Category: Cold Civil War

Life During WARS Time #CoronaVirus #WuFlu

The future?
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First, let me make it clear that I’m not an expert. So, if you use that metric, you should just ignore everything about to say. But, luz! But here you go, anyway.

Should our fears be realized and the worst happens –a pandemic that might one be one day referred to as The Gray Plague — it is not going to be fun. It is also not going to be an event, but rather a process. This means while there might be “battles” now again that would be considered events, in reality, it would be a war-like event that will take place over days, weeks and months until we get a vaccine.

The issue the essentials of life are a social event. So, if the worst happens on a global scale entire industries aren’t going to make it. Hollywood and the newspaper industry will be completely destroyed if no one leaves their house for six months. What’s more things that are seen as “cutting edge” right now, like drone delivery and MX technology, could be pretty much a way of life in a year IF the ABSOLUTE WORST happens.

But, the crux of the issue is life is going to suck for millions if this happens. It will not be fun. It will not be a video game. It will involve fear, death and tragedy on a scale not seen since 1914-1945. Or, if you really wanted to take it to the next level — we’re talking Black Plague – Mongol Invasion bad if the death rate for the elderly of 5%-15% holds up. The Browning of America that would otherwise take decades to occur might happen in months.

I just don’t see the States surviving that, if it happened.

We’d end up with two nations a center-Left United States of Canada and a center-Right Trumplandia. Or something. It would suck. All it would take would be a number of MAGA thought leaders dropping dead in quick succession because of WuFlu and, well, that particular conspiracy writes itself. Or, put another way, you could probably add massive political violence from the Right to the general clusterfuck that multiple hotzones across the States would cause.

It would all happen in a rolling fashion over the course of the months it took to get a vaccine pushed out from the lab. I don’t have much faith that way, way too many people — maybe even me! — may die before it’s over with. And, remember, it could all endup a lot darker than you might ever imagine — The Handmaid’s Tale Scenario, if you will.

Ugh.

Will 2020 Be Another 1917? #WuFlu #CoronaVirus

Now What?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I love me some Koreans and I’m growing very concerned that South Korea, the place I called home for a total of five years, is going to implode because of WuFlu. I thought it might be Japan that we were going to have to worry about, but it makes a lot more sense that it would be the ROK.

Korean culture, even more so than Japanese culture, is communal, which, is of course, how WuFlu is spread (being near someone.) Add to this that South Korea is a small, developed nation that’s not only “free” but has an excellent transportation system and well, the CONDITIONS are there for us to be fucked, fucked, fucked on a global scale. In other words, South Korea is not only a big enough economy that if it went the way of Wuhan that the entire global economy would lock up, but given its “complicated” relationship to its brothers in the north, well, look out.

The conditions could be there for not only a significant knee capping of the global economy if the ROK implodes, but also a major regional war in Northeast Asia. It would all happen very, very fast, too. The entire nation of South Korea couldn’t faceplant for too long without Little Rocket Man — who might be facing a similar situation — weighing the change in conditions and going for broke.

Or not. Who knows. North Korea is a blackbox, so anything could happen.

But the key thing is, the conditions are there for 2020 to be the most historic year since the fall of the Russian Empire. The years 1917-1923 were astonishing in their significance and things grow even more concerning when you look at this:

1815-1914
1914-2020

We’re overdue for history to wake up, play in traffic then go back to sleep for 100 years.

‘The Gray Plague:’ The Potential Political Scenario

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

After a few days of personal freak out, I’ve grown rather blase about what’s going on in Asia right now. This happening in large part because, well, while it’s all very tragic, the average American simply doesn’t care and won’t care until it becomes something other than an abstract in our collective clueless national conciousness.

There’s a 14% death rate for WuFlu for people 80 years of age.

