Wi-Fi 7

And now for something completely different.

Wi-Fi 7 is now available. Wait, did we already have Wi-Fi 6? And what happened to the hyper-hyped 5G system? It never made sense to me that you would have to have so many 5G transmitters that there would be multiple transmitters on every frikkin' block. Tech is moving so fast, even tech cannot keep up. I imagine Wi-Fi 8 can't be too far around the corner.

WiFi 5 vs. WiFi 6 vs. WiFi 6E vs. WiFi 7: Compare the Differences

WiFi has come a long way since its inception, and with the rise of connected devices, its evolution continues to be a critical component of modern networking. Each new version of WiFi has brought better performance, faster speeds, and improved connectivity. In this blog post, we’ll dive into the differences between WiFi 5, WiFi 6, WiFi 6E, and the emerging WiFi 7, breaking down their unique features and what they mean for users.

What Is WiFi?

Before comparing WiFi versions, it’s important to understand WiFi itself. WiFi, short for “Wireless Fidelity,” is a technology that allows devices to connect to the internet or each other without using physical cables. It operates using radio waves, primarily in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequency bands, but as newer versions have emerged, so have additional bands like 6 GHz (for WiFi 6E and WiFi 7).

WiFi 5 (802.11ac): The Fifth Generation of WiFi

WiFi 5, also known as 802.11ac, was introduced in 2014 and primarily operates on the 5 GHz band. It brought substantial improvements over WiFi 4 (802.11n), including faster speeds and better performance in environments with multiple devices.

Key Features of WiFi 5:

• 5 GHz Band: WiFi 5 exclusively uses the 5 GHz band, which provides faster speeds but with slightly less range compared to 2.4 GHz.
• MU-MIMO Technology: WiFi 5 introduced MU-MIMO (Multi-User, Multiple Input, Multiple Output), allowing multiple devices to receive data simultaneously, reducing wait times.
• 256-QAM Modulation: It uses 256-QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation), which helps deliver higher data rates.
• Speeds up to 3.5 Gbps: WiFi 5 can theoretically deliver speeds up to 3.5 Gbps, making it a significant improvement over previous versions.

However, despite these benefits, WiFi 5 faced challenges in crowded networks, where many devices competed for bandwidth, reducing overall performance.

WiFi 6 (802.11ax): Faster and More Efficient

WiFi 6, launched in 2019, represents a major upgrade in terms of speed, efficiency, and capacity. It aims to improve performance in dense environments, like homes with multiple smart devices or busy public spaces.

Key Features of WiFi 6:

• Dual-Band Support: WiFi 6 operates on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, enhancing connectivity and ensuring better coverage.
• OFDMA Technology: WiFi 6 introduces Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA), allowing it to divide channels into smaller sub-channels. This enables simultaneous data transmission to multiple devices, improving efficiency.
• 1024-QAM Modulation: WiFi 6 uses 1024-QAM modulation, which boosts throughput by increasing the data sent per transmission.
• Target Wake Time (TWT): This feature helps devices reduce power consumption by scheduling transmissions, which is especially beneficial for battery-powered IoT devices.
• Speeds up to 9.6 Gbps: WiFi 6 can theoretically reach speeds of up to 9.6 Gbps, more than double that of WiFi 5.

WiFi 6 is designed to handle crowded networks more effectively, making it ideal for smart homes, businesses, and densely populated urban areas.

WiFi 6E: Extending WiFi 6 into the 6 GHz Band

WiFi 6E takes all the advantages of WiFi 6 and adds access to the newly opened 6 GHz band, which has much wider channels, resulting in less interference and even faster speeds.

Key Features of WiFi 6E:

• 6 GHz Band: WiFi 6E introduces the 6 GHz band, which includes 59 non-overlapping channels, providing much more bandwidth and reducing network congestion.
• Better Capacity: With the additional spectrum, WiFi 6E can support more devices without sacrificing performance, making it perfect for environments like large offices or event spaces.
• Improved Speeds and Latency: The extra bandwidth of the 6 GHz band results in faster speeds and lower latency, ideal for applications like VR/AR, online gaming, and 4K/8K video streaming.
• Speeds up to 9.6 Gbps: Like WiFi 6, WiFi 6E offers speeds up to 9.6 Gbps but can achieve these speeds more reliably due to the less congested 6 GHz band.

