Not feeling it today.
We are done as a United Country. Prove me wrong.
My ardent Democrat friend was staying at our house for a few days, weeks ago. He now unfailing refers to our country as the Divided States of America. He played a Bill Maher youtube clip for us where Maher, referencing the notion of playing the black national anthem at football games, said “No. We don’t have two national anthems.”
Well, I agree and appreciate the sentiment. It is typical that Democrats, or at least the voter base, is almost entirely focused on style over substance. Although flags and anthems are important styles.
The Democrats are demonstrating that in spite of their immense power, arrogance and absolute shamelessness, they are having trouble keeping all those cover-ups and lies in the air at one time. In spite of their best efforts the bottom may in fact be falling out.
They’ve planted the dragon’s teeth deep and have have watered them well; but they may not have prepared for the backlash.
Yes, it is all very dispiriting but there is hope.
And we will soon discover—rediscover, rather—whether it is in fact possible to fool all (or most of) the people all (or most of) the time. Or not.
Another thread on the supply chain crisis, how we got there, which echoes Rufus IIRC, and how the Biden administration is proposing things to make it permanently worse.
Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.
JimNorCal, the guy in the video I believe is correct. They are trying very hard to push people to a violent act that they can then use to justify a complete takeover. Just look at how hard they keep pushing Jan 6. They thought they had it then, and now we see that they had infiltrators to help the process along. The sovereignty of the states through the 10th Ad may hold the line. The numbers of people leaving the blue for red and the collapse of the blue states/cities may also help. However, they are salivating for a conservative group to fire some weapons.
I’m just now reading Schlichter’s latest book where he lays out quite clearly this game of pushing the right to violence. There’s one particular protagonist who is masterminding the whole scenario to push the country to collapse. In fact, in the book the villain plans and then executes a situation where left protestors are killed by what appears to be a coordinated attack by conservatives, but are actually his operatives. The result is to tip the country over. Quite frightening but also eye opening.
I absolute agree physicsguy. We have been living through a color revolution. I think most Americans’ live and let live attitudes have made it more difficult to perpetrate than expected, but the other side has not given up.
January 6th was a blatant set-up. I smelled it right away. Glenn Beck and other Conservative voices begged folks not to fall for the trap.
Not only did so many state judiciaries stand down during last summer’s violence, prominent folks like Kamala Harris posted bail for violent rioters.
It’s a continual poking of the bear.
There are a hundred examples. How many people even noticed Jussie Smollett’s idiotic hoax attempt at racial unrest occurred just as Senators Kamala Harris and Corey Booker were pushing an anti-lynching bill in the Senate? What an amazing coincidence! Lynchings haven’t been a “thing” in this country for decades (and, are already, fortunately, very, very illegal), yet just as two striving politicians start politicking about lynchings on the Senate floor one of our nation’s treasured actors is nearly lynched!
Smollett is so dumb, and the hoax was so poorly executed, that even black athletes like Shaq and O’Neal mocked him, but, conveniently, the botched restraint of a low-level, career criminal in Minneapolis provided the necessary tinder for a racial Reichstag fire.
It’s interesting that our very own CIA invented the tactic of a color revolution. Just another incredible coincidence, I suppose.
Oh well, I’ve got to run. Kim and Kanye might be getting divorced and I’ve got to read up on the latest news! I just don’t have time to pay attention to state, local or federal politics.
January 6th was a blatant set-up. I smelled it right away. Glenn Beck and other Conservative voices begged folks not to fall for the trap. — Rufus
We’ve had some revealing info. on a guy like Ray Epps. But what about those other obviously suspicious Antifa styled pseudo-protestor types that were seen on videos played on Jan. 7 or 8?
They were up front, pulling on barricades and wearing the full Antifa outfit and kit, except the black jacket was replaced with an American flag jacket. Aren’t they clever. I guess when you have a hoody up, and a full face mask w/ industrial goggles on, you become literally invisible to all law enforcement.
______
… in the book the villain plans and then executes a situation where left protestors are killed by what appears to be a coordinated attack by conservatives, but are actually his operatives.
It’s not exactly the same, but similar to the old Stalin tactic. “Sell” the veracity of the double agent you’ve installed in some foreign intelligence agency by having him kill one of your own agents.
An interesting question at PJ Media: Vaccine mandates in northeastern states may keep out-of-state linemen from coming in to help after a big storm. Note to Neo and others in cold states — get a generator or stock up on firewood.
O.K., so I didn’t run off and read about Kim and Kanye, instead I followed JimNorCal’s Steyn link and watched the video exchange with Charlie Kirk. Interesting. I absolutely agree with Kirk that there is plenty the states can do that they are not, currently doing. And they had better get busy doing those things. For far too long they have abrogated their 10th amendment rights. That’s why we’re in the mess we are in.