And, really, it might stay that way. I have come to stay that 1 million Chinese could die in Wuhan and as long as Vox tell us it’s the *flu* we should really be worried about, then, well, lulz. So, as of right now, we might see a little bit of a slowdown in the global economy because of WuFlu, but not enough to stop the Russians from throwing the 2020 election to Trump AGAIN. Trump’s never leaving office, anyway, unless the doofus Crown Prince Don Jr. is assured as his successor at some point. I still think Trump’s going to demand a Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment” then turn around and pass American Enabling Acts, but that’s just me.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s assume the absolute worst happens and my fears of a “Gray Plague” become a reality. The chief thing we have to understand is how old most of the most powerful people in the United States government are. And, what’s worst, our political system is about as taunt as you can get — if there was a Gray Plague and a lot of old people dropped dead suddenly, if the sequence of events wasn’t right, the Right would start to blow shit up because they would be ABSOLUTELY SURE the Deep State was out to get people on their side.

Of course, if, say, three major figures on the center-Left dropped, the MAGA fuckheads would gloat, mumble it was all “God’s will” as they worked to squeeze every once of political advantage out of it. If any MAGA person abruptly became president in the middle of a pandemic, they would use the opportunity not to help their fellow man, but burn the nation to the ground and establish a Fourth Reich. The fuckers. But if, say, a center-Left person was put in the same position, a civil war would start immediately because MAGA would assume “muh guns” and kill anyone who was different than what they feel America looks like. I’m not joking, I’m not exaggerating. This would happen.

It makes you wonder how many people would have to die for us to finally look past scoring short term political points to the point that we actually begin to put the needs of the nation first. A million? Five million? 10 Million? 20 Million? How enormous, really, would the human tragedy of the Gray Plague have to be for Sean Hannity to finally shut the fuck up about Hillary Clinton’s email server?

Of real concern is what would happen if the 30 year movement towards a majority-minority America happened not in decades but in months? What if, say, 30-50 million Americans (mostly elderly) died between the first report of a hotzone outside of Wuhan and when the vaccine was widely available? What makes that question difficult to process is it would be more like a war than anything else that we’ve ever experienced as a nation.

If an entire generation of the American political class got wiped out over the course of little under a year, there would be massive implications going forward. Probably what would happen is the country wouldn’t make it. The Second American Civil War that we may face in 20 years, might happen in a matter of months. But, I don’t know. Who knows. Anything could happen.

I can’t predict the future and don’t have reveled truth. Just stay aware of what’s going on.

All Bow, All Tremble, Before The Possible Might Of ‘The Gray Plague’

Who knows.
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let me make some things clear — first, I doubt we have anything to worry about at this point. We’ve reached the apex of all the issues with WuFlu and as such I can go back to developing my novel now. Also, I really, really, really don’t want the scenario I am about to suggest to happen in any way. But I have a moment of spare time, so here goes.

The key thing is what hasn’t happened yet. There are no new hotzones. There are no deaths in the West from WuFlu. And it definitely seems as though we’ve dodged a bullet on a macro level outside of a slight slowing of the global economy.

I have two metrics to determine if we in the West should begin to worry — the death rate among elderly celebrities and in South Florida. If that began to explode, then something is up. I say that only because the WuFlu death rate among the elderly — from what I can see online, at least — is rather staggering. There are 47 million Americans over the age of 65. If really was a “Gray Plague” they would be the majority of its deaths, hence the name.

Here’s the point where we have some real talk. If the absolute worst happened and over, say, about a year, 50 million Americans — mostly elderly — died from The Gray Plague, what would that mean? Well, first, the United States wouldn’t make it through it. The browning of America, which is on track to wrap up in about 30 years, would happen in less than a year. This would prompt such instability and bent up rage among MAGA that there would probably be massive civil unrest resulting in civil war and the implosion of the country altogether.

What would replace it, I don’t know. It might be something like Canada & a reborn CSA or something. It would not be pretty, whatever it was. But again, that’s rather fantastical at this point. More likely, all the good news we’re hearing from Wuhan is on the up-and-up and we can just move on. I hope I’m right, I really do.

‘The Gray Plague’

Shelton Bumgarner

Something to think about.

Corona Virus Datapoints Are All Over The Place

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have no idea what’s going on with WuFlu right now. In some respects, it seems as though we may have dodged a bullet. Or, to put it another way, there aren’t any new additional hotzones as of yet anywhere outside of Wuhan itself.

