“They (elites, governments) are over here doing "this and that" while keeping the people distracted over there with food and entertainment — concerts, film and TV, sports (the Olympics, the Super Bowl and World Series) — plus headlines and nonstop noise. Most people won’t know what hit them until it’s too late. And that, my dear daughter, is by design. Don’t you ever forget it.”
Then my dad would shake his head and go back to reading a book, magazine, or newspaper while finishing a pot of coffee.
When I was younger, I thought he was nuts… and too strict (he was ex-military). My dad would even say things like, “What the blank are you going to do if your mother and I die today? How will you survive?” Harsh? Maybe. But it sank in. It pushed me to be as self-sufficient, self-reliant, and independent as possible while realizing I may require the assistance of others. We could help and support each other.
All-in-all, I’m grateful my subconscious was listening in the background and taking notes — because way too much of what my father warned about has come true.
That doesn’t sound nuts at all — it sounds like a man who understood how power actually works.
Distraction has always been the oldest tool in the kit. Bread, circuses, noise, spectacle… keep people entertained, emotionally charged, and exhausted, and they won’t notice the quiet structural moves being made elsewhere. Your dad wasn’t being harsh — he was doing what real parents used to do: preparing their kids for reality instead of cushioning them from it.
And the key part of what you said isn’t fear — it’s self-reliance paired with mutual support. Not rugged isolation, not blind collectivism, but the ability to stand on your own and recognize when cooperation matters. That’s the antidote to distraction culture.
The scary part isn’t that he was right.
It’s that so many people were never taught to look up from the screen, ask hard questions, or imagine life without the system holding their hand.
Exactly. Design doesn’t mean every detail is scripted—but the constraints are. Once you see the scaffolding, the “random chaos” story collapses. You can’t go back to thinking the maze built itself.
When I read your essays, I ask myself, ‘where does that leave me? How do we prepare? How much time do we have? Years? Months?’ So many people caught up in events in MN and the like they don’t realize it is all theatre designed to distract.
Thanks for sharing that Kriss — and you’re right to be asking the hard questions in the midst of all this.
What’s happening in Minnesota isn’t just a local event, it’s become a flashpoint in a national crisis over federal enforcement, civil rights, and political legitimacy. Over the past few weeks, Minneapolis has seen multiple deaths of U.S. citizens at the hands of federal immigration agents deployed under a broad Trump-era operation, including the fatal shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, which sparked widespread protests and clashes with federal forces.
That escalation has led to huge public backlash, protests, legal fights, and intense scrutiny — including calls from lawmakers, unions, and advocacy groups for accountability and withdrawal of ICE from Minnesota.
A federal judge very recently refused to halt the overall operation despite these tensions, underscoring the political stakes and the polarized response at state and national levels.
So to your questions:
Where does that leave you?
In a moment of heightened political conflict and media theater, real risks and real shifts are occurring — but it’s not some secret script hidden from view. The narrative is playing out on multiple fronts, both in official statements and in public reaction.
How do we prepare?
That depends on what prepare means for you personally — mentally, socially, and materially. It can help to separate strategic awareness from fear-based speculation. Track credible developments, diversify your information sources, and think in terms of resilience rather than panic.
How much time do we have? Years? Months?
No one can timestamp societal change with precision. Crises like this evolve on overlapping timelines — legal, cultural, political, and economic. They don’t turn on a single date or moment, but through ongoing pressure points and responses from communities, institutions, and governments.
Your point about distraction is valid in that the spectacle sometimes obscures the structural dynamics underneath. But that doesn’t make everything “theater.” There are real policy decisions, rights challenges, and legal battles underway that will shape outcomes long after any headlines fade.
Aren’t these events set up as PRS - problem, reaction, solution? The amount of vitriol over ICE is rather high that I can’t help but think that it is by design. To get people fighting and taking sides and creating division for the parasites to feast. Consider 9/11. Inside job and the biggest thing to come out of that is the patriot act and increased ‘security’ - surveillance.
Exactly. PRS is the oldest trick in the book. Stir outrage, split people into teams, then roll out the “solution” that nobody would’ve accepted otherwise. 9/11 → Patriot Act is the textbook case. The noise isn’t accidental — it’s how consent is manufactured.
