Don't give in to stupidity and fear - part 2 (History repeating.)

"In the defense of our nation, a president must be a clear-eyed realist. There are limits to the smiles and scowls of diplomacy. Armies and missiles are not stopped by stiff notes of condemnation. They are held in check by strength and purpose and the promise of swift punishment." - George W. Bush


Surely you read part 1? Good.

It is time to Stock up on canned food for humans and cats alike, according to media we are heading for a new cold war. Well, color me impressed, I really didn't think we would let it get that far. But I like to be prepared, and I've got very little faith in people in general, so I actually have a small stockpile of durable foodstuffs. I'm not a survivalist nutcase, I'm a realist, or so my cat keeps telling me. When everything goes wrong, I will be stuffing my face with delicious baked beans. I also have canned ham if the zombies come before the Russians.*
I'm not actually worried, the headlines are always dramatic, or someone wouldn't be doing their job very well, but there is some truth to it, the situation between Russia and, well, the world**, isn't cheerful. But as they say, it takes two to move their bodies together to a complicated early 20th century Latino rhythm. Meaning, what the hell are you all up to, what on earth are you thinking and what can I do to make you stop being stupid? These are not rhetorical questions. Somehow, we let this happen, ignore the problem or just grumble about evil Russians.
This will certainly help just as much as the good old "duck and cover". If only the Japanese had heard this phrase, thousands would've been saved. But then again, I suppose the point was to kill them.

The point of a cold war is not to kill anyone, as opposed to the famous hot wars. Well, isn't that a good thing, not killing each other, I hear no one in particular ask. Yes, I answer, and most people manage that every day without entering a verbal agreement with his neighbor that neither part will firebomb the other's house.
I sometimes talk with people in Eastern Europe, and they tell me the tanks are rolling through the streets where they live. At first I was surprised, now it seems commonplace. NATO is showing muscles, just in case Russia invades anyone they shouldn't. And I'm totally confused as to why we are entering this particular scenario again. Surely, the Russians love their children too. I mean, come on, here I was, thinking the nuclear arms race was more or less over, and we could worry about other things. But no, of course not, let us worry some more about nuclear holocaust. Our parents had such a blast digging token shelters in their gardens, we simply need to bring that back. We can pretend we live in Vault 13, it will be amusing, haha.

But wait a second. I just said the point of a cold war is to not kill anybody. Where is the danger, and what exactly is the point? Well, the danger comes from the politicians, corporations and international organizations that stoke the fires. They are clearly not good people. They might even be slightly unstable, have substance abuse problems or just be plain evil. For the most part, they just tend to prioritize money and power over everything else. And these people are the same people with the finger on the big, red nuclear buttons, or  maybe they just control said finger, it doesn't really matter. What really gets me, is that these are the same people with access to fallout shelters that might actually work. Do not for a second believe that this brewing conflict is about difference in ideologies, politics or even ethics. If the world cared even the slightest about Putin knocking off the political competition by making them dead, protecting Russians in other countries by invasion, promoting hate crime against gays or just being insanely macho, we wouldn't have given him the Olympics. The point of a new cold war would only be about money. And possibly power for the sake of power.
I hate to say this, but the damn hippies and conspiracy theorists were right on this.

USA has had a wartime economy ever since WW2. They spend insane amounts of money on defense contracts, new hardware, ships, planes and gadgets. More than any other country in the world, probably more than most other countries combined. If you hadn't noticed, the American economy hasn't been all that hot lately, neither has that of many European countries who happen to be a part of NATO, for that matter. It would be impossible for USA to change gears to peacetime economy at this point. They have used small and big wars to fuel their economy for 70 years. If the war wasn't hot, then the cold war would work just as fine until something better came along. You think I'm making this up? Use the internets, google it. War all the time. Reagan even made his own Star Wars project for blogs sake. Russia now being somewhat a lesser threat than back in the glorious USSR times, it seems the threat rests more firmly on the European countries. This works even better for USA, it's even a boon for Russia. All the better if this is mostly a regional conflict. The region still needs loans, equipment and suitable cultural entertainment.***

So why do I insist that everybody are stupid? Except for the obvious reasons (and fear), we live in democracies.**** This means we elect representatives to carry out our will. I love the term "public servants", that is exactly what they are, at  least in theory. So in a way, we are responsible - No, I don't care if you didn't vote for this or that person or didn't vote at all, you are still responsible as a human blogging being. Please, please use your grey matter, be aware of what is actually going on, question the news and don't give in to fear. The fear-dollar is big enough as it is.


