Month: April 2021

What is the Next Big Surprise?

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In corporate engineering one of the big buzzwords is risk management.  We’re supposed to evaluate all the possible risks and rate them according to probability and severity.  This allows you to plan a remediation or prevention action for each possible risk.  This allows us to kid ourselves into thinking we are in control of what will happen to us in the future.

But in reality, there is always an X factor, the unknown unknown, the thing that we don’t know that we don’t know.  And there is Murphy’s Law that says that the worst thing possible always happens at the worst possible time.  What that means is that when a system is already stressed the chances that something bad will become something terrible becomes almost inevitable.

Regardless of ideology, both the Left and the Right will admit that when the United States was the sole superpower in the 1990s foreign policy was more predictable.  No one messed with the big dog.  Not the Russians, not the Chinese or any of the regional powers like Iran or India or Pakistan.  Sure, they could pull some proxy mischief in Lebanon or Somalia or some other rat hole but nobody would go toe to toe with us back then.  And that made it a lot easier for us to make policy.  We moved carefully and slowly.  But we could be sure that as long as we took it nice and easy and actually knew what would be the outcome of our actions that no one would gainsay it.  The Europeans would gripe but accommodate us.  The Arabs would threaten and then do nothing.  The Russians and the Chinese would condemn and posture and then do nothing.  And all the small countries would go to the United Nations and draft a resolution condemning us which we would veto when it got to the Security Council.

But those days are long gone.  Since then, we have frittered away our superpower status chasing Al Qaeda and ISIS psychopaths from Pakistan to Morocco.  We disillusioned a generation of American warriors in the sands of Iraq and we have handed over our industrial wealth to the Chinese.  Our military has become a political football to be kicked around over transgender and feminist talking points.  And now witch hunts to uncover white supremacists in the rank and file has taken unit cohesion to an all-time low.  No one thinks we are in charge anymore.

Imagine if you can the chances that China, Vietnam, Japan, North and South Korea, Myanmar, Russia, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and Libya will between themselves figure out an equitable arrangement that will satisfy them all.  When we were calling the shots, we could make the bigger, stronger countries toe the line and only the rat holes were given a pass.  The outlaws like North Korea or Iran were isolated commercially and socially.  But now the Chinese are openly mocking us when we condemn their brutal tactics against the Uighurs.  They only have to point to our cities burning during the BLM riots and both our weakness and moral confusion are self-documented.

China is now openly pursuing its own interests everywhere from Equatorial Africa to Latin America and Russia is involved militarily and commercially in the Middle East in Iran, Turkey and Syria.  Russia’s saber rattling in the Ukraine and other parts of its former domain in Eastern Europe highlight that NATO isn’t what it once was.  And speaking of Europe, it is in upheaval.  The madness that has infected the United States is just as virulent there.  The EU is in total disarray and nationalist movements are springing up all over threatening the very existence of the EU.

So, what’s my point?  Alright, when 9/11/2001 happened we were no longer the world military hegemon we had once been.  We were already starting down the road of de-industrializing our country in favor of Chinese outsourcing but we still had a very, very potent military and we were still for the most part a unified country with a deep streak of patriotism.  We could rally the whole country, Democrats and Republicans and put together a war effort that would up-end a country like Afghanistan in weeks.  We could hammer a medium sized country like Iraq in a few weeks too.

9/11 was our last big surprise and we had the wherewithal to answer the challenge.  But what about the next big surprise?

What about now?  If we were attacked by Iran or if the Taliban staged a major attack in Afghanistan would Americans come rallying around and enlist to do their part.  I don’t think they would.  The feminized millennial males would just mumble something about Gaia under their breath and go back to drinking their soy lattes.  If Joe Biden got on tv and begged the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to support him in a new emergency I think they’d throw a lamp through the screen.   This government and the media have vilified the flag and the national anthem and the soldiers they stand for.  They’ve told us that what we stand for is racism and hate.  Well, then let Joe Biden get Antifa and BLM to fight his wars.  The rest of us should take a knee.

