It’s time for a bracing dose of reality, America. (With a Rufus perspective.)

Maybe I should have used the word “raging”…

Well, the warning signs are everywhere. America is the worst, but throughout the West the facade and the walls are collapsing everywhere.

Uh oh.

“Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. 

Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers’ enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves.

No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this apparatus and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others.”


—Simone Weil, French philosopher and political activist

It’s actually very sad.

And everyone is aware of all this. It’s not like it is a secret or anything. The United States government has been out of control from some time now, and today everyone has passed the “take the money and run” phase of societal collapse.

Today it’s the verge of conflagration.You can taste it in the air. You hear whispering, murmurings. You feel things aren’t exactly right. It’ the building up right before the holy Hell storm knocks cars, buildings and trees flat.

It’s the point in time where the monkeys are starting to jump up and down, the birds are flying off somewhere, and the dogs and cats can’t be found.

As for all the economic benefits, they're just a lot of well-known narratives using the USD as a measurement of success, wealth, or power. 

Why should we even be comparing economies using a measurement that one nation can print while all others have to earn?

It makes no sense.

You are Here…

Indeed it doesn’t. Which puts us (and the world) the big massive mess that it is in today. Let’s look where the USA military empire is right now…

You are here.
You are here.

 

However, no one knows how long it is from “here” to the actually accepted “death” of the United States oligarchy-run military empire. We can only wait and hope that it will be transformative, quick and as painless (for us) as possible.

Pissed Lizard speaks…

To Americans. This week is going to be the first of the birthpangs.

In the EXACT SAME WAY MM was able to anchor sentiences, using LITERALLY the exact same mechanism (its the movement of gravity thru a tube of E/M during the PARTICLE phase - and he really really does a better job than I explaining it - BUT:

Think of that on a micro scale with “major events” on the world template. This is called vertical time travel.

Right now there are many MANY (I can’t go into numbers but if you live in America you are feeling it) but these Chrononauts are INTENTIONALLY RUNNING THE ECONOMY I TO THE GROUND. It’s on purpose.

The cleanup will NOT be worse than the crash.

This is a race between nuclear annihilation or economic - but either way we all know we are going down.

Just hang on. You will feel pain next week and into November. IT WILL BE OVER BY NEW YEARS.

Them the rest of the world deals with their economic problems - if they have them. Or WILL have them. Who knows.

Mid-November you will NOT get a flight out of the States to China. Period. This percentage is well into the “done deal” numbers.

We are DOING IT ON PURPOSE. We are feeeding on the dreams of our enemies and they are having nightmares.

BUT WE ARE FEEDING STARTING TONIGHT.

Please - Americans - take it easy on eachother.

What will be balanced will be balanced.

What will be will BE.

So Mote it BE.

All of this I know to be true.

EMMAA///EMMIT

The following is a good article that sums all this up nicely. At least as far as the domestic side of the United States today…

Tyrants of the Nanny State: When the Government Thinks It Knows Best

By John Whitehead found HERE.

We labor today under the weight of countless tyrannies, large and small, carried out in the so-called name of the national good,,,

…by an elite class of governmental and corporate officials who are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions.

We, the middling classes, are not so fortunate.

We find ourselves badgered, bullied and browbeaten into bearing the brunt of their arrogance, paying the price for their greed.

We find ourselves suffering the backlash for their militarism, and agonizing as a result of their inaction.

We tire of them feigning ignorance about their backroom dealings, overlooking their incompetence, and turning a blind eye to their misdeeds.

And we tire of cowering from their heavy-handed tactics, and blindly hoping for change that never comes. 

The overt signs of the despotism exercised by the increasingly authoritarian regime that passes itself off as the United States government (and its corporate partners in crime) are all around us:

  • COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates that strip Americans of their freedom of movement and bodily integrity;
  • censorship,
  • criminalizing,
  • shadow banning and de-platforming of individuals who express ideas that are politically incorrect or unpopular;
  • warrantless surveillance of Americans’ movements and communications;
  • SWAT team raids of Americans’ homes;
  • shootings of unarmed citizens by police;
  • harsh punishments meted out to schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance;
  • armed drones taking to the skies domestically;
  • endless wars;
  • out-of-control spending;
  • militarized police;
  • roadside strip searches;
  • roving TSA sweeps;
  • privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing Americans;
  • fusion centers that spy on, collect and disseminate data on Americans’ private transactions;
  • and militarized agencies with stockpiles of ammunition, to name some of the most appalling.

Yet as egregious as these incursions on our rights may be, it’s the endless, petty tyrannies…

…those heavy-handed, punitive-laden dictates…

…inflicted by a self-righteous, Big-Brother-Knows-Best bureaucracy on us.

For we are an overtaxed, overregulated, and underrepresented populace…

One that that illustrates so clearly the degree to which “we the people” are viewed as incapable of common sense…

… moral judgment…

… fairness…

… and intelligence…

… not to mention lacking a basic understanding of how to stay alive, raise a family, or be part of a functioning community.

What is America today?

It’s hard to say whether we’re dealing with a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves)…

A kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of American citizens), or…

…if we’ve gone straight to an idiocracy

This certainly isn’t a constitutional democracy, however.

Nanny State despotism

This overbearing Nanny State despotism is what happens when government representatives (those elected and appointed to work for us) adopt the authoritarian notion that the government knows best.

And therefore MUST control, regulate and dictate almost everything about the citizenry’s public, private and professional lives.

The government’s bureaucratic attempts at muscle-flexing by way of overregulation and overcriminalization have reached such outrageous limits…

…that federal and state governments now require on penalty of a fine that individuals apply for permission before they can…

  • grow exotic orchids,
  • host elaborate dinner parties,
  • gather friends in one’s home for Bible studies,
  • give coffee to the homeless,
  • let their kids manage a lemonade stand,
  • keep chickens as pets,
  • or braid someone’s hair, as ludicrous as that may seem.

Consider, for example, that businesses in California must now designate an area of the children’s toy aisle “gender-neutral” or face a fine, whether or not the toys sold are traditionally marketed to girls or boys such as Barbies and Hot Wheels.

California schools are prohibited from allowing students to access websites, novels or religious works that reflect negatively on gays.

And while Californians are free to have sex with whomever they choose (because that’s none of the government’s business), removing a condom during sex without consent could make you liable for general, special and punitive damages.

Up until a few years ago, Missouri required that anyone wanting to braid African-style hair and charge for it must first acquire a government license, which at a minimum requires the applicant to undertake at least 1500 hours of cosmetology classes costing tens of thousands of dollars.

Tennessee was prepared to fine residents nearly $100,000 just for violating its laws against braiding hair without a government license.

In Oregon, the law was so broad that you needed a license even if you were planning to braid hair for free.

The mere act of touching someone’s hair could render you a cosmetologist operating without a license and in violation of the law.

Of course, there is an anti-China propaganda campaign going on sponsored by USA funds…

1000 USD for each article, demonizing China.

That’s what the US embassies worldwide pay out in cash to mainstream media journalists.

Free dinners and additional training courses how to write bad news about China.

In Zimbabwe they caught them, the American swindlers.

In some European countries and the Scandinavian countries, similar practices are going on.

Further details: 
https://lnkd.in/dJ29eDtT

Oh, and by the way, a war of distraction is not going to happen.

The funding for all of this hate-China is straight from Taiwan billionaires, and my gut feeling is that if China needs to “take them out”, they will do so. Through black operations, or a dirty nuke, these people are going to be silenced one way or the other. Remember, boys and girls, China does not play. Video.

Please note that there are a bunch of videos in this article. Your best best bet is to click on the “VIDEO here” and open up the video in a new window. Otherwise it might take a while for the videos to load if you click on the movie arrow below.

It’s getting worse.

Almost every aspect of American life today—especially if it is work-related—is subject to this kind of heightened scrutiny and ham-fisted control.

Whether you’re talking about aspiring “bakers, braiders, casket makers, florists, veterinary masseuses, tour guides, taxi drivers, eyebrow threaders, teeth whiteners, and more.”

For instance, whereas 70 years ago, one out of every 20 U.S. jobs required a state license, today, almost 1 in 3 American occupations requires a license.

The problem of overregulation has become so bad that, as one analyst notes, “getting a license to style hair in Washington takes more instructional time than becoming an emergency medical technician or a firefighter.”

This is what happens when bureaucrats run the show, and the rule of law becomes little more than a cattle prod for forcing the citizenry to march in lockstep with the government.

Overregulation is just the other side of the coin to overcriminalization, that phenomenon in which everything is rendered illegal and everyone becomes a lawbreaker.

This is the mindset that tried to penalize a fisherman with 20 years’ jail time for throwing fish that were too small back into the water.

That same overcriminalization mindset reared its ugly head again when police arrested a 90-year-old man for violating an ordinance that prohibits feeding the homeless in public unless portable toilets are also made available.

Florida

It’s no coincidence that both of these incidents—the fishing debacle and the homeless feeding arrest—happened in Florida.

Despite its pristine beaches and balmy temperatures, Florida is no less immune to the problems plaguing the rest of the nation in terms of overcriminalization, incarceration rates, bureaucracy, corruption, and police misconduct.

A few years back, in fact, Florida officials authorized police raids on barber shops in minority communities, resulting in barbers being handcuffed in front of customers, and their shops searched without warrants.

All of this was purportedly done in an effort to make sure that the barbers’ licensing paperwork was up to snuff.

As if criminalizing fishing, charity, and haircuts wasn’t bad enough, you could also find yourself passing time in a Florida slammer for such inane activities as singing in a public place while wearing a swimsuit…

… breaking more than three dishes per day…

farting in a public place after 6 pm on a Thursday

Farting in Florida is ill advised.

… and skateboarding without a license.

Unhappy skateboarder.

In this way, the Sunshine State is representative of the transformation happening across the nation, where a steady diet of bread and circuses has given rise to an oblivious, inactive citizenry content to be ruled over by an inflexible and highly bureaucratic regime.

America has gone from being a beacon of freedom to a locked down nation.

And “we the people,” sold on the idea that safety, security and material comforts are preferable to freedom, have allowed the government to pave over the Constitution in order to erect a concentration camp.

The problem with these devil’s bargains, however, is that there is always a catch, always a price to pay for whatever it is we valued so highly as to barter away our most precious possessions.

We’ve bartered away our right to self-governance, self-defense, privacy, autonomy and that most important right of all—the right to tell the government to “leave me the hell alone.”

In exchange for the promise of an end to global pandemics, lower taxes, lower crime rates, safe streets, safe schools, blight-free neighborhoods, and readily accessible technology, health care, water, food and power, we’ve opened the door…

…to

  • lockdowns,
  • militarized police,
  • government surveillance,
  • asset forfeiture,
  • school zero tolerance policies,
  • license plate readers,
  • red light cameras,
  • SWAT team raids,
  • health care mandates,
  • overcriminalization,
  • overregulation
  • and government corruption.

In the end, such bargains always turn sour.

We relied on the government to help us safely navigate national emergencies (terrorism, natural disasters, global pandemics, etc.) only to find ourselves forced to relinquish our freedoms on the altar of national security, yet we’re no safer (or healthier) than before.

Oh, Here’s American “Leadership”

Watch one of the major American Senate leaders discuss matters with her “constituents”. VIDEO here.

So Huawei has 5G, and the USA doesn’t… because Huawei “reverse engineered” it from American companies. Huh?

America is fucked “360 ways from November”…

We asked our lawmakers to be tough on crime, and we’ve been saddled with an abundance of laws that criminalize almost every aspect of our lives. So far, we’re up to 4500 criminal laws and 300,000 criminal regulations that result in average Americans unknowingly engaging in criminal acts at least three times a day.

For instance, the family of an 11-year-old girl was issued a $535 fine for violating the Federal Migratory Bird Act after the young girl rescued a baby woodpecker from predatory cats.

We wanted criminals taken off the streets, and we didn’t want to have to pay for their incarceration. What we’ve gotten is a nation that boasts the highest incarceration rate in the world, with more than 2.3 million people locked up, many of them doing time for relatively minor, nonviolent crimes, and a private prison industry fueling the drive for more inmates, who are forced to provide corporations with cheap labor.

A special report by CNBC breaks down the national numbers:

One out of 100 American adults is behind bars — while a stunning one out of 32 is on probation, parole or in prison. 

This reliance on mass incarceration has created a thriving prison economy. 

The states and the federal government spend about $74 billion a year on corrections, and nearly 800,000 people work in the industry.

We wanted law enforcement agencies to have the necessary resources to fight the nation’s wars on terror, crime and drugs. What we got instead were militarized police decked out with M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, silencers, battle tanks and hollow point bullets—gear designed for the battlefield.

More than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year (many for routine police tasks, resulting in losses of life and property), and profit-driven schemes that add to the government’s largesse such as asset forfeiture, where police seize property from “suspected criminals.”

According to the Washington Post, these funds have been used to buy guns, armored cars, electronic surveillance gear, “luxury vehicles, travel and a clown named Sparkles.”

Police seminars advise officers to use their “department wish list when deciding which assets to seize” and, in particular, go after flat screen TVs, cash and nice cars.

In Florida, where police are no strangers to asset forfeiture.

Florida police have been carrying out “reverse” sting operations, where they pose as drug dealers to lure buyers with promises of cheap cocaine, then bust them, and seize their cash and cars.

Over the course of a year, police in one small Florida town seized close to $6 million using these entrapment schemes.

We fell for the government’s promise of safer roads, only to find ourselves caught in a tangle of profit-driven red light cameras, which ticket unsuspecting drivers in the so-called name of road safety while ostensibly fattening the coffers of local and state governments. 

Despite widespread public opposition, corruption and systemic malfunctions, these cameras—used in 24 states and Washington, DC—are particularly popular with municipalities, which look to them as an easy means of extra cash.

One small Florida town, population 8,000, generates a million dollars a year in fines from these cameras.

Building on the profit-incentive schemes, the cameras’ manufacturers are also pushing speed cameras and school bus cameras, both of which result in heft fines for violators who speed or try to go around school buses.

Yet when all is said and done, who is really to blame when the wool gets pulled over your eyes: you, for believing the con man, or the con man for being true to his nature?

It’s time for a bracing dose of reality, America.

Wake up and take a good, hard look around you, and ask yourself if the gussied-up version of America being sold to you—crime free, worry free, disease free and devoid of responsibility—is really worth the ticket price: nothing less than your freedoms.

And on the Geo-Political front…

…we have this;

...As for your suggestions of how China should behave with Taiwan, China didn't listen to such reasonable advice in 1950 and suffered thirty years of economic embargo, what is the chance of them listening to yours today? 

China has already learned the lesson of trusting in the goodwill of dissemblers in 1992, why should they repeat some more of the same?

Should we expect the Chinese Communists to be stupid? 


As for all the economic benefits, they're just a lot of capitalist narrative using the USD lie as measurement. Why should we even be comparing economies using a measurement that one nation can print while all others have to earn?

The real danger for the empire is that this big lie is about to collapse.

Most people forget that the power of the empire's lie comes from the support of its victims. You and I support it when we use it.

China is in fact a strong supporter of it. They still measure their GDP using the USD, giving the lie legitimacy. This is the next narrative that must be changed. 


As for your changing social forces in Taiwan and elsewhere, a lot of it is manufactured consent.

How many Taiwanese do you know? Do you know that a million Taiwanese live in China as long term residents?

Do you know most Taiwanese originally came from mainland China and have hometowns and relatives in China?

The manufactured social forces, similar to the social forces that were in Hong Kong, come from a lot of brainless people with a headful of poison for all things China.

Guess who created them? The same insidious "deep state" that has been conducting the global anti-China propaganda war, the benign source of your changing social forces.  


This true "deep state" wants us to believe that all of the empire's atrocities suffered by its victims come from some nebulous, intangible, and invisible Deep State, so that people become confused and do not know their real enemy.

