Writes Charles Hugh Smith:
In the decade ahead, if we want solutions / fixes /changes, we're going to have to make them happen in our own lives. We can start with the full range of meaning in the phrase get lean: replace the fat of wasted time, "entertainment," "news," consumerist indulgences and relying on the government and corporations to take care of us with the often difficult and tedious work of becoming less dependent on institutions and companies to secure what we value.
If we want a secure supply of food, grow some of our own. If we want to be healthy, then get healthy on our own. If we want a career, then hammer one out ourselves by owning our skills and taking responsibility for getting full value for them. If we want an education, then get it ourselves, not by borrowing a fortune but by figuring out how to learn what we want to learn on our own, at the lowest possible cost in time and money.
If we want a secure water supply, then we better buy a water tank. If we want reliable electricity, then we better arrange to save up and invest in our own system, however modest. If it charges phones, keeps the Internet connected, powers a few lights, and is sustainable, then that's a lot better than having nothing but a flashlight.
Get lean means getting rid of the garbage weighing us down: the garbage food, the garbage consumption of junk we don't need, the garbage social media and "entertainment," the garbage debt, the junk we don't even use that's in storage, the garbage unpaid shadow work imposed by our corporate masters and government agencies, and the garbage narratives that keep us focused on what the globalists might be doing instead of what we can do for ourselves in the real world.
Rod Dreher asks, "I don’t understand why the government doesn’t deploy the army and shoot rioters until they stop. Philippe Lemoine, a Frenchman, says it’s not that simple."
Excerpt:
"We have let things rot for so long that, at this point, relying primarily on force to restore order would require a degree of violence far greater than what people realize and what is politically feasible.
It's possible to contain a riot using only moderate force when the number of police officers is high relative to the number of rioters, but when riots are so widespread and involve so many people because you have allowed this kind of things to happen for so long, that's just not possible and you have to use extreme violence to make up for the lack of manpower.
I know people on the Internet will say that it doesn't matter and that we should just do it, but the reality is that most of the people in charge are not prepared to use that kind of force and neither would most ordinary people if they saw ...
Even Marine Le Pen’s recent statements track this line: personal Islamic practice is compatible with the Republic; replacing French law with Sharia is not. French Muslims who are simply citizens practicing their "religious faith" “have no reason to worry” about a Le Pen election victory.
But can one be a practicing Muslim without demanding and practicing Sharia?