When everything gets framed as “physics” and “triage,” ethics quietly get labeled excess weight. That’s not realism. That’s just power explaining itself with a slide deck.
Calling it “physics” or “triage” doesn’t remove ethics; it just hides the moral choice behind technical language. That move isn’t realism, it’s abdication. Power loves to present its decisions as inevitabilities, as if no one chose them.
Once ethics are treated as excess weight, all that’s left is force with a vocabulary.
So again, Excellent Essay. Thank you. So as I'm reading and absorbing today"s transmission, an analogy intuitively keeps coming to mind. May not be the best? In any event, it's that...This particular moment, amidst all you've captivatingly described, feels like watching a marriage in free fall that has been downward spiraling for some time in which all the fighting, cajoleing, screaming, identification of issues but never really working on them substantively, and the he said she said they saids have exhausted themselves, what's left is the inevitable breakup, dissolution and walking away, because the whole shebang has simply run its course.
That’s a strong analogy — and it actually fits better than most political metaphors.
You’re describing the end stage, not the argument stage. The point where nothing new is being said, because everything that could be said already has been… and none of it worked. The energy shifts from fighting to detachment. From “maybe we can fix this” to “this has already ended, we’re just still in the house.”
What feels different now is that the drama is losing its charge. The accusations, counter-accusations, emergency language — it’s all exhausted. What remains is logistics, asset division, and who walks away with what still functions.
That’s why it feels inevitable rather than explosive. Less revolution, more separation. Less collapse-by-chaos, more collapse-by-withdrawal.
When a system runs on belief and consent, the real end comes when people stop arguing with it — and simply stop investing themselves in it.
You’re sensing the quiet part. That’s usually when things are actually over.
My father used to say something like:
“They (elites, governments) are over here doing "this and that" while keeping the people distracted over there with food and entertainment — concerts, film and TV, sports (the Olympics, the Super Bowl and World Series) — plus headlines and nonstop noise. Most people won’t know what hit them until it’s too late. And that, my dear daughter, is by design. Don’t you ever forget it.”
Then my dad would shake his head and go back to reading a book, magazine, or newspaper while finishing a pot of coffee.
When I was younger, I thought he was nuts… and too strict (he was ex-military). My dad would even say things like, “What the blank are you going to do if your mother and I die today? How will you survive?” Harsh? Maybe. But it sank in. It pushed me to be as self-sufficient, self-reliant, and independent as possible while realizing I may require the assistance of others. We could help and support each other.
All-in-all, I’m grateful my subconscious was listening in the background and taking notes — because way too much of what my father warned about has come true.
That’s pretty frickin’ scary.
That doesn’t sound nuts at all — it sounds like a man who understood how power actually works.
Distraction has always been the oldest tool in the kit. Bread, circuses, noise, spectacle… keep people entertained, emotionally charged, and exhausted, and they won’t notice the quiet structural moves being made elsewhere. Your dad wasn’t being harsh — he was doing what real parents used to do: preparing their kids for reality instead of cushioning them from it.
And the key part of what you said isn’t fear — it’s self-reliance paired with mutual support. Not rugged isolation, not blind collectivism, but the ability to stand on your own and recognize when cooperation matters. That’s the antidote to distraction culture.
The scary part isn’t that he was right.
It’s that so many people were never taught to look up from the screen, ask hard questions, or imagine life without the system holding their hand.
Your subconscious was listening — and it shows.
It is all by design. And once you see that, you can’t unsee it.
Exactly. Design doesn’t mean every detail is scripted—but the constraints are. Once you see the scaffolding, the “random chaos” story collapses. You can’t go back to thinking the maze built itself.
Great, others use words, you paint pictures. Insightful, informative read.
Thanks, Kenneth.
I’m not trying to convince—just showing the terrain.
Glad you saw it.
I trully double that. Thank you, much appreciated.
Thank you
When I read your essays, I ask myself, ‘where does that leave me? How do we prepare? How much time do we have? Years? Months?’ So many people caught up in events in MN and the like they don’t realize it is all theatre designed to distract.