I’m not sure that the next big surprise will be a terrorist or military attack.  It could be a fuel shortage or an agricultural blight or even another bio-attack.  The point is there isn’t any good will left in the country.  Nobody will be rallying around anything.  If the BLM riots get out of control and one of the big cities in the blue states burns down, I don’t think any of the red staters will care in the least.  They’ll probably cheer.  In fact, I’m hoping Derek Chauvin is acquitted of all charges and Minneapolis is burned to the ground from end to end by the mostly peaceful Antifa and BLM thugs.  I think it would be the best possible outcome.  Minnesota would reap what they sowed.  It would be what Obama was so fond of calling a teachable moment.

When the next big surprise happens, it will end the illusion that this is one country.  And that will be a very good thing.

09APR2021 – Quote of the Day

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A sensitive man is not happy as President. It is fight, fight, fight all the time. I looked forward to the close of my term as a happy release from care. But I am not sure I wasn’t more unhappy out of office than in. A term in the presidency accustoms a man to great duties. He gets used to handling tremendous enterprises, to organizing forces that may affect at once and directly the welfare of the world. After the long exercise of power, the ordinary affairs of life seem petty and commonplace. An ex-President practicing law or going into business is like a locomotive hauling a delivery wagon. He has lost his sense of proportion. The concerns of other people and even his own affairs seem too small to be worth bothering about.

Stephen Grover Cleveland

08APR2021 – OCF Update – Vultures, Ringnecks and Hellebores

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Today was just too nice a day to stay indoors.  Camera Girl and I went over to our local forest and communed with the trees and birds and babbling brooks and rippling lakes and so forth and so on.  She planned to head out to the metropolis and purchase the few necessaries that we still can afford and I planned to get out and take a few photos while I was at play in the fields of the Lord.

It is a magnificent sunny day.  Life is bubbling up from every nook and cranny of the New England earth.  But rather than endless shots of ants and worms and spiders I looked for larger subjects.  Unfortunately, the only flowers available are the daffodils that are right now at their ephemeral best and the hellebore flowers which tend to be hard to photograph.  But I did my best with this limited pallet and somewhere down the line they’ll end up in the Photo of the Day.

But I was able to capture one very interesting image.  I found the first snake of the season.  Under a copper sheet that I keep for just such a purpose I found a ringneck snake soaking up the abundant heat that the copper conducted through its surface from the bright sunlight.  It looked like it was getting ready to shed and he stuck around for a minute or two and I was able to get a few shots.

Ringnecks are a very common creature but quite small and secretive.  I enjoy finding any snakes on the property.  I’ve, of course, found any number of eastern garter snakes and brown snakes.  I’ve found a northern water snake and several eastern milk snakes.  But what I’d really like to find is a black rat snake.  This is sort of the apex snake predator of the region.  They aren’t rare enough to even gain the almost obligatory threatened status that the wildlife nazis love to burden us with.  But they aren’t common in my neck of the woods.  They are a jet black here in New England and can theoretically reach seven feet in length although six feet would be a very large specimen nowadays.  They are big enough to easily eat a chipmunk or even a squirrel but mostly they feed on mice and birds that they hunt for in nests.  They are even able to climb up a tree to find baby birds.  Who knows, one day I may find one of these.

But it was good getting out into the world again.  Spring is triumphant.  The spring peepers are making themselves heard in the evening and all sorts of creatures are about.  I could hear geese in the pond one late night after midnight.  And the turkeys showed up about a week ago.  I always love hearing their gobbling even if they themselves are hidden in the brush.  The painted turtles are back in the pond and bullfrogs have begun banjoing during the day.

Last week we had seven black vultures in one of the trees near sunset.  I took some shots from the house which is a good distance away and shooting into the back lit tree wasn’t that good for the quality of the photos but going out would have spooked them for sure.  Stupid vultures.  But those pictures will go up soon too.

