“When a condition or a problem becomes too great, humans have the protection of not thinking about it. But it goes inward and minces up with a lot of other things already there and what comes out is discontent and uneasiness, guilt and a compulsion to get something–anything–before it is all gone.” ― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent
Sometimes I wonder about strange coincidences. In an email exchange with Marc (Hardscrabble Farmer) in the Fall, he mentioned he had begun reading Steinbeck’s Winter of Our Discontent and planned to write an article about it. Coincidentally, I had just bought a used copy of the same novel at Hooked on Books in Wildwood. I didn’t plan on buying it, but I’ve read most of Steinbeck’s brilliant novels and felt compelled by the title and our national state of discontent to select it from among the thousands of books in the store.
Marc had posted his Steinbeck-esque article in December, but I didn’t read it until I had finished the novel. Marc’s perspective on the value of money and his diametrically opposite path from Ethan Hawley, the discontented anti-hero of Steinbeck’s final novel, was enlightening and thought provoking. I’m sure it impacted my consciousness as I wrote this article.
Steinbeck’s title was taken from Shakespeare to reflect the unhappiness of Ethan Hawley at the outset of the novel. The quote, “Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun of York”, is the first line of Shakespeare’s Richard III, written in 1594. Shakespeare was using the summer/winter weather as a metaphor for the fortunes of the English House of York and its rivalry with the Plantagenets for the English throne. The ‘sun of York’ was a comment on the ‘son of York’ Edward IV, a harbinger of better times ahead. This theme of discontent was true in 1594, in 1961 when Steinbeck published his final novel, and is true today, as discontent blows across the land like a deadly polar vortex. At this point, it is difficult to see better times ahead.
The reason Steinbeck’s Nobel Prize winning novel still resonates today is because humans do not change. The human condition, our frailties, foibles, moral shortcomings, greed, avarice, narcissism, ability to forgive and seek redemption has remained constant through the ages. Steinbeck wrote the novel to address the moral degeneration of American culture during the 1950s and 1960s. The game show scandals, nativism and plagiarism of the 1950’s was representative of the decay.
Twenty-two years before, in 1939, Steinbeck addressed man’s inhumanity to man and the greed of evil men creating the suffering of the common man during the Great Depression in his classic novel Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck’s characters have biblical aspects, as the battle between good and evil is always a subplot. If Steinbeck thought American culture had degenerated in 1961, I wonder what he would think today.
The definition of discontent is dissatisfaction with the prevailing social or political situation. If ever a word defined the current state of our world, it would be discontent. And it so happens, we are also in the depths of a bleak tumultuous winter season. The social and political discontent is reflected in the epic struggle between far-left treasonous Deep State operatives and the deplorables supporting Trump’s battle to retain the presidency.
An open coup has been in progress for two years as the Obama/Clinton surveillance state cronies, fully supported by the left-wing fake news propaganda outlets, attempt to remove a democratically elected president. This is truly a dark moment in our history and could mark a turning point in the demise of our Republic.
“It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.” ― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent
Steinbeck’s story about the moral decline of Ethan Hawley was a parable about the human condition set in the 1950s, but applicable throughout human history, and as relevant today as it was then. Ethan was a war hero whose integrity and honesty were the noble standards he lived by every day. His father recklessly lost the family fortune and he was left as a lowly grocery store clerk working for a foreigner.
It is a story of how easy it is for a good man to be corrupted through societal expectations, the opinions of prominent people, and the disapproval of family for their status in the community. The love of money is the root of all evil, as presented by Steinbeck. Ethan Hawley’s fall from grace was self-imposed as he allowed his darker nature to control his actions in order to regain his once prominent station in the community. The opinions of others considering him a failure led to his fall from grace.
“Men don’t get knocked out, or I mean they can fight back against big things. What kills them is erosion; they get nudged into failure.” ― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent
He sacrificed his self-respect, life long friendships, and the lives of two men, in order to climb the social ladder and regain the wealth and influence his father had squandered. Ethan’s ego and sense of self worth led him down a path paved with evil intentions. He had his boss deported, provided the means for his best friend to commit suicide, planned to rob a bank, and eventually came to the realization his own disregard for morality had been passed on to his son, who saw no problem with cheating to get what he wanted in life.
Ethan knew right from wrong. He was well read. He had killed Germans fighting for his country. He willfully chose to manipulate, lie and scheme in order to achieve his materialistic ambitions. The difference between Ethan and the materialistic, delusional, dishonest masses inhabiting our country today, is his sense of guilt impelled him to take his own life. But the unwavering love of his daughter convinced him to soldier on and redeem himself.
Our society is now infinitely more materialistic, narcissistic, and greedy than it was in the 1950s. Moral degeneration has reached new lows, unthinkable during the relatively innocent 1950s. But the common theme is human failings, foibles, and fallacies. Whatever a culture values you get more of. Our culture values achievement, wealth and power, at any cost.
Achieving success through hard work, intellectual accomplishment, or a superior product is antiquated and passé. Success is achieved through regulatory capture, bribing politicians, financial engineering schemes, monopolization of markets, and the power of propaganda. As Ethan cynically expounded, strength and success, even if achieved through criminal means, is all that matters in the end. The victors write the history books.
“To most of the world success is never bad. I remember how, when Hitler moved unchecked and triumphant, many honorable men sought and found virtues in him. And Mussolini made the trains run on time, and Vichy collaborated for the good of France, and whatever else Stalin was, he was strong. Strength and success—they are above morality, above criticism. It seems, then, that it is not what you do, but how you do it and what you call it. Is there a check in men, deep in them, that stops or punishes? There doesn’t seem to be. The only punishment is for failure. In effect no crime is committed unless a criminal is caught.” ― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent
A modern-day parable of moral degeneration presented itself to me shortly after finishing the Steinbeck novel. I happened to stumble across a documentary about the Fyre Festival fraud on Netflix. The protagonist of this illustration of discontent and delusion was Billy McFarland. He is representative of the modern-day Ethan Hawley, except with no redeeming qualities or conscience.
He conned investors, entertainers, super models, the media, employees, and gullible millennials. His ultimate purpose was no different than Ethan Hawley’s, to be wealthy and admired by his peers. His outrageously criminal exploits were detailed in the documentary as he lied, falsified, and conducted a ponzi scheme until it all blew up in a shocking display of hubristic folly. The story is a reflection of our shallow, narcissistic, gullible, low IQ society.
What leaps off the screen is how businesses are created out of thin air delivering no value to society. It’s all smoke, mirrors, and superficial virtue signaling designed to lure intellectual lightweights to pretend they are a mover and shaker in their social media driven world. The entire festival was designed to promote some ridiculous music booking app. These frivolous social media-based companies are built upon false narratives, self-absorbed millennials, easy money, and celebrity worship. They have zero value.
After watching how easily young people could be lured into handing over tens of thousands of dollars to this shyster because he paid some super models to do a bikini video and tweet falsehoods about the fake festival, you realize how they can believe socialism can work. Alexandrea Ocasio-Cortez is a perfect role model for these dullards and sycophants. Young people appear incapable of thinking for themselves, critically assessing situations, or going against the crowd. They want to be told what to believe and what to do.
Of course, this sickness is not confined to only young people. Our entire society is permeated with greed, narcissism and lemming-like behavior. Keeping up with the Kardashians has replaced keeping up with the Joneses. Ethan Hawley’s desire for status and respect among his peers in small town America during the 1950s is no different than the social climbing happening in our high-tech social media crazed world of today. Human nature does not change.
The Netflix documentary brought a term to my attention I had not heard before – “influencers”. The shallowness and trivial nature of our culture is captured perfectly by the essence of the importance of “influencers” to marketing products and events. The Fyre Festival was promoted on Instagram by “social media influencers” including socialite and model Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and model Emily Ratajkowski, who did not disclose they had been paid to do so.
“In business and in politics a man must carve and maul his way through men to get to be King of the Mountain. Once there, he can be great and kind–but he must get there first.” ― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent
Rather than make up our own minds about what we like, what we wear, where we eat, or what entertainment we enjoy, we need to be influenced into our decisions by famous people who are famous for being famous. These “influencers” generate their influential power through the number of social media followers they have accumulated by posting pictures of themselves in their underwear, leaked sex tapes, nude selfies, or generally being attractive.
