Project: Pioneer is the live weekly reality journal of a couple and their small dog as they leave their ‘normal’ life in a luxury apartment for a new semi-off grid life in a small recreational vehicle. We cover prepping, politics, spirituality, afterlife, RV life, and personal finance. Half of all subscription/donation money goes to The National Alliance to End Homelessness, the other half pays for expenses. You can listen to the audio podcast version of this journal at Substack, Apple, Spotify, PocketCasts and others.

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Don’t despair—prepare.

Heyo! I’m still kicking—my surgery went well. A little sore, a bit worse for wear and tear but hopefully bought some time here, wherever it is we are. Good thing my good nurse Ms Giavana is in my life. She and little Pia are taking good care of me. I can’t use my left arm for much for six weeks, which sure makes everyday pioneer life more challenging!

That CEO getting shot was a sad but important bellwether for these times. In our last post, we mentioned the Secession of the Plebeians in the old Roman Empire. There are countless examples over history of greed and lust for power, combined with the stepping on the necks of everyday people, grows to a breaking point.

People get to the point in their daily struggles, see their beloved kids, parents harmed, maybe die, and just don’t give a damn anymore. There’s not much more dangerous than a vigilante human who cares not for consequence. It’s what my whole Vigilante Angels fiction trilogy was about—a dying ex-cop who has lost hope and is hell-bent to extract his pound of flesh before he goes to meet his maker.

We had a recent long battle with the same company, United Healthcare, about an expensive claim they rejected that was clearly within their guidelines for coverage. It was horrible—they just kept trying to blow us off and make us go away, hoping we’d give up. This is what happens in a country, the only one, where you allow making people’s sickness and dying a for-profit venture.

With all the dystopian harm that will come to people around the country when Trump comes in, based on his own promises, you’ll see a lot more of this sort of thing, unfortunately. It’s one thing to take the children away from parents who have just crossed the Rio Grande river with just the clothes on their backs. He’s promising to take away the parents and children of people who have only ever lived here, and are likely well entrenched in our culture of guns and violence.

The anarchists will rise, both the non-violent disruptor/occupier sects and the violent ones. Margaret Killjoy’s recent piece here on Substack, I Hope We All Make It was incredibly sad (even more so when listening to the dramatic audio voiceover). She herself hinted at coming out of legendary anarchist retirement.

Today’s young people have been through hell most of their lives, between school shooting terror and the trauma of COVID. Many are likely at that breaking point. They’re worried they’re growing into a broken and condemned world of increasing climate hell, not to mention not enjoying the freedoms that have traditionally been enjoyed by their own parents and grandparents. I don’t blame them for being angry about it.

This election was the first profound example of the danger of massive propaganda allowing to flourish, of the mind control that results. Most of our populace rooted in false belief, despite the evidence in front of their lying eyes and ears. Young people may completely revolt against all of it, disavowing the corporate social media that’s poisoning their minds.

All of this pain because a bunch of boomer snowflakes can’t tolerate being around people who don’t look like them, speak like them, love like them, worship like them. That’s essentially why we’re at where we’re at, with a lifelong con-man and wannabe dictator about to take the reins of our government, followed by his clown car of bizarre criminal sycophants.

Fun story. A beloved old-school corner store/delicatessen in the sleepy burgh near us just closed down. Now a vape shop is going in, and the old maga boomers are losing their stuff over it. “OMG, there goes the neighborhood, what trash!” Same folks with the barrage of tacky blow-up, flashing LED, projection, gaudy holiday “decorations” plastering their homes, and rusted pickup trucks up on blocks in the front yard.

Back to that CEO shooter. He’s reached cult hero status because so many average people have endured similar oppression by the billionaire class, and do every day in their struggles at work and home. So many have said, while seeing news reports of the ridiculous, insane CEO compensation, the penchant for not paying taxes, love of bragging about their wealth, and lust for more wealth, “I wish I could shoot that mfer…” Now somebody has. Apparently the CEO of Cartier’s jeweler/diamond company, worth $7.5 billion dollars, has said his biggest fear is “the poor rising up.”

Which brings me to my next subject—security theater. When I was a kid, I read a lot of scary science fiction from under the covers of my bed when I was supposed to be asleep. I think Mom knew, she was well aware that I couldn’t help but read anything I could find, cereal boxes, furniture tags that should not be cut off “under penalty of law,” etc. She’d check in late at night to find me with the sheets pulled up to my nose, wide-eyed in the darkness. Then she’d turn the light on, check under the bed, and bring in a special anti-monster spray and hit the closets and other hiding places with it to placate me. I still remember the first time, as an adult, someone used Aqua-Net hairspray around me. “That’s the monster spray!” Thanks, Mom. And, these sick b******s want to take kids away from their loving mothers. Careful—moms can shoot too.

The point is, the Aqua-Net was security theater—something useless that makes you feel safe. Most of the perceived security around us is simply for show—primarily to scare someone from doing something. In practice, it’s not anywhere near as effective as we dare to dream. You want examples, you say?

* If a simple 57-year old woman can sneak onto a transatlantic flight, how hard to you think it would be for someone with actual stealth skills, and with malintent?

* Nobody could stop 9/11. All those massive shiny new warehouses are an anarchist/terrorist dream. It’s almost impossible to stop a weaponized small drone.

* If a scrawny kid decides he wants to shoot a Presidential candidate (or anyone else), and actually does, how hard to you think it would be for someone with actual skills, despite all those impressive folks with the earpieces?

* They never caught the person who planted those bombs on January 6.

* They still haven’t caught the CEO shooter. You may have seen the video of the pathetic search of Central Park by NYPD, where dozens of cops leisurely sauntered on the sidewalks, occasionally poking a bush at double-overtime pay, idly chatting about WTF is going on with the Jets and Aaron Rodgers. No wonder they missed that backpack in plain sight for days. 99% of humans shouldn’t be trusted with work that requires diligence, full attention, and where lives are at stake. Not these days, anyway.

* Cops in schools, metal detectors, teachers with guns, and other “security precautions” haven’t stopped one school shooter with a military grade assault weapon, and never will.

* Too many in law enforcement just simply and sadly aren’t the best of us. Many of them are in the newly trained vigilante militias that have been forming up, allegedly to help with this immigrant roundup and enforce border security. Too many were participants in 1/6. Once a group has that kind of power, they typically get out of control with it. Trump’s dream. His own brownshirts.

* Despite all our trillions of dollars invested in tech, military-industrial gear and personnel, intelligence, satellites, our top military and law enforcement people can only stand in front of the cameras