John – Page 9 – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

Music: Knights of The Fallen Age

Sometimes songs come into your head in a more or less complete fashion: the title, the story, the chorus, and then it’s easy to build out the rest. This was one of those. On each song I’ve learned something, and on this one the computer just wanted to start this with a two-minute musical intro. After wrestling it to the ground, I got pretty close to what I wanted.

Note: not all endings are happy.

Behind The Music:
All the songs so far are here (LINK). I use that link when I’m working or driving to listen to tunes, but my plan (stress plan) is to have most of the songs available for sale at places like iTunes and Amazon and for streaming at places that do streaming (think Spotify and YouTube) before Christmas.

Knights of the Fallen Age
by John Wilder

The young knight ventures forth along the ancient Line
Guarding the river’s edge, where twilight shadows intertwine
Our people cling to life, a fragile bastion against the endless unknown
Defending us from the perils that lurk in the wilderness overgrown

A form emerges from the mist, an intruder swift and sly
It darts away as the knight’s arrow cleaves the sky
The shaft sails wide, a warning shot in the gloom
Vanishing into the void, silent as a tomb

He returns to the common house, where the hearth’s fire casts a weary light
The old man’s voice rises low, recounting visions from his memory’s sight
Tales of an age when humanity harnessed lightning in their very grasp
Whispered across the entire vast world, knowledge unfolding fast

Knights of the Fallen Age
We patrol the borders in this shadowed, endless stage
Sentinels of a flickering flame against the dark
In the grip of forgotten times, carrying humanity’s mark
Knights of the Fallen Age
Echoes of glory now deep in the sands of time

Seated by the embers, the elder shares his ancient, haunting lore
Of epochs when a wand in hand unlocked the world’s infinite store
A wand of power, summoning wisdom from the ether’s vast domain
Voices and visions across oceans and mountains, no barrier could restrain

The young knight laughs at the ramblings, those fevered, wild dreams
Leaves to tell his captain of the sighting by the river’s dark streams
The intruder evaded capture, but the threat lingers in the air so still
A harbinger of unrest, testing our vigilance and will

Yet the old one persists as the embers dwindle low into the cold, dark night
Speaking of colossal machines that ascended, eclipsing humanity’s might
Once we commanded the entire globe, from pole to pole in sovereign reign
Now reduced to mere curiosities, living in a mechanical domain

We patrol the borders in this shadowed, endless stage
Sentinels of a flickering flame against the dark
In the grip of forgotten times, carrying humanity’s mark
Knights of the Fallen Age
Echoes of glory now deep in the sands of time

The elder’s piercing gaze reveals the cracks in our peace
Humanity ensnared by greed, our dominion did cease
No divine hand guides us now, just circuits cold and vast
Exhibits in a zoo of steel, relics of the past

Flesh and blood enduring, unaware of the watchful gaze
Trapped in this enclosure, through the endless haze

Knights of the Fallen Age
Lost guardians in a river-bound stage
Whispers of our old power now silenced in the void
Humanity’s remnants, ruled by forces they avoid
Knights of the Fallen Age
Fading warriors on a scripted, tragic page
Beyond the Line, the true masters convene
The zoo’s inhabitants . . . forever unseen

Probe incursion logged; human response within parameters.
Exhibit integrity maintained. No awareness breach detected.
Sustain the experiment. Monitor the knight’s futile vigil.

The Bright Side of Cultural Collapse

“A date gives you a corsage, not a multiple fracture.” – Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

At the LEGO® hospital, almost every operation is plastic surgery.

If you’ve ever felt like America’s cultural compass is spinning like a drunk uncle at a Latvian wedding reception, you’re not wrong. I believe most of my readers can remember back to the 1970s and 1980s.At that time, Americans had a (mostly) shared reality, love it or hate it.

That shared reality kept the country rowing in roughly the same direction. Getting out of Vietnam was a political choice, and (we know now) hard-GloboLeftist Walter Cronkite was instrumental in getting us out after hard-GloboLeftist president LBJ got us involved. The media could start and stop wars, at will.

Now?

It’s a fractured funhouse mirror where the Super Bowl® and presidential elections seem to be the last gasps of collective attention, like family reunions where everyone shows up but nobody talks afterwards. The rest of the time, we’re each siloed in our respective algorithm alcoves, each getting a different view of reality, sort of like the way she looked after six beers and the way she looked at 8AM.

I’m always polite to people who wear glasses, after all, they paid money to see me.

How’d we get here?

Blame the usual suspects: tech titans and open-border overlords who can’t get enough of cheap labor and expensive ballots.

Picture this: pre-1930 America, a patchwork quilt of immigrants fresh off the boat around 1900, all crammed into cities like Ellis Island escapees. Cultures clashed harder than a bad blind date. Languages tangled, traditions tussled, and the “melting pot” was more like a slow simmer with occasional boil-overs. How bad was it? Immigration was essentially shut down with the Immigration Act of 1924 which sharply restricted numbers and essentially banned immigration from most non-Western cultures.

