A Complete Shitshow

I can't even read the headlines anymore. Everyone is frenetically clutching their pearls, taking sides, and shouting incoherently. Everyone is certain that they know "the plan" and are popping up like everywhere. Everyone seems to have chosen sides.

Trump. Pity the fool. Everyone seems to want to pin the blame on this particular jackass, but the truth of the matter is that he is a front-man, a salesman that (like all salesmen) uses glad-handing, a haircut, a good suit, and a good golf game to sell shit. He is an excellent salesman, but he is nothing more than that.

So now we get to spend the next month or so trying to ignore the legion of salesmen in the differing media types attempting to sell me their narrative of how things are working out. In a real sense, they are minions of a system that is moving the way it wants to move and they are only providing a smokescreen of semi-believable (and sometimes not-believable) storylines to provide a particularly sinister forum for rooting for who is going to kill who.

I think that we are looking at a time where the old divisions are at each other again. The remnants of provinces the Holy Roman Empire and the Austro-Hungarians are fighting against whoever they feel is oppressing them this time (Poland is definitely gonna gets its turn in time). The descendants of Moses are still trying to smite the descendants of Amalek son of Eliphaz. Zhōngguó ( 中國) will continue to work on bringing 中華民國 back into line (this will happen about the same time that the new chip fabs being built here in the US are up and running).

Look, lots of stuff going on. Everything that we are fretting about goes a lot further back than 1945 and the long-suppressed animosities that came from the last set of lame compromises that were shoved down throats on the other side of the planet.

I am thinking that we are looking at another of the periods where more shit is happening than anyone has the ability to damp down. It doesn't mean then end of the world, it does mean that things are going to be changing in a way that lots and lots of folks won't like.

Past examples of unpleasantness:

1776-1812 (American Revolution through Waterloo) 1840-1870 (Europe's spasm, say goodbye to Metternich, say Hello to Bismark) 1915-1945 (The second thirty years war, because Two was a consequence of One)

So I kinda look at 2016 as the start of the current thirty-year mess. And this time we know what is happening elsewhere (I am looking at you China and India). We are just beginning to get some traction on this particular path of unpleasantness.

Now, you are probably thinking about how I seem blasé about this. I suppose that, in a sense, I am quite weary of it. But I will most likely live long enough to see things get worse before they start getting better again. My personal goal is to adapt to the world around me and make the best of what is going to probably be a somewhat less pleasant and lazy life.