How do you fight your enemy if you do not know what it is and where it is? These people have unlimited budgets drawn from the victims. They use their power to spy, threaten, disrupt, starve, torture, and kill their victims with impunity.

Most importantly, they corrupt a society dependent on truth to create a giant cesspool of lies where their victims become maggots, who know nothing but shit from the moment of their birth until they take their last breath.

For these maggots, shit is mother's milk and it tastes good.

China is threatening this cesspool by waking the maggots to their shitty world while showing them the possibility of a life prancing among flowers while drinking sweet nectar. 


The reunification of Taiwan will accelerate this awakening. Geopolitical advantages aside, which will make the encircled China the encircler, China will also own and control a majority of the supply chain for all things electronic.

The capitalist lies of the USD will be exposed.

Why would China receive useless paper in return for their valuable and irreplaceable goods that the rest of the world can't make? In fact, why would anyone else who has a choice?

The propaganda that comes out of the lying machine will simply be shit that no one wants to go near.

The blowback will be complete and the lying empire will drown in its own cesspool of lies. 


The true benefit of the reunification with Taiwan is the acceleration of the empire's downfall.

There is no amount of USD that can measure this benefit not only for China but for the rest of the world.

In the end, China will remain America's friend, don't worry, when the mesmerized people of America rise up and give the empire's evil enablers their comeuppance. 


-[redacted]

And the point is…

…Americans will NEVER rise up. It will never happen. Why?

But,Lets be real…

America is a police state, domestically. A military empire internationally, and is failing in every measure of success.

It won’t be long now until the final moments of the last vestiges of the lies be torn from the facade.

In case you all haven’t been paying attention, the United States is a real mess. It’s a nation of serfs that service the ultra-billionaire class. And everything in America is for profit, with only one goal and that is to make the rich richer. This horrible leeching of society has reached a point of danger. And you all must face the fact that the only way that it is going to change is by kinetic action.

Yahoo! News Informs the Stupid Peasants Why the US Needs to Go to War to Protect Taiwan

The actual appropriate headline for this article would be

“A Baby’s First Guide to Why the US Must Initiate a World War in Order to Prevent Chinese Reunification.”

The article gives a quick, slanted and false outline of the situation which does not attempt to either:

  • Explain the Chinese position on Taiwan, or
  • Explain why Taiwan is important to “American interests.”

It then gives a series of quotes from supposed experts on what Joe Biden should do.

 A firm commitment to defend Taiwan is the best way to prevent an invasion

“The United States needs to remove the ambiguity about whether it would come to Taiwan’s defense. Uncertainty about U.S. intentions raises the risk of war. … President Biden should declare that, though we will not support a Taiwanese declaration of independence from China, we will defend the island if it is attacked.” — Max Boot, Washington Post

The U.S. must accept it has nothing to gain from defending Taiwan

“Bluntly put, America should refuse to be drawn into a no-win war with Beijing. It needs to be said up front: there would be no palatable choice for Washington if China finally makes good on its decades-long threat to take Taiwan by force.” — Daniel L. Davis, defense priorities senior fellow, Guardian

The U.S. should maintain its noncommittal position as long as it can

“As a superpower, the United States should preserve flexibility in its global security relationships. It also is not even obvious that Taiwan’s body politic would welcome an explicit security guarantee from the United States.” — Therese Shaheen, National Review

Taiwan is too important to U.S. interests to let it be taken by the Chinese

“Abandoning Taiwan in the face of a Chinese military assault would be a monumental disaster. … The U.S. cannot afford to see a country that occupies vital strategic space in the Western Pacific subdued by Beijing.” — Hal Brands, Bloomberg

War with China would pose an existential threat to the U.S.

“Stumbling into a shooting war over Taiwan is akin to opening a Pandora’s box, and it would make the last 20 years of conflict in the Middle East look like an uneventful peacekeeping mission. A fight between Washington and Beijing could also escalate to the nuclear level, particularly if the Chinese Communist Party determines that the use of such weapons is the only thing standing in the way of a humiliating defeat.” — Daniel R. DePetris, NBC News

America has a duty to protect the free world from authoritarianism

“The United States and its allies have built and defended a rules-based system over the past 75 years that has produced unprecedented peace, prosperity, and freedom globally. I don’t want to trade that in for a world in which Americans stand by as revisionist autocracies like China gobble up neighbors by military force.” — Matthew Kroenig, Foreign Policy

The U.S. also has diplomatic tools to deter China from invading

“To further demonstrate U.S. resolve, Biden should tell Beijing that any more threats of force against Taiwan’s participation in the democracy summit will trigger immediate diplomatic recognition of Taiwan and an official statement of Washington’s new ‘One China, One Taiwan’ policy. Beijing must understand that war would mean instant Taiwan independence.” — Joseph Bosco, The Hill

The best way to defend Taiwan is through investment, not military threats

“Hyping the threat that China poses to Taiwan does Beijing’s work for it. Taiwan’s people need reasons for confidence in their own future, not just reminders of their vulnerabilities. If American policy makers want to help Taiwan, they will need to go beyond focusing on the military threat. They need to modernize the U.S.-Taiwan economic relationship, help Taiwan diversify its trade ties and provide platforms for Taiwan to earn dignity and respect on the world stage.” — Richard Bush, Bonnie Glaser and Ryan Hass, NPR

Some of those are funnier than others. The idea that a country that is force-vaccinating its population is less authoritarian than a country that is not doing that is actually so ridiculous that it borders on the deranged or outright insane.

But this is actually more anti-war material than you usually see anywhere on a mainstream website, so I guess good job with that, Yahoo!

But while they do include people saying “we really should probably think about whether or not we want to start a nuclear war,” what is lacking is a sober perspective.

Why is Taiwan even an issue?

Why are we even talking about this at all?

Not one single person in this entire media landscape will either:

  • Outline, in real terms, how occupying Taiwan is in “the interests of America,” or
  • Point out that no one will give that outline

You end up in a situation where no one even has any idea what we’re actually talking about.

How is it possible that we’ve reached the point where we’re considering a nuclear war over vague “strategic interests” that no one is able to explain in concrete terms?

Furthermore – and I hate to be the one to have to point this out – but things are tough all over.

America and the rest of the West have a lot, lot, lot of problems. We have very real economic, political and social problems that no one is offering any solutions to. So the idea that we’re talking about going to war to protect some fake country on the other side of the globe is simply inexplicable.

If I was allowed to offer a 200-word sound bite for that Yahoo! News article, it would be this:

 Taiwan is a part of China, and the reasons the US occupied it originally are no longer relevant. Instead of continuing to support the fantasy of a democratic China under the guise of the myth of Taiwanese nationhood, the United States should open talks about reunification. China will be open to giving wide-ranging concessions in exchange for the opportunity at peaceful reunification, and this will allow the West to clear up various unrelated conflicts with China, including on matters of international trade. 

— Andrew Anglin, Hoax Watch

I am happy that some in the media are finally saying that what we are talking about here is a nuclear war. That’s a long way from where we were a couple years ago, when the State Department first started its saber-rattling under Donald Trump. The humiliation in Afghanistan seems to have sobered a few people up.

But the fact that this discussion still remains so very far outside of the real, in the realm of the viciously and confusingly abstract, speaks to the moronic nature of the American mind. These people are literally asking you to believe that every single person in the entire Western world supports the idea of an “independent and democratic Taiwan” being “strategically important to the United States and its allies” even while not one person among this unified chorus is capable of explaining what either of those concepts means.

The basic fact, which anyone who knows the history knows but which no one in the American media is willing to say (and it wouldn’t be printed if they were willing), is that Taiwan was set up as an alternative government to the CCP government of China. The American goal was to foster a “democracy” government in Taiwan, which would eventually rule all of China. To this day, the government of Taiwan officially claims that it is the legitimate government of the entirety of China. This is not a secret, and yet somehow, it remains totally unsaid, and instead we are told that “Taiwan” is some kind of independent country that “China” is trying to invade and conquer.

The fact that Taiwan is not a country, but a piece of China occupied by the United States, does not necessarily mean that we should just give it back to China. But any serious discussion about whether we should or should not give it back to China should start from the point of accurately defining what Taiwan is. Obviously, if it is accurately defined, that would lead a lot of people to grasp the Chinese perspective on the issue, and make China look much less villainous, which is why there is some kind of soft ban on properly defining Taiwan in the media.

I think it would be morally good to simply give Taiwan back to China. But geopolitics are not based around moral goodness, so it makes sense that because America currently maintains control of Taiwan, America would instead negotiate concessions from China as part of the reunification process. But because we live in this fantasy world, we can’t have that discussion, and instead it’s simply “should we go to war to protect Taiwanese independence?” – a stupid and nonsensical question.

America is not a serious country, and its fixation with censorship has ensured that there can never be any form of seriousness injected into any discussion. Instead of talking about actual reality, the media and the political class argue about fantasies with only abstract connection to physical realities.

This is what a “dying empire” looks like.

And China is ready for it.


China fires hypersonic missile 'round the Earth'...

Dramatic display of advanced weapons...


Caught US intelligence by surprise...

Duh!

Look at what Chinese elementary school kids learn…

Here’ we have the red-necktie “Pioneers”, all volunteers, all elementary students (This seems to be fifth grade or so) watching a training film.. VIDEO.

And here we have some first grade students demonstrating their skills in front of the rest of the school in assembly. Note that all students not only learn English, but also get weekly lessons in military warfare, strategy, and operations. VIDEO.

And here are how a Pioneers assembly looks like. These are all first grade students around 6 years old. VIDEO.

In the title, I am spelling it out as clearly as I can. The rest of the world is moving on and forward. While America has turned into a nasty, nasty cesspool.

Here is America today…

The cities are inhabited by zombies. They really are. Video.

Well, not all the cities are inhabited by zombies. You have a bunch of people walking around in “freedom”, “doing their own thing”. Such as this fine upstanding “pillar of the community” here. VIDEO.

Woman raped on train as bystanders did nothing, police say

America today/ From HERE.

UPPER DARBY, Pa. (AP) — A woman was raped by a stranger on a commuter train in suburban Philadelphia in the presence of other riders who a police official said “should have done something.”

Superintendent Timothy Bernhardt of the Upper Darby Police Department said officers were called to the 69th Street terminal around 10 p.m. Wednesday after the assault on the westbound train on the Market-Frankford Line.

An employee of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority who was in the vicinity as the train went past called police to report that “something wasn’t right” with a woman aboard the train, Bernhardt said.

SEPTA police waiting at the next stop found the woman and arrested a man. The woman was taken to a hospital.

Bernhardt called the victim an “unbelievably strong woman” who provided police with a lot of information. She did not know her attacker, he said.

“She’s on the mend,” Bernhardt said. “Hopefully she will get through this.”

The entire episode was captured on surveillance video that showed other people on the train at the time, Bernhardt said.

“There was a lot of people, in my opinion, that should have intervened; somebody should have done something,” Bernhardt said. “It speaks to where we are in society; I mean, who would allow something like that to take place? So it’s troubling.”

Fiston Ngoy, 35, has been charged with rape, aggravated indecent assault and related counts, according to Delaware County court records. Bernhardt said he is known to both SEPTA and Upper Darby police.

Court documents don’t list a defense attorney, and a listed number for him couldn’t be found Saturday.

SEPTA issued a statement calling it a “horrendous criminal act” and urging anyone witnessing such a thing to report it to authorities.

“There were other people on the train who witnessed this horrific act, and it may have been stopped sooner if a rider called 911,” the authority said.

It’s called a serious breakdown in society.

MM contributor BoChen speaks…

Quote from pissedlizard on October 12, 2021, 2:44 am

Please listen to this warning. Believe what you will, but it IS a warning - and a message of hope.

Mathematically the odds of you being able to get out of the USA are dwindling by the day. If you are visiting or whatever. Look at the flights. The Neocons in DC are rapidly playing chicken with each other and I am afraid YOU all may get caught up in it.

I am just saying that at any day China and the USA can become enemies, right? MM has written dozens of TRUE articles. So let’s agree to THAT point.

Asians - in America - look at the SEVERE spike in black on Asian crime. This shit is BY DESIGN. Hillary, et.al.

That coupled with a DC - who nobody REALLY knows who is running the show - we THINK Obama - ok. But China/US Relations CAN deteriorate quickly.

And flights - ALLLLLLLL over America  - are cancelling flights - slowly at first... BY DESIGN.

What happens when relations pop - and they will - and there are no flights to be had - OUT of America.

Think Afghanistan a few weeks ago.

I warn you as a friend. And I will warn you further. For when it happens - I WILL NOT have this blood on my hands.

And as a friend I offer you this. Earlier I made a blood pact with MY Gods and Goddesses that you will ALWAYS have safe haven while this human body is alive. Always. Period. Any Asian in America that can’t get out and is targeted has safe haven while this human heart beats.

Your enemies will be mine when things go sideways.

You know what insect to look for.

All of this I know to be TRUE.

EMMAA///EMMT

I am an Asian (Chinese) living in America (Dallas, Texas area) and I’ve pretty much resigned to the fact that I’m almost certain to get gas-chambered by the US government in concentration death camps by this time next year… Most (vast majority) of Asians, including so-called “Chinese Americans” are still largely clueless how bad it can get and how fast it can get that bad…

Late 2019 is when total global energy consumption peaked globally, so after we crossed that point of inflection, its now overarchingly not only a “zero-sum game” in terms of the bigly picture, but rather more aptly it has been since CIA released the biovirus upon the world very much a “negative-sum game” where everyone’s pieces of the pie get ever smaller…. and the only way to get ahead or even run in place is to cannibalization….

As the USD is still global reverse currency, US printing to QE infinity means the rest the world is getting harvested and everyone else is getting squeezed that much more all so that Americans can stay at home collecting stimmy or working fake jobs making bank whilsts the rest of the world tightens their effective consumption…

China said NO.

No to Plaza Accord 2.0, No to US appeasement, and No to continuing to prop up the useless eater middle man that is Uncle Sam… Amerikkkan’s are like 5% of the global population but consume like 25% of all the resources…. and China had been a great enabler of this… keeping US inflation at bay for largely the last two or three decades…

No more…

What did yall think the BRI was all about? It is to create the trade routes with the developing countries so that China can one day soon directly trade with them in digital Yuan for raw resources that China needs to power its own domestic consumption instead of making small margins on the side by slaving away for Uncle Sam. This is what “Dual Circulation” is all about, to cut out the middle man… the useless eater turned hostile geopolitical adversary that carpet bombed Wuhan with the CIA biovirus in its opening salvos of a covert and hybrid WWIII…

China’s return blow is to completely fuck up the entire US ‘supply chain’ and e-CONomy for good… No toys for Christmas will be the least of the American people’s concerns….

Meanswhiles, the iSheeple suckers are still saving money to “invest” in their 401k and stonks… and some dumb enough are still depriving themselves (even going in debt) so that they can buy and/or mine more CIAcoins as their supposed long term planning for “generational wealth” lolz

For every iphone that sells for $1000, something like only $12 returns to China as net profit… This is the real reason US strongarm its vassals to ban Huawei… and soon also Xaomi… this is the true purpose of America getting its allies to gang up on China to subvert Chinese technology development and China’s rise…

Speaking of the semiconductor chip shortage, Moores law is dead and so is Dennard scaling… This gives China the time to play catch up whilsts leapfrogging the West in new domains like quantum computing… By the time Taiwan TSMC finishes building those 5nm fabs in Arizona in 2025 the world will again be a vastly different place. China’s MIC2025 goal was to catch up and be completely self sufficient in high end semiconductor supply chain (including EUV and other tooling) by 2025… China spends more money importing chips than it does oil… and the US plan to extent the petrodollar is to do a digital OPEC with semiconductors as the new oil… and tech sanctions as the new chokepoints…

Whether its chips or jet engines or whatever other high tech , China’s goal is to become fully self sufficient so it can make whatever its own citizens need for internal consumption and only trade when necessary with developing countries for the raw resources it doesn’t have…

As China gets rid of the USA middle man, the efficiencies it gains from cutting out the fat overhead will allow it to continue to buy time to develop and scale out new energy solutions… I understand many believe its a lost cause… But one thing is for damn certain, China can no longer afford to keep making and shipping real goods to the US in exchange for cheap paper and fake digital money….

