What is at stake in this election? Freedom, liberty, justice, law and order

Despite their obvious contempt for the restrictions the Constitution places on government, the Democrats are not above citing it constantly as if it meant something to them, as they are during the Barrett hearings.  Their sad candidate for the presidency, Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris, pretend to revere it, but if they win, they will set about undermining it, as Barack Obama certainly did, to the point of tearing it to shreds.

The genius of the Constitution is, first and foremost, its reverence for individual freedom; liberty and justice for all; and, the basis of any civil society, law and order.  In the presidential debate with President Trump, Biden refused to utter the words "law and order."  Throughout the summer months that saw numerous cities destroyed by rioting, looting, and arson, neither he nor Harris condemned the destructive violence.  It will take years and years and billions of dollars for Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, and other cities to recover — if that is even possible.

Harris not only approved of these "peaceful protests," but encouraged them by vowing they would not end before nor after the election.  She raises money to bail out the violent thugs who perpetrated the barbarity.  Once free, some of them have gone on to commit further crimes, even murder in a couple of cases.  As everyone knows, most of the rioting has been committed by Antifa and Black Lives Matter, both groups financed by a variety of shadowy groups that embrace Marxism/communism.  Members of these two groups are recruited, trained, supplied with the necessary gear for rioting and transported to every flashpoint on a moment's notice, put up in nice hotels, and sent out to do as much damage as possible.  They mean to destroy America as founded.

Given the vast knowledge available as to who these groups are and that their intentions are dire, it was shocking when Biden, in that same debate, said, "Antifa is just an idea!"  If he is that ignorant of the facts on the ground, he has no business in the Oval Office.  He has, like Harris, supported the Defund the Police Movement!  In the face of rampant crime, especially in states that have adopted the no-bail policy, this proves that Biden and Harris are part of the revolution being fomented by Antifa and BLM. 

Because of their support for this criminality across the board, it is safe to say that a Biden/Harris administration would be devastating — for American life as we know it and certainly for the Constitution.  The tyranny of political correctness (no free speech), cancel culture, and the conservative-censoring vitriol of social media would be the order of the day.  Both Biden and Harris, especially Harris, have made clear their intent to remake America in their Maoist view of how a vast population should be brought to heel.  Keith Olbermann said openly where we are headed if this ideology is to gain power. 

These people do not believe in individual freedom or liberty and justice for all.  They do not believe in law and order.  We are all deplorables to them in need of re-education. 

As Thomas Klingenstein of the Claremont Institute so eloquently describes, the hateful mindset of Antifa and BLM that the Democrat party has embraced cannot, must not be allowed to flourish.  President Trump is the only man standing between those who love America and those who hate it.  JFK would not recognize the Democrat party of today, for it has been captured by the Antifa/BLM Marxists.

Anyone who watched the Barrett hearings had to be embarrassed by the behavior, the condescension and rudeness of the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.  They attacked her like junkyard dogs, not as viciously as they did Justice Kavanaugh, but they were baying to tear her to shreds.

Every single Democrat on that committee was reprehensible.  Senator Booker asked her if she condemned white supremacy!  Senator Hirono asked her if she had been a sexual predator!  And Kamala Harris?  She was as loathsome as she was in the V.P. debate.  She is a very unlikeable person.  Barrett's class and grace only made Harris's shabbiness more manifest.  The entire day was a shocking display of those Democrats' contempt for all conservatives and their disdain for an actual constitutionalist.

YouTube screen grab (cropped).

America is at a crossroads near to the one faced in 1860.  Donald Trump may seem an unlikely heir to Lincoln, but he is exactly that.  The U.S. faced dissolution then, and it faces dissolution now.  Joe Biden is a confused, addled man, easily manipulated; he never had core beliefs beyond exerting his power over those to whom he felt superior.  Harris, as everyone on both sides of the aisle knows by now, is arrogant and not very bright.  If she hasn't learned by age 55 to be civil to others, she never will.  Like Hillary, she does crave power, but she lacks the humanity to use it wisely.  Like Pelosi, Harris is a nasty piece of work.  May Americans realize what is at stake and re-elect Trump in a landslide that puts to bed disputed results.  The preservation of America depends on it.  

The 2020 Election Bamboozle: We Are All Victims of the Deep State’s Con Game

 

The 2020 Election Bamboozle: We Are All Victims of the Deep State’s Con Game

“We’re run by the Pentagon, we’re run by Madison Avenue, we’re run by television, and as long as we accept those things and don’t revolt we’ll have to go along with the stream to the eventual avalanche.... As long as we go out and buy stuff, we’re at their mercy… We all live in a little Village. Your Village may be different from other people’s Villages, but we are all prisoners.”— Patrick McGoohan

This is not an election.

