Month: March 2021

Preparing Myself For The Literary Agent Gauntlet



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This novel — or more specifically novels — is the biggest creative project I’ve done in my life other than ROKon Magazine. Which, of course, was the point. Because of the Trump Era I was full of rage and had something to say and, as such, had the energy necessary to do the hard work of developing and writing a novel.

While it’s still some time away, I usually think a few steps ahead with these novels and, thus, I find myself pondering finding a literary agent. I feel pretty confident that all things being equal I’ve come up with a pretty interesting two novels that by the end of the process will be fairly well written.

And, yet, all of this is happening in a vacuum and I’m still very much in the delusional phase of writing this novel. That’s why attempting to secure a literary agent will be the moment when I will face reality at last.

There are so very few slots open for unpublished, untested writers like me that I have to be prepared to simply self-publish. A lot of getting published and being a success boils down to luck. You just can’t predict if you’re going to hit the zeitgeist at just the right angle that you not only get a literary agent but get published and have any form of success.

But I still have a ways to go before I reach the point when I try to get a literary agent. Yet I do have a feeling that when I do get to that point people will be thinking about presidential politics again and I might find the “luck” I need to become successful.

Fun Interesting News — The Continuing Kaia Gerber & Cara Delevingne Situation


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First of all, let me state I honestly don’t care what’s going on between Kaia Gerber and Cara Delevingne. Maybe they’re dating. Maybe they’re not. Who cares. But what does interest me is how there’s really no buzz, no speculation about shipping the couple in the entertainment press. Occasionally, there’s something about what’s going on, but, to date, it’s gotten no traction outside of obscure entertainment outlets and a few more female-oriented publications like The Cut.

They’re great friends!

It’s gotten rather surreal.

What gets me the most is when the entertainment press matter-of-factly reports this or that very seemingly romantic thing the two women have done in a conspicuous fashion without providing the added context to the audience. It’s like their afraid to at least state the obvious — these two famous women may be dating.

The only thing I can think of is everyone involved has a vested interest in not talking about what may — or may not — be happening because Cindy Crawford is Ms. Gerber’s mom. It’s too easy to imagine a nightmare scenario where Tucker Carlson begins to rant about how the progeny of a 80s supermodel is in a same-sex relationship and What It All Means.

What’s even weirder is other female same-sex relationships have been eagerly shipped by the entertainment press, most notably Jenelle Monet and Tessa Thompson. The entertainment press was rather blasé about that relationship to the point that they asked Ms. Thompson about it even before she was willing to admit it.

Or maybe I’m missing the obvious — we’ve reached the point when female same-sex relationships are so accepted that it’s a lulz and it’s not a matter of there being a taboo so much as it’s considered gauche to mention it unless a publicist is pushing that narrative.

I only keep writing about this because it’s so rare to find something “fun interesting” that’s completely value-free and puts a smile on your face.

New Scifi Franchise Idea: Reboot ‘Timebandits’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I’ve said before, all the major Hollywood movie franchises are either dead from being creatively strip-mined or so bloated as to be unwatchable. It seems to me there’s room for a new franchise because of this and the perfect movie for it would be the classic 80s comedy Timebandits.

The thing about Hollywood is, “Nobody knows nothing,” as the old saying goes. Everyone — even the best — are simply thrashing around, looking for the next big hit.

All I’m saying is, it’s within the realm of possibility that if you gave Timebandits the Star Wars treatment that there might be a pretty big audience. What Star Wars did for space travel, a Timebandits franchise could do for time travel. Or something.

This is an example of how Hollywood has lost its way. It’s so busy sucking it’s own cock via “woke” movies that it totally misses the point of what they’re supposed to be doing — making money telling great stories.

I think some of all of this is an indication of the economic dynamic of modern filmmaking. Either you make a huge tentpole superhero movie in the context of a franchise, or you make a small “woke” movie that nobody watches.

It’s possible that whatever dynamic is causing modern pop music to suck is also at play with Hollywood.