Wonder why Biden is opening the flood gates to massive immigration? Or how its even possible to simultaneously have a so-called “labor shortage” while in a bad jobs-market reports all at the same time? Its because with China cutting US off (its been planned) the US has no choice than to find another way to replace the EROEI Energy Slaves that its lost, (it had originally pinned its hopes on India and Vietnam but that’s not turning out so well either) not to mention the seemingly contradiction can be explained the same way as how you can explain the paradox of still having oil under the ground but yet have it be pointless to extract an energy source with negative EROEI… basically, a lot of the gig worker jobs in US actually pay net negative wages but in desperation the permanent and exponentially growing underclass of Americans are unwittingly reverse-mortgaging away their own cars to pay themselves by essentially converting the accelerated depreciation of their vehicles assets into the illusion of an temporary income source…. seems like the cannibalization is scale-invariant these days…

Here is China today…

Meanwhile, China is a nation of doers, helpers, believers in a great and bright future. China… the nation of Rufus’s. Video

Be the Rufus.

Here is China today. Part II.

Be the Rufus.

Video here.

Here’s China today, part III

Compare China to where you live. Are people helping each other out? Working together? Trying to support each other? Or is it a dog-eat-dog world where only the richest control in comfort? Video.

Be the Rufus.

China has come a long way…

Yes it has, and the rest of the world is blinded by the bullshit. Face the facts. Live up to the ideals. Do your part. Be the best that you can be. Help others, make meaningful changes for the good of all. Video here.

What is so great about China?

It is a nation of Rufus’s. Video.

Be the Rufus.

And the rest of the world…

Yah. People are “getting with the program.”

Here’s India inspiration. Video here.

Here’s some Thailand inspiration.

Video here.

Be the Rufus.

Sure the world is not homogenized.  Yet we all have to realize when groups of people are moving in the “right” or positive direction, and where groups of people are moving in the “wrong” or negative direction. It matters not where they are. What matters is what they are doing and why.

What they are doing and why…

The world is changing. It is historic.

The evil and selfish, self centered psychopathic idiots running the West are being displaced, and the rest of the world will no longer tolerate all their shenanigans. Going into outer space might have been the “final last hurrah” for the self-centered billionaire class.

Billionaires in space….. YES! You co; Mr. Common-man can do this. All you need to do is become another vaulted billionaire. Woo whoo!

Soon, very soon, a new reality will be realized. I have hope and I am so very optimistic. VIDEO.

And on a positive note…

There’s a lot of beauty out there.

A lot of friends to meet. A lot of things to do. A lot of food to eat, and a lot of memories to make. Don’t wrap yourself in the comfortable blanket of fear. Go out and look around. You might be very pleased with the new friends that you will make. VIDEO.

A fine Chinese woman.

She deserves a nice luncheon, some fine “chit chat”, and a lovely walk.

Bonus。

Be the Rufus. The world is changing. If you act like a cat; be the best that you can be, you will endure, survive and thrive. Be that Rufus. Help others. Make the world a better place. Be the Rufus. Video.

(Sorry about the audio quality.)

Do you want more?

You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.

New Beginnings

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Articles & Links

Master Index

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  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
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Meet the “6900 Protocols.” What happens when the USD collapses, and how the US government is prepared to deal with it.

You all know this. Right? The USA is a shambles. The guy or guys that you thought would be voted in to change things didn’t really do much. The messed up train is still on it’s tracks and it’s still on a collusion course with that very rickety old bridge. You know it. You family knows it. Your co-workers know it. Everyone knows it.

But what about the government?

Are they clueless?

No they are not. They saw the writing on the wall for some time now, and have been ready.  Obviously, they could see that elements have been building up for some time, most certainly. And there have been some events that definitely contributed to this situation, but make absolutely no mistake. SHTF is now active and the entire United States is in turmoil.

You are Here…

You are here.
You are here.

 

Though there is some minor debate on how close the USA is to the final pivotal moment. Those in Washington DC think (somehow) that it can be avoided or bypassed. While most of the people are like rats on a sinking ship and lashing out everywhere at everyone.

All you have to do is watch some of the American police shooting videos, or the shoplifting videos, or the crime videos. It’s all out in the open. It’s all brazen. It’s all dangerous. And no one is reporting it. Do I need to post the video after video of African-Americans just going into stores and robbing in broad daylight with no fear of being caught, arrested, apprehended or jailed. It’s a complete breakdown of society.

Like this man. He just walks into the pharmacy, picks out the narcotic drugs and walks out with them. Video HERE.

Video

 

Yup.

We’re in the shit.

From Hal Turner. For what ever it is worth, it is something to ponder and think about. But nothing to get all hot and bothered about. The Federal government has all sorts of plans on how to handle things when one condition or the other manifests. Edited to fit this venue and all credit to the author.

And please don’t freak out.

Sheech!

U.S. Treasury Plan If Economic Collapse: “Force Majeure,” Paratroopers to Fed Res. Banks, “De-Monetize” U.S. Dollar

Did you know the United States of America actually has a PLAN in the event they can no longer service their debt?   They do!  Adopted it back in the early 2000’s.  Meet the “6900 Protocols.”

With all the hoopla taking place nowadays, our national government being completely ILLEGITIMATE via a fraudulent and stolen election, and hyper-inflation creeping just around the corner, it might be worth a minute or two to learn what our “trusted public servants” have planned . . .  for us . . . . after THEY have Bankrupted the nation.

Protocols For Economic
Collapse In America

By Al Martin
2-23-2008

And this is how the U.S. Treasury would handle an economic collapse. It’s called the 6900 series of protocols. It would start with the Secretary of the Treasury declaring a force majeure, preventing the United States of America from servicing its debt.   

This, of course, would immediately be interpreted by the marketplaces as a de facto repudiation of U.S. debt. 

They even know precisely WHAT TIME they would make such a declaration:  11:38 AM eastern U.S. Time.   That’s because by 11:38 AM ET, markets in Asia and Europe will be closed, leaving only US markets operating for a few more hours.

A few seconds after that announcement was made, all United States markets, both equities debt and commodities i.e., stock, bonds, commodities, that have trading limits or permissible daily limits would all be limit-offered with pools. Limit-offered means that there are more sellers at the limit i.e., limit down, than there are buyers.

So-called ‘pools’ would immediately begin to form, probably a thousand contracts every few minutes. ‘Limit-offered with pools’ – this is trader language. Pools to sell 2,000 lots, 3,000 lots. That means, the number of sellers over and above the available buyers at the limit- offered price. That would begin to build.

By 1:00, the news would begin to sink in because it would take awhile before panic selling would arise from the public. This news is being released at lunch hour.

Most of the American people initially would not even understand the horror of the news. You would see professional selling first, and as that professional selling intensified over the afternoon, the SEC, the CFTC, NASDAQ, and various market regulatory authorities would begin to institute certain emergency market protocols. This would be the installation of the so-called ‘declaration of fast market conditions,’ for instance; the declaration of ‘no more stop orders,’ the declaration of ‘fill at any price,’ etc. in a desperate bid to maintain liquidity.

That first day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and related indices on a percentage basis would lose about 20%-30% of their value by the close of business that day. The real impact would come overnight when the American people found out what this was all about when it was explained to them.

The SEC and various regulatory entities have anticipated the market’s decline, hour by hour and they will be closely watching every move (down) the markets make.  It is widely expected that “circuit breakers” will be triggered within an hour, then triggered again, until the market suspends trading for the rest of that day.

When Japan’s markets open the next day – we will call this “Day 2” – what would happen is almost instant collapse.   At 7:30 a.m. EDT, the Tokyo markets would open, and no price would be affixed for probably three or four hours into the session due to the avalanche of selling.

Once prices were established, the government of Japan would close all of its financial markets.

Europe would not even open. All European governments would close all capital exchanges.

When the U.S. goes down, everything around the world in matters financial, goes with us. 

On that second day, here in the US, Army Forces would be dropped in via parachute to the cities where the twelve Federal Reserve district banks are located.

The reason they would be brought in by parachute is there won’t be enough time to do this via driving.  Those troops would HAVE to be in-place around the twelve federal reserve banks, to protect the plexi-glass pallets of currency in their vault stacked to the ceiling and whatever gold is also inside.

The origin of these U.S. Treasury protocols comes from the Department of Defense (DoD). The DoD has contingency plans for a variety of scenarios. Those scenarios would include, obviously, military collapse, World War III,  and its aftermath. What we’re talking about now is aftermath — how the aftermath of the U.S. being unable to service its debt, would be handled.

One does not necessarily know how the events would transpire that would cause the collapse, whether it’s military collapse or economic collapse. In World War III, it would become obvious — when the mushroom clouds started to appear over cities.

Economic collapse scenarios were always premised on the basis of a US declaration of force majeure on debt service. It’s a very extensive scenario.

The scenarios are all together, i.e., military, economic, political and social, complete destabilization leading to collapse.

Then they break down individual scenarios. In the economic collapse scenario, the starting point would be the United States Treasury declaring a force majeure on debt service, which is de facto repudiation, and that’s how it would be interpreted by the world’s capital marketplaces. Then the scenario goes on from there.

The US Treasury would obviously declare a force majeure after the European markets had closed. In other words, they had gone out for the day, which means 11:38 a.m. EDT, our time. They’d wait until the European markets closed, and the US markets had been open for a couple of hours. That’s when they’d determine how to begin the process of unwinding or controlling the collapse to the best extent possible, mainly because they know that the greatest hedge pressure would be people seeking to use other markets to hedge their long exposure in the United States and that the US would be the biggest seller in all the rest of the world’s markets.

Therefore you would want to declare the force majeure when the rest of the world’s markets closed. (catch’em off guard! I like it-its just so American.) The declaration of force majeure would be precipitated by the declaration that the United States is no longer able to service its debt. That’s pretty simple.

Who makes that decision? The Treasury Department. The President does not make that decision. The Secretary of the Treasury does. He has that authority.

You might ask — wouldn’t he have his arm twisted not to do that? The answer is that if there isn’t any money left to service the debt, it doesn’t make any difference what the current regime might want to do.

The day of reckoning is now coming. What has happened in the interim, from 2001 to present, is dynamic, global economic deterioration. The economic deterioration visited upon the United States by rampant deficit spending enacted by Congress is not a localized event. It is, in fact, global. We have a planet now that is sinking into a sea of red ink.

Back around the year 2008, the United States was consuming about 80% of the entire world’s savings to finance its debt.  At some point after 2008, the US began to need MORE than the entire world had to lend.  Enter the U.S. Federal Reserve, monetizing debt by entering digits into a computer account.  PRESTO!  Money created out of thin air to buy Treasury Bonds!   

Bringing this problem to a head is the issue of the central banks of Germany, Japan, and Saudi Arabia; they are no longer the powerhouses they used to be. Their reserves have now been substantially depleted. They can, therefore, no longer hide the fact that they own a certain number, likely in the trillions of dollars, of U.S. Treasury debt that isn’t being serviced, because they can’t hide it through bookkeeping tricks anymore; because their reserves are so depleted.

This is why not too long ago, someone put the arm on Great Britain and demanded payment in Gold Bullion.  It was all very hush hush, but readers of the Hal Turner Radio Show web site did get the information quickly.

Very serious amounts of Gold/Silver Bullion and cash money was abruptly removed from the United Kingdom on 13 April 2021, and shipped to Doha, Qatar without explanation.

Authorities in London did a rolling road block along the motorway to allow the tremendous shipment of bullion and cash to get through!  Three (3) armored bullion trucks, 4 unmarked police cruisers, 6 marked police cars and a police helicopter was following in the sky.  (Story HERE)

Someone is putting demands on western banks because they see the US money is in gigantic trouble. Someone is saying to the US…

 "You've got to start servicing this debt because we, and foreign central banks, are in nations - European and Asian - whose reserves are now nearly exhausted.  We no longer trust you to pay the debt, we want Gold.  Now."

Foreign Central banks can no longer make it appear that the U.S. debt is being serviced because those foreign central banks own reserves are so substantively depleted. Therefore the US and the west in general, are being told they must begin to cover this debt. If the US cannot, or will not, then, at some point, people in banking around the world will have to publicly admit in order to save their own necks — that THEY were the end buyers of a lot of stealth debt, a lot of debt that the U.S. Treasury issued illegally and has never serviced. That would then expose the whole cabal.

The process of unraveling has already begun because of ever-spiraling budget deficits. 

The U.S., even in its overt policies (now they're overt political, economic, social and military policies) is generating a $2 TRILLION-plus deficit per year.

There isn't enough money on the entire planet to lend such amounts to the US.

Because foreign central banks are so depleted from buying other US debt, they can’t refinance the stealth debt by issuing more stealth debt anymore. Nor can they bleed money out of the system like they could in the 1980s. There is no mechanism that they can use anymore to hide expansion of debt that could be used to service said stealth debt, and they are, frankly, running out of assets that they can steal from the American people.

So the proverbial day of reckoning is coming.  

Back in 2008, David Walker, US Comptroller General and chief of the GAO has said that the United States would no longer be able to service its debt beyond 2009. 

Yet here we are, now, in 2021. 

How could that be?   Well, as stated earlier, the federal reserve is monetizing US debt.  The fed is entering digits into an account on their computer system, then using that account to “buy” U.S. Treasury Notes.  Money out of thin air.

What does that mean?

The key is in what Walker meant when he says the debt can no longer be serviced. It simply meant the United States would no longer be able to pay even the interest on its debts because it needs more than the planet has available to lend to them.

Therefore, if the planet can no longer generate any more liquidity to lend to the United States, one of three things have to happen:

A

There has to be a sudden and dramatic reduction in federal spending. There are only two places that can come from. There would have to be an immediate slashing of defense spending probably by 65-75% OR; there would have to be an immediate cut in all social programs: Welfare, Food Stamps, Social Security and all the rest.

B

The other option, 6900 B, is a dramatic increase in the rate of federal income taxation from the current nominal rate of 28% to 65%-85%, which is what the Treasury Department estimated would be required post-2009 to provide the U.S. Treasury with sufficient revenues to continue to service debt, OR;

C

The third option, 6900 C, becomes the declaration of a force majeure on credit service of U.S. Treasury debt by the United States Treasury, which is tantamount to, and would be accurately construed as, de facto debt repudiation by the United States of America.

Day One. When that day comes, in other words, when the U.S. Treasury declares a force majeure on debt, it wouldn’t be broadcast on mainstream media. There’s no sense because the American people don’t even understand what it means. The announcement would actually be put on the Federal Reserve wire system, which would, of course, immediately be picked up by all media outlets anyway.

The United States would, in order to accommodate global electronic trading, attempt to open the market on the second day, which they would do, regardless of price, just to maintain some liquidity.

At the end of Day Two, the Dow Jones and related indices, would have lost two thirds of their value, and prices would be set accordingly.

On Day Three, the New York Stock Exchange, the SEC and other related agencies would recommend to the United States Treasury and the Federal Reserve that all markets be closed. That would be on the morning of Day Three.

At Eleven AM EDT, the Federal Reserve would then order all domestic banks closed.

At 9:00 PM EDT on Day Three, the President of the United States would declare a state of martial law. All financial transactions would come to an end. The Treasury would act to formally de-monetize the U.S. dollar and declare it worthless.

This would be totally unprecedented. In the past, collapses have been temporary and have been brought back up. But what we’re talking about now is the end.