*It's a classic. Zombie apocalypse and ham are like hand and glove. For some reason.
**Except those countries not bordering to Russia, not a close partner to USA or a part of NATO, so we are mainly talking about USA and Europe. You know, the world.
***See, I said everything was connected!
****If you, the reader, somehow has managed to read this from North-Korea or similar, I salute you.

Don't give in to stupidity - part 1 (We have nothing to fear but fear itself.)

"In the late 1930s, as Britain refused to adapt to the new realities of war, Winston Churchill observed, "The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences."

- George W. Bush


Today, while I was at work, I was hearing all sorts of news.
First of all, the supreme court of USA legalized gay marriage nationwide. Good for them. Seriously.

Second, IS seems to have let all hell loose, wherever they had the opportunity. This worries me, because it worries other people. The news these days, are mostly bad. Religious fanatics, cold war, racism, it is a hell of a stew. People get frightened. Fright is contagious. It makes people stupid. It makes people do stupid things. Like throwing their freedom out the window.
I'm of course talking about the Patriot Act, the famous piece of American legislation, where people in power capitalized on the fear of the powerless. The personal freedom and rights of any and all citizens was greatly reduced. Fear mongering also let them start a couple of wars against people they had previously trained and armed themselves.*
Europe has had it's own share of terrorism, both religious and political motivated, but so far we've not gone totally overboard on cutting civil rights. Sure, we've got new security routines at airports and we had to join said wars, but hey, a deal is a deal, and we are all members of the club called NATO and so on.
But as the threats increase, we seem to mess up. The police in Norway are now armed with firearms in most situations.  We recently cut down on transparency in political processes. This seems to be solely for the sake of bureaucracy, but it doesn't make it any better. Damn you world, you are making me smoke actual cigarettes at home again. Anyways, I predict that terrorism will be a prevalent story in the news for some time. There will be speculations about threats to Norway. There will be questions about how well we are prepared for worst case scenarios. All this at a time where our prime minister already is worried about Russian spies,*** and an elevated threat level in Europe because of the situation in the Ukraine. More about that in part 2. Point is, people will be stupid. I implore people to not be so. Let the media and politicians rant and rave about the dangers of the world, but for blogs sake, let's not buy into it  ourselves. Please don't believe the hype, and don't let your political representative misrepresent you. When the government limits your liberty, the terrorists win.**** When you are afraid, the terrorists win. When we bomb the shit out of some country to kill the terrorists, we generate more terrorists and the terrorists win yet again. When we arm the rebels to overthrow the regime we don't like, we end up arming IS. Terrorists win. This is not counterstrike. This is the real world. Only damn way to beat this is by not being afraid and therefor not stupid.

Anyways, gay marriage, eyh? Textbook example of people being unafraid from the supreme court. Use your brain if you are going to hate something, it is a big decision. Don't use your heart or guts for hate, those are for loving and eating.


*This will be another case of everything is connected to everything else, as you will see in part 2**
**If you bother to read it that is. But take my word for it, everything is connected to everything else.
***Of all things to worry about....
****And so does the government.  Yes, they do, don't argue.

Spoilers gallore! (will contain spoilers, for real)

Yes, so... Due to mental lethargy, I've not been producing these last months. That may or may not change, but as of right now, this here moment in time and space as I am occupying it,* I am producing this here big list of spoilers to punish you. I would like to punish the film industry and their promotion-people, but let's face it, they will not read this, so I punish you. Also - thank you Scrubs.

I am in my prime. That means I remember VHS. These splendid magnetic tapes held movie magic in their spools. After the movie, you had something sort of trailing after the main attraction, some small promotional teasers for future attractions - trailers.

Trailers are no longer to be found after a movie. If you are a slightly out of touch and still use DVDs and blu-rays and such, they are to be found before the stuff you actually would like to see. If you just download everything or stream it, you dodge that stuff altogether.
But then there is the internets. Oh yes, YouTube, Imdb and Facebook will show you all the latest trailers, teasers, promos and featurettes. Sometimes, that is ok. About 70% of the time, it is NOT ok, as they will contain so much of the plot and potential spoilers, that you might as well just watch the trailer and don't bother with the rest hour and a half of film, as you've already know what will happen.

All right, so you stay away from these digital spoiler-factories, then you should be good, all fresh and oblivious to what the latest blockbuster or your favorite show has in store for you? Of course not. Because people are basically bad at keeping their mouth shut.** They will happily tell you all about the Red wedding, long before it comes up, because they read the books (as they should), and they will post RIP Opie all over their facewall while you are still on season two.

