Category: Tsar-A-Largo

Is Something Up On The Novorossiya Front?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I watch my Webstats like a hawk throughout the day because I have no life and something curious has come up: I’m beginning to get the occasional ping on my writing about Novorossiya.

My hunch is that more clued-in people know something about Russian’s intentions in Ukraine. Like, maybe Russia is about to declare the creation of Novorossiya and declare “victory?”

Or, maybe they’re hearing from people on the ground in south eastern Ukraine that Novorossiya is the ultimate goal of the pitched battle that the Russians and Ukrainians are fighting at the moment?

I just don’t know. I’m notorious for using a microscopic amount of information to draw very, very wrong conclusions. But, we’ll see, I guess.

Uncle Shelton’s Tales: ‘Don The Evil Dingus’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I once upon a time wrote children’s stories in South Korea for young Koreans learning English. I did a pretty good job. The news that some dingus from the bowels of the Trump Administration has written a children’s book defending idiot Trump has prompted me to write my own story.

Uncle Shelton was reading a history book when his black cat Midnight jumped into his lap.

“Whatcha reading, Uncle Shelton?”

“A history book of the recent past.”

“What’s it about?” Midnight asked.

“Well, it’s about…”

Once upon a time, there was merchant named Don. He was very dumb and always said the wrong thing. He was evil as they come and loved
to read a poem about a snake. Don was part stake, according to the legends of yore. One day, there was an election for King of The Land.
Because the merchant was very evil and corrupt, he worked with the king of another land to steal the election.

But many people, including the writer known as Patel would not believe the dumb Merchant stole the election, but rather believed
the merchants lies long, long after it was moot and made them look like a fool. Patel, who should have known better, even wrote a book for
children accusing Hillary Queenton and Keeper Komey of things that were not true.

No one knows what will happen because of Patel and his lies, but there is now a darkness across the land. And the history of the future
may be of a great nation torn apart because people like Patel — who should have known better — kept repeating lies against people who
just wanted to keep their kingdom great.

Here’s a better example of my ability to write a children’s story:

When I was in South Korea teaching English, there was this cute little kid who completely mixed up the New Testament with the movie “Constantine.” It was so cute and surreal that I used it once when I was writing EduTimes fairy tales for this or that surreal little story. So, with that in mind, here’s my effort to explain to a child how fucked up Jeff Sessions’ efforts on the border are. And, as an added bonus, we get to use gennies as a symbolic warning — they’re a poor man’s alarm system as I understand it.

Uncle Shelton’s Tales’ Presents:
Naborat Jeebus & The Gennies

Uncle Shelton took Midnight a farm one day and the moment they got there, there was a horrible noise! Birds were running around everywhere, squawking and causing trouble.

“What are those, Uncle Shelton?” Midnight asked.

“Those are gennies!” Uncle Shelton said. “They make a lot of noise, they warn you when you’re in trouble. One time they saved the land from a horrible orange troll!”

One upon a time, an evil orange troll named Little Hands overthrew the lion as the king of the land. He had become friends with the birds who tweeted his commands down on the animal kingdom. Little Hands had promised so many things to the animal kingdom using the birds’ tweets and for a while there was peace in the land as he grew in power. One day, the Little Hands awoke to a horrible noise! The kingdom was being invaded by gennies! They are a very loud birds and they made it so Little Hands couldn’t sleep. He was very lazy and liked to sleep all day long!

Little Hands decided to use magic to get rid of the gennies. He summoned an evil elf. He told the elf to do whatever it took to get rid of the brown, noisy gennies.

“Yes sir Little Hands!” the evil little elf said. “Right away sir!”

Using his magic powers, he summoned the most powerful magical creature he knew of, Naborat Jeebus! Naborat Jeebus was very old and long ago had left the land to live with his father. The evil little elf told Naborat Jeebus many lies about the gennies, so many lies that Naborat Jeebas cast the gennies into a big pin! He even tore genny familes apart!

The noise of all those gennies being moved into a big pen was ever so loud. Loud enough that Naborat Jeebus took note. He paused for a moment and asked a genny why they were making so much noise.