These protocols that I’m referring to aren’t even all that secret. They were publicly available all through the Clinton era. These are Treasury protocols that were instituted mostly in the late 1970s when the Treasury and Federal Reserve began to feel that it was important to have an emergency-collapse protocol in place.

What precipitated the timing of this was the inflationary spiral of the mid-late 1970s, during Richard Nixon /Gerald Ford terms up to that point. The U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve were both concerned that this inflationary spiral, which was occurring not only domestically but globally, might lead to a global, uncontrollable hyper-inflation that the Federal Reserve or major central banks could not stop by traditional means, i.e., by raising interest rates and contracting money supply.

There was also the recognition, of course, that global central reserve bank bullion inventories had been so depleted over the previous 30 years that any re-institution of a species currency, even on a temporary basis, and even within a regional or individual nation-state basis, was no longer possible.

This is an analogy. In a military scenario, it’s like the President of the United States pushing the final red button — the commit button. The Treasury Secretary of the United States has a similar mechanism. It’s called the yellow button, the commit button. The Secretary of Defense has the same system. This is what happens. Computer programs start to institute these protocols.

Imagine the complexity of trying the manage all this. I think it’s going to happen all simultaneously. There are hundreds of different agencies involved, both domestically and internationally.

In order to maintain liquidity for as long as possible, it has to be extremely well-coordinated, and there must be existing collapse protocols that can be used.

The reason I was familiar with them was because I used to see the U.S. Treasury 6900 Series Collapse Protocol, 6903, 6904 there’ll be A, B, and so on which keyed in to the Department of Defense to be incorporated within the Department of Defense’s own World War III scenario and various types of military/ political/ social instability/ war/ pestilence, chaos, etc. scenarios.

All federal agencies had individual collapse protocols that ultimately got coordinated through the Department of Defense. Obviously, the Department of Defense would be the ultimate coordinator because it would need to have special forces available, on a stand-by basis, ready, that could quickly parachute into areas all over the country, into the cities particularly, to secure federal properties and assets.

And that’s literally how it would begin. By the end of the third day, it would be all over — a state of martial law. We’re not talking about war, now; this is just economic collapse.

There’s no military implication here, no political, no social implication or policy directive thereunto. This is strictly economic collapse.

By the end of Day Three, effectively, all banks in the world will be shut down, all paper currencies will become valueless. Martial law would be declared.

There would be no continuing transactions, at least for a period of time, of commodities. All providers of fuels and foods would be shut down automatically.

They have this planned in extremely great detail too. For instance, the U.S. Department of Defense Special 117th Assault Unit would parachute in to seize control of the cattle yards in Oklahoma City. This is how well it’s planned. In other words, economic collapse would automatically involve expansive military action and control.

By the end of the third day, when you no longer have a domestic medium of exchange, you have to have secured food and fuel stocks. You’ve got to have troops that have secured distribution points where there is food and fuel stocks, warehouses, tanks, etc. Otherwise people are just going to go get them, and the people have to know that if they try to go break into that store and steal that loaf of bread, they’re going to be shot.

The scaling-circle scenarios

Protocols for environmental disasters are called ‘scaling-circle scenarios.’ ‘Scaling circles’ is a Department of Defense euphemism. It’s also used in FEMA, OEM and other emergency management services.

In environmental catastrophes, which are going to become national or global, it’s got to start someplace. It’s going to start in one very small, specific area. Therefore what happens is that the immediate force containment is the greatest in the first circle, to try to contain the spread of the disaster and keep it within that circle-not allowing it into circle 2.

The environmental problem, to whatever extent it’s possible, before it spreads, will be neutralized or mitigated, in order to keep that catastrophe within that circle, or, if it is likely that it is to escape that circle, to attack whatever it is in such a fashion as to mitigate its strength and its ability to contaminate or otherwise affect other areas.

In the case of earthquakes, for instance, affecting the west coast, beginning at Mt. Rainier and moving southward — that’s a different type of scenario. That does not include as much Department of Defense involvement. It includes separate protocols, wherein mostly FEMA and OEM act as the senior coordinating agencies between municipal, county and state disaster and containment, which is called Disaster and Containment Units. Federal troops would only be brought in for the purposes of maintaining control.

In a military or economic collapse situation, National Guard units would provide any spare help they could in combating whatever the problem is. Federal troops would be used in order to have the specific authority simply to shoot anyone.

There are plans for all sorts of scenarios. The economic-disaster scenario is the one I always found the most intriguing because it is the one that is least understood by the American people.

Military control would be necessary when lines begin to form at the banks, people trying to access their money. But that wasn’t even anticipated as a big problem. Lines would form at the banks, but it was not even envisioned until sometime on Day Three because the American people wouldn’t get it. It would be announced that the stock markets are down 2000 or 3000 points, and since we’ve always been taught they’ll come back, the people would still be buying stocks.

You could count on everybody remaining in ignorance all the way down because the American people have never been taught Economics 101. The American people wouldn’t realize the full extent of it until the markets were closed on the third day, or until the time when they went down to cash a check and the bank was closed with soldiers out in front. Then they would go down and see the gas station’s closed. They see the local supermarket has been shuttered, and there’s federal troops in front of it. Then they might begin to catch on.

And remember — it’s not just federal troops. In emergency-collapse protocols, even before the declaration of a formal state of emergency or a state of martial law, the local military authorities within any given county or jurisdiction have the ability to essentially militarize anyone, that is, any civilian. This would be more than just deputizing civilians. It’s federal. In other words, they would have the ability to militarize and give military authority to a civilian force. This would include not only police and the sheriffs and state police, but all local law enforcement that exists below the state level would be immediately militarized. They wouldn’t take just anybody like they did in Iraq. It would be like the military when they call for volunteers.

In other words, this is how it would unfold over three days, but, in fact, very few Americans would know what to do about it or how to take any precautions. They wouldn’t have a clue because they don’t understand enough about economics to know what is happening. So that’s what it is — Economic Armageddon. 

Conclusion


In conclusion, since there is very little the people of the United States can do to protect themselves. We’re not going to make any suggestions of how to protect yourselves because there’s very little you can do.

We could tell you to go out and buy gold coins and bury them in the coffee can in the back yard and go to your nearest survivalist store, but, frankly, that’s useless. In the last analysis, it’s a lot of hype. There is very little the average US citizen could do.

Here’s an interesting and humorous aside. A couple of years ago, Hormel Foods, which makes Spam, announced that in the last six months there have been record sales of Spam in the United States the survivalists’ food of choice. After all, they pride themselves on the fact, as the spokesman for Hormel said, “It is the only food product you can buy with an expiration that’s 50 years.”

When everything goes to hell, when all that man has created has turned to dust again, the final legacy is going to be Spam. It will be the last surviving item — when the anthropologists of 20 thousand years from now are digging sites and they see these enormous mountains of unopened cans of Spam-still unspoiled and ready to eat. They’ll have monuments to the past, out of Spam.
(-Spam is the true definition of DEAD FOOD-it never goes bad)

Furthermore, on Washington Journal they were talking about how FEMA has recommended to the Office of Homeland Security to have increased restrictions regarding citizen hoarding of long-term food and fuel supplies. That’s pretty sinister too.

What they’re talking about is the purchase of long-term so-called stores of survival food. FEMA was talking about some sort of restriction preventing people from accumulating food stores; putting it simply, that’s what it means. The second point was to increase restrictions that already exist.

FEMA was recommending even tighter restrictions on citizens building their own private property underground storage tanks for the purposes of long-term storage of fuel. The real intent of this is is threefold: a) to restrict citizens’ ability to hoard food; b) restrict citizens’ ability to hoard long-term storage of fuel; c) the forced identification of citizens to reveal food and fuel stocks they may be hoarding.

And that, in my opinion, is the real essence. The government wanted this kept secret – having the FEMA supply restrictions angle put into the equation, because they knew how people would interpret it.

They have tried to use environmental legislation to restrict people’s ability to build fuel storage facilities on their own property — to get around what the true intent of that was. 

But the bigger picture is that if you start to limit citizens’ ability to hoard fuel and food and shake them up by potential forced identification of gold holdings or forced redemption.

In other words, what you don’t want is citizens who have the ability to store a lot of food and fuel and to own gold because they would be able to resist state control in the future.

The feds need to have every citizen on a rationing card to control the civilian population. You can’t have citizens out there hoarding food and fuel because then people can say to government, “I ain’t taking a rationing card, baby, with my national ID card. I don’t have to. You can’t control me through food and fuel and worthless paper currency.”

I used to make fun of these people. But now, things have come full circle on this debate. The pattern is becoming increasingly clear. So is the future.

In fact, I would believe that those of the survivalist mentality (the food, fuel, the gold coins in the coffee can in the back yard) . . . people who think that way will be ultimately vindicated.

People should quit making fun of them because they would be vindicated – even though they were all burned out, twenty-dollared to death, buying books and tapes, and discredited by mainstream media.

It may sound like a hollow victory, but it won’t be a hollow victory for them – them that’s got the Spam…

Attribution and Conclusion

The majority of this article was written long ago, in 2008, by a guy named Al Martin.   It was forwarded to me by a visitor to the Hal Turner web site.   

I tweaked the numbers to make them more current, and added the info about the federal reserve monetizing the debt so as to afford an answer to anyone wondering how, if this was all slated to collapse in 2009, we're still here?

It brings many frightening realities to the forefront because these days, what's taking place in matters financial with our federal government, is absolutely off the rails.   They're not just spending a little more than they take in via taxes, their spending almost DOUBLE what they take in in taxes.

Let me ask you, how much is the currency of a Bankrupt nation actually worth?

The very simple takeaway from this article is this: Have Emergency Food, Water, Medicine, and other supplies to tie you over for a few months, minimum.  

If/When you hear the phrase "FORCE MAJEURE" - you will have only HOURS to get to the supermarket, buy as much food as you can with whatever cash or credit you have left, and haul ass home to pack and head to your bugout location, then move out fast. 

Bear in mind too, the banks will get word of this before the rest of us.  They may cut off all credit cards before the public is event TOLD of a force majeure. That would mean you could only buy more food with cash.  Got enough cash at home to do that?

Once it all goes to hell, and money (as we know it) is "de-monetized" everyone is fucked; except the people who put their cash into something ELSE which is not cash.   No, I don't mean gold or silver because government will try to get their filthy hands on all of that.  Something with intrinsic value (it has its value within itself).  Things like land/real estate, precious gems, food supplies, fuel.  Anything that will be useful to you and holds its value in itself.

But for God's sake, don't just sit around and do nothing.  Prepare because when this hits, it will strike like a lightning bolt out of the blue.

The masses who are asses have no idea such a thing CAN EVEN HAPPEN, never mind happen to them.  When stores all have to close because there is no longer any monetary means of commerce, what do you think the savages in the cities are going to do?  Maybe  "Yo man, gimme all yo shit, Cracka, befo I bust a cap in yo ass"

Yes, it will be that simple.   So bug out before the savages figure out what's going on because the cities and urban areas will descend into violent chaos very VERY fast.

Then remember, under our system of Government, it  is CONGRESS that holds the purse strings.  No President can borrow or spend a single cent, unless CONGRESS authorized it.    All that debt which is collapsing our country, wrecking our currency, was done to you by CONGRESS.  So if you see any of those scumbags on the street, you'll know what to do.

MM’s Conclusions and opinion

It might happen. It might not happen. But as crazy as the United States government is, I am confident that they have plans on how to handle whatever events transpire. So when these plans start to unwind, don’t worry too much about it. It’s just a natural progression that the officials do when checking off the boxes on their long lists.

Don’t freak out.

Just expect it to happen sooner or later. My guess is in the next two years.

Do you want more?

You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.

New Beginnings

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Articles & Links

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America is slowly being rebuilt brick by brick towards a more community focus instead of an automobile focus.

Who would have known?

Throughout history, nations rise when there is righteous leadership that cared for its citizens' welfare and do the greater good. When they are corrupt and self-serving, those nations fall. Learn from history because we live in a world governed by cause and effect. History will repeat itself.

-Tom Tan

Imagine that. A nation decides to adapt to the people instead of legislating behaviors for them to follow. I know, I know, it’s a long way to go. But to hear that this is happening in the United States is absolutely astounding. It really is.

Wow!

Good stuff!

Great.

It’s about time.

It’s a new world

Yes it is.

I see the global pandemic starting a trend. Actually a series of trends. One of which would be a severely curtailed movement of people across national borders. While others involve a decrease in the use of airlines and planes to go from place to place. You will see these venues downsize.

Just like American malls have down-scaled due to the loss of the American middle class.

the world is changing. you can see it everywhere.

Here’s a scanning robot that I encountered at the mall when I was out getting some groceries. (We go to the mall for fun, we really don’t need to. The delivery services of Er-le-ma and Kangaroo are quite functional.) He said a cheery “Ni Hao!” as I walked by.

Scanning robot in China.
It’s a new world out there.

.

But you all have got to get the stupid “elected officials” out of Washington DC and start working together to help Americans. All this finger pointing, first to Russia and then to China is just useless and very counter productive. Nothing good will come of it. You have to look inside and address the problems there.

Why is “democracy” so valuable?

It’s heavily promoted (don’t you know) that one-person, one-vote system is the pinnacle of “freedom” and “liberty” in the world. Which is rather strange as the founders of the United States said the absolute opposite.

And people are looking at these various systems of governance with a keen eye. Maybe there needs to be some changes they wonder…

Daniel Bell has put forward his views in favor of China's political meritocracy... against the one person one vote (Western Democracy model) as a mode of selection for political leaders. He has done this  in two books.

The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy
Princeton University Press, 2015. ISBN 9781400865505.
 
Dean of the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Shandong University and professor at Tsinghua University (Schwarzman College and Department of Philosophy). He was born in Montreal, educated at McGill and Oxford, has taught in Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai, and has held research fellowships at Princeton's University Center for Human Values, Stanford's Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences and Hebrew University's Department of Political Science. 
 
Here:
https://youtu.be/e63ro_suARA

If you are fat and overweight, you change your diet, go to a doctor, exercise more, and monitor your vitals. You do not point at a thin and healthy person and blame them for your problems. Nothing positive or good will come out of it.

Speaking about blaming China…

Pause in WeChat, TikTok ban a positive signal for China-US ties: analysts
The Americans were going to ban WeChat and TikTok from the USA. Then  they realized many of their businesses - specially the precious petite  bourgeois "small businesses" - are only profitable with WeChat, while a  whole sector of the "influencers" business only existed (and prospered)  because of TikTok (the same way many glorified salesmen only exist in  YouTube).
 
My bet is, if they can't outright expropriate WeChat and TikTok  (Trump tried to expropriate TikTok, forcing it to include their  algorithm and source code in the forced selling of their American branch  of the business, essentially creating a second, American clone of the  company), the Americans will simply let this legal aberration to slowly  die and fade into oblivion.
 
China shows zero tolerance for fake news by banning BBC World News
Propaganda is not information. Fake news is not press. Lies are not speech. Therefore, the BBC is not press and is not speech.
 
The USA's response was hilarious. It basically stated that, because  China has an oppressive system and the West has a free system (because  of reasons), China is not entitled to ban Western news outlets, while  the West is entitled to ban Chinese newspapers at will. Typical case of  infantile "I'm better than you" rant.
 
Chinese consumption unabated on Spring Festival Eve despite 'stay put' policy
After months of double digit cases, Mainland China finally zeroed new  cases and is holding its Spring Festival. Meanwhile, the self-governed  province of Taiwan cancelled its Spring Festival after eight consecutive  months of (officially) zero new cases and just some 20 cases in January  (12 of which happened in a cluster, a hospital). Weird, somebody is  cooking the books here...
 
UK economy hit by record slump in 2020 but double-dip recession avoided
The UK's economy fell double the expected - but at least it avoided a double-dip recession!
 
Why Japan Inc can’t and won’t quit China
Welcome to the world of capitalism, Mr. Pesek.
 