However, even more importantly, on the same page is an interview Steyn did with two of neo’s neighbors, Sam and Johannes von Trapp! Here’s the full interview: https://youtu.be/SXguGgst4zI
“Everyone made a gazillion dollars off ‘The Sound of Music,’ Rodgers and Hammerstein made a fortune, 20th Century Fox made a fortune, but you guys didn’t.” (Apparently Maria sold the rights for $9,000.00!) Her son, Johannes’s reply to Steyn’s statement: “My mother never listened to anyone!”
Who needs the Kardashians when there’s juicy, von Trapp family dirt to dish?!
(The interview even gets into the supply chain shortage.)
(Even a reference to PA Cat’s, “Lonely Goatherd” number.)
George Orwell’s novel 1984 is a recurrent topic here for our host, as well as a frequent point of reference in discussions. Is real life imitating art, if it does at all? When intellectual and information content is “curated” and controlled, are we not staring back at Big Brother?
This column (SEE LINK) discusses the Death of The Internet, as we’ve known it, and its growing Balkanisation — a decline from its former open cosmopolitanism.
If it moves further towards state or national or transnational content control, did Orwell predict this? Or is it instead one possible extension of his vision of the future in 1984? Where were all are soothed into sleeping with the Borg of unity of for all, despite the facts of reality on the ground?
These prospects occurred to me as I read this prognostication and what we must do to stop it.
Here’s the set up. During the ‘00s, there were some 14,000 Internet web site competing for attention. Today the top two command more views than the next 30 web sites combined.
After noting these important changes, and the increasingly powerful models of content control stemming from China and now the US, what about the future?
“Every large country or trade union will have its own local and strictly regulated internet. Connections between internets will occur on the vestigial remains of the big-I Internet, requiring a special business permits to access.
“China and the DPRK already work like this. If you want to communicate through the Great Firewall, you must have a registered business and specific need to do so. Russia has recently tested isolating itself from the Internet. The European Union continues to pursue aggressive censorship measures like TERREG, which would allow any member state of the EU to demand a web service hosted in any other EU member remove content within one hour, or be fined up to 4% of their global turnover in the last business year. The Internet cannot survive this sort of meddling for long.
While more centralized governments have the authority to shape their internet as they see fit, our politicians in the west have cumbersome obstacles to overcome, such as constitutional protections and a judicial process. Until these can be discarded, the government can simply bypass the courts and have companies to do the job for them. Companies are not restricted by the constitution in the same way as government, so as megacorp and government interests continue to mesh into one giant malaise, one can act for the other without causing problems. Even if the US Government cannot legislate a vague concept like ‘hate speech’, nothing stops the large social media companies from doing it for them.” https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2021-10-28/where-sidewalk-ends-death-internet
When corporations act on behalf of the state, carrying out their political policies and prohibiting Wrongthink, and encouraging approved Goodthink — are we not in Orwell’s fascist (socialist) totalised world instead of one of our own design?
We are going there, indeed. The above piece explains more about how vulnerable and fragile freedom online is, and how we might redeem the past information space we’ve taken for granted too long, before the Internet dies,
Sorry, just realized I wrote, “Shaq and O’Neal” in my comment at 2:41pm. Meant to write, “Shaq and Barkley.”
TJ,
I just wrote a very long reply to your comment that appears to have been eaten for some reason. I’ll try to recreate it later, but the short version is: Your prediction for the future of the Internet seems likely, but the technological cat is out of the bag and information will continue to flow and be free.
}}} The numbers of people leaving the blue for red and the collapse of the blue states/cities may also help.
Unfortunately, a large part of that is an infection, not a defection.
These peeps are liberal fools, unable to learn from errors. They go to places that are still good because they’re “blue”(GOP), and continue to support the same insane idiocy that created the problems in the state they’re fleeing.
AZ has been a GOP stronghold for almost its entire existence… Now it’s decidedly “purple” Ditto Nevada and New Hampshire.
I saw this on the financial news today. It is related to TJ’s comment. It’s a clip of Roger McNamee lobbing some invective at Facebook and Zuckerberg, and suggesting it could be the end of democracy.
Unfortunately, I don’t see how to link directly to the video, though for a time it should be listed here under the title: Facebook early investor: Metaverse rollout thrown together in ‘desperation’
Background: There was the Facebook whistleblower that damaged public perception a little, but didn’t affect the stock price much. Then Apple announced some restructuring of their advertising model, and that really hammered the Facebook stock price. Now Zuck is rolling out some new virtual reality stuff called Meta or the Metaverse and the stock has caught a little boost off of it.
We just got California refugees in our little North Carolina neighborhood. We’ve talked to them; they appear very unlikely to be Democrats.
“They are trying very hard to push people to a violent act that they can then use to justify a complete takeover.”
One might assume that’s why the “insurrection” had to be set up—i.e., instigated—the way it was. And why Ashli Babbitt, may she rest in peace (or someone like her) had to be murdered.
Alas, there was no resulting eruption of vengeance and rioting; so it didn’t quite work out for “Biden” (and Pelosi…and Wray? and Milley?) the way they probably wished it would have.
(To compensate, they had to push the “worse than Pearl Harbor, etc., etc.” line really hard, but merely ended up making fools of themselves.)