This is a con game, a scam, a grift, a hustle, a bunko, a swindle, a flimflam, a gaffle, and a bamboozle.

In this carefully choreographed scheme to strip the American citizenry of our power and our rights, “we the people” are nothing more than marks, suckers, stooges, mugs, rubes, or gulls.

We are victims of the Deep State’s confidence game.

Every confidence game has six essential stages: 1) the foundation to lay the groundwork for the illusion; 2) the approach whereby the victim is contacted; 3) the build-up to make the victim feel like they’ve got a vested interest in the outcome; 4) the corroboration (aided by third-party conspirators) to legitimize that the scammers are, in fact, on the up-and-up; 5) the pay-off, in which the victim gets to experience some small early “wins”; and 6) the “hurrah”— a sudden manufactured crisis or change of events that creates a sense of urgency.  

In this particular con game, every candidate dangled before us as some form of political savior—including Donald Trump and Joe Biden—is part of a long-running, elaborate scam intended to persuade us that, despite all appearances to the contrary, we live in a constitutional republic.

In this way, the voters are the dupes, the candidates are the shills, and as usual, it’s the Deep State rigging the outcome.

Terrorist attacks, pandemics, civil unrest: these are all manipulated crises that add to the sense of urgency and help us feel invested in the outcome of the various elections, but it doesn’t change much in the long term.

No matter who wins this election, we’ll all still be prisoners of the Deep State.

We just haven’t learned to recognize our prison walls as such.

It’s like that old British television series The Prisoner, which takes place in a mysterious, self-contained, cosmopolitan, seemingly idyllic retirement community known only as The Village.

Perhaps the best visual debate ever on individuality and freedom, The Prisoner (17 episodes in all) centers around a British secret agent who abruptly resigns only to find himself imprisoned, monitored by militarized drones, and interrogated in The Village, a beautiful resort with parks and green fields, recreational activities and even a butler.

While luxurious, the Village is a virtual prison disguised as a seaside paradise: its inhabitants have no true freedom, they cannot leave the Village, they are under constant surveillance, all of their movements tracked. Residents of the Village are stripped of their individuality and identified only by numbers.

First broadcast in Great Britain 50-some years ago, The Prisoner dystopian television series —described as “James Bond meets George Orwell filtered through Franz Kafka”—confronted societal themes that are still relevant today: the rise of a police state, the loss of freedom, round-the-clock surveillance, the corruption of government, totalitarianism, weaponization, group think, mass marketing, and the tendency of human beings to meekly accept their lot in life as prisoners in a prison of their own making.

The series’ protagonist, played by Patrick McGoohan is Number Six.

Number Two, the Village administrator, acts as an agent for the unseen and all-powerful Number One, whose identity is not revealed until the final episode.

“I am not a number. I am a free man,” was the mantra chanted on each episode of The Prisoner, which was largely written and directed by Patrick McGoohan, who also played the title role.

In the opening episode (“The Arrival”), Number Six meets Number Two, who explains to him that he is in The Village because information stored “inside” his head has made him too valuable to be allowed to roam free “outside.”

Throughout the series, Number Six is subjected to interrogation tactics, torture, hallucinogenic drugs, identity theft, mind control, dream manipulation, and various forms of social indoctrination and physical coercion in order to “persuade” him to comply, give up, give in and subjugate himself to the will of the powers-that-be.

Number Six refuses to comply.

In every episode, Number Six resists the Village’s indoctrination methods, struggles to maintain his own identity, and attempts to escape his captors. “I will not make any deals with you,” he pointedly remarks to Number Two. “I’ve resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.”

Yet no matter how far Number Six manages to get in his efforts to escape, it’s never far enough.

Watched by surveillance cameras and other devices, Number Six’s attempts to escape are continuously thwarted by ominous white balloon-like spheres known as “rovers.” Still, he refuses to give up. “Unlike me,” he says to his fellow prisoners, “many of you have accepted the situation of your imprisonment, and will die here like rotten cabbages.”

Number Six’s escapes become a surreal exercise in futility, each episode an unfunny, unsettling Groundhog’s Day that builds to the same frustrating denouement: there is no escape.

As journalist Scott Thill concludes for Wired, “Rebellion always comes at a price. During the acclaimed run of The Prisoner, Number Six is tortured, battered and even body-snatched: In the episode ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling,’ his mind is transplanted to another man’s body. Number Six repeatedly escapes The Village only to be returned to it in the end, trapped like an animal, overcome by a restless energy he cannot expend, and betrayed by nearly everyone around him.”