Keep calm, carry on.
Ditto
Thanks for sharing that Kriss — and you’re right to be asking the hard questions in the midst of all this.
What’s happening in Minnesota isn’t just a local event, it’s become a flashpoint in a national crisis over federal enforcement, civil rights, and political legitimacy. Over the past few weeks, Minneapolis has seen multiple deaths of U.S. citizens at the hands of federal immigration agents deployed under a broad Trump-era operation, including the fatal shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, which sparked widespread protests and clashes with federal forces.
That escalation has led to huge public backlash, protests, legal fights, and intense scrutiny — including calls from lawmakers, unions, and advocacy groups for accountability and withdrawal of ICE from Minnesota.
A federal judge very recently refused to halt the overall operation despite these tensions, underscoring the political stakes and the polarized response at state and national levels.
So to your questions:
Where does that leave you?
In a moment of heightened political conflict and media theater, real risks and real shifts are occurring — but it’s not some secret script hidden from view. The narrative is playing out on multiple fronts, both in official statements and in public reaction.
How do we prepare?
That depends on what prepare means for you personally — mentally, socially, and materially. It can help to separate strategic awareness from fear-based speculation. Track credible developments, diversify your information sources, and think in terms of resilience rather than panic.
How much time do we have? Years? Months?
No one can timestamp societal change with precision. Crises like this evolve on overlapping timelines — legal, cultural, political, and economic. They don’t turn on a single date or moment, but through ongoing pressure points and responses from communities, institutions, and governments.
Your point about distraction is valid in that the spectacle sometimes obscures the structural dynamics underneath. But that doesn’t make everything “theater.” There are real policy decisions, rights challenges, and legal battles underway that will shape outcomes long after any headlines fade.
Aren’t these events set up as PRS - problem, reaction, solution? The amount of vitriol over ICE is rather high that I can’t help but think that it is by design. To get people fighting and taking sides and creating division for the parasites to feast. Consider 9/11. Inside job and the biggest thing to come out of that is the patriot act and increased ‘security’ - surveillance.
Exactly. PRS is the oldest trick in the book. Stir outrage, split people into teams, then roll out the “solution” that nobody would’ve accepted otherwise. 9/11 → Patriot Act is the textbook case. The noise isn’t accidental — it’s how consent is manufactured.
When everything gets framed as “physics” and “triage,” ethics quietly get labeled excess weight. That’s not realism. That’s just power explaining itself with a slide deck.
That’s a sharp way to put it — and you’re right.
Calling it “physics” or “triage” doesn’t remove ethics; it just hides the moral choice behind technical language. That move isn’t realism, it’s abdication. Power loves to present its decisions as inevitabilities, as if no one chose them.
Once ethics are treated as excess weight, all that’s left is force with a vocabulary.
Indeed. 🙏
So again, Excellent Essay. Thank you. So as I'm reading and absorbing today"s transmission, an analogy intuitively keeps coming to mind. May not be the best? In any event, it's that...This particular moment, amidst all you've captivatingly described, feels like watching a marriage in free fall that has been downward spiraling for some time in which all the fighting, cajoleing, screaming, identification of issues but never really working on them substantively, and the he said she said they saids have exhausted themselves, what's left is the inevitable breakup, dissolution and walking away, because the whole shebang has simply run its course.
That’s a strong analogy — and it actually fits better than most political metaphors.
You’re describing the end stage, not the argument stage. The point where nothing new is being said, because everything that could be said already has been… and none of it worked. The energy shifts from fighting to detachment. From “maybe we can fix this” to “this has already ended, we’re just still in the house.”
What feels different now is that the drama is losing its charge. The accusations, counter-accusations, emergency language — it’s all exhausted. What remains is logistics, asset division, and who walks away with what still functions.
That’s why it feels inevitable rather than explosive. Less revolution, more separation. Less collapse-by-chaos, more collapse-by-withdrawal.
When a system runs on belief and consent, the real end comes when people stop arguing with it — and simply stop investing themselves in it.
You’re sensing the quiet part. That’s usually when things are actually over.