+ Bonus:
McAuliffe is BACK IN THE NEWS with more rape stories…
“Terry McAuliffe-Linked Law Firm Fighting Virginia Student Who Said She Was Gang-Raped.” https://twitter.com/LeeSmithDC/status/1453744923015061505
H/T Lee Smith twitter feed (both)
They’ll have to try harder next time….
BTW, Artful Dodger often commented on Stalinist GRU dirty tricks campaigns and how “elegantly” and complexly planned they were.
Looks like the Democrats and their weaponized government agencies have a bit of catching up to do….
(To be sure, Russia-gate was, one could argue, elegantly conceived and amazingly complex with its multi-dimensional levels of intrigue, govt./media self-referential reinforcement, international scope and number of cut-outs to provide plausible deniability—with the media riding shotgun…so as to make anyone remotely suggesting the possibility of government-initiated skullduggery appear like a crazed conspiracy theorist…. Hey! Kinda like January 6!)
The metric I care about is Voters Not Voting Democrat.
They don’t have to become conservative to be alarmed by Dems’ hard-core swerve to the left with obvious craziness like CRT and TG.
“Thanks to the Carroll partisans, journalists who claim that CRT doesn’t exist and that parents who oppose it are Astroturf are now promoting videos of actual Astroturf parents in Texas attacking school boards for “teaching both sides of the Holocaust”—something that’s absolutely not happening. The “dramatic” footage of “heroic” Texas parents is being used to supplant footage of genuinely heroic parents in other states fighting against CRT.
That’s why the Carroll District aktion was so damn good. Maybe it won’t kill HB3979, but that’s not the point.
To best explain the point, let’s do some Godfather II cosplay. I’ll be Hyman Roth, you be Michael. And you tell me about how you saw an interesting thing happen today. Some blue rebels in red Texas carried out a successful act of sabotage, even though they were outnumbered and outgunned. The rebels pulled the pin on one little audio clip and radically altered an entire debate, putting the state leadership on the defensive.
And I’ll reply, “So what does that tell you?”
And you respond, “That they can win.”
You can gauge the health of left and right by comparing how blues act in red states vs. how reds act in blue states. As the blue Texans were pulling off their successful op, here in L.A., the recall campaign against Soros DA George Gascon died, its deadline passed, no money, no signatures, no volunteers, no publicity in the conservative press.
Blues in red states act like the future is theirs. They act like they’ll eventually prevail, if not today, then soon.
That means they will.
Reds in blue states have given up, surrendered. They either stay home and cheer when they occasionally see something in popular media that “owns the libs,” or they pull up stakes and flee to Nebraskee or Tixiss or Montanee.”
Kate’s link to a PJ Media article about power grids and linemen was quite interesting. Sometimes I wonder how close the left-wing pols and technocrats installed in power are willing to take us towards Ted Kaczynski’s utopia.
@TommyJay:
“Kate’s link to a PJ Media article about power grids and linemen was quite interesting. Sometimes I wonder how close the left-wing pols and technocrats installed in power are willing to take us towards Ted Kaczynski’s utopia.”
Doubtless some wish it. But most are merely credentialed @#$%tards who have zero conception of how things work in the real world of physical things and hard constraints.
It’s all coming together now:
How some ‘Jewitches’ embrace both Judaism and witchcraft
But it’s OK… A School Board Member was chaperoning them.
“Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and owlet’s wing,—
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.”
*Roots around in Leviticus*
That’s a nope, ladies!
Is that a picture of a Mutabilis rose? One of my former homes had a huge one in the backyard, must have been about 6 ft tall and occupied a 12 ft diameter circle. Canes as big as my arm. I love the way the bloom changes color.
… most are merely credentialed @#$%tards who have zero conception of how things work in the real world of physical things and hard constraints. — Zaphod
That’s good point, but there is this old saying,
“If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”
So if they don’t stop digging and things continue to get very much worse, what is their excuse or motivation? It’s either that they are wedded to a toxic ideology, or they are profoundly stupid. It may not be exactly Ted Kaczynski’s ideology, but I think that many are in the ideology category.
@TommyJay:
Agree of course with you that there is a significant idealogical component and many of them want to see the world burn or to at least see their enemies burn. Why they think they themselves will escape the conflagration is anyone’s guess.
But still, I don’t think these folks have yet experienced enough personal hurt from systemic failures for us to say that they have been conclusively whacked about the head with the Clue Stick. Let’s see how the coming winter shapes up. Not that I have much hope that they’ll see any light. This is probably one of those things will have to be solved the hard old-fashioned way, if at all.
Gedankenexperiment: If Sociology and Education Professors were dying in droves from a flesh-eating virus which didn’t seem to affect the rest of the population, how serious would you or I be about getting to the bottom of it? 🙂
Kate,
A friend of ours in central coast California moved out to Asheville about a year ago. Definitely not a Democrat. She used to be a conservative warrior on Twitter until the threats got too bad.