The series is a chilling lesson about how difficult it is to gain one’s freedom in a society in which prison walls are disguised within the seemingly benevolent trappings of technological and scientific progress, national security and the need to guard against terrorists, pandemics, civil unrest, etc.

As Thill noted, “The Prisoner was an allegory of the individual, aiming to find peace and freedom in a dystopia masquerading as a utopia.”

The Prisoner’s Village is also an apt allegory for the American Police State: it gives the illusion of freedom while functioning all the while like a prison: controlled, watchful, inflexible, punitive, deadly and inescapable.

The American Police State, much like The Prisoner’s Village, is a metaphorical panopticon, a circular prison in which the inmates are monitored by a single watchman situated in a central tower. Because the inmates cannot see the watchman, they are unable to tell whether or not they are being watched at any given time and must proceed under the assumption that they are always being watched.

Eighteenth century social theorist Jeremy Bentham envisioned the panopticon prison to be a cheaper and more effective means of “obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example.”

Bentham’s panopticon, in which the prisoners are used as a source of cheap, menial labor, has become a model for the modern surveillance state in which the populace is constantly being watched, controlled and managed by the powers-that-be while funding its existence.

Nowhere to run and nowhere to hide: this is the new mantra of the architects of the Deep State and their corporate collaborators (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google, Instagram, etc.).

Government eyes are watching you.

They see your every move: what you read, how much you spend, where you go, with whom you interact, when you wake up in the morning, what you’re watching on television and reading on the internet.

Every move you make is being monitored, mined for data, crunched, and tabulated in order to amass a profile of who you are, what makes you tick, and how best to control you when and if it becomes necessary to bring you in line.

When the government sees all and knows all and has an abundance of laws to render even the most seemingly upstanding citizen a criminal and lawbreaker, then the old adage that you’ve got nothing to worry about if you’ve got nothing to hide no longer applies.

Apart from the obvious dangers posed by a government that feels justified and empowered to spy on its people and use its ever-expanding arsenal of weapons and technology to monitor and control them, we’re approaching a time in which we will be forced to choose between obeying the dictates of the government—i.e., the law, or whatever a government official deems the law to be—and maintaining our individuality, integrity and independence.

When people talk about privacy, they mistakenly assume it protects only that which is hidden behind a wall or under one’s clothing. The courts have fostered this misunderstanding with their constantly shifting delineation of what constitutes an “expectation of privacy.” And technology has furthered muddied the waters.

However, privacy is so much more than what you do or say behind locked doors. It is a way of living one’s life firm in the belief that you are the master of your life, and barring any immediate danger to another person (which is far different from the carefully crafted threats to national security the government uses to justify its actions), it’s no one’s business what you read, what you say, where you go, whom you spend your time with, and how you spend your money.

Unfortunately, George Orwell’s 1984—where “you had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized”—has now become our reality.

We now find ourselves in the unenviable position of being monitored, managed, corralled and controlled by technologies that answer to government and corporate rulers.

Consider that on any given day, the average American going about his daily business will be monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by both government and corporate eyes and ears.

A byproduct of this new age in which we live, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior.

This doesn’t even begin to touch on the corporate trackers that monitor your purchases, web browsing, Facebook posts and other activities taking place in the cyber sphere.

Stingray devices mounted on police cars to warrantlessly track cell phones, Doppler radar devices that can detect human breathing and movement within in a home, license plate readers that can record up to 1800 license plates per minute, sidewalk and “public space” cameras coupled with facial recognition and behavior-sensing technology that lay the groundwork for police “pre-crime” programs, police body cameras that turn police officers into roving surveillance cameras, the internet of things: all of these technologies (and more) add up to a society in which there’s little room for indiscretions, imperfections, or acts of independence—especially not when the government can listen in on your phone calls, read your emails, monitor your driving habits, track your movements, scrutinize your purchases and peer through the walls of your home.

As French philosopher Michel Foucault concluded in his 1975 book Discipline and Punish, “Visibility is a trap.”

This is the electronic concentration camp—the panopticon prison—the Village—in which we are now caged.

It is a prison from which there will be no escape. Certainly not if the government and its corporate allies have anything to say about it.

As Glenn Greenwald notes:

“The way things are supposed to work is that we’re supposed to know virtually everything about what [government officials] do: that’s why they’re called public servants. They’re supposed to know virtually nothing about what we do: that’s why we’re called private individuals. This dynamic - the hallmark of a healthy and free society - has been radically reversed. Now, they know everything about what we do, and are constantly building systems to know more. Meanwhile, we know less and less about what they do, as they build walls of secrecy behind which they function. That’s the imbalance that needs to come to an end. No democracy can be healthy and functional if the most consequential acts of those who wield political power are completely unknown to those to whom they are supposed to be accountable.”

