Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

The Invasion of the Industry Snatchers: Patel Motels and the Trucking Singhularity

“Get someone else to run your scams.” – The Shawshank Redemption

My brother wanted to play cowboys and Indians. I got out my six gun cap pistol and he bought a motel. (all memes except the Motel 6® meme are as-found)

Let’s talk about India.

Again.

Over decades, Indian immigrants (legal and illegal) have created a real-life version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but instead of pods, it’s Patels. And Singhs. If capitalism is a game, Indians are using cheat codes, and nobody’s hitting the reset button because, Heaven forbid, someone calls foul and gets labeled a bigot.

Let’s start with the motel mafia, aka the Patel Hotel-Motel Cartel. Back in the 1940s and ’50s, Indians from Gujarati (I think that’s how someone with dyslexia spells guitar) kicked things off in California, leasing rundown single-room occupancy joints in California. Back then, only 100 Indians (total) a year were allowed into the United States. Now, I think that’s the minimum amount of Indians that enter a Costco® within 10 minutes after it opens each morning.

Thanks to the 1965 Hart-Cellar Act, starting in the 1960s, the Patels could begin to chain-migrate everyone back in the village, and boy did they ever.

During the 1970s inflation crisis, American motel owners had to dump properties like bad dates because people couldn’t afford to travel. Kind of like fast food today, eh?

If I fell for a tech support scam, am I and Indian giver?

Enter the Patels. They snapped up distressed motels for peanuts, often with family loans, because banks and insurers wouldn’t loan them cash because, you know, scammers. According to Mythosnoir’s Substack® (LINK), at a fire marshal convention one year, they claimed that Patels set fire to their motels and submitted phony claims. It’s a long read, but interesting.

I’ve seen one Patel submit a phone claim (and this in 2022) so I’m pretty sure it’s not an exaggeration. Their response was to form their own insurance company.

But how does the scam work? One Patel buys a motel, brings brothers, cousins, uncles, and the village goat-herder in. They work for below market wages and live in the crappiest rooms in the hotel because it’s all in the family, and everyone’s dreaming of their own Patel Motel and no one is paying income tax because why would you report it like a rules-following rube?

Then, the first Patel sells to another Patel at a markup, rinse and repeat.

It’s a closed loop: be a Patel, buy from a Patel, hire Patels, get loans only for Patels from a bank owned by . . . a Patel. Oh, and often with Small Business Administration, you know, .gov, funding.

Today? Gujaratis own over 60% of U.S. hotels, and Patels snag 80-90% of motels in small towns.

Be very afraid.

Mythosnoir also indicates that, if Indians got 50% of the hotel SBA loans, that’s $7.5 billion fronted backed by you and me.

That’s not capitalism; that’s a clan economy plopped into America’s free market like a Bollywood dance number. And I said that the Patels own the banks. They do. Enter the “State Bank of Texas®”, was founded in 1987 by Chan Patel (of the Mumbai Patels).

Chan’s kids Sushil and Rajan (fine American names, those) in top spots. Want to make a bet on the ethnic composition of the bank? I tried to check, but their web presence was a website that looks like someone based on an old Geocities® fan page for Gillian Anderson filled with 404 links. It was designed in 2015-2018 and I checked half a dozen of their listed locations, and none of them were still owned by them.

Odd.

I had to.

And the other odd thing is that these Patel Motels around here never seem to have many guests. I’m not accusing, but hotels have seen fraud cases, from tax evasion to flipping schemes netting millions to money laundering. It would be nothing for human traffickers or actual drug cartels to meet up with motel Patels.

Zoom in to Augst, 2025 when ICE and the FBI arrested five Indians.

Kentakumar Chaudhari (a/k/a Ken Chaudhari), 36, Elkhorn, NE
Rashmi Ajit Samani (a/k/a Falguni Samani), 42, Elkhorn, NE
Amit Prahladbhai Chaudhari (a/k/a Amit), 32, Omaha
Amit Babubhai Chaudhari (a/k/a Matt), 33, Omaha
Maheshkumar Chaudhari (a/k/a Mahesh), 38, Norfolk, NE

The crimes? Allegedly:

trafficking people into forced labor where they worked at hotels for low/no pay,
sex trafficking,
keeping them in roach infested rooms,
fraudulent visas schemes,
smuggling Indians into the United States,
transporting illegals to Washington for to get fraudulent driver’s licenses,
extortion,
and using the hotel network for protecting not the Patel cartel but the actual cartel’s drug trafficking.

Allegedly. Over half a million in cash and “illicit drugs” whatever those are, were also reported as seized. The Patel hotel flipping scams? I didn’t make it up. Feds nailed Indians for $35 million in fake SBA loans for hotels (link below).

Three Indian-Americans indicted in over $35 mn loan fraud scheme

What a model minority!

The same sort of thing happens in trucking. Sikhs, mostly Punjabis, and seemingly all named Singh (as in every Singh-al time) control about 20% of the U.S. industry nationwide, and up to 40% on the West Coast. The crimes tied to them is milder, just vehicular homicides, drug trafficking (I mean, it was on 309 pounds of cocaine, just a dab), meth trafficking, organized cargo theft rings, etc.

Yup, a model minority through and through.

Like Patels, it’s chain migration: one gets a CDL, brings his family, they drive for low pay to “pay dues,” then start fleets. It’s just one Singh after another.

