Cool but not so rainy. Maybe.
Yesterday the rain held off until mid-afternoon. Then came down with a vengeance. Thankfully it didn’t last long. I got a bunch of stuff dropped off at my auctioneer, picked up the kids from school, and went by the gun store to drop off a Christmas present and touch base. Turns out a bunch of stuff did happen in DC.
We’ll know today or tomorrow just how badly it’s going to turn out. Until then, I think a bunch of people got played. They still thought they could exercise their rights, petition for redress, make themselves heard. And they got punked. Those are going to be some angry people when they realize how badly they were done by…
Which brings me to the rest of this post. I wrote it last night in response to a comment from a long time, educated, engaged, and knowledgeable commentor here. It’s TO him, but not ABOUT him, and it’s also to everyone else who might be feeling the same way. Because I think feeling like that is REALLY shortsighted. I’m also breaking one of the informal rules here. Bob discouraged swear words not from any prudishness, but because he didn’t want to trip any nanny filters and deny people access to the good information and discussion here. We’ve been pretty good about keeping up the tradition and it does make a difference in tone. This is not a change in policy or intent. All that said, I’m gonna swear a lot below. Because it’s an evocative word and really the best way to convey my meaning and feelings. It’s a bit less than ‘polished’.
“This was a riot by Trumpkins.”
— even if it was a riot, and was ‘trump supporters’, you don’t get to pick your supporters, anymore than the lefty bands get to control who plays their music.
A few dozen attention seekers get suckered into entering what is normally a very secure building without any real resistance (except for the AF vet that they essentially murdered- unarmed and not a threat) and they take selfies. Did they destroy the artwork? Paint ACAB on every surface? D/L anything from the completely unsecured computers? Start any fires?
And SO WHAT? What about the [really huge number because I don’t want to debate what it was or wasn’t] of ordinary people that were there? They don’t count for anything because there are a couple of grandstanding jackasses? That’s internet argument technique #12, find one reason to dismiss everything else…
I find it hard to be gleeful about the destruction of the country I love, because it will also take down Trump. Destroying faith in the electoral process has destroyed something that can’t be put back together. This stopped being about Trump a long time ago and started being about the kind of place the US would be for the rest of my life, and probably for a good chunk of my kids’ lives.
70 MILLION people feel some degree of the same thing. NO ONE ANYWHERE that I’m aware of has suggested that Trump’s votes weren’t legit. So. 70 million. How many have to say “fuck it” and do something before it ALL goes to shit? Wrong tank cars get added to a train, no corn syrup for you- or the few hundred thousand boxes of cereal your plant makes. Fuck it. Tape measure gets dropped into the grinder at the packing house. All of the last 48 hours of production needs to be destroyed because there is metal in the hamburger? Fuck it. Time to run the TPS report so the line workers can get checks? Drop_table what? Fuck it. Mercury thermometer gets dropped into the bioreactor at Merck? Fuck it. That was baking soda not chlorine? Fuck it. Hello UPS? Someone called a tip line and says they shipped 6 bombs to random people. No, we don’t know who or where from. Fuck it. EVERY Fusion Center in the US got a package full of white powder? NO SHIT? Fuck it. Someone is taking pot shots at the big spherical tanks along I 10 in Baytown? Fuck it. Every three days someone throws 5 pounds of roofing nails off an overpass onto the freeway at rush hour? Well, fuck it. Every tip line and fusion center in the US gets calls about bomb threats. And six bombs actually go off. Rinse and repeat. Fuck it.
I could do this all night, but fuck it, I’m not that motivated right now.
70 million people. Mostly in jobs that actually do something besides moving electrons or money around. LOOK at the pictures of the “protests” all over the US. Those are some serious looking folks who are just about fed up. Not the tacticool tommies with their guts hanging out* a baofang radio and morale patches on their airsoft web gear. Look at the guys in gimme hats from trucking firms or ag supplements, guys in carhart jackets or company windbreakers. Women standing next to them looking just as grim. Those women don’t care about some guy on a tape talking trash about tramps sliding up to money, they are worried about where their kids will work when NAFTA II ships the rest of the factory jobs to third world slavers. They’re worried about raising their grandkids while their sons or daughters are passed out on chinese fentanyl or doing time for possession while inner city “youths” get a free pass.
So if you’re inclined to dance a jig, because the wicked witch of the west is dead, you might want to think about what comes next. And pray that the guy at the water treatment plant, or the pharmacy, or the rail yard, or any number of invisible but important places, doesn’t just say Fuck it.
And since we/I spend a lot of time talking about preparedness issues, it’s time to get serious about stacking what you can’t do without, if you aren’t already well along the way. I was stream of consciousness when I listed the ‘inconveniences’ above. It took almost no actual thought at all, and I really can do it all day. I’m surely not the only one. 70 million. A good portion of them aren’t going to be looking for inconveniences, but for deadly consequences. The only real thought I put in was to avoid that for now.
This has the potential to get really ugly, really fast. If it starts, it WILL escalate. It always does. The irish didn’t start out throwing hand grenades into lines of school kids waiting to go into class, but they got there.
Oh, and the rest of the world isn’t likely to just stand idly by either.
So keep stacking.
nick
*a PSA rifle that’s never been sighted in and will only fire once before jamming will still kill you dead when fired into a crowd. So will a .38 revolver from the sock drawer, or a $150 HiPoint from the pawn shop. You don’t have to be able to ruck for days with 2x your body weight to snipe from your car, or throw rocks off an overpass either. Something to keep in mind.