06-26-2020, 04:25 PM
bwaites Wrote:Read this the other day, think about what has happened the last few weeks.....
The Japanese have a word, "Ran". Sometimes it is translated as "war", but that really doesn't express the nuances. "Senso" is the word most often used for war. "Ran" is something much worse.
Many may be aware of the Kurusawa movie by that name. Based on King Lear by Shakespeare, the story deals with conflict, but in a completely crazy way.
When two sides take positions and shoot at each other, it is likely to be called "Senso." When things are crazier, "Ran" is most often used.
The war that broke the back of the second shogunate in Japan was called the Onin War, but the Japanese term is "Onin no Ran." It lasted for ten years, with shifting alliances and Kyoto nearly burned to the ground. People went back and forth with who they supported, based on the immediate benefit to them. A war that supposably was started over who would be the next shogun instead was a free for all, with people using what side they supported that week to justify killing someone they had been itching to do away with for a long time.
When Oda Nobunaga sent his forces into Iga to slaughter everyone they could catch, they called it "Tensho (after the name of the time it was in) Iga no Ran." That is the type of thing Ran is. It isn't war, it is chaos and slaughter on a huge scale.
That is what we are looking at. We are not looking at a civil war. We are looking at an American version of Ran. Some people are looking forward to a civil war, thinking that they will have the advantage and be able to do away with the other side once and for all.
Historically, it doesn't work that way. We won't have people lining up and taking a stand so that only those that are guilty of wanting a war and wanting to fight in it will end up dead. There will be no battle lines. People will have their homes burned down with them in it at 2 in the morning because of some political comment they made on Facebook. How are all your guns going to save you when you wake up to your kids screaming in terror at your home being engulfed in flames?
It will be a war of shadows and terror. You will never know who is coming for you or when. You may be a target, or you may be ignored. You will not have anyone to strike back at that are doing the shooting, because those types will be keen to cover their tracks. Only those naive enough to voice opinions but not even consider doing harm will be visible to those doing the killing. Or it might be something you would never think would put you in danger, like your religion or skin color. You can never tell what might cause someone to come after you. If you aren't one of the idiots sowing terror, you probably won't even consider that someone would want you dead, until they strike.
And I honestly don't think we can stop it. Oh, we certainly should try. If I am wrong and we can turn this thing around, then we have to do all we can before we turn into another Lebanon, former Yugoslavia or Somalia. It can happen here, and I fear it will.
I got very good at watching and taking advantage of trends. They do turn around, but most often it is like a huge ocean liner. It takes time and the faster you are going, the harder it is to change course. By the time you see the iceberg, it is too late except to get to the lifeboats. We don't have any lifeboats in this case.
The way into war won't be straight down. People like to share graphs that success isn't a straight line up, but tends to go up with small turns down before heading up again. That is the way things like a stock price move as well, small dips in a trend up or down. But unless there is a huge reason to stop the trend, it will generally keep going in that direction.
So we will get a respite in the near future, but it will only be temporary. Don't let yourself be lulled into complacency by hoping that people have finally come to their senses. If you look back five, ten or 25 years, you can see the larger trend and not be fooled by the small dips and rises.
We may get to a point where things get so bad that people finally all agree that we have to stop the madness, but we aren't anywhere near that point now. That is likely to be years down the road, with the society as we know it torn to pieces.
It is time to start thinking about how to survive the Crazy Years. We don't want it to happen, and we won't contribute to the killing, but we have to acknowledge that we are likely to be put in extreme danger in some way in the near future. How can we stay safe? Things are changing so fast that even if I had an answer it would be out of date by the end of the year. So we need to keep in our minds the idea of how we can prevent our fellow Americans from killing our families.
We have reached the state of Ran in America.
Excellent synopsis, but a very bleak and depressing future we are heading into. It reminds me of an older gentleman from Canada, "I competed with" a few years ago. He was a very competent shooter and a former South African police officer. He told a very familiar story, "about his life and how he escaped such a scenario" you just described. He immigrated to Canada to escape the growing chaos and raise his family in a safe environment . He stated the U.S. was just a few years behind South Africa. I amicably agreed, but never took it too seriously.. Boy was I wrong...The problem is, there is nowhere else to run..I know talk is cheep, but let them come. I have never run from a fight and I will not start now. There are things more important in this life than our selves..If bowing down to insane laws, "directed by a racist communist anarchist cult is the price for life" then it is time to see what comes next... I will quote Thomas Paine:
December 23, 1776
THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.