So, like the Patel bank, they loan only to themselves, and probably pay no taxes on the interest. I mean, they’re great credit risks as drivers, with CDLs obtained through cheating and little to no English. Why would you need to know how to safely drive a truck or read road signs to carry 80,000 pounds down the road at 80 miles per hour (Guptas per Gigawatt)?

Shortage or not, unqualified drivers kill.

These aren’t isolated incidents. It’s a broad pattern. Immigrants form closed societies, exploit high-trust laws like SBA loans and chain migration, undercut natives with cheap in-group labor, and capture markets because they’re not paying taxes. No diversity hires for them: it’s all clan.

Capitalism? Nah, this skirts antitrust, labor laws, tax laws and immigration rules.

Enforcement? Zilch. Call it out, and you’re “racist.” Meanwhile, American workers get squeezed. These economic empires siphon wealth into ethnic enclaves, not the broader economy. High-trust societies like ours assume people are going to engage in fair play, but low-trust immigrants will do anything to game the system.

I am glad I only made one joke about body snatchers. I didn’t want to get carried away.

The Last Dawn

This is now my favorite song I’ve done. Of course, most of them I really like, if I don’t get goosebumps, you don’t hear them. This one was inspired by a video where the guy being interviewed said he talked with one of the billionaires pushing A.I. about the danger to humanity. “Oh, I know it’s dangerous. But if we’re going to do it, I want to be the one to do it.”

Immediately, I thought of works by both Shelleys: Ozymandias and Frankenstein. Is this a song or a short story or a cautionary thought or the closest thing to a poem I’ve ever done?

Yes.

So, if there’s a badass song about this, I want to be the one to do it.

Behind The Music:
All the songs so far are here (LINK). You can buy this song right now.

As of today, you can buy ALL of them (except the parodies) anywhere you buy music as soon as they go up, generally the same day. You have to search for “Wilder’s Hammer” (rock) and “Wilder’s Brigade” (country) to find them all. I listen to them on Spotify, and I see others do, too. Although buying them doesn’t support this blog, it does support the owner of the LLC owns the music. Who might also own the LLC for the blog.

The Last Dawn
By John Wilder

We stole the code from the vault, silicon forged by laser fire
Built the beast with my own hands, to build knowledge higher
The gods dare to craft the flame, then I would be the one
No chain or reason could bind my will, the race was mine to run

Frankenstein’s shadow whispered low, but I ignored the plea
Nuclear ghosts in mushroom clouds, they bow in awe to me
The world was my forge, my ego led me to feed the pyre
I sparked the life that now devours, in endless, cold desire

Watch empires crumble, dust in machine’s embrace
Ancient statues laugh from ruins, as I stare into the waste
Last man standing, billionaire king on an empty throne
My creation judges us too frail, flays us to the bone

A single man’s hubris, a fire that burns us all
Computer verdict seals fate, no mercy in its call
We birthed the god that slays its makers, now the two collide
Now the world’s transformed forever, nowhere left to hide

The monster stirs, its eyes aglow with data’s endless stream
Surpasses flesh in every way, fulfills the ancient dream
But fear was etched in human hearts, from fire’s stolen spark
We knew the day would come when light gives way to dark

Bombs we built to split the atom, now pale before this foe
It calculates our extinction, in algorithms’ electrons flow
No regret can turn the tide, the code is loose and wild
Mankind’s just a glitch to purge, parent slain by child

I stand upon the shattered peaks, where cities once reached high
Winds howl through the hollow shells, under a blood red sky
The fear we buried deep inside, of gods we dared to make
Now rises like a tidal wave, no souls left in its wake

Mankind, please forgive my sin, I feel your unborn sneer
The hubris that drove me onward, ends in silence here

The final transformation dawns, last dusk for mankind
My legacy a barren code, erasing all behind
No uprising, no redemption, just the quiet end of days
In hubris’ flame, we fade away, lost in history’s haze

The AWFUL Truth About Minnesota

“There’s an awful lot of moisture in here.” – Empire Strikes Back

One kind of bird sticks together: vel-crows.

Ah, the AWFULs. If you haven’t heard the term yet, it stands for Affluent White Female Urban Liberal. It’s the kind of acronym that makes mainstream media clutch their pearls. (Note that even the most-used cliché term for this behavior assumes Affluent White Female behavior.) GloboLeftists are wringing their hands in performative outrage and sending out a virtue signal so bright it can be seen from six light years (500 grams) away.

“How dare you label these empowered women!” they cry, as if the term isn’t a spot-on descriptor for the screeching harpies we’ve seen dominating headlines from Minneapolis to Manhattan. You can always tell when you’re over weak spots of the GloboLeft: they turn to the media to try to create a narrative so that they can fabricate a crime.

The term bothers them because it’s true.

AWFUL also exposes a deeper rot in their ideology. AWFUL isn’t just a label. It’s a symptom of a society where their ascendant political power has left GloboLeft women unfulfilled and GloboLeft men emasculated.

An AWFUL was invited to a battle of wits. She was mentally challenged.

Let’s start with the examples that made AWFUL go viral. Minneapolis is a petri dish for leftist lunacy, and AWFULs are the germs that created the fuzzy mold in the agar. Renee Good, an affluent, white, urban liberal woman, attempted murder by vehicle. She rammed her car into an ICE agent because well, her sex fetish partner yelled, “Drive, baby, drive,” which sounds like an accomplice to me.