While WiFi 6E is a significant upgrade, it requires new hardware, as older WiFi 6 devices can’t utilize the 6 GHz band.

WiFi 7 (802.11be): The Next Generation of WiFi

WiFi 7, also known as 802.11be, is the latest iteration of WiFi, and it’s set to deliver groundbreaking improvements in speed, capacity, and efficiency. While it’s still in the development phase, WiFi 7 routers and devices are expected to be available starting in 2024.

Key Features of WiFi 7:

• Multi-Band Support: WiFi 7 will utilize 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz bands, ensuring maximum bandwidth and flexibility.
• 320 MHz Channel Width: WiFi 7 will support up to 320 MHz channel width, which is double that of WiFi 6E, allowing it to deliver even higher speeds.
• 16×16 MU-MIMO: WiFi 7 will support 16×16 MU-MIMO, increasing the number of simultaneous data streams and enhancing performance in highly dense environments.
• 4K-QAM Modulation: WiFi 7 introduces 4K-QAM modulation, which can boost throughput by approximately 20% compared to 1024-QAM.
• Multi-Link Operation (MLO): One of the standout features of WiFi 7 is Multi-Link Operation, allowing devices to transmit data across multiple frequency bands simultaneously. This reduces latency and increases reliability.
• Speeds over 40 Gbps: WiFi 7 could theoretically achieve speeds of up to 46 Gbps, making it a game-changer for high-demand applications like 8K video streaming, cloud gaming, and large file transfers.

Choosing the Right WiFi for You

So, how do you decide which WiFi version is right for you? It largely depends on your current setup, the number of devices you have, and your specific network needs.

1. If you have a basic home network: WiFi 5 may still be sufficient if you have fewer devices and only use the internet for standard browsing and video streaming.
2. If you have a smart home or work from home: WiFi 6 offers better efficiency, especially if you have a lot of connected devices.
3. If you need extra bandwidth and less congestion: WiFi 6E is ideal, particularly for environments with many devices or if you frequently use high-bandwidth applications.
4. If you want the latest and greatest: WiFi 7 will be the most advanced option, offering unprecedented speeds and multi-link capabilities.

Original. A shortwave radio might come in handy too.

Arlene Dickinson

More on the ongoing, endless saga of the United States stupidest and most horrible president ever. How about a word from one of our Canadian friends, Arlene Dickinson? Who's that, you say? Yeah, so did I.

by Arlene Dickinson

I’m no military strategist but even from the outside, some things just seem like basic common sense. Like knowing who your friends are before you start a fight, and having a plan for the morning after.

That’s apparently not how this war with Iran was handled. And honestly? It’s mind-blowing.

I did some homework for this article because it really matters on things so serious and that seem so out of proportion from one story to the next. It’s too hard to tell what’s true anymore unless you dig and are prepared to ask questions and not just accept what you’re reading. And for you, my subscribers, that includes this article. I have an opinion and it’s mine based on what I understand but I’m not a journalist and this is complex. I don’t pretend to know the depth of all of it. If you read it, please also do your own homework. If I’m wrong please comment and help us all learn together.

Here’s a quick primer on the Strait of Hormuz, for any who wonder exactly what it represents. Picture a narrow stretch of water, barely 39 kilometres wide at its tightest point, sitting between Iran and Oman. It’s the only sea exit from the Persian Gulf. Through that single bottleneck flows roughly one-fifth of all the oil traded in the entire world, every single day. About 3,000 ships pass through every month. Close it, and you don’t just inconvenience a few countries. You bring the global economy to its knees. Oil prices spike. And, guess what? Food prices follow because the gas that flows through that strait is used to make the fertilizers that grow over 40% of the world’s food. India has already declared an emergency to protect hundreds of millions of homes dependent on cooking gas. The world’s busiest airport, Dubai, was hit by a drone and temporarily shut down. About 1,000 oil tankers are currently sitting stranded, going nowhere.

That Strait is Iran’s trump card. And they’re playing it well.

Where things got genuinely head-scratching for me is on the seeming lack of a plan. The US and Israel launched coordinated strikes on Iran on February 28th. Trump declared Iran’s military “totally decapitated.” He claimed to have “destroyed 100% of Iran’s military capability.” Victory, essentially, was announced. He said Iran had no military left and no hope. He bragged about the US dominance and its ability to precision strike and destroy Iranian forces. But Iran was apparently more ready than Trump. And so, Trump needs help even as he says he doesn’t.

