According To Hoyt

Those who don’t learn from History are doomed to repeat it. Those who learn from history are doomed to scream like crazy people while being dragged along into the same old insanity by those who failed to learn.

Sure. Okay.

Of course you can learn from history, because humans are humans as far back as we can ascertain, and probably longer that. Some of the observations on Chimpanzees make me wonder how human they are, in the good and the bad. No, not us, but so many of the mechanisms are present that it makes me wonder about all those hominins and hominids and how close they were to us.

So, for instance, utopian regimes never work, because humans in general can’t “bend” to be good all the time. Nations or crowds can decide to do this or that, and “everyone will do this.” Only it never works that way. Any regime that needs “everybody to just” will not work. And history shows that over and over and over again, in tedious detail.

But there are more lessons from history, and our Founding Fathers used those to decide we’d be a democratic republic, and how it would be set up. Some of those lessons were from Greece and Rome, but some of the structures are from British history and common law.

However it is important to realize that history doesn’t repeat. It rhymes. And it’s important to study the differences, to see what will be the same, and what will be different.

You can’t say communism took over this and that and that, and therefore it will work here.

That’s mental. That’s like saying “I can throw stone balls from the roof and they’re fine, so I should be able to throw glass balls from the roof and they’ll be fine.”

So, let’s talk some lessons from history when it comes to totalitarian take over, shall we?

First, there seems to be a hard limit on the kind of crazy Marxist regime that the idiot left wants to impose here. The hard limit is due to the fact that it can’t feed itself. Or do much of anything for itself. That’s why Marxist regimes turn military and invade everything. (Something Putin is trying to repeat, because he’s still a Marxist.)

Invading nearby more prosperous lands allows the regime to give goodies to its followers and the people who do its dirty work. But it also allows an illusion of increased prosperity which the regime needs to go on.

(I always found it funny that the soviets called us imperialist, when in fact they needed their empire to just keep going.)

How long can a communist/socialist/Marxist regime to keep going?

We don’t know. History doesn’t tell us that, because frankly the only way the bad regimes have survived is with help from other places. Mostly, alas from us. We propped up the entire cold war, to avoid a nuclear confrontation which might never have been a thing if we hadn’t propped them up.

And Venezuela is being propped up by the Junta refusing to mine oil locally. Ditto Russia, to an extent.

North Korea depends on China.

China, well, we propped up that too, which is why they thought it was worth it taking our presidency.

Look, we can learn from history, but we have to remember where we are right now.

And right now… It’s not a good time for collectivism. Heck, it’s not a good time for statism. It’s not a good time for center-out regimes.

And the bright idea China had of buying itself an American President (so called) is also a fine example of not learning from history, but to the whispers of their most insane rulers, the ones who mainlined lead and killed all the grandmothers who told stories. Because they don’t even realize we prop them up. (Consider nationalism and racism (yeah, they are racists, why?) And so they think they can take us down and be the sole power in the world.

It doesn’t work that way. I guess they can delude themselves about it a little while, like they can convince themselves that their bright and shiny African colonization schemes work. (In reality, Africa is already winning. Africa always wins. Not its people. But Africa does.)

Because if they do manage to take over the US, even for a year — bet you they won’t. And no, don’t be stupid. They’ve taken over the US administratively, but if you don’t live in one of the super blue areas, you know snooks are being cocked at their instructions. left and right pretty much — everything they have and have built everywhere else will collapse hard.

Even with the half-rule of the demi-president, which most of us are somewhere between growling at and ignoring, the world is already shaking. Because it can’t work without a mostly free America.

If America can’t feed itself, no one can feed America. Sure, we could conquer the entire clown car of them, but they wouldn’t keep us going for a week.

So– History. But here it’s different. Mostly because America is always different. And I could tell you why, but that’s a whole other post.

The other portion of history to take into account is that we’re not close to falling to the leftist bullshit. If you think we’ve already fallen, you’re a lot like them and think the wraper is the present, and would eat cat poop in a candy wrapper. They’ve taken over the institutions, the government, and a lot of our “structure.” That’s bad because we actually need some of those things. I guess we’ll find out which we need because they are actually not working at all. which is par for the course for anything the left takes over, of course.

Most of what we’re seeing is the structure flailing around trying to get something that makes the country believe in collectivism again.

And that’s the thing: We were closer to believing in top down and center out and collectivism a hundred years ago than we are now.

We really believed it in the fifties. To some extent the sixties started as a rebellion against that, but the USSR had its propaganda ore in, and it all went South and became about collectivism and drugs, and the US not being good, and–.

But the propaganda is busted. the last four years really revealed what’s in the heart of the collectivists. (They don’t like us very much.)

And unlike 100 years ago, there isn’t only easily controlled media to convey the easily controlled message.

Yes, I know they’re trying. It’s not working. It’s not working in Europe, where they control the message a lot harder.

China seems to be committing suicide city by city till you wonder if that’s what a civil war now looks like, there.

Russia… well, I’m sure Putin thinks it’s a super power.

All of these “they’re more organized than us, they’ll do better” are … not.

There’s only us. And where we’re going the collectivists can’t even imagine.

They’re going to break a bunch of things, and some of them we’ll need to rebuild. I guess we’re doing one of those “get rid of everything in your house. Now bring in only what you need” clean ups.

Right now we’re learning that a lot of the history we studied was wrong. A just-so story created by collectivists to try get their way.

So it’s dangerous to believe those books. If you’re going to read history go to original sources.

And then keep going.

Because you can learn from history, but unlike my joke quotes in the opening, you’re not condemned into ANYTHING. History doesn’t really repeat. (Unless you’re in China, apparently, but that might be a matter of the history we think we know.)

The future is unwritten. It’s up to you to write it.

And to me. And to all of us.

And I’m laying down my marker on “It’s going to suck for a little while, but then it’s going to be amazing.”

Let’s make it amazing.

Today is one of those frustrating days when I sit down to do something, and get interrupted. But…. for…. reasons, I’ve spent a lot of time recently reading and re-reading this poem. The last stanza has a way of reducing me to tears.

Hymn of the Breaking Strain – Rudyard Kipling

THE careful text-books measure

  (Let all who build beware!)

The load, the shock, the pressure

  Material can bear.

So, when the buckled girder

  Lets down the grinding span,

‘The blame of loss, or murder,

  Is laid upon the man.

    Not on  the Stuff—the Man!

But in our daily dealing

  With stone and steel, we find

The Gods have no such feeling

  Of justice toward mankind.

To no set gauge they make us—

  For no laid course prepare—

And presently o’ertake us

  With loads we cannot bear:

    Too merciless to bear. 

