THE CONCLUSION OF LORD OF THE RINGS, THE SCOURING OF THE SHIRE, IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW Near the end of Tolkien’s masterpiece is a chapter describing how the Hobbits returned to their home country and found a disaster that in some ways mirrors today’s. The point of this post is that we are not in a unique or novel situation. Tolkien, Orwell, and many others through the ages wrote about times like ours, and our parents and grandparents lived through them. We face ancient human evils. Once we know this, we understand that we must act as our forefathers acted—with courage, sacrifice, and resolution. Back to Tolkien:The land looked rather sad and forlorn… (and there was) an unusual amount of burning going on, and smoke rose from many points round about… Through rows of new mean houses along each side of the road, they saw the new mill in all its frowning and dirty ugliness: a great brick building straddling the stream, which it fouled with a steaming and stinking overflow. All along the Bywater Road every tree had been felled.As they crossed the bridge and looked up the Hill they gasped… The Old Grange on the west side had been knocked down, and its place taken by rows of tarred sheds. All the chestnuts were gone. The banks and hedgerows were broken. Great waggons were standing in disorder in a field beaten bare of grass. Bagshot Row was a yawning sand and gravel quarry…Predators had grabbed power and were stealing from everyone:'What's the matter with the place?' said Merry. 'Has it been a bad year, or what? I thought it had been a fine summer and harvest.''Well no, the year's been good enough,' said Hob. 'We grows a lot of food, but we don't rightly know what becomes of it. It's all these "gatherers" and "sharers", I reckon, going round counting and measuring and taking off to storage. They do more gathering than sharing, and we never see most of the stuff again.'There were new laws, free speech was gone, and businesses were closed.(full article at robertyoho.substack.com)Although Tolkien denied it, his observers have always thought this chapter was metaphorical and possibly about Britain after WWII. His description of the lies, suppression of dissent, and selling totalitarianism using failed socialist ideas are close to our world today. We now have millions dead from a manufactured virus, and millions more are being murdered with a poisonous vaccine and by withholding true therapies. All this is being done to gather power and wealth into the hands of a few. What is happening is ancient, recurrent, and even Biblical. It should surprise no historian. Since our tale is still being written, we must still fight. Monstrous evil still stalks among us, and it could win. But there are many more of us than there are “ruffians,” so we will prevail if we defend ourselves. Disappointingly, many of our warriors are immigrants, for they understand America’s hope better than most of us do. I beg all of you to stand with us. It is not over. Awake! Awake! Fear, Fire, Foes.Awake! Fire, Foes! Awake!Support the show