The title of this one came to me in a dream. This could go a lot of different ways, but I think it would make the lyrics to a great song that someone like The Weeknd might sing. But it would need to be fast. With the proper producer, you might even make it a Ye song.
Maintain Amanda lyrics by Shelt Garner @sheltgarner please give credit if you produce or perform
the sweat is rolling rolling off your chest I’m looking at your chin as you grin down at me we’re going to make it we’re going to take it but all you gotta do is
maintain Amanda maintain that grove maintain that smooth maintain that beat while we’re both off our feet
roll over one more time for some rock and roll shuck and jive you’re telling the truth with your body never been too haughty but it’s now our never got to keep it together maintain Amanda
maintain Amanda maintain that grove maintain that smooth maintain that beat while we’re both off our feet
(bridge) I can feel the beating of your heart going to explode out of your chest because the beat is not getting no rest but one more go round and we’re going to have it made remember to maintain Amanda
maintain Amanda maintain that grove maintain that smooth maintain that beat while we’re both off our feet
Let me be clear, at the moment, I ‘m just developing and writing one thriller. But I have mapped out in my mind two thematically connected trilogies. One has our planned for focus of a whole series of books as a baby and the other trilogy has her in a sort of the beginning of her journey as an American Lisbeth Salander.
Or something.
Something like that.
I got to this point most recently when I finished a first draft of one novel and realized there was just way too much going on. It’s kind of like how the original screenplay for The Blues Brothers was like 300 pages long. It’s just too long and too unfocused.
So, I cut it two.
I did this after cutting ANOTHER version of this same book in two. This gave me three novels. I already had three other novels that I’m working on, so there you go.
When people in my life who should know better defend the idea that the United States “isn’t a democracy” and say essentially, “fuck you lib,” America has a problem. And no amount of breathless, earnest Twitter threads by Mueller, She Wrote is going to change that we can take down Trump every which way but loose and we still got a huge fucking problem: there are a dozen would be MAGA autocrats ready to turn us into Russa (or start a civil war.)
So, in a sense, Trump has served his political and historical purpose.
He has destroyed norms and created an environment where the United States is an anocracy, not a democracy. We’re transitioning into autocracy (or about to have a civil war.)
There is no hope. The system has collapsed. We’re in the twilight of America’s Second Republic. Gird your loins. Prepare. I hate guns and violence, so all I can tell you in figure out what you believe in going forward. MAGA is a cancer that is eating away at America’s body politic and will ultimately kill it so there are no politics only Zuul — or whatever the autocrat decides.
But the fact remains that we’re fucked. Something really, really bad is going to happen to the US at some point between now and around January 2025. It’s just a matter of if it’s Speaker Trump causing a civil war when he personally tries to drive President Harris out of office after something happens to Biden or if it’s Blue States who leave the Union as part of a Certification Crisis in late 2024.
And it’s going to be states leaving the Union — if it happens.
At the moment, it looks like we’re just going to slip peacefully into autocracy and soon enough Twitter liberals like Mueller, She Wrote will be sipping white Russians and smelling their own farts in the south of France. We’re about to enter a very, very turbulent moment in America’s history.
The only question is the specifics of that particular clusterfuck.
I once read a how-to book on writing novels that pretty much said, of all the different type of genres to try to write — just don’t even try to write a thriller. There are too many other people doing the same thing and, lulz, how about a scifi novel?
So, here I am, thinking about not just one thriller but SIX thrillers (making up two thematically connected trilogies.) And given various up-in-the-air elements of my private life (and how old I am), I have to accept that if “make it big” at this point in my life it’s probably going to be through photography, not the written word.
But, at the moment, I don’t have the money to buy the equipment for photography and I live in the middle of nowhere, so lulz. AND I’m getting to the age where any success I have will be framed by how old I was when I got it.
“Wow, look at the old person who became a success late in life! Freak!”
Or something like that.
Anyway, I’m not dead yet. I believe in myself, even if no one else does.