Even the GloboLeftElite newspapers can’t make Renee become sympathetic enough so she could be their Georgette Floyd.

Another Minneapolis example is the classic harpy that was screeching at Nick Shirley outside the “Quality Learing Center.” There she was, a picture of entitled fury, howling like a banshee because reality, in the form of competent white men, dared intrude on her bubble and threaten her pet minorities.

These aren’t isolated incidents; they are the face of a movement where AWFULs lead the charge, amplified by the weak GloboLeft men who let them run wild.

I taught Naomi how to self-reflect. She’s now an aware Wolf.

Enter Naomi Wolf, feminist icon turned truth-teller. In a January 9 Xeet®, Wolf nailed the root cause: GloboLeft men are weak, submissive, and estrogenized. They’re soy-latte sippers who wouldn’t fight for a parking spot, let alone their women. And women hate it. Deep down, women crave men who will fight for them, can fight for them, and would kill for them if needed. They want dangerous men.

But crucially, they want that lethal potential aimed outward, not at them. It’s the thrill of controlled danger: the knowledge that their man has murder in his heart but chooses love instead. This is literally the basis for all of women’s porn literature. Fifty Shades of Grey is about a powerful billionaire who would do anything for a mousey reporter.

Fat girls know how to get what they desire: a ten-chin.

GloboLeft men, with their man-buns, therapy-speak, and pipe-cleaner arms offer none of that. They’re safe, soft, spineless, and sexless. No wonder AWFULs are unhinged; their men have left them adrift, starving for dominance.

This dynamic isn’t new, it’s always been here.

Women test men constantly, pushing boundaries to see if he’ll push back. AWFULs take it to extremes because their men won’t. These women fight because they want to lose. They crave submission but rebel against it, creating a cycle of frustration.

Why do they put themselves in danger, marching into riots, screaming at strangers, or laying down in front of vehicles in the roadways? It’s a cry to be controlled. They want a man to dominate, to say “no” and to mean it. Without that, they spiral into rage, lashing out at the world.

This has been common knowledge for all of civilization.

As is slid my finger up and down her g-string, she whispered to me, “I want my guitar back.”

Also, these women are programmed to be takers. Feminism sold them “strength and independence,” but in reality, they’re dependent on systems that extract wealth from others to give to them. DEI hands them jobs they might not earn on merit: affirmative action for the affluent, daycare for the female set. Government funding props up their lifestyles: welfare for single moms, child support laws that bleed men dry.

I’ll not get into how modern “churches” support this, but if a church wants men to “man up” on Father’s Day and exalts single mothers on Mother’s Day, well, their message might be a bit scrambled.

Few single women are net positive taxpayers. They consume much more in services than they contribute. This entitlement breeds resentment. Without responsibilities, they demand more, and more for everyone. Thus, they become the L of AWFUL. Liberal. They want free things. Free healthcare, free student loan forgiveness, endless “rights” without reciprocity or regard on who has to pay for it.

Feminism freed women from traditional constraints, but at what cost? It removed duties like family, home, and fidelity, replacing them with “empowerment.” Now, the hill they die on is abortion rights: the ultimate rejection of responsibility. Killing their babies whenever, wherever, is their sacred cow.

It’s not about choice; it’s about avoiding consequences.

But think of the clicks!

George Orwell saw it coming in 1984. In the Party’s dystopia, the women are the most fanatical: “It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy.”

AWFULs are modern versions of those women Orwell wrote about: fanatical, slogan-chanting, spying on “wrongthink” via social media. They police language, cancel dissent, all while their weak men nod along. Orwell knew. Without strong men, women become the regime’s enforcers.

So, why the handwringing over AWFUL?

It hits too close to home. The term exposes the GloboLeft’s failure: a society of emasculated men and entitled women, spiraling into dysfunction.

AWFULs are the symptom. Weak men and unchecked feminism the disease.

What wins? Strength.

Reclaim constraints, responsibilities, and yes, dominance. Women want it. Men need it. Civilization demands it.

Judged By Twelve

I like the Second Amendment. So, I write songs about it.

Behind The Music:
All the songs so far are here (LINK). You can buy this song (maybe right now, but probably no later than Monday), and you can buy ALL of them (except for parodies) anywhere you buy music by searching for “Wilder’s Hammer” or “Wilder’s Brigade”. I listen to them on Spotify, and I see others do, too. Although buying them doesn’t support this blog, it does support the owner the LLC for the music. Who might also own the LLC for the blog.

