The Mass of Men

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Henry David Thoreau said, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things..”

Well, I don’t know.  I’m not sure I’m the quietest (or the loudest) of individuals.  And as for desperation and resignation that seems a bit much.  For most people work can be a rat race but, is what we do just resignation?  I hope not.  Now, sure, we all have to reach that endpoint and when that gets a lot closer, desperation and resignation start to sound more fitting, more apt.  But Thoreau said the mass of men.  Well, most men aren’t about to face death.  We get a decent shot at a pretty decent span; “three score and ten” the Bible says.

And even when the end is in sight isn’t there any consolation in reflecting on the fact that you spent your life doing what you thought was best?  Maybe it’s a matter of temperament.  I guess Thoreau was a product of Yankee New England upbringing.  And those people have always seemed a little cold and humorless for my taste.  Maybe it’s a combination of puritanism and bad weather but they always seemed like they just bit into something that tasted bad (or maybe it was their reaction at seeing me).  Maybe I’m just naturally cheerful.  Call it my Mediterranean predisposition but I just think that every story has a happy ending.  And this even though I look around me in every direction and I see wrack and ruin out to the horizon.  And sure, when it’s time to start hauling away the wreckage I’ll swear and grumble and complain.  But I’ll still look forward to a lunch break and quitting time.  And then there has to be some human joy somewhere in that mess.

I know some people who live the other way.  And they are quite a bit better off than I am.  That grim determination has its advantages.  You can stuff a 401k plan with quite a lot of money if you’re grimly determined.  And maybe they will have an easier time of it at that last stand knowing that everything is paid for.  I guess it’s kind of the Cheops or Ozymandias option.  But it still feels kind of grim to me.

So, I like to think that most of us try to live lives of quiet or not so quiet inspiration mixed with perspiration.  I think the guy who said, “Where there’s life there’s hope” had it right.  While there’s still blood pumping through your veins and air being sucked into your lungs there’s hope and more than hope.  There’s at least a little excitement.  Even if you’re a hundred there’s still the challenge of trying to get on your feet and remembering what it is you have to do to keep breathing that day.  And until that gets to be too much for your spirit you have a reason to greet the day.

And if you still have anyone in your life who cares whether you live or die you’ve got a world outside yourself to think about.  Maybe people call that quiet desperation.  Or maybe I’m the exception.  Maybe I’ve just been blessed with much more than the mass of men have.  But I kind of doubt it.  I’m just an average guy with the average life.  Well, except for Camera Girl.  She’s pretty great.  But don’t tell her.  She might demand a better contract.

13DEC2024 – Quote of the Day

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How is freedom measured, in individuals as in nations? By the resistance which must be overcome, by the effort it costs to remain on top. The highest type of free men should be sought where the highest resistance is constantly overcome: five steps from tyranny, close to the threshold of the danger of servitude. This is true psychologically if by “tyrants” are meant inexorable and dreadful instincts that provoke the maximum of authority and discipline against themselves — most beautiful type: Julius Caesar — ; this is true politically too; one need only go through history. The nations which were worth something, became worth something, never became so under liberal institutions: it was great danger that made something of them that merits respect. Danger alone acquaints us with our own resources, our virtues, our armor and weapons, our spirit — and forces us to be strong …

Friedrich Nietzsche

A Million Miles Away

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In the last week or so there have been a number of reports about large drones flying over New Jersey and New York City.  When reporters have asked the Department of Defense and the FBI about this they were that the drones are unidentified.  But at the same time there was no sense of urgency by these agencies to calm the civilian population by assuring them that an investigation is in effect.  It was more or less a shrug of the shoulders and the comment that local law enforcement would handle these mysterious craft.

A congressman from New Jersey posited that there was a rumor that the drones were Iranian and that they were associated with a “mothership” based off the east coast in the Atlantic.  The Pentagon spokesman denied this and said there was no indication that the drones were foreign or controlled by adversaries of the United States.  But at the same time there was no indication how this could be known if the drones were unidentified.

So, then what is going on?

Well, of course I can’t prove anything.  But it occurs to me that Iran makes a lot of military drones and Russia uses an enormous number of military drones in the Ukraine war.  And both those countries are looking to make trouble for the United States because of military actions we have currently going on in their neighborhoods, in other words Syria and Ukraine.

Maybe they’re sending a message that they can retaliate for the attacks going on in their world.  Or maybe they’re scouting around to find the easiest or the most valuable targets to hit.  Well, isn’t that something!

And, of course, all of this is in response to US initiatives that were activated after the Democrats lost the November election.  After November 5th the United States gave Ukraine permission to use long range missiles in the Russian homeland.  And of course the toppling of the Assad regime by American proxies just occurred in the last week.  So, the State Department and the Department of Defense unleash chaos around the world and the blowback from it will hit home about the time President Trump is inaugurated.  Isn’t that something!