We’re just over two weeks into this war and things aren’t going great. Not one country has committed warships to help US keep that strait open. Not one. And here’s a detail that speaks volumes. The US Navy itself has been refusing near daily requests from the shipping industry to escort vessels through the strait. So, in other words, Trump is demanding allies do something that his own navy isn’t doing.

Trump is now on social media demanding that Britain, France, China, Japan, South Korea, Norway and others step up. His message to anyone who hesitates? “We will remember.” That’s certainly not coalition building. That’s threatening your own allies into helping clean up a mess they had no part in making and never agreed to in the first place. And it isn’t working.

France said its aircraft carrier is staying in the Eastern Mediterranean. Norway’s Ministry of Defence announced it has no plans to send ships. Japan says the bar for sending ships is “extremely high.” Britain and South Korea are hedging. Germany said flatly it will not become “an active part of this conflict.”

And then there’s us in Canada. Trump has spent months threatening to absorb us as the “51st state,” slapping us with tariffs and publicly mocking our leaders. I personally am grateful that our PM didn’t hedge. He made a statement that may be one of the most pointed rebukes of American foreign policy made by Canada in recent memory, telling Parliament directly that “Canada is not participating in the United States and Israeli offensive and will never participate in it.” He went further, noting that “the United States and Israel acted without engaging the United Nations or consulting with allies, including Canada.”

We have historically been one of the US’s most reliable friends and largest trading partner and we just publicly declared our independence from US foreign policy. That doesn’t happen by accident. That’s the accumulated consequence of years of disrespect finally being spoken out loud. It’s principled, it’s disciplined, and it’s the right thing for us to do.

The real irony in all of this is that for years, Trump’s entire brand has been built on “America First.” He brags all the time about not needing anyone. NATO is a rip-off. Allies are freeloaders. He has publicly humiliated world leaders, slapped allies with ridiculous tariffs, and made it clear the US goes it alone and that everyone else’s job is to just do what he says.

And yet here we are. He desperately needs those exact same countries. And they’re saying no loudly, and on the record.

A senior Middle East security expert at King’s College London described Trump’s coalition push as “a desperate move” to calm markets, with no actual plan behind it. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said it even more bluntly: “On the Strait of Hormuz, they had NO PLAN.”

Iran’s military commander is saying “Americans falsely claimed the destruction of Iran’s navy. Then they falsely claimed the escorting of oil tankers. Now they’re even asking others for backup forces.”

But here’s the twist that makes this whole situation even more extraordinary. Iran isn’t just blocking the strait militarily. They seem to be playing a smart long game. Iran is reportedly offering to let certain tankers through but only if the oil is paid for in Chinese yuan, not US dollars. What does that mean? It means Iran is offering China, Japan and South Korea (some of the very countries Trump is demanding help from), a private side deal. Skip the coalition. Bypass Washington. Pay in yuan and your ships get through.

BTW China doesn’t even need to help reopen the strait, because Iranian oil is already flowing to China just fine. Iran is only blocking countries affiliated with the US and Israel. So why would China risk its ships and its credibility to bail out the country that started the war?

That one move on the yuan potentially drives a wedge between the US and its most critical partners, while simultaneously chipping away at the dollar’s long-standing dominance in global oil trade. It’s not a military masterstroke. It’s an economic one. And apparently nobody in the USA saw it coming.

So what’s the real lesson here?

It goes without saying that the Iranian regime is beyond horrific. The people of Iran are caught in an untenable situation, victims first of their own intensely cruel and terrorist government, and now of a war launched without a plan, without allies, and without an exit strategy.

Wars are easy to start. The chaos that follows is where wars are actually won or lost and that’s precisely where allies, planning and diplomacy matter most. You can’t spend years burning those bridges and then demand people sprint across them for you when things go sideways.

The human cost is already devastating with over 1,300 reported dead in Iran, civilians killed across the Gulf, hundreds of thousands displaced in Lebanon, American military personnel lost. Oil is over $100 a barrel. Global food security is being flagged as a serious risk.

