew the propaganda du jour.
(Hey there, Gospoda and Gospaza, I hope ten cents an hour you get keep you warm in the coming nuclear winter. May G-d have mercy on your souls.)
Yeah, we have our butts in a trap and no mistake. The only good thing about it is that so do the “elites.” And their butts are likely to be more bruised than ours. It’s small consolation, though, as we head into a few very difficult years.
You know the drill. Keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark. And prepare, prepare, prepare.
Sure, as an individual, if you are in a position to and are sure what you’re doing will help them, feel free to help the Ukrainians. Freedom lovers should help people fighting a big tyrant.
But as a nation? Smack the nose of the Junta before they make things unimaginably worse.
Expect the worst and pray for the best.
In the end we win, they lose. And if we’re lucky, we do it with a minimum of blue glass.
May G-d protect fools, drunkards and the United States of America.
He knows we need it.
According To Hoyt 