@fire with fire
I fear, the trajectory:

...the hidden plot drifted toward a similar conspiracy theory to the effect that the goal was to destroy the American empire to make way for a new world order.

Our so called leaders are of different flavors, but in the end, made from the same ingredients. Advanced technology now offers the authoritarian wet dream, total control. In my mind, it's a cinch that eventually that tool will be used, after the fabric of society is torn asunder.

I haven't been obsessing about this in my posts here so much the last couple of years, but I believe I posted a dozen or so times, the Cassandra-ish thought that we are being driven toward civil war. As urban life in Los Angeles slowly returned to the traffic jam mode that always defined this city, my thoughts on the hidden plot drifted toward a similar conspiracy theory to the effect that the goal was to destroy the American empire to make way for a new world order.

Who knows what the invisible hand of The Market will ultimately do to us?

Not likely to be anything I like.

Excellent exposition, my brother.

@usefewersyllables
that the most likely scenario is economic collapse that will usher in a new order with the least amount of physical damage the infrastructure. I think that collapse is inevitable and what we are witnessing in the political world is finger pointing as to who's going to accept the blame. But the goal is the same, save the monied class why the rest of us are trampled upon.

Surely there have been peoples in the past that have faced worst circumstances, and the tyrants were ultimately supplanted, but now the vehicle has the potential to be inescapable.

We the People better get our act together, pronto.

I suspect that the trigger that will immamentize the eschaton will be the upcoming financial collapse. Once no one can afford food, fuel, or housing, the resulting violence will be completely inevitable, and the descent into tribalist fury will be complete and immediate. Trump can tenderly regard his own visage in the mirror as long as he wants- but once it starts, it will not stop until the in-stock ammo runs out.

All the wrong people will get killed, of course, and the assholes who will have brought it on will largely escape unscathed (except for a few who are in the wrong place at the wrong time). Then, it'll just be guerilla action that takes them out piecemeal, when they dare to step outside their compounds over the following cold/hungry years.

Another possible trigger would be for our wars to finally come home to our soil. If we were to lose a city or two in a brilliant white flash, all the people who really want to go shoot "those people", whoever they imagine them to be, will see no reason not to live out their fantasies.

I always thought the latter was the more likely scenario. But our Fearless Leader has now shown that his unassailable mastery of bankruptcy is the more likely vector for our demise. The financial house of cards is showing major signs of tilting.

I'm glad that I'm old and childfree. It's all the same to me at this point. Once it starts, I intend to find the nearest firefight and walk into the middle of it, just as I always intended to get converted into plasma in my tux. Saves me the cost of buying guns and ammo, and gets me out of the game right up front.

Tl, dr: I want no part of being even more of a slave to the faceless billionaires than I already am. I'll leave it for somebody else to try to fix it.

@snoopydawg
hypocrite is thy name.

.

AFL sounded the alarm in an April 2 letter, accusing the administration of turning federal power inward. The group warned that officials were labeling “disfavored views” as “misinformation,” “disinformation,” or “hate speech” and then moving to suppress them under the banner of national security. The letter called it an attempt to “weaponize” the government against its own citizens.

It didn’t start with Trump, but by Biden. But it actually got its roots with the Patriot Act. Golly you’d think that your own government sees its own citizens as the enemy.

During Biden the base was all in favor of censoring people whose beliefs they didn’t like while MAGA who were on the receiving end was against it. But now that it’s Trump doing the censorship and cracking down on anyone who is critical of Israel they are all for it. But I’m not seeing any evidence of the dems or their base calling it out. Silence is golden. And we are our worst enemies. But then that’s by design isn’t it?

ETA

Tulsi says that the Trump administration has put a stop to the censorship, but they are lying. They are scrubbing the internet for ideas that they won’t tolerate and they are deporting people who speak those ideas. Trump even signed an executive order banning censorship.

I can’t express how disgusted I am with Tulsi.

@enhydra lutris
you can call me J, you can call me Johnny, you can call me Johnny J, just don't call me late for supper.

I agree with Groucho, he was on to something there.

Great tunes and Mort to boot, thanks mi hermano.

Ie

I think that humans have always been tribal, it is just that the fear, angst, hate and all like that has become such a huge factor. It's really all about whether they're exclusive or inclusive and whether or not you'd want to join. Sure, there's Groucho:

I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.

but hermits are rare, voluntary outcasts, and such folks also form tribes on occasion, just like involuntary outcasts.

As for the rest of us, well, remember "The In Crowd"? Boy, they were cool, by definition.

Yah, suure. but hey, were they hip?

Heh, is anybody?

It all depends on how you slice it - consider Hubert Hunphry -

be well and have a good one

@on the cusp
tacos.

offered tonight by Chefs TPTB is a Gourmet Shit Sandwich with a generous side of organic Garbage.
The dinner entertainment is a Netflix show from the series, American Idle, featuring Congress.
Dessert is Green Sour Grapes with Peloshit Ice Cream.