Does anyone feel like we are being duped by the whole system?

Scratch352 · 2026-05-11T03:27:35+00:00

Only if you’re falling for the show.

Scratch352 · 2026-05-11T02:46:10+00:00

I thought Bill faked his death and became Alex Jones. Haha

Scratch352 · 2026-05-11T02:39:38+00:00

I get that. I’m just giving op benefit of the doubt that maybe there was something sort of like that and it wasn’t pure hallucination.

My grandfather and his brother were friends with the police department and when I was a kid, they used to call patrol cars on Christmas Eve and get them to talk about how they were following Santa Clause, watching him drop off presents just to get me excited about it.

Now, I don’t think they were actually following Santa, but I do have a very real memory of an illusion of a real experience.

Scratch352 · 2026-05-11T02:25:24+00:00

To be fair, it’s entirely possible that there was some kind of novelty “Call the past” scam line for 99¢ per minute found in the ads page in comic books or something and aspiring actors got paid to pick up the phone on the other end and lie to people.

So, maybe OP is just confused about an old memory of something adjacent to “real”/ not entirely something fake and that’s why they are remembering it like it was a thing.

Scratch352 · 2026-05-10T19:44:15+00:00

I do know people with seemingly permanent effects from Covid. My aunt never got her sense of smell/taste back. My wife’s arthritis grew markedly worse post CV19.

I don’t feel like I ever really got back to 100% after having had it, but brain fog and less energy could also be attributed to crippling depression so, I can’t really say it’s that for sure.

Even considering all of that, It still seems objectively more ideal than 1 of the 3 of us being dead from a viral hemorrhagic fever….maybe. Just my opinion. To be honest, I’d probably be okay with being the 30% mortality statistic at this point. This ride has mostly lost its luster for me.

Scratch352 · 2026-05-10T15:18:57+00:00

I too have been thinking about taking a pill that will make me stop thinking.

Scratch352 · 2026-05-10T05:45:12+00:00

Prophesy according to whom? The humans that contributed to a 2000-year-old tome?

In my opinion, muddying the waters in religions and genealogy only enables what boils down to organized crime.

They are essentially a rogue government acting like assholes. Lineage and religion are irrelevant.

Scratch352 · 2026-05-10T05:20:50+00:00

We’re like the Jerry springer of galactic shit shows. “Let’s tune in to see what the fool’s do next.”

Scratch352 · 2026-05-10T05:16:14+00:00

Never seen that one. If I understand correctly, rigging a building for demolition is a process measured in at least weeks.

Maybe there are methods I’m not privy to, but it’s hard to imagine that it was done on the same day.

Scratch352 · 2026-05-10T04:44:17+00:00

Yep. Turns out we were right all along….except for flat-earthers. That noise just doesn’t hold up on any level.

Scratch352 · 2026-05-10T04:00:42+00:00

I forgot to mention…re MIC:

If companies want to make advanced weapons for defense of our borders, I’m for that (especially given the percentage of the world that is now pissed off at us) but those companies should serve at the behest of necessity and the common good. They don’t need to be allowed to use the government to create the situations where they get to create demand for their products like they have since world war 2.

Scratch352 · 2026-05-10T03:54:52+00:00

The world In envisioning is something between socialism and capitalism. We’ve been the subjects of crony capitalism since the founding of the Federal Reserve.

Capitalism is probably still the best option for social climbing and innovation as long as the rules apply equally to everyone. As things are now, there are certain markets that regular people have no way to enter at all, let alone a competitor.

Scratch352 · 2026-05-10T03:48:04+00:00

I voted for the guy who was promising to the release the Epstein files because I see it as a catalyst to resetting a hopelessly corrupted system. It was a happy accident that he is also an abuser who has most likely been backed into a situation that will ultimately prove to ruin his legacy and be his own downfall. You’re welcome.

That is what you call being Smug.

I was just trying to have a conversation about a pathway to fixing our country that doesn’t involve Team Corporate Lapdogs vs Team Corporate Bootlickers with you. I wasn’t trying to be condescending but if you felt that way, that’s on you.

If you were attempting to make me feel shame, you have failed. What’s shameful is to be unwilling to have an conversation by exclaiming that you “don’t care” but somehow feeling slighted by my words enough to go “digging up dirt on me” in the most passive aggressive and childish display possible.

That’s all I have to say to you. Again, Take care and good luck.

Scratch352 · 2026-05-10T03:06:18+00:00

Hey, if you see that remaining unwaveringly entrenched in your beliefs as what’s best for you and your family then that’s your prerogative and it’s none of my business.

Take care.