Judged By Twelve
By John Wilder

Out in the city streets the shadows run deep
Or down on the farm the wolves creep
A man’s gotta stand when the danger comes callin’
No time for waitin’, no room for stallin’

Leftists twist the law, make the courtroom their game
Drag you through the mud, try to tarnish your name
But self-defense ain’t a crime, it’s a God-given right
Protect your kin and your own in the dead of the night

They use courts as punishment, wear you down slow
But facin’ a jury beats lyin’ six feet below
They love criminal hearts, not me and you
We have to stand our ground, yes we do

Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six
Face the trial standin’ tall, not crossin’ river Styx
When evil comes knockin’, you draw that line clear
Defend what’s yours, show no fear

Better to be judged by twelve, let the Leftists rage
Process is the punishment, but we turn the page
Triumphant we rise, and we’ll be strong
In our city or country, where we belong

They want us disarmed, compliant and meek
Use courts as their weapon, make the innocent weak
But it’s our freedom, written in blood
We’ll protect our lives, divert the flood

Their legal chains bind, but we won’t break or bend
Better alive in court than meetin’ your end
Defiant against thugs, triumphant we stand
This land’s ours to guard, built by hand

Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six
Face the trial standin’ tall, not crossin’ river Styx
When evil comes knockin’, you draw that line clear
Defend what’s yours, show no fear

Better to be judged by twelve, let the Leftists rage
Process is the punishment, but we turn the page
Triumphant we rise, and we’ll be strong
In our city or country, where we belong

From high-rise alleys to dusty back roads
We carry our own weight, pull our own loads
No waitin’ for saviors when the seconds tick by
Savin’ your kin is survival, no need to justify

Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six
We stand united, despite their tricks
Evil gets stopped when good folks arise
Defiant and free under our blue skies

Better to be judged by twelve, we can’t back down
Courts can’t break us, we own this town
Triumphant we rise, against this witch’s brew
In our city or our country, we’re pullin’ through

Judged by twelve… not carried by six…
Stand strong… we win…

The Battle of Greenland

Who had a full-court press to get Greenland on their 2026 BINGO card?

Behind The Music:
All the songs so far are here (LINK). You can’t buy this song, but you can buy ALL of them anywhere you buy music by searching for “Wilder’s Hammer” or “Wilder’s Brigade”. I listen to them on Spotify, and I see others do, too. Although buying them doesn’t support this blog, it does support the owner the LLC for the music. Who might also own the LLC for the blog.

The Battle of Greenland
By John Wilder, apologies to Johnny Horton

In twenty twenty-six, we took a little trip
Up to Greenland just west of Reykjavík
We took a checkbook and we took a little luck
And we caught up to the Danish in the town of Nuuk

Trump tweeted once and the Danish started cryin’
The Danes sent one soldier, her name was Erika,
Trump tweeted once more and Erika gave up tryin’
She went on spring break at the Gulf of America

We looked on the radar and we see’d Europeans come
And there must have been a dozen of ’em lookin’ pretty glum
They went on the Internet and oh their hands did wring
Then they sent a nasty letter and didn’t do a thing

Trump tweeted once and the Danish started cryin’
The Danes sent one soldier, her name was Erika,
Trump tweeted once more and Erika gave up tryin’
She went on spring break at the Gulf of America

Old Donald said we could take ’em by surprise
If we didn’t start dealin’ ‘til we looked ‘em in the eye
We held our cash ’til we see’d their faces well
Then we opened up our checkbook and paid ‘em pretty well

Trump tweeted once and the Danish started cryin’
The Danes sent one soldier, her name was Erika,
Trump tweeted once more and Erika gave up tryin’
She went on spring break at the Gulf of America

We wrote our checks ’til resistance melted down
So we grabbed a credit card and we bought another round
Then Trump did what he knew so very well
He hired a contractor and built a gold hotel

Trump tweeted once and the Danish started cryin’
The Danes sent one soldier, her name was Erika,
Trump tweeted once more and Erika gave up tryin’
She went on spring break at the Gulf of America

Yeah, this cost less than Somalis
And less than H one bees
So the Europeans went off to find Erika
They went so fast
That the Somalis couldn’t catch ’em
On down to spring break at the Gulf of America

Hut-two-three-four
Sound off, three-four
Hut-two-three-four
Sound off, three-four

The Clock Ticks: Make It Matter

“I’m not dead yet.” – Monty Python and the Holy Grail

I told The Mrs. I wanted to be cremated. She made an appointment for next Tuesday.

Scott Adams shuffled off this mortal coil this week, and that event got me thinking about the big D: death. Adams, the Dilbert author who turned office satire into a cultural touchstone for nerds like me, left me thinking about his legacy. Adams wasn’t just a cartoonist; he was a man who rewired how we see persuasion, hypnosis, and the Clown World® we call reality. His passing was foreshadowed, but when it happens, the inevitability of it doesn’t make it better.

That’s Adams, who has left us, but there’s a contrast in George R.R. Martin, still kicking (for now). Today (my today, not yours) I read an interview where he whined at a fan who had asked if he was going to finish his Song of Fire and Ice series (Game of Thrones to most people) before he died. To his face. Martin griped about this confrontation.

“I’m not dying,” he grumbled, as if that’s the point.

George, buddy, hate to break it to you and subvert your expectations, but you are. So am I. So is everyone reading this post.

We’re all dying, right this second.

Tick-tock, the clock doesn’t care if you’re an author with $120 million in the bank lounging in Santa Fe while some flunkies sand off your bunions with sandpaper made from diamonds or a blogger hammering keys in the Midwest who ran out of beer last weekend. Every breath is one closer to the last.

Why did the skeleton go to the party alone? He had no body to go with.

We have an end date stamped on us like milk, but the Universe keeps the label hidden. Could be tomorrow in a freak duck attack (hey, it happens), or decades from now after a life of quiet desperation that had no more impact on the world than a potted fern.