The prudent text-books give it

  In tables at the end

‘The stress that shears a rivet

  Or makes a tie-bar bend—

‘What traffic wrecks macadam—

  What concrete should endure—

but we, poor Sons of Adam

  Have no such literature,

    To warn us or make sure!

We hold all Earth to plunder—

  All Time and Space as well—

Too wonder-stale to wonder

  At each new miracle;

Till, in the mid-illusion

  Of Godhead ‘neath our hand,

Falls multiple confusion

  On all we did or planned—

     The mighty works we planned. 

We only of Creation

  (Oh, luckier bridge and rail)

Abide the twin damnation—  

  To fail and know we fail.

Yet we – by which sole token

  We know we once were Gods—

Take shame in being broken

  However great the odds—

    The burden of the Odds.

Oh, veiled and secret Power

  Whose paths we seek in vain,

Be with us in our hour

  Of overthrow and pain;

That we – by which sure token

  We know Thy ways are true—

In spite of being broken,

  Because of being broken

    May rise and build anew

    Stand up and build anew.

I didn’t realize until a couple of days ago the big problem with the “divine infant” syndrome, where infants and children are assumed to be the voice of wisdom, reason and knowledge.

We’ve all laughed at the woke eight year olds — it’s always eight year olds — who talk about how terrified they are for the election of a Republican, or the potential repeal of Roe vs. Wade, or whatever it might be. I mean, let’s talk about it, shall we? I’ve heard of “woke eight year olds” terrified of the repeal of net neutrality, okay?

And we giggle when they say something like “that’s a micro aggression, because my ten year old told me.”

But the biggest problem, in the way of the paved way to you know where, is that this has seeped into the culture, everywhere since the sixties.

If there is something done and established, and something supported by the youth, well then the youth stuff must be better.

This might have made some sense in a time of rapid techno development, but it makes zero sense in modes of living and being in the world.

I mean, sure, if I’ve just acquired a new gadget and can’t for the live of me figure out how to make it work (doesn’t actually happen that often because I’m a fairly competent non-techy) my son is likely to know. well, if my husband isn’t available.

The only other thing I will lean on my sons for is media trends, from games to comics. If I think I’m impinging on an area that might have a deep history I know nothing about, then I ask the boys. Or my husband. Because al of them watch/play/do more visual stuff than I do.

You know what I don’t do? Find the youngest person who can speak and ask them what I should do about some moral dilema. Or if abortion is right. Or what to believe about anything.

The problem, if you look at practically all visual media, the child is the “smart one” and the one who is “wise.”

And this has primed us for ridiculousness. Most of those teachers wanting to talk to kids under five about their sex lives are seeking absolution. No, seriously. In the back of their brains, if the kid agrees, they’re obviously okay.

And of course, it allows a lot of sometimes confused, not actively malicious parents to believe that their three year old “really” know they’re the opposite sex, despite physical evidence to the contrary.

Because, you know, kids know!

This bizarre illusion would be funny if it weren’t having such disastrous results. I’m not exactly sure how it started. I know in medieval poems and ballads the “infant at the breast” speaks, and always tells the absolute truth, but part of that is that a) the child was innocent and therefore a conduit for G-d’s grace; b) it was a miracle, which clinched it.

If I had to guess at the new cliche, I think it comes from wanting to subvert expectations. Same thng that gave us the “wise and all knowing homeless lady” for a while. But while you can play with those particularly in SF and fantasy. (This is why you guys haven’t forgiven me for killing a certain gator) it didn’t take like the “all knowing infant” has. Because all knowing homeless is obviously crazy and dangerous, but everyone likes kids, and kids do sometimes SEEM to have amazing insights.

Seem to? Well, within their limited knowledge they might surprise you with something like “Mom, you’ve been sneezing since we changed our pillows.”

You know what your kid — even a very smart one — won’t surprise you with? “Mom, the approach to space colonization is all wrong.” (Okay, fine, my son said that at 8, but he still hasn’t built the space/time travel machine he promised if only I bought him more K’nex. I’m starting to think he just wanted to scam me out of more K’nex.)

I don’t know if the reason we’re all falling for this is a result of a life soaked in story and narrative, but for the record, there are things kids know and things kids don’t know.

They might be experts in something they do every day and you never do. They might notice things that you know are unimportant, but they think are all important. This will allow them sometimes to notice, say, that you missed something in the cake you’re baking. Particularly if they saw you making it before, or the recipe is in a video. But they won’t tell you you’re using the wrong type of flour, unless they can read and are obsessed with cooking. And even then he won’t be 3.

Kids are human. They don’t have extra-sensory ways of acquiring knowledge. So in general they know less than adults do, and often rely on their parents for their opinions. And sometimes think their parents’ opinions are not what they are, but they misinterpret the signs.

A little kid has no clue if he’s “really” a girl, because he has no clue what a girl is, not inside. Which is why he concentrates on the stereotypes. They might want to wear pink, or play with dolls or whatever but that’s a really stupid reason to castrate a boy and destroy his future. (And for the record every little boy at some point wants to do something profoundly girly. One of mine wanted to learn embroidery. He likes making things. And every little little girl becomes smitten with a set of playing cars or a train set.) Also, I hate to say this, but almost every kid at some point wants to be a cat, a robot or a car. Because they don’t know any better, not because they’re all-knowing.

They particularly do not understand how society should be organized. How would they have come by that knowledge?

Remember the old “The kids are our future” — well, self-obviously — but they are not magical, and they’re not all-knowing.

It’s time for the kids to be kids and the adults to be adults again, before this crazy train goes over the cliff and onto the flaming dumpster fire.

Consuming stories is all very find, but you really shouldn’t believe fiction. And writing stories is great, but drinking your own ink is toxic.

Remember reality and don’t be fooled by pretty dreams.

As you see and read things like this, it is very important to remember these are not the signs of a winning ideology.

Yes, watching the entire DAVOS insanity is …. bizarre and disheartening. (For one, because seriously — looks at ceiling — You, Author, need a writer’s group. Seriously. Evil, gloating villains with German accents. Are You for real now? I know You think You’re using stereotypes to highlight the importance of not writing stereotypes of something, but seriously. Decide on schlock or literary now. And as characters, we’d prefer schlock. Yes, worse things happen, but at least SOME characters get to be happy.)

But you have to remember nothing in this are the signs of a winning ideology, one that has any grip on hearts and minds.

Yes, the communists always wanted to watch your every move and control everything you did and if possible thought. They even achieved some of it by being low-key and sneaky for a while, when the mass-communication technologies favored them anyway.

But now? Now they are saying the quiet part out loud, and so desperate — as their ideology of top down and center out control proves absolutely bankrupt in every sense, including economic — that they have changed from “we must gull them with promises” to “We’ll just control everything and watch their every expression, and they can never escape, never!”

This is always the final phase of crashing regimes, and it won’t go any better for them now.