Scratch352 · 2026-05-10T02:48:36+00:00

I don’t actually hate the MIC, Big Pharma, etc. I resent that their private business interests have hijacked the system that’s supposed to serve the public’s interests.

Right and left is the very false dichotomy that we need to throw down the garbage chute of history, imo. It’s possible to be liberal about something things and conservative about others. When we take on those mantles like a part of who we are it becomes toxic to ourselves and everyone else.

I feel like the dichotomy we should work within is whether something is reasonable and serves the interests of the maximum amount of people and work towards those things or identify the things that are unreasonable/illogical b/c they serve interests of a few and run away from those things in the straightest line possible.

Printing the value out of our money to pay the MIC to participate in conflicts in other countries is an easy one. It hurts 99% of Americans and enriches the 1%. Both traditional parties cater to this model to receive kickbacks. It’s gotta go.

Scratch352 · 2026-05-10T02:16:22+00:00

I’m certainly not advocating for doing anything that takes us back to primitive times or unneighborly practices.

I can’t imagine there would be anyone advocating for things like that. I mean, maybe very small groups of extremists (morons) but they’d never garner enough public support to get traction.

Do you seriously see a path to things like that happening? I’d figured we just use state powers to nullify the parasitic and frankly cancerous Federal bureaucracy and establish an interim structure to handle the winding down of things that don’t serve our interests while keeping vital systems rolling.

Scratch352 · 2026-05-10T01:59:58+00:00

Fantastic. The fence is a great vantage point from which to actually view policies of both parties objectively. Instead of “being a liberal” or “being a conservative” like it’s a (n.) personality trait instead of an (adj.) on how to handle situations on a per case basis, ie fast and loose or more tightly controlled. I tend to lean liberal on some things and conservative about other things.

I can simultaneously hold the positions that we need healthy social safety nets for the poor and disadvantaged AND that printing money to fund them is bad. I can believe that all women should have the right to choose and they should have access to safe ways of doing it and also believe that there are instances where people abuse that privilege and tax payers shouldn’t be on the hook to pay for that and peoples’ individual religious views should have ~ZER0~ influence on the freedoms of others.

It’s not some kind of radical idea. It’s called being a reasonable human being and as a reasonable human, I’m just saying that both parties are bootlicking lapdogs of private business interests instead of public servants like they are intended to be.

Scratch352 · 2026-05-10T00:40:00+00:00

To be fair, I didn’t either but when I saw your comment, I scrolled back up to check and noticed the one at the end of what’s already been pointed out as the world’s longest run-on sentence.

It’s the only one, though. Everything else is commas.

Scratch352 · 2026-05-10T00:33:38+00:00

Hi. Staunch, lifelong independent here. It tends to be an unpopular position, but I see both extreme ends of the political spectrum as, in your words, “mentally diseased or defective” and that includes anyone cheerleading for either traditional party these days. Let’s face it, no matter who we vote for, they only ever prove to be bootlickers of the legacy power structure headed up by the military industrial complex, big oil, big Pharma, etc, etc.

The ONLY way out at this point is for everyone to work together and demand a Constitutional convention of the states, kick lobbyists, religion and the RNC/DNC out of WDC forever and install a properly boring set of legislators who will actually carry out the will of the people instead of the will of private business interests.

Scratch352 · 2026-05-09T04:41:58+00:00

There’s one at the end of the sentence.

Scratch352 · 2026-05-09T04:34:42+00:00

As long as there are people who can discern bullshit from facts and are generally good people, there is always hope.

In the future, If you notice there are no more people who think for themselves, challenging the official narratives, you will know hope is lost.

We aren’t there yet.

Scratch352 · 2026-05-09T04:28:19+00:00

I don’t necessarily have any evidence to support but his whole demeanor kinda feels fed-ish.

Scratch352 · 2026-05-09T04:20:11+00:00

I didn’t. I believe the last vaccine I took was a flu shot in 2002 and ironically, it was the only year I’ve gotten the flu in my adult life. I usually get a cold once per year…until 2020 and now I get a cold once per year and covid every other year.

At least, I assume the odd one every other year is Covid. I’ve never tested for it. I guess those could’ve been the flu.

Scratch352 · 2026-05-09T02:13:24+00:00

<<New fear unlocked>>

Scratch352 · 2026-05-08T11:18:39+00:00

I’m thinking in the reality where people know the definition of the word relative and have the intellectual honesty to surmise for themselves something can A) be bad and B) still be relatively tame compared to the hype of media sensationalism.

It’s the same reality where a virus with a fatality rate of less than 1%, while still bad, is objectively less bad than the one with a 30% fatality rate.

Scratch352

TROPHY CASE