None of this will change, no matter who wins this upcoming presidential election.

And that’s the hustle, you see: because despite all of the work being done to help us buy into the fantasy that things will change if we just elect the right candidate, the day after a new president is sworn in, we’ll still find ourselves prisoners of the Village.

This should come as no surprise to those who haven’t been taking the escapist blue pill, who haven’t fallen for the Deep State’s phony rhetoric, who haven’t been lured in by the promise of a political savior: we never stopped being prisoners.

So how do you escape? For starters, resist the urge to conform to a group mind and the tyranny of mob-think as controlled by the Deep State.

Think for yourself. Be an individual. As McGoohan commented in 1968, “At this moment individuals are being drained of their personalities and being brainwashed into slaves… As long as people feel something, that’s the great thing. It’s when they are walking around not thinking and not feeling, that’s tough. When you get a mob like that, you can turn them into the sort of gang that Hitler had.”

You want to be free? Remove the blindfold that blinds you to the Deep State’s con game, stop doping yourself with government propaganda, and break free of the political chokehold that has got you marching in lockstep with tyrants and dictators.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, until you come to terms with the fact that the government is the problem (no matter which party dominates), you’ll never be free.

Is the United States in the Midst of an Insurgency?

Is the United States in the Midst of an Insurgency?

The violence and rioting in the US result from far more than just dissatisfaction with the police.  Extreme ideological social justice movements today are more likely to carry firearms than items for a food pantry.  We currently face nothing less than the early stages of a socialist insurgency.

Insurgency is an organized rebellion to overthrow a constituted government by undermining its legitimacy through protest and disinformation, and ultimately through armed conflict. This may sound dramatic, but consider the steps already completed by BLM/ANTIFA in the Insurgency Pyramid used by the US Army Special Forces community to characterize an insurrection (Figure 1).

Initially, when the insurgents are still weak, they organize around a group that is actively dissatisfied with political and social conditions and desires ideological or other changes.  In America, who better to target than the poorest and least educated black Americans, for they already believe they have a legitimate grievance? 

Insurgents use propaganda and political efforts to exploit this atmosphere, creating more significant discontent that discredits the government.  BLM and ANTIFA have made it abundantly clear that they believe the existing government and socio-economic system are unjust and exclude them.

It’s well known that leftists intimidate people, so they refrain from presenting counter-factual arguments. Then, by spinning the narrative for high-profile events, they build credibility and feed the general sense of public dissatisfaction

Leftists are adept at vilifying anyone who defends the current system, even if they acknowledge its flaws and signal a willingness to improve it.  After all, who wouldn’t support racial justice?  Nonetheless, if you are not absolutely for the cause as presented, leftists will accuse you of being absolutely against it.  Hence, saying “All Lives Matter” is synonymous with “I’m a racist.”

The insurgents foment distrust for public institutions, which leads to more favorable public opinion for the insurgency. We’ve seen that BLM’s and Antifa’s preferred targets are the police and the judicial system, which are the very foundations of law and order.

At the same time that they garner popular support for the movement and vilify its opponents, the insurgents also work to infiltrate public institutions and spread their narrative into all sectors of society.  Celebrities, government officials, universities, corporations, and others have bought into the BLM narrative, either through intellectual laziness or for personal gain. This results in broad popular support through funding, quasi-intellectual backing, active protest and rioting, and even sympathetic inaction.

Hawk Newsome, the chairman of BLM’s New York chapter, claims BLM is following in the Black Panther Party’s footsteps and adds that former “Special Forces officers” train the movement to protect itself — presumably from the police.  Armed members have attempted to replace police officers in abandoned areas of Seattle and Atlanta.  Justifying and introducing armed insurgent personnel is a key step toward more militant acts. One example, from June 26, is the pre-planned ambush against two police officers in Tampa who were called to a phony shooting, only to have glass-bottle throwing rioters attack them.

Having foreign countries legitimize and support the insurgency is also critical. BLM protests erupted worldwide after George Floyd was killed, and Antifa has fraternal organizations across Europe.  It’s still unclear what America’s die-hard international enemies are doing to support BLM and Antifa. Still, if they aren’t acting yet, they are most certainly looking for their opportunities.

Insurgency Pyramid. Actions already completed or begun by BLM/ANTIFA are in color.  These actions do not have to take place in the order they are listed. Graphic by Matt Rowe.

