Tag: Rebuilding from the Ground Up

Lab Rats

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Yesterday I was skimming through an interview with Mitt Romney about his decision to retire from the Senate.  Naturally it was thoroughly self-serving and delusionary about almost everything he mentions; his motives, the actions of the other politicians in both parties and about the needs of the country.

But one line seemed true, “What he seemed to know for sure was that he no longer fit in his current party. Throughout our two years of interviews, I heard Romney muse repeatedly about leaving the GOP. He’d stayed long after he stopped feeling at home there—long after his five sons had left—because he felt a quixotic duty to save it.”

So even someone as dense as Mitt Romney recognizes that the Republican party is being pushed away from its current orientation, as a sham conservative organization.  Of course, Romney thinks that what he believes is the true conservative creed.  But he’s an idiot so he can be excused.  Who can’t be excused are people like Mitch McConnell and his henchmen or Paul Ryan.  These are men who used their power in Congress to sell out their constituency to the Left and to the vested interests that are their paymasters.

But the problem is that pushing the Republican party toward the right is a herculean task that only glacially makes any progress.  The inertia toward the priorities of people like Mitch McConnell is overwhelming and is continuously reinforced by the culture and business that Washington is built on.  That’s the reality.  So be it.

And that’s why anyone who is at all serious about trying to change this country has to come up with a new approach that doesn’t depend on trying to reform the Republican Party from within.  And I’m not talking about trying to create a third political party.  That would just waste incredible resources and probably achieve nothing.

What is needed is a stand-alone organization that can effect change directly at all levels and in all facets of life.  In the political arena it can be a PAC lobbying at the federal, state and local level.  When lobbying fails it can fund the campaign of a primary challenger against the recalcitrant law maker.

It can provide legal defense when the federal government and some state and local governments unfairly persecute those on the Right.  It can bring cases to the Supreme Court (for as long as we hold a majority there) to end unconstitutional laws.

It can act as a community advocate complaining to corporations about products or even corporate policies that disadvantage or anger our constituency.  In this capacity this organization can use media coverage or even advertising to embarrass or put on notice corporations disrespecting their own customers.  And if all else fails it can sue them to force change.

And finally, this organization can act as an incubator for any initiatives or programs that would facilitate conservatives flourishing inside of the progressive prison, we find ourselves in.  Maybe there could be a program for providing credit to private and religious schools in blue states so that more people can bring their children up safely.  Maybe whole industries could be financed like a real attempt to foster a conservative (or at least non-woke) film industry.  Or any one of a thousand business opportunities that would be happily patronized by the Right if they provided a competitive alternative to the woke competition.

Now none of this is new.  I’ve said it a dozen times before (my apologies to my faithful readers).  My point in repeating it here is this.  Until such time as something like this is begun there won’t be any chance of progress for our side.  Right now, we’re like the lab rats pressing the lever and waiting for the food tablet to appear.  We’re not in charge of anything.  We’re just part of the experiment.  If we want to take control of our lives we’ll have to bust out of the cage.  And until we see one of the lab rats with a file sawing through the bars of the cage we might as well stop hitting the food lever.  Starvation would be a cleaner death than what they have in store for us.

Supporting the Revolution

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Every aspect of our lives is touched by the division that splits the people of the United States into two almost completely non-overlapping groups; the Left and the Right.  Sure, there are people who claim they are outside these two groups but they’re wrong.  And that’s because the Left will not let you be exempt.  You’re either inside their orthodoxy or you are a pariah whose destruction they will pursue doggedly.  And for those of us on the Right, we have to struggle to survive this pursuit.

But no one just wants to survive.  We want to enjoy all aspects of life.  We want family, friends and things we can do to make our lives enjoyable.  And we want to forget about the Left and their lunacy whenever we can.  Now I won’t delve into the problems of avoiding the governmental controls that the federal government imposes or the even more onerous controls that blue states force their citizens to endure.  Let’s save all that for another day.

Instead let’s talk about what we can do as individuals to create the options we want in our lives.  A trivial example is the recent outrage over Anheuser Busch and their fake spokeswoman.  Here is an opportunity to use your status as a consumer to punish a company that went out of its way to antagonize its patrons and you can make a statement to the rest of the beer companies that you value a company that at worst stays neutral in the culture wars.  Even better would be finding a company that openly supports traditional values.  But neutrality will do.