So, I’ve got some photos to upload and some plans to make.  I’ve got to put together some kind of blind that will allow me to get candid shots of some of the more skittish birds and animals.  That’ll take some doing so I’ll have to do some research.  But it’s good to be out of the house.

Thoughts About the Conversation Between Michael Anton and Curtis Yarvin

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Recently I watched a discussion on the Jack Murphy Live show that featured Michael Anton and Curtis Yarvin.  If you are unfamiliar with either one of them, I’ll say a few words about them.

Michael Anton was a former senior national security official in the Trump administration but is best known for writing the “The Flight 93 Election” back in March 2016 under the pseudonym Publius Decius Mus.  He received graduate education at Claremont Graduate University where he learned from faculty that followed in the tradition of noted academic Leo Strauss.  Anton is a social conservative and a pretty pessimistic critic of the current state of American politics.  With the failure of the 2020 election Anton does not believe the Republicans will ever win the presidency again.

Curtis Yarvin is a computer scientist who also has become known for his political beliefs which some have called “neo-reactionary.”  Yarvin believes that government should be almost like the management of a publicly owned corporation with the CEO taking the place of the “king” and the citizens as stockholders.  He also had a pseudonym under which he wrote his thoughts, Mencius Moldbug.  Yarvin is extremely unenthusiastic about democracy in general and doesn’t hold out much hope for the American form at this point in its evolution.

Anton and Yarvin are both very smart guys.  They’re both academics in a sense.  Both of them would be part of the elite if they happened to follow left-wing ideologies.  Because of what they do believe they are pariahs in our present political climate.  I think listening to them in the discussion both of them are extremely pessimistic about the United States escaping from the control of the progressive corporate, bureaucratic, academic complex.

So why listen to these guys talk?  Well, that’s a good question.  Neither of them has an action plan to reverse the damage and move things back to a normal country.  There isn’t a website where I can join the underground and fight for the day when we take back the country.  I think I read them so I can feel like I shouldn’t just give up.  As long as I know that there are other intelligent people who don’t accept the idea that there is no use resisting the woke state, I feel like I can figure out a way to hold onto the good things that used to be the basis of our way of life.

I can think of one line that Yarvin made pretty close to the end of the video.  When asked what he thought people should do he said no one should try to use force to stand up to the feds alone.  That would be suicide and it would accomplish the opposite of what you intended.  That would be sort of what happened on January 6th.  The government would destroy you and use it as a propaganda argument for destroying everyone else they didn’t like.  Instead, he said we need to say no! 

In other words, we have to figure out a way to reject their program.  We need to build up organizations, businesses, groups that don’t depend on their approval.  There’s nothing new about that message.  That’s the old “build your own platforms” line.  But what he is saying is that it’s the only way.  And we need everyone on our side, all 70 or 100 million of us to form a single organization to say no to what is going on.  And that’s the only encouragement I take from all this.  If two guys like Anton and Yarvin sort of agree about where we are and what we must do then basically the whole gamut of people who aren’t leftists agree.  We have to stop trying to do everything at once and take concrete steps one at a time.  First order of business, we pool our resources and identify one important thing we can get done and do it.  Maybe we decide that the most important possible thing is crushing Amazon.  And maybe we buy the votes of Democrat senators and congressmen to make it happen.  But we move heaven and earth and we get it done.  That alone would be an enormous shot in the arm for our country.  Suddenly a million small stores all over the country would find business that had been strangled out of existence by Jeff Bezos.

But whatever it is we decide to do; rein in the social media companies or re-establish freedom of religion or outlaw child transgender mutilation; we need to win a battle and win it decisively.  Donald Trump and Peter Thiel are renegade members of the elite.  They are the ones with the resources to organize new platforms.  Anton and Yarvin are members of the intellectual class who would disseminate the ideas and help implement the actions we want to see happen.  We are to some extent their customers.