At this time, however, technology makes its appearance: enter radio, then television. These were the great homogenizers of America. From FDR’s fireside chats in the ’30s to Reagan’s ranch riffs in the ’80s, these boxes beamed a single narrative into every living room with little competition. Three networks – ABC®, CBS©, NBC™ – dictated the national conversation.

Commie Cronkite signed off with “And that’s the way it is,” and America, by and large, believed him. Why? Mainly because there were no other options except some fringe samizdat.

Radio had replaced the town square and TV turbocharged it. Now it was I Love Lucy laughs for all, and heavy-handed M*A*S*H moralizing nationwide, with Johnny Carson‘s couch as the national nightcap.

I heard the national origami championship is tonight. It’s on paper view.

This centralized media forced most of the immigrants into and ersatz Americana because there weren’t Slavic-language radio stations in most places. Right or wrong, it forged a (more or less) unified American ethos from 1930 to the mid-1990s.

Sure, it was sanitized suburbia with a side of Cold War conformity and liberal-left inclusion, but it worked: shared heroes (John Wayne, anyone?), shared villains (Commies), shared laughs from non-stereotypical minorities who were, after all, just like us (Cosby before the fall and his final TV show: Women Say The Darndest Things).

We were one nation under three channels, indivisible, with sitcoms and soaps for all.

Then the cracks came.

First, cable TV in the 1980s splintered the spectrum, MTV™ for the kids, CNN® for the news junkies, ESPN© for the jocks. But the real wrecking ball?

Then, the Internet appeared in the mid-1990s, and was supercharged by smartphones in 2007.

Suddenly, infinite choices: blogs, YouTube®, TikTok©, X®. Everyone is a broadcaster, nobody is the boss. Literally no one tells me what to write, I’m free to bring up uncomfortable truths. This resulted in something the GloboLeft hates: attention is atomized. Their rescue, though, is that now Faceborg™ and Google© could manipulate results and (mostly) keep ideas within politically acceptable limits.

Annnnnd she runs an NGO whose mission is to restrict speech.

The Super Bowl® still pulls 100M+ viewers, a rare ritual that the NFL™ is trying to destroy by featuring increasingly divisive halftime shows. Elections? They glue us to screens every four years, like national therapy sessions.

But otherwise?

The GloboLefties lap up MSNBC® memes, righties rally on Rumble™ and there is no overlap. Also, there are no more “water cooler” moments since the odds of anyone watching the same things as you are very low.

Worse, massive immigration since the ’90s poured gasoline on the fire. Post-1965 reforms flipped the script: waves after wave from Latin America, Asia, Africa from clashing cultures. Traditional American values? Now they’re “racist,” “xenophobic,” “bigoted,” “transphobic,” “climate-denying,” “patriarchal” poison.

Family, faith, freedom? Hate crimes.

The people didn’t vote for this mosaic meltdown; The GloboLeftElite engineered it. Cheap labor lured corporations; votes lured Democrats. As Lenin reportedly quipped, “The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”

Here, the “rope” was imported workers who tilt 80% GloboLeft, hanging the old republic with demographic destiny.

By 2026’s doorstep, consensus is kaput. COVID crackdowns under Biden tried to muzzle dissent: shadowbans, deplatforms, “disinfo” dossiers. But the dam burst.

GloboLeftElite’s iron fist? In the United States in 2025, it appears to be wholly rusted. Political correctness, once their shield, lies in tatters.

Why?

Dissenting elites like Musk and Trump flipped the script. X™ became a free-fire zone.

He has a lot of X employees.

Ideas flowed unfettered, exposing the emperor’s empty ethos. “Woke” went from weapon to punchline; folks stopped fearing the “racist” label like it was yesterday’s news.

So, where does this cultural shatter take us?

Short-term: more balkanization. Red states redline GloboLeft policies, banning DEI diktats, booting illegals, building walls (literal and legal).

Blue bubbles boil over with sanctuary silliness and virtue-vomiting, with California leading the country in giving free money to illegal freeloaders.

No national narrative means that, right now, there are no peaceful national solutions.

America does have quite an advantage, though an armed citizenry and what remains of federalism, where I expect state freedoms will increase as the central government weakens. American was built as a country that could fight back against overlords with the preservation of the 1^st and 2^nd Amendments being so crucial to us not falling into the horrific tyranny we see places like England currently entering.

Ah, a raft filled with Marxmen. (meme as found)

My take, long term? Free ideas forge fresh foundations, with a Tradright renaissance entirely possible: young men gymming, girls gardening, families flourishing in flyover fortresses.

I do see that the GloboLeft’s grip will have to slips as their “diversity” devolves into division because the moslems in Dearborn and Somalisota hate gays and want Sharia. The GloboLeft cannot understand, at all, why their pets hate diversity.