Now look at that example.  And translate it into as many other choices and decisions that you make in your life.  The bank you keep your money in, the stores where you buy your groceries, the places you shop for your hobby supplies, the browser you use on the internet, even the social media sites where you interact with the on-line world.  All of these are potential choices.  Of course, some of them will be non-starters.  Amazon, Walmart, Target and the rest of the retailers are hopelessly left-wing.  The best you can do is occasionally try to shop directly from manufacturers who you know to be non-leftist.  That’s not such an easy thing.

But in other cases, there are choices.  Recently, Elon Musk has significantly reduced the anti-right activities on Twitter.  He’s un-banned numerous people on the Right and openly refused to silence even outspoken right-wing voices.  As an experiment I’ve recently decided to pay him his eight bucks a month to get the controversial “blue check” and I’m not saying it’s been some kind of golden ticket to viral success but I do enjoy some of the content I find on Twitter and I feel like I’m supporting a platform that doesn’t hate me.  So, if you have a choice between using Twitter or Facebook well that should be easy.    And I feel a hell of a lot happier with what I pay Twitter compared to the cable bill that supports the likes of CNN, MSNBC and the rest of the lefties that inhabit the various cable networks.  One of these days I’ll cut the cable and just use the channels that don’t hate me.  That will be a big day.

For another example, I use the Brave and DuckDuckGo combination as my browser and search engine respectively.  They respect privacy and block a lot of the ads that usually follow you around the internet.  As for news I use the sites that at least provide both sides on current events.  Real Clear Politics balances their articles about 50/50 between Left and Right.  It’s not ideal but I can just pick and choose based on the sources.

In the future I’m expecting that there will be a major dedicated right-wing news site on the internet with some free and some paywalled content that I will be willing to pay for.  That’s because I expect that Tucker Carlson will be participating in some kind of a larger news/opinion project with some of his more ethical colleagues.  Maybe it will be on Twitter, maybe on substack, but I suspect soon there will be a service that will be worth a few bucks.

And I expect in the future more companies and platforms will start trying to brand themselves as friendly to the Right or to conservatives or traditionalists or some other words to that effect.  Now it’s going to take some vetting to eliminate the phonies and the grifters who just want to jump on a bandwagon.  Probably word of mouth from trusted sources will be most helpful.

But in general, I think it’s a good idea to go out of your way to find a product or service that is produced by people who don’t openly despise you and buy it.  Don’t get ripped off doing it.  The premium for patronizing someone on our side should be reasonable.  Is that 10 or 15%.  Sure.  But not 100%!  And the quality should be comparable, not noticeably inferior.  I remember I tried using a coffee brand because they advertised their sympathy for the military but the coffee wasn’t any good.  So, I had to drop that.

Anyway, you get the picture.  It’s time for us to start putting our money where our mouths are.  Look for worthwhile products on our side and support them.  And if they pan out, pass the info along on social media.

Fight the power baby!

ZMan Talks About Supporting Your Own Community

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The ZMan walks the talk in that he supports some dissident friendly businesses on his website.  In this week’s podcast he expounds on why this is going to be more important as the gulf between progressive America and non-progressive people becomes insurmountable..

The quote I liked was:

“For dissidents, the only way forward is to develop a counter-culture, which means politicizing our own lives fully. How you spend your money, where you spend your money and on whom you spend your money must be political. How you live, where you live and with whom you live is political. In order to build a counterculture, the dissident must become a fully political animal.”

Let’s Get Small

 

In the Bright Light of Day

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So, I’m finally over my jetlag from the Yellowstone trip.  I lost ten pounds during my trek and I think that discombobulated my system.  I felt low energy and a little bit down.  But last night Camera Girl killed the fatted calf (she made spaghetti, meat balls and sausage) and I feel back to my old self.

And with this physical restoration my mood has improved and I can face the world of Creepy Uncle Joe and his incompetent version of a neo-Stalinist rainbow new world order.  The thing to remember is that we are in a new world.  For example, worrying about the consequences of blue city crime is a waste of time.  Instead, anticipate where you can escape from this problem and in that way prosper despite their dysfunction.

Trying to shore up a dying civilization is a fool’s errand.  When Rome is falling look for Byzantium or the Franks as a new haven of stability.  Or maybe you join the Huns or the Vandals.  At least you’ll have some freedom and a share in the loot.  That’s better than being another Roman serf being worked to death by a Roman or barbarian master.