We want to hear more and soon about any real plan to get something new started.  Anyone who has the ambition to lead a movement has a once in a lifetime opportunity right now.  We’re ready to be led.  There is a nation looking for a savior.  We could make this a great country again.  If that doesn’t happen soon then we need to leave.

Why Aren’t Woke Billionaires Giving All Their Money to the Black Poor?

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I’ve been thinking about the Rich Woke.  These are the people who tell us how evil all white people are for using their white privilege to live better than their fellow citizens who live in poverty because of the structural racism all around.  Isn’t it inescapable that they need to give away everything they have to the victims of white oppression?  And not just give away a tithe.  They should give away everything that they have that’s more than what these oppressed people have.  Jeff Bezos and the founders of Google and Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg need to give away all their money and sell all their stock and give it to the oppressed poor.

In fact, if they really want to show the solidarity that they claim they feel they should open up their homes to the oppressed poor.  They should fill all twenty bedrooms of their mansions with homeless people and other indigent people of color.  If they don’t do these things then they’re just mouthing platitudes.  And while they’re at it they need to send their kids to the same schools that these poor people send their kids to.  That’s the only way we’ll know for sure that they really mean all those things they say about equity and social justice.

Because it‘s easy to tell someone else what they have to do to atone for the sins of the past.  But when you have to take that step personally that’s the acid test of what you really believe.  Would Jack Dorsey bring his family to live next door to the people that he has been inciting to riot against their fellow citizens?  If he didn’t have walls and armed guards and a private jet in case things really go sideways would he really say all those things about the guilt of people that look just like him?  Because they don’t have all the money in the world to insulate them from the hate and anger that he is stoking.  They have to live with the anger and the hatred and the damage it does to their kids and communities.

And how about all those people who work for the Dorseys and Zuckerbergs and even the regular corporations that have adopted the woke blueprint.  All the CEO’s and vice presidents and directors who spout all this jazz at their employees and to the press and to the world.  Would they be willing to move into the ‘hood?  Are they going to leave their gated communities and move into the war zones with their kids and let them get the worst most dangerous education in the country?

And how about the politicos and the Deep State that live right there around Washington, one of the worst hell-holes in the country?  Will they leave their manicured suburbs surrounded by fences and patrolled by the best surveillance government money can buy and go live in the squalor that they want to make the 51st state?

You can bet your bottom dollar they won’t.  They want the ghetto to come to your suburb but they want no part of the leveling down of America.  That’s for the working class and the other losers who don’t play golf with them.

Billionaires and Bidens tell us that we’re evil and we deserve to be trampled into the ground to atone for the sins of ancient people that have nothing to do with us.  Hunter Biden and his demented father cut deals with the Chinese for billions while Antifa and BLM storyboard the communities they will terrorize and destroy this summer.  And none of the Democrats running the cities filled with these aggrieved people of color do anything of substance to provide jobs and opportunities for these urban poor.  All they do is stoke hatred and boost the body count as the mentally ill in those areas look for white and Asian people to assault and sometimes kill.

Getting back to my original question, why aren’t the billionaires walking the walk?  Because it’s all just talk.  But what you have to understand is that if they control the government, if the Democrats call the shots, we will be fed into the meat grinder to act as a side show to take attention off of their grift.  They build the global machine that makes them billionaires while we pay the bill as it grinds this nation down to dust.

Maybe it would be fun to start an on-line campaign to shame the woke billionaires into moving into the ‘hood and giving away all their money to the poor.  Maybe it would register with some of the millennials, maybe not.

If we can’t take control of some area of the country where we are protected from these people then I believe it’s better to get out and find a better place to live.  America used to be the freest and richest place on earth.  Maybe it’s still one of the richest but it’s certainly not free and it’s becoming very unhealthy for people who happen to be white or even Asian.  Soon even the Hispanics may think there are better alternatives.  At some point I may decide to leave this place to the Dorseys and the Bidens.  My only hope is that some day the monster they’ve created finds them.