-Posted by: vk | Feb 12 2021 12:18 utc | 72

It’s actually pretty bad.

It’s sort of like this…

It’s the way of losers.

To blame others for things that you yourself cause. And yet I find it difficult to accept that America is populated with losers. Sure there are evil people in government, and dregs of society shopping at Wal-mart, but certainly decent people still exist, don’t you think?

America is a real mess

Tax freedom day this year fell on Aug. 12. That’s how long it now takes for the middle-class worker to fulfill his “obligation” to the leviathan. The Ponzi scheme that is our fiat money system is insatiable. It inflates away the savings and investments of Main Street America.

Angel protects.
Americans need some protection.

.

While the middle-class struggles, the entitlement class grows. High unemployment (who can even count the unemployed at this point), directly caused by government lockdown policies, pushes more people out of the middle class and into the parasite class. One in five American children now lives in poverty, according to a report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

But the parasites live well off the producers. They get “free” housing, “free” food, “free” cable television, “free” cell phones. Their kids eat “free” at school (meals are still handed out at schools, even in lockdown). These “entitlements,” along with ever-extended long-term unemployment benefits, become so attractive that the incentive to work is suppressed.

The workers look with disdain on the parasites. The parasites look with envy on the workers, wanting not their jobs but what they have. Recent riots in Great Britain demonstrate what happens when the parasites decide they want more.

Meanwhile, even the working class is at war with one another. This is encouraged by the elites, but the current Administration has doubled down. The thugocracy of the Labor Unions terrorize non-union workers and companies large and small.

We need to help each other.
.
In America, everyone is at war with each other. America should be offering a helping hand to others in need. Not trying to fight each other.

.

Tea Party members, at least those who gathered in 2009 and much of 2010 before the Republican Party began to co-opt the movement, were blue collar and white collar, owners of small businesses, retirees, former military, salt-of-the-earth people from all political spectrums who would not support toppling foreign regimes, making war on countries that have not attacked us “for democracy,” or perpetual wars.

And while they indicated they are fed up with the status quo, Tea Party rallies were peaceful and orderly gatherings: Americans engaging in their right to petition government.

Now? Capitol protestors are “terrorists.” Right wing, left wing? Republican, Democrat? Engage in your Two Minutes Hate. The lamestream media talking heads are proud.

The elites love war abroad and at home. It distracts the masses from government’s ongoing theft and manipulation. Anger with one another allows them to continue their looting. It promotes threats and violence, which allows them to further clamp down on freedom.

 

Endless wars, abroad and at home, equal totalitarianism. It’s totalitarianism under the sweet-sounding name of “democracy“.

American Police State. Domestic arrest within a military empire. What would the Founders of the United States think of this? Do you think that they would approve?

.

Lest you think this is not the case, ABC News reports that …

"The Pentagon will deploy more than 1,100 troops to five vaccination centers in what will be the first wave of increased military support for the White House campaign to get more Americans inoculated against COVID-19."

You all think that America isn’t a Oligarchy-run Military Empire?

We need some angels to intervene and set things right.

Angels.
Angels.

.

The American cult of the individual denies not just community but the very idea of society. No one owes anything to anyone. All must be prepared to fight for everything: education, shelter, food, medical care. What every prosperous and successful democracy deems to be fundamental rights — universal health care, equal access to quality public education, a social safety net for the weak, elderly, and infirmed — America dismisses as socialist indulgences, as if so many signs of weakness.

How can the rest of the world expect America to lead on global threats — climate change, the extinction crisis, pandemics — when the country no longer has a sense of benign purpose, or collective well-being, even within its own national community? Flag-wrapped patriotism is no substitute for compassion; anger and hostility no match for love. Those who flock to beaches, bars, and political rallies, putting their fellow citizens at risk, are not exercising freedom; they are displaying, as one commentator has noted, the weakness of a people who lack both the stoicism to endure the pandemic and the fortitude to defeat it.

-The Unraveling of America

 

Anyways…

Let’s get on a more positive note. And let’s start talking about rebuilding America into something better.

The People the Suburbs Were Built for Are Gone

A new book documents the “retrofitting” of obsolete suburban malls, box stores, office parks, parking lots, motels, and more. by Shayla Love written on January 22, 2021, at 1:00am. Edited to fit this venue. All credit to the author.

Last summer, Donald Trump and Ben Carson, then Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, co-bylined an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal promising to “protect America’s suburbs,” describing how they reversed policies that would allow for the creation of denser living structures in areas zoned only for single-family homes.Advertisement

“America’s suburbs are a shining example of the American Dream, where people can live in their own homes, in safe, pleasant neighborhoods,” they wrote. 

But the suburbs, in the sense of the idyllic American pastoral Trump and Carson referenced, have been changing for some time—not necessarily the physical homes, stores, roads, and offices that populate them, but the people who live there, along with their needs and desires. Previous mainstays of suburban life are now myths: that the majority of people own their homes; that the suburbs are havens for the middle class; or that the bulk of people are young families who value privacy over urban amenities like communal spaces, walkability, and mixed-use properties. 

This mismatch has led to a phenomenon called “suburban retrofitting,” as documented by June Williamson, an associate professor of architecture at the City College of New York, and Ellen Dunham-Jones, a professor of architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology. They have a new book out this week: Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Strategies for Urgent Challenges.

Welcome to Metropica, a Supposed City of the Future

Allie Conti

Since the 1990s, Williamson and Dunham-Jones have been watching the suburbs evolve. They have found that much of the suburban sprawl of the 20th century was built to serve a very different population than the one that exists now, and so preserving what the suburbs once were doesn’t make sense. 

Their book describes 32 recent instances in which suburban structures have been transformed into something new. Many of the cases in Williamson and Dunham-Jones first book from 2011 on the same topic were focused on underused parking lots being transformed into mixed-use spaces. But in this new book, the retrofitting projects have become more ambitious, as cities and towns turn old box stores, malls, motels, or office parks into places for people to live, work, eat, play, exercise, go to the doctor, or even watch Mexican wrestling.Advertisement

They have found that when the suburbs are retrofitted, they can take on an astonishing array of modern issues: car dependency, public health, supporting aging people, helping people compete for jobs, creating water and energy resilience, and helping with social equity and justice.

Motherboard talked with Williamson and Dunham-Jones about why and how we should retrofit the suburbs, and whether or not the COVID-19 has made the suburbs appealing again, or instead accelerated the desire to retrofit the burbs. 

The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Motherboard: How do you define the suburbs—a slippery term with no concrete definition? You write in the book that you define something as suburban based on its “suburban form," not necessarily on location or city lines—what do you mean by that?

June Williamson: We’re architects and urban designers and so we are focused on the built environment. That means that when we’re looking at places, generally, that have been built out in the second half of the 20th century to be car dependent, not walkable, and have comparatively lower density.

Ellen Dunham-Jones: Similarly, you can look at the street networks. If you’ve got a grid, more or less, with small, walkable-sized blocks, that’s urban form. If you have a highway leading off into cul de sacs, that’s suburban form, which is a more treelike kind of pattern.

JW: That kind of development certainly characterizes most of the peripheral areas around the older urban cores in Northern American cities. But it can also be found within municipal boundaries of cities. We advocate for an erosion of oppositional thinking that you’re either in the city or the suburbs. When you look at a larger metropolitan area, suburban form can also be found near the center in need of retrofitting. 



You argue that many of these suburban forms are obsolete today because they don't fit the needs of the people who live there now. Can you walk me through some of the major demographic changes that have led to these suburban forms becoming obsolete? 

 

EDJ: One of the biggest shifts is that the U.S. now is a majority of one to two person households. And yet, the majority of land within regional urban boundaries is zoned for single-family houses. That already is something of a mismatch.

The expectation going forward is that something like 80 percent of new households that will form over the next 15 years will be these one to two person households. A lot of them would prefer an apartment or a condo—smaller units.Advertisement

Plus you have the aging of the society, that’s the other really big piece. Especially in the suburbs, a lot of elderly people loved their single-family house while they were raising the kids. But now that they’re empty nesters and retiring, it’s kind of lonely. They want to stay in their community with doctors and friends nearby. But a lot of them are looking for, frankly, a more urban lifestyle.News

Our Infrastructure Is Being Built for a Climate That’s Already Gone

Shayla Love

It's pretty interesting how the desires of both the younger millennials, Gen Z, and a lot of those aging boomers are converging on an interest in more walkable, mixed-use, compact urban places out in the burbs. 

JW: Commuting has also been transformed dramatically over the past decade or so, too. The notion that people live in the suburbs and work in the cities just isn’t true anymore.

EDJ: We tend to think that the jobs are downtown. Since the 1980s, the majority of jobs have been more than three miles from the central business district. In places like Atlanta, where I live, it’s closer to 90 percent of jobs are way outside. The central business district often has high rises and so it’s really visible, but we’re really seeing something called job sprawl. I certainly see in Atlanta, we have a lot of reverse commuters in that situation. 

So when you talk about retrofitting, you mean finding and altering underused or abandoned suburban buildings to better accommodate the demographics and desires of the people who live there now?

JW: Absolutely. And in most of the cases we’ve studied, this is happening because the built places have failed or are struggling to some degree. Advertisement

The dead and dying malls, the vacated office parks, the ghost box stores left behind. Rather than bring back the same thing, this is a tremendous opportunity. 

It can be as simple as re-inhabiting, or an adaptive reuse—fixing up the building, or changing the parking lot for something that’s better suited to the times. Taking something that was commercial and turning it into housing. 

It can also involve re-greening because so much of the suburbanization processes disrupted the regional ecologies and stormwater flow systems. Then it’s an opportunity for wider ranging benefits. There could be places of recreation or social exchange having small plazas and program parks. And then there is redevelopment. Taking a low density, car-dependent use-separated or mono-use place and mixing it up and investing in it. 

I was really struck by the statistics in the book about how many parking spaces there are per household in certain cities. Like how there are 1.97 cars per U.S. household, but in Des Moines, Iowa, there are 19 parking spaces per household. In Jackson, Wyoming, there are 27. These all seem like really obvious places to re-think about how we're using land. 

JW: These choices around parking we’ve made have been codified through regulations and naturalized as normal.

EDJ: We really have made it almost a right to park as opposed to a right to housing. Cars have much more protection than people do.Advertisement

There are these aging properties for the most part; a lot of them have become obsolete and those are places to retrofit. But sometimes [properties] are thriving. They’re doing well. Yet they still look at their parking lot as this underperforming asphalt. It’s not doing enough of the job. Sometimes there’s a mall that is doing well, and it makes more sense now to build a parking deck and build housing and bring in offices and make more mixed use. Tech

The Broken Algorithm That Poisoned American Transportation

Aaron Gordon

All of these: the parking lots, the dead space, the vacant spaces. Those are the opportunities for the suburbs to finally address really urgent challenges of equity, climate change, and health.

You’ve been documenting retrofitting since 2011, when your first book came out, and now this second book includes even more case studies. Is the retrofitting phenomenon increasing, or does it need a push? 

EDJ: If you go into any architecture school or city planning school’s library, there are tons of books on downtowns. There’s remarkably little written about the suburbs or suburbia. Most of what is there are sort of condemning them as wasteful and ecological boring places. 

We’re academics, we’re documenting this stuff, but we’re not exactly neutral. We are advocates. We’re advocates within our disciplines to to sort of say, hey, we really need to bring design to the suburbs

There’s so much opportunity. It is where most Americans live. We saw a lot of these projects happening and noticed that none of the architecture magazines would cover them because they weren’t cool looking enough. Advertisement

And yet this stuff was happening. We thought it was important both to say it’s important that the suburbs do retrofit and become more sustainable and resilient in just places. But it’s also really important to recognize this is actually happening. And that this should happen even more. A lot of communities are afraid to do something unless they know that some other community has already done it. 

A former Big Lots box store and parking lot converted into the Collinwood Recreation Center in Cleveland, Ohio.

You discuss the many social challenges retrofitting can take on. Some are more obvious like reducing dependency on cars or becoming more environmentally friendly. But there are some less intuitive ways retrofitting can impact our lives, like improving public health. 

JW: One of the observations in public health is that there are chronic diseases of our time in developed countries, and certainly in Northern America, related to obesity and the higher incidences of diabetes, and so on. 

One way to address those kinds of diseases is simple physical activity, yet we’ve designed physical activity out of our environments. To design it back in is a kind of low cost way of getting people to move their bodies.

A lot of literature looks at how access to nature, being able to have a view of trees, but also being able to socialize with others is really important. That links back to the demographic prevalence of one and two person households. That leads to loneliness. How can our physical environments create places—not force people to be physically active or to socialize in any particular ways—but to support the possibility?Advertisement

Can you explain one specific facet of intentionally designed well-being called the "third place?"

JW: This is a sociological concept. The “first place” is home and then the “second place” is work. The third place is is a little harder to define.

You might know it as the coffee shop, barbershop, or pub—so it might be a privately owned place, a place of business. It’s where one habitually gathers with others, forms friendships, and is engaging in social life. These are the places that we can design into suburbs as a way to support the overall social body. 

EDJ: The suburbs largely sold themselves on the value of the terrific private realm that they present. The suburbs emphasize privacy. As these demographics are changing, there’s more and more people recognizing, “I’m lonely. I would like a little bit more of a public realm.”

If your public realm is just a commercial corridor full of strip malls and parking lots, there’s not much opportunity. 

What we see happening are both the incorporation of the third places, but also small programmed parks, little town greens that have places for yoga classes, farmers’ markets, concerts, movie nights, and those kinds of activities that don’t force people to talk to one another, but at least enable the building of community. 

The atrium at Bell Works, formerly Bell Labs in Holmdel, New Jersey.

You also write how retrofitting the suburbs can be a tool for social equity, or minority community building—how does that work? 

JW: When thinking about social equity, it’s about how people use their social relationships in their social network in order to get connected to opportunity. It really is worth a lot. And it’s one of the reasons we need to challenge the exclusionary practices that have been codified in suburban jurisdictions for decades now. And the coarse sorting that we find in suburbs. 

Some of the ways to break out of that is in older retail properties, the rent might be less. There’s an opportunity for networks of immigrant groups with social and business relationships to form businesses, bring people in, and enliven a place. Advertisement

There is a number of examples of vanilla shopping malls that had seen better days that were dead and dying. They have been reinhabited and revitalized by reflecting the changing demographics of the neighboring areas. 

One example is Grand Plaza in Fort Worth, what has been rebranded as a Latino mall. One of the large several story department stores was broken up into hundreds of stalls for very small businesses, like a mercato that you might find in Central America or Mexico. The central atrium space in the mall now hosts Mexican wrestling and other kinds of themed events that reflect the culture of the dominant ethnoburb demographics surrounding it. 

These places can also become flash points in political movements. If you’re in the suburbs and you want to gather to have a peaceful protest, where do you go? One of the places you might go is the mall parking lot or along an arterial boulevard. 

What is there still left to do when it comes to retrofitting the suburbs with social equity in mind? 

EDJ: One of the other myths about suburbia is that the suburbs are middle class. Well, the middle class has been shrinking—we all know that. What we also see is that the suburbanization of poverty has really been tremendous. And yet it’s relatively invisible. 

Poverty remains most highly concentrated in our cities. But there’s actually more Americans living in poverty out in the suburbs.Advertisement

We draw attention to some of the efforts that have been made. Sadly, we don’t yet see nearly enough examples of retrofitting that are really addressing the problem.

There have been some cases of aging garden apartments that are the housing of last resort for a lot of very, very poor people. 

Those are just kind of aging out. In some cases, they’re being redeveloped into more expensive fancy apartments. We need a lot more attention to preserving and restoring a lot of those. It’s not solving a lot of ecological problems. These places are very auto dependent. But there’s such desperate need for more affordable housing out in the burbs. 