For me this just reinforces what kind of psychopaths we have running our foreign policy.  Antony Blinken and Victoria Nuland play their color revolution games with foreign countries and the blowback will be felt by innocent Americans and especially by our military that shouldn’t be put in harm’s way for egregious adventures that only alienate the rest of the world and benefit no one except the military contractors that feed off of the arms buildup that follows after these obscene plans are put in action.

Well, there’s basically nothing that can be done until that undead creature is finally packed into his mummy case and carted away from the White House.  Maybe we’ll get lucky and the other shoe doesn’t drop before January 20th and Donald Trump can inform our adversaries that sanity has reasserted itself over US foreign policy and that all ticking time bombs will be deactivated and we can start from a simple position of mutual hatred but without the added factor of sociopaths with delusions of grandeur running foreign policy for the world’s deadliest weapons stockpile.

Well, anyway, I’ve got my fingers crossed and I’m usually a pretty lucky guy.  It’s less than 40 days but why does it seem like a million miles away?

Guest Contributor – SubVet – 11DEC2024 – Trump’s Return

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Well said OCF. I’d like to thing that Trump will take retribution on these aholes around the world and with the deep state, but I think Trump is actually too forgiving much of the time. He’s tough with words, but not always tough in action unlike our enemies who’ll stop at nothing. In that regard, I’m not confident at all that we’ll see accountability for all those who unleashed warfare on Trump and his allies. I want it, but he’s too much of dealmaker and not the dictator they told us he is and will be. In some ways, I’d like him to be a dictator, at least for a little while. No one will be going to jail.

Counting Down the Days

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At the rate things are going there won’t be much left of the world by Trump’s inauguration.  Israelis, ISIS, Turks and Iranians are scrambling to claim parts of Syria.  Romania has overturned their elections because the people chose the right-wing candidate.  Belarus, Georgia and Kazakhstan are seething with unrest.  South Korea has arrested the head of the military and is investigating their president for treason.  France’s parliament was dissolved through a vote of no-confidence and Trump has told Canada and Mexico that if they want any more money from him, they’ll have to agree to become parts of the United States.  And that’s on top of the usual carnage in Ukraine and the threat of nuclear war if NATO continues to allow their long-range missiles to target Russia.

Well, I don’t suppose that the State Department and the Department of Defense have anything to do with any of these events.  Do you?

I think what the geniuses in those departments don’t realize is that Trump thrives on chaos.  I forget which of Bill Clinton’s psychopathic advisors said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”  But Donald Trump has learned that lesson by heart.  I suspect that he will be using his authority to apply leverage on his enemies foreign and domestic.  The crises he will put to good use are the migrant crisis and the wars in Ukraine and Syria.

This week Trump met with France’s Macron and Ukraine’s Zelensky.  I think he gave both of them the same general message; prepare to make a deal with Putin.  We don’t know what Macron’s reaction was but Zelensky went ballistic.  He was so upset that he declared that Biden must allow Ukraine to become part of NATO before Trump gets into office.  Well, that’s not going to happen.  What will happen is unknown.  The neo-cons unleashed the chaos in Syria in hopes it would deter Putin from continuing his progress in Ukraine.  It doesn’t seem to have worked.  Chasiv Yar, Pokrovsk, Kurakhove and several other major Ukrainian defensive centers are on the edge of collapse and there does not seem to be a pause in sight.  The Ukrainians have decided to drop the draft age to eighteen to provide an additional 200,000 soldiers for the front but there seems to be a significant desertion rate occurring and mass surrenders are also increasing.  I suspect by January 20th things will be increasingly desperate for the Ukraine.

As for Syria, well, I hope Trump will be wise enough to leave Syria to those who want to burn their fingers on a boiling pot.  We have no business there.  And it looks like a trap for anyone who is stupid enough to think that trying to referee a free-for-all of raving religious lunatics is a good idea.  Think of Iraq.

As for his domestic enemies, cutting off the checks to sanctuary states like New York and California should be great sport.  New York especially has gone out of its way to antagonize Donald Trump through lawfare.  The least he could do is return the favor.  Something tells me there is an imbalance between what Albany can do to Trump and what Trump can inflict on the Empire state.

And finally, there is Trump’s main event; waging war on the Deep State.  There is the place where his personal desire for revenge and the country’s interests intersect beautifully.  Any and all havoc he can wreak on those bureaucratic tyrants will lessen their ability to torture us.  I think the DOGE initiative is exactly the way to tame the monster in Washington.  Freeze their salaries, brutally slash their ranks and reduce their power.  Actually, closing down divisions and departments would even be better.

Well, it’s a little more than a month so we’ll continue to hear about the chaos that the desperate minions in Washington are unleashing on the world.  But their days are numbered and they know it.