MAGA’s Bloodthirsty Nature & The Prospect Of A Second American Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Holy shit has MAGA become bloodthirsty. If my webstats are any indication there is a huge interest in some sort of “second American civil war.” Of course, the ironic part is all my dystopian predictions about such a war are done in the context of ranting about how much I fucking hate MAGA.

But I guess if you’re a cocksucker MAGA person you gotta find your second civil war porn where you can.

Anyway, the question is how did we get to this state of affairs? MAGA’s obsession with a civil war, I think, started with Reagan panting liberals as evil incarnate. It just happened to take 40 years for that particular attempt at de-humanization to fully come to fruition.

The surreal thing about MAGA’s obsession with a civil war is how poorly thought out it is. I know why they, in the abstract, want a civil war so bad — they conflate their rising political power with what they might achieve via bloodshed. And they’re such fucking crybabies that just because they can’t get what they want, they want to run around murdering people.

The only thing I can compare this to is “slave power” in the late 1850s. They really were screwing over the North and when Lincoln was elected and there was even a whiff of them not getting everything they wanted, they freaked out and attempted to leave the Union.

So, here we are, about three years away from MAGA freaking the fuck out no matter what happens in 2024. Either they win in 2024 and begin the process of turning us into Russia, or they lose and attempt to leave the Union. The time for punting such problems down the road is over. We’re totally, completely fucked and the sooner the center-Left realizes the gravity of this situation, the better.

But I don’t see what can be done at this point other than just hunker down. The macro forces at play in the United State’s political system right now are simply too powerful to be stopped by anything. There’s just no punting this crisis down the road anymore.

In 2024-2025 everyone will have a pick a side. Everyone will have a choice to make. We have something of a spectrum from civil war to autocracy ahead of us in 2024 and in no scenario will the average person avoid having to do a serious gut check.

Either your personal safety will be at risk because of your politics if you live in the wrong place, or when the autocracy comes you’re going to have to make a personal decision as to how much of a “Good American” you’re going to be.

I’ve already told my conservative relatives to just turn me in should we become an autocracy. I’m never fucking shutting up. I’d rather die on my feet a free man then live on my knees a slave.

A Lazy Review Of ‘The Fourth Turning’ In The Context Of The Impending 2024 Catastrophe


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Enjoy this bit of quiet we have in America right now. All signs point towards “the fourth turning” happening “no later than 2025.” That’s what I think and that’s what the 90s book, “The Fourth Turning” suggests as well.

I bought the book because Business Insider said it was Steve Bannon’s favorite (or some such) and I was curious to see what that greasy motherfucker would like it so much.

Having read the book, my chief take away is they padded a third of it by doing a “We Didn’t Start The Fire” listing of every major historical event of each “turning.” I suppose they think that was suppose to support their thesis, but I just found it boring and gratuitous. I knew everything they listed and did not need a refresher on them. Instead of going through every major historical event of the last 80s years they could have give me more analysis about their over arching conceit.

The other take away I got was the book reads way too much like the other “male astrology” of evolutionary psychology. It seemed a little too spot on at times and there was one event that they couldn’t fit into their “reveled truth” of “turnings” — the civil war.

But I will give them this — they definitely are on track to predicting the 2024 catastrophe that I have come to believe is now inevitable. So, to that extent, the book is kind of spooky. That a book written in the late 90s could get a disaster in 2024 so right is pretty good. And they said 2005 would be a big year. What they didn’t know what it wasn’t 2005 it was 2008 and the election of Obama that would set things off.

So, again, that’s pretty good.

One thing I want to make clear — history has already decided that we can no longer keep punting the political crisis the United States is in right now down the road forever. We just got VERY LUCKY in 2020 for a number of historical reasons that no one could have predicted.

We won’t be as lucky again.

The Curious Case Of Ukraine


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about the situation in Ukraine is you just never know. It could be yet more posturing on the part of the Russians and it could be Something Big. As you may know, the Russians have begun to — yet again — throw troops at the Ukrainian border as if they’re about to do something.