We’re not done. The rope the GloboLeftists sold? We’ll use it to climb.

It’s a Country, Not a Company

As promised, this is (sort-of) a twofer. I had the song, complete, and I liked it. That first version was a country version. I thought, though, that the song had a lot more to give, and tried a hard-rockabilly version, which gives a lot of snap and attitude, plus it’s 40 seconds shorter.

I like them both. Let me know what you think.

A full catalog along with links to original posts with lyrics (I use it to stream music while I drive and work) can be found HERE.

It’s a Country, Not a Company: The Hard Rockabilly Version

It’s a Country, Not a Company: The Country Version

It’s a Country, Not a Company
By John Wilder

They chase that green line up the chart
Sellin’ out the soul, tearin’ us apart
Factories shuttered, jobs shipped away
While the soulless suits count their pay

We built this land on blood and sweat
Not balance sheets and corporate debt
But now it’s all ’bout endless growth
Turnin’ patriots into ghosts

They don’t care if we make computer chips or potato chips
As long as the numbers climb, they let the future slip
Financial games, hedge fund bets
Makin’ billionaires while we drown in debts

It’s not about the GDP
It’s about our place in history
I got to the point where I don’t care
If America’s an idea, foreigners can have it over there

It’s a problem they have in Washington
They can’t figure out it’s a country, not a company, son
We’re more than units in a global machine
We’re the heart of the red, white, and blue dream

Citizens turned to cogs on the wheel
No roots, no pride, just cuttin’ deals
Borders wide for cheap labor flow
While our kids fight for scraps below

New York City deals are the poison pill
Hollowin’ out the heart, stealin’ the will
Bleak horizon if we stay this course
Turnin’ a free man into a rented horse

They don’t care if we make computer chips or potato chips
Long as the stock ticks up, they tighten their grips
Globalist chains, Hamptons parades
Leavin’ Main Street in the shade

It’s not about the GDP
It’s about our place in history
I got to the point where I don’t care
If America’s an idea, foreigners can have it over there

It’s a problem they have in Washington
They can’t figure out it’s a country, not a company, son
We’re more than units in a global machine
We’re the heart of the red, white, and blue dream

Remember the farms, the factories proud
The families strong, standin’ unbowed
Not pawns in a game for the banker elite
We fight for our own, not Wall Street’s treat

This path leads to ruin, a nation erased
But we’ll rise up fierce, reclaim our space

It’s not about the GDP
It’s about our place in history
I got to the point where I don’t care
If America’s an idea, foreigners can have it over there

It’s a problem they have in Washington
They can’t figure out it’s a country, not a company, son
No more slaves to the globalist scheme
We’ll take back the land, live the American dream

Country, not a company… yeah, son.

And you know where you can stick your spreadsheet.

Saturday Music: Beer Run

I’m not saying this actually happened. Because it didn’t. But I may have been smoking cigars in the nude in my backyard when I got the idea, but that’s not legally actionable because I lie about a lot of things and you don’t have pictures.

It’s not a serious song, at all, the next one of those will be on Tuesday. Saturdays will probably be reserved for whimsical songs like this one. The uneven meter is intentional in order to be a bit chaotic due to the song’s subject matter, and I like the way it turned out.

Teasing tomorrow, I’m probably going to post the first twofer . . .

All songs to date are available at this LINK for your use in driving and jamming until we’re up on other platforms.

Cheers!

Beer Run
by John Wilder (apologies to Jerry Reed)

In the backyard drinking beer and smoking a cigar
If this doesn’t sound strange, well, we haven’t gone far
I was drinking Coors Banquet beer in the nude
Because I was solo in my hot tub, it’s not rude

A strange light came down from the sky
As I was only two beers in, I wondered why
A saucer came down and an alien popped out
I waved him over, so I didn’t have to shout

He said, “Hey there John, you’re who I’m looking for”
“We ran out of beer, and now we’re looking for more”
“The only thing we drink is Coors Banquet beer”
“But it’s totally illegal for us to be here”

I said, let me guess, your name is Snowman
He laughed and said, “How did you know, man?”
I said I can see you’re a friend of Jerry Reed,
Let me put on my shorts and we’ll see what you need

No homo

I can see you’re Earth bound and down, starship motor runnin’
You’re gonna do what they say can’t be done
You’ve got light years to go, so you’ve got to get gunnin’
You’re Earth bound, just watch old Snowman run

He laughed and said “You’re right,
“Getting beer, well, this was my night
“Since your blog is about having fun
“I figured Wilder would help on this here beer run”

John Wilder, you’re our only hope

I was only two beers in, and he didn’t know how to drive
So, I figured I could get us to the liquor store alive
We went out front and Snowman and I got in the truck
Snowman could right shotgun but just my luck