And the President of the USA is now demanding help from partners he spent years telling he didn’t need and in fact harming their economies, while his enemy quietly offers many of those same partners a better deal.

We used to be one of America’s closest friends and now we have publicly declared we will no longer be an echo of Washington’s decisions. Trump is not the leader of the free world. The free world is rejecting him.

Like I said, I’m not a journalist or a military strategist. But even I know this is not how allies work. And it’s definitely not how wars are won.

Found on Facebook. No link.

NATO

Lord, Trump is an idiot. We will long rue the day we "allowed" Trump to avoid charges and become the president again. He was so unpopular, I have little doubt that Trump stole the 2024 election with the help of Elon Musk. Can I prove it? No. But others are "strongly" looking into it. 

Trump repeatedly trashes our European allies and then is "shocked" when NATO doesn't want to help us in Iran. How emotionally stunted is this putz?

by Steven Tilotta

This bloated tangerine threat in a necktie really thinks the entire goddamn world is supposed to jump because he stomped his foot and barked into a microphone. “Very bad future”? Bitch, the very bad future is letting a loud, ignorant bully with the emotional range of a clogged toilet keep treating global crisis like it’s a fucking episode of reality TV.

The Strait of Hormuz is not one of your bankrupt casinos, you orange gasbag. NATO is not your personal cleanup crew, and the world is not your daddy’s wallet. Every time this man opens his mouth, it’s the same tired formula: fear, threats, bullshit, and enough arrogance to choke a whale.

He doesn’t lead, he postures. He doesn’t strategize, he tantrums. He struts around like a dollar store Caesar covered in bronzer and grievance, acting like everyone else should risk lives, money, and global stability because his ego needs another handjob.

And let’s be real, the most dangerous thing about him is not that he’s strong. It’s that he’s stupid, loud, and surrounded by spineless ass-kissers who keep mistaking recklessness for strength. That’s how you end up with international policy sounding like a drunk uncle at last call threatening to fight the jukebox.

So no, Cheeto Christ, the world does not owe you obedience just because you know how to growl for a camera. Sit your saggy ass down, shut the fuck up, and let grown people handle geopolitics before your mouth writes another check humanity has to cash.

Girl bye.

Found on Facebook. No link.

the price of gas

Damn Aussies. If they could just figure out how to pronounce the long "O" without throwing an "R" in there, they'd be pretty awesome. 

I Fucking Love Australia

It wasn't the 34 felony convictions. It wasn't being found liable for sexual assault. It wasn't six bankruptcies. It wasn't raw dogging a porn star while his wife was home with a newborn. It wasn't the classified documents in the shitter at Mar-a-Lago. It wasn't January 6th. It wasn't the Epstein files cover-up. It wasn't gutting healthcare for millions. It wasn't getting the tariffs struck down by his own Supreme Court.

No. None of that did it.

You know what finally got through to these thick skulled, flag waving, truck driving, freedom loving patriots?

The fucking petrol price.

Four dollar gas. That's the line. That's where the moral compass finally kicked in. Not democracy. Not decency. Not dead soldiers. The price on the sign at the servo.

Nick Fuentes, actual white nationalist, is now telling his followers to vote Democrat. Let that sink through your skull for a second. The bloke who had dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago is now saying vote blue because the GOP, and I quote, broke every single promise. Epstein cover-up. No mass deportations. And now a regime change war in the Middle East that was supposedly never going to happen.

Alex Jones nearly cried on air. "I needed Trump as my lifeboat," he said. "And I'm watching it sink." The bloke who told parents of murdered six year olds that their dead children were crisis actors is now having an emotional fucking crisis because his favourite strongman turned out to be full of shit. My heart bleeds, Alex. It truly fucking does.

Joe Rogan, the man who single handedly delivered the bro vote in 2024, just told his eleven million listeners that the Iran war is "insane" and that people feel "betrayed." Betrayed! The bloke had Trump on his podcast, endorsed him the night before the election, went to the inauguration like a kid at Disneyland, and now he's sitting there going "this doesn't make any sense." No shit, Joe. Millions of us have been screaming that into the void for a fucking decade.

Tucker Carlson called the strikes "disgusting and evil." Megyn Kelly said she has "serious doubts." Matt Walsh called out every single conservative influencer for being anti-war until five minutes ago. Andrew Tate, the self-help guru for incels, questioned why anyone in America benefits from bombing Iran.

