My first entry into this journal was on January 12, 1998, 24 years ago. It was called “What I Believe,” and looking back at it, I still believe those things today. Since those days, Unknowncountry has grown both in terms of content and users, into the largest website of its kind in the world. I had just become the host of Dreamland, which was then a radio show on the Clear Channel stations. A couple of years later, Clear Channel canceled it, and it became one of the first podcasts. It is now among the most listened-to podcasts in its subject area.

For all of this, I am very grateful. What I would like to do now, is to talk in general terms about the website, the world, our country and my personal goals as they were met or were not in 2021, and what I hope for and fear for 2022.

1. Our Website, Past and Future

Unknowncountry had a good year in many ways. It continues to attract an articulate group of participants, and has successfully avoided being caught up in the swirling political madhouse that the United States and a number of other countries have become. The site is not about politics. It is about understanding mysteries and coping with the challenge of contact. The site lives by the wise words of Anne Strieber: “The human species is too young to have beliefs. What we need are good questions.” We will continue to explore questions without settling on beliefs, and try to keep politics out of the dialogue as much as possible. We are interested in exploring deeper meanings here, not transitory issues.

2. People’s Mental Health and the Internet

I think that the internet is driving us crazy. On too many social media sites, when you hit on content, they push more like it your way, and the more clicks some given content has, the more likely you are to see it. The next thing you know, you’re not seeing anything but more versions of the craziest stuff you have ever clicked on, and you are lost in a maze of insanity, much of it driven into your life by state players like Russian troll farms, whose job it is to use social media to disrupt and distort the thinking of those of us in the free world. Unfortunately, they have played expertly on our fears, our suspicions and our fundamental confusion about our world to cause millions and millions of us to basically lose touch with reality. The social media platforms don’t really care. They want as many clicks as they can get and they don’t care how they get them.

This has profoundly corrupted peoples’ thinking and driven them away from rationality. I noticed an article in the New York Times today about the founder of CrowdTangle, which was bought by FaceBook a few years back. What CrowdTangle does is reveal the way the platform drives content to users based on what they have clicked on. He has left FaceBook and is now working with Congress to force FaceBook and the others to reveal this information publicly. That’s a big step in the right direction, and I hope it happens.

Unknowncountry is extremely privacy-conscious. We don’t sell user data, nor do we utilize algorithms that drive content in any way. This means that we stay small, but also remain outside the increasing hysteria of the mainstream.

3. World Affairs

A while back, I published a journal entry in this space offering a “war warning,” and saying that Russia is likely to invade Ukraine and China to invade Taiwan. It now looks as if Russia could make its move at any time, but China is waiting until they imagine that they cannot lose. Throughout the latter half of 2021, China stockpiled foods it buys from the US, things such as soybeans, pork, corn and wheat. The Chinese know that they cannot survive long without these imports, and they will need to have a stockpile ready to take them through a period when the US might withhold food shipments.

Both Russia and China have developed weapons systems that can destroy American carrier groups. The Chinese believe that, if they do this, they will be able to overwhelm Taiwan’s defenses. But like all aggressive dictators before him, Mr. Xi, the current Chinese leader, discounts the most important of all factors in warfare, which is the law of unintended consequences. It has a definite tendency to defeat aggressors, who must necessarily be surprised by what they didn’t expect,  but works in favor of defenders, who have a chance to react to surprises. History is filled with examples, from the Romans in the Teutoberger Wald in 9 AD to  the Japanese at Pearl Harbor in 1941. It’s not always true, of course. The French defenders were the ones who were victims of it in 1940 when the Germans unexpectedly defeated them. But still, it generally favors the defender.

If Xi attacks Taiwan, he is likely to give the United States a spectacular bloody nose by destroying at least one carrier group, but then he will have to hold on to Taiwan over the long term, which will be costly and exhausting, just as holding on to France was for Germany.

Contextually, China is in a truly desperate environmental crisis and should be spending all of its energy trying to correct that situation instead of playing power politics with its neighbors. Years of abusive and indifferent water and agricultural management have left it in a really desperate situation. It is making no real effort to correct its water problems, any more than it is making a serious effort to fix the expanding desertification of its arable land. But the Chinese government does know that it faces the possibility of famine, especially if there should be bad harvests in the US and South America.

To guard against this, it is developing and deploying hypersonic missiles that can reach their targets before their victims have a chance to react. This is intended to disrupt the balance of mutually assured destruction that has kept the world in a state of nuclear stalemate since the 1960s. It plans to use these missiles something like a gun to the head of the United States, should we decide, in a period of poor harvests, to feed our own people rather than export food. It’s a foolish and dangerous plan, and could easily lead to nuclear conflict if an attempt is ever made to actually execute it.

