It's beginning to feel a lot like 1913

originally posted by: wdkirk


After that, due to the region, expect a strike on SK from NK.

This part will just be hilarious since NK's military is in shambles, despite what you hear in Western media, who portray them like they're supersoldiers.

originally posted by: AlexandrosTheGreat

originally posted by: Vroomfondel
a reply to: Irishhaf

When you see the 2023 version of Weimar you will know its time to run naked and screaming into the woods. Until then, just sit tight and see what happens...

I would say that that is the exact reason we are living in a cesspool of corruption, violence, moronic ideologies, hatred, criminal governments, judges and politicians with zero morals or integrity, and an overall depressed and disillusioned attitude toward life and opportunity in general.

We were warned by the Bible, we were warned by Common Sense, we were warned by the founding fathers, we were warned by a great number of wise men and women that everything that is happening would happen without a doubt and we were prescribed the antidote but instead, we all gave and do give into the detrimental cause of all of this, apathetic inaction.

We are likely too deep in now to save ourselves but if the Kari Lake trial didn’t wake us up nothing will. If the COVID fiasco didn’t see heads roll, nothing will. If the 2020 election didn’t see us demand explanation, nothing will. If 9/11 didn’t prove to us our government will murder, cheat, lie, and steal then nothing will. If one look at our Congressional spending doesn’t see us with pitchforks and torches on Capitol Hill, nothing will. If the Great Depression didn’t convince us to change how we vote and who we elect, nothing will. If the World Wars didn’t take war off the table for humanity in lieu of diplomacy in all cases, nothing will. If Rothschilds nasty move after Waterloo didn’t convince us to keep our economies to ourselves and backed by gold and not a Rothschild central banking scheme of felonious fractional reserve lending aka wealth vacuum, nothing will.

I could go on and on and you will find a thousand chances we had to stand up like they did in 1776 and say no more, even if it meant bloodshed for the guilty tyrants (boo goo), then we ignored all those millennia of warning by the wise and we can just lie in the beds we made. Either revolution this instant or lie in our filthy rotten doom slave beds.

So where exactly did you make your big 1776 style stand?

We have a POTUS who bragged that fighting his administration is pointless because he has F16's and nukes, Posse Comitatus Act be damned. If you question the party rhetoric you are branded a domestic terrorist. If you have an opinion that differs from the approved agenda you are guilty of hate speech - an actionable offense. Real criminals are being let out of prison or not incarcerated in the first place. Just don't make the mistake of thinking crimes committed by conservatives will be treated the same way - they won't.

We all want to see some change. We all want to do something. At least the patriots among us do. But what to do and when to do it? Will one man acting alone ever accomplish anything other than a short-lived sense of personal satisfaction? Is being a martyr the most anyone can hope for? Will there be a rallying call? There are roughly 350 million of us. On any given day it seems like half are perfectly fine with the way things are going. At least I hope they are, they keep voting for the people who do the crap that is ruining our nation. So what is a person supposed to do? Voting doesn't work when the elections are stolen by late night ballot "discoveries", always in just great enough numbers to flip a few critical closer than normal races. Its funny, as soon as enough votes to change the outcome are found everyone stops looking. Its as if they somehow know there are no more lost ballots to be found...

There are some massive differences:

One country has over 700 military bases and installations worldwide and has been engaged in warmongering for decades.

Peak oil.

Climate change and ecological damage.

Population aging coupled with population momentum.

The dollar used as a reserve currency, high levels of debt for richer countries, developing economies taking over.

originally posted by: Irishhaf

Late to the discussion, but you pose such interesting questions...

Occasionally, I post responses in segments, sort of relying on the structure of the post I'm responding to. In your case, however, I don't see how adding to your observations point-by-point would be helpful. So I will just add my thoughts generally, hoping that it all applies reasonably to everything you bring up, and I don't make a fool of myself in the process.

A song comes to mind..., "We didn't start the fire." by Billy Joel. Not specifically for its content, mind you, but for the overall message which inspired in me, a certain idea...

(Pardon the generalizations, but it makes the response less verbose.)