The three co-founders of BLM — Patrisse Khan Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi — all have Marxist Socialism at the core of their ideologies.  According to the Capital Research Center, the three women worked for the Freedom Road Socialist Organization’s front groups. The FRSO is one of the country’s largest radical-left organizations. Tometi actively promotes Socialism and anti-western socio-economics, while Cullors has publicly stated that the leaders of BLM are “trained Marxists.”

Antifa nominally believes that the country is heading toward Fascism and touts President Trump’s election and “America First” platform as proof. The organization has existed since the 1980s, but its radical anti-globalism and anti-capitalist rhetoric was inconsequential. By taking on BLM’s “anti-racist” cause, Antifa significantly increased its opportunities to act.  Antifa has not hidden its Marxist Socialist objectives, but it has modified the traditional conflict from “workers versus the owners of capital” to “identity conflicts” based upon race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

The vast majority of BLM members and supporters make up what Vladimir Lenin called “the useful idiots.”  That is, the people actively working for a cause without really understanding the cause’s objectives.  They are cynically being used to achieve an end they may have never intended.  The core organizers’ goal is to keep the useful idiots blind to the truth for as long as possible while indoctrinating them into the cause.

To defeat this insurgency, we must eliminate the dissatisfaction that drives the largest groups of actors.  We cannot change the political beliefs of hardcore Marxists. Still, we can help lift the millions of the poorest and least educated black (and other) Americans out of their current conditions and deteriorating culture.  First, we must counter the propaganda that their plight is the result of current systemic racism. Instead, they must be led to understand that their current problems are the result of old behaviors. They require new solutions that will reintegrate them into society to give them a genuine stake and the ability to exercise legitimate influence.  

Doing so will deprive the insurgency of millions of activists. It will also harness the sympathetic energies of the millions of people who understand that there is a problem but are misled into believing the insurgency can fix it. This means acknowledging that the pain our most impoverished communities experience, regardless of race, comes from long-standing cultural behaviors.

We must redirect cultures that have a history of welfare dependency; single motherhood, depriving children of fathers; skyrocketing numbers of high school dropouts who are unprepared to meet the needs of an increasingly technological society; higher risks of drug use and dependence; the extraordinarily higher crime rates with community members as both predators and victims; and the isolation and utter hopelessness that comes from being trapped there. 

Good families, good educations, real opportunities, and the hope that every person can achieve the American dream are not racial or police issues.  What we’re currently seeing is a halfway completed insurgency. If we are to end this unrest, we must face these truths and develop longer-term solutions immediately.  Otherwise, judging by socialist “successes” worldwide, the suffering could increase exponentially for all of us.

Matt Rowe is a US Army Special Forces veteran and an independent business management consultant. He earned his MBA from the University of Notre Dame after graduating magna cum laude from Campbell University with a BS in government.  He has written feature articles for several publications, and his first novel, White Passage: Red Sun, is loosely based upon his experience in the “drug war” in Latin America.

I am Joseph F Barber I am an American Patriot...part of the grassroots movement of bloggers spreading the truth the media will not. A Freelance syndicated writer ,editor and author activist and Blogger,Tradesmen , US Army Veteran and PTSD survivor, Gas and diesel Mechanic

It's a duty for patriots to own a firearm

 It's a duty for patriots to own a firearm

The Second Amendment states: "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."  This was true when the Bill of Rights was written, and it is still valid today.  However, in light of the left-wing-generated storm clouds over America, conservatives need an extended understanding of the 2nd Amendment.  Not only do we, the people, have a right to possess firearms, but it has become practically a duty for able-bodied patriots to do so. 

Does that sound extreme?  In years past, it would be.  But not today.  The Democrats and their accomplices on the left are bound and possessed to turn America into something it never was intended to be and to do it without the true consent of the people.  They are attempting this by a blatant coup from inside.  Just look at the outrages done to overturn the last presidential election and to remove Donald Trump from office.  And despite Trump having the power of the presidency and trying to get justice, none of the plotters has been brought to justice.  None likely will, either — certainly not the big fish.  The protection these traitors to the Constitution get from those in the Deep State bureaucracy and judicial system has been too strong to break. 

One of the fundamental reasons why Trump has become the target of a coup is that in the past, a coup wasn't necessary.  The uniparty in conjunction with the corporate media gave America the choice between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.  Perhaps now, in retrospect, this can be seen more clearly.  Think of the Republican candidates since Ronald Reagan.  There were George H. and George W. Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney.  All proclaimed to be conservatives, but all were in fact globalists and members of the establishment.  None would ever think of launching America-first policies.  None would have upset Washington's applecart.