JW: I don’t think we can emphasize enough that there are people in very precarious conditions across the metropolitan landscapes of North America, and that retrofitting is a way by increasing the mix and introducing supportive housing and other kinds of support services in places where people aren’t marooned if their car breaks down and so forth. It’s an important factor in this conversation. It’s not something that can be isolated as only a city or urban problem. 

Remaking these garden complexes or old motels, if you’re going to add transit, make sure there’s access for lower income people, and also younger people who might be on the beginning stages of their kind of lifelong earning trajectory. They should be saving money and shouldn’t have all of their income poured into housing and supporting a vehicle.

There were a couple other case studies from the book I wanted to bring up. For example, I did not know that Bell Labs had been retrofitted! 

JW: That’s a super interesting retrofit. Bell Labs is a storied mid-century modern research and development campus designed by Eero Saarinen, a famous architect who unfortunately died right near its completion.

All sorts of things were invented there: transistors and technologies that led to cell phones. But it lay vacant for many years.

It’s in an affluent exurb in New Jersey, and the municipality hoped to tear it all down and develop 50 or so McMansions there

But the Preservation Society and other groups rallied and a developer got interested, and now it’s become like a vertical downtown. It has a quarter-mile long atrium and dozens of businesses located on the ground floor. They have a farmer’s market, yoga, a hairdresser, a Montessori school, a branch of the local public library, and fireworks on the Fourth of July. It’s called Bell Works. 

This kind of development concept is being repeated in another former AT&T property outside Chicago, so we’ll see how that goes. 

EDJ: There’s well over 150 office parks that are now being urbanized in some way. 

Bell Works is an example of mixing the uses of a space that used to be just offices, and where the assumption was that scientists would have epiphanies if they were isolated in their office looking at a pastoral landscape. Now, we tend to think of innovation as occurring in much more urban places, and it’s the chance encounters that trigger innovation.

It’s also being driven because employers recognize that the younger workers do not want to work in a cubicle in an office park. They do not want to work in a place that is only “work.”Advertisement

Another great example is the old box store that became a recreation center.

JW: Yes,in this case it was Big Lots in a relatively low-income neighborhood on the periphery of Cleveland that has been transformed into a recreational center. 

It now has a running track through it, a pool, some outdoor recreational spaces, and it’s yards from the lake there, too. 

There are opportunities to take these dead retail boxes all across the country—and there are thousands of them—and rethink not only the building itself, but the entire property and parking lots to support health, wellness, day care clinics, clinics for routine health care, libraries, and other kinds of sharing services.

 

Sometimes it's not about redeveloping these spaces, but about regreening them. Can you give an example of that kind of project?

JW: Back in the 19th century, Meriden, Connecticut lost all of its industrial use and job space, and so by the middle of the 20th century, a suburban, enclosed shopping mall had been built in the middle of downtown over in creek, and it failed miserably. 

Every time there was a big storm event, the creek would flood and cause millions of dollars of damage to all the neighboring businesses and the town had become increasingly lower-income. 

Formerly a mall and parking lot, Meriden Green, CT, now has relocated subsidized housing, and green infrastructure including a daylit brook and stormwater park. 

What happened here was an incredible greening retrofit where the mall was demolished, the creek that had been put into concrete below ground was opened back up to the air. The ground was regraded—that’s a technical term, but basically the surface of the ground was made lower. 

The whole property was turned into a park, which is a stormwater park. The next time there’s a big storm event, the park becomes like a big bathtub and water will drain there and eventually percolate into the soil and not cause all of the damages that it had in previous cycles.

There’s this beautiful amenity and then around it, lots of new housing is being built that then has the park amenity. There’s a train station right there that’s been rebuilt with increased service through central Connecticut. It has all of these kinds of connected benefits around taking away development.

Last summer, the New York Times wrote that "New Yorkers Are Fleeing to the Suburbs" because of the pandemic. There's been this narrative that people who live in urban areas are moving back to the suburbs—and they suddenly want the things that were previously obsolete. Do you think that's true, and would it put a stall on these kinds of retrofitting projects?


JW:
Broadly, what we’ve seen in this past year is an intensification, or an acceleration, of some of the trends that were happening already. There was already the redistributing of populations to some of those locations, especially in metro areas like New York, which are so insanely expensive. If you could find something that was New York-like in New Jersey or Westchester or Long Island, it would make sense that those places might be attractive to people.

What we’re seeing right now, I think in New York certainly, is people who’d been thinking about this acting on it. But where are they moving in the suburbs? They’re not rejecting the urban lifestyle altogether. They’re being drawn to already urbanizing locations in the suburbs.

It’s not a complete rejection of one for the other, but it’s finding like for like. Still, the evidence is mostly anecdotal at this point. Time will tell. 

I think it’s also understood that developers who are planning new projects in these suburban locations are looking to make mixed-use places, and are looking to add different housing types in their suburban projects. 

EDJ: In the long run a lot of those suburbs that those folks are moving to, if they’re going to retain those households, they’re going to have to start providing more of the urban amenities. 

I’m certainly seeing around Atlanta as one example, a lot more communities changing their zoning to allow for access to accessory dwelling units, to allow for what’s been called the “missing middle”—duplexes, quadplexes, townhouses—in existing neighborhoods with suburban neighborhoods that were single family [only]. Now they’re allowing that densification. 

Those regulatory changes have happened just in the last eight months. There’s been a surge of that. And it’s very much in response to recognizing that there is the market, the demand. People want these more urban lifestyles, even if they are choosing to move to the burbs. A lot of people who have isolated themselves might still be craving places to be able to gather safely. And so it could accelerate the retrofitting of suburbia.

America is a real mess.

But it’s changing.

It is a constructed gulag for Americans and you all had best not get “out of line”. You must obey or suffer the consequences. I am reminded about how the jails and prisons are in Communist China. Did you know that they have been modeled after the Arkansas (American state) Hard-Labor Camps? Yeah, it was a surprise to me too. But when I was in the ADC, sure enough, there was a delegation from China there at Pine Bluff, and Brickey’s learning about how best to construct workable hard-labor camps.

You can see that they have taken a page from the American police state and improved upon it…

The Chinese Jail and Prison system. All modeled after the Arkansas hard-Labor system.

.

Now, the Arkansas hard-labor system was modeled by Nazi German immigrants after World War II who took former slave plantations such as Brickey’s North Arkansas Regional Unit and turned them into hard-labor camps. Which is why they greatly resemble the old “resettlement” camps that the Nazi’s constructed in Poland during World War II. Anyways, the Chinese see the efficiency of this system and have incorporated elements in their own prison system.

So yes, America is a model for the world!

Chinese Jail and Prison.

America is changing

Yes, it is.

After the crisis event during a fourth turning, the resulting America will be substantially changed afterwards. We can see that the changes are starting. And they are long over due. We do not know the full extent of the changes, but we do need to be aware that they are in process.

Forget your fantasies that America will relive the American Civil War, the American Reconstruction Period, or the growth of suburbia in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The resulting American will be quite different, and will NOT resemble any other nation on the globe. It will be a uniquely American change. Let’s pray and hope that it will be a good one

In the meantime, please keep your eyes open. Look for examples of change. That will provide you with insight on the future of America. It is your “weather vane” to judge the direction that America is heading towards. Keep in mind that the “news” is really a horrible medium to view changes. You need to take “deep dives” into other sources, and use your own eyes and ears to provide you guidance.

Fauci, Biden's top medical adviser, told CNN that the approaching deaths tally (of 500,000) was "a terribly historic milestone in the history of this country."

-Reuters

Evidence of the changes are all around us.

Do you want more?

I have more posts along these lines in my Functional Notes Index.

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Some SHTF survival techniques that preppers should be made aware of

I’m going to lay off this stuff about the American shit-a-storm a-brewing. It’s a real drag don’t ya know. So this will be my last post on it for a couple of weeks. Instead, I will get back to more positive and productive posts like time-travel, sex at KTV’s, delicious bacon vodka, as well as art, and literature. I’ll bet you all were afraid that I fell into a black hole on all this crap, eh?

Yeah.

I am writing this by request. I sincerely wish that none of this ever comes to pass. Sincerely. I mean, why can't we all get along together. We're all Americans we need to act like it.

There is a movement (political) that is well funded, and organized. They are an offensive movement. That is to say that they want to go on the offensive to enact their desires. It represents about 5% of the population. These are hard-core, alt-Left progressive socialists.

There is a counter movement (political) that is grass-roots and unorganized. They are a defensive movement. They consist of preppers and other survivalists. They have a few organizations, but are pretty disorganized. They are on the defensive. They represent about 5% of the population. They are known as Alt-Right, or Hard-Right or preppers.

Then there is everyone else. And everyone else is being forced to pick sides. I think most people want to be left alone, go to work, and just a return to "normality" what ever that is. This post is for the vast bulk of people who really don't want to align themselves with any movement, just defend their family, and live a quiet life outside the fray. But you know, just because you don't want to partake in politics, doesn't mean that it doesn't want to partake in you.

So, there is a buildup and a gathering storm. You can run and hide, but powerful, wealthy, interests are seemingly desirous of hunting you all down and rooting you all out. And thus this post.

These are defensive techniques for use during a SHTF event and should not be considered to be anything else.

Remember that if all you do is "play defense" you will never "win the game". You must have a strong offensive strategy.

And, if you have the means, go to a nice safe and calm place. I'm thinking Greenland. Don't you know.

You can go ahead and visit numerous prepping and survival websites for advice and recommendations on what to do during a SHTF event. They offer good, solid and reliable information for the well-prepared survivalist. Here, I want to add some of my thoughts into the mix. And rather than duplicate the excellent advice given by others, I will concentrate on other things that might not be so well known.

I have some general knowledge and advice. Some of which might be buried inside some prepper sites, and others that might not be obvious.

Again, the best preparation that you can have is to associate yourself with a community where you are respected and one where you contribute. If that means that you need to become a Mennonite, and change your entire standard and way of living, then make it so. You need to be part of something. Being a “lone wolf” during this anticipated SHTF event is likely to be lethal.

The future will belong to the builders, the creators, the fluid and the flexible, and those that can fit into society. If you cannot, you will not do well in the coming years of shit-storm-a-thon.

Why this now?

From whatdoesitmean.com

Though to reach the point of a Contingent Election needing to occur, the United States would have to be at or near the point of a violent rebellion—a point now more than reached by the nearly 71-million people who voted for President Trump, fully 70% of whom believe this election was neither free or fair—whose beliefs are substantiated by the massive growing list of voter fraud committed by socialist Democrats to steal this election from President Trump.

With no democratic nation being able to survive in an environment where half of its citizens have completely lost faith in the election process, every historical example of this occurring has ultimately led to civil war

—with the last time this occurred in the United States being the 1860 Presidential Election

—whose end result of was the American Civil War that killed up 1-million of its citizens.

And exactly like what occurred in 1860, the divisions between the Republicans and socialist Democrats today are intractable and irreconcilable

—as neither of these two forces have compatible ideologies or visions for the future direction their nation needs to take

—neither of whom will ever accept being led by the leader of the opposing party they fear, hate and despise

—all of which are the ingredients called for in the recipe to make war. 

A war under The Constitution of the United States that is only permitted to be declared by the US Congress

—which is why the American Civil War was never a “declared war”, as it was single-handedly waged by President Abraham Lincoln using his powers as Commander

-In-Chief over all American military forces

—and in waging the most bloody conflict in American history, that cost more lives than all of that nation’s other wars all put together, saw what President Lincoln was actually doing was fulfilling his oath of office that demanded his only duty was to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic”.

The significance of which means that President Trump has had to determine if the socialist Democrats are a threat to the Constitution

—and if he determined that they are, means he is left with no choice other than to wage war against them as his oath of office demands he do.

Which is why the General Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces (GRU) continuously monitors and documents what President Trump is doing, as wars such as this have to be strategically prepared for

—war preparations GRU military intelligence analysts have documented now include the over 31-million guns secreted away during the past four years at an underground “Q” base

—guns suspected to have been purchased by the United Services Automobile Association (USAA)

—that is one of the most powerful secret banks in the world having tens-of-billions of dollars in assets and offices throughout America, as well as in London and Frankfurt

—and was founded by an elite group of US Army officers under the name United States Army Automobile Association in 1924.

A powerful and secretive US Army

-linked bank one of whose past leader of was former US Army intelligence officer Dan Brouillette

—who is now United States Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette, and is the top “Q Clearance” holder in America

—and last week saw Secretary Brouillette forcing from power Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, who oversaw America’s entire nuclear weapons stockpile

—a war move best understood when noticing the stunning historic announcement made last month that the US Army and US Air Force had merged together into a single war time fighting force

—that now sees the Army's Project Convergence artificial intelligence system linking to the Air Force and Space Force's artificial intelligence system called the Advanced Battlefield Management System

—that was joined by the US Army announcing that it has discontinued its Rapid Equipping Force set up during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to get urgently needed capabilities into the field in 180-days or less, as well as its saying it has now disbanded its Asymmetric Warfare Group.

Was preparations being made by President Trump whose purpose for came into sharper focus yesterday

—a day that began with President Trump firing Secretary of Defense Mark Esper—that was followed shortly afterwards by reports that United States Attorney General William Barr walked into a secretive meeting with Republican Party US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

—a meeting Senate Majority Leader McConnell emerged from to walk to the floor of the US Senate and declare: “President Trump is 100 percent within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities and weigh his legal options…Let’s not have any lectures about how the president should immediately, cheerfully accept preliminary election results from the same characters who just spent four years refusing to accept the validity of the last election

—a declaration quickly followed by Attorney General Barr announcing that he had authorized federal prosecutors to investigate “substantial allegations” of voting irregularities in last week’s election.

The furious Deep State backlash to saw Department of Justice official Richard Pilger, who handled voter fraud investigations and persecuted Republicans during the Obama-Biden Regime, handing in his immediate resignation

—that was followed by disgraced former CIA Director John Brennan screaming that if the Cabinet “had a spine and patriotism” they’d immediately throw President Trump from office using the 25th Amendment

—both of whom were followed by the release of an article, wherein just before he was fired saw Defense Secretary Esper fearfully saying: “Who’s going to come in behind me?...It’s going to be a real yes man…And then God help us”.

And whose terror being exhibited by these Deep State traitors is due to their knowing the definition of what a true “Citizen Soldier” is

—which is most apt term to describe whom President Trump has just chosen to be his acting-Secretary of Defense

—whose name is Christopher C. Miller, and began his military career as a low ranking enlisted soldier in the US Army in 1983

—who rose through the ranks to become a highly decorated US Army Green Beret combat veteran officer

—saw him becoming the US Army’s top expert on low-intensity conflict

—which is why before President Trump made him Secretary of Defense yesterday, he was Director Christopher Miller overseeing the National Counterterrorism Center

—that in 2012, then United States Attorney General Eric Holder granted the authority to collect, store, and analyze extensive data collections on US citizens compiled from governmental and non-governmental sources for suspicious behavior through pattern analysis

—thus making now acting-Secretary of Defense Miller the exact military leader President Trump needs to effectively and successfully wage war against the socialist Democrat Party forces trying to destroy American and its Constitution.  [Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in quotes in this report are English language approximations of Russian words/phrases having no exact counterpart.]

Here’s my thoughts on alternative tools that one can use when going into a defensive posture during an extreme societal upset.

Line Of Sight

LOS, or Line of Sight, refers to the simple belief that you need to see something to shoot and hit it. It’s pretty basic, actually. The only way around this is to use really large explosive ordinance, that do not require precision placement.

Selco tells a story about the difficulty in obtaining water. And there was a stream (a river actually) that people would try to go down to to fetch some water. The problem was that it was frequented by snipers, and those that went looking for water often died and stayed there.

If you need to make a water run, wouldn't it be nice to have a two person team do it. One to get the water, and the other to blind all snipers with something. Whether it is smoke, haze, fog, or blinding flashes of light?