Every generation experiences a realization, at some point, comes to a common perception about the world around them. It doesn't matter what year it is... or which generation you might specify. Almost universally, they begin to say to one another, "What the hell?" "How could things have gone so wrong?" "So much bad is happening everywhere." People are hurting each other, exploiting one another and worse." "We have lost some almost indefinable quality of existence, surely things are 'worse' than ever now."

And consistently repeating, among those streams of perceptions of generation after generation, the steady reminder that people have been fearing 'exactly' these developments, since the beginning of recorded history. "This will come to pass..." "Men will war upon one another in a righteous cause" "Evil men will rise to power and cause suffering." "People will become unbalanced, unnatural, even savage." "Folly will prevail over wisdom." "Persecution will ensue." "The wicked will rule. The righteous will languish."

Add to that something which some might say is new to the human condition, the proliferation of commercial news. Commercial news that, if nothing else, is fueled by negative events. Not necessarily from malice, but from the impulse to focus on problems, and not to dwell on things that are "as they should be". We see amplified by the craft of "media" constant "polished" bad news, in some case specifically designed to evoke, frighten, alert, to cause concern or inflate it. On the internet we see them often as 'click bait,' in the news we see it as 'doom porn,' in entertainment we see it as 'activism.'

We are subject to imagery created by thinkers who see only the wrong in us... to them the good is inconsequential. I argue that it is not inconsequential. We are told that humans are garbage, and we can't function without being led around by the nose. We are spoken down to by every single level of society, as if we need to be told what to think. We are constantly reminded only of the folly, the excess, the ignorance... as if that's all there were in the world. We are constantly shown in pantomime how the good guys are weak and unworthy, and the clever bad guys rock. We are reminded of our incessant victim posture and regaled with stories about heinous criminals and wanton brutality... as if that's all we are.

All of these things add up to demoralizing depression, agitated anxiety, and sometimes existential dread.

Combine the elements and I say to you; you are NOT wrong. You are not losing it. The world is full of problems.

I have no special gifts to entitle me to pontificate, preach, or proselytize any particular philosophy, even less so morality; but I intend to offer a perspective. Just to avoid the smarmy feedback I can sometimes engender (accidentally, I promise you) I will admit to no credentials of education, experience, or life, that makes anything I say especially worthy as advice... and I am well aware that I can be wrong but...

Believe this:

Take an especially deep and cleansing breath. We are not going to kill ourselves. We are not going to screw everything up and destroy the world. We are not going to devolve into chaos and despair. That is not going to happen. We will not be the last generation. We will not live down to the myth of human degeneracy. We will not be the horror story that is being foisted upon us.

I think it always has appeared this way. And because of what we are, this might be a permanent state... but that is no reason to believe that we can't fix one thing at a time; as best we can. We face it continuously because that's what we do... we are still here doing it. We can't solve all the world's problems because we make them as we go.

When I say "Take heart" I mean it. You are not alone. We all see it. The tragedy of the day is only that we see what we cannot fix. If you are clever enough to fix something, no matter how little, fix it. Make someone smile. Remind someone that their favorite ice cream flavor still exists. That they can do something, say something, that will make someone else smile. Smile yourself.

Grant yourself the freedom of knowing that you are not responsible, just aware. Take responsibility when you can, forgive yourself when you can't. Think for yourself unapologetically. Listen sagaciously. Laugh a lot. Be foolish. Play.

(sorry if this seems all 'out there'... I don't know why, but you seem to bring this out in me.)

a reply to: Irishhaf

Are you sure you meant 1913?

Looking at the world in 1913, there's very little in common with today.

originally posted by: Irishhaf
a reply to: lordcomac

Author William w Johnston wrote a men adventure series called out of the ashes. (He was retired cia) that also has some freaky parallels to today, in the first book one of the generals said everyone knows it's time for war there is no stopping it. (Para phrase)

I have been thinking about it a lot lately (he died some years back), I have been wondering how much he put in his books came from reports/plans/war game scenarios he was briefed on.

He also nailed the ultra liberal it's never the criminals fault and embrace of communism in the US by the left.

This was published in 1983.

The US is about as far away from communism as it's possible to get. So i guess your source is way off the mark. When all the banks have become state owned we can reconvene this chat and i promise to take you more seriously at that point.

Both sides of the political spectrum are in the claws of big money. Nah, the US is a plutocracy, and has been for most of its history.