IT'S COMING FAST AND HARD

This pic started as near-sunset photo taken in Inyokern, CA. Then I had some fun with it.   You’re looking down the north side of the main street. Across the street from where I stood is an excellent Mexican restaurant, Bernardino’s. Quotes are from Macbeth. He’s visiting the witches, and they call him wicked.

 You can learn so much from foreign countries. I guess that’s why, except for the one you live in, all countries are foreign. They have so much to teach.

Germany is a foreign country. We (that is, the United States of America) have over 200 military bases (from eensie weensie ones to big, big ones) in Germany, yet Germany remains a foreign country. That’s quite an achievement for any old country, let alone one that went through so much during the last century.

A close friend of mine is living in Berlin now. Berlin is the city that tore down its wall a little over twenty years ago. It was called The Berlin Wall, and probably millions of people at one time or another took pictures of it and then stood around talking about it. I was such a person once. That was in 1982. I took several pictures of the wall (one is featured in the previous blog, except that I made the wall itself prettier by putting nice colors on it).

My friend takes the dog out and walks and runs with it in these wonderful parks which Berlin has. He loves it. Apparently, the dog does too. The air is bracing, my friend tells me. My friend never saw the once-famous Berlin Wall in person. He probably crosses right over where it stood many times in a week or so without even knowing it.

The air in Berlin – and throughout all of Germany, quite frankly – was at one time not bracing at all. Indeed not. It was distinctly oppressive. Not only was the air oppressive, but everything in  the country was oppressive. Look it up, if you don’t believe me.

The oppression (what multiple oppressive elements create) turned quite nasty and you can look that up too. It got so bad the country ended up divorced from itself, kind of. That’s why they got their once-famous Berlin Wall. A nasty period of time.

Millions of people died as a direct result of all the oppression and especially the amount of fighting it took to try to keep the oppression going. That’s important to remember. Oppression takes a shit load of military to keep it functioning, and eventually a whole lot of people will die from it. You see, once oppression starts, it’s damned hard to stop it. One reason is that the people who are being oppressed will often fight to the death to defend it. It’s like they get forced to or something.  Oppression is funny that way, but really no one laughs much.

There are lots of countries in the world suffering from oppression. You know who I’m talking about. A lot of them keep making big news out of it, in fact. In this country, that stuff can get in the way of the Grammies or the Oscars, and people find it a bit too much, really. That’s part of the reason why they’re foreign countries. Oppression is always cropping up hither and yon in different foreign countries.

I hate to keep harping on Germany, but if the jack-boot fits, as they say. Germany was the nonpareil of oppression at one time. Their oppression got so evil it started beating up on other foreign countries. You see, eventually oppression isn’t content with only its domestic product. Soon as a military muscle can be flexed, it wants to export it. Invade a country or two, perhaps, smash them about.

If I were living right now in Iowa, say, or Minnesota or Illinois, I might want to make sure that all your planes were fuelled. And make sure that some of them are always flying.  How’s the air there, folks? Bracing? Keep your weathermen on alert. You damn well want to know which way the wind is blowing up in that area of the USA. Maintain all the radar. My prediction is for an extended heavy front originating in Wisconsin that’s going to take a helluva long time to pass through your neck of the woods, and it isn’t going to be satisfied until it has a noose around it. Something wicked your way is coming fast.

Why do two books come to mind here? You know, It Can’t Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis, and the world champion of oppressive-themed novels, of course: 1984, by George Orwell. Ah, but that’s fiction.