This idea that you need to be able to see something to hit it is the reason why there is camouflage clothing, and the like. A good survivalist realizes this and makes sure that he / she is out of sight. “Out of sight, out of mind” as we used to say in Pennsylvania.

But you know, there are other techniques that you can use that will keep you all “out of sight”. And they are not that obvious. The following is something that was used during the Portland Rioters. They would blast these high intensity pulsed strobe lights at the police, effectively blinding them and making it impossible to target anything.

So, legit, we walked into this thing blind, in hindsight it was stupid on our part, I had no idea that they were like that. If it had been a full-blown riot we would not have gone. Bottom line, man, if you had ever given me a scenario like this and said hey, you’re sober, and you have a gun, and somebody is hitting you with a bat and throwing rocks at you that could kill you or put you in a coma, you try to get away but they cut you off with a convoy of vehicles and the assault starts again. They impede your movement and beat you with bats…
Would you shoot?

I’d be like, yeah what fucking planet are you from?

But in all the training that I’ve been through my life, I’ve never been in one where in the first five seconds of the scenario you’re blinded with a strobe light and sprayed with pepper spray…. That changes everything. 

They were throwing these rocks from 15 feet back in the crowd, you couldn’t see who the fuck through it, etc. things like that…. It’s just a good talking point for guys that carry concealed, but you need to think through all these different scenarios.

It got way worse after that video ended, they chased us for 11 city blocks. They had a convoy of about 25 vehicles that cut us off at the next intersection, They had scouts on the corner with radios, they had a drone following us, they had a bull horn calling us Nazis, and the crowd was following a red strobe light that was up in the air on a stick, so they would announce Nazis and then people would follow the red strobe light, That video is just the beginning, I’ve got a fucking fractured hand from a baton, everyone of us has black and blue bruises up and down their legs and back, I had a guy spit in my face from 6 inches away, call me a pussy and a coward for not doing anything about it, and then tell me that he was going to find where I live, rape my mother, rape my children in front of me and then kill me.

I’ve never been more angry about something in my fucking life, the level of restraint that it took for us to not fight back in any capacity whether that was with a gun or fists is incredible.

-2020 is the year that the American Civil War got “real”. With shootings, military tactics, and armed insurrection.

The idea here is that the enemy knows that you are in the vicinity. They want to box you in, hit you with bullets, and make it difficult for you to fire back. Rather than use smoke, you would disable their ability to target you with a high-intensity beam of light. I would like to introduce the reader to the High-intensity, Multi-function Portable Strobe Light.

High intensity strobe light.
Industrial grade high intensity strobe light.

Strobe lights are used in industry, in photography, and for special purposes. What you want is a portable unit, battery powered. You want one that cycles rather rapidly, at least once a second. Though, I suppose that once every three seconds might actually work. If you can find a sharpshooter that can locate you and target you under three seconds then you are in trouble.

If you are on a budget, you can even make your own.

The basic circuit is really super simple, with a single IC chip. You would need to construct the housing and make it shoot out a matrix array of perhaps fifty LED’s, focuses behind a lens. It requires a basic skill level in soldering electronics, but it doable, that is for certain.

Strobe circuit.
Here is a simple circuit for a single LED, run off a single tiny 6V battery. If you wanted to scale it up you would multiply the (resistor + LED) by fifty, and put them in parallel, and then from pin #3 (Q) it would control the gate on a transistor or FET.

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To control a large array of LED lights, you would take the output of the IC chip at pin #3 (Q) and run it to a FET, and have the power to the LED array handled separately like this…

FET driver circuit.
Where LOAD is the 50 LED array with one resistor to each LED. Q, from pin #3 would come in from the left and enter R. So you would have a 6V battery to operate the strobe, and a 12V batter operate the lights from the strobe. Of course it is super easy to have the 12 V batter run everything, but most of my readership are probably not up to the challenge.

DIY Claymore

Everyone is seemingly in love with the idea of using a nice sleek expensive bullet firing gun during a SHTF event. I call it the Hollywood effect. Here’s a hint; it’s all bullshit.

A gun is useless unless you know how to use it; and use it well under very adverse conditions. People will not start dropping like flies with single shots to the head when you spray an area with suppressive fire. If you believe that, then you are deluding yourself.

You need to hide, be low key, and be part of a crew, or a clan that works together. Then, and only then, you fight as it is necessary. And you fight as a last resort. And you never, ever, go out looking for a fight unless it is absolutely necessary.

But here, we are going to discuss something that is quite different. We are going to discuss “home made claymores”.

Designed to counter human-wave assaults, the Claymore uses a shaped C-4 charge to fire several hundred steel balls into a designated 55-yard killing zone. (Illustration by Gregory Proch)

In the lead-up to World War II József Misznay, a Hungarian army officer and ballistics expert, and German physicist Hubert Schardin formulated the Misznay-Schardin effect, a phenomenon in which the blast from the face of an explosive sheet expands perpendicularly from its surface. Nazi Chancellor Adolf Hitler was particularly interested when fellow Austrian Franz Rudolf Thomanek applied this principle to design shaped charges to defeat tanks and fortifications.

The war ended before Thomanek could perfect his weapon, and information on the Misznay-Schardin effect fell into American hands. Explosives researcher Norman A. MacLeod used it to design a weapon to counter human-wave assaults, such as those waged by Chinese soldiers against Americans in the Korean War. He named his antipersonnel mine the claymore, after the two-handed sword wielded by his Scottish ancestors. The device weighed 5 pounds and shot 700 steel cubes 40 feet.

The U.S. Army wanted something lighter, more efficient and more powerful. Responding to its 1954 request for proposal, researchers at Aerojet Corp. collaborated on a weapon whose C-4 charge could shoot steel balls to an effective range of 55 yards. The Army accepted the claymore in 1956, and factories produced 80,000 per month during the Vietnam War. U.S. soldiers first used them to devastating effect against Viet Cong and North Vietnamese human-wave assaults.

-M18A1 Claymore Mine: Enemy Troops Fall to Pieces
Designed to counter human-wave assaults, the Claymore uses a shaped C-4 charge to fire several hundred steel balls into a designated 55-yard killing zone. (Illustration by Gregory Proch)
Designed to counter human-wave assaults, the Claymore uses a shaped C-4 charge to fire several hundred steel balls into a designated 55-yard killing zone. (Illustration by Gregory Proch)

Essentially, this weapon is a steel box with a directional charge. The munitions are placed on one side, and the gun-power on the other, so that when ignited, the gunpowder detonates and showers the area with devastation.

I will not get into the details of such a mechanism. You can figure it out on your own, and after a few tries and experimentation you can come up with innovations ranging from electrical denotation, to movement actuated detonation, to time delay activation. It’s all in the electrical circuits, and it’s all very easy to make.

And the decision to use electronics to ignite it isn’t all that difficult either. It’s rather standard stuff. In fact, you can buy off-the-shelf hardware used for home-security systems to trigger the mine is a door is opened, light is turned on, there is motion in front of the area, etc.

A DIY claymore is rather simple to construct, but does require a handyman with some basic skills to fabricate.

Cheap DIY claymore

Here is a description on how to construct a DIY claymore out of a spring loaded rat-trap. It’s found on an Airsoft site, but it works just as well with gunpowder as it does with colored paint.

Rat trap to claymore.
DIY claymore on the cheap.
I'm cheap, and curious, so rather then spending over $100 on a claymore, I made my own.

Materials required:
Victor Rat trap x2
Victor Mouse trap x1
Small hinge x2
Strong Rip-stop cloth 50cmx 6.5cm (20"x 3")
Wooden shelf 16cm deep by at least 50cm long (6"x 20")
Wood screws (1.5" long)
Green braided fishing line (not mono-filament)
Straight braces X2 (optional)

I used a press-board shelf as that's what I had on hand. If i were to do this again I would definitely suggest a solid wood shelf instead.

Step 1
Prepare the 2 rat traps as follows,
Remove the trigger and trigger arm circled in green
Cut the wooden base at the red marks

BE CAREFUL, these traps are powerful.

Step 2
Rip the length of the shelf to give you pieces as follows,
2x 'A' x 'B' (Pieces 3&4)
2x 'A' x shelf width -'B' (pieces 1&2)
'B' should be equal to the width of the rat trap plus 2x the thickness of the shelf
'A' should be 25cm


Step 3
Assemble the rat traps and Pieces 1&2 ontop of Piece 3 as in the above image. Use screws to fasten in place. The traps will be placed so that they snap outwards. When the trap is armed the bar should be in the center. Leave a space between the two traps. Once you have the traps fastened down cut a piece of scrap from one of the traps to fill in 1cm at the bottom of the gap between the traps.

You can also cut any scrap pieces of wood to fill in the gaps at the ends, this is optional but will give the claymore a little more strength.

Step 4 (optional but highly recommended)
To make safety bars straighten out the trigger bars that you removed in Step 1. Now drill holes in pieces 1&2 so the safety bars can go from top to bottom and hold the bars on the traps in a compressed position.

Step 5
With the traps compressed and the safety bars in place thread the strip of cloth through the traps so that it makes a single loop around both bars. Sew this firmly. I used mono-filament fishing line to do this. The claymore should now look something like this:

Step 6
Fasten Piece 4 on the front of the claymore using the 2 hinges to connect it at the bottom to Piece 2. Put one of the 1.5" screws into Piece 4, 2cm from the top and centered. The screw should be almost all the way through but not quite.

Step 7(Optional)
Fasten the 2 brackets onto the sides of the claymore and sharpen the ends so you can jab it into the ground

Step 8
Now for the part that took me the most time to figure out. How to make a trigger that's secure, but sensitive enough to be used as with a trip wire.
Remove the trigger bar from the mouse trap. Bend a loop into it so that it looks as below.
Use a second piece of wire from the mouse trap to make a small tripwire piece as below.

Use a screw and couple washers to attach the trigger bar to the top of the trap. The screw will go through the loop in the trigger bar. One washer goes below, one above, tighten enough to hold in place but not to impede movement of the trigger bar.

Put the two staples that held the rat trap trigger plates side by side at the end of the long arm of the trigger bar as you can see in this image:


Step9
Attach a small loop of fishing line to the loop on the end of the long arm of the trigger bar. (note, I used twine but found it's wearing out very quickly)
Attach another loop of fishing line to the screw on Piece 4. This loop needs to be just long enough to reach the small arm of the trigger bar.

Attach a long piece of fishing line to the screw on Piece 4. Attach the tripwire piece about 25cm (10") along this line. Tie it on firmly so it won't move at all. I tied the rest of this to the wooden part of the mouse trap and wrapped it around so I had my tripwire and it wouldn't get tangled

Step 10 ARMING THE CLAYMORE

a) Compress the rat traps and install the safety bars.
b) Spread the cloth out and press the center into the gap between the rat traps. Fill it with BBs and fold the excess on top of them to hold them in place.
c) Place the loop of fishing line on Piece 4 over the small arm of the trigger bar.
d) Put the small loop on the long arm of the trigger bar between the two staples.
e) Put the tripwire piece under the staples and through the loop.
f) Place your claymore and run the trip wire, fasten the end of it, or leave it loose so you can pull it by hand.
g) double check the trigger and remove the safety bars

Step 11
Enjoy the surprised yelp as your unseen claymore springs open on some unsuspecting victim.

-Airsoft Canada

Bullet Matchbox

Let’s keep things really simple, we have an even simpler design a “bullet matchbox”.

This mechanism is much simpler. Instead of having to mix and pack gunpowder into a box and then hand-load the projectiles in the front, you simply make a steel box that sits a carton of ammo. Behind the ammo is a striking mechanism. This mechanism can be a simple solenoid, or a spring loaded trigger. And when it is depressed, all the bullets will ignite simultaneously devastating the intruders in front of it.

It does not need any barrels, as this is not precision mechanism. It’s a last ditch emergency device.

And of course, it need not be carefully and precisely manufactured. Any household rat trap will have enough force to hit the pins on the bullets and let fly an arsenal of death.

Infrared viewscopes

We’ve all heard of night vision scopes, but what about infrared vision? These high-tech devices enable you to find camouflaged people regardless as to how well concealed they appear. But what is unknown is how (relatively) inexpensive they have become.

Night Vision

If we’re being technical, this type of night vision scope is called image intensification, or just I2. Obviously, this kind of technology only works at night. This scope gives you the gray and green images you’re used to seeing in movies and television.

It captures bits of light from the environment, such as the moon and stars, and uses a special, electronic tube to magnify that light and project it onto your lens. This is the green image you see.

The images from these scopes are varying shades of green because the human eye can see more shades of green than any other color. This means that green imaging gives you the best, most detailed vision.

The most important thing to remember about night vision is that it won’t work in total darkness. It needs a little bit of light to work its magic, no matter which generation you choose.

Gen 1 units typically need an infrared illuminator to be useful. These are the least precise, and images are often cloudy and noisy.

Gen 2 units are better quality and produce brighter, clearer images than Gen 1. These have a short depth of field, however, so you may have to spend time adjusting focus when targets move.

Gen 3 is the highest quality and offers the best focus and clarity. These are used by law enforcement and some military operations.

A few of the best include:
– ATN X-Sight II 5-20 Smart Riflescope
– Armasight Nemesis6x-SD Gen 2+ Rifle Scope
– ATN Gen 2+ Night Arrow 4-2 Weapon Sight

Infrared and Thermal Scopes

Even though you might see infrared and thermal vision talked about as two separate things, when you’re looking for a scope, they’re basically the same. Most quality scopes will be labeled with “thermal imaging” or something similar, so that’s what you should look for when you’re shopping.

“Night vision” is not the same as “thermal vision”.

A thermal scope works by capturing heat from the environment instead of light. This heat is actually infrared energy, which is why you’ll see both terms used sometimes. Everything in the world produces at least a little bit of infrared energy, so it’s easy to get a clear view of your environment with infrared technology.

Thermal imaging uses a special lens that focuses on infrared light and creates a thermogram. The thermogram is then turned into electrical impulses that become a picture on the screen. The cool thing about thermals is that they can detect the heat given off by any living object.  

As opposed to night vision, they do not require ambient light to work. However, they do not require darkness to function either! This means thermals can be used during the day or night as opposed to the other type of optic.  

Low End Thermal Imaging

When you view something hot, like humans, animals or running machinery, the image will show up in shades of gray and white with the lightest areas being the hottest or vice versa depending on the scope. Things like trees or buildings will show up as “cooler” images because there is not much energy release happening.

Thermal imaging is very detailed and doesn’t need light to work.

Comparison.
Night vision vs. Thermal imaging.

The most basic thermals have a range of 300 yards for a man-sized heat signature. Mid-level detectors typically have a 500 yard range, and an extender can lengthen that range to 900 yards. The upper-tier, military and law enforcement-grade ones can accurately detect heat over half a mile away.

A few of the best include:
– ATN ThOR HD 384 Smart Thermal Riflescope
– Armasight Zeus 336 Thermal Imaging Weapon Sight
– IR Hunter Mark II Thermal Rifle Scope

High End Thermal Imaging

The High end version of thermal imaging systems display colors. This is very useful in discordant and contentious environments when bursts of clarity are required in a survival situation.

Drones

You can buy drones and they are very useful. They are used now, during riots, as surveillance devices, and mobile place-markers. But they have other uses as well.

  • Remote-controlled aerial bomb.
  • Mobile strobe to disorient the enemy.
  • Recon.
  • Distraction device. (Speakers, smoke, flashes.)

Additionally, the Chinese have perfected swarm drones.

Drone swarm.
Drone Swarm

These are available all over China and are used for impressive night-time displays instead of, or in association with, fireworks. America is a bit “behind the ball on this”, and it’s playing a game of “catch up”. As I know, no swarm drones are available to the American citizen as of this writing.