And here's the thing that should make every single person who warned about this want to put their fist through a wall. Every single one of these people was told. They were told about the grift. They were told about the lies. They were told about the incompetence. 

They were told that a man who bankrupted casinos couldn't run an economy. They were told that "America First" was a bumper sticker, not a policy. They were told the tariffs would backfire. They were told the grocery prices would go up. They were told.

And they called us hysterical. They called us snowflakes. They called us Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferers. They said we just couldn't handle winning.

Well congratulations, champions. Gas is up 60 cents in a month. Oil hit 120 dollars a barrel. The Strait of Hormuz is shut. Seven American soldiers are dead in a war that 80 year old Donald Trump started because Benjamin Netanyahu asked nicely. The Supreme Court ruled his tariffs unconstitutional. He's lost 75,000 manufacturing jobs. Grocery prices are rising at their fastest rate in three years. His approval rating is 37 percent.

This is what winning looks like, apparently.

The fuck around stage lasted about eight years. The find out stage just landed like a fucking extinction level asteroid. And the saddest part isn't that they're finally seeing it. The saddest part is that it took their hip pocket to get there. Not morality. Not empathy. Not the rule of law. Not dead kids in Iran. Not their own constitution.

A number on a sign at a petrol station.

That's MAGA in a nutshell. The entire movement just got distilled down to its purest essence. They didn't give a fuck about democracy. They didn't give a fuck about norms. They didn't give a fuck about anyone who wasn't them. But the second it cost them an extra twenty bucks to fill up the F-150, suddenly they're political philosophers.

Welcome to the find out, legends. Some of us have been waiting for you.

Save America Act

The typically ironically named "Save America Act" is a bad, bad bill. Everyone should read the thing. Even John Fetterman decided to oppose it after reading the whole thing. This is one way Trump is trying to rig the 2026 midterms.

by Bishop Talbert Swan

The SAVE America Act is being presented as a simple “show your ID to vote” requirement, but that is misleading. The bill goes far beyond basic identification. It would require specific proof of citizenship documents that millions of eligible voters do not have readily available, eliminate common registration methods like mail and online registration, and force people to appear in person with paperwork many would have to pay to obtain.

History shows that voter suppression often hides behind the language of “election integrity.” During the Jim Crow era, poll taxes, literacy tests, and complicated paperwork requirements were used to make voting harder for certain groups of people. The SAVE America Act follows a similar pattern by creating costly, bureaucratic hurdles that could prevent millions of eligible Americans from registering or voting.

Voting should be secure, but it should also be accessible. When the process becomes unnecessarily burdensome, it begins to resemble the same kinds of barriers used during the Jim Crow era to suppress the vote.

Here are the FACTS regarding the SAVE America Act…

Requires proof of citizenship papers to vote

Driver’s licenses alone would no longer be enough to register

Most REAL IDs would not qualify as proof of citizenship

Military IDs and Tribal IDs alone would not be accepted

Married women and others who changed names face extra documentation hurdles

Forces voters to present citizenship documents in person

Effectively eliminates mail and online voter registration

Allows federal agencies to access state voter rolls

Could lead to purges of eligible voters based on faulty citizenship data

Makes registering to vote more expensive (many would need passports)

Threatens election officials with criminal penalties for paperwork mistakes

Creates bureaucratic barriers that make voting harder for millions

Educate yourself and call your reps before it's too late.

Tim Kreider

Tim Kreider

 (born February 25, 1967) is an American author, essayist, and cartoonist known for his darkly humorous and deeply personal explorations of the human condition. Look him up. I highly recommend his book "I Wrote This Book Because I Love You" (2018). He currently is on Substack with his column called, "The Loaf." He has an engaging way of writing, and I'm glad he's on "our side."

Jesus Christ It's This Shit Again

I Mean, Seriously? Like What the Fuck, People

TIM KREIDER

MAR 08, 2026

Back when I lived with my friend Kevin in Baltimore, we heard a crash out in front of our house, and Kevin walked down to the nearest intersection to see what had happened. It was a bad accident: a car had collided with a motorcycle. The biker was seriously injured; as Kevin described it, his leg was still attached, but just barely. By chance a doctor was on the scene, who was trying to keep the wounded man still so he could control the bleeding until EMTs arrived. But the guy was clearly in shock, kept insisting he was fine and struggling with the doctor, trying to get up. Finally he punched the doctor in the jaw, at which point the doctor gave up arguing. “Okay,” he said, stepping back. “Go ahead—get up.” 

