Interesting Analysis On Our Current Time. Trying To Get Caught Up.

Author Sarah Hoyt, on her blog, has this interesting analysis on what is going on right now politically and socially.

Here are some great quotes:

"Because of movies and books, and the inevitable Marxist gloss on anything created/taught in the last century, a lot of us think a revolution comes about when the pressure on the people being oppressed is so strong that they rise come against the oppressor, and assert the will of the people.

This is not jut crazy, it is fricking delusional.  Like most ideas Marx had and disseminated to gullible minds, it would have benefited a little bit from JUST a little exposure to the real world.

If this were the case, the Soviet Union would not have lasted, and Cuba and for that matter North Korea would be a thing of history.  As would be Venezuela for that matter.  And before you tell me “no, because those are populist movements” think very carefully, because otherwise I’ll send you to the corner without books to contemplate your sins.  This is precisely what the left thinks, that those governments are populist and “the will of the people” and that’s why no matter how horrible the suffering they haven’t been overturned."

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"The problem is this: humans crave leadership but proper leadership requires that the leader know what the heck is going on.  Leaders work, if they’re carefully trained to lead (one of the reasons Heinlein advocated breeding and raising rulers, or at least jokingly advocated it) and in our complex technocratic society, more so, but what if what they’re learning actually renders them more unfit to lead, because they can’t see conditions as they are right now?"

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"The same could be said for the American revolution, though that’s complicated by things like “distance” and the US still being largely rural.  Our war to adapt to the industrial revolution, our equivalent of France’s thirsty Madame la Guillotine was the civil war.  It adapted our form of government to a more centralized one, in tune with the times we were entering: times of centralized production, of vast industrial scales, and yes, of mass production, of standardized sizes and types of product.  All of this needed centralized decisions, highways, possibly at times federal grants for truly big projects in terms of energy supply or mass communication.  The road to get there was strewn with corpses and soaked in blood.

We are in such a period now.  People underestimate how big a change extremely cheap data storage and processing and communication at a distance have made."

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"Eight years ago people were sensing something was wrong.  Hiring Obama was part of this.  He was the dream-boat of the Marxists and everyone had been educated to believe Marxism (even when they weren’t told the name) was the way of the future.  I mean, it’s right there on the tin “progressive.”  It must be progress.  He had the education, he didn’t have experience in government but the media burned its last shreds of credibility to convince everyone he was a deep thinker.

Only, like managers being hired now on impeccable credentials, he was trained to administer the government of the thirties, at most.  Not the chaotic economy and intricate specializations of the oughts.

More and more people are failing like he did — by the book — and being declared successes, btw, by the similarly indoctrinated, while leaving the thing they were leading and administered in pieces behind them."

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Go read the rest of it. And the comments too. 

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I am still trying to get caught up. I had my first VA appointments here in our new hometown. All in all, I was pretty impressed with the service I received. Had a 2x4 between the eyes on certain parts of my health. I have zero excuses. On the other hand, did you know that the two most common maladies of OIF and OEF veterans are sleep disorders and gastro-intestinal issues? I knew about the first one, being a sufferer of it already, but I was made aware of the second one due to a little Q&A with the doctor. I am looking at more appointments in the near future.

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The job hunt continues. I am hopeful about one job that I am waiting to hear about an interview. 

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Inspiration to write has been very hard to find lately. Not from a lack of subjects, but rather a general weariness of life has set in. As a buddy of mine put it, "Life is a roller coaster with all its ups and downs." Yep. It sure is. Our roller coaster has decided to roll down into a tunnel, like Magic Mountain without the Magic. It is twisting, turning, and dropping the bottom out with no warning. Yep, we know that the end of this short ride will come, but there is no light, no sense of when it will end. We just grip that restraining bar and hold on. 

Could it be worse? Absolutely. It is hard at times to maintain that perspective.