We have to face that SCOTUS Is now full of a bunch of partisan hacks. As such, it would make a lot of sense for them to drop the turd that is the overturning of Roe on Thursday in an effort to counter-program against Thursday night’s January 6th hearing.
I don’t make the rules, people.
Do I really think it will happen and if it does, that it will be intentional? That’s a good question. I don’t know. But I’m suspicious. It just seems like something Republicans on the court would do to help their boytoy Trump.
The thing about Trump is, you never quite know how things are going to strike his feeble old mind. To date, he hasn’t really gone transactional that much outside of the January 6th conspiracy and Twitter.
But what if he was speaker in 2023 and he felt if he could start a civil war — or threaten one — he could be POTUS again. Is that even possible?
Yes, sadly it is.
But he would have to be Speaker again. I would have to be personal. Otherwise, I don’t think his heart would be in it as much. If he was Speaker and he called for secession to put pressure on Democratic Senators, which states might actually take him up on it?
Well, South Carolina would go first for historic reasons, duh. Then Texas and Florida. At that point the whole country would collapse.
It will be interesting to see if anyone will notice if I get it right when it comes to America’s existential choice of autocracy or civil war starting around 2024 – 2025 (or sooner!)
Given who I am, I say no.
I think I could get the whole thing right and I won’t even be a blip, an side note in the Wikipedia entry. But I will definitely have the satisfaction in my heart of knowing I called it.
Break Up Sex lyrics by Shelt Garner @sheltgarner please give credit if you produce or perform
maybe we should end it start new with someone else but then we make up with a passion never seen so I ask you now is it us or is it the break up sex break up sex break up sex break up sex
break up sex is not enough I’m afraid our love should be more than just getting laid break up sex break up sex break up sex
I wanna be with you smacking uglies until the end but then I remember how much hate and love we generate is it worth it now for us to keep it together when maybe we should just let go
(bridge) I can keep it my pants I promise I swear then you give me a leer after an exquisite fight the type you remember for life and my pants fly open with a grin and a grope
break up sex is not enough I’m afraid our love should be more than just getting laid break up sex break up sex break up sex
Flat Earth lyrics by Shelt Garner @sheltgarner please give credit if you produce or perform
may get drunk may smoke spliff don’t know what I’ll do after I give it a flick but we’re all rolling rolling around this globe or maybe it’s just flat afterall
don’t tell me about a flat earth my heart is broken don’t tell me about a flat earth I’ll be pushed off the side my heart is broken my heart is broken my hearet is broken
when it was over I hope you might come back to me but it was not to be I’m afraid we’re just friends now if even that people stop me on the street and tell ask me if I’m well I say I’m fine but I can feel the spin of the earth
don’t tell me about a flat earth my heart is broken don’t tell me about a flat earth I’ll be pushed off the side my heart is broken my heart is broken my heart is broken
(bridge) a hollow earth would be better one without a center then gravity would be off and I could just float away into space knowing you’d be far away never to be seen on the street again again again
don’t tell me about a flat earth my heart is broken don’t tell me about a flat earth I’ll be pushed off the side my heart is broken my heart is broken my heart is broken
The more I read this great new Watergate history, the more I realize that the whole thing was the product of a very specific era and very specific people who followed a very specific series of events. For decades, people thought Watergate was the template for a major Washington scandal — and they were full of shit.
Watergate was a thing unto itself, never to be replicated no matter how badly we wanted it be in the sense it might mean “the system works.”
So, here we are, 50 years after Watergate and the system not only isn’t working — it’s dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Collapsed into meaninglessness. I say this because even if we magical indicted Trump and negated him as a political force, there would still be a dozen would-be Republican autocrats who would swoop in and fill the void left by Trump.
The forces tearing America apart are just too strong now. We’re either going to become a Russian-style autocracy or we’re going to have a civil war. That’s it. Those are our choices. I say this because the Republican Party is now an old school fascist party and once they gain control they’re unlikely to peacefully ever let it go again.
