QAnon and The Madness of Crowds

It's amazing how conspiracy thinking in such a contradiction. The Qooks believe that there is a grand conspiracy involving a cabal of (Jewish? Democrat? Freemason? Alien? Vampire? Ginger?) elites that control the world, who are hell bent on....fuck, who knows. The funny thing is that they fear a hidden, nefarious, controlling force that they cannot see or prove exists, yet the prophet of this Qook-spiracy is a hidden figure that they cannot see or prove exists, controlling them in ways that are quite tangible. 

Fuck, people are dumb.

Bad American?

I've been thinking about patriotism and jingoism quite a bit lately, and wonder about my own perspective on this matter. If you look at my life on paper, I look like a halfway decent American. I served in the military, I pay my taxes (now...), and have never been convicted of a crime! I'm basically Captain America.

The thing is, there's a lot of smoke and mirrors there. First, I did serve in the US Navy, and was honorably discharged after my 4 year contract was finished. But it's probably a stretch to say I served all that honorably. Don't get me wrong, I didn't commit espionage or piss in the potable water on the boat or anything, but I was generally useless. It should be said that I camouflage my uselessness like a fucking artist, but I was still pretty useless. I spent the better part of two deployments reading fantasy novels and hoping not to call any real attention to myself whilst doing virtually nothing of consequence. In fact, you can probably just etch that last part into my epitaph...

At any rate, the rest of my uber-patriotic veneer can be boiled down to one thing: marrying a saint. She has extricated me from a nugatory life of bad credit and rock-bottom existence. So now I have a mortgage, a really nice car, a pretty good job that has benefits for my progeny and a paycheck. Other than that I am really only as useful to society as a pathologically lazy turd can be.

So, now that we know my tangible contribution is poor, what about my philosophical one? I think my love of country can be best expressed in my sincere belief that the system of government devised by the founders of this nation is simply unrivaled in human history. It has done, up until recently, a pretty good job of keeping the worst of human impulses from setting our collective dumpster on fire. It has kept the religious zealots and ideological ne'er do wells from hijacking the plane and crashing us into the side of the mountain.

Other than that, I could really care less. I don't actually know how hard I would fight to keep those forces, which are stronger than ever and have already set the trash ablaze, from finishing the job. In some ways I feel like my contribution to this project has been keeping myself informed, taking my role as a voter seriously, and using that power to do good as I see it.

Ben Franklin (might have) said, “A nation of well-informed men, who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them, cannot be enslaved.” (This quote is attributed to Ben, but may have been done so erroneously.) Regardless, it is quite obvious that a nation of uninformed window-lickers are, on the other hand, perfectly capable of razing a nation to the ground. This is what we are currently witnessing, and yet I feel as though I am watching from an emotional distance. If these idiots can't fathom the gift that they were given, then it should be taken from them. Unfortunately it is also being taken from me, and more importantly, my children.

Maybe it's the fantasy that, should the American experiment be ended, I can simply retreat to a small corner of the world and carve out an existence that suits me. The quarrels and quandaries of the narcissistic elite can be relegated, with modern technology, to the background, and we can use the gifts that we have been given (like growing up white in America, and thus being replete with resources) to start a new experiment.

But I can't help but acknowledge that this attitude might be not only selfish, but delusional. It's possible that I am just a bad American, and that I should resolve to fight, with my last breath if necessary, to protect what's left of the greatest political experiment ever conceived. History may look back and declare that those of us who could have done something and didn't were the most culpable; and contemptible. That being said, not sure what I can realistically do, other than what I am doing, which is paying attention and exercising my freedoms and responsibilities responsibly. Maybe not Captain America, but a private in the infantry?

Hanging Around

I've had this idea floating around in the back of my mind for a while now, and it's not the origin that interests me, it's the persistence. I think it started after the mild panic that David Wallace Wells' book The Uninhabitable Earth induced in my psyche. I've obviously written about my climate pessimism before, and the idea that we may have to endure some post-apocalyptic hellscape sometime in the not-too-distant future.

My ideas around this subject have vacillated from one extreme to another, inhabiting many different realms of feasibility and sheer stupidity. From moving to Haines, Alaska (among other far-flung locales) in order to escape the perceived certainty of desperate hordes of idiots rampaging through civilization after the breakdown of organized society, to simply making a go of it where I am because it's all alarmist and things are going to be fine. The thing is, I really do think that anything is in play, from this being an overblown problem that we innovate our way out of, to something out of Mad Max.

But my ADD being what it is, I can't really obsess over any one thing for all that long. Now, with the COVIDs tearing through our society and economy, there are fresh reasons for extreme pessimism, which is right in my wheelhouse. Climate change hasn't disappeared, but it has become just another layer in the equation.

At any rate, the obsession that I am talking about basically boils down to creating an intentional community. Not a Facebook group or self-congratulatory Reddit sub-thread with a Discord channel, but a planned, physical community. I know that my fascination with this idea has numerous influences, from growing up in Northern California, and seeing the naive but beautiful idealism of hippie communes, to my love of fantasy novels and films (yes, I want to live at Bag End....GFY). I also think it's my very extroverted personality, and my innate desire to be a part of a broad, but tight-knit community.

The one thing I don't have is an illusion of utopia (I've probably said this before). We are all battling eons of genetic programming that make us basically insane, so the idea that it is possible to create a place where we leave the barbarian of human nature at the gates is pure fantasy. I completely accept this. I'm more interested in creating a space that is more efficient and resilient, able to face the reality of the future, whatever that looks like.

That isn't to say that the ideal community wouldn't be curated. It wouldn't do to just post it to Facebook and see who's game to move into the commune of the future™. I would prefer to leave the religious nutters, anarchists, Trump rally attendees, gingers, and those people for whom cilantro tastes like soap, off of the roster. None of those shifty-eyed fucks can be trusted.

I also wouldn't want everyone to be just like me (i.e. handsome, balding, middle aged, pudgy white men with huge penises). Imagine how tiring all of the high-fiving would get... But it would be important to narrow it down to people of have a similar approach. All of the people that I respect tend to have the same approach, or at least make the attempt. They don't take themselves too seriously, and they are willing to accept that they could be wrong, about anything, at any time, which usually results in a person bereft of rigid ideology. My peeps.

I think I have stated all of this before. I never re-read my old posts...more than every time I log in to Blogger. I'm a fucking narcissist, geez. The problem is that I can't seem to find a coherent way to state this as an overview. I keep wanting to write a detailed manifesto about the Commune of the Future©, but I am too scatterbrained to pull it off. Also, there is the problem of not really believing. Go on the internet and look at all the people prepping for the end of the world, and you really don't want to cast in with that fucking lot. This realization leads me to have a nagging sense, despite what I see as convincing evidence, that I'm a complete fucking kook, and just need to chill the heck out.