Most of them are low IQ mouth breathers who can’t do basic math or write a comprehensible paragraph. But those 36DD breasts and pouty lips classify them as a grade A influencer. I can’t decide whether these narcissistic icons are more pathetic or the feeble-minded wretches who are actually influenced by these vacuous bimbos. Moral degeneration of society seems to have reached a new low.
Billy McFarland used any means necessary to maul his way to the top. He figured if he pulled off this spectacular social media extravaganza, his new music app demand would skyrocket and he would become a superstar music business mogul like Jay-Z. As his lies and debt continued to pile up, he double downed and used his dynamic personality to convince naïve rich women into “investing” millions into his doomed to failure venture.
Ultimately, thousands of suckers landed on a Caribbean island expecting luxurious accommodations and dozens of A list entertainers, but experienced mass confusion, flimsy tent accommodations with soaked mattresses, little to no food, and a canceled concert as unpaid bands pulled out. The disaster was reported in real time through the same social media that promoted this festival farce.
“In poverty she is envious. In riches she may be a snob. Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms” ― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent
In the case of Billy McFarland we know the consequences of his actions. Lawsuits totaling $100 million were filed against him. He was charged with the Federal crime of wire fraud and convicted. He is currently serving six years in a Federal prison and was ordered to forfeit $26 million. Based on the warped personality I witnessed in the documentary, he will resume scamming people the second he walks out of that prison, and more suckers will eagerly hand him their money. You can’t cure stupid.
The future of fictional character Ethan Hawley is left to your imagination. He had been a moral upstanding citizen who faced a crisis of conscience and fell prey to the darker side of his nature. His boss had been deported and his best friend was dead. At the end of the novel he was left with ill-gotten wealth, a loving wife, a son who felt no guilt in cheating, and a daughter who saved his life.
I want to believe Ethan spent the rest of his life redeeming himself through his actions by doing good for the town, helping his friends achieve success, teaching his son right from wrong, using his wealth to benefit humanity, and proving to his daughter his life was worth saving. Ethan’s struggle is the existential crisis we all face as human beings. The love of money is the root of all evil. Whether we are poor, middle class or rich, when our priorities become warped by greed, narcissism, envy, or worldly desires, it only leads to discontent.
We see the discontent revealed by the billionaire crowd who rig markets to pillage more of the nation’s wealth. We see it among corrupt politicians being bought off by crooked corporate CEOs. We see it when media pundits broadcast fake news to push their agenda. We see it exhibited by the blatant coup attempt against a duly elected president by arrogant treasonous men who consider themselves above the law. We see it play out in office politics all over America. We see it with cheating on our taxes or lying to our spouses. We see our youth plagiarizing and cheating on tests. It seems we are a society of scammers, liars, and dishonest discontents.
Steinbeck was not one for happy endings. He pondered morality and the human condition and found it wanting. A battle between the good and evil is fought within the conscience of every human being. An inner dialogue takes place regarding every moral decision we make. The continuation of a civilized society is dependent upon more human beings choosing the path of good versus the path of evil.
We can be the most technologically advanced civilization in history, but if we allow moral degeneration to dominate our culture, our civilization will be doomed. It feels as if our society is leaning towards the dark side and this realization is leading to an epic showdown between good and evil. We are truly experiencing a winter of discontent. The winner of this battle will determine the future course of our country.
“We can shoot rockets into space but we can’t cure anger or discontent.” ― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent
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Good analogies. Discontent is a human condition. I try not to participate.
” Ethan Hawley’s fall from grace was self-imposed as he allowed his darker nature to control his actions in order to regain his once prominent station in the community. The opinions of others considering him a failure led to his fall from grace.”
Frankly, from my point of view, I don’t give a fuck about what people think of me, what they think of what I wear, what the fuck they think about what I do. I don’t care. That is between God, me, and my family. Too bad current prog society has corrupted so many by design. They are hopelessly lost cognitive dissonant sheep (and who the fuck cares ((who)) is doing it, it is being done, and would be done by another group if ((they)) weren’t doing it. Same result) . In this 4th turning it will not end up well for them. And probably not for us either. Get right with God first (not organized religion, but a personal relationship with the Creator, and the rest will follow.) (Hear that RINS and Hollywood)? I will pray for you and yours, but don’t judge at all.
A man’s reputation is a very valuable thing, and once tarnished is nigh impossible to bring back to a shine. I for one value mine, and do indeed care what people think about me with respect to my reputation. I want to be known as honest, loyal, trustworthy, family-oriented, hard-working. And I believe that I am known as those things. It benefits me in business, and it benefits me and mine personally in all things.
Llpoh, that is not what I was necessarily trying to imply. I do see myself as honest, loyal, trustworthy, family-orientated and hard-working. I just don’t give a fuck if anyone thinks of me less for that. I don’t do anything that purports to represent me otherwise. Those are attributes that marxists fear and despise, and did I say I don’t care! And I appreciate the info on masters scholarships, much appreciated!
No problemo. Pays to read the fine print.,
Your reputation is what others think of you. Your character is who you ARE.
I would prefer to be known by others to have all the positive characteristics that you mention above … but it is more important to me to look in the mirror and know that on most of my days (but certainly not all), I live up to those standards.
I’ve made the statement on many occasions that I don’t really give a fuck about what people think … but honestly, I do care to some extent, but trying to live up to others’ opinions is not the DRIVING FORCE for the way I try to chart my course … Try to be honest, have pure intentions, let the good parts outweigh the bad, do the best you can and let the chips fall.
Joey – hopefully I am both of good character and reputation.
In business transactions, I not only abide by what I have said I will do, but I tend to abide by what the other party believes I said I will do. They are not the same thing. So long as I think they are being honest in what they believe I said, I generally will meet those terms.
For instance, I said the price for something was $10 , but the customer believes that I said $9, then $9 it is. I tell them that I believe the price was $10, but I will honor what they believe was sad. I will do this so long as I know them to be honest, that is.
And as a result of my willingness to do this, my reputation, and my business, thrives. No honest man leaves me thinking I behaved dishonestly with them. Rather, they leave knowing that if they do business with me, they never, ever have to be concerned that they will cheated. And they tend to return to me and again as a result.
I am not the cheapest, but I deliver what I promise almost 100% of the time, and I make things good on those rare occasions where there is a hiccup. It is a rare thing, and it has value, at least amongst honest men and women. Who are the only people I do business with.
My only point is that character is more important than reputation because it is who you are at your core.
The example I will share is when I had to undertake a very minor fraud investigation in a non-profit that I was involved in.
I tried to handle things discreetly and get the guy who was the culprit to just take care of things (i.e. pay back a couple hundred $$$) without dragging his name through the mud …
Instead, this jackass played the back-door and started to sling mud at me, saying that I was coming after him … I was part of a whisper campaign and some folks were saying some sh*t about me, so my ‘reputation’ wasn’t too good.
I kept my mouth shut and didn’t air any of this guy’s misdeeds publicly and I didn’t really give two shits about it … I knew in my heart that I handled the situation with good intentions, just trying to do the right thing. Figured all the bullshit would come out in the wash … and it did … the fucker had a major drug problem, his wife left him, etc.
Haven’t received any apologies from the whisperers … but again don’t care … the assholes that were part of the whispering campaign were exposed for who they were.
I have absolutely no remorse that my ‘reputation’ was temporarily tattered in the eyes of some because I felt my character was untainted.
Must be nice to be able to deal with only honest people, in my business we have to deal with all of them.
Stacking – if you own a biz, you can often choose who you deal with.
I don’t but own one, but do work for a large one. Let me tell you what happened today. I sold the customer a large order in a particular color 25 fucking thousand and she signed contract for said color a month ago and tells me today that she didn’t order that color. Dude my heart just stopped, I was floored, low IQ wacko mother fuckers is all I was thinking. I went over everything in contract, but I know my company will bow down and take care of the customer, because the customer is always right.