The reason it is doing this is that it saw what happened after the absurdly named “Arab Spring” that started in 2010. Poor harvests in Southern Russia and the Ukraine drove up bread prices and caused shortages in the Middle East, which depends almost entirely on that region for its wheat. The result was that, one after another, the dictatorships collapsed. If the Chinese people find themselves going hungry, as happened in the Middle East and as has happened again and again throughout history, they will rise up against their government.

3. The United States

I think that the United States may well lose its republic over the next few years. There are simply too many people who distrust it and no longer understand it for it to survive for much longer. For a republic to succeed, there must be a basic willingness to compromise, and that has gone from our political life. Both the left and the right are responsible for this. Both are strident and fanatical. Only one party, the Democrats, still has a really viable center. Since the days of Barry Goldwater, the Republican party has steadily eroded its center, until it is entirely gone. Without a “region of compromise” that both parties can enter, this republic has little chance of long-term survival.

I am not so sure that the republic will end violently, but I do think that’s possible. The last time it was this brittle was in 1860. The old men in Washington gave up on compromise, with the result that 600,000 young men lost their lives in a civil war that need not have been fought. We can hardly imagine what sort of compromise was possible, but, had the republic survived, slavery could and would have been phased out over time.

This time, if the republic comes to a violent end, it will be because military units back an illegitimate usurper and the broader armed forces cannot be mustered to act against them. I certainly hope that this doesn’t happen. I want my children and grandchildren to enjoy the same freedom that I have enjoyed, and enjoy to this day, but some of us have become so confused about what the republic even is, and despise it so profoundly, that I think that it is a possibility. (I don’t have any specific evidence that this is going to happen, but I don’t think it’s impossible by any means.)

4. Personal Life

A person like me, with a lot of public exposure, always runs risks. I have accepted that. I am as careful as I can be. In 2021, someone who had been working as a volunteer on the website for many years quit after he received a death threat for enforcing our posting restrictions. Fortunately, the people who are public-facing on the site use pseudonyms, so he was never in any actual danger. He just didn’t want to deal with the ugliness, and I don’t blame him.

I have also found, more and more, that people will attack me personally if they are dissatisfied with my interactions with them. In the past, it was understood that somebody like me cannot answer every email I get, or read unsolicited manuscripts, or attend private meetings, take phone calls from one person but not all, and so forth. Not because I don’t want to, but because it’s not logistically possible.

I cannot read unsolicited manuscripts for legal reasons. Many an author has been sued by somebody who sent them a manuscript, then later claimed that the author stole their ideas. In fact, I don’t know of any major author who will read unsolicited manuscripts. Recently, when I politely declined, I got back an email filled with all-caps F**K YOU again and again all the way down the page. That has never happened to me before, and it shocked me deeply. I also get often strident letters of complaint if I don’t answer an email.

In the past, people understood that there were limits on the time of somebody like me. Now, more and more, they become outraged if their manuscript is not read or their email not answered, and they race onto social media to say what an awful person I am. I know from talking to other people in my position that it’s not just me. This is becoming more and more common. I fear that it is only a question of time before one of these people shows up at some celebrity’s or writer’s home with a gun.

Most people, though, still do understand, and the vast majority of the people on Unknowncountry are good, decent people. Just read the message boards and the subscriber comments. You will find that the wisdom and decency there far outweighs the other stuff.

My relationship with the visitors (whatever they are) has deepened immeasurably over the past year. What started out in 1985 as a fraught, nightmarish and desperate situation for me has evolved into a sweet, humorous and immeasurably fruitful relationship. I don’t see them, except in glimpses, but they are right with me. They will still wake me up for the early-hours communications session, but nowadays there is almost always a gentleness or some humor involved. For example, yesterday morning I did not wake up until an invisible presence squeezed my right hand. And the participation in my writing has become very deep and extremely clever.

As to “who is it,” I’ve quit worrying about that. It’s a waste of time and energy. In my present state of being, I cannot answer that question. But I do have the lovely, blessed and deeply sacred knowledge that there is indeed somebody there.

5. Concluding Thoughts

As I look to the future, I am hopeful that UC will continue to thrive, and provide those who come here a rich and fruitful experience of social interaction with their peers, and that the news and information we offer on the site and on the podcasts will continue to entertain and inform.

I hope and pray that the dictators of the world will experience reversals, and that more instead of fewer people will get to enjoy the experience of freedom.

I pray for the United States, our wonderful republic, that it may recover its balance by regaining a healthy center, and that those who want to destroy it will see the gravity of their mistake, and seek instead to enrich it.

I hope that people will remember that, as has always been true, I have a lot of love in me and a lot of determination that we continue to bring the strangeness we all live with into focus, and learn to use it to enrich our personal lives, and the life of humankind.