I won’t go into the whole disgusting video, though you’re welcome to torture yourself, if you wish, but there are so many built in lies that it’s ridiculous. No, Covidiocy was not when everyone consented to or chose to be watched all the time. It is when the idiots at the top tried to control us and watch us and eventually failed biggly.

No? Oh, please. If they hadn’t failed, we’d all still be locked up and wearing masks, and unable do do anything outside. If you think they relinquished that power voluntarily, you should stop boggarting the soma. Their beau-ideal is China, where they can arbitrarily lock up and starve an entire city. And you know damn well they’d be doing it to us, together with the entire bunch of violation of rights that Chinese endure, if they could.

But why does it work in China? Aren’t they human? Well, yes, they are. Their culture though is virtually alien. But there is more to it, such as the fact they exist at the wreckage of a medieval system colliding with a highly industrial one. Most of the Chinese probably live as they did 1000 years ago. (Which is why the myth of the great Chinese market for our entertainment or whatever is just that.) And then there’s a very wealthy techno-industrial-entrepeneurial class at the top, which is able to be controlled because they’re not willing to live like 1000 years ago.

This is not the west, which has over five hundred years of independent and fractious middle class culture, which will not knuckle down that easily. Yes, the Marxists think if they impoverish us, we’ll be peons, but they never understood that “not of bread alone lives Man” and there’s culture, habits and patterns of thought.

The point is that in most of the US — I don’t know about Europe, my window into that is disheartening since my family fell for the covidiocy hook line and sinker — by the Summer of 2020 people were ignoring the shouted orders from above, either openly or sneakily, or with malice aforethought.

I hope someone preserved the logs of the mandatory contact tracing, etc. for future historians. I would like to know, as a matter of curiosity, how many times Deez Nuts and Bit Eme went out to dinner or attended public functions. I’d also like to know how many times the phone numbers of public officials responsible for the nonsense were filled in on various forms. I can personally attest to the fact that Manuel Garcia O’Kelly and Wyoming Knott did some amazing stepping out during the crazier times.

Vaccine passports are required in Europe, of course. I casually mentioned to my mother that we’d gone to the movies, and she was like “So, you got vaccinated.” “Uh, no. What the h*ll, don’t tell me you guys put up with that.”

And there you go. This is why the evil villain plans will fail.

There can be no World Government, because there is no World Culture. And even if there were, it would be applied with regional variations that would make a mockery of all their plans.

But the other thing that cartoon critter above is dreaming of on video: electronic surveillance so fine they can detect and destroy dissidents.

It’s a nightmare. It’s a nightmare, in the sense that it’s not real. I do realize it’s massively scary, but the fact is what he’s talking about is ultimately impossible.

I’ve told you guys before to watch “The Lives of Others.” Because in a way it documents the failure mode of the totalitarian state: collecting so much information, they can’t process it.

And if you’re going to say that “but their technology was much more primitive” you’re not wrong. What you’re missing is that such technology limited their ability to collect info, as much as their ability to process it.

Now both are much better, but the information they can collect still vastly outperforms their ability to process it.

In fact, the tech he discusses above requires AI, which we’re learning — like perfect renewable energy, like immortality (both of which might be easier) — might in fact be impossible, or if not impossible centuries away. It also would require that AI which, to work at that level would need to be sentient, to agree with their aims and ideas (which means the AI would need to be as insane as they are and in the exact same manner.)

All of these are things that work in books and movies, but not in real life, and it goes back to my idea that we are absorbing more story than our brains can handle, when these things seem to make sense. Even to crazy German super-villains.

But more importantly, it is important to realize that the failure mode of regimes and modes of government (And the entire world, including the West has been enamored of top-down center-out for the last 100 years at least) is when they go from “well persuade most of them to our great and glorious cause” to “we must watch them all the time and intervene before they can think of rebelling.”

That mode is a failure mode because it never works: not in families, not in companies, (and I’m sure all of us have had at least an experience with those and that mode) and not in countries. Much less the world.

What you’re watching is an aristocracy, depending on science they don’t understand, and trying to hold onto power that has long since slipped through their hands.

Yes, they can break a lot of things, but new systems will emerge.

Take their idea of all currency being digital. It’s called “Make gold the default currency again, fast.” Because the black market is the only thing that will keep human populations alive, and humans like to be alive. And gold is the obvious currency, probably by weight.

They can’t win. They can make things very bad for a year or so. And frankly, not unsurvivable for most Americans. (Yes, there’s always the edge cases.) And then the world will go on without them, while those of them that survive sit around asking themselves in a German accent how the plan could have fallen apart.

Be not afraid. In the end we win they lose.

Let’s get ‘er done.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

– Major John McCrae

World War One distorted everything we know, every way we live. Long before you and I were born, the world had been changed by the long war of the 20th century.

A war that was unnecessary and probably nefarious.

But people don’t see history with the Author’s eye. And even now, if our country is attacked, even if “them idiots in the white house” brought it about, if our country is attacked, we’ll fight.

Today we honor those who died for their nation. We remember those we personally knew.

When our own time comes, let us go with dignity and honor. And if required, allow us to take an honor guard.

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. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*

FROM Z. M. RENICK: Nine Times a Cat (The Seelie Court Book 4)

Deputy Emma Greer is back! An encounter with a stranger on Silver Mountain Road convinces her that her hometown of Silver Springs, Colorado, is once again being stalked by the Fae. A shapeshifter has taken up residence in one of the subdivisions and is killing people in order to get around the curse laid upon it, a curse that means it can only change into its cat form nine times.

But there’s more at stake than Emma realizes. This confrontation has been very carefully orchestrated, and her soul is about to become a battleground. Defeat means leaving her home vulnerable to a ruthless predator; victory means the loss of everything she has ever known.

FROM THOMAS DOSCHER, (RECOMMENDED BY DOROTHY GRANT): Repatriation: Part 4 of The Vixen War Bride (The Vixen War Bride Series)

With the misunderstanding surrounding Ranger Captain Ben Gibson’s marriage to the local Va’Shen high priestess, Alacea, finally cleared up, relations between the Rangers and the local occupied alien village have never been better. Because of this, Alacea believes it’s the perfect time for the two of them to move to the next logical stage of their relationship: having a baby. For Gibson, this means one thing.

He needs to get out of town. Now.

Fortunately, he has the perfect reason to do so. Alacea has asked him to try to find out on what planet the village’s commandos were killed so that the villagers can perform the proper funeral rites. Armed with a list of names he can’t read and literally no information on where to start, Gibson and his interpreter, Lieutenant Patricia Kim, head off for the main air and space base on Va’Sh to begin the search.

But they are not the only ones with an interest in Va’Sh’s missing commandos. A secretive organization is moving around in the background, intent on completely undermining the fragile peace between the two worlds.