I’m going to have to eat the sale, pisses me off. I love what I do for a living but the customers that fuck you over the coals is wearing on me.
Carry on. …
Signed contract is a different thing. There you have proof of the agreement. Honest people, who I exclusively work with, take it on the chin in those cases, but I do help mitigate their costs as best I can. If they do not abide by the contract, I do not work with them again, as they are dishonest.
The first builder I worked for put it thusly: “If you willfully choose not to honor a contract, you’re a con-man, not a contractor. Sometimes jobs go south and for lots of reasons, but anybody who is honest will fight like hell to hold up to their end of the deal.”
Twenty-some years later, his wisdom remains true, near as I can tell.
That first sentence is a keeper.
Always abiding by what another party believes you said you would do, whether in business or in pleasure, could easily pave the road to hell if left unchecked and/or taken to extremes.
I believe that’s the original commenter couched his statement with “tend to abide”.
It is why I only deal with honest people. It allows me great latitude.
HardScrabble, I have a theory/ story for you, I want you to write it, because it fits in with current and future events. To me it feels like I stumbled upon something that I shouldn’t have. I like your writing style a lot, your attention to details and your insight.
I’m not sure of how to proceed from here, get in touch with me if you can.
Carry on….. ….
Never forget that we live in a time when a entire life’s achievements can be reduced to a single epithet used by strangers who’ve never met you. Reputation is what others think of you, character is what your conscience allows you to think of yourself.
To thine own self be true, and all that jazz.
“Never forget that we live in a time when a entire life’s achievements can be reduced to a single epithet used by strangers who’ve never met you”
That is a sobering thought, isn’t it? Haven’t we seen this happen over and over? A persons whole life is ruined because the media decided to ruin it. They come back with a very small correction that nobody ever sees so they can cover their asses but the damage is done.
Mary Christine,
What you excellently point out above is what I refer to as the “Eye of Sauron” …
Once it is squarely placed on you….LOOK OUT!!
Agreed, printing retractions on the 4th or 5th page something CNN (and WaPo and Faux) does only to avoid being successfully sued.
Uh…..who would down vote this? Good comment…….
We never know through whose eyes God is looking.
If it weren’t for organized religion, there wouldn’t be any religion. Or at least not moral monotheism. Which came into existence exactly once, four thousand years ago. All other forms of monotheism are derived from that one event.
It takes a great deal of ego to think that one would come up with that idea all on their own, without the heritage that had been passed on to you for millennia.
Also, do you use that kind of language when you are talking to God?
I kinda wondered that myself… just sayin! Seems to be a favorite, just like brushing ones teeth…simply a natural…..just rolls off the tongue.
“The shallowness and trivial nature of our culture is captured perfectly by the essence of the importance of “influencers” to marketing products and events.” And there are lot of immoral influencers we seem to follow like sheep to the slaughter!
I agree with the authors’ article in very many ways, and certainly not a new revelation in this nation. We are a shallow, trivial culture, as admin said in his excellent article. We seem to thrive on minutiae!
No inner depth. I’ve very long ago opted out. realized that a Holy God will judge every thought, word, action and deed.
“For the Son of Man will come in His Father’s glory with His angels, and then He will repay each one according to what he has done. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”
I’m laying in my hospital room and I just read it all so with a tear rolling down my right cheek I say to all of you is this.
Yes this is the winter of discontent but as God as my father in heaven who made me this spring and summer are going to be glorious to God’s people who actually follow him.
The darkness that controlled and manipulated us. Shall all be judged…
I hope your hospital visit is short and as pleasant as can possibly be.
Angel – you are right on! In your hospital room, always remember that you are not alone. You are His own. May He richly bless you my sweet sister as He holds you in His righteous right hand.
Very nicely written.
The other day, I wrote that as a society we are lacking in ethics and morality. People posting on TBP were suggesting that because the govt is so corrupt, it is fine for the people to behave similarly, by reneging on debts, etc. My position is that we will never resurrect our societies without the traditional beliefs in hard work, family, thrift, education, and personal responsibility. I gave as an example that the Founding Fathers would never have created the new nation if they had not believed in those things, but rather had echoed the British despots in deeds.
We need moral and ethical people,who maintain those attributes in the face of all diversity, to lead society back from the darkness. I see few of them, and despair.
+100
I say again…….who would downvote this???
Spot on.
I believe we may refer to them generally as “assholes.”
“We can shoot rockets into space but we can’t cure anger or discontent.” ― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent
John Steinbeck, for all his purported literary genius, bought the moon landing hoax?
I’m kidding, but not about the moon hoax.
He could have picked a better event to represent the pinnacle of human achievement.
He died in 1968 before we “landed” on the moon.
Irrelevant.
It’s an iconic quote, but not immune to, or above, questioning or analysis.
All that matters here is Steinbeck’s perception of reality at the time he made the statement.
Steinbeck obviously didn’t die before watching rocket launches into low-Earth orbit on TV, or reading about them in the newspapers. There were several of those rocket launches before his 1961 novel.
Nor did he die (in 1968) before it had been PLASTERED ALL OVER THE NEWS AND NEWSPAPERS FOR YEARS that mankind was *inexorably* headed to the moon in just a few short months or years.
Perception is reality, even when it comes to things that haven’t yet come to pass, or never did come to pass.
Unless he made statements on the subject, we may never know if Steinbeck bought the moon hoax- EVEN THOUGH IT HADN’T QUITE COME TO PASS YET.
It doesn’t hurt to pose the question. That’s why I posed the my quibble related to his quote as a question, not as a statement.
Touche Motherfucker!
That being said, I’ll send you some more silver for next months rent. I’ve been hogging your bandwidth lately. I have a feeling gold and silver are going vertical right now.
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Who the fuck would downvote me for saying gold and silver appear to finally be going vertical?
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Maybe it’s something deeper and darker driving these downvoters. Maybe they’re trying to tell me I’m not allowed to spar with Admin or question Steinbeck. Maybe they believe I simply suck.
It’s the Pringles that did it, 22
I won’t touch factory “food” anymore.
The Pringles belonged to my wife and they were just a prop in my photo-op PSYOP.
I up voted you on both posts as I totally agree.
Unlike women, gold and silver don’t belong chained to the bedpost.
Unlike women, they ought to be “free range” metals.
No offense whatsoever M C.
Maybe people who actually know something about the metal markets ? Yes, you do suck. Shithead is most appropriate.
I own three of the last Harrington and Richardson Handirifles to roll off the production floor before they were discontinued. The ones with the CAC-prefix serial numbers.
Doesn’t count for anything?
Not I said the smiling stacker…
Get more while it’s still “on sale”.
Max your credit card if necessary!
Man I’m flush…for me and my wife and even for my Daughter, Son in Law and Grandson.
What the fuck is that on the plate? Perogies? Aren’t those Jewish?
https://www.space.com/39671-trump-nasa-budget-2019-funds-moon-over-iss.html
For all this space venture – aka spending trillions and beyond $$$$$$$ – how about we put all that toward making life better here on earth – help the homeless, cure cancer, give better aid to our Veteran’s who are suffering, rebuild our abandoned and crumbling infrastructure, build mental and physical health facilities that really DO help heal instead of simply masking diseases and illnesses with costly “pharmakeia.”
Humanity cannot even get along here on earth..why should we muddy up space any further!
“The budget request, which was released today (Feb. 12), allocates about $19.9 billion to NASA, an increase of $370 million over last year’s request. The proposal zeroes out funding for the International Space Station (ISS) in 2025 and allocates $150 million “to encourage development of new commercial low-Earth orbital platforms and capabilities for use by the private sector and NASA,” according to the agency’s budget overview.
The ISS could theoretically survive beyond 2025, if someone else picks up the tab; the budget request does not mention de-orbiting the $100 billion station when the government money runs out.
Well, whenever you stick your head out from where ever it is that you do what ever it is that you do, we are rewarded with a piece that is as well written as any other on this site !
annuit coeptis novus ordo seclorum- ^it’s not much of a compliment coming from someone who can barely write a
paragraph, but I know good reading; it always pulls me on, and then the story is over before I know it. Like it is with music for me- I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, but my heart knows when my ears hear it.