While it would, on the face of it, make sense for there to be a spring offensive, that misses how small the Russian economy is in real terms. The Russians can want to eat up a big chunk of Ukraine all they want to, but they just don’t have the economy to support such a thing. And the last thing Putin wants right now is to destabilize his country even more.

I guess he might think a general war in Ukraine might bolster his support, but even if he got what he wanted in Ukraine, he would struggle to actually keep it. But there have been rumblings that it might be the Ukrainians who did a spring offensive so throwing that into the mix really scrambles some assumptions we have about any conflict.

All I can say is, this is something to keep an eye on. The situation in eastern Ukraine flares up every once in a while and so it’s possible nothing will come of it. But it is of note that Ukraine is one of three other potential hotspots that the Biden Administration is going to have to deal with sooner or later. The other two, of course, being Iran and the DPRK.

Well, At Least A Second Civil War Would Be One Way To Fix Modern America’s Problems


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about history is, there’s no narrative while you’re living through it. We give history value and a narrative after the fact to make sense of the world. When history is actually happening around you, it fucking sucks.

There are a number of systemic problems in modern America that are eating away at our rotting liberal democracy. As such, we’re at something of a crossroads. Who’s vision of America will we follow? MAGA’s racist, misogynistic white Christian ethno state, or the liberal-progressive vision of equality, inclusion and traditional liberal democratic values?

Now, I will be the first to admit that “woke” “cancel culture” — even though it doesn’t really exist — is something that conservatives have a legitimate reason to worry about (in some respects.) What I mean is, we’re two different countries that are quickly receding from each other to the point that conservatives don’t know the “new rules” of society that are being established in major metropolitan areas.

At the crux of this clusterfuck, I believe, is young people have lost all perspective on what’s important. It’s been close to 50 years since they had to worry about the draft and the hell of war is nothing more than an abstract. I think the way to solve a lot of our systemic problems in National Service for all 18 year olds. That would be one way to get good old boys from Alabama to be forced to talk to Brooklyn soyboys and vis versa.

Tragically, that’s just not an option.

Even though I would much, much rather just continue to patch up our rotting liberal democracy for as long as possible to punt the prospect of war down the road, if you take MAGA’s bloodlust seriously, you have to admit to yourself that if the “good guys” won any such civil war then at least — on a macro level — a lot of our intractable problems might find some suddenly very easy solutions.

But that’s a big “if.”

It’s very easy to imagine MAGA cocksuckers winning or the country splitting into two and each side implementing their own visions for America in their respective new nations.

I do find it very troubling, however, how fucking bloodthirsty MAGA is right now. Jesus Christ, people.

Life In Modern Antebellum America — Taking The Prospect Of Civil War In 2024 Seriously


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

You would be amazed at how many people who come to this site apparently think they’re going to be some sort of MAGA revolution NOW. It blows my mind. There’s some fucked up shit brewing in the Far Right echo chamber and we’re just not prepared for it.

The only thing I can compare it to is pre-WW1 Europe where people had forgotten how much the Napoleonic Wars had sucked and were itching for a new opportunity to bathe in the glories of war. In other words, MAGA cocksuckers are so wrapped up in the abstract of killing liberals that they have completely deluded themselves as to what such a conflict might actually be like.

As I have repeatedly said before, MAGA looks at the center-Left and sees a bunch of globalist cuck soyboys who they can easily crush. I would suggest to them to first — fuck off — and second even a soyboy might get a bit more frisky if you stuck a gun in their face. MAGA people with bloodlust are taking the dynamic of our rotting liberal democracy and extrapolating it to the world of war and the two are not the same.

I don’t even know what the war aims of MAGA would be in a civil war. As of right now, it seems like their goals in a civil war are little more than a grunt. They just have been so brain washed by FOX News that they probably couldn’t even tell you WHY they hate liberals so much.

And, remember, if we really did have a civil war Red States have two major problems. One, the places where they could most successfully seize control are small, white states. Meanwhile, the states that would otherwise provide them with the economies and population they would need to seize “total control” have large African American communities that would rather engage in a race war than leave the Union so a bunch of Nazi Confederate fucktards can make them slaves again. UGH.

