Author: photog

Cataclysmic Pep Talk

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Imagine if Kamala Harris becomes president. Some people might think that things will actually run better than when Joe Biden was in charge because she’s even stupider than he was and won’t attempt to run anything at all and so the “geniuses” in charge of the deep state will manage all the decisions of the federal government and everything will be coordinated to the nth degree.

And maybe to some extent this will be true.  But I don’t think the various bureaucracies of the federal government can be allowed to run their little satraps indefinitely without supervision by someone who understands reality.  I’m imagining the State Department and the CIA explaining to Harris that it’s going to be necessary to return to Afghanistan to prevent homophobia and transphobia from threatening the LGBTQ population there.  And Kamala would immediately approve of such a plan.  Or suppose the EPA talks her into banning fossil fuels altogether.  Or the Justice Department easily convinces her that reparations for slavery to the tune of $45 trillion dollars can no longer wait.  You can see how having a complete moron as president could lead to extremely unfortunate decisions being made.

This kind of analysis goes along with the accelerationist theory for destabilizing the current regime.  Specifically, if the terrible people in charge of the Left are allowed to follow their inclinations without a brake from the Right, eventually they’ll damage the system so much that it will cease to function.  I think this is a simplistic version of how things will go but essentially it is correct.  This is what happens in a blue state like Massachusetts for instance.  The Democrats will assume complete control of the legislature, governor’s mansion and the courts and they will run hog wild and vote themselves anything and everything.  And then they go broke and everything stops working.  And they will vote a Republican governor in to fix the budget and return at least a modicum of sanity to the state government.  And of course, a Massachusetts “Republican” means William Weld or Mitt Romney.  Basically, they’re middle of the road Democrats anywhere else.  And as soon as this Republican has balanced the budget he is immediately cast into the outer darkness and replaced by a lunatic lesbian who wants to fund on-demand gender affirming surgery for toddlers and cradle to grave benefits for illegal aliens.

So the problem is how to avoid the return to power by the Democrats?  I think part of the answer is to take a page from Milei’s book.  Radically reducing the size of the federal government would reduce the power and control of the deep state.  And it would make policies that favor private sector job creation critical.  Of course, most of these laid off bureaucrats will be at a distinct disadvantage in the real world of the private section but I’m sure a few of them will survive.  So, it would be a win/win, sort of.

But I’m not trying to paint the accelerationist model as a pain free scenario.  In order to get to a place where a solid majority would be willing to let the Right have their way, there will have to be economic chaos unleashed on our society, the like of which hasn’t been seen for over a century.  We’re talking 30% unemployment or runaway hyperinflation.  That kind of stuff.  So, shock therapy.  Anything less than that will be tolerated by the schlubs who now populate this sad benighted world we live in.

I’ll be honest.  Having this be the path forward is a pretty depressing plan.  But I now doubt anything less will shock this nation out of its addiction to infantile socialism.  So that’s my pep talk!

Plan B

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President Nayib Bukele in El Salvador declares martial law and arrests tens of thousands of gang members.  In Argentina President Javier Milei is taking “a chain saw” to the bloated federal bureaucracy both to reduce the budget deficit and inflation and to scale back the over-regulation of life in his country.

Why do I see these actions as significant?  Because both of these countries are poster children for the abuses that their present leaders are trying to address.

El Salvador has been struggling with violence for many decades.  After a thirteen-year civil war gangs ran wild over the countryside and the murder rate was astronomically high.  Bukele has cut the murder rate by at least 50%.  As draconian as the method he used to accomplish this clean-up was, the people support his results.

In Argentina rampant hyperinflation has been going on for decades.  Milei ran on the promise that he would fix the economy.  And the people of Argentina elected him because at this point no one else has spoken the truth about why their country which has so much potential is an economic basket case.

Latin America is supposed to be hopelessly corrupt and unfixable.  Well, maybe things can change.  When the basket cases of the world start getting their acts together, maybe something is happening to the old world.  Maybe there is even a little hope.

It’s certainly true that some of these actions aren’t particularly legal.  Bukele used martial law and unconstitutional powers to arrest the gangs.  There is talk that many innocent men were swept up in this dragnet.  Well, maybe what we are looking at is the rise of the strongman.  Could this lead to dictatorship?  Maybe.  But when democracy fails you spectacularly you have to try something.  You go to Plan B.

And what does this tell me about the world at large and the United States in particular?  It may mean that results are beginning to outweigh lofty ideals and good intentions in the minds of the people.  After all that is sort of how Donald Trump and Brexit got their victories.  People want results and they want the truth.  Both of these seem to be in very short supply from the politicians and bureaucrats that rule in the Western democracies.  Now, the United States isn’t as chaotically lawless as El Salvador was nor as economically mismanaged as Argentina.  But we’re headed in those directions at a brisk clip.  Maybe a sea change is in the cards.