Just outside of my driveway I got pulled over by Smokey Bear
But Snowman pulled out a light and went on a tare
Snowman shined a light in the trooper’s eye
The trooper froze, I still don’t know why

Well, we went about twenty places
And picked up about sixty cases
Snowman said, Wilder it’s time to phone home
Don’t shake the beers up, we don’t want foam

I guess I did hit that bump pretty hard

We got his rig all loaded up
He poured me a beer in my cup
He said, “It’s been fun,
“But now, I gotta run

I can see he’s space bound and down, starship motor runnin’
Snowman did what they say can’t be done
He’s got light years to go, so you’ve got to get gunnin
He’s space bound, just watch old Snowman run

And then he left me there alone in the back yard.
I checked . . . hey, Snowman took my credit card!

I’m gonna need that tomorrow, for lunch
And beer . . .

Tranquility Was Never The Goal

“Our Great War is a spiritual war. Our Great Depression is our lives.” – Fight Club

The ultimate participation award.

As humans, we’re wired wrong. Or right, depending on how you look at it.

We chase peace like it’s the ultimate prize at the carnival of life. We say that we want a world without war, without struggle, where everyone has a comfy couch, unlimited Wi-Fi, more liver capacity, and steak that cooks and delivers itself.

Sounds like Heaven, right?

Wrong. When I was a wee Wilder, Grandma McWilder would talk about how I should do nice things in life rather than bathing the cat in a paste made from DDT® and Lysol™ so I could go to Heaven. Obviously, I asked, “What is Heaven like?”

Grandma told me it was nice and peaceful and that nothing bad ever happened up there. I believe I said something like, “That sounds boring.” Grandma did not look pleased, but I don’t know if it was about my statement or the cat.

Let’s just say I was a technicolor handful as a kid. Oh, the stories I could tell.

But I wasn’t wrong.

But wait, there’s more!

Tranquility isn’t the goal. Tranquility is the trap.

Peace isn’t just boring; it is deadly to the human spirit. We need the fight, the blood, the steel. Without it, we rot from the inside out. And that’s not me, John Wilder making crap up again. We have actual studies where the government tortured mice to verify that I’m right.

Take John Calhoun’s Mouse Utopia experiments, please. I’ve written about them a couple times before, you can use the search thingy in the upper right hand of the screen to find them. I would have done that for you but you’re not my supervisor and I could type this sentence way faster. Short summary:

In the 1960s, Calhoun built paradise for mice: unlimited food, water, space, unlimited beef jerky, no predators, SNAP benefits.

What happened? At first, boom, the population soared. But then, the weirdness set in. The mice stopped breeding normally. Males became either passive or hyper-aggressive or “beautiful ones,” preening themselves instead of fighting or mating.

Females abandoned pups. Society collapsed into violence, isolation, and extinction. All of this happened in a “utopia”.

No threats, no struggles: just free cheese forever. And they died out. Stop me if you’ve seen this recently in other mammals.

I’m not going sugarcoat my jokes about diabetes.

Humans aren’t mice, but we’re close enough if you ask my parole officer. Look at the downward spiral of the United States after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. The Cold War ended. We “won.” Yay! No more Soviet boogeyman lurking with nukes and unibrows.

Instead? Peace! Prosperity!

What did we do? Got fat, lazy, bored and divided: music went from “I’m gonna kick your ass” in the 1980s to “Oh, man, I need lithium because I’m sad”. The ‘90s brought endless economic booms, but also the seeds of today’s mess: identity politics, endless entertainment, and a generation starting to get hooked on screens instead of life.

Without a real enemy, we turned inward, fighting over pronouns and safe spaces. Tranquility bred complacency, and complacency bred decay.

Same story with the Moon landing. July 20, 1969: Armstrong steps on the lunar surface. Humanity’s greatest leap. We beat gravity, the Soviets, and the odds. Then? Crickets as the ratings dropped.

We went back a few times, planted flags, played golf (shoutout to Alan Shepard), and then just . . .stopped.

And then she refused to talk to them for six hours.

NASA shifted to the gay space trucks shuttles and looking for non-binary muslims and lesbians to shoot into orbit. No more bold frontiers. Why? We won. The Sea of Tranquility turned space exploration into a budget line item.

Need another example: a Syrian teen in London.

Picture this: an eighteen-year-old from war-torn Syria, resettled in a taxpayer-funded flat in London. Free food. Free education. Free X-Box®.

Utopia, right?

Wrong. He drops the controller and goes to Syria andjoins ISIS or stays in London and joins a gang and becomes a rapefugee with a machete.

Why?

Blood calls to blood. Iron to Iron. That flat was Mouse Utopia 2.0: safe, soft, soulless and, let’s face it, that kid was inbred and not very bright to start with. He craved the jihad, the struggle, the validation of existence through fire and fight. Comfort didn’t kill his spirit, comfort starved it. In part, this is why allowing refugees from incompatible countries is immoral.