So here is the deal. As a public service, I will go ahead and give you all the spoilers I can come up with, without actually telling what show, franchise or movie it is from. It will be done solely with the help of my spotty memory. You will have to find out if you've seen it and know the reference. It's a game. It will be fun. Come on.

Spoilers ahoy!


Bruce Willis was dead for most of the time. The kid sees dead people, remember?

Other than that, Bruce Willies never dies. Oh, except for when he saves mankind from asteroids.

The literal hand of god comes out of the sky and detonates the nuke, while transporting the good guy away from Vegas. Shittiest ending to a great story ever.

Darth Vader is indeed Luke's father, but despite the handicap of having been Hayden Christensen in his youth, he saves Luke in a last ditch effort of parenting.

The spooky voodoo ritual she performs will not save her, it will transport her soul into the old gals body and vice versa. Surprise!

I don't know about the movie, but in the comic, Batman beats the shit out of Superman with a little help from his friends.

Ryan makes it home. 90% of the guys who are sent to rescue him die. Someone didn't think this through.

The outlander kills the vengeful alien with a little help from his Viking friends. He also gets the girl.
Poor alien.

Speaking of aliens, Ripley will always survive, even when she dies.

Sofia Coppola dies, leaving her father as an old, broken man who falls dead on his face thinking it was all for nothing.

They were not dead the whole time. You will never understand the island!

Dicaprio is not a federal marshal, he's just crazy.

Matt Damon is the informant. Wahlberg kills him in the end. The Asian original is hereby spoiled too.

Is there a Keyser Soze or is there only Kevin Spacey?

Speaking of Spacey: He has Gwyneth Paltrow's head sent to Brad Pitt, forcing him to kill him.

The Sopranos don't do so well in cars.

William Shatner and James Spader marry each other in the last episode. 

Samurais are awesome, but not even Tom Cruise can save them from a Gatling gun.

Bob the demon possessed Laura Palmer's father. He killed her. Bob takes over agent Cooper in the end.

In the comics, Glenn gets beaten to death. Andrea is still alive though, so you never know.

Ozymandias saves the world by killing thousands. Dr. Manhattan kills Rorschach. Rorschach destroys plot to save world from beyond the grave.

Lenny Nero is not paranoid, his best friend is trying to kill and frame him. Juliette Lewis is very pretty.

Sam and Frodo marry each other and live happily ever after. So does Legolas And Gimli. No, I lie, everyone has a bad time and then die sooner or later. Legolas and Gimli have a good time, though.

A broke tank can't handle hundreds of axis. Everyone dies except new guy.

The guy from Spain kills the emperor, then bleeds out in the arena.

Spartacus dies. So do everyone who claim to be him.

Riddick is super-ninja-cool. He survives monsters and bounty hunters, he keeps what he kills, gets betrayed and kills more monsters and bounty hunters. Yes!

There is no Earth, except Earth is what you make it. The cylons do whatever they do and most of the cast die before they get there anyway. Angels exist and they are very fond of sex. Starbuck pulls a Jesus.

Lucy Lawless always gets shafted. Mhm.

Wash and Shepherd die. The rest of the lot continues to misbehave. Don't expect any sequels.

Doctor Holiday kills people who aren't daisies, then succumb to consumption. Mr. Earp lives on room service and love 'til the day he dies.

Gene kills Morgan, Clint kills gene. No one were forgiven that day.

The Ship hits an iceberg and sinks. Leo drowns. Winslet has spectacular bosoms.

Kong goes to the city, climbs a bit, gets shot by planes, falls down and dies. Depending on what timeline you are on, of course.

Roland enters the Dark Tower to save the rose. The journey continues ad infinitum.

Hugh Jackman cheats with the help of David Bowie. Christian Bale has a twin.

Bilbo goes there and back again. The hunky dwarves die.

It is not futile to resist the Borg.

Vic Mackey gets immunity. The rest of the squad, not so much.

Hawkeye gets the girl. The penultimate Mohican and his girl die. 

Troy gets burned to the ground. Legolas shoots Achilles in the heel. Everyone are retards.

He is not the messiah, just a very naughty boy. He still gets crucified. Mel Gibson directs.


















 

 





































*You, the reader, will be at somewhere completely different location on the time/space cake chart, not unlike Matthew McConaughey in the movie Interstellar, where he knocks down stuff from a bookshelf.
**And soooo many other things. Like Dennis Quaid in Pandorum. The cap has issues.