23. Manbun McGee
Bitterroot personalities. Exhibit A*
If we’re going to make progress against the PTSB (powers that shouldn’t be), some degree of unity will be required to mount a viable resistance. That’s obvious; we’re not going to defeat the monster with all of us acting alone. The question is, how big does our movement need to be? How many Americans, for example, will need to unite and oppose our costly, immoral and unnecessary wars before they stop? When I look around me here in the Bitterroot Valley I see Americans from all ends of the political spectrum. Though one reason I am in Montana is to avoid the lefty lunacy of places like Seattle, there are plenty of people here in Ravalli county who, unchecked, would have Seattle goodthink and Seattle politics dominate (think Missoula, Whitefish and to a degree, so I’ve heard, Bozeman). Sorry folks, Montana ain’t red, it’s bright purple, and if they get enough dreamers on EBT cards to put up with the cold winters, we’ll go blue just like Minnesota New Somalia.
These thoughts occupied my mind when I sat through a presentation a couple weeks ago out at a community center in the north valley. It was a weekly meeting of concerned patriots, most of whom I assume lean right and would welcome being called conservative, who get together to discuss community cooperation, mutual defense, private answers to failed public services and policies, etc. They like to invite guest speakers who have expert knowledge on a range of subjects. Apparently the group got started after some disagreements within a larger group of patriots here in the valley. I don’t think the splintering was due to political or philosophical differences, but there were personality clashes and disputes about the way things should be run. It’s hard to avoid that stuff in the hyper-individualistic resistance movement.
That evening’s presenter was David McGee, a Ravalli local in his late twenties, who is an expert on earthen homes. First he built a shack for himself on his parents’ property. Then he built a house for himself and wife and daughter, and now he’s advising other people on how to do it. Earthen homes is an interesting topic, but all I’ll say now is
they are a heck of a lot of work to build.
they are super cheap, if you consider materials and don’t put a price on labor.
they are very economical in terms of heating and cooling costs, if you don’t mind temperatures in a range that is kinda warm in summer and kinda cool in winter. (My dad always groused about mom and me turning the thermostat up in winter. “Throw a sweater on, for crying out loud!”)
you can be very creative with design, and each house has a distinctive look. Imagine something curvy and funky that Dr. Suess would design.
David has somewhat unkempt, frizzy long hair and a man bun. OK, to be fair it’s halfway between a pony tail and a full-on eurotrash bun sticking out from the top center, but combined with the intricate, fancy tat on his right arm, and his gentle, self-effacing presentation style, it was enough to make me ask, “who invited Nigel to the gun show?” And then there was his bio, which included a master’s of library science at Evergreen State and participation in a charity cruise stopping at ports on the West African coast to build solar toilets, on the all-volunteer Youth For Justice ship. This was a far cry from last week’s presenter, Sloan Youngblood, in from Hell’s Gulch Wyoming, packing like the locals of course and wearing a big Stetson, here to talk about Securing Your Perimeter, through tactical training, land mines and prayer.
Besides using a tv monitor too small to be seen by folks in the back row, the presentation was good but a little irrelevant. I think the earthen house concept is great but these folks are just too busy to do the labor themselves. I’m guessing their work-day is long and exhausting, while David has plenty of energy to burn and free time to pack mud and straw after his cush library gig.
Nevertheless, David was likeable and I give him props for showing up and speaking in front of people whose politics differ from his own. Maybe I wouldn’t have made the effort to show up if I knew the topic of the evening was earthen homes, but I’m glad I went. Big Joe the construction contractor had invited us, only mentioning the ice-cream social part of the gathering. He sat with us in the back row, arms folded the whole time, speaking only once when there was a small back-and-forth misunderstanding about wiring, which he settled quickly.
After that evening I didn’t have reason to think about David McGee, until I went to the library to pick up a book, and there he was at the front desk, man bun and all.
-Hey, I saw you at the community center up in the north county a couple weeks ago. You gave the earthen homes presentation.
-Oh. Hello. Yeah. That was me.
