the fourth wave

 

Comrades,

If you think we've got it bad here in Hotbed City, which the Ruby Princess has seamlessly managed to strictly divide along wealth and class lines...try The States. According to Associated Press, in the current Covid19 "fourth wave", 1100 people are dying every day, and 'influential modelling from the University if Washington' suggests a further 98,000 Americans will die of the Delta mutant between now and the start of December, bringing the total US death toll to a staggering 730,000. In Florida, which has a population similar to Australia's at 22M, folks are shuffling off at the rate of close to 200 a day. Full vaccination rates go from 67% in Vermont to 36% in Alabama, and they've had full unfettered access to plentiful supplies of Pfizer since 11 December 2020. ScoMo's magical mystery target of 80% fully vaxxed is but a hollow pipe dream.

So, now it's time to follow the lead of New York City, and get some first class guerilla advertising going across this beshitten ol' town:

 

history repeats

 

Boys fly a kite above Kabul, Afghanistan, July 2016. Photo: Wakil Kohsar/AFP

Comrades,

Another very hard-learned lesson in the futility of trying to impose the Miracle of Democracy on those who don't want it and for whom it does not work, and God knows - whichever one you choose - I'm no expert.

Any foreign power who has ever tried to invade Afghanistan has failed, with the exception of Genghis Khan who made a good fist of it way back in 1221, but that required slaughtering pretty much the entire population. The "Infernal Triangle" will remain just that for Western powers. Never mind the Taliban having to get on with it before the end of "the fighting season" - the country is ripe for a long-running simmering civil war, especially with the northern warlords now very unhappy they've lost territory. They will re-arm, and Afghanistan will return to its natural state of self-governing warring fiefdoms. Central authority has never worked, and never will. The Russians could have told you that.

The utterly pointless loss of life and the mega-billions in American (and Australian) treasure lost over the past 20 years becomes yet another page in the lil' history books, but the British really did set the benchmark in 1842. Nobody ever learned from it, ever...history repeats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1842_retreat_from_Kabul