A Long Time Ago, In a Country Far Far Away… 4 years ago, at this exact moment, we were in the “two weeks” that were supposed to flatten the Curve of Covid. 4 years ago you were still a “conspiracy theorist” if you thought it would be anything more than a minor inconvenience that would last less than a month.
I made a complete fool of myself four years ago, bragging to my Australian girlfriend who lives in Berlin that "Americans would never stand for travel restrictions".
Wow did I fuck **that** up. Red on my face.
I vastly overestimated both my countrymen, and frankly, myself.
You were partially right. America was the least lockdown of any 1st world country aside from sweden... And everyone just faked vax passes.
Canada developed and entire dystopian Arrive-Can app to track you and you had to play papers please and lie your way through checkpoints and feign ignorance...
Yeah, but I was talking straight up civil disobedience / polite noncompliance, if not armed insurrection. My people did not do *nearly* as well as I'd hoped.
I suppose we likely got the 3% I could have reasonably expected.
Still... *headshake* it was a serious wake up call as far as my opinion of the population. Frankly, I thought we were just more cantankerous than that.
At any rate, here we are, and there's the future. Use what we've got to weather the impending storm.
I'm actually really thankful lockdown happened, if what's coming is what I think's coming it will have had a good effect of radicalizing and training people to raise their hackles fast.
I never would have expected people to go along with lockdowns, but in late 2021 I certainly didn't expect the freedom convoy.
It trained people to assume Alex jones is understating it
You are not the only one. Initially, I played along with the theater because (a) given my medical history, if this thing was half as deadly as it was said to be, I was a goner anyway; (b) it was funny to walk into banks those first couple of weeks dressed like a stagecoach robber; and (c) I was sure that by the end of two weeks, enough people would have broken free and just gone back to what they were doing.
There is not enough rope in the world to atone for the panic caused deliberately and purposefully.
I will grant that I did quite enjoy walking into banks wearing my cowboy hat and a bandana across my nose and mouth. That shit was *hilarious*.
I was working as a truck driver at the moment the pandemic restrictions started, with every town, city and state having different rules about everything. The company I was driving for had their lawyers come up with something that was notionally supposed to get us through that sort of thing, saying we were essential. I never had to use it, but there were places shutting down truck stops until they realized damn quick that wasn't going to fly...
After the definition of "essential" expanded so quickly and so erratically, I was sure that obviously, this madness would have to end because in a modern society, with all of its interconnected moving parts, basically everyone who doesn't have a government job is actually "essential" and that would become obvious. Clearly, since that idiocy was still firmly in place 22 months later when I *stopped* being a long haul truck driver, that didn't happen. I mean, it's been four years and some things still haven't gone back to normal yet. (Yeah, yeah, whatever "normal" is. 🤔 ) Frankly, I don't want "normal" again, I want the Constitution. Nothing more, and nothing less. As long as I'm making wishes, I'd also like thrice my weight in Krugerrands and a really awesome car.
Really scratching my head, trying to envision what the world will look like in 10 years, and how to improve the odds of my family surviving and, perhaps, thriving.
Alex Jones, as he himself would say, is no Cassandra; just someone who pays attention and follows the money. Being a Texan, he has a natural inclination to especially follow the money from big banks and Big Oil.
That said, great post! You hit so many nails on their heads I still hear the echoes.
does anyone have any experience that points towards this claim that things will be worse? I had like 5 people accuse me of killing grandma, it was all anyone would talk about. While what two 80 year olds who wont even fight, who Ive seen people call trump hilter for a decade I have to imagine living 4 years under trump and watching all the people not move to canada will undermine that claim.
By all means the next election may be extremely exciting, when the walking corpses get replaced it will be important to know with who, will they be open to the idea of building a wall between silicon valley/new york and the rest of america?
But this time?, 2 ancient old men probably who wont have a debate people and made up their mind a decade ago? Nah they both will ruin the legal system either way unless trump gained a bunch of wisdom he will probably take revenge is a fairly ineffective way.
Eventually either boomers will be outnumbered and holding on to power with even more apparent effects of their gross mismanagement with 90 years olds in which case I would expect a violent revolution, cause at that point Id join in, we cant have 10 more years of even more senile people in power or someone young will be up at bat and thats a major roll of the dice.
Excellent writing. I’m saving this in the archives. You distilled the pst arch of events very well. I hope to be able to tell my children and grandchildren about these times, in the same way my grandparents told me about growing up during the Great Depression. I will probably reference this article (assuming we are all still around and I can access it). I am still hopeful, cautiously so. I am heartened by you and others who have seen things clearly, and for those who are also seeing and preparing as best as we can. Keep up the fire!
> Even Zionism, usually the secret power behind “nothing ever happens” (because funds and arms need to keep going to the middle-east) is now up against the wall and according to commentators I follow looking at a hot war in Lebanon around April/May that probably won’t be decisive… but Netanyahu just needs to keep the crisis going so that elections can’t be held and he can’t be removed and charged (something the Israelis wanted to do before Oct 7th and what will inevitably turn out to be his malicious negligence).
Still bitter that your prediction about Gaza turning into a quagmire failed to happen?
I doubt Trump will do anything if reelected. If he was going to do something he would have started doing it in 2016, or 2018 during the blatant mid-terms election fraud, or 2020.
The reason the anti-trumperism is more token this time around is because they know he won't do anything. He's still a bit of a wild card but the worst he'll do is fail to invade Iran. And seeing how pro-israel he is lately that's looking doubtful.
Okinawa during WWII lives is another vivid example of women killing their children and themselves when they hurled themselves over a cliff to avoid shameful captivity, which they were convinced awaited them from the approaching Americans.
As for Napolean's retreat from the 1812 Moscow campaign, "Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier", written by a German conscript pressed into the Grand Armee, is a grim classic and still in print.
Finally the docility of Americans (which persists and might just be chronic) I found truly shocking. "I tremble for my country ....".
It's like that calm after dinner in the card room of the titanic. Perfect bright sky filled with stars, the sea calm as a mirror, the brandy hitting just right.
And then this awful tearing sound from the bow. The confused looks. The glass set aside.
That's not why Bligh was tried btw, he was tried because it was a legal requirement for any captain who lost his ship for any reason to face court martial. Most of them were formal affairs where everyone just went through the motions (although the possibility that it might not be kept people motivated).
Kulak mentioned Bligh in one of her other essays, I assumed you were referring to that.
I think the first instance was over a captain who lost his ship to a boarding action and was later deemed to have not "done his utmost" to fight off the enemy so they executed him. It followed a pattern where royal navy captains were expected to be almost suicidally aggressive or face serious legal consequences.
As you say, even if most such court martials ended in acquittal, the fact that they might not was a hanging sword in and of itself. After all, one's bitter enemy might end up chairing the court martial and ending your career or worse.
Good example with the ephors. I've always thought that was an excellent custom. Maybe we should be reviving it.
I made a complete fool of myself four years ago, bragging to my Australian girlfriend who lives in Berlin that "Americans would never stand for travel restrictions".
Wow did I fuck **that** up. Red on my face.
I vastly overestimated both my countrymen, and frankly, myself.
Oops.
Welcome to The Endarkenment.
You were partially right. America was the least lockdown of any 1st world country aside from sweden... And everyone just faked vax passes.
Canada developed and entire dystopian Arrive-Can app to track you and you had to play papers please and lie your way through checkpoints and feign ignorance...
Yeah, but I was talking straight up civil disobedience / polite noncompliance, if not armed insurrection. My people did not do *nearly* as well as I'd hoped.
I suppose we likely got the 3% I could have reasonably expected.
Still... *headshake* it was a serious wake up call as far as my opinion of the population. Frankly, I thought we were just more cantankerous than that.
At any rate, here we are, and there's the future. Use what we've got to weather the impending storm.
I'm actually really thankful lockdown happened, if what's coming is what I think's coming it will have had a good effect of radicalizing and training people to raise their hackles fast.
I never would have expected people to go along with lockdowns, but in late 2021 I certainly didn't expect the freedom convoy.
It trained people to assume Alex jones is understating it
It opened my eyes. Prior to, I was a legacy, multi-generational, true-blue believer in the systems. I am willingly smashing my false idols.
You are not the only one. Initially, I played along with the theater because (a) given my medical history, if this thing was half as deadly as it was said to be, I was a goner anyway; (b) it was funny to walk into banks those first couple of weeks dressed like a stagecoach robber; and (c) I was sure that by the end of two weeks, enough people would have broken free and just gone back to what they were doing.
There is not enough rope in the world to atone for the panic caused deliberately and purposefully.
I will grant that I did quite enjoy walking into banks wearing my cowboy hat and a bandana across my nose and mouth. That shit was *hilarious*.
I was working as a truck driver at the moment the pandemic restrictions started, with every town, city and state having different rules about everything. The company I was driving for had their lawyers come up with something that was notionally supposed to get us through that sort of thing, saying we were essential. I never had to use it, but there were places shutting down truck stops until they realized damn quick that wasn't going to fly...
After the definition of "essential" expanded so quickly and so erratically, I was sure that obviously, this madness would have to end because in a modern society, with all of its interconnected moving parts, basically everyone who doesn't have a government job is actually "essential" and that would become obvious. Clearly, since that idiocy was still firmly in place 22 months later when I *stopped* being a long haul truck driver, that didn't happen. I mean, it's been four years and some things still haven't gone back to normal yet. (Yeah, yeah, whatever "normal" is. 🤔 ) Frankly, I don't want "normal" again, I want the Constitution. Nothing more, and nothing less. As long as I'm making wishes, I'd also like thrice my weight in Krugerrands and a really awesome car.
*sigh*
Sobering read, and, I suspect, quite accurate.
Really scratching my head, trying to envision what the world will look like in 10 years, and how to improve the odds of my family surviving and, perhaps, thriving.
Alex Jones, as he himself would say, is no Cassandra; just someone who pays attention and follows the money. Being a Texan, he has a natural inclination to especially follow the money from big banks and Big Oil.
That said, great post! You hit so many nails on their heads I still hear the echoes.
does anyone have any experience that points towards this claim that things will be worse? I had like 5 people accuse me of killing grandma, it was all anyone would talk about. While what two 80 year olds who wont even fight, who Ive seen people call trump hilter for a decade I have to imagine living 4 years under trump and watching all the people not move to canada will undermine that claim.
By all means the next election may be extremely exciting, when the walking corpses get replaced it will be important to know with who, will they be open to the idea of building a wall between silicon valley/new york and the rest of america?
But this time?, 2 ancient old men probably who wont have a debate people and made up their mind a decade ago? Nah they both will ruin the legal system either way unless trump gained a bunch of wisdom he will probably take revenge is a fairly ineffective way.
Eventually either boomers will be outnumbered and holding on to power with even more apparent effects of their gross mismanagement with 90 years olds in which case I would expect a violent revolution, cause at that point Id join in, we cant have 10 more years of even more senile people in power or someone young will be up at bat and thats a major roll of the dice.
Well said
Excellent writing. I’m saving this in the archives. You distilled the pst arch of events very well. I hope to be able to tell my children and grandchildren about these times, in the same way my grandparents told me about growing up during the Great Depression. I will probably reference this article (assuming we are all still around and I can access it). I am still hopeful, cautiously so. I am heartened by you and others who have seen things clearly, and for those who are also seeing and preparing as best as we can. Keep up the fire!
> Even Zionism, usually the secret power behind “nothing ever happens” (because funds and arms need to keep going to the middle-east) is now up against the wall and according to commentators I follow looking at a hot war in Lebanon around April/May that probably won’t be decisive… but Netanyahu just needs to keep the crisis going so that elections can’t be held and he can’t be removed and charged (something the Israelis wanted to do before Oct 7th and what will inevitably turn out to be his malicious negligence).
Still bitter that your prediction about Gaza turning into a quagmire failed to happen?
Well worth a viewing……
The Incredible Parallels Between 9/11 & COVID | Richard Gage, AIA & Madhava Setty, MD
https://rumble.com/v4hsic2-the-incredible-parallels-between-911-and-covid-richard-gage-aia-and-madhava.html
I doubt Trump will do anything if reelected. If he was going to do something he would have started doing it in 2016, or 2018 during the blatant mid-terms election fraud, or 2020.
The reason the anti-trumperism is more token this time around is because they know he won't do anything. He's still a bit of a wild card but the worst he'll do is fail to invade Iran. And seeing how pro-israel he is lately that's looking doubtful.
FACTS
Okinawa during WWII lives is another vivid example of women killing their children and themselves when they hurled themselves over a cliff to avoid shameful captivity, which they were convinced awaited them from the approaching Americans.
As for Napolean's retreat from the 1812 Moscow campaign, "Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier", written by a German conscript pressed into the Grand Armee, is a grim classic and still in print.
Finally the docility of Americans (which persists and might just be chronic) I found truly shocking. "I tremble for my country ....".
Nice work.
Woops! The first two comments apply to 'Feral Aryan Feminity' of course (must be the vaccine).
It's like that calm after dinner in the card room of the titanic. Perfect bright sky filled with stars, the sea calm as a mirror, the brandy hitting just right.
And then this awful tearing sound from the bow. The confused looks. The glass set aside.
And then the alarms.
“Nothing ever happens” bros have always been guilty of goalpost-moving.
That's not why Bligh was tried btw, he was tried because it was a legal requirement for any captain who lost his ship for any reason to face court martial. Most of them were formal affairs where everyone just went through the motions (although the possibility that it might not be kept people motivated).
Kulak mentioned Bligh in one of her other essays, I assumed you were referring to that.
I think the first instance was over a captain who lost his ship to a boarding action and was later deemed to have not "done his utmost" to fight off the enemy so they executed him. It followed a pattern where royal navy captains were expected to be almost suicidally aggressive or face serious legal consequences.
As you say, even if most such court martials ended in acquittal, the fact that they might not was a hanging sword in and of itself. After all, one's bitter enemy might end up chairing the court martial and ending your career or worse.
Good example with the ephors. I've always thought that was an excellent custom. Maybe we should be reviving it.