Here’s another thing — any “hot” civil war in the United States would unleash significant radicalization on both sides. It’s easy to imagine a situation where Blue States drafted women into some sort of New Model Army, which would greatly increase the potential pool of soldiers.

I guess the argument could be made that Red States could simply use stolen WMD to nuke and gas Blue States into submission but once that particular genii was let out of its bottle then both sides would use it. Such vicious behavior would only serve to radicalize both sides even more as the war progressed.

What I want to make clear is the center-Left needs to take the threat of some sort of sucker punch on the part of Red States in 2024 seriously. MAGA cocksuckers have zoomed past the mental preperation necessary to start murdering people like me in cold blood and the sooner center-Left people (or people who simply want to live in a traditional liberal democracy) begin to figure out how they’re going to address that in 2024, the better.

Taking Tucker Carlson Seriously As A 2024 Presidential Candidate


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Just from my own personal experience with conservatives in my family, I can tell you that Tucker Carlson definitely would be a serious political figure the moment he announced for president.

Trump is obviously a problem for him, but if Trump decides to simply run via the proxies of either Ivanka Trump or Lara Trump then Carlson has a far more serious chance of winning both the nomination and the election.

The thing about Carlson is, he, like Trump before him would go into the presidency not having any experience being in government. So, at least at first, the same dynamic that too place in 2017 would be repeated. President Carlson would screw up and he would incite a huge amount of graft and corruption simply because he would have no idea what he was doing.

But here’s where things would be different — Carlson is actually a sane human being who after going through an extremely sharp learning curve would figure out the ropes of government and be able to implement his White Nationalist vision for America.

So, it’s easy to imagine Carlson being able to make his personal version of MAGA a reality in ways that Trump simply was not able to. I don’t think we appreciate how rotten to the core our liberal democracy is and how easy it would be for Carlson to become an autocrat.

And, really, the sad thing is there are half a dozen other would-be Republican autocrats waiting in the wings, wanting to do exactly the same thing.

Endgame 2024: From Second American Civil War To Autocracy


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let’s go through the different potential endgames for our coming 2024 catastrophe.

The Punt
In this scenario, Something Big happens again that punts the systemic crisis we currently face down the road yet another presidential cycle. Things that might do this include a major war — against, say, the DPRK or Iran — or some technological advancement that so jiggles society that the Far Left and the Far Right fuse into a new, anti-tech party and the “good guys” live to fight again.

Implosion
With this one, there’s some sort of civil war when the now-Republican controlled Congress does everything in its power to give the presidency to the Republican. The more brazen the theft, the worse the crisis and the more likely a major civil war of some sort will occur. This version of this scenario is more muddled than an actual civil war and involves more severe rolling political violence at the state level that leaves the country hobbled.

Implosion: Secession
It’s possible that no matter what, one side or the other will, as part of the passions of any post-election night shenanigans, attempt to secede from the Union. This is an extremely murky situation because I don’t know who the leaders would be and what their war aims would be. We might simply nuke ourselves into oblivion as part of the birthing process of two new nations.

Implosion And Redemption
This would involve a whole lot of luck that America has lacked the last few decades. In this version, we nuke each other into oblivion but come out the other side re-united and stronger. This would be because the what happened would be such a fucking tragedy — even though the “good guys” won — that the systemic problems destroying the country would be forgotten and we would go back to having a shared vision of what America is.

Autocracy
Another outcome is things happen so fast that we shrug off how brazen the Republican theft of the election is and that’s it — we’re an autocracy for decades to come. Gradually, the autocrat begins to consolidated power to the point that the media is purged and ICE becomes something of a latter day gestapo. There are grumblings about secession on the part of Blue States but nothing comes of it and every year sees a tightening of the the autocratic noose around American throats.

Dystopian Hellscape
In this endgame, we have a civil war and MAGA wins. Because of the civil war, MAGA will have grown significantly more radical and we’ll be living in Trumpandia at last.