Thanks !
From the article – “Young people appear incapable of thinking for themselves, critically assessing situations, or going against the crowd. ”
Appear? I do not think most people have any idea how bad it has become.
I work closely with a non-profit that took on 7 weeks of volunteer work from kids in Americorp. These kids are a cross-section of America. From big cities to small towns, east to west coast. Half of them were college graduates. They are 18 – 24 yrs old.
I was completely blown away just how incapable these kids are. They can not follow simple instruction. It is not that they are low iq, but they flat do not know HOW to think. They can not think linearly. Logic is non existent.
I have young children, I spend lots of time training them in the same kinds of work that I was training these young adults in. My 7 yr old can grasp tasks and concepts far better then what these “graduates” have shown me the last 7 weeks.
I went into it with high hopes of training some youth in aspects of the trades that could help them in all facets of life. Personally and professionally. It soon became apparent that if it was not on a screen then comprehension went to zero. The experience was exhausting, and really showed me how screwed we are.
How screwed they all will be, we’ll be fine…
Its the telephones, they are addicted, always checking to see if someone has written. Adults do the same, interesting to be passed at seventy mile an hour by someone texting.
In the upcoming civil war destroy the cell towers the first day and drive half the population crazy.
That’s the idea behind “technology”…we let our fingers “think” for us so our brains don’t have to. Next, is “public education”…otherwise known as “indoctrination” into socialism. Most today don’t even know how to fill out a receipt for, say, groceries, or banking.
And the true reality of it all is…it has ALL BEEN PLANNED THIS WAY , the beast system to manipulate the unwashed masses, those who go along with the crowd…..and fall for the great deception hook, line and sinker!!
Just wait until the grid goes down……That’s when they roll out all the old folks who still know how stuff works to do the job!!!!!!!
” Moral degeneration of society seems to have reached a new low.” Admin
I wish that it were so. Yet we are just only now in what feels like the late Autumn of America’s debauchery and debasement. If post-birth abortion doesn’t signal the transition into an even more evil, deep, dark, disgusting and deranged formal Winter then we have been successfully desensitized to even recognized the profound changing of seasons.
And it shall be more than a Winter of Discontent that will occur after the Human hibernal solstice; with anguish, suffering, and, in what was once called “The Good Book” described as ” … the weeping and gnashing of teeth”. Actually, it will be just the beginnings of sorrows. Also, that Good Book says that neither their silver or gold will save them in the Day of Wrath, and they will throw it into the streets.
(Steinbeck’s towering works always made me melancholy. I am not sanguine at all about the near and medium-term future.)
Enjoyed that. In this electronic age of cacophonous crowd-noise and rainbow static I, too, find comfort and clarity in the old stories. Fourth Turnings do, indeed, resemble winter: Driving down roads that seem more like white-walled hallways. Out among the ice and drifts and where warm air taste like whiskey. Where being a man means dying alone with few watching.
Like our society today, Steinbeck’s “Winter” was replete with envy, insecurity, and the hole in the soul derived from the need for self-gratification. I noticed the other day how the words “THINK”, “PRIDE”, and “ANXIOUS” all have “I” smack dab in the middle. I think about my pride and become anxious.
I like the meme Stucky posted here a while back. Something to the effect of “we are not our thoughts but we are, instead, what is aware of our thoughts”. I’m most dangerous when I am right. What’s strange is how I always believe I’m right. Always. But that awareness tells me I only THINK I’m right and that’s a whole different story.
Anyway, thanks for the words
While may be a winter of discontent for some tis a day of being sad yet grateful for me.
16 years have passed since the Station Night Club fire with the blues based rock band Great white,100 people died and 200 injured,I was almost at the show and since the band opened with Desert Moon(one of me favorites) would have probably been right up front.
A part of me is grateful I was not there and a part of me wishes I was,perhaps I would have died or perhaps would have taken some actions that saved a few lives,will never know.I will say realize how many friends I had when phone was ringing off the hook the next day as folks worried I was at the show.
I will say will always remember this tragedy and will also always be grateful to the band Tesla that put together a memorial show for victims and their families along with Dee Snider of Twisted Sister fame,though personally have issues with Dee,traded blows with him at another show(DIO) in front of 15000 concert goers,he did put up when it mattered so kudos to him and Tesla and all the others who took part in benefit.
Days like today while sad certainly put the daily bullshit in perspective.
Saw these guys last night at a dive in Sommahville, don’t like crowds but shit, gotta live sometimes. Seems to fit:
Aim for politician fair who’ll treat your vote hope well
The last thing they’ll ever do, act in your interest
Look at the world through your Polaroid glasses
Co2,will never give up going to shows,but,I do look at exits ect. and think ahead what I would do to get me and others out in a similar situation.Some of the clubs I attended in Boston thru the ages were looking back pretty much death traps in a emergency,the old ones in Kennmore area .,the old Channel ect.
The Channel, oh ya, and the Rat in Kenmore. Good times!!! Ramones, Circle Jerks, GG Allin, Butthole Surfers, Suicidal Tendencies, Lords of the New Church, Dead Boys and on and on. And the first thing I did when I got in there was check out the exits. Situational awareness #1.
I’ve been waiting on this one since you first mentioned it and as I was reading it I didn’t want it to come to an end. Absolutely worth the wait.
There seem to be two arcs in America’s story and they have veered off into opposite directions from one another. On the one side there appears to be a race to the bottom, as if no affront or degradation is enough to satisfy some sick craving- like the opioid cults or the rising tide of disturbed souls willing to remove body parts in a feeble attempt to become something they can never be. And on the other their is a resurgence of tradition and principles, of people slowly returning to the land, to self-sufficiency, extended family structures, and communitarian principles that have existed for eons. As one slides inexorably into a world where everything is false, the other struggles towards the truth.
The Fyre Festival fraud that was conceived by Billy McFarland was only made possible by the vanity and mass hypnosis of it’s followers, an apt designation for the social media masses that make up the bulk of our consumer driven population. As vile and pathetic a character as he was, it was the ticket holders and investors and varied parasites that clung to the project that were the ones that made it possible. They assumed that if it cost a lot of money, it must be worth it, that if was exclusive, then they should be included, and that if it’s message was hedonism and self-gratification, then they would embrace their own debasement.
We all are subject to the influence of others and we all succumb to our hungers, but we always have a choice and at any time we can seek redemption. And just like Ethan discovered in the closing passages of the novel, we carry with us a talisman from our past deep with us always, to remind us of what is important.
Here is a good read illustrating the men on the two arcs in America’s story. It’s a speech by Brigadier General (retired) Zanetti. He sounds like one of the military men HNIC Barry Soetoro spent 8 years getting rid of.
https://www.stevequayle.com/index.php?s=649
That deserves a stand alone post. Absolutely riveting speech.
From your keypad to Admin’s eye…
It’s a fantastic piece.
However it’s nothing I haven’t heard before, nothing I don’t already know is true, and nothing I don’t strive to both be (the noble man) and avoid being (the hollow man).
I may have my qualms with women, but at the end of the day, I don’t believe they should be subjugated.
I also don’t believe that men strictly disallowing women from killing unborn humans, disallowing women from voting (who the fuck votes in this day and age anyway, but that is another issue), or disallowing them from serving in combat (who the fuck joins the military in this day and age anyway, but that is another issue), and so on, amounts to subjugating them.
This paragraph grabbed me as I have been increasingly stunned by the legions of young Jelly Heads I see with their faces buried in their phones, their eye contact either nonexistent or if made vacant and bored. Many who won’t even look at me as I hand them money for a retail transaction or pass them on the street.
“After watching how easily young people could be lured into handing over tens of thousands of dollars to this shyster because he paid some super models to do a bikini video and tweet falsehoods about the fake festival, you realize how they can believe socialism can work. Alexandrea Ocasio-Cortez is a perfect role model for these dullards and sycophants. Young people appear incapable of thinking for themselves, critically assessing situations, or going against the crowd. They want to be told what to believe and what to do.”