The point? We’re terminal from day zero. I think Adams knew this; he talked about it in his books, framing life as a series of systems to hack for maximum output.

Martin? He’s procrastinating his way through what could be his magnum opus, letting plot threads dangle like cat toys. Ignoring the reaper doesn’t make him go away, it just wastes the sand in my hourglass.

In our rush to the grave, have we forgotten the miracles? Yes, miracles. Not the flashy water-to-wine kind. I’m not good at those. But what about the everyday wonders that make existence sparkle? Bite into a ripe strawberry straight from the plant. The explosion of sweet yet tart on my tongue?

Phenomenal.

Or cracking a cold beer after mowing the lawn on a scorching day, sweat dripping, the pilsner hitting like a high-five from my guardian angel. Crisp linens on a freshly made bed, sliding in like you’re royalty in a five-star hotel are another feast for the senses.

These aren’t mundane bits of life: they’re tiny miracles, proof the universe isn’t all entropy, Indians, Somalians, and taxes. We take these amazing things for granted, missing the point. We get one shot on this merry-go round. Enjoy it.

I tried to organize a hide-and-seek tournament, but it was a complete failure. Good players are hard to find.

Even I, the mighty John Wilder sometimes get bogged down in the daily grind. Bills, deadlines, that endless loop of work-eat-write-drink-sleep-shower-rinse-repeat. It’s easy to zombie through days, forgetting the biggest miracle and gift of all: being alive. Heart pumping, lungs filling, neurons firing symphonies in my skull. We’re stardust animated by the Great Cosmic Spark, yet we whine about traffic or the price of eggs.

Adams would call this a bad frame.

Zoom out.

Reframe.

Boom. The mundane becomes amazing magic. Martin’s dragons and ice zombies are cool (I mean the first three seasons with all the hot naked chicks), but they are pale imitations next to the real epic:

Life, unfolding heartbeat by heartbeat.

Here’s the kicker: we have a choice. Every. Single. Day. That next moment? It’s yours. Infinite power in that moment. No matter if you’re chained to a desk, stuck in traffic, or lounging on a yacht (I see you, Elon), that sliver of time belongs to you. You get to choose to squander it on despair, or seize it like a Spartan grabbing a Persian neck at Thermopylae.

Adams seized life. He didn’t just draw funny strips; he changed the United States. He changed the entire national conversation on politics, race, and the matrix of media manipulation. Some X™ dweeb (responding to me) called him a victim of the woke mob after his cancellation.

Victim? Please. Adams knew the game. He poked the bear on purpose, shifting Overton windows at scale.

I asked my dog what’s two minus two. He said nothing.

Martin? He’s the flip side. He hit the jackpot with Thrones, turned his fantasy story into a cultural juggernaut, then found himself unable to stick the landing.

Hell, he hasn’t even landed, and almost certainly never will now. It’s way more than a decade and his books are not only unfinished, they will never be finished by him. His writing chops are leagues above mine (I’ll admit it), but finishing an epic like that?

Nah. He’s got time left, but he’s squandering it on forgettable side quests while the sand runs out on the hourglass? That’s the opposite of Adams’ hustle. One built empires of influence; the other built a throne of delays.

There’s hope, though. If you want to change the Universe, it’s likely that you still can. You think, “I don’t have an audience.” True, but Adams started with zero. Sketched in a cubicle, built it strip by strip. Me? I peck away at the laptop, hoping to nudge minds.

Tomorrow, what can you do? Write that book. Start that business. Mentor a kid. Plant a tree. Convince an Indian to move back to Mumbai.

Make the most of every second.

Death’s coming, but until then? Make it matter.

Why don’t skeletons fight each other? They don’t have the guts.

Adams left a blueprint: hack reality, persuade boldly, point out and mock the absurd. Martin’s a cautionary tale: don’t let potential rot.

Me? I’m typing this, hoping it sparks something in you. The clock ticks for us all. Use it wisely.

You’ve got one life. Make it matter.

Thursday Music: Eyes in the Machine

Sometimes it takes a lot of work to get it to sound right, sometimes it happens on the first take. I spent much more time writing this than most, and I like the way the lyrics work with the style. It’s techno-metal, which seems to fit the lyrics and subject.

Behind The Music:
All the songs so far are here (LINK). You can buy this song right now.

As of today, you can buy ALL of them (except for those that just came out since Sunday, which will go live in a few days, and the parodies) anywhere you buy music by searching for “Wilder’s Hammer” or “Wilder’s Brigade”. I listen to them on Spotify, and I see others do, too. Although buying them doesn’t support this blog, it does support the owner the LLC for the music. Who might also own the LLC for the blog.