FROM DOROTHY GRANT: Blood, Oil and Love (Combined Operations Book 2)

In a colony world desperate for resources, a search for new reserves reveals a shadow war!

Lizzes Olsen is a newly minted petrogeologist researching the untapped potential of places on her planet even terraforming overlooked. Unfortunately, the site she’s found is deep in enemy-occupied territory. The same enemy is funding the radical eco-terrorism that turned her university toxic, and training terrorists to kill the Empire’s geophysicists and geologists. Between bombings at home and being hunted abroad, Lizzes’ career, and her life, are in danger.

On the other hand, she has the unlikeliest of allies: a fairy god-Gunny Sergeant, and a very determined Imperial Recon soldier named Twitch who’s out to make her his very own happily ever after. If it takes a hecatomb of her enemies to get her down the aisle, they’re going to make it happen…

FROM MATTHEW C. LUCAS: Yonder & Far: The Lost Lock

Fae Banished to Boston Town, 1798

In a shocking move, the Queen of the Fae has banished John Yonder and Captain John Far to the human world. Rumor has it that they have opened a law practice catering to the Fae. To what purpose, no one really knows.

John Yonder has accepted a seemingly simple case. He need only recover a lock of hair for a Fae courtier. She had given it to her lover, Wylde, who is also in Boston.

Yonder tricks a fortuneteller, Mary Faulkner, into assisting with the case. With a whisper in her ear, he tethers Mary’s mind to Wylde’s, creating a terrible, but potent human compass.

Following Mary’s guidance, the trio sets out to follow Wylde. They set course into an uncertain and rocky future on land and sea, as pirates, slave owners, and a host of others hinder their path to Wylde, the lock of hair, and a possible return home to the Fae.

FROM TONY ANDARIAN: The End of the Beginning: Dawn of Chaos 2 – Hell Gate, Part IV (Sanctum of the Archmage Book 5)

A new constitution prepares Carlissa for an era of enlightenment. The harsh traditions of the past fade, and a promise of freedom stirs the air.

In the space of one terrifying day, that promise is shattered in a bloodbath of fire and magic.

Thousands of years ago, an epic battle was fought between good and evil. The demon lords had opened a door to the realms of hell itself, and their horde threatened to overrun the earth. But the Kalarans, led by the hero Calindra, destroyed their hellgate and drove them from the world.

The Great War has long since been lost to myth and legend. The Church struggles for relevance as the people forget their covenant with the gods. A renaissance of freedom and learning stirs the air in the modern age of Carlissa, led by the royal family, and the wisdom of the Archmage.

All of that comes to an end when a dome of shimmering magic appears in the capital city.

As the people fight desperately to survive the chaos that follows, they wonder bitterly why the gods seem to have abandoned them. Their only hope lies with the magic of the Archmage — and his, with a young princess who never wanted to rule. She must find the strength to set aside her bard’s calling and take up a battle against impossible odds, or surrender her land and people to the Black Magus and his demons.

In The End of the Beginning, Randia, broken by loss, must find the courage to complete a desperate quest, or see her land utterly conquered by the demon horde.Sanctum of the Archmage, Volume One – Dawn of Chaos
Dawn of Chaos, Book 2: Hell Gate
Hell Gate, Part IV – The End of the Beginning

Note: An earlier version of this book appeared as part of the novel Dawn of Chaos, published briefly on Amazon in 2017. That book has now been re-written and expanded into a series of six novella-length installments.

FROM AMIE GIBBONS: Psychic Noir (The Big Sleep): A Southern Psychic Mystery (The SDF Paranormal Mysteries Book 8)

Ariana gets the band back together for an epic rescue mission into a terrifying, totalitarian version of Nashville in this exciting new installment of the SDF Paranormal Mysteries.

Practically nothing can escape PI psychic Ariana Ryder’s Sight for long. But one mystery has eluded her for four years. What happened when Grant’s soul vanished without a trace?

They discovered a possibility last Fall. Ariana, Carvi, and AB got sucked into a pocket reality. Suddenly, they had whole new universes to search.

Carvi’s scientists think they’ve found the pocket reality Grant’s trapped in. Now, Ariana just has to go in and get him out.

Ariana gets the old team back together for a rescue mission into the unknown reality. But can they find Grant, bring back his lost mind, and escape a twisted version of Nashville, before the pocket reality collapses, or worse?

FROM BLAKE SMITH: A Small and Inconvenient Disaster (The Markham Series Book 2)

Everywhere she goes, Maria Mason is plagued by little catastrophes. Getting caught in the rain, running from the friendliness of a muddy dog, tripping over her own feet at the worst possible moment- she has been subject to all manner of accidents, and to fend off the worst of them, she has learned to be silent and still.

Until she accompanies her friend Miss Gordon to London for a season of gaiety and pleasure. Life in Town is full of wonder, and soon Maria has new clothes, new friends, and the attention of the amusing and clever Mr. James Callahan. She begins to wonder if she has outgrown her propensity for falling into disaster, only to find herself embroiled in the worst sort of catastrophe when she is obliged to mediate between her feuding friends. One wrong word, one false step, and she might lose the regard of her friends- or worse, the love of a good man.

FROM PAM UPHOFF: Bad Tolz (Fall of the Alliance Book 5)

Bad Tölz. A World named for a city on the Home World . . . Barely controlled by the “True Men” Mentalists of the Drei Mächte Bündnis. An unstable alliance of aggressive Worlds . . . on the brink of civil war.

Fynn, a bastard half-breed adopted by a friend of his dead father, was, despite his irregular antecedents, an ordinary college student. Then the increasing problems in in the Alliance led his new father to pull him into a secret society sworn to protect an Alliance that is crumbling.

When Bad Tölz is invaded, Fynn is all that stands between his World and brutal subjugation.

FROM DENTON SALLE: Stand Against the Dark: Book 4 of the Avatar Wizard

“Many have died trying this, lad. The Elder Powers are neither gentle nor kindly.”

With those words from his teacher, Jeremy began the ritual to bargain with one of the Powers of the World. He could gain much or lose everything as the Dark again endangers those he loves. But first he must survive bargaining with the Lord of Storms and Winter, who brings the cold from between the stars.

Return again to the world of the volkh, where Elder Powers hunt the river of stars, where women walk the path of shadows, where cities fall prey to strange diseases. A world where power comes from either the Dark or the Light. Join Jeremy, Galena, and their friends as stand against the Dark’s return.

Book 4 of the Avatar Wizard continues Jeremy’s adventures in a world where magic works and folklore of Eastern Europe is true.

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.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: LAZY

Sometimes I wonder what world people are living in. And I don’t mean (just) politicians. I’m fairly sure they’re living, if not in another universe, at least in another plane. (“Hell is empty and all the devils are here” — to quote Kit Marlowe.)