They believe that, by definition, any election they lose is illegitimate. What’s more they hate democracy — they say it out loud these days — and make it clear they no longer believe in democracy in the first place.
As such, it’s civil war or autocracy.
At the moment, I still think we’re going to slip into autocracy so peacefully that we don’t even know it’s happened for a few years. But, soon, enough, Twitter liberals will flee the country for the south of France where they will write long Twitter threads and ironically drink White Russians.
Here are some reasons why we will have a civil war.
Republicans have come to glorify political violence Something you see a lot these days within the bullshit echo chamber of the MAGA New Right is the belief that because “liberals won’t leave us alone” that they are being “driven” to extremism. There’s a lot of leading not-so-vague talk as to what all this would ultimately mean. But it’s clear that for a number of “thought leaders” within the MAGA New Right that they have accepted that at some point in the future, they’re going to have to resort to violence to get what they want.
Republicans no longer believe in democracy It is now clear that like any good fascists, Republicans no longer believe in democracy unless it’s for the specific purpose of gaining and keeping power. This view of the system they’re supposed to a part of leads them do extremely destabilizing things that help push the country to the brink.
Trump 2024 Just Trump being the 2024 nominee would, in itself, be enough to cause a civil war at some point in late 2024 – early 2025. He just has a special knack for “owning the libs” in such a way that if he stole in 2024 election and said the “quiet part outloud” that Blue States would grow so enraged that it would be they, not Red States, that left the Union and caused a Second Civil War. But Ron DeSantis is polling exceptionally well at the moment, so either Trump politically shivs him at some point, or he co-ops him, making him his VP, opening the door to DeSantis becoming America’s Putin at some point down the road a little bit.
Steve K Bannon. Bannon and his toadies are actively working to destroy the framework that weuse to administer free and fair elections. So, it’s very easy to imagine a situation where this gambit works in ways that Trump himself is too idiotic to pull off personally and it will be so egregious that, again, Blue States leave the Union and we have a Second American Civil War.
Extreme negative polarization We’re in for a bump four or so years, no matter what, because negative polarization, on a systemic level, has reached a critical mass. When one of your political parties is fascist and would rather crash the global economy instead of even appear to work for the good of the nation — you got a problem.
A lack of shared values As the big blow up on Twitter in the last 24 hours about a Stephen Colbert song and dance gag about getting vaccinated proves — we can’t even agree on what’s funny. A combination of this and negative polarization is leading to the United States being two nations, one Red, one Blue and when we get around to attempting to elect the next president, the system simply won’t be prepared for the passions it will stir up.
A potentially historic miscalculation on the part of Republicans It’s possible that, much like European powers in the lead up to WW1, when the time comes and Republicans have a choice between peacefully transitioning us into autocracy or fucking with us all so we want to take up arms, they will choose the latter not because they have to, but because they want to. It’s possible that by the 2024 — 2025 period, Republicans will see a civil war as their only choice to consolidate power, even if it’s clear that they could get everything they ever wanted within the system they so obviously loath.
There is no historical middle ground before us. It’s over. The Second American Republic started by Lincoln is over. Either our democracy is snuffed out forever, or we have a horrific civil war. And even then, the Blues would have to win. It could be that we either split into two warring states or the Reds win and turn is into some sort of 1984 state.
Anyway. Good luck and God speed. You’ll need it.
Macro trends are not on America’s side. As I keep saying, 2024 is going to be it. It’s the year when either the United States turns into a Russian-style “managed democracy” or there’s a civil war. Now, this isn’t going to be a complete list of the 50 states, but I am going to highlight some of the states that may be more problematic should a Second American Civil War erupt.
Oregon The state is really two states and, as such, is probably going to be a major flashpoint in any Second Civil War. What’s likely to happen is Portland will buck any attempt at a putsch on the part of bonkers Right wing nutjobs in the rest of the state and, as such, either there’s a really blood struggle in the state or there are a massive amount of political refugees from the Portland area as the rest of the state sides with MAGA.