I played hide and seek and ended up in the hospital. ICU!

Why do we have wars?

We want wars. If they weren’t popular, we’d have stopped having them a very long time ago.

Why do we want them? Not because we’re monsters, but because we’re human. Struggle validates us. High stakes forge character. Leaders like Alexander or Churchill didn’t thrive in peace; they rose in the crises they created.

Without enemies, we manufacture them, internal or imaginary. Look at modern “wars”: culture wars, gender wars, class wars, cola wars. We can’t help it. Tranquility isn’t our default; it’s a rare condition that, when it lasts long enough we pop our collective corks.

Think about it: our history has wired us for survival, not spa days. Hunter-gatherers fought for food, territory, mates and because it was Tuesday. Civilizations brought people together and made a professional league and channeled that into empires, exploration, and innovations. Remove the fight?

We devolve.

Mouse Utopia showed it: no threats equates to no purpose. Humans need the arena, the sweat, the sand, and the blood. We were built for the Colosseum, not the couch.

But here’s the rub: the struggle creates a spot for growth, it’s literally the engine of history. Without high stakes, we fail to thrive.

We back ourselves into existential corners: depression epidemics, fertility crashes, societies crumbling under their own weight and people who need drugs to stop that nagging feeling that they should be doing something that matters. Oddly enough, our very humanity appears to be built upon the fight.

If you meet a dolphin and feel a connection, can you say that you just clicked?

So, what now?

We can’t “prosperity” the struggle out of us. We need leaders who rally us to real frontiers and put real goals out in front of us, not fake fights over tweets®. Stakes high enough to matter: colonize Mars, cure aging, harness fusion. And something for the masses to do, like watching re-runs of Ow, My Balls.

Something. If we don’t have something, we’ll make something. Give us blood (metaphorical or not), steel, the feel of it all. In the end, tranquility was never the goal.

The struggle is the point. It’s what makes us scream, fight, and conquer. As I’ve seen in memes: “I want to go out of this world the same way I came into it: screaming and covered in someone else’s blood.”

And Heaven?

I think it isn’t at all as Grandma Wilder described. I think it’s more like:

Player 1: Ready Level 2.

Thursday Tunes: The Gates of Vienna

My take on this important tale that more Europeans and Americans should know about. This one took more effort than I want to talk about, but when I got that final take, I felt chills. Perhaps I should get the furnace fixed.

Nah.

Enjoy!

Behind The Music:
I collected all the songs so far here (LINK) if you don’t want to hunt for them. I use that link when I’m working or driving to listen to tunes, but my plan (stress plan) is to have most of the songs available for sale at places like iTunes and Amazon and for streaming at places that do streaming (think Spotify and YouTube) before Christmas.

I already have Saturday and Sunday songs complete except for artwork. I’m really having fun putting these together.

The Gates of Vienna
By John Wilder

From the shadowed east, the tempest arose
The Sultan’s dark legions, set in endless rows
Kara Mustafa’s wrath, a sea of scimitars gleam
Besieging the spires where the mighty Danube dreams

Vienna in chains, under siege’s cruel yoke
Cannons of hellfire, the city’s walls broke
Starvation and plague, the reaper’s grim feast
Yet to deliver them, comes a savior from the northeast

Across the vast plains, the eagle’s cry sound
Sobieski awakens, the Polish inbound
Winged hussars thunder, lances forged in flame
To crush the invader, to etch eternal fame

At the Gates of Vienna, where empires collide
The thunder of hooves shakes the invader tide
Charge into glory, the winged legions descend
Victory’s hammer, the Ottoman end

Gates of Vienna – defy the storm’s rage
Europe’s salvation echoes down from that age

Upon Kahlenberg heights, the dawn breaks with fire
September’s twelfth dawn, the king’s desire
Twenty thousand riders, like wrath from the sky
Feathers in fury, the doomed hordes cry

Down the mountain they plummet, a whirlwind of steel
The greatest of charges, the invaders reel
Lines shatter like glass, the Vizier flees in dread
The crescent moon falls, stained in rivers of red

No mercy for tyrants, no truce in the fray
The villains retreat in disarray
Back to the Bosphorus, shadows in flight
The cross reigns supreme in the gathering night

At the Gates of Vienna, where empires collide
The thunder of hooves shakes the invader tide
Charge into glory, the winged legions descend
Victory’s hammer, the Ottoman end!

Gates of Vienna – defy the storm’s rage
Europe’s salvation down from that age

The tents of the fallen yield treasures untold
Silver and gold from the vanquished, behold
No more shall the shadow eclipse the light
The West stands unbroken, eternal and bright

At the Gates of Vienna, the legend is born
Heroes immortal, through ages well worn
Wings of the hussar, the charge that defied
The gates held forever, in triumph and pride

Gates of Vienna, the eternal stand
Saved by the strength of Polish command

The gates endure…
Vienna prevails…
The charge echoes on…

No Podcast, Accept These Free Memes Instead

No podcast tonight, The Mrs. is working long hours and is a bit fatigued. All is well, just tired. More music in the A.M.