And maybe it won’t be that long.  2024 will be an important election.  If Trump gets elected there’s still a small chance, he can purge the bureaucracy of its deep state cronies in order to restore control over the government to the duly elected officials.  But if Kamala Harris is installed in the White House, then we can say definitively that United States is no longer a functional republic but rather an oligarchic junta that cares almost nothing for the welfare of the people.

If Harris is running this country, even as a puppet of the oligarchy, I assume the country will suffer a catastrophic decline with rampant violence and economic and fiscal instability at a level that will spark essentially a popular upheaval.  And regardless of how it is clothed in constitutional language, there will be revolutionary changes in how things get done.

Of course, I could be completely wrong and Kamala could turn out to be a wise and effective ruler who turns her term into a golden age.  But after enough yellow school bus speeches and other brilliant clap-trap, I kind of doubt it.

We seem to be speeding toward destiny.

Guest Contributor – Milo Mindbender – 10AUG2024 – Sergeant Tim Walz

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I have served in the Army, and understand what a conditional promotion is. You get the rank without the full set of qualifications, and promise to complete them within a specified time frame or lose the promotion.
My problem is Walz refers to himself as a retired command sergeant major E-9, but his actual retirement rank is master sergeant E-8. He did not hold the rank long enough or complete the requirements to keep it. He reenlisted for 4 years in 2003, promoted conditionally in 2004, rumour has it learned through the grapevine about an upcoming deployment, and jumped into retirement. This means he could state ” I was a command sergeant major, and I am a retired guardsman” both of those statements are factually correct. He is not a retired command sergeant major, but a retired master sergeant. In 24 years of service according to his Wikipedia page he has 1 army commendation medal, that seems kinda low, I served 4 years active duty, and got 2 ARCOMS, as a Spec-4, I now have 40 years of service total, and my highest personal award is a meritorious service medal, gotten for 26 years in the Air Force reserve, when I transferred to the Air Guard. I saw no overseas service or combat campaign awards, this looks suspicious, because that means he never carried anything in any war zone, because he was never there. This seems like a minor distinction, but it gripes me to hear someone self promote and then try to weasel their way out of an exaggeration by claiming to be a higher rank than their ID card shows.

Update:

TomD commented:

Walz’s military record, or lack of it, is entirely peripheral to me. The core issue, and this is indisputable, is that he has governed as a hard left radical, adopting and enforcing every leftist position right down the line.

He could have been the Commandant of the Marine Corp with 9 combat deployments and it wouldn’t make a whit. The fact of his deception is just carrying coal to Newcastle for me.

 

War Pig commented:

I agree. Sort of fishy. I do not mind him not having served in actual combat as relatively few service members realy do fire a weapon in anger or are in an area where they can be bombarded. But, look at the man and two women killed in the drone strike. Death can find you. I know of a couple of sergeants major who never fired a weapon other than on a range but were in the artillery and air cav, respectively. Both served I think it was 32 years active, but had several medals and badges. Then there are those who manage to serve 20 and not actually perform their MOS except in training. They go off into “temporary” duty as a special services NCO or one of a hundred other make work jobs. They found out how to work the system. I’m pretty sure you knew of various NCOs assigned to your unit you never saw except at quarterly recall formations. Could be he was one of those soldiers. Nothing dishonorable, just nothing special. He may have heard about a deployment and took the easy way out. Not illegal, just not someone I’d want to be one heartbeat away from the Oval Office and the Football.

War Pig commented:

This is true. He’s in Soros’ pocket and all his thinking is done by Obama. He joined in with the Defund the Police movement, which hurt minority citizens the most. Martha’s Vinyard is not effected by Defund the Police, but inner city families in blue cities sure are.

Friday, And Now for Something Completely Different

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I’ve reached the halfway point in my marathon of horror and boredom.  And honestly, boredom is the deadlier poison.  That must be why prison is so horrible.  It’s the boredom.  Being forced to do nothing for years on end doesn’t sound like the worst thing that can be done to you.  And it’s not, but it’s bad enough.

There is magic in being at the half-way point.  From then on, it’s downhill.  Unfortunately, the last day is like a double portion, so counting hours it’s really not halfway, but the calendar is a more powerful measuring stick.  By early Wednesday morning the horror will be over.  And so, heading home tonight I had a jaunty smile on my lips and a song in my heart.

When I got home, I looked at the news and it was the same old, same old.  Kamala, Tim, Russia, Ukraine, Trump, Vance, Coke and Pepsi.  ¡Ay, Chihuahua!  Honestly, we’ve got to give this stuff a break.  Let the hacks working for the campaigns flood the airwaves with whatever memes they can generate.  After all they’re getting paid for it.  We need something better.

So, let’s have some entertainment.

 

Colter Wall has a few very entertaining songs that always cheer me up when I hear them.

 

 

This version of the speech I think is the best I’ve seen.

I don’t think I’ve ever found the version of Macbeth’s “Tomorrow” speech I completely enjoy.  But this one is the best of what I’ve found.