Tensions – in the rest of the world, and in US inner cities. Compare and contrast.

 

First, the rest of the world.  Michael Yon recently had a lengthy, in-depth video interview with Jordan Peterson.  It’s a remarkable exposition of what’s really going on in the rest of the world;  the sort of thing one simply doesn’t see in the news media, because they’re self-censoring on behalf of the government and the powers that be.  It’s almost an hour and a half long, but it’s filled with detail, and well worth your time to watch.  I highly recommend it.

Let’s bring that reality home.  How are tensions playing out in the most dangerous places in America today – our inner cities?

I know a visiting nurse in a very large American city.  I won’t identify it, and I’ve edited out some of the details she provides, because she might face retaliation if she could be identified.  Suffice it to say her work takes her into the most crime-ridden parts of that city, as well as nicer neighborhoods.  She has to remain on good terms with the community in order to function.  As a result, there are those who talk to her about what they’re experiencing day by day, just trying to keep body and soul together.

Two years ago, when you went to **** it was pretty normal to have random … neighbors hanging out at the patient’s house, even in the middle of the night. No one was really making any effort to hide the contents of their kitchens or cupboards, and it was not terribly unusual for the next door neighbor to go start a pot of coffee or something, obviously comfortable in the kitchen.

That is not happening now. People are pruning down into very small circles. They are not answering the door for anyone who doesn’t need to be in the house. Cupboards and cabinets are closed now, always. Foodstuffs aren’t being left out on counters or tables. There seems to be an unspoken social rule in which you don’t go in other people’s kitchens without them anymore.

There are also a lot of outsiders showing up, immigrants from various places. The people who were already there are taking note of who the new people are and where they are, even those who are not gang-aligned. We have more families asking us for help getting food for the patients, and we’re having to low-key check to make sure families in less food-secure areas actually have enough food and the social workers are developing relationships with food banks to refer people to.

Social cohesion was already questionable by outside standards, but people largely knew who they could trust to try to **** them over and act accordingly and who was fairly solid in their little areas. It’s much worse now.

Groups are smaller than they were a year ago.

So everything I’m seeing in the areas that are relatively poor indicates that things are already starting to fray around the edges here.

. . .

I don’t want them to be right, but those kind of things are why I said several months ago that I expect things to go pear shaped this winter.

It started during covid and it’s been slowly getting worse.

The truly poor areas are food deserts because of high crime and/or **** destroyed by several rounds of rioting not being rebuilt. When supply chain issues started making it hard to get various things, people started to fracture into increasingly small groups. Not super obvious at first, but it’s been building for a long while.

I will probably be fine if I can’t find a remote job, though I desperately want to. Enlightened self interest and all that. But I wouldn’t go into the very poor areas of **** in my regular clothes for any amount of money, even during the day now.

As I said, I know this nurse personally.  I believe her, and I trust the accuracy of her observations.  I can relate to it because two of my sisters were nurses in South Africa, during some of the worst crime and violence of the apartheid era.  They were able to go into some of the worst areas in relative safety, provided they wore their nurses’ uniforms.  The uniform conferred a degree of immunity, and helped engender a certain degree of community trust.  Without it, they’d have been raped and murdered almost faster than you can say it.

Take what the above nurse has to say, and translate that scenario onto an international stage, where we’re seeing tensions ratchet up between nations and regions, as Michael Yon describes.

All over the world, the ropes holding us together, the “ties that bind“, are fraying.  The knots are slipping.  The ties are getting weaker and weaker.  Sooner or later, they’re going to let go;  and when they do, we’re going to see what Michael Yon calls PanFaWar (Pandemic, Famine, War).  I no longer have any doubt about what’s happening.  It’s just a matter of time.

An overriding problem is that the unseen powers trying to manipulate nations and people, to force them to do what they want rather than what’s in their own interest, are ignoring a very fundamental reality.  Vox Day put it well on Gab:

Almost all Western foreign policy is being decided and conducted by people who have not been punched in the face enough to understand that for every human action, there will eventually be an opposing reaction.

The same can be said of most foreign policy around the world, not just Western, of course.  Our leaders assume that people will do as they’re told.  They will, to a certain point.  Probably up to 90%, maybe even 95%, will shrink from acting in their own interest and their own defense, because it’s easier to be a sheep than a sheep-dog.  However, there is a minority whose eyes are open, and who are increasingly determined to protect and defend and keep what’s theirs.  When they act, they’ll have an impact out of all proportion to their numbers.  That’ll be true in an inner-city suburb, or a state, or a nation, or a region.

The powers that be will, of course, use all the force at their disposal to squash them like bugs.  However, they may find that a whole lot more difficult than they currently expect.  Britain learned that the hard way in 1776.  The time for Lexington Green, Round 2, may be drawing near.

That’s what Michael Yon anticipates.  I wish I could believe that he’s wrong;  but all the evidence I’ve provided above, and in many other articles on this blog, says otherwise.

Peter