No, these are people purportedly not on the left and at least as capable of thought as I am, since they’re working for higher paid publications.

So, for something like two years now I’ve been saying: At least the left doesn’t have the fig leaf of oil SCARCITY as they did in the seventies. It was a stupid and insufficient fig leaf, but it covered everything from rationing to the dork in chief telling everyone to wear an extra sweater.

And then…. and then right on schedule this guy (some dood) on the American Spectator rushes to give them that fig leaf.

While rightly saying that solar and wind are nowhere near at the point they can replace fossil fuels, he talks about how shale oil was such a disappointment, and how they’re no longer fracking because the shale oil boom was the easy to get stuff, and now it’s hard, and that’s why they’re not doing it.

We’re going to need a bigger facepalm.

No, a MUCH bigger facepalm.

In fact, states taken over by the ‘rats (Ah, Colorado) have been putting more and more environmental fetters on fracking. And of course the cartoon characters (it’s a dark cartoon) in the White house are doing everything but telling us they won’t let us get oil, because they want us to freeze in the dark.

Oh, wait, no, they’re actually saying that, even if perhaps not to the US, and even if our media won’t report it, as in, see this: America’s Pain at the Pump is Due to The ‘Incredible Transition That is Taking Place,’ Biden Admits.

The demented house plant thinks we’re transitioning to utopia, but of course the attempt is to transition us to a shithole.

The problem, even for those democrats who think they have good intentions, is that there is no way for their madcap dreams to work, which they would know if once a year or so they got out of their high rises and took a greyhound across America, followed by a field trip to find where food comes from, and how it’s grown. (And while taking them to those fields, give them some sunflower seeds for their pockets. I suspect they’ll help in a couple three years. Well, help beautify the middle of the coutry at any rate. Might be the greatest contribution these idiots have ever made to other people’s life and enjoyment.)

But the salient thing here is “WTF dude?” No, seriously. What a coincidink. Fracking suddenly stopped being a thing when the serene Zhoe Xiden, first (and last) of his kind, China’s Vice-Roi over the barbarous United States of America, ascended with acclamations from cemeteries and manufactured votes to his position over us.

I totally believe that. That’s not sus at all at all.

I don’t know what kind of mind set a person has to be in to buy that, but I think it involves having all the right (left) friends and reading all the right (left) publications.

In cases such as this, I recommend tilting your head sideways and hitting the uppermost ear repeatedly until the Marxist bullshit comes out the other ear. I recommend doing it over a toilet, so you can flush the effluvium away with relative safety.

I’ll also note that in this entire “woe is us” article there is no, zero, none absolutely no mention of nuclear power, or even a glimmer of the fact it exists and could supply most of our energy needs.

The only thing I have to assume is that for this writer, anything the left declares off bounds stops existing.

Frankly, if that’s how you feel, you’re more than half on their side.

As for the rest of us, you can’t convince us we’re running out of oil, or that the election wasn’t stolen in 2020, or even that Jan 6th was a horrific riot and a threat to the Republic. Oh, yeah, you’ll also not convince us we’re a “democracy.”

We’re not stupid. We have a memory. And we’ll believe our own eyes over the left’s nonsense.

*Completely off topic I’ll note that your cheap, quick-render image from Pixabay is now at the level of average sci fi covers in the seventies, at least where I grew up.
Yes, yes, give me a time machine! ;) )

So, what is going on? There was a stopped shooter in Charleston West Virginia. And it’s tempting to go a little crazy and start wondering if the three letters are “activating” people way less stable than the ones that hang out on this blog, and getting them to go hot.

ON THE OTHER HAND, as I’ve mentioned 2020 and 2020 Won not to mention 2020 Too we’ve been driving the entire population insane. And the run away inflation and weird job market — look, yo, yes, I hear everyone is screaming for employees. And that seems to be true in retail and food service, but anyone above that level of specialization or skill, that I know is looking for a job, is meeting serious headwinds — aren’t helping people who are already economically marginal.

In any population, at any given time, there are any number of people who might decide to go out via suicide by cop or in a blaze of ignominy by killing a bunch of innocents. And by the way, this has nothing to do with the availability of guns. Mass killing happens in every culture, though the Portuguese guy a couple of decades back who killed an entire group of people (like 20) with knives is still a puzzle. What were they doing, while waiting to be killed? Never mind.

Yeah, the democrats are trying to bang the drum for “sensible gun control” because it is their last desperate hope. They know what they WANT to do to the population, and it doesn’t work if the population is armed. Sooner or later, the signal goes up, and then it’s Cathy bar the door and they lose. (Note I’m not saying someone will give a signal. I’m saying that something will happen that the majority of the population will interpret as a sign to cut loose Also note this is not a threat. It’s a prediction.) So they are trying to bang their little drum, which means those of you who work in the gun industry know overtime and crazy hours and price jumps are coming, right? Because every time “Sensible gun control” (We’re so far past sense it’s not even funny) is uttered, the national gun industry go brrrrrrrr and the air temperature heats a fraction, from all the factories working over time.

But that, just like their idiotic new boogieman of “White Supremacy” is just that. Idiotic. To call any of these crimes “white supremacy” or think it’s coherent, organized and from the right, you need to be from another planet. Also white needs to have a new, until now unexplored meaning when it’s black-on-Asian, leftist-on-human, Latin on Mostly Latin crimes.

The thing we do know about almost all of these shooters is that they were known wolves. Either they had had run ins with the police before or — frankly — they were screaming cases of mental instability.

Someone reminded me that the shooter years ago, in the navy yard while on a trip in DC called the police to report that the lamps in his room were talking and conspiring against him.

The murderer in Uvalde had an history of cutting his own face, and this didn’t trigger SERIOUS mental health measures. He posted he was going to kill his grandmother (who, on cursory reading MIGHT have been the only stable influence in his life) and no one did anything.

Look, this country has a raging, stomping around insanity issue.

Every country does, to be fair.

The problem in this country — and the West in general — is both the way the Soviet Union used mad houses, and Soviet propaganda corrupting psychiatric theory.

The Soviet Union put political dissidents in mad houses, because if you don’t like happy fun socialist paradise, you’re self-obviously insane.

At the same time it propagandized the west with the idea our crazy people weren’t actually crazy. They were just reacting to the “unnatural” state of capitalism (As opposed to the imaginary communitarian paradise in pre-history that universities have invented and flogged on for decades.)

Enter a serious anti-de-instutionalization drive, and eventually the shutting down of the mad houses, and the new fun “homeless” crisis.

Let me start by saying that in a democratic republic incarceration of the insane is a seriously mind-bending business, because who defines insane, and who gets to pick and extend it?

So, it needs to be approached with extreme care.