That’s how I feel this time around, watching another bunch of arrogant incompetents commence yet another bloody clusterfuck that might grind on ‘til I’m in my seventies. You want to start a war in the Middle East? Okay. Go ahead. Glory awaits. It’s hard enough to turn on the news without flinching anymore, but this last weekend was the first time I couldn’t even bear to read or listen to it. I don’t need to hear it; I’ve seen this one before. Every Republican President in my adult lifetime has 1.) crashed the economy and 2.) started a war in the Middle East. It’s as certain as death and tax cuts for the rich. By now it might as well be their official campaign platform, yet somehow the adorably slow learners of the American electorate are still surprised by it, every time.

Almost a quarter century ago, about a year after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the Bush administration started making noises about invading Iraq. By the first time they floated the idea in public it was already a fait accompli; it was, by some accounts, decided on the afternoon of 9/11. Even back then, congress had already abdicated its responsibility to authorize wars, but the executive branch was still expected to come up with some halfway-plausible casus belli to persuade the public to support a war. (It seems like a quaint courtesy now—a gesture to make us feel included.) Because they needed a year’s lead time to build a false case for invasion based on fabricated evidence, we had plenty of time to organize mass protests against it, to write impassioned letters-to-the-editor and to our representatives, and draw devastating editorial cartoons. We pointed out that it didn’t make any sense to invade Iraq; we’d been attacked by a decentralized terrorist network, not a nation-state, and anyway almost all the terrorists of 9/11 were Saudi, not Iraqi. But the Bushes were in business with the Saud gangster family, just as the Trumps are, so we weren’t about to attack them. The administration insisted that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction, so attacking them would only be self-defense. We tried to warn them that it would be a disaster, turn into a quagmire like Vietnam that could drag on for years. The government assured us, Shut up. Gullible gung-ho dumbfucks chanted “U!S!A!” and called us treasonous liberal sissies. Anyway not to belabor this but it turns out we were right about everything, the government was lying and had no idea what they were doing, and the gullible dumbfucks were wrong, like they always are, every time, the dumbfucks.

The gullible dumbfucks will grudgingly concede that the war they supported was a tragic “mistake” (no one ever calls it a premeditated crime or atrocity, for which someone might be held accountable) ten or twenty years after it was obvious to the smart kids, but by that time there’s a new generation of dumbfucks who don’t know it’s a tragic mistake yet and are happy for their chance to chant “U!S!A!”. It only took seven years after we’d finally extricated ourselves from the atrocity of Vietnam before Ronald Reagan (R), tried out a couple of little wars, starter wars to help us all get over the bummer of having massacred a million people for nothing, bolster our confidence and help us get back out there and start mixing it up again. Seven years after that, George Bush Senior (R) held a bigger war, a real war this time, In Iraq. Then, twelve years later, his feckless son (R) launched the even bigger one mentioned above, which turned out, to everyone’s solemn surprise, to be a tragic mistake.

On the eve of that second Bush war, I wrote the following:

“What I still can’t believe, in spite of my thirty-five years of consistently disappointing experience with my fellow human beings, it that it’s working. It amazes me that anyone is taking the administration’s claims at face value, pays attention to the President’s speeches, considers and debates them as though they contained information or were intended to communicate. Have these people never heard of being lied to? Have they never seen an advertisement, or bought a used car, or been to a singles’ bar?”