SHIREHOME on October 28, 2021 at 10:52 am said:
Not feeling it today.
We are done as a United Country. Prove me wrong.
The sooner the better.
If you save “the country”, you save the 56% of young progressive white females yada yada yada who are diagnosed as psychologically disturbed; the subversive gurls of both sexes, the liberal grannies, all the people whose behaviors are killing freedom and turning our social and economic lives to shit.
You want to save your smug sister-in-law, your mocking pajama-boy son, the preening libs who’ve kindled fires that will eventually consume them too? … well you go right ahead.
Maybe you can, for a time. I hope it is worth it to you. And if you have emotional attachments to progs, then maybe it is.
As for me, it seems as pointless as these insane discussions we keep having here; as we pretend that a taste for liberty can be taught to the kind of an honorless organism that seeks social affirmation and place above all else. The grazing animals that Aristotle mentioned. Not that some of them are not exceedingly clever and determined, with a real will-to-power.
My only hope is that – and if this gets me tossed once again, so what – “nature” or the Norks or the Chinese, or Ebola or something will do what most of us are too reluctant to do, even to regain our liberties.
Then too, there is always the possibility of some technological break through which will be a game changer. That is what I am actually betting on.
But teaching teaching serviles and psychopaths to value what serviles and psychopaths per definition can never value?
Not worth it. Never was. Never worked. It is just not what they are interested in, not how their lives are internally programmed to play out. They may seem to hum along for the sake of inclusion, but they don’t really grasp nor feel the tune. It is not of them.
And that is why our good friend Zaphod’s Quixotic attempt to save “Western civilization” by saving so called “white people” is so … pointless. I mean half the Swedes alive are enemies of freedom every freedom except the freedom to seek orgasms with anything anywhere at anytime. Most white people are not “Western Civilization. They are consumers, belongers, status seekers. ‘All in the herd, nothing outside the herd’ as a famous Italian fascist once approximately said. [But with what Michael Caine as Alfie once referred to as a nice little private fiddle on the side]
Yeah. Good luck … with your trans boys and girls and your lavatory crawling 15 year olds doling out fellatio, and worse. Save them?
What for?
Zaphod,
I think we’ve always disagreed about being entirely Machiavellian. I agree that frequently one must fight fire with fire, but that doesn’t really address a desirable end point that any politically active person should have. Unless said person is a callous self-serving opportunist, in which case it does.
So, if there was a flesh eating virus … I wouldn’t be picketing to “Save the Profs!” But I might picket to “Fix the CDC” or “Restore Integrity in Medicine.” Because those latter two things are important for everybody.
Call me a cockeyed Samaritan.
@TommyJay:
Fair points. But how do you Fix the CDC or Restore Integrity in Medicine without putting serious hurt on some prime malefactors and scaring the living #$%^ out of the rest of them?
Something to ponder on a quiet evening at your farmhouse outside Florence 🙂
TommyJay @ 9:58pm:
“A friend of ours in central coast California moved out to Asheville about a year ago. Definitely not a Democrat. She used to be a conservative warrior on Twitter until the threats got too bad.”
I retire from the State Dept in a month and will likely settle in Asheville for a while, at least until I find the right property to build on in the general area. But within the Asheville city limits for more than a few months? No thanks. Gorgeous city, loved living there before I joined the Foreign Service, but it has become a leftist nightmare. In NC we call it “Chapel Hill in the mountains.” However, in that part of the state it is the advanced medical hub, and the small towns nearby are still quite nice and the mountains are spectacular, so as a retiree I’d like to be within striking distance. But, maybe your friend and I can make a difference.
Telemachus, Hendersonville is a nice town. You can easily get to Asheville but you don’t have to live with the lefties. Welcome to North Carolina.
}}} Gedankenexperiment: If Sociology and Education Professors were dying in droves from a flesh-eating virus which didn’t seem to affect the rest of the population…
Why limit it? Just take out all the non-STEM profs, if you wanted to be SURE you didn’t take out any Good Guys… :-p
Just leaving this here until I can find a Covid thread.
My kids’ school sent a note saying they can wear Halloween costumes to school tomorrow as long as they don’t cover the face because it will “hinder the learning environment.”
I was waiting for the punch line at the end but apparently they didn’t see the irony in their message
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Not feeling it today.
We are done as a United Country. Prove me wrong.
My ardent Democrat friend was staying at our house for a few days, weeks ago. He now unfailing refers to our country as the Divided States of America. He played a Bill Maher youtube clip for us where Maher, referencing the notion of playing the black national anthem at football games, said “No. We don’t have two national anthems.”
Well, I agree and appreciate the sentiment. It is typical that Democrats, or at least the voter base, is almost entirely focused on style over substance. Although flags and anthems are important styles.
There is hope:
– The resiliency of The People.
– The chance that the upcoming Virginia election may be the start of “the big unraveling”.
