The Road Ahead

Silverfiddle Rant!

“There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too.”  -- Kurt Vonnegut

I ceased being a conservative years ago, mostly over tone and tenor issues.  Also, I don't like being herded and branded.

Its not about destroying Democrats or leftists.  Its about recapturing the American ideal of a place where we can all voice our opinions and live our own lives without using the power of the state and global corporations to smash and silence our fellow Americans who don't share our views.  I respect your right to gay marriage, and you respect the right of my church to not perform them.

The pain behind the protests of 2020 goes back hundreds of years, and we've got to be in solidarity with our fellow Americans.  Successive Democrat and Republican governments have failed to take concrete action, just as they have allowed whole working communities to be hollowed out, factories carted off to China, and good people and their communities left to rot, all in the name of free market capitalism.  

As my favorite poet has said, "the old road is rapidly aging."  The way ahead is neither left nor right.

I've probably angered some of you lately, but I value honesty, and I know you all do too.   I hope I didn't insult anyone, that sure wasn't my intent.

“There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—G-d damn it, you’ve got to be kind.” -- Kurt Vonnegut

Sean Hannity Won't Save You

Silverfiddle Rant!

... but Tucker Carlson, Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald just might.

  

Salvation from totalitarian progressivism will not come from the Republican Party, nor will it come from the right.  It will come from the liberal left and non-aligned allies, including the Intellectual Dark Web .  

Many good liberals are getting stomped as well (Bret Weinstein and Anna Khachiyan for example), and are fighting back. 

Contrary to popular opinion, Sandy Cortez is not the future of American leftism; she is the last baby bubble burp of the old socialism of that shabby communist Bernie Sanders.  

I don't know how many people are in Sandy and Grandpa Bernie's neo-bolshevik camp versus how many are in the anti-totalitarian camp, but I know there is a substantial number of people on the left who are fed up with all this warmed-over 20th century totalitarian bullshit. 

Scholars of color like Glenn Loury and John McWhorter are blatantly calling Ibrahim Khendi, Robin DiAngelo and Nikole Hannah Jones frauds.  Professors at Cambridge have pushed  back recently on minor issues involving speech, and have won.  

That has happened in other universities as well, and it is left liberals within the institution, speaking the institutional language and appealing to the foundational principles of the institution.  That is how freedom wins. We can join in by stating our values clearly in a non-inflammatory way while respecting the considered views of others. And it will have to happen everywhere:  Hollywood, social media, the press, government, and private business. And I think it can.

We are not alone.  There is a whole world of thought and speech out there pushing back against the progressive totalitarians.  They seriously analyze, joyfully mock and openly flout totalitarian progressive orthodoxy and speech codes.  Many are self-described leftists and liberals, some are libertarians, but they all share a love of truth and liberty that transcends boundaries and labels. 

I commend to you the following individuals, web sites and podcasts in no particular order.  You won't always agree, but you will be educated and entertained. 

In no particular order...

* Matt Taibbi - Astute observer, brilliant liberal journalist taking down progressive totalitarianism 

* Glenn Greenwald - solid gold journalism

* Spiked Podcast (Brendan O'Neill) and Website

* Quillette podcast and website - IDW Flagship - Always excellent discussions

* Glenn Loury podcast - Wise professor who shares lessons learned

* Bret Weinstein podcast - Scholarly discussion

* Eric Weinstein podcast - Scholarly discussion

* Making Sense podcast (Sam Harris) - He will probably make you mad, but he is a great example of how to properly characterize the point of view you disagree with and then civilly argue against it, while conceding points and empathizing with those who you disagree with

* Joe Rogan - Trenchant discussion.  He brings on smart people and asks questions everyday people would ask.

* The Fifth Column - Raucous, rambling discussion of current events.  Irreverent and often vulgar, traditional conservatives would not like it.

* Blocked and Reported (vapid sounding lefty gurls busting on political correctness).  Also probably not for traditional conservatives

* Red Scare (Anna Khachiyan and and Dasha Nekrasova)

Intellectual Dark Web

Top 10 Anti-Woke Heroes of 2020

Meet the anti-woke left

Tune in Thursday!

