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Timothy Williams's avatar

2020 was the year the tyrants first overreached!

In Venice, California, the demons had the nerve to “close” the beach. They even filled the local skatepark with sand.

It wasn’t too long before surfers liberated the beach en masse, and a spontaneous gathering of citizens (I was one!) shoveled out the skatepark by hand. The tyrants lost decisively and they never attempted anything like that kind of local oppression again.

If closing the beach was overreach -- how much more overreach is it to try to murder the world?

As Patton said at the opening of the Battle of the Bulge: they’ve really stuck their hand in the meat grinder this time.

Turn the crank. Happy new year!

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Malignant's avatar

Pinned. This is the way forward.

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SimulationCommander's avatar

LOL how funny that you bring up the firework bans of the covid years - you'll see why tomorrow!

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Malignant's avatar

Can’t wait!

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Singing in the Dark's avatar

My father is a Vietnam vet (served 2 tours as river rat, and those economical little fiberglass boats were death traps that took a lot of his friends. He still sees their faces, and sees and smells their intestines, and their severed limbs.) He lives with 100% disability from PTSI; in my adolescence he aimed his weapon and/or he actually shot at me enough (it only takes a couple times in your life) in the middle of a flashback and thinking I was Viet Cong, that I learned to “hold it” until morning. Yet as grateful as I am for that useful life skill, I am a markedly messed up individual now, for that and for a fantastic variety --a pleasant buffet, really--of other reasons.

His take on fireworks: they torment him, and yet he would have it no other way. He says he has flashbacks anyway, with or without them, but he wants Americans to stay gritty, salty and defiant, else he fought for nothing. He knows he fought for nothing anyway. But he loves a defiant spirit wherever he sees one. That’s one thing he believes is worth fighting to keep--once you lose that, everything else is essentially lost because it’s now all so easy to take from you. He remembers he loved fireworks before the war, and he blames the communists who used women and children as human shields for his troubles; not the fireworks.

Doubtlessly all vets don’t share my father’s sentiment (e.g. my guitar instructor, a marine who served in ‘Nam about the same time, loves the concept of fireworks but hates the sound and the resultant memories). But they all deserve to have their voices heard. They earned it.

I personally hate the sound of fireworks--I think I “channel”, for lack of a better term, someone else’s reaction to the sound (maybe my dad’s--I was born after his wartime experience, so his memory-chemicals are a part of my own genetic material). But the colors and lights bring my spirit to life; it moves something deep in my being, something nebulous yet more real than my physical body is--something from the past and *from the future (not “in” the future; “from” it, strangely). It’s like a vitamin-B shot of hope, in the arm for a lot of us, somehow: For some of us, when we see the fireworks, it’s like a momentary portal opening up, with a very brief opportunity: Your spirit speaks softly to you--just loud enough you can hear it if you want to, and just softly enough you can ignore it if you don’t: “There’s more to you than just this life...you’re made of so much more.” An impartation of *defiant hope that is the ultimate antidote against the poison against the masses of this weaponized zeitgeist of futility.

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Nurse Lara's Newsletter's avatar

Singing, you brought tears to my eyes. From the daughter of one PTSDF'd up Vietnam Vet to another, I salute you. You went right to the heart of the matter - a gritty, salty, defiant human spirit is essential. It is the essence of America, and the essence of human triumph over anti-humanism. Stay defiant and lit up, ya'll.

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Nurse Lara's Newsletter's avatar

Happy New Year to you all! Malignant and Company, you have all brightened up my year with laughter, camaraderie and hope for resisting tyranny. Cheers to more of that in 2023.

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Yuma's Freezing's avatar

Never give up, Never surrender!

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TRM's avatar

We humans need outlets for our tribal instincts which sports covers very well. The urge to blow things up also appears strong LOL. I think fireworks are a great vent for that urge as they are colorful and mostly harmless.

Rather than ban it, embrace it. Pick a nice long stretch of shoreline where nothing will catch fire and tell everyone "bring it". Safety first and enjoy the "kaboom". As you can tell by my avatar I'm a big fan of "kabooms".

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Integrity and Karma's avatar

I may be headed with scorn:

Although I wouldn't pass a law saying you shouldn't...I really, really hate yall that pop off fireworks and various explosions.

For the need to hear loud Booms!!! Countless animals are lost in terror and sensitive veterans endure flash backs.

Can't yll settle on pyrotechnics that are beautiful, but don't torture others?

There. I said it.

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Malignant's avatar

If you guys want to have the firework debate, that’s cool. There’s definitely merit to both sides of the issue, and I would never discourage discussion. I just want to make clear the point of the article in case it’s missed.

Hawaii is an island, one of the most remote. There are numerous federal agencies, too many to list, along with state agencies, who exist merely to keep certain things out of the islands.

They decided one day that fireworks would make that list.