And, yet, there definitely is a general sense that any moment that might change. A lot of cases are popping up all over world now, but there’s no existential explosion in cases from any one place. It’s a real headscratcher.

It’s possible that while there might be additional cases of people getting sick, we’re pretty much over any growth in deaths. I just don’t know. That’s the outcome I hope for. I just can’t bear to think what the alternative might be. It’s possible that at any moment we’re in for a major escalation in cases all over the globe at the same time –a pandemic.

The only thing that is really bothering me at this point is how at-risk the American elderly population is. The WuFlu mortality rate among the elderly is pretty brutal — it’s in the 75%-90% range. But I just can’t imagine it could get THAT bad. That would be astonishing on a historical level.

More likely, it’s going to be simply the perception of a pandemic — and the associated slowdown in the global economy that we have to worry about. A million Chinese could die and as long as one American doesn’t die, Americans will be too busy enjoying the “humming economy” to care why suddenly it wasn’t has humming anymore. Nothing matters in the Fourth Reich, don’t you know.

I keep saying the next few days will tell us what’s going to happen and then…nothing happens. I do have a novel to develop, so I really need to just focus on that for the time being.

Some Theories On What Happens To Pop Culture Now

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that we’re in the Fourth Reich after the acquittal of Trump, what happens to pop culture? I thought at first maybe a sizable chunk of the audience might want some sort of emotional catharsis. But I now think it may be a bit more complex than that.

What’s more likely to happen is we’ll enter a sort of second 70s in that a lot of people are just going to want to dance while other people want to see serious, gritty movies and TV show that address what just happened. I think. I don’t know.

Given what the novel I’m writing is about, I definitely have a vested interest in people wanting Trumplandia catharsis. But we’ll see. I’m writing a novel instead of screenplay because I live in the middle of nowhere, it affords me more nuanced creative universe building ability and just don’t want to write a screenplay right now.

V-Log: #WuFlu & The Birth Of The Fourth Reich

The End

The Day Before: The Banal Apocalypse #Wuhan #WuFlu #LevParnas #TakeHerOut #WritingLife

Shelton Bumgarner

The above is pretty interesting. I talk about a number of things, specifically how much life would suck after the end of the world.

Apocalypse Now: Brexit, Impeachment, & Wuhan

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A number of things are happening at the same time on a macro historical level at the moment and there’s a least a chance that they will begin to influence each other.

Brexit
As I understand it, Brexit is going to happen on Jan. 31, one way or another. I haven’t really kept up with how “hard” it’s meant to be, but it’s definitely going to cause some disruption in things in the short term.

Impeachment
We are rushing towards a pretty unsatisfactory conclusion on impeachment, with Trump being acquitted out of hand by the Senate for no other reason than the entire Republican Party is beholden to House Trump and only see democracy as a means to an end.

Wuhan
We haven’t had a pandemic in just under over 100 years. If we had a once-a-century pandemic given modern transportation, there’s a good chance the death toll would be far higher than any of us could possibly imagine.

As of right now, these three things are happening separate of each other. But there’s a least a small chance that will change. There’s a chance that there may come a point in the near future when they begin to at least influence each other in some way.

Say, for instance, that somehow we get a longer impeachment trial, long enough that the economic effects of Brexit begin to influence politics in the United States enough that public opinion begins to shift on Trump. This is probably highly unlikely — Trump’s probably going to be acquitted in a matter of hours, it seems. But if there was a longer trial, then there’s more chance that if the Wuhan virus begins to kill people at pandemic levels in the next few weeks, then all three things would influence each other.

What’s more likely to happen is something like this — there’s a short trial. Trump’s “vindicated.” And then all breaks loose. Then we see the one two punch of Brexit and Wuhan strike. It is the stress of finally having a crisis that is not a self-own that drives Trump completely bonkers. And given that use of the 25th Amendment to remove a president is a dead letter, then we would have a worse-case-scenario on our hands.

Trump complete and total lack of leadership would only make a bad situation far, far worse. In the end, the fate of humanity might be at stake and I honestly don’t have a ready answer as to the outcome.