You Are Here

Silverfiddle Rant!

I'm not a conservative anymore, nor am I a liberal.  These words are meaningless now, they are used only for tribal identity, and I'm done with tribes.

Donald Trump was a threat to the Establishment, so they spied on him and sabotaged him.  Props to our always-honest friend Jez for stating the obvious:

"Looks like intelligence agencies were monitoring the Trump '16 campaign, and continued to cast a weather eye on him thereafter. I don't have a problem with that, merely winning an election is no guarantee that you're not a criminal."

You and What Army?

Trump did himself no favors.  He kicked in the door to the clubhouse of the dirtiest, nastiest most dangerous gang in the world and announced he was going to kick everybody's ass, but he didn't have the tough people behind him to make it happen.  Also, he set himself on fire daily and routinely shipped truckloads of ammo to people wanting to destroy him.  

Team Trump was full of outsiders and that made them a danger to institutions and special interests, if not to the US itself thanks to their having no experience steering the ship of state through very dangerous waters.  I'm sure that's how the saboteurs, ratfinks, bedbugs and moles justified their actions.

Challenging China was itself enough to rally his enemies.  Too many people and businesses make too many billions selling out our nation and our workers to China. There is an interlocking global cartel of billionaires, powerful people, governments and bureaucrats, and their one focus is protecting the franchise.  The US citizens in that cartel don't give a shit about Democrat or Republican.  They don't give a shit about the United States of America and her people, either, unless it increases their bank accounts or gives them more power over others. 

Global War on MAGA

John Brennan and Stan McChrystal are aiming insurgency and terrorism rhetoric at Trump supporters, and they need to back it down.  Such talk is reckless and irresponsible, and its fueling  even more irresponsible propaganda emanating from Establishment revanchists and their clueless leftwing handmaidens, hoping to drive a new Patriot Act to bring the War on Terror home to the US.  

I understand the old adage that to Hammerin' Stan, every problem looks like an insurgency nail, but for all his and his fellow Establishmentarians' wisdom, Afghanistan is a lost cause and Iraq--instead of being the Germany of the Middle East--barely limps along.  

All Stan and his fellow generals accomplished--at the behest of their Establishment masters--was wrecking nations, killing hundreds of thousands of people, and enflaming even more hatred against the US.  Thanks for all your brilliance, Stan, but please don't bring your shitshow here to America.  

A Time for Choosing

It's time to reject the old order.  The "experts" have brought us nothing but failure.  Winning WW II and  paying off the enormous debt of that war was the Establishment's last achievement.  Government has since developed an auto-immune disorder and is attacking We The People. The Establishment hollowed out American factory towns, selling it all lock, stock and barrel to China, leaving working people with no jobs and destroyed communities, all in the name of GOP "free market capitalism."  

The Establishment starts wars it can't win, or even finish.  We need to stop listening to Democrats and Republicans preaching us into wars, and we need to stop listening to hubristic generals selling us winning strategies that always end up losing. 

Everybody over 50 needs to get the hell out of the way.  I would take Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard over a GOP Establishmentarian any day.  So, my penultimate piece of advice is to throw your support behind whoever vows--Trump-like--to dismantle the DC Criminal Cartel but--unlike Trump--actually has the rhetorical skills and a top-notch team of smart bureaucratic infighters to get it done.  No more marginal revolutions.

My final piece of advice?  Pray.

Tune in Tuesday...

Weekend Music Break

Silverfiddle Rant!

Apologies for not bringing the classical music break, but this cracks me up.  I remember watching Honeymooners reruns instead of mopping and cleaning when I had bay orderly duty way back when.

Fast forward 100 years and the kids and I are listening to the Grateful Dead's "Fire on the Mountain" as we head up the mountain to go skiing. The kids ended up hating the song because it was one of those famous Dead jams that went on forever.  My son jokes that he fell asleep when the song was playing, woke up an hour later and it was still on...