So that’s my brave talk for today.  The thing for us to do is look for advantage wherever we can find it.  Look for leaders who want to provide a local environment that’s better than the cataclysm that’s Joe’s New World Order.  I think Ron DeSantis is trying to show Floridians that he can do things to counteract the feds and their dysfunctional social agenda.  That’s the kind of thing we need to be looking for.

The order of the day is work arounds and ad hoc solutions to the break down of just about everything.  When the power grid stops being reliable, we’ll need generators and battery back-ups.  When schools become woke grooming academies, we’ll set up educational collectives in our neighborhoods that will evolve into new schools.  When gasoline stations start disappearing, we’ll be like Mad Max in the wasteland looking for the last fuel depot to get us out of the fiefdom of the Lord Humongous on our way to a better place.

It seems bleak but the alternative is just acquiescing to the mindless degradation that our opponents seem fixated on rolling out.  In reality it’s still easier than the precarious existence that was the 18th century American frontier or the nightmare that was the European middle-ages.  We need to begin the process of separating from and building up an identity distinct from the current “America.”  Apparently, there is an enormous group of people who believe in the woke America and being trapped in an environment with them is incredibly painful and unhealthy for us.

Build our own things.  That sounds simple but it will be a full-time job and it will be a continuous battle.  We’re starting to see some results from the conservative Supreme Court.  The decision on religious schools in Maine is the first step in prying education out of the hands of the Left.  More decisions like that will start to turn the tide.  Of course, the Left isn’t just sitting there.  They’ll try to pack the court.  Maybe they’ll win.  If they do then we look further afield for relief.  Maybe we find a state to push back against the feds.  Or maybe we leave these shores if there’s no alternative.  But giving up is not a choice.

How’s that for a more up-beat attitude?

Trump Says He’s Preparing to Enter the Social Media Arena

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Donald Trump is setting up to unveil a social media platform called Truth Social in early 2022.  The company will be a publicly traded entity and will have a some kind of streaming option akin to what YouTube provides.

Well, this is what I said I wanted so let’s see how this goes.  I wish all the success in the world to this enterprise and if it has value I’ll gladly join up.  And if it causes Facebook and Twitter to suffer, then all the better.  Let’s wait and see.

An Open Letter to Anyone Who Would Like to Lead a Great Nation

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A couple of days ago a commenter asked why I would write about why we need to get organized since everyone already knows that.  And I commented back that it was an open letter to someone powerful to step in and do something.  So here I’ll make it more explicit.  What we don’t need is a bunch of campaign letters from republicans asking us to send hundreds or thousands of dollars to get someone elected.  Nor do we need an outrage list telling us what Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer is plotting.  We already know what they’re doing and we know you want money.

What we’re looking for is a plan to do something positive that can’t be undone.  We want a win.  We want something that tells us that there’s hope.  Build up a social media platform that won’t be de-platformed by the Amazon Cloud.  Start an entertainment company that produces first rate movies, games, music and books.  Charter a bank and a payment processor and a crowd sourcing company that we can put our money in that won’t close our accounts because we don’t bend a knee the LGBTQ mafia.  In fact, do all of these things and make a fortune doing it.  If you promote it the right way you’ll be swimming in money.

And if you do all that you’ll have an enormous megaphone to talk to the half of this country that is sick unto death with being pariahs in their own country.

In short, GIVE US A HOME.

We used to be considered the owners of this country.  Now we’re the dispossessed.  Our richer neighbors are working hard to get rid of us and replace us with easily controlled peasants from the third world.  Eventually they hope to replace them too with robots or something even more horrible.  If one of the rich and powerful wants to short circuit this process, then step in on our side and give us a voice and organize us.  We want to be led by someone who believes in the things we believe in.  But even if you don’t believe in our values.  Do it anyway.  You can become an immensely powerful man if you leverage the numbers and the anger that we represent.

And you don’t have to do it all in one day.  Just make a start.  How about the bank and the payment processor?  That’s a money printing business if there ever was one.  Just call it the MAGA Bank or the America First Bank.  Call it whatever you want just let all of us know it’s meant for us.  Say explicitly that you won’t deny anyone service who isn’t breaking some real law like drug running or bank robbing.  But explicitly say you don’t care about hate speech or someone’s views on transgender rights.

So, all you people on the right with dreams of being the king.  Step up.  Build something for us and we will come.  We’ll line up around the block just to get on board.  Take our money and give us what we’re looking for.  Respect.  Fair treatment.  A home and an identity.