– Durham’s inexorable revelations, e.g.,
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/10/28/clinton_campaign_spread_bogus_alfa_bank_story_obama_admin-wide_to_press_trump-russia_probe_800927.html
The Democrats are demonstrating that in spite of their immense power, arrogance and absolute shamelessness, they are having trouble keeping all those cover-ups and lies in the air at one time. In spite of their best efforts the bottom may in fact be falling out.
They’ve planted the dragon’s teeth deep and have have watered them well; but they may not have prepared for the backlash.
Yes, it is all very dispiriting but there is hope.
And we will soon discover—rediscover, rather—whether it is in fact possible to fool all (or most of) the people all (or most of) the time. Or not.
“We are done as a United Country. Prove me wrong”
“When do we get to use the guns?”
Mark Steyn on the drift to CWII
https://www.steynonline.com/11826/coming-apart
(You’re welcome …)
Another thread on the supply chain crisis, how we got there, which echoes Rufus IIRC, and how the Biden administration is proposing things to make it permanently worse.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1453753924960219145.html
SHIREHOME,
It was ever thus.
JimNorCal, the guy in the video I believe is correct. They are trying very hard to push people to a violent act that they can then use to justify a complete takeover. Just look at how hard they keep pushing Jan 6. They thought they had it then, and now we see that they had infiltrators to help the process along. The sovereignty of the states through the 10th Ad may hold the line. The numbers of people leaving the blue for red and the collapse of the blue states/cities may also help. However, they are salivating for a conservative group to fire some weapons.
I’m just now reading Schlichter’s latest book where he lays out quite clearly this game of pushing the right to violence. There’s one particular protagonist who is masterminding the whole scenario to push the country to collapse. In fact, in the book the villain plans and then executes a situation where left protestors are killed by what appears to be a coordinated attack by conservatives, but are actually his operatives. The result is to tip the country over. Quite frightening but also eye opening.
I absolute agree physicsguy. We have been living through a color revolution. I think most Americans’ live and let live attitudes have made it more difficult to perpetrate than expected, but the other side has not given up.
January 6th was a blatant set-up. I smelled it right away. Glenn Beck and other Conservative voices begged folks not to fall for the trap.
Not only did so many state judiciaries stand down during last summer’s violence, prominent folks like Kamala Harris posted bail for violent rioters.
It’s a continual poking of the bear.
There are a hundred examples. How many people even noticed Jussie Smollett’s idiotic hoax attempt at racial unrest occurred just as Senators Kamala Harris and Corey Booker were pushing an anti-lynching bill in the Senate? What an amazing coincidence! Lynchings haven’t been a “thing” in this country for decades (and, are already, fortunately, very, very illegal), yet just as two striving politicians start politicking about lynchings on the Senate floor one of our nation’s treasured actors is nearly lynched!
Smollett is so dumb, and the hoax was so poorly executed, that even black athletes like Shaq and O’Neal mocked him, but, conveniently, the botched restraint of a low-level, career criminal in Minneapolis provided the necessary tinder for a racial Reichstag fire.
It’s interesting that our very own CIA invented the tactic of a color revolution. Just another incredible coincidence, I suppose.
Oh well, I’ve got to run. Kim and Kanye might be getting divorced and I’ve got to read up on the latest news! I just don’t have time to pay attention to state, local or federal politics.
January 6th was a blatant set-up. I smelled it right away. Glenn Beck and other Conservative voices begged folks not to fall for the trap. — Rufus
We’ve had some revealing info. on a guy like Ray Epps. But what about those other obviously suspicious Antifa styled pseudo-protestor types that were seen on videos played on Jan. 7 or 8?
They were up front, pulling on barricades and wearing the full Antifa outfit and kit, except the black jacket was replaced with an American flag jacket. Aren’t they clever. I guess when you have a hoody up, and a full face mask w/ industrial goggles on, you become literally invisible to all law enforcement.
______
… in the book the villain plans and then executes a situation where left protestors are killed by what appears to be a coordinated attack by conservatives, but are actually his operatives.
It’s not exactly the same, but similar to the old Stalin tactic. “Sell” the veracity of the double agent you’ve installed in some foreign intelligence agency by having him kill one of your own agents.
An interesting question at PJ Media: Vaccine mandates in northeastern states may keep out-of-state linemen from coming in to help after a big storm. Note to Neo and others in cold states — get a generator or stock up on firewood.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2021/10/27/exclusive-how-long-will-vaccine-authoritarians-sit-in-the-cold-and-the-dark-n1527346
O.K., so I didn’t run off and read about Kim and Kanye, instead I followed JimNorCal’s Steyn link and watched the video exchange with Charlie Kirk. Interesting. I absolutely agree with Kirk that there is plenty the states can do that they are not, currently doing. And they had better get busy doing those things. For far too long they have abrogated their 10th amendment rights. That’s why we’re in the mess we are in.
However, even more importantly, on the same page is an interview Steyn did with two of neo’s neighbors, Sam and Johannes von Trapp! Here’s the full interview: https://youtu.be/SXguGgst4zI
“Everyone made a gazillion dollars off ‘The Sound of Music,’ Rodgers and Hammerstein made a fortune, 20th Century Fox made a fortune, but you guys didn’t.” (Apparently Maria sold the rights for $9,000.00!) Her son, Johannes’s reply to Steyn’s statement: “My mother never listened to anyone!”