Is Everything Fake?

“Happy premise number three: even though I feel like I might ignite, I probably won’t.” – Bowfinger

My ex-wife was more versatile than carbon: she could form more than four bonds at the same time.

The economy recently feels to me like a(nother) bad sequel to The Matrix: smoke, mirrors, simulated steaks and guys pretending to be girls directing everything.

It made me think of Bowfinger, a 1999 Steve Martin flick. Steve Martin plays the titular producer, Bobby Bowfinger. His character drops this gem while trying to scam a crew into working on his latest film:

“That’s after gross net deduction profit percentage deferment ten percent of the nut. Cash? Every movie costs $2,184.”

The rest, it’s like Hollywood? Fake sets, fake stars, fake everything. Our economy, I think, has officially hit 8.9 out of 10 on the Bowfinger scale.

It’s a façade of trillions propped on fraud, fiat, and fairy dust. The evidence is everywhere: from federal slush funds laundering cash to “charities” that fund political hit squads, to Somali scams siphoning billions for terrorist toys, to the AI hype train where Nvidia’s® GPUs vanish into vaporware voids. It makes me ask one question:

Have we peaked at “peak fake”?

Genghis Khan stayed in shape during conquests by making sure he hit his steppe goal each day.

Start with the government’s golden shower of “aid.” In the last few months, we’ve watched as the public found out that billions flood from Uncle Sam’s coffers to “nonprofits” and foundations that, surprise, boomerang right back to commentators, politicians, and partisan ops that give the opinions to the Democratically-appointed judges to make sure that their cash lifeline is safe from scrutiny. Sibling marriages are less incestuous.

Remember the post-election blitz Democratic blitz? A Free Press® investigation uncovered a $27 billion rush-out-the-door bonanza, with $20B hitting eight leftist nonprofits faster than Kamala could say “unbourboned by what has been.”

It would be one thing if these were soup kitchens serving the starving, but these are slush funds for radical agendas, exploiting tax dollars to bankroll everything from election meddling to “community organizing” that looks suspiciously like astroturf Antifa® activism. It’s like if United Way™ funded Trotsky but funded by the Czar.

Robespierre, Trotsky, and Pol Pot walk into a bar. There were no survivors.

And USAID? They shelled $44K to Politico™ for subscriptions chump change, but emblematic of how federal funds feather media nests. Nonprofits are NGO scams, funneling billions to progressive power grabs, sometimes even recycling it from overseas. Ukraine is the country that just keeps giving. I mean, if you’re a Democratic politician.

House hearings exposed how these networks weaponize your taxes for ideological insurgency. You’re paying for the people who keep bleating: “muh democracy.” This is Bowfinger budgeting: real costs hidden, profits pocketed by players who script the narrative.

Speaking of Minnesota Somalisota . . . (otherwise known as Mogadishu on the Mississippi), the relentless spotlight has turned from Indian invaders to Somalian swindlers. The “Feeding Our Future” fraud, where Somali networks allegedly pilfered over $250M from child nutrition programs during COVID. That’s bad enough, but state audits have found broader scams at over $1 billion in taxpayer theft, with funds funneled overseas to anti-American terrorists.

Terrorist training: “C-4 yourself.”

I mean, not just anti-American Democrats, but actual “was given a dowry of AK-47s, goats, and C-4” dirka-dirka terrorists.

This isn’t petty theft: this is peak fake philanthropy that rivals the Clinton Foundation. “Charities” as cover for African clan cash grabs, shipping your dollars to fund foes abroad. If you watch videos of interviews with these people, they have no connection philosophically to the United States, wish to live under sharia law, don’t speak English, and don’t have jobs, other than stealing. I guess the only saving grace is that at least these “charities” didn’t pay for Chelsea Clinton’s wedding and the terrorists are fine with using standard NATO rounds.

The next fake? I’ve mentioned it again and again, Nvidia®.

It’s not so much Nvidia™ as the hype around A.I. Nvidia® seems to (mostly) be just selling computer chips. Mostly. Their stock has been exploding upward like a Somalian with a grenade, doubling since April, with a market capitalization flirting with $4 trillion.

Who is buying all those GPUs, and for what? Is it kids playing Fortnite®?

Ed Zitron, tech industry writer, estimates Big Tech needs $2T in AI revenue by 2030 just to justify their A.I. spending binge, or it’s going to lead to a fall that will leave a mark. We’re back to Wilder’s A.I. Paradox: if A.I. is valuable enough to be worth the money that’s being invested in it, it will wreck the economy with a wave of unemployment. If it’s not, it’ll wreck the economy because it failed.