But what we’re doing also self-obviously isn’t working. The left — stop me when this sounds like their attempt to abolish the police — thought it could have “community care” for insane people.

But it doesn’t work like that. Even with people that can take a tablet and be “functionally normal” (A friend’s father was schizophrenic. His meds didn’t make him stop hearing voices. It’s just when he was off them, the voices told him to kill the neighbors and put the chopped pieces in a trash bag. When he was on them, the voices told him to clean the house, take his meds, have normal meals, go to work.) not only can they not take meds (and let’s not start putting trackers on meds, okay? DAVOS these are my middle fingers) but their meds needs MIGHT CHANGE. Almost for sure will change.

I don’t need anti-psychotics, but I do need endocrine medication (without which I get very fat, very forgetful, and will eventually die of a heart attack, likely.) and periodically, without my noticing, it needs adjusting. In fact, because the thinking meat is influenced by those meds, I am usually the last to realize I’ve gone hypo-thyroidal again.

Sure, in true “community care” your family, neighbors, etc would notice you’re tilting a bit out of true, rope you in, and confine the thing before it’s too bad.

The problem is that kind of community care doesn’t exist in the US and might not exist anywhere in the twentieth century.

I’m talking about the kind you had in the village, where all the old ladies were forever inventing a much more exciting life than the one I actually lived, and might/might not have had any contact with reality. (Hint, it usually didn’t.) Which btw also means it wouldn’t be super effective.

So, our way to deal with mental illness, is to let mental ill people do what they will, including living on the street, defecating on themselves and assaulting passerbyes, and episodically going on a rampage and killing a bunch of innocents.

And that’s not working for anyone.

Sure the other type of health care had miscarriages, though most of them are not as egregious as the leftist academics claim. Yes, I have read about Mrs. Lincoln, and let’s be fair, other than the fact they had no chemical means of treatment, she was nuts. I don’t care if it’s oppression of women or whatever. Marx needs to be chased out of the theory of mental care, with sticks, and pitchforks. People don’t go crazy because they’re oppressed. People don’t go crazy because the world is unfair. People don’t even go crazy because they’re abused. I’d be very shocked if all of us couldn’t name several friends who had all these problems, and who are fully functional, decent human beings.

People go crazy — regardless of external circumstances — because something goes wrong in their brain. Yes, living conditions, etc. might complicate or make it worse, but seriously, they are not the cause. No one has ever lived or will ever live in a perfect world where all their dreams are fulfilled. That’s just nonsense. And letting people die and kill others while waiting for perfection is bullshit.

(Though under not complicating lives for the susceptible, dear left, you can pick one thing: Either stop importing people from highly machista cultures, or stop in your drive to make males superfluous, guilty (of something) and ostracized. I have trouble dealing with your bullshit and I’m female and have lived here for most of my life. Recently or even second generation males from these cultures are going to go ape-shit. And there’s susceptible people in every population, who will break exactly wrong. Stop messing with people’s lives, and holding everyone guilty of what people who vaguely look like them did before they were born. K thanx bye.)

No amount of gun control is going to solve the problem. No amount of “poverty mitigation” is going to get rid of homelessness.

The problem is mental health. And what you’re doing is applying a bandaid to the pinkie of someone with a sucking chest wound. It won’t help, but I guess it makes you feel happy and give you a commission on selling bandaids.

In fact, because the left can’t resist piling on failed programs, they’re now pretty much turning entire cities over the the homeless, while making it harder to give anyone real mental health care. Obama care made it almost impossible to commit someone against their will.

I guess the left feels sympathy for the mentally ill and the criminals because it’s their people, kind of like I tend to attract Odds, because I am one.

But we have a serious mental health problem in this country. And we need to deal with it.

No, we’re not crazier than other cultures. We’ve just ignored the need for treatment for years.

It’s time to stop the stupid. Of course it won’t happen while under leftist “rule” so expect the crazy and the deaths to increase.

Until it can’t be ignore anymore.

What can’t go on, won’t. It might do so longer than we thought possible, but eventually it crashes.

And so many things are headed that way, I expect an Earth Shattering Kaboom.

Meanwhile look to your mental health and that of those near you. And get ready to take the weight when all this craziness implodes.

Sometimes you have moments — as in the movie — where your entire world can be upended by the words “What if this is as good as it gets?”

No, I don’t mean our situation. As we know from Trump’s administration — hampered and stymied as he often was — our lives can get much easier and much, much better.

But…. the competency of government in general.

I mean, there is something way more terrifying than “what if they are doing this on purpose?” and that is “What if a lot of it isn’t on purpose?” “What if this is their normal level of competency?” and for the crazier stuff: “What if they really thought this would work?”

Yesterday night, I was sitting in front of the computer, minding my own business, and Bill Reader called me. When he calls me after about 9 pm, it is never good. Either his job has gotten crazier, or he had some insight. And trust me, the insights are the absolute worst.

In this case it was an insight.

“Sarah?”

“Um…. yeah?”

“What would have happened if this formula shortage happened under Trump?”

“Well, the press would have been–“

“No, not that. We’d have assumed the regulators had screwed it up on purpose, to make him look bad, right?”

“Well, yes, but you know, we shouldn’t underestimate the fact that the Biden Junta want to hurt us and have a purpose of population reduction.”

“Maybe. I mean, it’s possible. The oil thing is certainly done on purpose, with the intent of making prices skyrocket, and some of that, at least for some of them, is surely about hurting us, but…”

“But?”

“But I’m getting a whiff of terror and panic from them. Like the formula shortage? probably not really intended. The border? They didn’t expect it to be so NOTICEABLE and such a mess. The oil thing? They thought the prices would go up a little, and then renewables would magically step up and we’d realize how much better off we were. The empty shelves? We’d all suddenly realize we wanted to live like monks, and how happy we were.” Pause. “Listen to me for a minute, okay? What if this is the best their competency get? What if everything the government does, and has ever done is really a giant, unmitigated clusterf*ck? What if we hadn’t realized that, because, you know, the press wouldn’t report the f*ck ups?”

And I thought about it. Heck, in private companies, where you directly are responsible and suffer the consequences when something goes wrong, we know the Pareto principle applies, and 80% of employees are dead weight, if not actively harmful.

But when you sever performance from reward, as we’ve seen in oh, teaching, tenured professors, most publishing houses, and, oh, yeah, government work, then what the productive 20% seem to produce is insanity, if not actual destruction.

I mean — looks askance at 2020 — almost everything I directly know — hasn’t been spun through a friendly media — governments do has been counterproductive, or outright bad. I always sort of assumed they were doing it on purpose.

But what if they’re not?

What if it’s a weird mix of incompetence and really believing very hard in all the conspiracy theories, like “the oil companies prevent us from using the really cheap eco-magic solutions?”