I read this and thought…hmmm…is it spoiled SELF ABSORPTION? A generation spoon fed 1st place participation trophie winners for just showing up? Where does the entitlement and demands for EVERYTHING come from? Where does the Lefty lemming stampede come from? Technology kids who childhoods and early years were shaped and molded by the unholy trinity of Academia, Big Media and Hollywood…is that is? Or is it the parents…or the lack of two parents?
I thought this had some ahhhhah moments for all generations, but especially this current herd.
HERE ARE 15 SIGNS OF SELF-ABSORBED PEOPLE: Written by Casey Imafidon
https://www.lifehack.org/325656/15-signs-self-absorbed-people-2
1. They are always on the defensive
They do not see the world from another person’s eyes. They would rather see it from theirs and protect their flaws and image with everything they’ve got.
2. They don’t see the big picture
A self-absorbed person thinks the world is just about them. Thus, the world, from their point of view, is a place comprising them and perhaps a few persons around them who they can control. How the world affects other people really doesn’t concern them.
3. They are imposing
They frequently use words like “should” or “must.” They want to dominate in any relationship because they see relationships as a tool for getting what they want and making themselves the center of attention.
4. They feel insecure sometimes
They are not complete. They always have a missing gap in their world. And you may be the person they try to use to fill those gaps.
5. They always think they are superior to others
They are so consumed by their own world and self-image that it is near impossible for other people to measure up to their standards. They maintain a superiority complex that most commonly leads to them devaluing others.
6. They consider friendships a tool for getting what they want
Don’t assume that they are overly concerned with the friendship that they have with you. This is why they have so many friends and are not overly concerned with the number of friends they have: they view friends as tools for getting what they want.
7. They are extremely opinionated
It is always about their opinions. They do not want to consider the opinions of others; due to their self-absorption they are consumed by their own point of view, self-image, desires and preferences.
8. They do not have long lasting relationships
Since their relationships are built around the idea of quantity and using people as tools to get what they want, they do not have long lasting relationships or quality ones.
9. They do not have a real sense of empathy
Since their display of sympathy or compassion is usually conditional, it is difficult for them to understand the depth of true empathy or what this concept really means.
10. They hide their insecurities behind a cloak of success
The truth is that no matter what sort of success they have, they will always feel inadequate internally. While they may appear successful or confident based on appearances and external achievements, internally, they fears relating to self-esteem.
11. They devalue others
Constructive criticism is okay, but self-absorbed people always take criticism too far and use it as a weapon to allow them to devalue others.
12. They can be arrogant
This is because they feel they are so important and better than every other person. A self-absorbed person can often be egotistical.
13. They hide who they are
They will present the best and most captivating part of their personality to you. As they are so self-absorbed, they do not want you to see the hidden elements that make them feel secretly insecure. This can lead to them coming across as pretentious and them failing to be vulnerable in relationships.
14. They are extremely selfish
Every human is selfish. But there are certain occasions when you have to make exceptions and take actions without expecting anything in return. This is not so for the self-absorbed person.
15. They think they are great and the world out there is wrong
They do not self-heal. If they have been hurt they would rather rebuke the world for this rather than self-heal. For the self-absorbed person the problem is either “you” or the “other”- never “me”. Most of the time it will seem like no form of self-healing or therapy would suit them as they are focused on all the wrongs the world has done to them, never accepting any responsibility.
When you recognize the above signs, consider that you may be dealing with a self-absorbed person- or you may be one yourself.
I got one bad. 7. They are extremely opinionated. Gotta work on that…
Truth be known IluvCO2…me too on 7. But I can change my mind when presented with well articulated truth. Shoot, it happens here every now and then.
Moderation in the practice of your God given right to #7 is no virtue.
Extremism in your application of #7 is no vice.
I’d like to add my #16 as an honorable mention.
16. Rampant Dunning Krueger effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
22 winmag referring to dunning–kruger is like bernie sanders & alexandria ocasio-cortez hosting a seminar on socialism.
From now on, I’ll have my eye on you.
Be afraid.
Be very afraid.
Mark, those are all the signs of Borderline Personality Disorder.
Ok thanks Mary, I thought I was just descriping the useful idiot Libtards, especially 2, 3, 5, 11, 12, 14 & 15.
Are they all suffering from BPD or is the BPD a symptom of a greater disease? Michael Savage is correct when he says liberalism is a mental disorder.
I think it’s: “the BPD is a symptom of a greater disease” the ‘disease’ being the success of the Globalist’s generational control of government, economics and their successful Long March brainwashing and group think success through the unholy trinity.
1. Academia
2. The Media (including Big Tech)
3. Hollywood
M C, remember the abortion guilt thread? Think severe BPD and use your imagination. It doesn’t excuse my failures in the matter, but again, use your imagination.
If you’re a Steinbeck fan, I went through a period in my early 20’s when I devoured his books, this one might surprise you.
“Although his career continued for almost three decades after the 1939 publication of The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck is still most closely associated with his Depression-era works of social struggle. But from Pearl Harbor on, he often wrote passionate accounts of America’s wars based on his own firsthand experience. Vietnam was no exception.
Thomas E. Barden’s Steinbeck in Vietnam offers for the first time a complete collection of the dispatches Steinbeck wrote as a war correspondent for Newsday. Rejected by the military because of his reputation as a subversive, and reticent to document the war officially for the Johnson administration, Steinbeck saw in Newsday a unique opportunity to put his skills to use. Between December 1966 and May 1967, the sixty-four-year-old Steinbeck toured the major combat areas of South Vietnam and traveled to the north of Thailand and into Laos, documenting his experiences in a series of columns titled Letters to Alicia, in reference to Newsday publisher Harry F. Guggenheim’s deceased wife. His columns were controversial, coming at a time when opposition to the conflict was growing and even ardent supporters were beginning to question its course. As he dared to go into the field, rode in helicopter gunships, and even fired artillery pieces, many detractors called him a warmonger and worse. Readers today might be surprised that the celebrated author would risk his literary reputation to document such a divisive war, particularly at the end of his career.
Drawing on four primary-source archives―the Steinbeck collection at Princeton, the Papers of Harry F. Guggenheim at the Library of Congress, the Pierpont Morgan Library’s Steinbeck holdings, and the archives of Newsday―Barden’s collection brings together the last published writings of this American author of enduring national and international stature. In addition to offering a definitive edition of these essays, Barden includes extensive notes as well as an introduction that provides background on the essays themselves, the military situation, the social context of the 1960s, and Steinbeck’s personal and political attitudes at the time.”
I just finished up a biography on Steinbeck and found out some things that surprised me. While he had been celebrated by the New York Times after his publication of The Grapes of Wrath and it’s socialist narrative, years later following the publication of The Winter of Our Discontent they savaged him. This led to his decision to give up writing fiction forever. The media wields enormous power with the public, able to create and to destroy careers based on nothing more than ideology.
From a recent hit-piece from the New York Review of Books
“So if all of Steinbeck is in print forty years after his death (in 1968), and despite the force-feeding of hundreds of thousands of school kids with his work—and official canonization by the Library of America—why is he so decisively off the literary map? Other than Brad Leithauser, who in 1989 published a perceptive fiftieth-anniversary homage to The Grapes of Wrath, who in America considers him seriously today, apart from a handful of Steinbeck academics and some local enthusiasts in Monterey?
Nor is dismissal of his work by the literary establishment anything new. When to everyone’s surprise, including his own, he won the 1962 Nobel Prize, the reaction was startlingly hostile. “Without detracting in the least from Mr. Steinbeck’s accomplishments,” ran a New York Times editorial, “we think it interesting that the laurel was not awarded to a writer …whose significance, influence and sheer body of work had already made a more profound impression on the literature of our age.” And on the eve of the award ceremony in Stockholm, Arthur Mizener, again in the Times, questioned why the Nobel committee would reward a writer whose “limited talent is, in his best books, watered down by tenth-rate philosophizing.” It’s a question difficult to answer. (Steinbeck himself had doubts. When asked by a reporter whether he believed he deserved the prize, he responded, “Frankly, no.”)”
