I’ve been “off grid” and will stay off a little longer. This is for three reasons.
- I’m in a place with chitty cell service.
- Even if I had service, I’m super busy and have no time to play emotional grabass amid propaganda.
- The post collapse reason: I fear the “Schrödinger’s Cat of Stupid”.
Reason #3 is new. Constant serial failed panics have been happening weekly or bi-weekly for a long time, I dread to see the next stupid irrational thing.
I say “failed panics” because they have a purpose. Cretins in DC (of both parties) want the populace perpetually alarmed and therefore easily manipulated. It worked for a while but, like junkies hitting bottom, the people are exhausted and the drug of panic has less pull than it once did.
Americans in general are slowly, gradually, incrementally, pulling their head out of their ass. They’re no longer exhibiting the desired response of knee jerk deference to authorities. Fine grained central control is no longer just assumed to be OK. Cretins in DC are terrified!
The last two years stampeding about in an orgy of “I support the latest thing” has run its course. Free thinkers cut loose ages ago but even the weakest of minds have been overstimulated and two years of dumb shit has shut down their cerebellum. Many are embarrassed by what they did. Post-Covid true believers have the hangover feel. “Did I really do that?” A few hopeless Kool-aid drinkers are still pining for the return of COVID but nobody takes them seriously anymore. DC quakes in fear as the masses settle back to earth.
Objective truth is a thing which exists whether you wish it or not.
The sane, diminished in numbers but still populous, no longer just accepts things. The precursors to cattle cars and trashing the rule of law “just for a few weeks during the current emergency” is a harder sale. Folks are standing on the loading ramp to the Utopian new world order but they’ve stopped stumbling forward. They’re thinking. “Pretty much everything they’ve said for two years has been a lie or blown up their face, why should I do what’s demanded again?”
Those of us who never drank the Kool-aid have also changed. We’re less motivated to try talking the crowd out of their latest faceplant. We shrug and continue doing what we do… independently. “If they haven’t figured it out by now, it’s not our problem.”
I feel like that. Don’t you? After COVID and the 2020 election, I’m more willing to let people experience the fruits of their decisions. Some folks learn from history, but others must piss on the electric fence. Who am I to rob them of the experience?
Karen now has to choose between baby formula that doesn’t exist and $6 gas to get to a job that doesn’t matter but the boss desperately wants her to commute. I don’t care. I no longer wish to talk her out of her next dumb idea. Take on massive debt for an EV car? Sure. A degree in advanced pointlessness? Fine. Fifteen boosters, an all yoghurt diet, and some pyramid crystals you bought online? Sure. Get a face tattoo while you’re at it; it’ll be fun! I feel freed of what formerly was a kind of responsibility. The Gods of the Copybook Headings will sort everything out.
The reduction in overall mad stampeding panic is also a time of risk. People who used fear to get power are desperate to restart panic anew. They’re flipping over rocks and looking for ghosts.
“We gotta’ protect our phony baloney jobs!” They whine. Then they fire up the panic machine: “Have you heard about monkeypox? What about greedy oil companies, Russian bogeymen, scary racist libertarian whackdoodles, people who don’t check in with Facebook, ghost guns, radon, asbestos, hanta virus, gluten, melting glaciers?” They also try random orders, “get another booster shot or white supremacists could hack your Netflix account!” It’s not working.
Reality seeps through the façade. Nobody cares what some douchebag said on Twitter on if gas prices have doubled (tripled?) and you’re out of cash. The Afghanistan retreat of 2021 makes following President Droolcup into Ukraine sound like a bad bet. Nobody who just dropped an extra two bucks on a six pack of beer to wash away the sorrows of an evaporating 401(k) is interested in the nutsack on a faux-oppressed YouTube influencer.
Which brings me to Schrödinger’s Cat. Until you open the box, the cat is both alive and dead. Once you peek, the form is chosen.
As soon as I plug back into the Matrix, the choice will be made. I sense that society will inevitably choose one dumb distraction among many. What will it be?
Here are my guesses:
- Fight Russia until the last Ukrainian is dead? Nah! That’s played out. (When I checked out propaganda was still reporting that plucky glorious Ukrainian freedom fighters were beating Russkie ass like a rented mule. Sure, and I’m a Chinese jet pilot. I don’t know if the press is still sticking to the narrative but sooner or later the real situation will be apparent.)
- A close subset would be a false flag blamed on Russia. It won’t work in 2022. No matter how ugly or photogenic it is, we’re just not in the mood to wrap in the flag and have a parade on behalf of the guy who won more votes than any other candidate in history but went sub-Carter in a year. At this point, if someone nukes Baltimore I won’t believe it until I drive there and wave a Geiger counter myself. Even then I’ll wonder which three letter agency set it off.
- Diesel gets expensive enough that truckers just park their rigs? Even odds on that. Trucks deliver stuff and life without stuff sucks. Biden having a press event where he shrieks at truckers (as if that’ll start a Kenworth’s engine) would fit his pattern.
- Gas breaks $5 by July 4th and “normie the griller” has a fit? Nah! It comes on the heels of an Orange Menace that made American into a net exporter. We all know it could happen again.
