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Futility
NRO ^ | 3 Sep 2026 | David Mamet

Posted on 09/05/2026 8:04:22 AM PDT by Rummyfan

I don’t know if the United States will survive in a form recognizable to my generation.

Age may, and often does, weaken obstinacy, by the revelation, at seventy-odd years, that most human things do not matter.
— Bolitho

In Nevil Shute’s 1948 novel, No Highway, flights of the transformational Reindeer airliner keep crashing. No one can determine the cause. Then an eccentric boffin, Dr. Scott, suggests a brand-new theory: Metal fatigue at the subatomic level causes the tailplane to separate. Everyone thinks he’s nuts, until his theory is proved and he is exonerated. In ’48, metal fatigue was a novelistic device invented by Shute. Three years after the book’s publication, de Havilland started flying the world’s first commercial jetliner, the Comet. And they began falling out of the sky. Three went down for no apparent reason. Pilot error, sabotage, bad fuel, and so on were all suggested and disproved. All Comets were grounded and tested until a major design flaw was discovered. There were cracks in the fuselage brought on by a previously unsuspected phenomenon: metal fatigue.

in Morgan Robertson’s 1898 novel, Futility, a superliner on her maiden transatlantic voyage strikes an iceberg and sinks, with all but 13 on board drowned. His fictional ship is named the Titan. Pulling out of the harbor, she strikes and sinks a smaller ship — just as the Titanic did 14 years later.

...

I don’t know if the United States will survive in a form recognizable to my generation. I can’t even describe the current form other than as a civilization split into two factions, one decrying and the other exploiting chaos.... I don’t know if the sun can actually supply enough power to run our cities, but I know there is nothing new beneath it.

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
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Protesters chant and walk towards law enforcement in Minneapolis, Minn., January 24, 2026.(Tim Evans/Reuters)
1 posted on 09/05/2026 8:04:22 AM PDT by Rummyfan
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To: Rummyfan

I highly recommend Mamet’s recent book “The Disenlightenment: Politics, Horror, and Entertainment”. He understands things.


2 posted on 09/05/2026 8:24:35 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Enoch Powell warned us about Rivers of Blood. Well, I sure hope they're coming. It's the only fix.)
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To: Rummyfan

No. The USA as founded and structured from reconstruction to the early 90s is done. It is just a muddy mix of enclaves. Assorted I ported trash will drain any and all productivity from white Americans. ‘Latinos’ Will live like they did back south of the border with walled houses. Islam is being I ported by both parties. Poor low IQ muslim Africans are being dumped all over and they breed like rabbits. The western world is aborting their offspring. There is no stopping the demographics. And when democrats win again, the fate of this country is sealed. And it is unlikely anyone in the Christian world has the fortitude for what will be necessary. The next big war..... China and India vs the Islamic world. Billions will perish as both sides will control nuclear arsenals.


3 posted on 09/05/2026 9:16:49 AM PDT by Organic Panic ( )
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To: Rummyfan

Regards,

4 posted on 09/05/2026 9:37:45 AM PDT by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: Organic Panic

I’ve come to the same conclusion after giving serious consideration to whether or not I’m prejudiced by age. Even our current Trumpian interregnum is a faint echo of pre-21st century America and in 2 years it will be over.


5 posted on 09/05/2026 9:43:10 AM PDT by TexasKamaAina
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To: alexander_busek

An AI called Landru might be interesting. :)


6 posted on 09/05/2026 10:02:07 AM PDT by xp38
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To: alexander_busek

Star Trek: The Original Series episode “The Return of the Archons” (Season 1, Episode 21), airing in 1967.


7 posted on 09/05/2026 10:07:14 AM PDT by higgmeister (In the Shadow of The Big Chicken! )
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To: Organic Panic; dfwgator; null and void; Nervous Tick; Jane Long; Red Badger; ...

(No. The USA as founded and structured
from reconstruction to the early 90s is done.)

Certainly seems to be Twilight’s Last Gleaming

sigh 😞

And the Democrats are Lunatic Fringe

REPEATEDLY and Without Halt - 🤦


Lunatic Fringe,
in the Twilight’s Last Gleaming


8 posted on 09/05/2026 10:28:42 AM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Days of Lot; They Did Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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To: xp38

(AI called Landru)

I think we’ve arrived


9 posted on 09/05/2026 10:29:31 AM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Days of Lot; They Did Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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To: SaveFerris

I sense you are not of the body! :)


10 posted on 09/05/2026 10:32:14 AM PDT by xp38
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To: xp38

😄😂🤣


11 posted on 09/05/2026 10:39:28 AM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Days of Lot; They Did Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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To: xp38

That was an anti- Marxist episode.


12 posted on 09/05/2026 11:27:33 AM PDT by cowboyusa (YESHUA IS KING OF AMERICA!)
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To: Rummyfan
After the Greek victory over the Persians at Plataea in 479 B.C., they set up the Serpent Column with three snakes, with a simple inscription reading: "These fought the war" followed by the names of 31 Greek city-states on the coils of the snakes. It was at Delphi until Constantine took it to Constantinople, where it remains. The three snake heads fell off in the year 1700 because of metal fatigue. There are illustrations of the Serpent Column when the heads were still there.

I don't know if the Turks realized that metal fatigue was the cause.

13 posted on 09/05/2026 2:51:04 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Rummyfan

Until the ridiculous invention of a right to “protest” is done away with, we are screwed.


14 posted on 09/05/2026 2:53:11 PM PDT by Jim Noble (Assez de mensonges et des phrases)
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To: Jim Noble

American independence grew out of protests against the Stamp Act, the Tea Act and other misconceived or unjust British laws.


15 posted on 09/05/2026 5:05:53 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Verginius Rufus

“American independence grew out of protests”

Which led to war.

The men who fought that war enshrined speech, petition for redress, and peaceable assembly in the Constitution.

Most “protests” are not covered by any of those.


16 posted on 09/05/2026 6:00:56 PM PDT by Jim Noble (Assez de mensonges et des phrases)
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To: Rummyfan

Its going toturn into Idiocracy. It actually already is. The kids coming out of government “schools” today are so damn dumb, know absolutely nothing, but are tremedously proud of it.


17 posted on 09/05/2026 8:48:00 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Jim Noble

Not merely protests. Decades of petitions and trying to work within the colonial systems to the monarchy. 40-50 years of peaceful trying.


18 posted on 09/05/2026 8:50:33 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Secret Agent Man

My comment was about the lack of an undifferentiated “right to protest” in the US Constitution, not about the revolution.

I say there is no such right.


19 posted on 09/05/2026 8:59:47 PM PDT by Jim Noble (Assez de mensonges et des phrases)
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To: Jim Noble
"The men who fought that war enshrined speech, petition for redress, and peaceable assembly in the Constitution."

******************************************************

Don't forget Freedom of Association.

20 posted on 09/06/2026 12:13:14 AM PDT by Neanderthal (Fix America First. Stop wasting money overseas.)
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