Dreamland Video podcast
To watch the FREE video version on YouTube, click here.

Subscribers, to watch the subscriber version of the video, first log in then click on Dreamland Subscriber-Only Video Podcast link.

23 Comments

  1. So many of our institutions have failed us over the last many decades that I fear they will have to be allowed to fall into ruins before they are built up again that reflect the public’s values. I do believe that our future is intended to become more democratic, seeped in the basic tenets that all humans have the right to live a decent life, but it certainly is not guaranteed. Those who stand for the good, for the welfare of all, where a balance is attained between nature, spirit, and individual needs, must stand up and defend this natural right. And if fighting is necessary, then so be it. I will not allow the forces of greed, ego, power, entitlement, or extreme ideology to steal our future. We must be prepared to fight against the growing onslaught from the dying energies of the past. If we do it from a position of wisdom and compassion, we can build a greater society that is more just and moral. But I’m afraid there will be great conflict coming in the years ahead. Institutions will fall, but not without a lot of bloodshed and destruction. We all have the duty to participate in this transformation.

    1. Your comment made me very sad. I am serious. So you think our institutions, which to a great extent guard our food and water supply, keep interstate commerce moving, guarantee the continuance of cutting edge medical research, and protect our shores, are so rotten that you prefer NOTHING. So will you personally finance and mail the social security checks? Will you and your friends fund and reimburse everyone who uses Medicare, food stamps, unemployment, disabled support? All this is so intrinsically rotten that you’d rather see all this collapse, just so you can envision yourself as a 21st century Rambo, out there shooting bureaucrats right and left? Who has convinced you of all this? Right wing media? Conspiracy web sites? Governments tend to become less responsive to citizens over time. But history (have you read a history book….ever?) shows what happens when governments fall and institutions that guarantee the health and commerce of society are removed. Nothing good comes of it. When Rome fell, we had a 1000 year Dark Age. Without the government enforcing health standards, how long do you expect to stay alive in your brave new Rambo world? If the next generation is not innoculated against serious disease, are you ready for diptheria, scarlet fever, small pox, polio etc to make a comeback?

  2. I’m so glad to hear that there is a sense of humor in your relationship to the Visitors. I believe that humor (of all kinds) is indispensable in life, but especially in a life filled with such strenuous and enigmatic encounters.

    Take care and best of luck!

  3. I think your right about the rise of extremist views and the internet being the instrument of dissemination. There is a problem with too many choices and our desire to suck them up. People want to be entertained and that’s a bad combo. As far as people getting angry and frustrated I’ll leave my favorite quote from Napoleon Dynamite.

    “When an argument arises…
    if you go outside and take,
    uh, a nice walk…you’ll calm down and then you can come back and it won’t be an argument. ‘And you’ll find that helps your health.
    All that fresh air and exercise will do you a lot of good.”

  4. Over the decades, I’ve all but stopped worrying about “who is it” as well. I think “who” is missing the point.

  5. So good to read these last two journals, Whitley. I’ve missed them, but of course, your new book is taking so much focus. Very glad to hear that the writing is going so well.

    Wouldn’t it be amazing if Putin and Xi actually are thinking long and hard about that old Law of UC? I’m praying that they are.

    Thanks for the link to your very first entry, which I had never read. It’s very interesting how insightful and prescient that entry really is.

  6. Thank you for guiding so many enlightening conversations over the decades. Your work has ignited the lanterns that light the paths of many journeys.

    Change is rarely understood except in retrospection because an expanded consciousness is needed to conceive and integrate more complexity and symmetry. Many of the greatest present challenges are divine opportunities in disguise. All new form is generated by the perturbation of opposites as symbolized in the yinyang disc.

    Cocoa beans are quite bitter off the tree, but with a sequence of sometimes violent processes the universe is bestowed with chocolate.

    So much change is sweeping the world on a personal level. If you look past state media into the lives of people with our would be rivals there’s so much to be hopeful for. Mankind hungers for a reshaped social and economic world. The last waltz of the tyrants has already begun.

  7. IMO the Dems have gone over the left side of the cliff years ago. The Repugs are no better. Why do we put up with two criminal organizations like them? Why do we allow criminal lifelong politicians? I don’t have an answer for the situation here in our country. I can’t say if there even is an answer. The CCP or Chinese Communist Party, Russia’s rulers, and one or more Non-State entities want to see the United States crumble and ultimately fail. Too much CCP and Russian influence and money corrupting too many traitors. Sorry. If you don’t agree that is fine. But that is how I see it. I don’t think I am the only one either. A person can only live their life in understanding of themselves. Be kind to people and animals and try not to hurt any other living beings.

    1. This is literally the answer –

      “A person can only live their life in understanding of themselves. Be kind to people and animals and try not to hurt any other living beings.”