-My name’s Dan.
-I’m David. Nice to meet you.
I was there to pick up Homo Deus, by Yuval Noah Harari, a gay Jewish author/scholar from Israel whom you may have seen on right-leaning websites. Like the Schwabmeister himself, and Gates the Disgenecist, Harari features prominently in the you-gotta-see-this-idiocy genre of shared videos. You see clips of Harari all the time espousing the technocratic, dystopian future the control-freak Davosians have in store for us.
I said, “I’m hear to pick up a book on hold. It’s Homo Deus by Yuval Harari.”
David beamed. “Oh, I love that book! Great choice!”
-A friend recommended it to me.
-Do you know about Harari’s work? Have you read Sapiens?
-No, but I’m sort of familiar with his stuff.
-Yeah, he’s really good. I love his take on man’s interaction with technology, how there’s going to be this melding of intelligence, and synchronicity with the virtual world.
There you have it. They are in love with the worst of it. How can earthen-homes Dave, who is into getting back to nature with eco-friendly structures, living here in this Rocky-Mountain rural paradise, with a wife and kid no less, want anything to do with a Yuval Harariesque cyber panopticon? I didn’t tell David that the reason my friend Peter had recommended the book was because it was so over-the-top dystopian- that it was a very dark blueprint for a horrible technocracy in the near future, and almost comical in it’s blatant support of anti-human techno trends. The only reason I was discussing Harari with Manbun Dave was because Peter was going to actually buy me a copy of the book. “Why are you buying me a copy of this book?” I’d asked him.
“Because you have to read it. You have to know what the enemy has in store for us.”
Understood, but why put money in their coffers?
“Look Peter. If I want to read Guns Germs and Steel, or Oprah’s latest, or the Necronomicon, I’ll get it at the library. I can do the same with the Harari book. Don’t buy it!”
I kept smiling after David outed himself as a full branch Davosian, but I said, “Well, some of the things he seems to support seem a little worrying. I’m a little hesitant with the stuff that sort of requires a benign government to function well and be to our benefit.”
That was my attempt to offer a little criticism without presenting myself as a Sloan Youngblood groupie. David just stared at me. As David was scanning the book and a couple DVDs I picked up, I said, “Hey, I think it’s cool you went to that gathering up in north county. I gather you’re not exactly in alignment with their politics, but you’re cool with talking with them anyway.”
“Yeah, they have some weird thinking, but they’re all pretty nice.”
“And why should we let political differences separate us on issues we agree on? I don’t think anybody there is opposed to houses that use fewer natural resources to heat and maintain.”
“I agree,” said David.
And I don’t want to completely dismiss Dave just because he likes Yuval Harari. So, getting back to the question, to what extent do we have to unite with people from distant points on the political spectrum in order to get the numbers to oppose the bastards who want to rule us? I know people here who won’t meet other people because they disagree on particulars. Dave and I are way further apart than that. Should I dismiss him and move on, or try to find common ground? Should I stop letting on that I’m a fellow Davosian and let him have the full load of mental buckshot? Should I stop calling him manbun?
Next: Review/Critique of Homo Deus.
Hey, Dan. You can sure find some interesting topics. I have friends, acquaintances and coworkers from every point on the political, economic, social and covid compasses. There are some who have views diametrically opposed to mine. With a few longtime friends in that group, I choose not to go into the sources of disagreement but continue a polite relationship. We both know the disagreements simmering underneath the surface and know that any discussion between us will not bridge that divide. Still, these issues carry the weight of life and death. Covid vaccinations, trillions spent on unnecessary, unjustified and constitutionally illegal wars, billions more spent on "building back broker" to name just a few. These things are guns pointed at our heads. I am prepping like our lives depend on it. My family is on board. They see the threats. That’s my job, to identify the threats and prepare my family and anyone else who is willing. I know the people like "Man-bun McGee" and some of my "friends" are actively working against us full time. I hope they don’t think their politics will save them when the reality of their New World Order arrives.
Common ground finding is the way to go. Nice read.