Yay! It’s almost like we don’t have a choice!

My quantum computer wasn’t working, so tech support told me to turn it on and off at the same time.

It’s a lot like the French having a military: if they fight, they lose, and if they run, they lose.

Who is buying this stuff? The usual suspects: OpenAI®, Microsoft™, Oracle©, Amazon™, and Google©. As we’ve shown here before, this investment simply doesn’t have the infrastructure like electricity, PEZ®, or clean water production to support it even if they could build all that stuff. It smells like tulips in the Dutch Republic back around 1637.

Me? I think it’s entirely possible that we’re building a multi-trillion-dollar computer that might wreck our economy if it works. And it might wreck the economy if it doesn’t.

So, is this peak fake?

We’ve got governments gifting billions to grifters on an endless cash spin-cycle. We’ve got immigrants importing scams and exporting cash to jihadi Jamal in Jowhar. Also, we have A.I. alchemists turning silicon into massive debts that might be decadal mistakes.

If it was just that, yeah, it might all work out. But there’s this: the economy is a house of cards built on counterfeit confidence: $36 trillion in fiat debt, infinite inflation, and innovations that might wreck everything if they don’t become a robotic overlord. Is it any wonder that the smallest pebble dropped onto this slope might cause a landslide?

How much dirt is in a six foot deep, three foot diameter hole? None. It’s a hole.

Fake fails eventually, but often lasts longer than almost anyone would believe during inertia.

Will we reset? I think that’s almost certain. When will we reset?

That I can’t tell. As long as everyone agrees that the market is up, the market is up. But Wendy’s™ is getting ready to close 5% of its restaurants because the business is so great. I think the lower end of the income spectrum has thrown in the towel.

“A Dave’s Single™? What, do I look like a Rockefeller?”

Going back to The Matrix: “You know, I know this steak Dave’s Single® doesn’t exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss.”

Ignorance, bliss? What do those words even mean? In other news, I’m in a great mood!

Disclaimer: This isn’t investment advice, this is an Internet humor column. You might want to try those little cartoons they had in Bazooka Joe® gum for better advice on timing and market direction than I could give you. I don’t own any positions in any stock mentioned in this post, and I also do not own (much) real estate on the Moon, though I was sold a 1/10^th share in some bridge in New York by an Albanian.

Tuesday Tune: Forgotten War

I’m hearing someone wants a deal on an epic metal song about the deep past, good and evil, that sort of thing? Well, if that’s you, my friend, please give this a test spin. Comments are welcome.

Forgotten War
By John Wilder

For ten thousand years we held the wall
Blade in hand, backs to the sea
We learned their lies, their empty oaths
We buried them beneath the ash of history

We rose from blood to iron and stone
Built towers that scraped the face of God
Their spears became toys, their screams a lullaby
We laughed as their kingdoms turned to sod

Centuries rolled, the watch-fires dimmed
Our sons forgot the taste of fear
We laid the sword upon the shelf
And called the wolf a friend sincere

The gates swing wide, the smile is cold
Same eyes that burned our villages of old
Your blood, your name, your very tongue
Welcomes the blade that carved our young

We forgot how to hate
We forgot how to kill
We forgot the old mandate
Spare none, none, none upon the hill!

They never laid their hunger down
They only waited, patient, vile, and still
And now the wolf walks in our town
We’ll learn to make war again – we will!

From the grave I scream without a voice
I claw at dust that once was clay
My distant son shakes the serpent’s hand
And calls the jackal “brother” today

The peace we won became our chain
Mercy turned to slow suicide
The enemy kept the ancient flame
We let the fire in our marrow die

No trumpet sounds, no banner flies
Just quiet knives in the dead of night
Your child sleeps while the old oath dies
And the savage sharpens his appetite

We forgot how to hate
We forgot how to kill
We forgot the old mandate
Spare none, none, none upon the hill!

They never learned, they never changed
They only waited for our mercy to spill
Now the wolf is in the fold unchained
We’ll learn to make war again – we will!

Hear me, ancestors, hear me, ghosts
The blood remembers what the mind forgot
Steel still sings inside our bones
The wolf will learn what the lamb was not

We will remember how to hate
We will remember how to kill
We will rekindle the old mandate
Spare none, none! None upon the hill!

The long peace ends, the lesson’s learned
The fire returns with a brighter glow
Your sons will bare their teeth and burn
And we will make war again –

Hell yes, we will make war again!

Forward, my sons – the wolf dies tonight!

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: A Color Revolution In Progress?

“Any attempt by you to create a climate of fear and panic among the populace must be deemed by us an act of insurrection.” – Superman, (1978)

Don’t tolerate domestic violence: seek opportunities for international expansion.

Those who have an opposing ideology are considered evil.
People actively avoid being near those of opposing ideology. Might move from communities or states just because of ideology.
Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
Open War.