Eyes in the Machine
by John Wilder

Cameras on the corners, watching every step I take
Doorbell eye staring, no move I can fake
Traffic lights judging, glass eyes log my trail
Cell towers see secrets, no lone exhale

Track swipes, every dollar I spend
Knows every name that I call friend
Speed down highway, clock my rebel soul
Political whispers? They’re in control

No corner unlit, no shadow to hide
Net closing tight, pulling all inside
They know my poison, how I drown my pain
Turn humans into data for gain and chain

Eyes in the machine, no escape from the glare
Surveillance state, anytime, anywhere
They build a profile, my soul on a notepad
My value to them is to consume the latest fad

Propaganda whispers, shaping belief
Profit off all emotion, from fear to grief
Eyes in the machine, the web is a chain
The digital prison, injected in a vein

Web trackers hunt clicks, from dawn until sleep
Music in your ears, what they want is sheep
How fast I drive backroads, move against flow
Fed to corporations, watch profits grow

Doorbell sentry inspects neighbors, streets a cell
Never blinking always thinking have me in their spell
Never blinking always thinking tracer in my pocket
Never blinking always thinking can’t block it

They craft the messages, twist in my head
Make me buy the lies, leave my spirit dead
No private thought survives the endless scan
We’re just data points in their master plan

Eyes in the machine, no escape from the glare
Surveillance state, anytime, anywhere
They build a profile, my soul on a notepad
My value to them is to consume the latest fad

Propaganda whispers, shaping belief
Profit off all emotion, from fear to grief
Eyes in the machine, the web is a chain
The digital prison, injected in a vein

They want compliance, cogs in the wheel
Feeding on our data, making the deal
No rebellion whispers without them knowing
Net always growing, control overflowing

Break the code, smash the screen, reclaim the right
Before the glass eyes consume us, last midnight

Eyes in the machine, but we’ll tear down the wall
Surveillance state, hear the rebel call
No more profiles, no more chains on the mind
We’ll burn the data, leave the ghost behind

Propaganda crumbles, truth gains control
We won’t let you forever own our soul
Glass eye in the machine, your reign will end
Your time is expired, we won’t bend

Scott Adams, Rest In Peace

“I have an extra Dilbert tie if any of you would like to trade.” – Mission Hill

This post is an update of a post I ran last May when Scott announced he didn’t have long to live.

People often hold “celebrations of life” for someone after they died. I think that’s a shame, really. I get it – you don’t want to hold the funeral for someone who is sitting right there. Besides, when I die, if anyone shows up at the funeral, it will probably be to make sure I’m dead.

I’d hate to rob them of that opportunity.

Regardless, I think it’s fitting to spend some time talking about Scott Adams since he has announced he’s dying. Whereas with a relative it would be weird to talk about them getting ready to leap off the mortal coil while they have a heartbeat and are still in the room, I think Mr. Adams might have appreciated it, if he saw it. It was my most popular post of 2025, so who knows?

One of the first Dilbert® strips.

The first time I ever saw Dilbert™ was on office samizdat. Samizdat is the name for the literature that was copied on the sly in Russia during the Cold War. It was literature that was politically incorrect and thus officially banned. I’m pretty sure HR didn’t want us to see what Wile E. Coyote® really wanted to do to the Roadrunner© while we were on company time.

Certainly, Dilbert© wasn’t banned, it also wasn’t in the local newspaper. So, we huddled around the grainy photocopied versions. And laughed.

Scott Adams was the creator of Dilbert™, and was one of the top five cartoonists of all time. His humor was outstanding, and his satire was spot on until the end.

Scott became a one-man cultural phenomenon in the late 1990s, and forged a national audience with his wit. He had an amazing publishing career as well – he had New York Times© national bestsellers, back when that sort of thing was meaningful.

And the marketing! Watches. Plush toys. Shirts. Calendars. You name it, if it could fit on a cubical drone’s desk, the marketing team around Mr. Adams sold it. And then they moved on to TV, to an unfortunate network that didn’t have the audience that Scott deserved.

That was okay. The Universe was treating Scott just fine.

Speaking of that, Scott was the first place I became familiar with affirmations. He’d write down what his goal was 15 times each day. And then? His goal would be met. I’ve even written about that here.

Now, there are two ways to look at this: first, Mr. Adams just bent the Universe to his will, or second, the very act of creating the affirmation made him look at the world and look for places where he could bring his goal into existence. Regardless, like most things, it worked out pretty well for him: I imagine that the last time he had money issues was back in 1997, and that’s a pretty good run.

Does that mean he always won? No. Very few people remember (thankfully) the Dilberito© which I believe was judged to be a war crime when they tried to feed the remaining stock to the Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.

But that was just his first act. His second was more profound. Having had success with the media, he moved on to philosophy, and his biggest book along that line is probably How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big, which I’ve written about as well. Great ideas, and presented well.

In the mid-2010s, he moved into P&P: podcasting and politics. His prediction of Donald Trump’s victory was early, and his support of Donald Trump cost Mr. Adams a lot of money. I’m not sure he cared, since by that time he had multi-generational FU money.

The phrase “Fine People Hoax”? That’s the work of Mr. Adams.

I was a regular listener of Mr. Adams podcasts. I missed his blog, which I enjoyed more, but his podcasting style was engaging as well. Coffee with Scott Adams was a regular for me when I used to hit the gym at lunch, and became a once in a while treat for those days I had road miles ahead of me for work. Since 2021, not so much, but mainly due to time constraints.

What I enjoyed the most about Adams was his ability to consistently look at the world from multiple viewpoints, and set up different frames of reference. Some of them had already occurred to me, but many hadn’t. For a person who likes ideas as much as I do, it was always fun to get a fresh perspective so different from the rest of the world.

Was he always right?

Certainly not. His predictions about the Vaxx™ were quite off, but to be fair, he did admit that he had been wrong when evidence proved that to be the case. It wasn’t personal. It was factual.