What if when it comes to the things the government is supposed to do, this REALLY is as good as it gets?

In years past I’ve argued we should abolish all the scruff and cruft of non constitutional departments.

Department of energy, department of education, the FDA the CDC. And I’ve had people tell me that I wanted people to be poisoned by bad milk, or the like.

But think about it….

There is this “seafood mix” frozen that I used to buy, because it’s the cheapest way to make Portuguese seafood rice (you can still make it with cauliflower rice.) I’ve looked for the last year in every grocery store, and put it back, because you know…. “made in China.”

As someone pointed out, you know that the shrimp in China, are downstream from the cesspool, which is downstream from the place metal manufacturing dumps its effluvium, which is–

And before you say “But surely the FDA is testing those?”

Are they? Are they really? Then explain the pet food that killed cats and dogs, the medicine that we’ve found is often full of plaster or cement, the flip flops — FLIP FLOPS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD — that gave people contact chemical burns?

Or let’s talk about that emergency authorization for vaccines that aren’t quite vaccines, where the FDA, CDC and the lot of them are conspiring to hide adverse effects.

Again, let’s remember that Sinclair’s the Jungle was mostly fiction, designed to sell the idea of government control over food supply.

Let’s remember that these government appendages all of them, mostly hamstring American industry and building, and chase everything of significance off these shores, while putting everything, from our food and medical supplies, to our scientific research, to our very weapons, in the hands of countries that don’t have any of those naffy-naff scruples about not poisoning our public, or you know, having things not explode?

What if this government by bureaucracy has achieved its finest results? What if this is as good as it gets?

And please remember, we’re as efficient as it’s found in this world. Except for much smaller countries, and even there I’d look askance at government.

Look, guys, science, food supply, in fact anything relating to safety and well being, is way too important to leave in the hands of government.

What can’t go on, won’t. When things fall apart, if you don’t remember anything else, remember this: government is a blunt instrument, and it never worked very well.

It works worse the larger territory it covers.

It works worse the more power it’s given over increasingly smaller things.

It worked badly enough in the early industrial state, where everything was designed for mass production. It works much worse with the finer granularity that post-mass-industrial production allows.

We are allowing our society to be Gulliver hamstrung by Lilliputian bureaucrats.

Every totalitarian state functions less and less as time goes on. And every bureaucratic state becomes totalitarian through mission creep.

You cannot trust a giant bureaucracy to keep your food safe, to keep your water pure, to educate your children or to keep our army supplied.

FDRs giant state is a delusion. Big is not more efficient, unless you’re building widgets in a giant widget factory.

Humans are not widgets. They’re unpredictable. They can’t be treated as widgets for anything significant.

When we do build over, build under, build around, remember: if you need government to coordinate, research and inspect, make it small, local government and keep it starved of funds and don’t give it excess power. Also, keep pitchforks on hand for when they get froggy.

As for the leviathan that not only doesn’t perform what it’s supposed to, but is actively harming us.

Remember that too.

Because for government with sufficient power to make things run efficiently, what we get is formula shortages, inability to build houses or bridges, and regulations that destroy everything.

It’s time for another model, worldwide.

And as always, America will have to invent it.

It’s time we got to it.

Good morning boys, girls and dragons. It is sweet to see your glowing morning faces. [note from 2022. Stop glowing. We have enough of that.]

What time is it at According to Hoyt? You’re right. It’s heresy time!

My husband has long ago learned that there are places it is not safe to take me, because he just ends up dragging me out while I’m still trying to get a last zinger in at the speaker.  Yes, that has included churches. We don’t attend there anymore.  But mostly it’s lectures or movies or theater performances, where the person in charge believes we’re in need of hearing just a little more of that ol’ time (what? He’s been dead a long time. And most of his adherents are either fossilized while living or brain dead, so….) Marxist religion.

Yesterday we almost added museums to that list. It came this close. You could smell its tail when it went by.

You see we thought it was safe to go to a WWI museum.  And as you guys know I’m interested in the era. Partly because I think that’s when the wheels came of Western culture and we started skidding on dangerous ice. Without wheels. Downhill. And there’s fire at the bottom of the ravine.

In a way the visit was good — the exhibits are excellent, and we might go back because I didn’t get to look at all the guns as I would have liked to. I’m not an expert, no, but the national variations on light machine guns are fascinating, and I still have to write World War Dragon — because it solidified a) what went wrong. b) why lately — like the last three years — the history has been “tasting” as if it rhymes with WWI.

My talking back, though started with the introductory movie.

I’ve told you guys before the causes I was taught for WWI, which included fervent nationalism, militarization and idealization of the military, as well as Germany coming late to industrialization and feeling hemmed in.  That last is probably true, btw.  Though at this point I’m in no mood to give consequence to “historians” infected by Marxism and therefore prone to running headlong down stupid blind alleys towards brick walls.

I have bad news.  In the forty years since they’ve pounded that arrant nonsense into my head, they’ve added more.  To that list is now added “Social darwinism” (Talk back “Did they confuse it with the SECOND world war?”) “Which believed that evolution applied not only to organisms but to cultures and that the fittest culture would survive!” (Talk back “And you don’t? Why not? What the hell do you believe? Or are you confusing culture with race again?”) Income inequality (Talk back: “As compared to what fluff brain? ANY time before that the inequality was greater.”) And the terrible treatment of the working classes in cities (tb: “Again, compared to what? Have you been asleep while India and China industrialized?”) which led to socialism (TB: “I too love to blame socialism for just about everything. But for world war I it’s a step too far.”) which was sweeping the masses, so practically every worker was socialist (TB: Snort, Giggle “No, butt-brain. The intellectuals were socialists, and it’s not hard to recruit petty criminals and useful idiots to swell your ranks. But no. Most workers were not socialist.”) AND THEN the one that made everything click: “Imperialism. Those darn hyper nationalistic states of Europe were going to Africa and Asia and creating colonies.”  And it clicked.  Particularly since the next point in their description was about how the Balkans didn’t like being under the heel of the Austro Hungarian empire.  (Not that I blame them. I mean, for a brief time Portugal was too, several centuries back.)

And the back of my brain went CLICK.  And now I need to descend into heresy from everything you’ve been taught. Although note, I’m not going to rewrite history. I’m not one of THEM. I’m just going to challenge the way it’s been interpreted and force fed to generations of people.

There is a very stupid meme going around facebook that talks about how terrible it would be if Europe had ever been treated the way that Africa and Asia were treated, and partitioned and repartitioned at random by uncaring colonial powers.

It’s one of those that makes me faintly nauseous, (like the one that claimed the pilgrims had white privilege) because it betrays just how far our schools have gone into not teaching the kids any kind of history beyond “Europe bad” and “everywhere else good.”  It would be less criminal if they simply didn’t teach them to read and write (wait, that’s true!)

