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RTWT: The Arriving Ordeal by Joel Hirst

Outside the compound, gazing through the bullet-proof glass they sit, though we don’t know who they are. Young men, squatting in the dust or selling phone cards and mystery meat, eyes squinting through the grimness, that wary look of both predator and prey; watching, waiting, but for what? Who knows… We fear them, and we build our walls. This is Kabul; and Mogadishu. It is Bamako, Dakar and Abidjan. Accra and Abuja and Dhaka; Caracas and Lima and even these days parts of Phoenix and Chicago and Washington DC. Paris outside the ring; Molenbeek or Schaerbeek in Brussels. “I saw similar young men everywhere – hordes of them. They were like loose molecules in a very unstable social fluid, a fluid that was clearly on the verge of igniting…” Robert Kaplan evocatively writes.

Twenty-five years, that’s how long ago Kaplan warned us of ‘The Coming Anarchy’. Not that we listened – hubris, which is something we are good at in the West. And why not? We won, the commies were crawling back into their holes; walls were falling down – a “New World Order” was upon us. It was “The End of History”, said Fukuyama. Except that it wasn’t. “While a minority of the human population will be, as Francis Fukuyama would put it, sufficiently sheltered so as to enter a ‘post-historical’ realm, living in cities and suburbs in which the environment has been mastered and ethnic animosities have been quelled by bourgeois prosperity, an increasingly large number of people will be stuck in history, living in shantytowns where attempts to rise above poverty, cultural dysfunction, and ethnic strife will be doomed by a lack of water to drink, soil to till, and space to survive in.”

THE REST IS @ Joel D. Hirst’s Blog

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  • Howard Nelson December 11, 2017, 11:54 AM

    Jeremiah, Ezekiel, anyone?
    Who will, and when, decide our fate?
    It’s getting late.

  • ghostsniper December 11, 2017, 1:13 PM

    Who will decide our fate?
    That is for us to decide.
    First, it is not MY debt as I’m not in the habit of buying things I can’t pay for, and I don’t steal.
    Yet.
    I never chose any of those assholes to *represent* me, I’m quite capable of representing myself.
    Assumptions, on their part, are ignored and avoided.
    Lastly, I came here alone and I’ll leave alone and what I do in between is my obligation, responsibility, and right.

    Peace, if you want it.
    War if you don’t.
    Onward….

  • Monty James December 11, 2017, 3:45 PM

    For themselves, the arrogant soft-headed white elites were importing interesting restaurants, or smug self-admiration. For us, they have actually been importing Brazil, or Yugoslavia during the breakup.

    And someday, kneeling in front of a ditch, they might just find that they imported Cambodia by mistake.

    That was a good read, Gerard, though it put me in a black mood.

  • EndOfPatience December 11, 2017, 4:42 PM

    I was in the minority of people who responded to Fukuyama’s declaration with “Not only no, but the world got exponentially more dangerous” … and was terrified because we WERE a minority.

  • Vanderleun December 11, 2017, 4:57 PM

    Black Moods ᴙ Us

  • Snakepit Kansas December 12, 2017, 4:25 AM

    While in the PI, I did not travel into downtown Manila often, but once when I did, some street children saw me (white guy/Joe) sitting at a stoplight. One approached, begging for money. In my car, I had a box of Sky Flakes (locally made crackers) and started handing them out. More kids arrived and soon I ran out of crackers. Then it got ugly. I wish I could scrub it from my mind but a young girl, maybe 10, with already rotting teeth started cursing me because I had nothing to give her.

  • ghostsniper December 12, 2017, 6:45 AM

    @snake. I’m a wood turner, among other things, and last summer I turned a few “fish billy’s” which are no longer sold in the usual places. They were white oak and hard maple, about 18″ long, 2-14″ dia at the business end and had a short leather lanyard on the handle. Sort of short baseball bat shaped, but a little stockier, solid. I keep one in each door pocket of my vehicles as well as my wife’s. I gave a few to some friends. Each billy was drilled in the end of the business end and a 3/4″ x 6″ galv anchor bolt left over from a construction project was screwed and epoxy’d into it to give it some heft, then a coat of grapeseed oil. The bolt weight is especially nice for “jabbing” in the face when there is no time for swinging. I haven’t had to use it yet though I’ve done plenty of dry runs to get the feel of how quick delivery should work. You should have had one in Manila to adjust some dental records. Violent 10 year olds require no empathy at risk to yourself.

    See what gov’t hand outs do to people? No matter how meager the hand outs the dependency, and expectancy mood moves in quickly and permanently. Remove the handouts and you will see what happens when you put chaos, mayhem, and pandemonium in a blender and crank it to high.

    Better learn to shoot while running backwards and no, you don’t have enough ammo.

  • Jack December 12, 2017, 9:31 AM

    A conscientiously applied program of sterilization after two children, applied among most of the 3rd world would be of benefit to all. (Either that, or chemical castration for all of the men.) A policy like that would still permit children but it might make the efforts of these poor and disenfranchised people, to survive, more managable. Folks could still procreate, for whatever reason, but it would ease the burden upon providers of social services and result in a zero population growth.

  • Bunny December 12, 2017, 10:23 AM

    How very fascistic, not to mention evil.

  • ghostsniper December 12, 2017, 12:40 PM

    Two and one quarter inches in diameter.

  • pbird December 13, 2017, 4:25 PM
  • Snakepit Kansas December 14, 2017, 7:02 PM

    Ghost,
    I have a wood lathe that was my father’s. I need to learn how to use it. Maybe make something you speak of out of old chestnut or osage orange. Hollow it out some with a paddle bit, fill the business end with 8 shot and seal the top.