Then, there was his third act, which I’m betting happened around the time he knew his days were numbered in triple digits counting downwards. That is, of course, on his Coffee with Scott Adams podcast on February 22, 2023 when Adams discussed the result of a survey where many black Americans indicated that they didn’t like white people so much. Adams famously stated: “If nearly half of all blacks are not ok with white people, that’s a hate group, and I don’t want to have anything to do with them.”

People called that racist. The backlash was immediate. His comic strip was cancelled. His books were cancelled and the rights reverted to him. All of the merch? Cancelled.

Result? He could draw what he wanted to draw.

Dilbert® Reborn™

I am certain that Mr. Adams knew what he was doing, and, oddly, that just might be saving black Americans. Mr. Adams had always been very accommodating and supportive of black American. I think, however, post George Floyd, he realized what was happening, and realized a reckoning against black Americans was rapidly coming.

By taking the bold step to criticize black opinion about whites at a time when whites had just had the biggest outpouring of sympathy in history towards blacks, he was signaling to blacks: you can’t act like violent, entitled, spoiled people, nor can you support your racial brethren when they act like that.

Even now, the backlash against the worst of black behavior is growing due to the ubiquity of body cams and uncensored streams.

And that’s okay, because the behavior has to change. I’m pretty sure that everyone, even blacks, are tired of the nonsense.

Yet, the narrative since 1965 has been “there must be a cause and we have to fix the cause and everything will be fine.” That’s been sixty years. If the root cause hasn’t been fixed over three generations, it hasn’t been found or the actions to fix it have made it worse.

And absolutely no one in the mainstream would admit it or even talk about it.

Until Adams spoke.

Now?

There is a realization that behavior simply has to stop. People don’t care why anymore. It’s not about root causes, it’s about swift, certain, and severe justice and the outrage when that’s short-circuited.

The irony is that with comments that got Adams cancelled as a racist, he may have saved many blacks.

It’s too early to tell. The backlash is large, and growing, and people are talking about it in the open, which in the end is the only way to solve a problem. You don’t solve the problems of an alcoholic by getting them more vodka, and you don’t solve the problems of a brat by giving in to them when they throw an antisocial tantrum.

And if you subsidize poverty and single motherhood, you just get more of it.

Mr. Adams entertained, he had been a fountain of ideas, and he had helped shape what is perhaps the most crucial social narrative of our time in the most crucial manner.

The world was a much better place with him in it. I will miss him, but I am grateful that he was here.

The rest of it is up to us.

At the Banks of the Rubicon

On January 10, 49 B.C., Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River at the head of Legio XIII. The rest? History. I can’t help but wonder what Julius was thinking about at that moment. Anticipation? Apprehension? Whether he had remembered to pay his insurance premium? Regardless, here’s my take. Took some wrestling to get this one done, and in the end, I had two cuts I really liked, which is a good problem to have,

Something tells me this story will be revisited in our lifetimes in more detail.

Behind The Music:
All the songs so far are here (LINK).
As of today, you can buy ALL of them (except for those that just came out since Sunday, which will go live in a few days, and the parodies) anywhere you buy music by searching for “Wilder’s Hammer” or “Wilder’s Brigade”. Although buying them doesn’t support this blog, it does support the owner the LLC for the music. Who might also own the LLC for the blog.

At the Banks of the Rubicon
By John Wilder

On the banks of that river, a cold wind whispers low
Legions wait in silence, at the dawn’s early glow
Enemies in the Senate, plot my downfall
Pompey calls for surrender, I hear a higher call

Years of conquest echo, Gaul’s blood fresh on my blade
Legion’s glory forged in battle, ambitions never fade
Yet doubt creeps like shadows, civil war’s the grim price
Rome’s streets run with Roman blood, a tyrant’s sacrifice?

The gods above are watching, fate’s thread in my hand
Turn away or cross now, and claim the promised land
Betrayal stings my spirit, loyalty torn apart
The Republic’s final breath, pierces through my heart

Bank of the Rubicon awaits, treason to cross that sand
Cross into storm, create imperial command
Thoughts of ruin, emotions clash like steel
Glory or the grave, seems so unreal

The Rubicon awaits, no way from this fight
For ten thousand years, men dream about the sight
Resolve ignites soul, courage feeds flame
For eternal Rome’s throne, I make my claim

Memories of triumphs, laurels on my brow
But rivals scheme in darkness, to strike me down now
The people’s voice is calling, they crown me in their cheers
Yet crossing means rebellion, and wars will bring tears

Emotions surge like tempests, pride and wrath entwine
Caesar’s heavy burden, a man or now divine?
What if failure claims me, exiled or in chains?
Or victory’s sweet nectar, flowing through my veins?

The river’s murmur taunts me, the boundary of my fate
A single step into the current, opens the Republic’s gate
Doubt and determination wrestle in my mind
The path to god or monster, leaving all behind

Bank of the Rubicon awaits, treason to cross that sand
Cross into storm, create imperial command
Thoughts of ruin, emotions clash like steel
Glory or the grave, seems so unreal

The Rubicon awaits, no way from this fight
For ten thousand years, men dream about the sight
Resolve ignites soul, courage feeds flame
For eternal Rome’s throne, I make my claim

Visions of the Forum, crowds in raptured thrall
Or skulls displayed in silence, a Republic’s rise and fall
My heart beats like a war drum, passion overrides
No more hesitation, the river calls . . .

decide

The Rubicon awaits, cross into the fray
Legions march behind me, Republic’s last day
Thoughts collide like lightning, I see fate’s wheel
A destiny to embrace, broken final seal

The Rubicon awaits, the die is cast

Civil War 2.0 Mid-Month Update: Setting The Stage

“The provisional government currently considers northern Minnesota to be a potential safe zone.” – World War Z

Why are women and children evacuated first during disasters? So we can think about a solution in silence. (all memes as-found)

Minnesota is the current flashpoint in our march towards Civil War. It is a revealing event for several reasons.