The author of the critique above, Arthur Gottlieb, misses the point completely. Steinbeck understood well that he’d been cut off from the literary salons of NYC because of his drift away from the left and his subsequent condemnation of the direction America had taken after the end of WW II. Their attacks on his work continued until his death and it stung Steinbeck to endure their ceaseless criticism. When he was called a “limited talent” and a “tenth rate (sic) philopsopher, his response was not an agreement, but I thought, a profoundly clever rebuke. “Frankly, no.”, shows us a man who is both humble and at the same time clever enough to stuff the insult right back down Mizener’s throat. Who, after all, had won the Nobel Prize in literature? He knew that this was a literary hit job by the establishment to keep him in his place so that he might not write another book that would threaten their monopoly on The Narrative. Who, after all could have posed a greater threat than the man who captured the attention of the entire Nation with TGOW? He was, I imagine, one of the greatest living examples of how to dismantle hegemony of consensus with the telling of a simple tale.
The Winter of Our Discontent is one of the greatest American novels, not because it tells the story of a single man, but because it illuminates the underpinning of our entire way of life.
I started free-associating yesterday and am now 1,300 words into what will most likely be my next piece – sewn together, in part, from the thread of the last one here and correlated to recent headlines.
It begins like this:
“It’s been another strange week as the circus continues.”
Truly, as referenced in my above comment, we are a nation soothed by crowd-noise and laugh-tracks and neon colors shining through electronic screens; rainbow static like shadows on Plato’s cave. Most are dreaming, believing they can fly because the laws of physics (i.e. gravity) do not apply to consciousness while sleeping.
Or, an even better construct might be Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adam’s “movie in the mind”.
We imbibe suggestions, identify patterns, connect the dots, and draw conclusions; and this is how narratives move entire populations, like marketplaces, in a modern world.
Who are the dreamweavers and for what are they spinning? Regardless, they can be defeated by humor, irony, wit, and fresh stories. But the stories must be true. So maybe it’s the old tales, after all, that can leap tall buildings of censorship and ignorance faster than speeding bullets; if only for reasons of having already stood the test of time.
It’s difficult to persuade until an accord is established. Maybe then hearts and minds could be rewired? Which is what Admin has attempted here with his essay.
Or it could be too late and only slavery awaits those who could never be free anyway.
Steinbeck’s son was a war correspondent in Vietnam along with Errol Flynn’s son Sean. There was a movie I saw long ago called “Frankie’s House” about them. Lots of drugs and adrenaline junkies.
“Ahhh….adrenaline…my drug of choice!”
Said the heavily scarred berserker…amazed to still see a rflection in the mirror.
I was about halfway through Basic Infantry School and my father sent me that book in the mail. I remember it as being pretty profound, especially in light of where I was heading. Totally forgot about it but that’s on my re-read list now.
HF,
It is a riveting read and captures the insanity, the Catch 22 reality and the addictive adrenalin of the ultimate (human) hunt.
“Whatever a culture values you get more of. Our culture values achievement, wealth and power, at any cost.”
I disagree with the Acheivement part to some degree.
If everybody gets a fucking participation trophy nowadays, how is that really valuing Achievement? It’s devaluing it.
Not merely devaluing achievement, but hyper-valuing ill-gotten wealth and power.
As a young NCO one is taught to lead by example. Today people are led by what they see their leaders and socialites do. Never being taught to think their decisions through. This is what we have reaped.
Post an article about Jews or how white folk are being mistreated and get 500 comments. Admin posts an article truly important and it will be lucky to get 100. You cannot make this shit up.
controversy is gasoline on burning platforms.
Ancient TBP Proverb:
500 comments with average value in the bush…
is worth 100 comments with outstanding value in the hand.
“It feels as if our society is leaning towards the dark side and this realization is leading to an epic showdown between good and evil.”
Oh, you can bet it’s here. Vadar’s cronies have cooped the majority of the citizenry into believing right is wrong and wrong is good. “If it feels good, do it”. When a society embraces and promotes the same sex marriage, gender neutral policies, and a consideration for a bill that will lower the minority sexual assault age to 12 y/o, yet has no regard for a new born life that can be terminated at the decision of the producer, we have gone beyond first century Rome……we are burning from within.
Don’t ONLY prepare for hard times ~ grow food, have a water force, be prepared to protect yourself and your family ~ but pray. Pray often and fervently.
“An open coup has been in progress for two years as the Obama/Clinton surveillance state cronies, fully supported by the left-wing fake news propaganda outlets, attempt to remove a democratically elected president”
How do you think Trumps base will feel when those people do not go to jail? Will he convince them to elect him a second time? Will there be another election in 2020?
“It feels as if our society is leaning towards the dark side and this realization is leading to an epic showdown between good and evil. ”
It feels that way because that is exactly what is happening.
This has been a terrible winter so far and it seems like it will never end. So too, the 4th Turning Winter we are in will feel like it will never end, as well. You can’t stop a cycle like this. It has to play itself out. Only Divine Intervention will put a stop to it.
I’m telling you, MC… Feudalism is the new community organizational force. We shall be known as the Mississippi Corridorians, allied with the Western Redoubt and the Texas Remnant. Our only wall will be along the eastern shore of the Mississippi River.
I think you are closer to the truth than you know, Double Dee
The time to start burying your guns is the time to start digging them up.
The time to start building walls on the eastern shore of the Mississippi is the time to take a deep breath and go on slash and burn raids deep into occupied territory east of the Mississippi.
Missouri has been there before. It resulted in 4 counties being burned to the ground and left 20,000 people homeless refugees.
A good start toward redemption would be honest money. So yes, the love of money is evil, but honest money without the litany of wealth confiscation created by dishonest money would be a place to start. Pity it won’t happen before everyone starts shooting at each other and even then maybe not.
+100
The only hope for America to return to its former greatness, and without bloodshed, is for the majority of Americans (at least 80%) to return to a CHRISTIAN based culture. Seriously.
But, it is apparent that will never happen. I’m reasonably certain America’s winter of discontent will unleash its full fury before I enter the Great Beyond. I hope I have the balls to die a noble death.
fwiw, the grow light experiment fizzled when the bulb burned my butt. Jury is out on the apple cider vinegar cure.
Ecclesiastes 12: 13 “When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, along with every hidden thing, whether good or evil.” What is the conclusion of the matter? Who is he talking to? Fear Who? What will He do?
It matters not whether this nation returns to a Christian based culture…it never really was…It’s our responsibility about our own personal belief. Oh, there are and have always been many Christians in this nation. True believers are not ruled by the president, the elites or anyone else, but faithfully choose to know, to love and and to worship Almighty God.
It’s our own personal choice of who we, each individually, choose to worship and abide in… God, or mammon, or Trump, or the elites, or believe all the lies and deception, or nobody.
God is not a respecter of persons and will give each of us our choice. Time is short.
Oh, really???
Then what was our culture based on?? Judaism? Islam? Hindu?
Sometimes you really don’t know what you’re talking about.
Answer: It’s the fucken “feeble-minded wretches” … and it’s not even close.
It’s the American Consumer who makes the “vacuous bimbos” possible, not the other way around.
It’s the American Consumer who makes it possible for a jock-fuk to make $30 million dollars a year because he can put a ball in a basket.
It’s the American Consumer who makes it possible for shitfuk companies like McShits, Balance of Nature, and hundreds of others to exist.
It’s the American Consumer who hates “Big Corp, Big Pharma, etc.” … but who keeps them in business by buying their shit.
Fuck them all.
@ Stucky
As Carlin prophetically joked, “They got us by the balls!”
“Ephesians 5:15-17 KJB… “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.”
Do people understand that understanding the will of the Lord is made patently clear in Paul’s epistles? There is still time to redeem. Why stand we around bitching and moaning? Get on it. Make a difference in someone’s present eternity! Learn. Challenge. Teach.
1 Timothy 2:3-4 KJB… “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”
Evangelization is needed more than anything today.
2 Corinthians 13:8 KJB… “For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.”
Leopards don’t change their spots …. especially the older they get. Do you know what a dirty old man was at one time? A dirty young man.
Sure, people can change. But, I’m guessing most people change before they’re 40 … or 50, at the latest. Anything beyond that age and change is rarer than hen’s teeth.
I’m not sure how old Ethan was at the end of the novel. But, my guess, is that he continued to live out his life as a prick.