- Food shortage; like for real this time? “We’re out of Cool Ranch Doritos but there are Pringles” turns into “I will fight you for this can of beans”. Shortages are more or less baked in the cake now but I don’t buy this one for fat complacent Americans.
- Taiwan? Hard to say but China seems too patient. Why rush things in 2022 when we’re already flaming out? Regardless of when it happens, we won’t be able to do jack shit. Look at a globe. Taiwan will fall unless Taiwan is monumentally bad ass, and that doesn’t appear to be the case. As for us? Nations that can’t reliably make baby formula aren’t equipped to pick fights with China.
- A big power outage? That’s a good possibility! Oft predicted, and seasonally practiced for a decade in California. Would two weeks of no hot water in Newark or no AC in Phoenix work in President Potato’s favor?
- The January 6th commission? Bwa ha ha ha ha… no fuckin way! If Stalinist show trials were going to work, they’ve been unleashed in 2021.
- Riot season? I doubt that one too. Deplorable America is more or less willing to let St. Louis or Portland burn itself to the ground. We just don’t care anymore. If cities want to set their own ass on fire, fuck ’em. Also, we know it won’t spread. Rioters who leave the support of city politics will be instantly roasted by rednecks who’ve been waiting their whole lives for the opportunity to do it.
- Gun control? Nah! It’s a cliché. Rhinos will roll over because they’re gutless pussies but who cares? Someone somewhere will pass something about adjustable drift pins on rifles a particular shade of magazine capacity because 9mm blows lungs through the bayonet lug… blah blah blah. Clinton did in in 1994 and all he did was cost Al Gore his turn at the big chair. That was 28 years ago and they’ve spent every intervening moment convincing us to support the second amendment. We even got a two year refresher course! Government sponsored riots in 2020, Australia going full Nuremberg (along with Europe, New Zealand, and Canada), and one hour response times in a school shootings are why Americans have been buying a million guns a month. Burning Minneapolis and subsequently cheating in an election won’t convince anyone to disarm. Also, people who drop their own coin on a firearm are more serious than dipshits preening on Twitter.
None of those feel right. Returning the people to a mindless froth will require something bigger, dumber, wilder, more dangerous, and more irrational. I draw a blank trying to imagine it. I write about squirrels and talk to trees but I just can go that dumb.
Suppose Godzilla fucks Cthulhu and gets Monkeypox in Detroit while stepping on a gay kitten during a riot about banned, gluten free, student loans on Independence day during a meteor shower? That’s just another Tuesday now.
I feel a weird urge to stay out of it. Let the rest of the world decide the reason for their newest panic. Whatever the form of the destroyer, I want it witnessed first by someone else. So I remain mostly off grid.
As always, watch your six and never go full retard.
A.C.
This latest news should scare the shit out of everyone.
The latest shortage?
Tampons.
God Forbid It!
Then again, can you imagine the stuff that is going to be posted on line because wimmin’s can’t leave the house for a week?
Once again you’ve nailed it AC! Heading to the Northwoods this week on the motorcycle. Had enough of the shit show. Time for a little break from the bullshit. I’ve come to the point where when it crosses the fence line I’ll deal with it.
As PKD said: ‘Evil exists, like cement.’ Also: ‘Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.’
Problem is the problems are being created. Farmers can grow plenty of food but no diesel means no delivery of food. Electricity is very easy to interrupt as the Transmission and Distribution system only has so much redundancy. Imagine what happens if China places sanctions on the US. I’ve read China needs to move 1-2 million men to invade Taiwan, that requires sealift. US subs can put a dent in the sealift, but I’ve seen numbers of 2000 ships to do it and the subs can’t manage those numbers. All that can be done is draw the US into a shooting war. China is patient. We’re past shooting ourselves in the foot, we are in the upper thigh and heading for the crotch. (Judge Smails – “Well – We’re all waiting”
I doubt the mid-terms will have much effect. RINOs and ballot stuffing will ensure the evil party maintains control. The goal is to set Americans off at one another and tear ourselves apart. Stand by, things will get frisky.
“May you live in interesting times…” can use the addendum “…among the clueless, feckless, and self-righteous.”
It’s going to suck, and what you describe to a “T” is the proverbial “hardening of hearts” required to make it through, if you can tribe-up early.
…, Amen.
Yup, watch yer six, because you know they will go full retard. Not to be a pain, but squirrels are a necessary part mental nutrition. Just sayen’. Tree Mike
I’m glad you mentioned Squirrels. I’d like to wrap up the story and I have a plan. I eagerly look forward to writing it out. I someday want the whole thing compiled into a book.
Unfortunately, unrelated things are happening at a pace of their own. Just as the snow melted they all hit at once and my summer has been hectic. The good news is it’s all positive stuff. Things that needed doing are getting checked off the list and that’s wonderful. The bad news is that I’m busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest.
The squirrels really are fun. Writing them (and hopefully reading too) is good for the soul. Sadly, they’ll have to wait a little longer while I finish up mundane tasks in the the real world.
A few peeps in my “circle of trust” had been discussing the same recently. It’s hard not to become cynical about all this superfluous bullshit going on around us.
In my neck of the woods, we’re (so far) pretty insulated from most (not all) of the societal decay.
“I feel a weird urge to stay out of it.” Yes, and yes. I just gave up and started posting dad jokes.