Trump somehow broke through.  He was not Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum.  Trump was more of 21st-century version of Pat Buchanan or Ross Perot.  This panicked the uniparty and Deep State and triggered them into more overt actions.  Their weapons of choice are a lying tongue and their high positions in government. 

Is voting the answer?  One hopes so.  But the Democrats have a long history of cheating in elections.  And what has ever been done about it?  Little to nothing.  As is often the case, the media cover up or downplay Democrat cheating.  In this way, the public was never enlightened to what was going on

As bad as Democratic cheating was in the past, it is going to be epic this November.  Now the cheating is preplanned (mail-in voting, etc.) and organized on a massive scale.  An army of Democrat lawyers have even been recruited to make it harder than ever to expose cheating.  They will throw dust in the air and obscure the cheating.  Nothing is off the table in the Democrats' crusade to get rid of Trump.

Finally, there's the matter of the violence of  Antifa and Black Lives Matter.  This is a rebellion against the social order.  But what is worse than the criminality of these groups is that Democrat mayors, governors, and presidential candidates turn a blind eye or are making excuses for it.  If silence is consent, then the Democrat Party is fully on board and complicit with the lawlessness.   

If you live along the coast and the sky looks ominous, you know a hurricane is coming, and you make preparations.  Dark clouds are over America, saying a storm is brewing.  In this environment, the patriot has several duties.  Two are to vote and to speak out.  The third is to own a firearm.  This is not just a right.  It's now a duty.  The gun never has to be used.  Just possessing it, however, is a critical vote for freedom and the survival of our republic.

Peter Skurkiss

I am Joseph F Barber I am an American Patriot...part of the grassroots movement of bloggers spreading the truth the media will not. A Freelance syndicated writer ,editor and author activist and Blogger,Tradesmen , veteran and PTSD survivor, Gas and diesel Mechanic

 

The Real Cost of Homelessness

In 2016, Los Angeles Mayor Gil Garcetti proclaimed, as might an emperor or king, he would empower citizens to “transform their streets and urban corridors into vibrant, walkable spaces that reflect the unique characteristics of their communities.”

As of September 2020, Los Angeles has solved its homeless problem. The approximate 60,000 homeless encamped on Los Angeles’ streets, urban corridors, parks, and freeway underpasses vanished to be replaced by approximately 60,000 unhoused residents. Empowered by Garcetti’s hands-off the homeless order of protection issued for “public health and safety reasons,” these unhoused are reimagining their lives free of health and safety regulations and taxation applicable to the housed.

Enter Hollywood screenwriter W. Peter Iliff (Point Break, Varsity Blues, Trump’s America.)

Iliff is a homeowner and father with that rarest of 21st-century qualities, common sense. Iliff’s cozy Spanish revival home is a short walk from the Cattaraugus underpass of The Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Highway. Several months ago, hardcore addicts erected a palatial 35-foot by 10-foot hovel that blocked the sidewalk and one traffic lane in the tunnel.

The Christopher Columbus highway bisects Iliff’s neighborhood. Families living on the south side must walk through the underpass to shop along the Robertson Boulevard urban corridor or take their children to Raynier Park, both of which are on the highway’s north side. One homeless man, wielding a lead pipe, chased a father and his four-year-old boy away as he screamed he would crush the father’s skull. Another accosted a terrified young mother walking to the park with her baby in a stroller. They threatened motorists driving through, filched bicycles, and burglarized homes for months as the stench from their fetid encampment grew unbearable. 

Iliff steadily received messages from moms and nannies terrified to walk through the tunnel. Iliff repeatedly petitioned the city councilman, Council President Herb Wesson, Jr., and police for help. Garcetti’s order prevented police action. Wesson, who represents a majority black and Latino council district South of the highway, ignored them. 

Serendipitously, a homeless outreach group sued Los Angeles in federal court. The complaint claimed the city had failed to shelter the homeless per the terms of a $1 billion Homeless Relief Bond approved by voters. The complaint also asked the court to order Los Angeles’ removal of persons living in freeway underpasses because of exposure to excessive heat and exhaust. U.S. District Judge David Carter agreed. He enjoined the City of Los Angeles to move the homeless out of the tunnels, including the Cattaraugus underpass. 

After the police arrested the Cattaraugus addicts on robbery charges, Iliff, along with his neighbors, quickly raised money on Go Fund Me to buy boulders for placement along the tunnel’s sidewalk. They wanted to keep the tunnel clean and safe. Iliff and his ‘Rebel Alliance’ removed piles of rubbish, jugs of urine, feces, and used syringes, steam cleaned the area, then set the boulders. They liberated the underpass. Families could safely pass through. 

