by Travis Mateer

The other day I was traveling in a multi-modal manner, using my feet to propel the rest of my body across the ground. The fuel I used was yogurt and granola, and the emissions coming from my tailpipe were minimal. But there was a problem, and that problem was something that happens in Montana every winter: snow.

To show you what I’m talking about, I paused my multi-modal, foot-driven trip across the tundra to record this brief video clip:

If you’re having a bit of a chuckle, good. That will help with what comes next, which is the part of the post where I discuss the slow motion collapse of society. Or maybe NOT so slow anymore. Since I haven’t experienced a collapsing society before, I don’t really have anything to compare it to.

The reason I included our society in slow motion collapse in the title is because my morning scroll on Twitter keeps fucking me up, like the horror I was shown before I started writing this post. The video clip I’ll show a screen-shot of (against my better judgement) comes from St. Louis, and it’s one of the most awful things I’ve ever seen.

This casual execution of a homeless man does have some context, which I sought out to ensure this isn’t some fake to fuck with us. Because it could be. From the link:

A preliminary investigation found that the man was involved in a fight with another man at a nearby Shell gas station shortly before the shooting. According to charging documents, police said Thomas shot the victim in the back. They said the victim then begged for his life, but Thomas loaded his gun and shot Saldana in the head.

Am I excited about living through a collapsing society? Hell no. I would LOVE for the dreams of the MMZs to actually be realized one day–a day when happy bicyclists move through the world all joyous and unmolested by rage and violence. It’s not an unappealing thing to think about.

The world the MMZs envision is not a terrible world, it’s just not a real one. The real world is currently in a global state of 5GW, which is short for Fifth-Generation Warfare. From the link:

Fifth-generation warfare (5GW) is warfare that is conducted primarily through non-kinetic military action, such as social engineering, misinformation, cyberattacks, along with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and fully autonomous systems. Fifth generation warfare has been described by Daniel Abbot as a war of “information and perception”.[1] There is no widely agreed upon definition of fifth-generation warfare,[2] and it has been rejected by some scholars, including William S. Lind, who was one of the original theorists of fourth-generation warfare.[3]

How did we get from snow to 5GW? I move fast, and just hours after this post posts, I’ll be interviewing Elisa E about their book, Our Life Beyond MKUltra.

Is the contention Elisa E makes true about our current predicament? Are we ALL MKUltra now? I’ll ask, and a conversation will happen, and we shall see what we shall see.

One thing I do know is that we don’t become happy bicyclists without the ability to integrate past traumas, and NO ONE gets through the early stages of life without some degree of that.

After getting this post started I left the safety of my studio to inform the Parks Committee about my investigation into the opening and closing of the gate on the bridge that gives meth dealers access to the West Broadway Island. Then I went about my day, which entailed the use of a motorized vehicle. It was from inside this vehicle that I felt safe enough to record this brief clip of someone yelling in a very unhinged manner. Drugs? Mental illness? Both? You decide:

I can’t say how this man’s multi-modal trip concluded, or how many “emergency” services it will take to keep him alive and kicking for the next bender, but I’m sure the smart planners will figure out how to at least keep him safe from dangerous cars, and that’s to reduce the number of them!

If you would like to INCREASE the numbers I see disappearing in my bank account, you can make a donation at my about page.

Thanks for reading!