Who needs the Kardashians when there’s juicy, von Trapp family dirt to dish?!
(The interview even gets into the supply chain shortage.)
(Even a reference to PA Cat’s, “Lonely Goatherd” number.)
George Orwell’s novel 1984 is a recurrent topic here for our host, as well as a frequent point of reference in discussions. Is real life imitating art, if it does at all? When intellectual and information content is “curated” and controlled, are we not staring back at Big Brother?
This column (SEE LINK) discusses the Death of The Internet, as we’ve known it, and its growing Balkanisation — a decline from its former open cosmopolitanism.
If it moves further towards state or national or transnational content control, did Orwell predict this? Or is it instead one possible extension of his vision of the future in 1984? Where were all are soothed into sleeping with the Borg of unity of for all, despite the facts of reality on the ground?
These prospects occurred to me as I read this prognostication and what we must do to stop it.
Here’s the set up. During the ‘00s, there were some 14,000 Internet web site competing for attention. Today the top two command more views than the next 30 web sites combined.
After noting these important changes, and the increasingly powerful models of content control stemming from China and now the US, what about the future?
“Every large country or trade union will have its own local and strictly regulated internet. Connections between internets will occur on the vestigial remains of the big-I Internet, requiring a special business permits to access.
“China and the DPRK already work like this. If you want to communicate through the Great Firewall, you must have a registered business and specific need to do so. Russia has recently tested isolating itself from the Internet. The European Union continues to pursue aggressive censorship measures like TERREG, which would allow any member state of the EU to demand a web service hosted in any other EU member remove content within one hour, or be fined up to 4% of their global turnover in the last business year. The Internet cannot survive this sort of meddling for long.
While more centralized governments have the authority to shape their internet as they see fit, our politicians in the west have cumbersome obstacles to overcome, such as constitutional protections and a judicial process. Until these can be discarded, the government can simply bypass the courts and have companies to do the job for them. Companies are not restricted by the constitution in the same way as government, so as megacorp and government interests continue to mesh into one giant malaise, one can act for the other without causing problems. Even if the US Government cannot legislate a vague concept like ‘hate speech’, nothing stops the large social media companies from doing it for them.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2021-10-28/where-sidewalk-ends-death-internet
When corporations act on behalf of the state, carrying out their political policies and prohibiting Wrongthink, and encouraging approved Goodthink — are we not in Orwell’s fascist (socialist) totalised world instead of one of our own design?
We are going there, indeed. The above piece explains more about how vulnerable and fragile freedom online is, and how we might redeem the past information space we’ve taken for granted too long, before the Internet dies,
Sorry, just realized I wrote, “Shaq and O’Neal” in my comment at 2:41pm. Meant to write, “Shaq and Barkley.”
TJ,
I just wrote a very long reply to your comment that appears to have been eaten for some reason. I’ll try to recreate it later, but the short version is: Your prediction for the future of the Internet seems likely, but the technological cat is out of the bag and information will continue to flow and be free.
}}} The numbers of people leaving the blue for red and the collapse of the blue states/cities may also help.
Unfortunately, a large part of that is an infection, not a defection.
These peeps are liberal fools, unable to learn from errors. They go to places that are still good because they’re “blue”(GOP), and continue to support the same insane idiocy that created the problems in the state they’re fleeing.
AZ has been a GOP stronghold for almost its entire existence… Now it’s decidedly “purple” Ditto Nevada and New Hampshire.
I saw this on the financial news today. It is related to TJ’s comment. It’s a clip of Roger McNamee lobbing some invective at Facebook and Zuckerberg, and suggesting it could be the end of democracy.
Unfortunately, I don’t see how to link directly to the video, though for a time it should be listed here under the title:
Facebook early investor: Metaverse rollout thrown together in ‘desperation’
https://www.foxbusiness.com/shows/the-claman-countdown
Background: There was the Facebook whistleblower that damaged public perception a little, but didn’t affect the stock price much. Then Apple announced some restructuring of their advertising model, and that really hammered the Facebook stock price. Now Zuck is rolling out some new virtual reality stuff called Meta or the Metaverse and the stock has caught a little boost off of it.
We just got California refugees in our little North Carolina neighborhood. We’ve talked to them; they appear very unlikely to be Democrats.
“They are trying very hard to push people to a violent act that they can then use to justify a complete takeover.”
One might assume that’s why the “insurrection” had to be set up—i.e., instigated—the way it was. And why Ashli Babbitt, may she rest in peace (or someone like her) had to be murdered.
Alas, there was no resulting eruption of vengeance and rioting; so it didn’t quite work out for “Biden” (and Pelosi…and Wray? and Milley?) the way they probably wished it would have.
(To compensate, they had to push the “worse than Pearl Harbor, etc., etc.” line really hard, but merely ended up making fools of themselves.)