Dysphoria

Silverfiddle Rant!

I am suffering a dysphoria.  I don't know what is going on and I can't make logical sense of it.  I can abide someone or something being good, bad, left, right, mean, ugly, whatever, but illogic drives me crazy. 

Were intelligence agencies and federal law enforcement really spying on the Trump campaign?  Did they really do this as a pretext to keep spies on the inside of his administration?   Looks like. 

Has our press really gone over the edge and into full-blown progressive propaganda?  Ample evidence says so. 

The entire transcript is out there for Trump's "fine people on both sides" comment, where he specifically excluded the racists and neo-nazis, yet the press continues blaring out the lie that he called racist white supremacists "fine people."  What more can we do?

Is our society--independent of government--devolving into a self-policing totalitarianism?  I think so.

Have the Silicon Valley World Controllers established a government-outsourced Ministry of Truth that can do what the government itself cannot:  Silence US citizens?  Yes indeed.

I have been saying for years our nation is heading down a very bad, dangerous road, and we're seeing it now.  Putting people on notice, Maoist struggle sessions or auto-da-fé for the guilty, forcing people to repeat phrases from the Little Red Book, silencing, censoring, de-platforming, un-hosting, doxxing people, getting them fired from their jobs...  

Lean Gulag

We are living the rudimentary beginnings of a Chinese-style social credit system, enforced not by a tyrannical government, but by tyrannical fellow citizens.

We are in an ugly place.  Russian émigré Anna Khachiyan off-handedly called it "Lean Gulag."  "Lean" being a business term for an operation like manufacturing without all the warehouses and heavy machinery, and I think she nailed it.  

Nowadays, governments don't have to march people off to the gulags.  Now, we gulag people in place, encircling, impoverishing and silencing them within an ever-shrinking space where you're still granted the "freedom to say two plus two make four," but no one hears you. 

There is hope.  Please tune in next Monday.

Red White and Blue Scare

Silverfiddle Rant!

The 2016 election of Donald Trump encrazened Democrats and the political establishment.  His refusal to concede the 2020 election and instead wave the stolen election bloody shirt culminated in his most ardent supporters mobbing the Capitol.

The Democrat-Press-Political Establishment Axis has responded by unleashing a Red White and Blue scare, a hysterical over-reaction that will make the Red Scare of the 1950's and the Muslim scare of the 2000's look like a pillow fight.

Can I ever again climb into my pickup with my buddies and our guns and ammo, going out hunting or for target practice, and not be under suspicion?  Indeed, even law-abiding citizens with no criminal background are now considered dangerous ticking timebombs.  

It's All About Revenge...

The left is giddy.  "The Capitol Siege" is the moment they've been waiting for.  An opportunity to take the conservatives' Islamist terror rhetoric and antifa domestic terror talk throw it all back in the rights' faces, flaming hot:

"Who are the anti-American terrorists now, you rightwing racist extremist bastards?"

These are heady times for the MAGA haters, always happy to dispense morality tales.  This one is even more powerful than their favorite one about the deplorable Covid scoffer who ended up dying of Covid:  This is what happens when benighted morons refuse to listen to the enlightened progressives and insist on electing a populist orange monster.  *tongues clucking* "We told you it would end badly." 

Next will come the public struggle sessions, forcing apologies and confessions from Trump supporters, with the progressive crowds poised with thumbs sideways, deciding whether to accept the contrition or condemn the former MAGAt to a marginal life sitting alone in a cafeteria muttering to herself that two plus two equals five.  

The left is wallowing in an orgy of fear-mongering, sanctimonious scolding, and vengeful recriminations.  Calls from the left include purging people from social media, government control of public speech, government 'reining in our media,' blackballing "Trump collaborators,"  reeducation and deprogramming, expelling most of the GOP congressional delegation, and much, much more.

Where does this end?  Will the hysteria die down, or will it gain an out-of-control life of its own?

Please tune in this Friday.

One Last Election Post...

Silverfiddle Rant!