Because of course, not only was tribal, mostly pre-historic Europe partitioned more or less blindly by conquering powers: Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians. But it was then repartitioned again and again at the whim of invaders (Goths — yes, their horned helmets were all black. Someone bop the comedian on the head and drag him out in the alley, please — Ostrogoths, Swabians, Franks, Alans and only Bob knows what — he’s very learned Bob — else.)  In fact the “national” borders of Europe are no more “real” to the genetic make up of peoples than are national borders anywhere else.  They are mostly where they ended up.  The fiction that the things inside the walls are “races” or ethnicities is a creation of public schools and national poets and … well, fictionalizing historians. Something the left should be quite familiar with.

This is not to say there should be no borders — more on that later — but frankly if the rest of the world wants to have the same “inside border” cohesion as Europe what they need is not to redraw them and moan about colonialism: it’s a shameless and ruthless propaganda machine to convince school children of bullshit. That should be easy. Communists can do it.

Anyway, the point is that “colonialism” and the “unrest in the Balkans” are not because of nationalism and “people becoming aware of ethnic differences” (I swear to Bob they said that. Do Historians nowadays know bloody nothing of history?) and dragging poor Darwin into that stew (fish stew. with heads in) is just purely mean.

Industrialization and the rapid change of ways of life does come into this because Man — and woman, child, infant and dragon — does not live by bread alone. Some wise Rabbi said that, and He was, as grandma would say, covered in reason (Hopefully the Reason of the Postrel era. It’s gone down hill.) I.e. men who can see time before and after their lives and whose lives are far too brief for their minds, need a narrative to fit into.

For a long, long time the narrative had been religion and a way of life.  “I farm, as did my father, my grandfather, his father etc. etc. etc.”  When you moved away from the village, where you could visit the graves of all your ancestors, you needed a narrative to be part of. Which is where nationalism and to an extent militarism fit in. (To the other extent militarism was always part of it, and now there were dime-novels talking of adventure, which is often in war or happens to military man.)

But there was real unrest at the time.  And while we know of a few where socialists spoke, etc, I don’t believe it was at all “socialist” or “Marxist” even.  I mean, look, I’m running on stories I heard from my grandparents who heard them from their parents (their being children during WWI.)  And other people’s grandparents, too, in other countries.

Oh, sure, the intellectuals loved Marx. They still do. They’re a very conservative constituency.  And the organized Marxists (which at the time flew under a number of banners, including gutting and wearing the skin of Anarchists. They also still do) were running as hard as they could to get ahead of the mobs that were getting pissy.

But the mobs weren’t getting pissy because they wanted socialism. Socialists just happened to be the only organized ones who could claim credit/responsibility/ stir things their way.

The unrest had more to do with a lot of dislocated people living in a large group than ever and running around without a narrative to fit their lives into.

But there were other things….

Glanced by in the presentation is the fact that most of the ruling class of Europe was related to Queen Victoria.  They didn’t talk about it, but here’s the thing, the other problem is that the vast empires of Europe had been vast for a long time, but not really centralized.  It’s possible Americans don’t know this, but large European countries (Sometimes you can swing a cat not needing a passport for the cat) were “one country” only in name.  The regional variations in everything from dialect to cuisine, not to mention the administration of local laws, and even local laws imposed by the local grandee made them effectively several tiny, locally-administered countries overseen/protected by an overlord.

In the nineteenth century that changed.  Not only was the ruling class running in possession of faster means of transport, and the wealth from the industrial revolution, but heaven help us, most of them had IDEAS.  (A lot of those ideas very similar to Marx’s.) They, by gum and golly were actually going to govern ALL of their holdings. Down to the smallest village.  (This had started with Louis XIV, may his name never be sufficiently damned, but in the 19th century they had the ABILITY as well as the desire to stomp on every peasant face forever.)

So what that presentation never connected (they had drunk too much Marx) but should is this:

Just before WWI people were rebelling against distant and often dogmatic rulers, who frankly didn’t know anything and cared even less about local needs and conditions.  This applied equally to European villagers and to Congo tribesmen.

And the European Elite, basically one family, was about as clued in and with it and insulated from the consequences of their bullshit as out would be world elites today.

So, yeah, they were having the equivalent of tea parties and yellow jackets outbreaks, which of course the socialists infiltrated and tried to claim — stop me when it sounds familiar — which explains what actually happened where the presentation used all sorts of passive voice “the respect for established monarchy was broken.”  Uh no.  People were sick and tired of distant rulers who didn’t get them trying to tell them how to wipe their behinds.

So yeah, things were breaking down and the ruling hierarchy found something to distract the people: a long, and bloody war.  Although to be fair, they were probably trying to grab more territory to mis-administer from afar. It just all came together in a perfect storm.

And afterward the Marxists blamed….  nationalism and the free market.  And tried to force internationalism — aka more control from afar — on people and treating people as faceless members of nations, with the guilt and victimhood ascribed to groups, not people.  And when that blew up in WWII… they doubled down.

We’re now in the middle of a massive, new revolution (Call it the digital revolution, though I don’t think that’s exactly right) in the way people live and work, and the old narrative doesn’t fit.  Unrest is breaking out all over, and the socialists, who are now, by and large the ruling elite, keep trying to appropriate it, and ascribe it to the same old same old.

If we double down and prescribe more internationalism, which they do, it might kill civilization and humanity with it.

And to be clear I am for borders.  I see the point of larger countries (commerce and military mostly) but the administration must be as local as possible.  When it comes to government it should always be as small, local and personal/adaptable as possible. Because people aren’t groups, or widgets that fit into groups, be the groups race, cultures, or nations.  Or even villages (trust me.) And because if the local government is doing something particularly idiotic, you can go and have a talk with them.  While if — oh, at random — all of Europe is governed from Brussels, you can’t even vote the bastards out, much less go and have a pointed, finger to sternum, conversation with the worst offender

What we’ve been doing for 100 years now is doing the same thing over and over again (A war? Let’s erase national barriers, and have people governed by impersonal groups far away! That will cure it!) and expecting a different result.

And we all know what that means.

If we don’t break out of this loop, we’re headed to World War Three and afterwards the socialists will try to set up ONE government for the whole of the Earth, because that will stop wars (they never heard of civil wars, the idiots.) [And it won’t work, because they’re sort of like the Jim Jones cult with universities. They have no contact with reality- SAH 2022]

Let’s stop this, shall we. Do not buy the narrative. Speak up, talk back, disrupt the “accepted causes.”

Disrupt the story of the accepted causes of everything really.  And keep talking back. Because everything has been infected with Marxism. And we must drive this heresy train all the way.

Good thing it has no brakes.