“We’re just gennies!” one said. “It’s our job in the animal kingdom to make noise, to product people from danger! We meant no harm!”

Naborat Jeebus looked at the evil little elf and got angry.

“How dare you summon me to hurt the innocent!” Naborat Jeebus yelled.

And with that, Naborat Jeebus freed the gennies and turned both the evil little elf and Little Hands into toads and went back to be with his father.

The End.

“See,” Uncle Shelton said. “Sometimes, the good guys win!”

“I know,” Midnight said. “But not always, right?”

“No, Midnight, not always. But if you make enough noise like the gennies, you’re more likely to do so.”

The Republican Trump Problem


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There’s a memorable Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode where we learn that Bart Simpson had a “bad twin” that the family kept up in the attic. At the end of the episode, we learn that the wrong twin was put in the attic, so they switch them. At the very end, we learn that living up in the attic has driven the “good twin” bonkers.

I often think about this when it comes to how desperate the Republican Establishment is to move the fuck past Trump. They love, love, love Ron DeSantis. They know, on a basic level, that DeSantis is Trump without Trump and if they can only squeeze that motherfucker past ding-dong Trump that he can become America’s Putin.

Then Republicans can transform the US into an autocratic white Christian ethno state of blood and soil run by minority whites.

We’ll wake up 20 years from now and there will be talk by the BBC about “Generation DeSantis” and America will be poor, inward looking and politically identical to Putin’s Russia of 2022.

But Republicans have to get past Trump first to make this nightmare a reality.

There are plenty — PLENTY — of reasons to believe Trump will somehow not be the Republican nominee in 2024. He is old and growing more and more deranged each and every day.

And, yet, only the good die young. He could very well politically cockblock DeSantis (or the dozen other would-be autocrats, for that matter) simply by refusing to walk into that dark political night. As such, there are two options for Establishment Republicans.

Either there is something of a political death match between Trump and DeSantis or Trump names DeSantis his veep and DeSantis gets to (eventually) play America’s Putin that way.

But if Trump is the nominee around 2024 – 2025 and Bannon’s “administrative coup” works…oh boy. Trump loves to say “the quiet part out loud” so much that he could, single handedly, unto himself, cause a civil war in the United States. He could rile up the base of the Democratic Party so much in Blue States that there is real, significant political violence in the US which leads to ding-dong Trump striking back, which leads to a secession crisis which leads to civil war.

And then you have people like DeSantis having to make a regular Sophie’s Choice of which side they finally, at last, are going to be on. Though, come to think of it, if it’s Blue States that leave, lulz, DeSantis will be right there, comping at the bit for his chance to wreak vengeance on the prodigal Blue States.

‘The Undertoad’

Tell me about it

By Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This definitely seems like the Before Times. I don’t know what the future brings — no one does — but as I keep saying, either the United States implodes into autocracy or it explodes into a civil war. Call it the Great Reset or the Fourth Turning or whatever the fuck you like — but it’s coming.

A number of macro trends are all coming to a head in late 2024, early 2025. One way or another, we’re headed for a catastrophe in the United States. Either we simply lulz the end of our democratic republic or we bomb ourselves into the Stone Age in the process of figuring out who gets the USA “brand.”

But let me be clear — I can’t predict the future. Maybe we’ll just punt our problems down the road another presidential cycle. And, in fact, even if MAGA seizes control of the country in 2025 things aren’t going to change overnight. There will be a false sense of relief until, of course, it begins to dawn on us that things are beginning to change.

And, before you know it, one a political basis, the United States and Russia will be one and the same. Which, of course, is what the MAGA New Right screams at the top of their lungs right now that they want. It’s not like they’re hiding it. Republicans have a soft spot for autocrats and they desperately want white Christian minority rule.

So, either we have white Christian minority rule or we have a civil war. At the moment, it just doesn’t seem as though the center-Left has the grit to challenge the rise of autocracy in the United States long term. Twitter liberals are already talking about getting a second passport and fleeing the country rather than doing anything constructive in the real world to stop our slide into autocracy.

And, remember, once we’re an autocracy, that’s it. Republicans will be able to destroy the social safety net, cut taxes for the plutocrats and raise taxes on the poor. They will probably finally seize control permanently with a Constitutional Convention.