Donald Trump lost this election.  Less hijacking the Covid briefings with rambling nonsense and a little more theatrical fatherly concern would have done him much political good. His first debate performance encapsulated his entire boorish, bombastic persona and probably sealed his fate.

If there was election fraud, it happened in the irresponsible broadcasting of absentee ballots, and the GOP-agreed upon standards for accepting them.  All those ballots go into the pile and the fraud is undetectable.  How did all this happen in GOP-controlled states, or states with a GOP controlling majority in the state house? 

Maybe it was good old fashioned Democrat organizing, combined with GOP apathy.  Stacey Abrams is now a political powerhouse, and she beat the Georgia GOP like bongo drums.

Trump lost the election in April, when Democrats used the Covid scare to irresponsibly expand mail-in balloting (once again, with GOP consent or passive acceptance).  Where was his legal team then?  Team Kraken's post-election hijinks, including connecting communist China, Dominion Voting Systems Inc, and the ghost of Hugo Chavez, was a farce.

The press is complicit.  This election loss and the lack of trenchant investigative reporting and audits has left Trump voters wandering in cavernous lacunae, seething, disconnected and discombobulated, while the vengeful left trucks in brick and mortar to wall us up inside. Forever. 

What say you?

Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down) 

Sonata for Flute and Harpsichord No. 1 in E Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach:

 

Music that matches my mood....

The Real Plague

"Wokeness," self-righteousness masquerading as enlightenment, is the real plague upon the land.  Better definition: "authoritarianism masquerading as righteousness."

A few manifestations of "wokeness":

 Deplatforming. 

But deplatforming is not enough. 

Moreover, deplatforming should not be limited only to Donald Trump: Trump's de-platforming could reshape the internet. 

And we also have this: Forbes warns companies not to hire Kayleigh McEnany, and other Trump "fabulists."

How long before any and all Trump supporters — identified via facial-recognition software, posts in social media, and donor lists — are banned from the public square and even from employment?  For example, Teachers In Jefferson County, WV That Attended Rally At the Capitol Threatened With Termination.

Related video to watch.

Stalin-esque.

Kafka-esque.

Weep for our lost American Republic:

Orwell Warned Us.

Today, in the 21st Century, we are reaping the whirlwind of "Everybody should go to college":

Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down) 

"The Stars Shine," composed by Kile Smith:

 

Lyrics:

The stars shine with more pleasing grace when a storm has ceased to roar and pour down rain. 

After the morning star has dispersed the shades of night, the day in all its beauty drives its rosy chariot forth. 

So thou hast looked upon false happiness first; now draw thy neck from under her yoke: so shall true happiness come into thy soul.

Crowds

Silverfiddle Rant!

The blame for the violence at the Capitol lays squarely with those who broke the law. No doubt they were MAGA people, but I also don't discount some of that damage and breaching was done by professionals of whatever ideology. A lot of the rioters last year, the ones showing up with professional gear and training, didn't give a crap about black lives or progressive causes, they just got off on causing mayhem. There was probably a component of that Wednesday.

It is absurd to call this an insurrection.  Our press is hysterical.

Indeed, if 30K enraged, violent people, many with guns, had attacked the Capitol, it would have been a bloodbath.

I have seen a few of these situations go down, here at home and in different foreign countries.  I have also analyzed footage and studied accounts of riots, disturbances, protests, and other crowd actions.  They usually have some common components:

1. A mass of people--the vast majority of the crowd--there to voice support/protest, whatever, not equipped or intending to commit violence.

2. Mouthy blowhards or normally timid people emboldened by the crowd, issuing empty threats, not prepared to carry out what they are saying, and not realizing they are on the brink of something they don't really want.

3. A small core of troublemakers with an action plan and the tools and training to carry it out.

4. Amid the mayhem you also have joyriders, who still think this is a peaceful protest and don't know what's going on beyond their horizons, or who just happily stampede along with the crowd, not thinking of themselves as rioters and not cognizant of serious violence taking place.

This is almost universal, and it doesn't excuse those who commit criminal acts.

What say you?

What's going on?