Virginia Again, this is really two states. There’s the NOVA-Richmond-Hampton Roads urban corridor and everything else. It’s very easy to imagine a situation — especially with Virginia’s historic ties to the first Civil War — where the state implodes as we grow closer and closer to a Second Civil War. Too many good old boys in the rural areas of Virginia might get wrapped up in the “Lost Cause” mythos and decide to seize places like Danville (the last capitol of the Confederacy) or Richmond (another Confederate capitol.) If nothing else, simply because of the larger population of the “Blue” parts of the state, there will be significant violence and political refugees as the Blues consolidate power.
Michigan I don’t know as much about this state, but it definitely seems as though once the pre-war process of coups and political consolation begins that there will be at least a coup attempt on the part of the Far Right. Again, don’t underestimate how once you actually start murdering people that the dynamics of things change significantly. It’s very possible that there would be a coup in the state, it would fail, and there would be significant political violence as the state’s Blue population fought back and put the state firmly on the Blue side.
New York Yet again, we have a situation where once politics fails us that the otherwise banal regional differences in a state tears it apart. New York City is far more progressive than the rest of New York State and, depending on how things work out, it’s possible that New York City could become a revolutionary hotbed to the point that is tears itself away from the rest of the state and proclaims itself a Free City. This almost happen during the first Civil War. If nothing else, there will be a serious jiggling of the relationship between NYC and the rest of the state to the point where it aligns itself in any Second Civil War with New Jersey and Connecticut in a way that update New York does not. Or, again, there could be significant political consolidation as Blues from all over the northeast flee to New York and the MAGA-friendly natives of the state flee elsewhere.
Maine I really don’t know that much about this state other than a vague belief that the northern part of the state is far different than the southern part. It’s very easy to imagine significant consolation in the state one way or another as people flee to it as the rest of the country buckles. The state is big — if sparsely populated — and it’s strategic location near the Canadian border might be enough for it to be the home to large refugee camps.
Texas Texas would be in an odd situation as the country fell into civil war because its long-term political trend is shifting Blue, but it’s part of the South and a lot of people consider themselves Southern and MAGA. So either it simply buckles into its own intra-civil war or the MAGA cocksucker fucktards push out all the Blues who flee to Blue States nearby. The end result would be a lot of pissed off former Texans who would be of great benefit to the Blue cause.
California In a sense, the whole fate of the United States rests on what California does. If it simply bolts from the Union, then that significantly hobbles the Blue cause on the ground. California sitting on its hands and become its own nation in the event of a Second Civil War makes it far more likely that either Red states win or there is some sort of half-ass balkanization of the United States. But if California stays and fights, then they could provide not only the necessary economy and population for a Blue state victory — after many, many dead — but also something of a vision for what America would look like after we’re finished bombing ourselves into oblivion.
The Deep South It’s very easy to imagine at the onset of a Second American Civil War most of the old Confederacy on a political level getting extremely excited and having a massive amount of momentum to either leave the Union outright or support the Republican controlled Congress’ attempt to brazenly steal the election. Then reality would sink in — all of the Southern states have significant African American populations and once politics is no longer a viable method of solving problems then the far more brutal dynamics of realpolitik would kick in. I just can’t imagine millions of African Americans lulzing a return to the Confederacy, no matter how badly the white political establishment of those states may want it. So, even though the South has a lot of people and a big economy, it would be, on a regional basis, too busy fighting a race war to really help the Red cause all that much. If things really grew as radical as I fear they will — probably because WMD are stolen and cities start to get vaporized — it’s the Deep South where you’re most likely to see some WW2 level atrocities as radicalized whites begin to murder blacks en mass.
As for the rest of the states, their ability to pick one side or the other is probably far easier and their biggest problem would be dealing with political refugees.
Or, put another way, we’re fucked. We’re totally, completely fucked one way or another. Either we turn into an autocracy or Red and Blue begin to murder each other in cold political blood. The usual outcome of all this bullshit that we have come to expect — simply muddling along until we come to some solution one way or another — is not longer a valid option.
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