Then loud mouth cranks like me, who have had the luxury of living in a Western liberal democracy are just going to be fucked. We’ll die in a camp. Or be sentence to long prison terms. But our lives won’t be the same. And then all the Good Germans in our lives who have been waiting with baited breath for the arrival of white Christian minority rule will finally have reached their red line — ME.

Anyway, either you realize how dire things are at the moment or you don’t. Either you’re realistic and understand we’re careening towards a very dark choice of autocracy or civil war, or you think people like me are “terribly negative” for simply pointing out the truth.

Of Putin, May 9th & Novorossiya


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If my Webstats are any indication, the Powers that Be believe something is up with the concept of Novorossiya. I monitor my Webstats like a hawk and, for some reason, a few people from New York City are interested in my speculation about Novorossiya.

May 9th, the big military holiday in Russia, is coming up fast and it would make a lot of sense for Putin declare “victory” in Ukraine by saying Novorossiya has been established and fuck you.

Or something like that.

Or, he might declare formal war on Ukraine by saying Novorossiya is going to be officially established that way.

The point is — something’s up.

What We Have Here Is, A Dead Shark


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We have to stop thinking of the United States as a democracy. At best, we’re an anocracy and probably now something closer to a pre-fascist state. Occasionally, I will toy with the idea that maybe we’re going down the high risk, I rereward path of civil war…then I dismiss this idea out of hand.

Blue Check liberals are fucking cowards and when the time comes in late 2024 – early 2025, they’re going to head for the doors. The bent-up rage of the MAGA New Right is so potent — and anti-MAGA forces so weak-willed — that, lulz, the fight will be over before it begins.

And you have to look no further than what’s going on with abortion rights at the moment. That particular debate is over — and the “pro-Life” forces have won. The only thing that’s undecided at the moment is if there is a simple overturn of Roe V. Wade, or if SCOTUS completely flips things so it’s impossible to get a legal abortion in the United States.

That particular datapoint has yet to be determined.

While the center-Left is fighting amongst itself over who is the most woke, or which pronouns to use, or how extreme they can be about transgender rights, the MAGA New Right is slowly but surely collecting real power that it’s using as a bludgeon against what’s left of our democracy.

We’re already a white, autocratic Christian ethnostate, but for one thing — Republicans don’t control the White House or Capitol Hill. Once they changes, which it surely will eventually, that’s it. We’ll go from being an autocracy without an autocrat to just an autocracy.

And I still think by no later than 2040 the United States and Russia will be politically identical. And loudmouth cranks like me will be long dead at the hands of ICE.

So, if you have the means to get out of the country, do so. God speed.

If The ‘All-In’ Podcast Represents Silicon Valley, We’re Doomed


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m of the opinion that you need to expose yourself to ideas you don’t agree with so you build up the mental antibodies necessary to be self-confident in what you believe in. And, yet, here I am being irritated by some of the comments I’ve heard on the “All-In” podcast.

I have nothing against any of the guys on the show and it is interesting and informative. It’s just the more I think about it, the more angry I get at how a number of the participants have thrown their lot in with MAGA. They should know better, and, yet, they apparently want Trump back because they believe in the fascist “leadership principle.”

It’s amazing to me to hear intelligent, well educated people advocate for an orange ding-dong like Trump. What the what? I guess money can’t buy you taste. But it doesn’t stop there.

They also believe the MAGA New Right has the right to spread disinformation on everything from COVID19 to Trump numerous and well documented crimes. Again, I just don’t get it. And they’re so self-assured and smug about supporting fascism.

They cherry pick the data points of the Trump Era that fit their needs, totally ignoring what a massive clusterfuck it was otherwise. It’s staggering how it’s possible any self-aware person could willfully buy into such bullshit.

There is no excuse for supporting MAGA for any reason. But I guess if you want an autocratic fascist state where you, as a billionaire, get to play the role of American oligarch, then the idea that tyranny will have descended across the land of the free is a lulz.

American Politics Is A Hot Mess


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I’ve written before, the American electoral system hides a pretty shocking fact about what’s going on right now. If we had, say, a parliamentary system like the Weimar Republic, it would be very clear that we are in the twilight of our barely functioning democracy.