Within hours, a phalanx of homeless outreach groups with no stake in Iliff’s community bombarded Wesson’s office with demands for the immediate removal of the hostile architecture, i.e., boulders. Wesson tweeted the boulders were wrong on “so many levels” and assured the outreached that he and his team were working to remove the hostile boulders. The humanitarian outreach groups also doxed and sent anonymous death threats to Iliff and others on the GoFundMe list. Within hours, the city served Iliff with a notice to remove the boulders or face felony dumping charges. A cowardly community council condemned Iliff’s group’s action. Protestors flooded a virtual council hearing on Zoom, turning it into something akin to the Communist Chinese Struggle Sessions used during Mao’s Cultural Revolution to humiliate dissidents publicly. To avoid felony charges, Iliff suffered the humiliation of begging forgiveness for his and his neighbors’ attempt to keep their families safe. 

While speaking at Iliff’s Struggle Session, an émigré from the former Soviet Union, now fighting for socially just outcomes ala Karl Marx here said, “In all of these discussions the unhoused person has been framed as some kind of intrusion or public safety hazard — he is a resident of this neighborhood and has as much of a stake in it as anyone who owns a home here.” Exactly where does this unhoused resident receive income tax, property tax, and utility bills?  

The city’s overzealous coronavirus lockdown bankrupted small businesses by the thousands while allowing big box stores to operate. The result? Los Angeles’ reimagined urban corridors are deserted, like the streets in 28 Days. Peter Iliff, who tried to be reasonable in a city unhinged, awaits his fate. The addicts are moving back into the Cattaraugus underpass. All this as Garcetti, Team Wesson, the spineless City Council, the Lilliputian Board of County Supervisors, and their Pravda, the Los Angeles Times, are at work reimagining law enforcement. 

Mayor Garcetti and Councilman Wesson could have fought the State Courts order without incurring political damage. Neighboring cities do not allow fetid homeless encampments to proliferate. Old rail cars could have been converted to individual shelters and kept on railroad sidings. I suspect the socialists running this city have perpetuated the homeless epidemic to further divide Los Angeles citizens. As Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals Rule #3 states, “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.”  With the housed, the unhoused, and the unhinged, at odds, madness rules the day. The only rational thing left to do is “Pray for Surf.” 

I am Joseph F Barber I am an American Patriot...part of the grassroots movement of bloggers spreading the truth the media will not. A Freelance syndicated writer ,editor and author activist and Blogger,Tradesmen , veteran and PTSD survivor, Gas and diesel Mechanic

A Big Move In Silver: Watch The Currency Markets

 

A Big Move In Silver: Watch The Currency Markets

The USD/ZAR chart has been a good predictor for silver rallies. Similar to the US Dollar index, but a bit more accurate or precise. Very important silver bottoms tend to coincide with tops of the USD/ZAR chart.

Below, is a chart of silver as compared with the USD/ZAR chart, to demonstrates this fact:

The Next Currency Crisis, When? Impacts on the Prices of Gold and Silver

The 2001 silver bottom(SB) occurred one month before the key 2001 USD/ZAR bottom. This was followed by a multi-rear silver rally.

The 2008 silver bottom occurred in the same month (October) as the 2008 USD/ZAR top. Again, it was followed by a multi-year rally.

The 2020 silver bottom occurred one month before the April 2020 USD/ZAR top (a similar setup to 2001). Since then, we have had a multi-month silver rally which is very likely just the beginning of a multi-year rally.

October into November tend to also be a key month for this relationship, as it was the case in 2002 and 2008. It is often the turnaround time or the period where silver really starts accelerating.

The USD/ZAR ratio is actually looking tired from a long-term and short-term view, and this is consistent with the outlook for the US Dollar index.

We have to keep our eyes on this ratio:

Often we see a key or big decline in the USD/ZAR ratio just before a massive silver spike. Here, possibly a move (lower) out of the wedge. Also, silver does seem ready to move much higher soon.

This is all still consistent with the greater silver cycle as shown in this chart:

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Hubert Moolman on Silver and Gold.

Will the Political Class be Held Liable for What They’ve Done?

 

Will the Political Class be Held Liable for What They’ve Done?

Politically-dictated lockdowns and prohibitions have recently destroyed tens of millions of American jobs. Politicians have effectively claimed a right to inflict unlimited economic damage in pursuit of zero COVID-19 contagion. The perverse incentives driving the policy have multiplied the harm far beyond the original peril.