Volume VII, Issue 7

Most memes except for the clock and graphs are “as found”. I have maintained the Clock O’Doom at 9., given the open support of assassination and criminality by the GloboLeft and the increase in violence as well as direct interference with ICE and the insertion of the military into law enforcement. Beware: the number can climb quickly.

My advice remains. Avoid crowds. Get out of cities. Now. A year too soon is better than one day too late.

In this issue: Front Matter – Mere Anarchy is Loosed Upon the World– Violence and Censorship Update – Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – “It wasn’t worth it.” – Links

Front Matter

Welcome to the latest issue of the Civil War II Weather Report. These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War 2.0, on the first or second Monday of every month. I’ve created a page (LINK) for links to all of the past issues. Also, subscribe because you’ll join nearly 840 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at or before 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

Mere Anarchy is Loosed Upon the World

When asked in 2020 if the United States was going to have a civil war over the election, Scott Adams replied, “No, because we don’t want one.” Well, according to a recent Politico® poll, we expect one. 55% of those polled expected political violence to increase. And, by my reckoning, there’s no real reason to not expect more violence.

There is a reason for this.

Increasingly, the norms that we expect from those that win an election have been subverted, and the “loyal” opposition is now just the opposition. This isn’t new, dating back at least to Reagan’s administration. But each election it swings farther, especially on the GloboLeft side.

Mark Kelly, former Navy aviator and the man putting the “ass” in astronaut, was elected to the senate from Arizona. He also appeared with other GloboLeftists in a video targeting the military and asking them to ignore orders. To be fair, they said to disobey unlawful or unconstitutional orders, but by that we know they meant, “Anything Trump asks you to do.” Kelly further (allegedly) leaked classified information for political purposes.

I guess that’s only a big deal of Republicans do it, since no one gets really excited if, say, negotiations to end the Russia-Ukraine war can be leaked at will. Regardless, though, I see the GloboLeft fighting back with renewed vigor. They have reached the stage where they cannot be content with being out of power for a time, and cannot be content with policies that clearly reflect the will of over 80% of the country (remigration of immigrants to their actual home countries) as they are implemented.

This is an attempted color revolution.

Violence and Censorship Update

Censorship was the hot item during Biden’s administration, but violence keeps trending up as the GloboLeft cannot contain themselves.

Bethany MaGee was set on fire by a black man for no reason on a train in Chicago.
Two National Guardsmen were shot by an illegal alien from Afghanistan, one fatally.
Attacks at ICE facilities, vehicles in Broadview, Illinois; Portland, Oregon; and New York City.

Censorship is still there, however:

Lawmakers are proposing a ban on VPNs in Wisconsin.
A ban wave of “dangerous” content hit YouTube™, even on accounts (Zoomer Historian) that had their videos manually reviewed and approved by YouTube© prior to going live.
The Online Safety Act (U.K.) threated to impose a £20,000 fine (a £ is a metric $) plus a daily fee on 4chan because 4chan won’t censor itself.
The EU announced a “Democracy Shield” establishing a hub to detect and prevent dissenting views.
The EU is fining X® €120,000,000 (a € is a metric dollar for the LGBTQ+ community) for not censoring X™.

But the best censorship, is self-censorship, right?

Misery Index

The new Trump administration is shown in red. Results continue to be much better than Biden’s misery numbers. We’ll see, as the long-term trend is not good, especially unemployment.

Updated Civil War II Index

The Civil War II graphs are an attempt to measure four factors that might make Civil War II more likely, in real time. They are broken up into Violence, Political Instability, Economic Outlook, and Illegal Alien Crossings. As each of these is difficult to measure, I’ve created for three of the four metrics some leading indicators that combine to become the index. On illegal aliens, I’m just using government figures.

Violence:

Violence indicators are down slightly this month, but still elevated.

Political Instability:

Down is more stable, and it went up again this month, drastically. This is due to the budget fight, and I think the Somilisota scandal may increase pressures in a few months.

Economic:

The economy down just a smidge this month, but I think this is still cloaking the middle-class crunch.

Illegal Aliens:

Still the lowest level since the Weather Report started. Remember, they care nothing for our country, nothing for our history, and only want money and political power and our country will be gone if they win.

“It wasn’t Worth it.”

The veteran in Great Britain who felt that, looking at society there, felt that the sacrifices of the soldiers wasn’t worth it. This shocked the hosts. I mean, how dare he not want to have the population of his nation entirely replaced? People of Great Britain are noticing.

A similar replacement is taking place in New York City. New York has always skewed towards a heavy foreign population. Just like the two paperwork Americans shown below:

Of course, you can’t really expect someone like Mandomi to have any appreciation for America.

But Mandomi was elected by paperwork Americans:

And has no use for legacy Americans:

I’ve said before, 90% of American problems are downstream of immigration, and remigration would solve most of the pressure heading us towards Civil War 2.0.

LINKS