      We gotta do this ourselves, and our kind ACTIONS will speak volumes. It’s the hardest thing we’ll ever do, and it’s scary as hell.

    2. There’s a great deal of fear in the air. Have you considered that the prevailing common sense understanding is incomplete if not deliberately misrepresented to make you feel you have no decisions or actions to take? Is there a possibility that there have been paths all along to make the people’s will more represented?

      If you put on a blindfold and listen to the existing leadership, which people have a vision for the future? Are there institutions or organizations that you can add your will and heart to that are directed toward a constructive future? Are there values that are so important that they are worth forming coalitions with imperfect people to realize?

      Questions are often the best paths out of despondency and paralysis.

    3. With respect, name 1 bill that the Democrats have proposed that shows they have fallen off a leftist cliff? Was it the stimulus checks to individuals during the pandemic? Was it an infrastructure bill? Was it all those nasty pollution laws that are a burden to capitalists destroying our water and air for the benefit of a handful of human beings? This may be a shock, but the Democrats totally bashed all the BLM riots starting with Biden in March 2020. So what are all these leftist horrors that the Dems have inflicted on us outside of the imagination of Fox News or QAnon?

      1. Bravo, Mr. Christie. You nailed it. Which party is doing more for the common working man and woman?

        No contest; Democrats by far.

        The Repubs are too busy trying to destroy our country to satisfy an insane buffoonish quasi-dictator who wants the world to bow down to him. Scary as heck.

  8. Whitley. Thank you for your calm and reasoned approach to the issues you discuss. In this mad world of extremes you are a voice of peace.

  9. The Chinese artist and free speech activist Ai WeiWei moved to the West in recent years, after being briefly jailed, and harassed, (not so briefly), by the Beijing government. Here is a recent report:

    https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/01/06/no-other-way-live-why-ai-weiwei-left-china

    A few days ago, he gave a media interview, saying that a boycott of Chinese goods would hurt the Chinese people, but not the Chinese government. I had to wonder if his discouraging a boycott is related to friends and family he had to leave behind in China. I had already started avoiding products made in China after learning about apparent government crimes there against the Uyghur Muslims, a Chinese minority group.

    In the science fiction novel A World Out Of Time, by Larry Niven, one character describes water monopoly empires, where the only successful rebellions must come from outside that empire. In empires, as in politics, however, the most difficult political baggage to avoid is the baggage created by one’s own political group. These may be the hardest challenges for 21st century China to meet.

  10. 1. website needs more subscribers to keep the “light” on.
    2. More anger= more dopamine=more engagement= more clicks = more $ to charge for ads.
    3. Russia does not want the Ukraine in NATO.
    4. Already its 2 teams. Never before did I question a household flying an American flag. Now I think: “Hmmm Trumper or random summer holiday flag flyer?”
    5. Personal Life= You need a gatekeeper-talk to my agent.
    6. UC MUST CONTINUE ITS GOOD WORK!

  11. Excellent post! I too have given up on wondering who or sometimes even what is behind the interactions. As far as social media I think people are addicted and are also extremely impatient. People expecting you to respond to immediate emails, posts Etc are just feeling perhaps narcissistic? As far as politics I’ve been thinking that the political system has been broken for quite some time. The wealthy and the elite behind the scenes manipulating the machine. I certainly am concerned about Russia going into Eastern Europe and China going into wherever. If the Chinese to take out an American Battleship that will be a really bad. I do understand that they have had droughts, and major Fuel and power outages in manufacturing cities in the North in China. I think their long-term viability and sustainability may be very unstable. I do appreciate all of your comments and I’m glad to see you posting again. Thank you!

  12. The long term strategy for humankind must be population control, with birth control medications and abortion. Yet the Christian right fights tooth and nail to stop this, since they are still in a bronze age mind set where MORE people are needed, not less, to keep the tribe going.

    1. There is an easy way to stop abortion. Birth Control.

      But not just for the women to take that responsibility; where are the men who impregnate and then abandon her with the babies? They run.

      This must stop. Both men and women must use birth control since it is the only humane and logical way to stop unwanted pregnancies. The Republicans are too busy pointing fingers at women for this crisis; they are embracing anti-Science for their new creed and we will all suffer for it.

  13. Author

    I think that there is a very deep death wish in some people, that probably is a reaction to overpopulation. It’s behind things like you describe, as well as climate change denial and much else. I think that it has been and is one of the basic but unacknowledged causes of war.

  14. “Perhaps people think I have come to bring peace to the world. They do not recognize that I have come to bring the world divisions:
    fire, swords, war.

    Indeed, there shall be five in a house,
    there will be three against two
    and two against three
    father against son and son against father
    and they will be lifted up
    and they shall stand as solitaries.”

Leave a Reply