You can almost hear me sputtering in incredulous disgust. I was thirty-five. I’m older now, and less incredulous; now I’m just disgusted. And here we are again already, starting another war in the Middle East, this time without any rationale at all, not even a polite nod to the pretext of democracy. The illusion of consent is yet another democratic “norm” that Donald Trump’s dispensed with. They’re no longer bothering to hide their contempt for the electorate—not even for their own base, whom they warned, during the election campaign, that the warmongering Kamala Harris would sacrifice their children to some pointless war in Iran. Trump and his various spokesmodels can’t even agree on a consistent explanation among themselves: Iran was an imminent threat; it’s been an imminent threat for 47 years; Iran would soon have had a nuclear weapon, even though we’d already “obliterated” their ability to make nuclear weapons; Iran was about to attack us; Israel was about to attack Iran, which would’ve caused them to attack us. Our attack is laser-focused; our attack would overturn the regime and require unconditional surrender; it would all be over in a few days; it could go on for weeks; it’ll go on as long as it has to. The troops have been told it’s to jump-start Armageddon, forcing God’s hand a bit to expedite the Rapture/ Millennium/ Second Coming. The obvious truth is, the government doesn’t give a shit whether the American people support it or not, because they’re Fascists. The war certainly isn’t in reprisal for the Iranian theocracy’s massacre of its citizens, since Donald Trump admires tyrants and zealots and would love to machine-gun his own protesters. It seems to be to no one’s benefit but Israel’s, which more and more Americans think of less as a friend than like your asshole cousin who swears he didn’t kill anyone but wants you to come bail him out.

There’s really no credible explanation for this war that doesn’t require what I used to think of as conspiratorial thinking: it’s one more frantic attempt to distract us from the Epstein files (whose contents must be even more monstrous than we imagine), or blackmail by Israeli intelligence over something in the Epstein files, or provocation for a terrorist attack they can use as an excuse to suspend elections—at this point, I’d believe anything. All these speculations suffer from the same fallacy that afflicts so much eggheaded analysis of Trump’s decisions: imputing Machiavellian motives and long-term stratagems to a man who is much stupider than anyone you know and has never been able to think about anything other than his own promotion for more than thirty consecutive seconds.

Trump allows as how this war might take a few weeks, possibly longer—a calculation whose reliability is compromised by the fact that Trump says whatever seems convenient at any given moment and then forgets all about it and expects you will, too. It gives me occasion to recall George W. Bush, in his badass Army Man costume, declaring victory in Iraq from the impressive set of an aircraft carrier under a big banner saying “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED,” eight years prematurely. Though some might dispute that the MISSION was truly ACCOMPLISHED even then, since we only managed to replace a dictatorship with an American-backed system of total chaos, and come to think of it we do still have some troops over there. It would take us a bit longer to tie up loose ends in Afghanistan, a war that formally ended in 2021—long enough that someone born after it began could enlist to fight in it—and whose outcome was the victory of the same pious sex-slavers who were in charge before we invaded.

I don’t find a lot of cause for optimism these days, but it does seem as if the percentage of the public that supports whatever war the government wants to start is a little lower each time around. It took a few years and hundreds of casualties before people protested Vietnam in large numbers, but they started marching against the war in Iraq by the thousands before it even started. Public support for the attack on Iran is at a record low, down in the twenties (except among Republicans, who largely comprise the gullible dumbfuck demographic), perhaps because the administration forgot to mention to anyone in advance that they were going to start a war or say what it was for. Not that it makes much difference what the public thinks now: the government knows that once you start a war, it’s too late, you’re committed, and anyone who questions it or refuses to Support Our Troops is a treasonous liberal sissy. It’s possible that this apocalyptically dumb decision will eventually cost the Fascist party the election, though that assumes they’ll allow elections to take place, and that it won’t have been eclipsed by even greater crises generated by this same administration.

The worst part of it, for me, is that we’re all dragged into complicity; because this is still, in name at least, a democracy, we can’t help but hold ourselves responsible for the war crimes committed by these cruel, depraved people our idiot countrymen elected— the flouting of international law, the bombing of civilians, the massacre of schoolgirls, torpedoing musicians and letting them drown. Certainly the rest of the world will. I want to disown this war, wash my hands of the Jesus Nazis who’ve seized control of my country, step back and watch them try to walk on one mangled leg. 

But, even though I’m not a gung-ho dumbfuck, it doesn’t feel good to take sides against my own country, to root for anyone who opposes us. Trump wants America to be a predator state, like Putin’s Russia—knocking off any world leaders we don’t like, taking other countries’ territories just ‘cause we want them. I just want not to have to be ashamed of my flag or my accent if I travel abroad. I still hope to see our beloved old corrupt dysfunctional democracy restored. I’d love to see Trump and Hesgeth in cages at The Hague. At this point I’d be content to call it a win all around if we killed Iran’s totalitarian theocratic leader and they killed ours, and set both our people free.

Original.