Related:
“Revolver News’ next investigative report will be the coup de grâce”
https://twitter.com/DarrenJBeattie/status/1453043885593276417
+ Bonus:
McAuliffe is BACK IN THE NEWS with more rape stories…
“Terry McAuliffe-Linked Law Firm Fighting Virginia Student Who Said She Was Gang-Raped.”
https://twitter.com/LeeSmithDC/status/1453744923015061505
H/T Lee Smith twitter feed (both)
They’ll have to try harder next time….
BTW, Artful Dodger often commented on Stalinist GRU dirty tricks campaigns and how “elegantly” and complexly planned they were.
Looks like the Democrats and their weaponized government agencies have a bit of catching up to do….
(To be sure, Russia-gate was, one could argue, elegantly conceived and amazingly complex with its multi-dimensional levels of intrigue, govt./media self-referential reinforcement, international scope and number of cut-outs to provide plausible deniability—with the media riding shotgun…so as to make anyone remotely suggesting the possibility of government-initiated skullduggery appear like a crazed conspiracy theorist…. Hey! Kinda like January 6!)
The metric I care about is Voters Not Voting Democrat.
They don’t have to become conservative to be alarmed by Dems’ hard-core swerve to the left with obvious craziness like CRT and TG.
Their numbers are growing.
Peace Rose?
Immigrant of the Week:
https://www.westernjournal.com/teen-immigrant-charged-3-counts-murder-released-jail-attend-school/
David Cole on How the Sausage is Made:
https://www.takimag.com/article/both-sides-now-in-the-key-of-auschwitz/
“Thanks to the Carroll partisans, journalists who claim that CRT doesn’t exist and that parents who oppose it are Astroturf are now promoting videos of actual Astroturf parents in Texas attacking school boards for “teaching both sides of the Holocaust”—something that’s absolutely not happening. The “dramatic” footage of “heroic” Texas parents is being used to supplant footage of genuinely heroic parents in other states fighting against CRT.
That’s why the Carroll District aktion was so damn good. Maybe it won’t kill HB3979, but that’s not the point.
To best explain the point, let’s do some Godfather II cosplay. I’ll be Hyman Roth, you be Michael. And you tell me about how you saw an interesting thing happen today. Some blue rebels in red Texas carried out a successful act of sabotage, even though they were outnumbered and outgunned. The rebels pulled the pin on one little audio clip and radically altered an entire debate, putting the state leadership on the defensive.
And I’ll reply, “So what does that tell you?”
And you respond, “That they can win.”
You can gauge the health of left and right by comparing how blues act in red states vs. how reds act in blue states. As the blue Texans were pulling off their successful op, here in L.A., the recall campaign against Soros DA George Gascon died, its deadline passed, no money, no signatures, no volunteers, no publicity in the conservative press.
Blues in red states act like the future is theirs. They act like they’ll eventually prevail, if not today, then soon.
That means they will.
Reds in blue states have given up, surrendered. They either stay home and cheer when they occasionally see something in popular media that “owns the libs,” or they pull up stakes and flee to Nebraskee or Tixiss or Montanee.”
Meanwhile, in Moscow:
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/088/999/855/original/eb97a701810c985d.png
More Please!
Kate’s link to a PJ Media article about power grids and linemen was quite interesting. Sometimes I wonder how close the left-wing pols and technocrats installed in power are willing to take us towards Ted Kaczynski’s utopia.
@TommyJay:
“Kate’s link to a PJ Media article about power grids and linemen was quite interesting. Sometimes I wonder how close the left-wing pols and technocrats installed in power are willing to take us towards Ted Kaczynski’s utopia.”
Doubtless some wish it. But most are merely credentialed @#$%tards who have zero conception of how things work in the real world of physical things and hard constraints.
It’s all coming together now:
How some ‘Jewitches’ embrace both Judaism and witchcraft
https://apnews.com/article/religion-judaism-aa34f2501659dfb3a31ca5956860ebc5
Surely Covens of Cohens presage the End Times.
And from no less than Broward County whence all good and wholesome things come:
Elementary school students taken to gay bar on field trip:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/elementary-school-students-taken-gay-163000156.html
But it’s OK… A School Board Member was chaperoning them.
“Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and owlet’s wing,—
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.”
*Roots around in Leviticus*
That’s a nope, ladies!
Is that a picture of a Mutabilis rose? One of my former homes had a huge one in the backyard, must have been about 6 ft tall and occupied a 12 ft diameter circle. Canes as big as my arm. I love the way the bloom changes color.
… most are merely credentialed @#$%tards who have zero conception of how things work in the real world of physical things and hard constraints. — Zaphod
That’s good point, but there is this old saying,
“If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”
So if they don’t stop digging and things continue to get very much worse, what is their excuse or motivation? It’s either that they are wedded to a toxic ideology, or they are profoundly stupid. It may not be exactly Ted Kaczynski’s ideology, but I think that many are in the ideology category.