Almost 40% of households earning less than $40,000 per year have someone who lost their job in recent months, according to the Federal Reserve. The Disaster Distress Helpline, a federal crisis hotline, received almost 900% more phone calls in March compared to a year ago. A recent JAMA Psychiatry analysis warned that stay-at-home orders and rising unemployment are a “perfect storm” for higher suicide rates. A California health organization recently estimated that up to 75,000 Americans could die from “despair” as a result of the pandemic, unemployment, and government restrictions.

In the name of saving lives, politicians have entitled themselves to destroy an unlimited number of livelihoods. Politicians in many states responded to COVID-19 by dropping the equivalent of a Reverse Neutron Bomb – something which destroys the economy while supposedly leaving human beings unharmed. But the only way to assume people were uninjured is to believe their existence is totally detached from their jobs, bank accounts, and mortgage and rent payments.

Politicians have vaccinated themselves against any blame for the economic carnage by touting experts who said it was all necessary. Over the past 90 days, government bureaucrats have become a new priesthood that can sanctify unlimited sacrifices in the name of the public health.

COVID policymakers have written themselves the same letter that Cardinal Richelieu, the 17th century French statesman, purportedly gave to his agents: “The Bearer of This Letter Has Acted Under My Orders and for the Good of the State.” This carte blanche was sufficient to place murders and other crimes above the law and beyond reproach in France. In contemporary America, the same exoneration is achieved by invoking “science” and “data.”  Oregon Governor Kate Brown banned residents from leaving their homes except for essential work, buying food, and other narrow exemptions, and also banned all recreational travel. Six Oregon counties have only one confirmed COVID case, and most of the state has minimal infections. But schools, businesses, and other activities were slammed shut by government command.

Pandemic Follies: Tyranny Won’t Keep Us Safe

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer imposed some of the most severe restrictions, prohibiting anyone from leaving their home to visit family or friends. COVID infections were concentrated in the Detroit metropolitan area, but Whitmer shut down the entire state – including northern counties with near-zero infections and zero fatalities, boosting unemployment to 24% statewide. Her repression provoked fierce protests, and Whitmer responded by claiming that her dictates saved 3,500 lives. Whitmer exonerated herself with a statistical formula that was painfully ethereal compared to the stark physical devastation in Michigan.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s shutdown order resulted in the highest rate of unemployment in the nation – 33%. But according to Sen. Rand Paul, COVID’s impact in Kentucky “has not been worse than an average flu season.” But that did not stop Beshear from banning people from attending church services and sending Kentucky State Police to attach notices to car windshields ordering church attendees to self-quarantine for 14 days and reporting them to local health departments.

Shutting down entire states, including vast uninfected rural swaths, is the economic equivalent of burning witches or sacrificing virgins to appease angry viral gods. Because politicians have no liability for the economic damage they inflict, they have no incentive to minimize the disruptions they decree. Trillions of dollars of new deficit spending will be vexing American workers for many years.

The state of Missouri has sued the government of China, claiming it is liable for the losses inflicted by the virus that apparently originated in Wuhan, China. Most observers predict that lawsuit will go nowhere. But, thanks to sovereign immunity, it would be even more hopeless for American citizens to sue American politicians for the damage that their shutdown orders have inflicted on their businesses, paychecks, and lives.

Sovereign immunity creates a two-tiered society: those above the law and those below it; those whom the law fails to bind and those whom the law fails to protect. This legal doctrine almost guarantees that no politician will face any personal liability for their shutdown dictates.

Even New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who callously compelled nursing homes to accept COVID patients, will have no legal culpability for a policy that contributed to more than 5,000 nursing home deaths in his state. Pennsylvania Health Czar Rachel Levine issued a similar order, contributing to thousands of nursing home deaths, and then removed her own 95-year-old mother from a nursing home to keep her safe.

Politicians presume they are blameless for destroying jobs as long as the victims receive temporary unemployment compensation. Actually, it is worse than that: politicians claim a right to seize a slice of the paychecks of people still working to recompense people whose jobs they destroyed. Would a private corporation be able to escape punishment for breaking people’s legs by giving free crutches to its victims?

“Better safe than sorry” is damned risky when politicians have no liability for what they ravage. There is no way that politicians can compensate American citizens for all the damage they have inflicted in this pandemic. This COVID shutdown catastrophe should be a permanent black mark against the political class and the experts who sanctified each and every sacrifice.

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James Bovard is the author of ten books, including Public Policy Hooligan, Attention Deficit Democracy, The Bush Betrayal, and Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Washington Post, New Republic, Reader’s Digest, and many other publications. He is a member of the USA Today Board of Contributors, a frequent contributor to The Hill, and a contributing editor for American Conservative.