Outstanding and thought provoking. A real commentary on the situation on the ground today. Especially in light of the recent stories about the big five most indebted high tax states. They do all the most compassionate, great sounding, good lucking BS while having the most unpaid bills, pensions and the worst infrastructure in spite of paying the most for it. No one takes responsibility for anything. No one ever admits only God can be “all things to all people.” No, no we mustn’t mention this “divisive” myth, oh no! Just give us more tax money or more facebook likes and we’ll show you results. LOL!
Could it be that “virtue signaling” is the essence of our dilemma?
As society has been engineered away from God the State has usurped His place. Natural rights as Locke described were God-given rights and we were stewards of God’s creations, not plunderers, defiliers and accumulators.
Now the State, provides priveledges that are bestowed to you by the State, supposdely not our Maker. So it is very easy to see the endgame here.
Just look at China’s social crediting system to see what is in store for Amurika!
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-19/china-bans-millions-flights-trains-social-credit-crackdown
Then we have Trump tweeting about 5G and 6G technology and that American companies need to be competitive in this race.
I’m sure Emperor Trump would love to have that system here for all us plebs who have grandiose expectations for wages, jobs and healthcare.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-21/trump-i-want-5g-or-even-6g-tech-us-soon-possible
PP, I believe in my brain and my heart that this is the endgame:
Look closely at cartoon.
The LEFT ARM isn’t simply not strong enough to hoist up the mind and body and cause death.
Perhaps just a momentary loss of consciousness (duh, like what is very period of time we are living in- if not a momentary loss of consciousness?)
When the the mind and body realizes what it’s hijacked left arm just tried to do, the mind and body will pull back from the brink, and THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY.
This is the very point that America is at, right now in 2019.
Great article! If you want to know what happens in the last chapter of the story of humanity—how this all ends—read the last chapter of the Bible. Revelation tells, very clearly, what happens to those who have “gained the whole world but lost their soul.”
Just as a small aside from the beginning of the article, if I remember correctly both the House of Lancaster and the House of York were cadet branches of the House of Plantagenet. John of Gaunt’s descendants.
Bravo, well done. Your writing seems to get better every year. There were too many “golden nuggets” to pick just one, so I’ll leave it at thanks.
Admin provided this quote from Steinbeck that I thought was truly amazing!
So much existential wisdom in this observation by Steinbeck. In today’s modern society where we always attempt to diagnose and label the symptoms instead of the roots of the problems, it is a truly refreshing reminder for those of us conscious enough to comprehend.
Thank you Admin for this excellent connection. A Winter of Discontent, indeed. Perception management at its best or worst depending upon how far up the food chain you are…
Reminded me of another of your prescient articles and the tagline
“It was the Best of times, it was the worst of times”
“In today’s modern society where we always attempt to diagnose and label the symptoms instead of the roots of the problems…”
Agreed.
Fuck the DSM-IV and DSM-V!
Stucky is right ! Our only hope is a return to a Christian based culture where The Lord is not mocked and the 10 Commandments are held in high esteem . Unfortunately that will never happen cause the powers that be will not let it happen. The elites are determined to bring in their One World Luciferian Government at all costs even if it takes completely destroying America in the process. They want a debased and degenerate society with a sexually perverted population .This kind of society is easier to control . White Christian Civilization is what they have worked so hard to debase with people of color and hundreds of different groups and religions. We will never get back what we have lost. Maybe some parts of the nation can return to a white Christian population but only after succession and probably much bloodshed. We trusted men who turned out to be nothing but degenerate traitors who would sale their Mother for money. The very people who were suppose to protect our nation are the ones who sold us out. I really Fear what I think is coming our way. As Stucky said I also hope I die a noble death when the time comes.
The Almighty Creator of the universe is in full control of the good and the evil. (Job 1)
It doesn’t matter what the “powers that be” decide what this nation shall be. What is God-ordained to happen – will. Who we, as an individual, choose to follow is an individual heartfelt and deeply personal choice we each choose to make – or not. God is not a respecter of persons and will give us our choice. What matters is our own sincere repentance and a desire to know (John 17:3) the only One who can save the lost and the ungodly.
Having a deep, abiding personal relationship with the Savior is much different than “religion.” The “elite”, Trump or “powers that be” cannot control what is in our own hearts. No one can stop what the Almighty has already ordained…it’s far too late for that.
We are only responsible for our own decisions. It doesn’t matter what this nation ultimately does or does not do…its our own heart decision and deeply personal choice of how WE ourselves will live until it all fails and falls….and where WE ourselves spend our eternal life….the powers that be have no hold over our decision.
The United States of Smollett circa February 2019
Comments?
Deep analysis?
Hey Yoji, got anymore softball/PSYOP cartoons that get you 98% of the way to the truth, but leave out the last 2% of critical details? I’m happy to mark them up for you.
The original version, courtesy Yoji:
The improved version, courtesy 22winmag:
My marked up cartoon is not just a jingle. It’s what’s actually coming to America on a grand scale in the near future.
.22
Great cartoon great addition…what is the symbol of the grey shirt man?
Fasces.
Yes, I actually had to look it up to find out the backstory/debate.
Apparently a lot of folks identify and conflate the yellow Gadsden Flag with Libertarianism, which I don’t really agree with.
A lot of these folks also connect supposed Gadsden/Libertarians with Fascists (the gray shirt) as “fellow travelers” in the fight against Communists who definitely in bed with the Oligarch Crony Capitalists.
There is no doubt that the Commies are the tools of Oligarch Crap-italists, but I’m far less clear on the “Don’t tread on me” crowd marching beside Fascists in the struggle against them.
In any event,I just came up with the modification all by my lonesome because as a kid I really remember one thing from the playground: For me, tug-of-war was never about overpowering your opponents. It was about knowing the exact moment when to let go so they would fall backward and you could either rush them and beat when they were down or pull the rope back and “win”.
Ok thanks HSF, .22, I didn’t know.
I have two flag polls on my farm.
The tallest dominant one holds the ‘Pine Tree flag’ and this flag owns my heart above all the others for reasons explained in the link.
https://www.conservapedia.com/Pine_Tree_Flag
A shorter poll holds the ‘Marine Corps’ Flag. No explanation needed.
The ‘American’ Flag flies from my front porch. No explanation needed.
Inside my large barn hangs almost every worthy (in my opinion) American flag (full size) from the Revolutionary War and Civil War including a huge oversized combo ‘Bonnie Blue Stars & Bars’ Battle Flag.
I display the ‘Gladstone’ and the ‘Join or Die’ flag and the ‘Culpeper Minute Man’ flag as well as the ‘NC State Flag’ and some others.
https://www.conservapedia.com/Gadsden_Flag
I’m not a Libertarian but I hold many of their core beliefs in high esteem but I’m defiantly not a purest of their discipline. To me the ‘Don’t Thread on Me Flag’ is a universal American statement that all freedom and liberty loving and defiant Americans can proclaim with an unmistakable message. Especially when well armed and geared up.
I don’t want anything to do with the Nazi Swastika flag (sorry Yo) and the Hammer and Sickle flag will turn me into an angry raging bull.
I have an old: ‘Kill A Commie for Mommy’ t-shirt and it still fits.
Flags are powerful symbols and can mean different things to different people. I keep a tabbed binder in my barn with the printed down history of the 12 different flags I fly or hang from the rafters for visitors. Most of whom get a history lesson with it if I share it…because most of them are clueless.
By the end of his next visit my 7 year old Grandson will know them all by heart.
I have the 1776 Bennington flag hanging on my house.
You raided my wardrobe and flag collection?
The only one that’s missing is the Kriegsmarine in all it’s glory.
@ Mark,
Once you understand what faces are you begin to See them throughout American culture and architecture.
You mean the Vatican. They have authority of Jerusalem as well.
@ M.C.
If most people understood the image below we might get somewhere positive as a species
Economic. Religious. Political.
Plato,
My ‘Appeal to Heaven Flag’ out ranks and out symbolizes all the secular piss ants symbols from the Fall on.