Instead of two parties, we have the fascist Republican Party and the center-Left alliance of minor parties that fall under the rubric of the Democratic Party. The fascist Republican Party is seething with rage and once they inevitable get power again, they’re unlikely to ever peacefully relinquish it.

There won’t be any sort of a civil war, but rather the fascists will quickly consolidate power. I estimate at least a million center-Left people will flee the the United States starting in late 2024 when it becomes clear that the fascists are going to seize power once an for all. There will be a real counter-revolution in the United States that will see a wide range of very unpopular fascist policies become law. NATO will be destroyed. The United States will form some sort of alliance with the autocrats of Russia, Hungary and Turkey.

Our coming Autocrat?

And that will be that.

That will be the “new normal” for the rest of my life. In fact, I’m probably spend the rest of my life trying to avid being round up by America’s Putin (which ever Republican ends up winning that prize) and maybe I’ll just end up with an ICE bullet in the back of my head when they finally catch up with me.

From everything I see in the United States, such a dystopian hellscape is a pretty safe bet.

What’s interesting is, I talk to my far more conservative relatives and all they talk about is how they thing the “woke cancel culture mob” is going to figure out essentially same thing to THEM. For my Traditionalist relatives, the idea of having their lives ruined “just for being conservative” is something that continues to be at the forefront of their minds. That’s all they talk about.

And that brings up another interesting issue — relative to their echo chamber, they’ve been scared into thinking it’s the center-Left, not the center-Right that will turn the United States into an autocracy. No amount of me talking about the difference between soft power and hard power will change their minds. They no longer believe in democracy and they crave a situation where Democrats can never hold power in any meaningful way.

They believe that only then will they no longer have to go to the sensitive training forced upon them by their “woke” corporate overlords. What’s worse, everything is very muddled in the United States at the moment. The center-Left does it self no favors by fixating on some really, really unpopular ideas ranging from “Defund The Police ” to, yes, extreme trans right. I like to think I’m pretty empathic to trans rights, but I also know that there’s a reason why the Republican Party won’t shut the fuck up about the dangers of that very same thing — it plays really well with Traditionalist conservatives who otherwise are queasy about elements of MAGA.

The United States is a lot like the Titanic just after the iceburg hit. We all know something has gone wrong, but not everyone realizes the ship is going to sink. So, you have a lot very, very clueless Blue Check liberals who think the system still works or that somehow Trump will magically be held accountable for all his many, many crimes.

And, like I said, we all know Blue Check liberals are cowards who will bounce from the United States once it’s clear that all their earnest, angry Twitter threads failed to stop the rise of autocratic America.

Things are very dark in the United States, and we’re going to lurch even closer to a true Russian-style autocracy in January 2023 when the fascist Republican Party takes control again. Republicans will then brazenly steal the 2024 election, even though they probably don’t even have to and that’s it — American autocracy.

We’re fucked. Totally and completely. There’s no going back. When ever election a democracy has is existential, then you’re not even a democracy anymore, you’re an anocracy.

I will be flabbergasted if we have a civil war. The center-Left just doesn’t have it in it to risk their lives and careers to challenge the fascist Republican Party anywhere by Twitter.

‘The Undertoad:’ Of Our 2024 – 2025 Existential Choice of Civil War Or Autocracy


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

To anyone paying attention to American politics, it’s difficult not to be overwhelmed with a sense of impending doom, of dread — The Undertoad. The Republican Party no longer believes in democracy — in fact, won’t shut up about this fact — and because of macro trends they are ascendant.

So, all things being equal, Republicans will, starting January 2023 begin the process of extinguishing American what’s left of American democracy once and for all. The Republican Party has radicalized to the point that even though they probably would win the 2024 without cheating, they will do so anyway.

Once Trump (or whomever) becomes president in 2025, the final transformation of the United States into a Russian-style white Christian ethno state will begin. And I personally know a number of people who will be quite happy that this is happening — until, of course, someone they’re related to — namely ME — crosses our new autocratic regime and they have to figure out how to get me out of a Trump branded re-education camp.