Something Doesn’t Add Up

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The recent headlines about Greg Gutfeld leading the Late-Night Comedy shows highlighted a phenomenon that has already shown up in the cable opinion shows.  In that race Tucker Carlson is leading his competitors consistently.  And this has led to the Left’s unrelenting hostility toward him.  They protest to get his sponsors to boycott him.  They’ve even attacked his home and family.

So here we see that huge numbers of Americans agree with the opinions that Gutfeld and Carlson represent and support their message as opposed to the message that is supported and pushed by virtually every center of power in the United States and most of the civilized world.  But this large group of Americans find that their opinions have absolutely no effect on the messages or behavior of organizations that supposedly are based on public opinion and preferences.  The media (other than Fox News to some extent) pretend that the great majority of Americans believe in the things that are the opposite of what Gutfeld and Carlson defend.  Obviously if giving the public what they want was important to these organizations they could do that easily and profitably.  They could have their own right-wing commenters competing head-to-head with Fox and providing them with some of the audience that Fox currently has all to itself.  And they could do this without losing their leftist viewers.  They could keep their Maddows and Scarboroughs.  All they would be doing is accommodating both sides of the aisle.

But they don’t.  Why?

Because it’s not about money.  It’s a religious war.  It’s a crusade against the infidel.  Our beliefs and even objective reality are anathema to their woke ideology.  At this point there is no more live and let live.  No matter how crazy they become we must acquiesce.  Gay marriage, transgender toddlers, white guilt, slave reparations, green new deal, guaranteed basic income, defund the police.  All of it.  There will be no end to this.  And regardless of whether we win elections or get the Supreme Court to agree that these things are unconstitutional they will not stop.  If all else fails they’ll send Antifa and BLM goons out into the streets to beat us into submission.

There’s only one way we escape this.  We have to organize directly against them.  We’re going to have to pay politicians their beloved PAC money to get them to do our bidding.  We’re going to have to organize effective boycotts of companies that don’t do what we want.  We’re going to need our own laws to punish them when they trespass against us.  We’ll have to find leaders who will be willing to punish criminals that attack us.  We’re going to have to become our own nation within this nation and build walls to protect ourselves from our enemies.

Or if that’s too much trouble then we might as well surrender and mouth their lies and lunacy.  Because if we’re not willing to do the work to defend ourselves then we will be forced to surrender.  They will crush us just as they will crush those poor fools who let themselves be led to the slaughter on January 6th.  There is no way for any of us to stand up to them individually.  We need an organization that is extremely well funded, represented by experienced lawyers, based in a jurisdiction that cannot be infiltrated by their legislative, judicial or executive branch representatives and well protected by a large, powerful police force loyal to that state.  The sooner we begin organizing against these thugs the sooner we get our lives back.

Or just give up and dig yourself a hole in the ground and jump in.

Hat Tip to Vox Day for this Link to the Boy Scouts Alternative

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Trail Life USA  is a Christian alternative to the Boy Scouts of America.  This article that Vox linked to sounds like a hopeful start to an organization that wants to avoid all the mistakes that the Boy Scouts have fallen into.

But just as with the Boy Scouts parents would be taking an enormous risk if they put their children in the hands of people that they don’t know are 100% reliable.  Pedophiles lurk in the shadows of any organization that has access to children.  Mothers and fathers, guard your children and take the time to get involved with all of their activities.  In fact, the correct way to look at one of these organizations is a way to leverage their organization to enrich the outdoor experience you share with your own family.  You have to get involved.  At the very least you must have someone involved who you would trust with your children’s lives.

Organizing Free America

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As I’ve mentioned previously there’s no reason to wait for a superhero to start organizing our people into a new tribe.  I want to do my part and provide the foundation for an organization that provides a network to local communities to share information and socialize.  Eventually when things really get going that superhero is going to need a sophisticated network with all kinds of capability that the geniuses in Silicon Valley have invented in the last decade but for now Orion’s Cold Fire (OCF) and my primitive internet will have to do.

And in the underground you don’t take names and publish a membership list.  Pseudonyms and anonymity make a lot of sense when Dementia Joe is starting to act like another Uncle Joe of gulag fame.  I just finished Solzhenitsyn’s “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch” and the idea of snitches pervading the society of a captive nation seems a lot more real now that the Left is adopting the idea of re-education camps and purging non-Leftists from all aspects of public and private life.

