The Confused Lands

I’m a bit out of sorts. My sleeping pattern is all over the place. I’m either sleeping far too long and then being woozy all day or sleeping far too little and then being tired all day. It’s hard to concentrate on anything. Tonight I’ll try for an early night – last night was a short sleep so I’m pretty knackered, but I’m forcing myself to stay awake for another hour or so to try to get into a reasonable pattern again.

The novel prices at Leg Iron Books were supposed to go back up on Wednesday night but my concentration was so poor I decided to delay to the weekend. I’d just end up clicking the wrong thing and making a balls of it, so the low price hunters will have a couple more days.

It’s not helped by the absolute confusion in the world today. People pulling down random statues on the pretext of ‘slavery’ even though they are also pulling down those of people who had nothing to do with slavery – and indeed some who were actual abolitionists who spent decades working to end it. They don’t care. It’s just destruction they want.

It made me realise I had inadvertently followed part of Orwell’s 1984 blueprint in Panoptica. Of course, the main character won’t understand history because he’s never been taught any. Never been taught that there was a time before him nor that there will be a time after him. There is no ‘history’ in his world. Influenced by Orwell? Very likely. I have read that book a few times.

Unlike Winston Smith, 10538 has absolutely no concept of history – nor of a lot of other things. It’s beyond 1984, the transformation is complete. More of that later.

I have seen claims that George Floyd is still alive, that the whole thing was a setup. I have seen claims that he actually died three years ago and a lookalike was used in this alleged setup. Even a claim that ‘George’ was one of those dummies used for practicing respiratory recovery techniques. None of this seems likely but these days, you just never know.

I would rule out the ‘dummy’ since he was talking. Unless the cop was a ventriloquist, which I’d also put firmly well down the ‘likely’ scale. I can’t honestly rule out the other two except to say they are so contradictory that it’s all just starting to sound like a good time to buy shares in tinfoil. Next I expect to hear it all took place in a Hollywood studio and none of it was real. Heck, if they can say that about the moon landings…

There are some very odd things about that scenario but at this time I still believe that a cop with a long history of getting away with violence killed George Floyd – whether deliberately or not, I think the cop killed him.

Then there is the whole Siege of Seattle. Reports that businesses are forced to pay protection money are denied by the businesses themselves and countered with ‘well of course they say that, they’re being threatened.’ Which is true? How can you tell? I doubt we’ll know until this is over.

There are reports that it’s all fine and rosy in there, and reports that warlords are now engaged in turf wars and handing out the kind of summary justice that started this whole thing. There was one report that someone called the police after getting a kicking from one of the self-appointed ‘Freedom Police’, only to be told ‘It’s not our jurisdiction now’. I only saw that once, no idea if it’s true.

It does amuse me that the first thing they did was set up a hard border and put armed guards along it. They are even building a rudimentary wall. Isn’t that exactly the sort of thing they are protesting against? They have self-appointed police who allegedly deal out violent on-the-spot beatings to anyone who doesn’t do as they are told. I thought they were protesting against that too.

They soon ran out of food and put out a plea for someone to send in some vegan food. Has to be vegan, no matter whether their members are all vegan or not. I wonder how many now understand the concept of lifestyle control, and who are now not too happy to have it applied to them?

Communism can work on a very small scale. A commune comprised entirely of people who want that lifestyle can work. Imposing it on a wider population can never work. It will always lead to violent imposition of the ideals on those who don’t want to live that way, and the extermination of anyone who opposes it. Every time.

And so the tiny independent state within Seattle will fragment. It’s too big to work as a commune. It has nowhere to grow food. They did try making a ‘farm’ which will produce enough salad for one meal for maybe half a dozen people in about a month. Assuming they know how to deal with slugs, whitefly, fungus and all sorts of other things.

They have no power generation. They don’t seem to realise that unpaid electricity bills result in termination of service. Water and sewerage are under the control of the actual city, they have none of their own. No infrastructure, no economy, nothing.

Yet they have declared themselves independent of the USA. Which means the USA can now simply seal them off and demand they produce passports if they want to leave. Which, of course, they don’t have.

On the other hand, it’s similar to the sort of thing every libertarian dreams of, where ‘my home is my castle’ becomes a reality. However, even libertarians recognise that they will need heating, lighting, water, sewage etc and they don’t want to do all that themselves so they won’t go into total isolation. They would also need a common currency for trading.

If I could afford to buy this place I could potentially do it, but I’d be working all the time to grow food, cut wood for heating, grow more wood for future heating, undertake repairs myself, hunt down a rabbit or two for dinner… I would be working dawn to dusk just to survive. Totally off-grid can be done but it’s a daunting task. I have solar chargers that can run my phone and a small laptop for a short while but I’d still have to pay an ISP for internet access. Unless I cut myself off from the modern world entirely I would need at least a small income.

Water and sewerage are already sorted, water is from a well and sewerage is a septic tank. However, I still need annual replacement of water filters and UV and the septic tank has to be pumped out every few years. Unless I want to boil every last drop of water before use and take my chances on the dissolved minerals. Oh, and dig holes in the woods to shit in. That has no appeal, especially in winter.

So, if I was going to go for total independence I would need to plan it all very carefully indeed. I’m way too old to live the life of a Mediaeval peasant, I would want access to infrastructure and that will mean paying for it. I don’t make much use of the NHS but maybe in ten years I’ll need them a lot more. I’ve never had to call the police and to be honest, it would be a bit pointless out here. Even if they came at once with a champion rally driver behind the wheel it would take at least 20 minutes. Still, nice to know they are there. If I was lucky, the annual police patrol would be passing by at the time.

Cutting yourself off from all infrastructure at the drop of a hat with no real plan beyond ‘anarchy, man’ can only end in disaster. The Seattle protestors hadn’t even considered a food supply longer than a day or two. They have also not considered that a hard border can be sealed from either side. They have no coast, no farmlands, no independent power supply, no means of getting fuel. The middle of a city was not the best place to do this.

I don’t, at this moment, know if it’s going well or badly for them but my bet is that if it’s not going badly now, it will be in a very few days. Their attempt at an independent food supply is tiny and will not be ready for weeks. That’s if the whole range of crop pests doesn’t descend on them in the meantime.

Their ‘police’ are basically warlords and will soon develop a feudal system where the serfs find the food and the lords rake in the proceeds. It’s going to be Mad Max in there by next week, if not before. They are also not a united force, there will be turf wars. I hear this has already started but it’s like getting a reliable news report from North Korea at the moment. It depends which news outlet you read and I don’t think there is an unbiased one left.

Today I saw Piers Morgan telling everyone to calm down. Yes, that Piers Morgan. If you look up ‘mindless blind-panic hysteria’ in the dictionary, it just says ‘Piers Morgan’. He’s telling everyone to calm down.

That’s it. I really need to sleep now. As long as the discordant thoughts can be settled for long enough. I hope some of that makes sense to somebody.

It makes little sense to me.