@TommyJay:
Agree of course with you that there is a significant idealogical component and many of them want to see the world burn or to at least see their enemies burn. Why they think they themselves will escape the conflagration is anyone’s guess.
But still, I don’t think these folks have yet experienced enough personal hurt from systemic failures for us to say that they have been conclusively whacked about the head with the Clue Stick. Let’s see how the coming winter shapes up. Not that I have much hope that they’ll see any light. This is probably one of those things will have to be solved the hard old-fashioned way, if at all.
Gedankenexperiment: If Sociology and Education Professors were dying in droves from a flesh-eating virus which didn’t seem to affect the rest of the population, how serious would you or I be about getting to the bottom of it? 🙂
Kate,
A friend of ours in central coast California moved out to Asheville about a year ago. Definitely not a Democrat. She used to be a conservative warrior on Twitter until the threats got too bad.
The sooner the better.
If you save “the country”, you save the 56% of young progressive white females yada yada yada who are diagnosed as psychologically disturbed; the subversive gurls of both sexes, the liberal grannies, all the people whose behaviors are killing freedom and turning our social and economic lives to shit.
You want to save your smug sister-in-law, your mocking pajama-boy son, the preening libs who’ve kindled fires that will eventually consume them too? … well you go right ahead.
Maybe you can, for a time. I hope it is worth it to you. And if you have emotional attachments to progs, then maybe it is.
As for me, it seems as pointless as these insane discussions we keep having here; as we pretend that a taste for liberty can be taught to the kind of an honorless organism that seeks social affirmation and place above all else. The grazing animals that Aristotle mentioned. Not that some of them are not exceedingly clever and determined, with a real will-to-power.
My only hope is that – and if this gets me tossed once again, so what – “nature” or the Norks or the Chinese, or Ebola or something will do what most of us are too reluctant to do, even to regain our liberties.
Then too, there is always the possibility of some technological break through which will be a game changer. That is what I am actually betting on.
But teaching teaching serviles and psychopaths to value what serviles and psychopaths per definition can never value?
Not worth it. Never was. Never worked. It is just not what they are interested in, not how their lives are internally programmed to play out. They may seem to hum along for the sake of inclusion, but they don’t really grasp nor feel the tune. It is not of them.
And that is why our good friend Zaphod’s Quixotic attempt to save “Western civilization” by saving so called “white people” is so … pointless. I mean half the Swedes alive are enemies of freedom every freedom except the freedom to seek orgasms with anything anywhere at anytime. Most white people are not “Western Civilization. They are consumers, belongers, status seekers. ‘All in the herd, nothing outside the herd’ as a famous Italian fascist once approximately said. [But with what Michael Caine as Alfie once referred to as a nice little private fiddle on the side]
Yeah. Good luck … with your trans boys and girls and your lavatory crawling 15 year olds doling out fellatio, and worse. Save them?
What for?
Zaphod,
I think we’ve always disagreed about being entirely Machiavellian. I agree that frequently one must fight fire with fire, but that doesn’t really address a desirable end point that any politically active person should have. Unless said person is a callous self-serving opportunist, in which case it does.
So, if there was a flesh eating virus … I wouldn’t be picketing to “Save the Profs!” But I might picket to “Fix the CDC” or “Restore Integrity in Medicine.” Because those latter two things are important for everybody.
Call me a cockeyed Samaritan.
@TommyJay:
Fair points. But how do you Fix the CDC or Restore Integrity in Medicine without putting serious hurt on some prime malefactors and scaring the living #$%^ out of the rest of them?
Something to ponder on a quiet evening at your farmhouse outside Florence 🙂
TommyJay @ 9:58pm:
“A friend of ours in central coast California moved out to Asheville about a year ago. Definitely not a Democrat. She used to be a conservative warrior on Twitter until the threats got too bad.”
I retire from the State Dept in a month and will likely settle in Asheville for a while, at least until I find the right property to build on in the general area. But within the Asheville city limits for more than a few months? No thanks. Gorgeous city, loved living there before I joined the Foreign Service, but it has become a leftist nightmare. In NC we call it “Chapel Hill in the mountains.” However, in that part of the state it is the advanced medical hub, and the small towns nearby are still quite nice and the mountains are spectacular, so as a retiree I’d like to be within striking distance. But, maybe your friend and I can make a difference.
Telemachus, Hendersonville is a nice town. You can easily get to Asheville but you don’t have to live with the lefties. Welcome to North Carolina.
OTOH…
“I have to say I am feeling pretty good about the USA at the moment….”
https://twitter.com/normonics/status/1453908154387927042
H/T Ron Coleman twitter blog.
}}} Gedankenexperiment: If
Sociology and EducationProfessors were dying in droves from a flesh-eating virus which didn’t seem to affect the rest of the population…Why limit it? Just take out all the non-STEM profs, if you wanted to be SURE you didn’t take out any Good Guys… :-p
Just leaving this here until I can find a Covid thread.
https://twitter.com/NBSaphierMD/status/1453901265268793379
Let it sink in.
For the Tweet-free, this is the text: