Wolf Blitzer of CNN – the news station of record, certainly in the United States, and probably the world (certainly the most ubiquitous one) – calmly and nonchalantly asking Senator Rand Paul in 2016 if Paul considers halting the assistance of the U.S. executive branch (without any Congressional involvement) and American munitions makers to Saudi Arabia to conduct its bombing of Yemen at the time, and which created a humanitarian catastrophe and major refugee crisis in Yemen, to be more important than the money and American jobs that would be lost at the plants of the munitions makers if Paul were to get his way and the assistance to S.A. were ended.
A completely repellent and morally vacant question, and one that, in the way it was asked, and the major platform on which it was asked, normalizes the perspective, makes it sound like a reasonable, counter-balancing concern. To restate the question less prettily; ‘Is it wise or practical that we stop raining down mayhem & death on all these largely innocent people in that foreign land,’ – and in support of a known completely authoritarian state which we should not be allied within the first place – ‘is your moral concern, Senator Paul, more important than the loss of income to the munitions makers and the loss of American jobs if those munitions don’t get made and used?’
The query of a remorseless person of no empathy, a sociopath, perhaps. Or, possibly, just a vacuous shill doing what he was likely instructed to do: Pit Paul’s appeal to conscience (and to the demands of the Constitution that Congress is the entity delegated with war making authority, not the Executive Branch) against the financial interests of Americans, thus making Rand’s hill to climb a steeper one. Or both (to do that job a person would likely need a stunted conscience, I would assume).
People should get bombed so Americans can make profits and have jobs? That’s a real question? We should talk and argue and debate about the subtleties and nuances of that? Blitzer surely did his part, his job, to make that calculus appear legitimate and rational to anyone hearing it.
Just peak scumbaggery. His own and his betters. Amazing that Paul did not call him on the obscenity of the question. To be governed by such people and the system that puts them in place is unacceptable, to put it blandly. I don’t consent to any of it. No one should.
This gentleman routinely and plainly describes the situation, tendencies and dynamics of human society in a way I completely agree with. Were all those that have the capacity to do so to flip the switch and view things more realistically and as fully as is possible, down to core, behind the scenes aspects, and understand that nothing will or can be ever remediated as society is currently ordered, by design, then the theoretical possibility for a change for the better would exist. So I believe.
In this Encore episode I bring back an episode that lays out a way to provide a paradigm shift that makes all the difference. If people could just see what the govt really is then so many…
I follow a board on Facebook that exists to post and comment on photos of abandoned buildings and various other discarded things around the State of Illinois (where I was raised). The photos therein, besides being poignant, interesting, fun, and often beautiful, also tell a tale, are evidence of a profound societal unraveling, one that’s been underway for a long time, decades, and which is part of an even bigger picture still. These rural ghost dwellings & the places where they exist – they are all over the country, from sea to shining sea – are unwinding, decaying, collapsing and departing, and will not be replaced or even inhabited much longer, being and having been long and largely neglected, impoverished and rapidly idiocratized (the word is apt, I’m afraid) and so made completely and irretrievably non-viable, at least as currently configured, and that’s not an accident. The concurrent shattering, and now rapid, degradation and chaos of many cities is a partner phenomenon, guided by the same hands, just populated and experienced by people that mostly vote differently and watch different news channels.
I’m writing this here to share there, so that what I’ve written has a primary, stable place to exist and remain should the admins of the abandoned places FB group board choose not allow it on the board, being very much on-topic, but off-point. I hope it will be allowed on the board (please leave a comment if you came here via FB, thanks), as I find that people fascinated by ghost things to also be, for whatever reasons and quite often, curious & generally thoughtful (this author excluded, of course 😉), so, thinking my odds of reaching some open minds improved by this tendency, even on Facebook, and having been on that board awhile now, I thought I would share a non-mincing gentleman discussing plainly his experience and perspective of driving recently through some ghost places and dying towns in Texas (while obviously not a person of the Left, the man you will hear, ‘Legalman’ – he has many insightful webcasts – is not a Republican, conservative, or Trump fan, and expresses his critique and contempt of the Right often in his many webcasts).
Some blunt, stark talk (he’s not missing his calling as a flowery diplomat), which will surely offend delicate ears and minds, but he’s correct and truthful, or rather, sincere, as his assessment could be proven incorrect by the passage of time (though I doubt it will be), or so he seems to me. Way beyond Red vs. Blue, certainly, a vantage point that thoughtful people ought move beyond as immediately as possible now, if they haven’t already (I would guess a lot of the ghost things people might already have, or would be inclined to, as a fascination with that subject seems to be a thinker’s or a poet’s ‘tell’, as they say in poker, however shallow, callous and contentious the tone of social media exchanges often are elsewhere).
Much has been written about why these places and their inhabitants are like they now are; the slow decay from vibrant & vital farming communities and factory towns into shrinking backwaters of poverty, crime, drugs, grotesque ill-health and idleness. What is obvious and verifiable to any mindful traveler or reader is that, to a significant degree, this a guided and intended trajectory, and one aspect of that trajectory is the future closing-off of the countryside and wilderness, of most rural and remote areas, the relatively near future now, partly by rendering them and the people that live in them not viable, economically, physically, intellectually, mentally and logistically, leading to a die-off of the sick, incompetent & old, and an exodus of the young and able, and eventually, once vacated to a sufficient point, deeming such areas as restricted for human use (just a very broad and ultimate use of eminent domain). It’s a longstanding agenda that’s been laid out in great detail by the U.N. and furthered and complemented more recently by the World Economic Forum with its plan, The Great Reset (of which the c19 social phenomenon plays a major catalyzing role; as will threats and claims of whatever disease, going forward), and is now, finally, coming noticeably to pass, and there are no tin-foil hats involved, only people that don’t mind acknowledging the stated and the obvious, as creepy as it is.
I thought that worth noting on a board where, without mentioning causes, they track and note and lament the physical progress of that trajectory, and the general, major physical unraveling of the very different world many visiting the board were born into, so different a place that it’s hard to imagine it occupied not long ago the same space we live in now.
In this AH episode I discuss the complete collapse of a part of the country I drove through. The mutants have taken over. Nothing will be working soon in this zone. If you like The Quash…
Is it acceptable to say yet in polite company that the ‘remedies’ are now orders of magnitude more fearsome, gruesome and harmful than the modest risk they are supposedly meant to mitigate? For those that would say, ‘But that’s China! Would never happen here.’, I would respond that China has received praise for its handling of the ‘crisis’ from people at the public servant forefront of the c19 social phenomenon in Western countries, and there is certainly no outcry or condemnation from the officialdom of the West. It can happen anywhere, especially while people continue to claim that it can’t, completely ignoring history in so doing.
Who cares, anyway, where it’s happening? The crisis, response and policies were global ones, and mostly uniform from the start. China is just the leading edge of all of it. A totalitarian place where the state can do absolutely anything it wants without hesitation or possibility of reprisal, and a testing ground.
How close to Terminator and 1984 does the world have to get, I wonder, even if not yet fully in place on one’s own shores, before the regular people that live upon it (not those running it), that have thus far supported the extreme and irrational measures taken to contain a relatively minor viral risk for anyone under 70, might rethink that support, and start showing some concern for their own basic liberty and that of others? Is one ‘safe’ without freedom? Is the greater good served by its removal, by its conversion from fundamental right to conditional privilege? Is it not obvious that getting a virus is by far the more benign scenario in comparison to the totalitarian ‘safety’ measures China has put in place, and which are likely to get exported elsewhere, to some degree or another (and already have been to Australia and New Zealand)?
What are supporters of official policy and narrative going to do if it does and the health services come for their animals? Will it finally register then what they’re supporting, and that those measures have nothing at all to do with public safety or the ‘greater good’, or will they just hand over their family member – that’s what pets are for many or most – for slaughter and continue trusting and apologizing for the ‘authorities’ and such vicious policies?
What a horrifying end for those suicides and animals (dogs are being slaughtered, as well). Imagine the torment of the jumpers (some apparently have no food, and can’t even leave their homes to get any), not knowing when it might ever end, deciding they can’t do it anymore. Imagine the ongoing anguish and memory of those that have their animals taken, trying to live with watching your beloved creature ripped from your arms and stuffed in a bag, looking out at you wondering what’s going on? The impotency and transgression, the violation of that moment, and the memory it would create, is hard for me to imagine being able to reconcile with. That’s staggering harm caused to a person’s psyche and soul. And, compared to catching and fighting a virus? That’s the benefit? I’d rather lose to the virus than experience the moment of my animal being taken.
Most important, can you imagine the hearts, minds and souls of those issuing such orders, and, of those carrying them out? Look at the videos linked herein. I assume they are sadists and sociopaths. Without empathy, certainly. Ultimately, they are the problem and the heart of the phenomenon, what makes it possible. Those people start refusing their ‘orders’ and it all ends.
Plenty of people in the West admire the Chinese state, its orderliness and resolve. Do you want to be living in a world dominated by such people, by THAT energy and outlook and credo? Would it not be incalculably better to risk contracting a survivable virus, however unpleasant, which if you survive, as you likely would, you would then have natural immunity from, than to face the risks, evil, ugliness, and quality of life obliteration that this all represents?
All the ‘measures’ were nominally about public safety, the general welfare. No one is safer for any of this, and the general welfare has been dealt a savage blow, a deadly genie released from its bottle.
I hope people are starting to see it. A Rubicon has definitely been crossed. It won’t just be China, and there will be other pathogens. Always, and this one was/is mild and very survivable. If freedom is now conditioned upon the absence of contagious pathogens in society, then we no longer have it.
It’s time for all of us to face it: China’s latest lockdown is a crime against humanity-and we ignore it at our peril, because what’s happening there will surely happen here eventually, if we let it
This is as clear as the distinction between individual liberty/self-ownership and collectivism – i.e., enforced association with a ‘group’, and the idea that the group owns the individuals thought to comprise it, or has the controlling interest, at least – can be made.
Macron’s position means that someone, and in this case, also that someone’s child, being actively trespassed against and threatened, property and person(s), will be considered criminally in the wrong for defending himself and his child in the moment against the threat, and should simply submit to the will of the intruders if police help cannot be called in time to intervene, or perhaps called at all. If they are harmed or killed, so be it. Bad luck for them, and maybe next time the police will get there in time to avert the same outcome, but at least the group will feel ‘safe’ knowing that the (law abiding) citizenry is disarmed. Meaning, I guess, that in the event someone was harmed or killed in such a moment, that the people of the ‘group’ – none of whom are present or in any danger – would presumably feel safer (if those harmed were among the people being intruded upon, rather than the intruders), knowing that, at least, the victim wasn’t armed, too.
This is where ‘the social contract’ and ideas of the general welfare and the greater good always lead, with the conceptual welfare of the group – musn’t let things become the ‘Wild West’ (with defending oneself from violence, in the moment, as opposed to pre-meditated vigilante retribution after the fact, being considered a Wild West feature) – deemed paramount to an actual and current threat being faced by a real physical person and his child, and this is a simple enough scenario for anyone to contemplate and make a choice about. It relates to nearly everything in human society.
• There is a moral component – which is enough for this writer by itself – that being the question of whether each person can be said to own his or her own life and person (body). I decided long ago that this is obviously correct and reasonable, an unavoidable conclusion. Therefore, no permission from the group is required to defend oneself, and it can never be made illegal to do so.
• There is also a practical component, and which should be equally obvious, that being that the police are not normally able to and cannot be expected to reach crime scenes in progress in order to intervene in time to save the targets of crimes and violence, and that, further, it may not even be possible to contact the police at such a moment, for any number of reasons.
For both reasons, the notion that self-defense be considered immoral and made illegal is completely absurd, and a kind of slightly veiled evil cloaked in a pseudo-noble concern for the group’s (conceptual) welfare, while completely dismissing the welfare of the real persons under actual threat. Someone not being able to legally defend themself against intrusion and actual, threatened or implied coming violence is preposterously unreasonable, and the ‘group’, to the extent that it can even be said to exist, is not at all threatened or undermined by such self-defense by a real person. On the contrary, the prospects and options for others in similar situations are only enhanced. In any case, the intruders’ lives and welfare were forfeit the moment they stepped onto his property, for being there uninvited with the intent they brought with them.
If, after considering this very simple scenario and choice, one finds oneself in agreement with Macron, that it should be illegal to defend oneself (that means completely; with enough force to end the threat, lethal potential force versus same if necessary), then to those people I would say that your awareness of history is either feeble or sequestered, on hold, and that there’s something fundamentally broken about both your moral compass and your practical reasoning. Or you have a spiritual or psychological pathology.
There is no defending this position. Macron and his outlook are a clear and present danger to free, peaceful people of goodwill. It’s not his call. The defense of your life is not Macron’s (or anyone else’s) call.
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