Silverfiddle Rant!

** Please see Friday's Post and chime in there **

The simplest explanation for the violence yesterday at the Capitol, and the violence in cities all over the US the past year is, some of our fellow citizens are anarchists with a bloodlust for violence, murder and mayhem.

Another factor could be foreign and domestic provocateurs and false flag operators stoking the flames with a continuous stream of inflammatory comments.

More possibilities...

Black people tired of living in shitty neighborhoods and too poor to escape?

White people, especially white males, fed up with being called everything from violent to fragile?

Sinister forces--within and without--purposely fomenting societal chaos?

Powerful interests inciting racial strife?

White people turning violent because they are fearful they are being demographically swamped by foreigners?

Unseen interests carrying out a concerted effort to goad angry white men to rightwing violence, terrorism and murder?

What is the Infotainment Media Complex's role in all of this?

Young people, powerless and helpless, unable to attain the standard of living enjoyed by their Gen X parents? 

Are politicians to blame?

Where does this end?

Pardon Julian Assange?

Silverfiddle Rant!

In an age of interminable titty-twisters, here's one more: Clown car conservatives are joining the Pardon Julian Assange circus.

Should President Trump pardon Julian Assage?  Here are some facts.

DoJ initially charged Assange with conspiring with Private Chelsea Manning to steal classified government documents and publish them to the world. In 2019, the US government issued an 18-count superseding indictment.

People and organizations big and small worldwide have been protesting US prosecution of Assange since the initial indictment, usually citing freedom of the press.  The US counter-argues that Assange is not a reporter and that he was in on the conspiracy to steal government secrets.

Assange is not a US citizen and does not have a security clearance, and anyway, what makes his actions any different from that of the Washington Post, NY Times, or any other news outlet that gleefully publishes purloined government secrets to advance the outlet's and the leaker's political agenda?

The crime lies with Private Chelsea Manning, a cleared US citizen who violated federal law and betrayed her nation by turning over classified information to people not authorized to receive it. Instead of doing the right thing and executing Chelsea Manning on the battlefield in Iraq, the government treated her leniently, giving her 35 years, but President Barack Obama commuted her sentence on his way out the door. 

The initial and most unambiguous charge against Assange is that he received a password hash value stolen by Manning (I laughed when the DoJ indictment called the Linux operating system used by Manning "special software.")  Assange used publicly available tools in an unsuccessful attempt to derive the password from the hash, which would have allowed Manning to continue her theft under the cloak of a different user account. 

Manning did all the work and paid for it with a grand total of four years in federal prison before Obama let her go.  

How many years should Assange get for conspiracy and attempt to crack a password?

MORE INFO:

DoJ Initial Indictment

DoJ Press release: 18-Count Superceding Indictment

Glenn Greenwald - The Kafkaesque Imprisonment of Julian Assange Exposes U.S. Myths About Freedom and Tyranny

Kyle Smith - The Real Reason Assange should not be Pardoned

The Milgram Experiment & The Social Experiment Of 2020

***************

I know that this video is longer than most people are willing to watch.  But it's important to consider what is presented here (hat tip to Infidel Bloggers Alliance):
 

Related reading: The Milgram Shock Experiment.  Excerpt [my commentary]:

Milgram suggested that two things must be in place for a person to enter the agentic state: 

1. The person giving the orders is perceived as being qualified to direct other people’s behavior. That is, they are seen as legitimate.  [Dr. Fauci?  Other scientists, including the various departments of public health?]

2. The person being ordered about is able to believe that the authority will accept responsibility for what happens.  [Government stimuli packages?] 

Agency theory says that people will obey an authority when they believe that the authority will take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. This is supported by some aspects of Milgram’s evidence. 

For example, when participants were reminded that they had responsibility for their own actions, almost none of them were prepared to obey. In contrast, many participants who were refusing to go on did so if the experimenter said that he would take responsibility.

Please read it all HERE.  

Your thoughts as to if the COVID-19 Pandemic is being used to program Americans to be both the inflicters and the submissives of the agentic state?