in4apenny

That's really wild. I've heard a bunch of stories like that, however not quite as scary haha.

I have these flashes of memory from my childhood, some go really really far back to 5 years or younger (i'm 34). Memories like my grandfather who passed when I was 5, or an accident I had when I was 1 or 2 involving my finger and a supermarket automatic door. Among those flashes of memory that's been in my head my whole life is a large theater with large red drapes everywhere, it's not a very clear picture but I distinctly remember looking up at the domed white ceiling, ornate pillars, amphitheater shaped room with seatrows rising slightly as they go back. I have never been to such a theater, even now, and I have no idea why I have had a memory of one my whole life even as a child who had never been to or seen a theater before. I sometimes wonder if it's a lingering memory from a past life.

I wouldn't have believed me either, if it weren't for the crowd of lucid people around me confirming exactly what we all saw.

Back in 2012 I was at a music festival in Australia called Earth Frequency. The festival grounds are like a valley, up along one ridge was the festival itself, paths leading up to it on the festival side of the valley, and the camping was up the other side of the valley going up and over the ridge opposite to the festival. Myself and two others were sitting on a car at the top ridge of camping overlooking the festival, others were grouped around us.

Now I must preface this by saying I was on psychedelics, but I was not tripping balls I had mild visuals and some colours in the dark and that's about it. One other was also on psychedelics, while everyone else was some degree of stoned or drunk as you do at a music festival with friends. The three of us on the car noticed something and was trying to figure out what it was: Three lights, equidistant like a triangle, rotating clockwise. It sort of looked like it was floating in place over the festival, but it also could have been much further away and only looked like it was hovering over the festival from our perspective. The distance of it was one thing we were trying to figure out, but we were also trying to figure out what it was. To me it looked like a kite, triangle shaped with fairy lights or some sort of light source at each point, but it wasn't oscillating with the wind like a kite and it was consistently rotating at a steady rotation so it couldn't have been a kite. We thought maybe some sort of projection or spotlight from the festival, or some sort of mundane test for a laser show, but it looked like the lightsource originated from the thing itself and not some sort of reflection, and even if it was a reflection it still doesn't explain what it was.

We kept staring at it, might've been for almost 10 minutes before someone asked us what we were talking about/looking at, so we pointed it out and others started joining in to figure out what it was, asking all the same questions as us about distance or the light source or its steady rotation. The weirdest part was how steady it was, like unless it's rotating on top of a really tall sturdy pole there's no way it wouldn't at least oscillate up and down, side or side, or something. We kept watching it until suddenly the rotation stopped, all three lights sorta jumped up at the same time, then shot into different directions like bright shooting stars. We jumped around frantically, like "Wtf was that?!" Some of us thought we saw a UAP or UFO, it felt like our group was the only one who noticed it because people were asking what all our commotion was about. The day after we asked everyone we could if they saw what we saw, we met one other couple that saw and described exactly what we saw but from a different angle, neither could figure out if it was above or behind the festival.

I still to this day have no idea what we saw and have no explaination. I'm not much of a UFO guy, I want to believe, but to this day I find myself pondering from time to time what that was.

The US still has a huge nuclear arsenal, more aircraft carriers than the entire rest of the world combined, more advanced fighter jets and bombers than anybody else, incredible logistics, etc.

All these things require loyal, willing, and smart people. America is actively muzzling and firing their best operators and replacing them with only loyal but unwilling and incompetent fools. I feel like a thin-skinned fascist dictatorial madman of a country collapsing under civil unrest and war would be more focused on maintaining control over his own country than picking fights with others. The only "enemy states" that he'd be nuking are other States of America.

Isn't this sorta how the Corporate Wars started in the Cyberpunk universe?

“keeping our military the most lethal and effective fighting force on the planet” (that ran like pussies in the night from Afghanistan).

Your words, not mine. They got btfo of Vietnam too, and almost everywhere else they've tried to invade. The only land or sea they have "conquered" or have bases on were the ones allowed to them based on soft-power agreements with other countries, of which are now at the breaking point. America is nothing without the rest of the world saying "okay" to them, and what happens to failed imperialists? They turn that imperialism inwards a la fascism, before hurting themselves and anyone who chooses to stick by them. America is a threat to nobody but themselves at this point.

America is a threat to nobody but themselves at this point.

"I've got a family/kids to take care of" is now a reason to stop showing up to work to go out to protest, or begin taking steps to making yourself self-sufficient. Seriously though, anything less than that is putting your family/kids at risk at this point. It doesn't seem ideal, especially if you still value your money more than life itself, but it's far better than the alternative where "I've got a family/kids to take care of" becomes a reason to die in a battlefield. Please, Americans, do more. For your family and your kids.

If I ran for office and mentioned anything about the $36 TRILLION in offshore tax havens to help pay for things like infrastructure, UBI, and universal healthcare, i'd be fucking assassinated. The problem about wanting change and working within the system to achieve that, is that it's never you who changes the system, it's the system that'll inevitably change you. There's nothing wrong with compromise in a situation, but compromising yourself in a situation is another story completely.

Everything you mentioned is 1000x better than occupying a sidewalk (that oligarchs dont walk on) with signs that try and make JD Vance feel shook. I'm not against occupying sidewalks with signs, just think we should be doing outside mansions and gated communities, where billionaires in their pajamas can see us. Megaphones all night long, i'd be helping to hand out free coffee.

This was 100% relevant to what i'm trying to say, you just said it better than I could. They think that it goes "Protest, sign petition, that'll magically make politicans think oh we should listen to them, they sign our best interests into law." They also think the only blood spilled in the name of democracy are from our troops who fought overseas - but forget the protestors who were gunned down by land-barons when workers were killing cops so that we can have weekends, or lives without slavery. That's why there's so much importance held to democracy, because of all the horrific sacrifices people have had to make, and will have to continue to make, to make it even possible. But even that's been lost on most people, people now "vote with your wallet" instead of voting with a soul.

Not bragging, just proud.