And through simple human defiance, tons of fireworks were smuggled in, through ships in the ocean, under the cover of darkness, and distributed throughout all inhabited islands, to the point that the year the state declared “no fireworks”, they had the most spectacular firework event I’d ever seen.

It was the 2020 underground firework railroad.

It showed the tyrants, and the state what they thought about their “rules”.

It showed the human spirit will always ring defiant.

It showed that we are unstoppable.

It’s one thing to deal with a few hundred protestors.

Hawaii as a state, straight up said, “Nope”.

That’s the point of this.

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Integrity and Karma's avatar

I'm not debating... I'm just venting about what I think of the thoughtlessness of fireworks.

I understood ,and that's why I declared in my second sentence as I did.

Sorry if it diluted your original message.

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Malignant's avatar

Not at all sister! You’re good!

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Integrity and Karma's avatar

Thankee. Happy Gnu Year!

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Malignant's avatar

Yes! Happy new year!

I look forward to what us merry band of misfits will accomplish this year!

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Integrity and Karma's avatar

You're doing great work...may your Malignancy and it's metastasis become ascendant!

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Moonspinner's avatar

And I was simply acknowledging I&K's lament, as yes, one of the side effects of fireworks is terrified animals. But the fact that the Hawaiian fireworks underground pulled off this feat of "fuck you very much" defiance is great. I intend to support similar feats, but hope they aren't merely fireworks.

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Malignant's avatar

You’re good. I get it. I just didn’t want people to get too side tracked off the main message, defying these bastards.

Sometimes it’s overwhelming but then you step back and laugh, like ”Oh yeah, we don’t do what they tell us anyways.”

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Malignant's avatar

Hide yo kids hide yo wife!

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Nurse Lara's Newsletter's avatar

I am cheered up by the Hawaii story of lockdown resistance! And, I agree with you, I&K. Many domestic and wild animals, plus many domesticated and wild humans, are all terrorized by the loud booms. They wreak havoc on my own nervous system and my poor animals. I respectfully disagree about laws against fireworks - we have too many top-down authoritarian regulations already. I wish that fireworks would voluntarily, kindly, happen in a shorter time frame - maybe a couple of hours on one night, a couple times a year? I could deal with that. Fireworks here go on at all hours for weeks, every July and January, before and after the holidays.

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Bandit's avatar

The city I live in has a fireworks manufacturer. The real things. Not just the "Walmart" fireworks. They put on displays nightly, for around a week for the 4th. I wish I could see them from here, not just hear them.

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Integrity and Karma's avatar

This! Yes,ma'am.

I dearly love my home of Georgia ,however I'm less than pleased with the lack of consideration. I love the pyrotechnics!! It's the reports that do the damage. As you say, one would hope some voluntary accommodation could be reached.

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Moonspinner's avatar

I hear you. My animal rescue friends have to prepare carefully for New Year's Eve (I don't live in the USA so we don't have to worry about 4th of July). They've even gone to the trouble of purchasing noise reduction fabric to cover windows, etc. So many dogs and cats get terrorized by the fireworks noise.

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Integrity and Karma's avatar

Thank you for hearing me.

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Bandit's avatar

Yes, one of our dogs is terrified of them. He hides under the bed. He was a stray at one point. I wonder what all the poor little guy went through.

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patrick.net/memes's avatar

Do not forget when they banned school bake sales:

https://patrick.net/post/1247294/2014-08-02-new-ban-hits-school-bake-sales

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Robert Curlin's avatar

Here's to doing your part to ensure it goes out with a BANG!

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Marin Grin's avatar

needed this bit of comforting smile today. thanks.

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Nurse Lara's Newsletter's avatar

The same night, one year ago, the people of Naples lit it up in the Italian flavor of that defiant spirit when the mayor cited COVID to announce a ban on fireworks for a second straight New Year’s Eve. This was the response from citizens: https://twitter.com/MichaelPSenger/status/1477349404365393920?s=20&t=UQeMtuZg49hlR6p2Q8YU2A

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Infanttyron3's avatar

For the fireworks... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_lSDQy03LY

For the vertical lifters... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GErwmiqK_I

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Nurse Lara's Newsletter's avatar

still ain't nothin' like 70s rock 'n roll to light it up.

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The Man’s Child's avatar

How very refreshing.

Will not bow.

Will not comply.

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GenEarly's avatar

Two Forces are Colliding, Tyranny & Liberty. Know Your Enemy, Comrades. FYI:

https://rumble.com/v1ybcxo-the-great-reset-the-surveillance-state-explained-including.html

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Ivo Bakota's avatar

Love those fireworks, made me smile. They banned private purchase of fireworks here a long time ago. I love the defiance. Ours petered out a long time ago and I’m not just talking about the fireworks.

Happy New Year.

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Samantha Gluck's avatar

WHAT an AWESOME memory, Malignant! Good to know there’s still some malignant defiants out there.

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