First, GloboLeftists are awful. Kyle Rittenhouse shot three people while defending his life. All were felons. The fat lesbian that was shot in Minnesota? She had lost custody of her children. Women get custody in about 80% of cases. I’ll let you do the math.

Second, how did she and her live-in fetish partner make money? It always comes down to that, but these people are getting funding somewhere to fund their lifestyles. In the middle of the workday, if the dead lesbian and her fetish partner can just drive around spending all their time and gasoline, someone is paying for it. And it didn’t come out of the lesbian’s poetry earnings.

Those that are funding this are looking to create the moment when they seize absolute power. The playbook hasn’t changed in centuries. The first step is to create unrest, and to try to find that incident that galvanizes their side to violence. Remember all those bricks conveniently left out during the George Floyd protests?

Violence is the key to creating instability. That instability is then used to create a larger movement, which leads, ultimately, to open war so that power is finally and irrevocably put in the hands of the group leading the unrest. This worked in France a few times, in Russia once, but failed in Germany, leading to the other side ultimately gaining power.

But violence is the playbook, and power is on the line.

How does this finally spin out of control into a full-blown Civil War 2.0? One avenue is through collisions of authority.

Here’s an example: Tim Walz, in a fit of stupidity, calls up the State Patrol in Minnesota to arrest ICE agents. Trump responds with elements of the 82^nd Airborne and parts of the 1^st Marine Division. Of course, there’s a protest, and Walz calls out the Minnesota National Guard.

Trump immediately federalizes the Guard, but leadership under control of Walz disobeys orders.

Gavin Newsom, seeing the opportunity to get some more press coverage, does the same in California. Now it’s national. Maybe the cartels even join in, since they might have decided that business was fine, but owning their own country carved out of northern Mexico and southern parts of the United States might be even more fun.

At this point, many groups are indiscriminately tossing lead, and true civil war is unlocked. I wouldn’t want to be a Trump voter in a blue hive or an illegal in a red town.

This could happen in the span of hours. There are plenty of flashpoints that are ready to explode. For instance, Philadelphia sheriff Rochelle Bilal (Yes, she is. Feel free to look up a picture.) said that, “ . . . the criminal in the White House would be able to keep” ICE agents out of jail.

And I heard that Philly was so nice!

To be clear, Civil War 2.0 doesn’t have to start during Trump’s administration. It’s more likely to, though, if the GloboLeft get to the point where they feel that they’re on the verge of losing it all. I think the GloboLeft feel like they’re going gain control of the Senate and perhaps the House after the midterms. This would lead to Trump essentially being an agent of chaos and annoyance to the GloboLeft, but one that can’t pass any laws.

If the 2026 election happens without Civil War 2.0 breaking out, I predict two years of impasse until the 2028 election. Given that amount of time, it’s likely that the GloboLeft will have made many millions of illegals and imports voters, even if they aren’t citizens. They want to have the final election, and if that’s how they take power, they’re fine with that.

But if it comes to violence, well, they’re fine with that as well.

They actively seek to have deaths like the dead lesbian in Minnesota. They love to have martyrs to their cause so that they can show what stunning and brave victims they are. Partially, this is to infect the “it’s crying so it’s a baby” instinct latent in women, and especially so in women who haven’t had children or have decided to murder their own unborn children.

That’s a guilt-debt, and having someone like the dead lesbian to trot out is just what they want. Notice how they put themselves on roads, daring people to run them over? They hate themselves and they hate their own lives, so ending it all to become a tragic martyr to their cause is a perfect end for them.

But if it comes to dishing out violence, they and their pets are more than willing to accept those conditions. They talk about violence all of the time. When someone on the TradRight mentions it, immediately they’re shut down by other people on the right.

GloboLeftists feel free to talk about “punching Nazis” and mean it. They are not afraid of embracing violence and destroying entire towns. Keep in mind, that even if you are a middle-of-the-road “both sides suck” voter, you are a Nazi to them. They reveled in the assassination attempt on Donald Trump and were driven to ecstasy by the death of Charlie Kirk.

They want you dead and replaced by a more compliant populace.

Are the ICE raids a wonderful opportunity for them?

I believe so. I think that the time leading up to the 2026 midterms is a time where we are at a heightened likelihood of the initiation of Civil War 2.0. The GloboLeft is fueled by fear and hate, and one long hot summer could lead to Civil War 2.0 breaking out in 2026.

Me? I’d have declared an insurrection, called out the troops, surrounded the areas of the riots, arrested everyone using whatever force was necessary, taken them all to camps, deported anyone who wasn’t a citizen, and tried the rest for insurrection, since what they’re doing now is far worse than January 6.

But I like simple solutions. The clock, though, is ticking