LOCKEAN INFLUENCE
The inspiration and influence of John Locke and God as the Supreme authority in everybody’s lives, and that God is greater than Government is acknowledged. When governments become abusive of the people, the people have one last resort and that is to appeal to the Almighty to resolve their grievances. Locke wrote:
“Where an appeal to the law, and constituted judges, lies open, but the remedy is denied by a manifest perverting of justice, and a barefaced wresting of the laws to protect or indemnify the violence or injuries of some men, or party of men, there it is hard to imagine anything but a state of war: for wherever violence is used, and injury done, though by hands appointed to administer justice, it is still violence and injury, however colored with the name, pretenses, or forms of law, the end whereof being to protect and redress the innocent, by an unbiased application of it, to all who are under it; wherever that is not bona fide done, war is made upon the sufferers, who having no appeal on earth to right them, they are left to the only remedy in such cases, an appeal to heaven.
Where there is no judge on earth the appeal lies to GOD IN HEAVEN That question then cannot mean who shall judge, whether another hath put himself in a state of war with me, and whether I may, as Jephtha did, appeal to Heaven in it? Of that I myself can only judge in my own conscience, as I will answer it at the great day to the Supreme Judge of all men.”
We are at WAR (whata ya gonna DEW?) and I have made my appeal known on the most prominent flag pole, with the most worthy flag/symbol on my homestead/farm that to me exists.
To hell with Rome, London and especially DC…I bend no knee to them, but bend both and bow my head and clasp my hands to the Triune God.
Mark,
Thank you for the Locke quote. I am grateful that God has drawn you to this site. I always look forward to any content you provide.
It truly is amazing how individuals such as ourselves have come to similar conclusions from different starting points, life experiences and generational influencers. I take comfort in knowing that someone thousands of miles away from me and a decade or 2 further along than me sees and feels what I see and feel.
Much Love and may God bless your homestead and your loved ones!
Thanks Plato, TBP is a hotbed of American thinkers and defiant citizens who are not blinded, brainwashed or bent over. That’s why I hang out and throw my two American Eagles in here now and then.
I have learned a lot here in general and from you numerous times, and it’s made me realize I’m not as quirky as I thought I was…because there are a lot of other ‘thinking defiant quirks’ out there as well.
If it ever stops raining I will be working as one of two chain saw men clearing trees for what I call our ‘last stand’ home. I just want to get it built before TSHTF. Sometimes I think I’m building my own personal Alamo…I may have to buy a Coonskin Cap and get me a Pennsylvania-style, double-set trigger flintlock rifle, bored for .40 caliber with a curly maple stock, featuring a half moon German silver inlay on the cheek piece…and name her Ole Betsy…like one of my boyhood heroes!
Hells bells…bring on them carvans of illegal landscapers!
I can hear it now: marky, marky Crocket…King of the Wild Frontier…
superb as always! I’ve not read the novel but will add it to my wishlist.
GREAT story as usual,THE TIMES they are a changing,AND NOT FOR THE GOOD,america is falling,very few understand what that means,MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT ,will be destroyed because no one cares enough to stop it,they ALL CLING TO SATAN in america,and you really don’t know what I mean yet,BUT your about to see things THOUGHT IMPOSSIBLE….AMERICA is about to learn what EVIL not only looks like ,but how bad it is,and with that said its far more then a mouth full,this evil demonic country is about to understand what TERROR is all about…THEY HAVE CHOSEN POORLY…….
What the Almighty has deemed to fall, will. This nation is no different than Sodom and Gomorrah at this point…well, I take that back…perhaps even far worse. And just what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah? Remember history always repeats itself, and escalates.
“And don’t forget Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighboring towns, which were filled with immorality and every kind of sexual perversion. Those cities were destroyed by fire and serve as a warning of the eternal fire of God’s judgment. Many will follow in their depravity, and because of them the way of truth will be defamed. if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction, reducing them to ashes as an example of what is coming on the ungodly; And by that same word, the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.”
Jude 1:7; Matthew 10:17; 2 Peter 2:6, 3:7.
Has anyone heard of this law ….. which was signed by Trump LAST year??
I certainly have not. But, it was on today’s Blacklisted News website. Holy Shite, talk about a winter of discontent!
President Donald Trump has signed the Rapid DNA Act into law which means the police can routinely take DNA samples from people who are arrested but not yet convicted of a crime. The law, which was signed in 2017 and comes into effect this year.
See this article —– “FBI plotting to keep DNA of ENTIRE population on file to create ‘nation of suspects’”
Here; https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/758713/fbi-dna-file-rapid-dna-act-donald-trump-rutherford-institute-john-whitehead
Then again, why should I be surprised? Trump absolutely positively LOVES copfuks.
That’s one thing we can agree on.
But in the same sense like IluvC02 says about J00s having WAAAAY too much America, if it weren’t the copfuks that Trump were drooling on, it would just be some some other self-serving special interest group.
“They” have already been doing this for some time. Not a new thing, perhaps just the new law is new! Ancestry.com and other ancestry registers have to give over their information – it says so in their privacy (or lack of) reports; blood tests, blood donors – where does all that blood really go? Ask any lab and they are not allowed to tell us where it goes.
Here’s how we fix “our creeping malaise”:
Phil. 4:8 KJV
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things . . .
Phil. 4:11 KJV . . . for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.
“our creeping malaise”
Pink Floyd much?
Amen Soup!
The intelligence agencies just encourage and allow events like the Frye festival scam/psyop to occur and intelligence agencies go through the same tired motions with the weekly fake school shootups because they’re bored, have lost all respect for themselves long ago (the intelligence agencies), and have nothing better to do.
It’s not even a challenge anymore for intelligence to pull ridiculous broad daylight PSYOPS on a weekly basis. Nobody has given a shit on either side of the equation for quite some time. Huxley was right. However, all that being said, it doesn’t mean people aren’t suddenly waking up. They are.
I would note that Billy McFarland has a past record for grifter behavior.
And despite all of the sneers and disbelief from the comments, the reason Fyre Festival worked is because of trust.
The types of people who signed up for Fyre Festival are “successful” – young, more than average wealth. The models and what not are simply validation that Fyre Festival was legit…clearly Billy did an excellent job in sussing out what is needed to pass as trustworthy to that audience.
I also see an amazingly low level of understanding of why influencers exist.
Influencers exist for 2 reasons:
1) content – influencers are highly prolific content generators, which in turn draws and keeps audience, and
2) validation – influencers are like Gandhi’s statement: “There goes my people. I must follow them, for I am their leader”. The majority of influencers are simply channels by which their followers can keep up with what the followers think is “in” or “successful” or “legit”. This means looking good, selfies in exotic locales, pics of dishes in fancy restaurants, whatever. Very Gadsby.
What is really ironic is that true cynicism of government, people, motives etc is European.
Only Americans are as dumb and naive as “Fyre Festival” illustrates.
one of the greatest slights-of-hand ever perpetrated continues to this day; it is called american prosperity (the streets are paved with gold). Ever watch Apocalypto? back then they raided peaceful villages to bring the people to the city centers in order to feed the beast, they were forced against their will; today we have convinced migrants that things are so great here they are literally clamoring to get in and hand over their sovereignty and willingly become slaves to the beast of , over taxation, lifelong debt etc. Think about the analogy. People have been duped for centuries, into debt, into wars, into marriage, into serfdom and millennials are no different. I am a parent and try to teach my kids how to spot a scam, do some research, be skeptical without being sarcastic. Social media is a giant mindf**k and more powerful than most young peoples ability to ignore it, and the masters of the universe know this very well.
Front page of zerohedge right now.
And Donald Trump is Ethan. The Deep State is out to get him? We’re blaming the 1% while we idolize them? This is just what Hitler did? He raged against the decline of moral values while declaring himself above the law. Germany was the first and best instance of the politics of resentment. How can you say Cortez is a socialist when she stood up to Amazon in her district to refute SOCIALISM, the sort of socialism that made Trump rich, sucking the blood out of working people with subsidies and rigged bankruptcy laws so the 1% get more power. Now we have a faux demagogue to spread hate, and he is the victim? You need to get in a time machine and head back to Germany, they have a spot for you.