It will all happen gradually, too. And that, in a sense, is why autocracy is so insidious. Most of the people who are screaming at the top of their lungs for an autocracy don’t even realize what they’re doing — all they know is they’re personally afraid of being canceled by the “woke mob” and if that means the end of American democracy, so be it. “The United States isn’t a democracy, it’s a republic. Are you going to question the wisdom of the Founding Fathers?” they say.

And when we’re finally an autocracy, they will sit back smugly that the evil woke mob is finally vanquished and they never have to worry about Democrats ever holding important offices again. They will think this until, as I mentioned, someone they love runs afoul of the autocrat. Then they will sit up and take notice because they’re fucking hypocrites.

But as I keep saying, there are macro political trends coming to a head between now and Certification Day 2025 that we just can’t stop. It would have to take something truly astonishing for us not to face the existential choice of civil war or autocracy. It’s happened once already — the pandemic — so, I suppose it’s possible it could happen again.

This brings up the idea of a potential civil war. At the moment, I think we’re going to slip peacefully into autocracy and that will be that. Nothing will change at first, but mysteriously we’ll all wake up 20 years from now and somehow Ron DeSantis is still POTUS. A mass migration of center-Left people will have occured. The United States will be out of NATO and aligned with Russia and the Constitution will have been changed in accordance with an “American First” world view.

Back to civil war. While I struggle with the idea of a civil war, I also know it’s at least possible. The key metric we have to keep any eye on is how bad things get when Republicans take control of Congress. If they are as bad as I fear — repeated impeachments of both Biden and Harris, for instance, then the prospect of a civil war increases significantly.

But any Second American Civil War would be one of those things that happen for immediate tactical reasons that I can’t game out. A lot depends on the specific circumstances, the specific sequence of events between Election Day 2024 and Certification Day 2025.

If Republicans steal the 2024 election in such a brazen manner because they just don’t fucking care anymore, there is a real chance that a number of major Blue State governors will hold some sort of emergency summit to decide how they’re going to react. If California decides to join forces with New York, Illinois and Massachusetts to leave the Union — or to simply deny that Trump (or whomever) won the election, then we’ll have a civil war.

But I have to stress again that a civil war would happen for reasons that I can’t predict. A lot of personalities and touch choices would be involved in ways that I can’t predict years in advance. Yet, of course, there is a real risk that things will break in such a way that a civil war — based on the state level — will break out and the United States bombs itself into the Stone Age using WMD.

Yet, as I keep saying, all signs point to us slipping peacefully into autocracy. But only time will tell.

WW3: Thinking The Unthinkable Of A Limited Nuclear Exchange


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m going to assume that if WW3 actually does break out that humanity, rather than completely destroy itself, might do a “Little Death” of a limited nuclear exchange. Even that would be one of the more bleak scenarios in such a situation, but it’s something to work with.

The most obvious scenario of a limited nuclear exchange happening is something like this — an Axis is formed between Russia and China at some point in the future. Then the DPRK and Iran join in and we’re going to the show. It’s the DPRK who has the means, motive and opportunity to strike the USA in such a context that would cause us to suffer the effects of H-Bombs being detonated over few major American cities.

If such a horrific thing happened, then that would definitely mark the end of the “Woke Agenda,” let me tell you. When you have no lights, no Internet and a food supply that’s running low, the least of your concerns would the pronouns you use.

Just the idea that a “city killer” would be use on a few major American cities by the DPRK is enough to make you gulp. Where things get tricky is how the US would respond to such a tragedy. Our kneejerk reaction would be to drop H-bombs on all of the DPRK, but, really, they just have their capital and even that is really close to the Chinese border. So, I assume the US would drop a H-bomb on Pyongyang and use tactical nukes on the rest of that country’s major targets.

But I think we can not really process how life in the United States would change on a practical basis if, say, NYC, LA and Washington D.C. were vaporized by DPRK H-bombs. Everything would change. Nothing would ever be the same. And, on a geopolitical basis, Canada sure would start to look enticing to America as a way to get a second chance.

Anyway, I hope we never have to thinking about any of this in the real world. I just like running scenarios.