Well, all that’s fine with me.  The internet is a vast web of people who look for what they need.  And maybe what they need is hope.  And believe it or not I feel more hopeful in the last few weeks than I have in several years.  The endless delays by Bill Barr and the endless betrayals by judges and legislators was so frustrating that I often despaired of ever making any headway.  But in the midst of the political collapse after the fraudulent elections I see truth shining through and revealing our enemies for who they are and the eyes of the people finally opening to that truth.  That is what gives me hope and it sweeps away the false paths and points to the correct road.  We must abandon all the institutions that have proven themselves corrupt and build from the ground up.  And part of building up these new institutions is smashing the old ones.  It’s not enough to build a new political party.  We must destroy the Republican party to do it.  Primarying all but the loyal GOP office holders.  And any of the disloyal who get through the primaries need to be beaten by their Democrat opponents even in safe red states.  Mitch McConnell needs to be powerless and abandoned by his paymasters as a warning to those in our new party that might think of betraying us.

And just to be clear I’m no political mastermind.  I’m just a humble scribbler of stories who would like nothing better than to get back to writing stories and playing with my grandchildren.  But if those kids are going to have a country half as good as the one my parents gave to me then I’m going to have to try and wake up the sleepers and get them doing something in their local communities and talking together about doing something on a national level.

So here’s my sermon for the day.  Go out and talk with five or ten or twenty good men and come back and tell us what they think.  Build up a club and accomplish some small thing that feels like a small piece of freedom from the repulsive tyranny spreading out of Washington.  And come here and brag about it.  No names, no places, just ideas and tips on what works and what doesn’t.

Will the Right Learn Anything from the Tech Giants’ Blockade?

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President Trump and a slew of his associates and supporters have been shut out of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram.  The payment processors like Stripe and PayPal are boycotting his election committee and his other sources of on-line funding.  Amazon, Apple and Google are conspiring to de-platform Parler.  Amazon is depriving them of server space on Amazon’s cloud.  Apple and Google are shutting Parler’s apps out of their app stores.  That effectively deprives them of access to the audience using Apple and Android operating systems on their phones.  Simultaneously, Google and Facebook are shutting down all of the commercial accounts of anyone they perceive as conservative.

Conservatives are shouting, “This is an outrage, something must be done about it!”

How about saying, “Why are you people so stupid?”  It’s like starting to rebuild your house on the side of Vesuvius while the lava is still smoking above Pompeii and Herculaneum.  How long does it take you to wake up?  Sure, it’s easier and cheaper to use the infrastructure that the Lefties built.  Sure, you took a chance and up till now you’ve enjoyed the benefits of using that premium service that they provide at rock bottom prices.  Fine.

But now that they’ve screwed you over wouldn’t it make sense to look around for another alternative?  Whining for Amazon and Apple to respect your rights just as the black hats are returning to the White House and the Supreme Court is scared to death of being packed by the Democrat Congress seems worse than useless.  It appears to be the action of a hopeless loser.

Lick your wounds, collect your wits and start over from a better position.  There are alternatives.  They aren’t anywhere near as lucrative as the fantasy land that YouTube and Facebook are.  You’ll have to pony up some dough and you’ll have to promote yourself and the profits won’t be nearly as good.

Not good enough?  Well, the alternative is to go Left.  Maybe you can convince people that you’ve seen the light and you no longer believe in the first and second amendments.  It worked for the NeverTrumpers.  Well, up until now it has.  Word on the street is that the paymasters for that operation are going to discontinue that gravy train now that they no longer are trying to win an election.  It should be interesting to see what will be going on with the Fake Right in the coming weeks.  I expect the screeching to resemble a chorus of scorched cats.

Look, this thing is just beginning.  The Justice Department is sure to be sticking its diseased snout into all things having to do with political speech on the right.  They’re sure to try and torture us with every horror they can imagine.  Maybe it’s a good time to forget about politics and collect scrap metal and rags instead.  But for pity’s sake don’t whine that the bad old meanies aren’t playing fair.  These people hate you and they’re ecstatic that Dementia Joe and Willie Brown’s Ho will be running the show.  Expecting anything but a knife in the back from them is so abysmally stupid that anyone with a shred of dignity and an IQ above room temperature should be embarrassed to do it.

Find people on our side who can provide hosting and payment processing and stop looking like an idiot.  The sooner we start using our brains the sooner we start taking a big chunk of the on-line business away from Facebook, Google and the rest of the degenerates on the Left.  Who knows, maybe someday Amazon will be coming to us begging us to use some of their unutilized cloud capacity.  And wouldn’t it be sweet to tell them to go pound sand up their cloud instead?  Sure, it would.