Some general links…

Wounding as opposed to killing

In a SHTF situation, the likelihood of antibiotics and medical care being available is going to be hit and miss. It might be more prudent, in the long term, to equip yourself with weapons that are cheap and easy to provides cuts and holes rather than expensive knock-down ammo. Then when a person has a .22 sized hole in their arm, they will need to deal with infection when there are no antibiotic medications around.

Rather than trying to purchase the biggest and most dangerous weapons you can find, in the belief that stopping power is most important, you should play the “long game”. If it really comes down to a SHTF situation, then there will be two things that will not be available. That is food and medical care. All it takes is for someone with a cut or a bruise to get infected, and they will die. We take antibiotics for granted. We never think about what it would be like when they are unavailable.

Antibiotics can be purchased on line inexpensively.

I would advise a small stockpile just in case.

Antibiotic online. It is possible to buy antibiotics at any time and in any place with the Internet access. Placing an order you will need to indicate your address for the delivery of the drug. Medications are delivered to any place of the planet in no time and there is no need to leave your house in order to get your package.

-Generic Antibiotic Online With No Prescription

Microwave cannons

Sounds like science fiction, eh? Well it’s not, really. The only issue is the range of application. These little monsters will cook a person alive. And are very lethal.

If you can get a hold of a microwave based radar system from an airplane junk yard, it will not be all that difficult to construct your own microwave cannon. The range will be longer, and the effects devastating.

When I was in the Navy I watched a video showing a person walking in front of a jet with it's radar accidentally turned on. That person was fried alive. Just because you cannot see it does not mean that it doesn't exist.
Aircraft radar.
Microwave radar from the front of a military jet.

You can also make you own, though with a pretty short range, out of old microwaves from the kitchen. There’s a reason why the box and front door are shielded like they are.

Vapor Cloud Explosives (VCEs)

Here’s a great technique if you want to create a very, well really big bomb. You detonate an expanding cloud of gas, and then (a second or so later) you ignite it. It’s called a Vapor Cloud Explosive (VCE).

Vapor Cloud Explosions (VCEs) The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) defines this phenomenon as : An outdoor vapor cloud explosion is the result of the release of gas, vapor, or mist into the atmosphere, forming a cloud within the fuel’s flammable limits and causing subsequent ignition.

-Vapor Cloud Explosions (VCEs)
Vapor Cloud Explosions (VCEs) The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) defines this phenomenon as : An outdoor vapor cloud explosion is the result of the release of gas, vapor, or mist into the atmosphere, forming a cloud within the fuel’s flammable limits and causing subsequent ignition.
Vapor Cloud Explosions (VCEs)
Vapor Cloud Explosions (VCEs)

In military parlance these are called Fuel-Air Explosives [FAE].

Fuel-Air Explosives [FAE] disperse an aerosol cloud of fuel which is ignited by an embedded detonator to produce an explosion. The rapidly expanding wave front due to overpressure flattens all objects within close proximity of the epicenter of the aerosol fuel cloud, and produces debilitating damage well beyond the flattened area. The main destructive force of FAE is high overpressure, useful against soft targets such as minefields, armored vehicles, aircraft parked in the open, and bunkers.

The Marine Corps and Navy withdrew their remaining fuel-air munitions from operational service following Operation Desert Storm. By 1996, the Army’s Operations Support Command transfered the CBU-55 and CBU-72 to demilitarization, and by mid-2001 only a few hundred remained to be demilitarized.

Russia used such “thermobaric” weapons sparingly during the 1994-1996 war in Chechnya. These were employed outside the city of Grozny against villages and mountain positions. Only the RPO-A flame thrower, which has a thermobaric round, was used in fighting in Grozny itself.

When the fighting rekindled in the fall of 1999, Russian forces bombarded some villages in Dagestan with thermobaric bombs, but initially limited their use. When the Russian Army was committed, it slowly advanced across Chechnya’s plains, preceded by conventional artillery fire. The advance, however, stalled when it finally reached Grozny and the mountains.

Conventional artillery could not force out the Chechens and the Russian Army looked for other ways to move them. Two methods were apparently opposed-chemical weapons and thermobaric weapons. The Russian political leadership apparently vetoed the use of chemical weapons, but allowed the use of ground-delivered themobaric weapons. Air-delivered thermobaric systems were only used outside the city.

Fuel/air explosive represent the military application of the vapor cloud explosions and dust explosions accidents that have long bedeviled a variety of industries.

Accidental vapor cloud explosion hazards are of great concern to the refining and chemical processing industry, and a number of catastrophic explosion accidents have had significant consequences in terms of injury, property damage, business interruption, loss of goodwill, and environmental impact.
Every year, many serious explosions and fires occur in industrial plants as a result of dust. Many materials form dust clouds that can easily ignite and explode, injuring personnel and damaging plant. This is a well-known phenomenon in the coal mining, grain storage, and the woodworking and paper industries. 

Many miners have been killed and injured and massive production losses have resulted from coal dust explosions in underground coal mining operations. Of the 129 grain dust explosions that occurred nationwide between 1987 and 1997, about half involved corn. Eleven were caused by wheat dust and 10 by dust from soybeans. Billions of tiny, highly combustible particles of grain are generated by grain kernels rubbing together as they move along conveyer belts and shifted between bins. Inside the enclosed chambers, those particles rise in a cloud. When the dust gets in with the right mixture of oxygen and comes in contact with a spark or even an overheated bearing on a conveyer belt, it is extremely explosive.

Almost all organic material in the form of a dust cloud will ignite at temperatures below 500 oC - approximately the same temperature as a newly extinguished match. Cotton, plastics and foodstuffs such as sugar, flour and cocoa can also, under the right conditions, act as explosives. In order for a dust explosion to take place, the dust particles must be of a certain size and the amount of finely granulated material per unit of volume must lie within certain critical values. There is generally a direct correlation between particle size and explosive hazard. The smaller the particle, the more reactive the dust. As the materials become smaller, they disperse and remain suspended more easily, increasing the potential for ignition and propagation of the reaction. Industrial explosion prevention measures include, where possible, providing nitrogen gas purging to ensure that the oxygen concentration is kept below that required for combustion.

For vapor cloud explosion there is a minimum ratio of fuel vapor to air below which ignition will not occur. Alternately, there is also a maximum ratio of fuel vapor to air, at which ignition will not occur. These limits are termed the lower and upper explosive limits. For gasoline vapor, the explosive range is from 1.3 to 6.0% vapor to air, and for methane this range is 5 to 15%. Many parameters contribute to the potential damage from a vapor cloud explosion, including the mass and type of material released, the strength of ignition source, the nature of the release event (e.g., turbulent jet release), and turbulence induced in the cloud (e.g., from ambient obstructions).

TNT generates well over 4,000 psi overpressure in close proximity to the source of the explosion, along with significant radiant heat effects from the explosion's fireball. Conventional high explosive munitions also produce fragments from the munition case, as well as fragments from material in the target area that is broken loose by the high blast overpressures.

Peak pressures created within the detonated fuel-air cloud reach 300 pounds per square inch (psi). Fuel-air munitions create large area loading on a structure as compared to localized loadings caused by an equal weight high explosive charge. High temperatures ignite flammable materials.

There are dramatic differences between explosions involving vapor clouds and high explosives at close distances. For the same amount of energy, the high explosive blast overpressure is much higher and the blast impulse is much lower than that from a vapor cloud explosion. The shock wave from a TNT explosion is of relatively short duration, while the blast wave produced by an explosion of hydrocarbon material displays a relatively long duration. The duration of the positive phase of a shock wave is an important parameter in the response of structures to a blast.

Although the detonation combustion mode produces the most severe damage, fast deflagrations of the cloud can result from flame acceleration under confined and congested conditions. Flame propagation speed has a significant influence on the blast parameters both inside and outside the source volume.

The blast effects from vapor cloud explosions are determined not only by the amount of fuel, but more importantly by the combustion mode of the cloud. Significant overpressures can be generated by both detonations and deflagrations. Most vapor cloud explosions are deflagrations, not detonations.

Flame speed of a deflagration is subsonic, with flame speed increasing in restricted areas and decreasing in open areas. Significantly, a detonation is supersonic, and will proceed through almost all of the available flammable vapor at the detonation reaction rate. This creates far more severe peak over-pressures and much higher amounts of blast energy. The speed of the flame front movement is directly proportional to the amount of blast over-pressure. A wide spectrum of flame speeds may result from flame acceleration under various conditions. High flame front speeds and resulting high blast over pressures are seen in accidental vapor cloud explosions where there is a significant amount of confinement and congestion that limits flame front expansion and increases flame turbulence. These conditions are evidently more difficult to achieve in the unconfined environment in which military fuel-air explosives are intended to operate.

Based on the known properties of flammable substances and explosives, it is possible to use conservative assumptions and calculate the maximum distance at which an overpressure or heat effect of concern can be detected. Distances for potential impacts could be derived using the following calculation method [described in Flammable Gases and Liquids and Their Hazards]:

D = C x (nE)1/3

where D is the distance in meters to a 1 psi overpressure; C is a constant for damages associated with 1 psi overpressures or 0.15, n is a yield factor of the vapor cloud explosion derived from the mechanical yield of the combustion and is assumed to be 10 percent (or 0.1) and E is the energy content of the explosive part of the cloud in Joules. E can be calculated from the mass of substance in kilograms times the heat of combustion (hc) in Joules per kilogram as follows:

E = mass x hc

Combining these two equations gives:

D = 0.15 x (0.1 x mass x hc)1/3

Vapor cloud explosion modeling historically has been subject to large uncertainties resulting from inadequate understanding of deflagrative effects. According to current single-degree of freedom models, blast damage/injury can be represented by Pressure-Impulse (P-I) diagrams, which include the effects of overpressure, dynamic pressure, impulse, and pulse duration. 

The peak overpressure and duration are used to calculate the impulse from shock waves. Even some advanced explosion models ignore the effects of blast wave reflection off structures, which can produce misleading results over- or under-estimating the vulnerability of a structure. Sophisticated software used to produce three-dimensional models of the effects of vapor cloud explosions allows the evaluation of damage experienced by each structure within a facility as a result of a primary explosion and any accompanying secondary explosions produced by vapor clouds.

-GlobalSecurity
Fuel-Air Explosives [FAE]

There is evidence that the 2020 Beriut explosion was either a micro nuke or a FAE. One thing is certain, it was devastating.

Beirut thermobaric bomb before and after pictures.
Beirut thermobaric bomb before and after pictures. Look at the size of that crater!
Trump Warns “This May Be The Last Time You See Me For A While” As Lebanon
Admits Beirut Hit By Bomb
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers

A mind-blowing new Security Council (SC) report circulating in the Kremlin today noting the Emergencies Ministry having established an airmobile hospital in Beirut able to receive 200 patients a day, says the shocking damage caused by the massive explosion crippling this city now sees Lebanon having reached a critical point that challenges its survival as a sovereign state—a grave situation discussed between President Putin and Lebanese President Michel Aoun—a discussion followed by Russia warning Israel it could face “dangerous consequences” if it continues targeting Syria with airstrikes—a first ever warning to Israel, as Russia’s military involvement in Syria is a declared “Holy War” to protect Christian peoples, not the Syrian regime, and is why no such warning has ever been issued before—but is now justified due to the facts showing that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed out to the United Nations General Assembly forum the warehouse that exploded on 4 August 2020 as a Hezbollah arms depot on 27 September 2018—a fact followed this past January, which was when Israel struck the Syrian countryside with a new missile having a tactical nuclear component in its warhead that causes a smoke mushroom characteristic of nuclear weapons—an explosion the likes of which have never been before until 4 August when the exact Beirut warehouse Netanyahu pointed out in the UN exploded and took the city of Beirut down with it—a reality being gravely acknowledged by Lebanese President Aoun, who has just declared to the world: “There is a possibility of external interference through a rocket or bomb or other act”—and after being briefed on these facts and realities yesterday, saw President Donald Trump addressing a gathering of his top Republican Party officials and cryptically telling them: “I Have a Lot of Enemies…This May Be the Last Time You’ll See Me for a While”. [Watch video HERE at 1:15:30 time mark]  

According to this report, with Beirut having been attacked with a weapon having a tactical nuclear component in its warhead that causes a smoke mushroom cloud characteristic of nuclear weapons, though obviously not an atomic bomb in the strategic sense, left undetermined at this time is what type of delivery system was used (e.g.: rocket, bomb, vehicle, etc.) and who deployed it—as even though this weapon was previously detonated by Israel in the Syrian countryside and Persian Gulf in its first tests this past January, it could have been used by any of Israel’s allies that it was given to.

As previously noted by the Security Council, however, this report details, the destruction of Beirut immediately followed Pakistan making a nuclear strike threat against both Israel and the United States

—that itself was then followed by President Trump breaking the “Taiwan Tripwire” to enrage Communist China

—war moves now being followed by United States Defense Secretary Mark Esper slamming Communist China yesterday for their “destabilizing” activity near Taiwan and the South China Sea, as well as for their lack of transparency about the COVID-19 virus

—and in the past few hours, saw Japanese Defense Minister Taro Kono joining with Defense Secretary Esper to warn that Communist China risks paying a “high cost” for its South China Sea intimidation.

A “high cost” being prepared for by elite US military forces on their Pacific Ocean base of Guam, this report notes, who just completed their combat training “to open an airfield in a hostile and contested environment”—an airfield in a hostile environment that could very well be used by the vast armada of warplanes.

The US Air Force has just revealed have just completed a huge war exercise—a massive war exercise that contained a wide variety of different stealthy aircraft, including F-35A Joint Strike Fighters, F-22 Raptors, and a B-2A Spirit stealth bomber, and most notably, at least one RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone from the service's top-secret 44th Reconnaissance Squadron—and are being joined by the Taiwan F-16 fighter aircraft that are now flying patrols against Communist China with live Harpoon anti-ship missiles—all of which are under the direct command and control of a President Trump that has just warned 

I have a lot of enemies out there…This may be the last time you see me for a while”—and most critical to notice about after President Trump issued this warning, it was followed within hours by two articles meant to terrify Communist China titled “Trump Advisers Hesitated To Give Military Options And Warned Adversaries Over Fears He Might Start A War” and “Donald Trump Has the Sole Authority to Blow Up the World. It is Madness to Let Him Keep It”.

[Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in quotes in this report are English language approximations of Russian words/phrases having no exact counterpart.]

Home made explosives from mouthwash

I just had to add this. Hydrogen peroxide (yes, that stuff that you can buy on the bottom shelf under the mouthwash section) is violently explosive when in the presence of copper. Even a very tiny section of a copper wire will cause it to ignite violently and dangerously.

This is, by the way, the explosive warhead on numerous Russian torpedoes, and one of the reasons why the Kursk was sunk.

A huge explosion sank the giant nuclear-powered submarine Kursk, killing most of its crew and stranding nearly two dozen survivors hundreds of feet underwater. An international rescue team assembled to save the sailors, but was unable to reach them in time.

-The True Story of the Russian Kursk Submarine Disaster
The remains of the Kursk after a front-end torpedo was accidentally detonated. The entire front end has been ripped to shreds.

.

This type of munition is just a volatile as it is dangerous. You have to be precise in making the triggering mechanism and you must be very careful in handling it. The slightest contact between the two elements will be explosive.

Hydrogen peroxide is not considered an explosive. However, when it is mixed with organic substances at significant concentrations, hazardous impact-sensitive compounds may result. Small amounts of other materials that contain catalysts (silver, lead, copper, chromium, mercury, and iron oxide rust) can cause rapid decomposition and an explosive pressure rupture of the containing vessel if it is not properly vented.

In addition to accelerated decomposition through contamination, the decomposition rate of hydrogen peroxide is increased with alkalinity, contact with certain materials of construction, and increasing temperatures. The rate of decomposition increases approximately 2.2 times for each 10 degrees C rise in temperature in the range from 20 degrees C to 100 degrees C, or 1.5 times for each 10 degrees F rise from 68 degrees F to 212 degrees F.

Decreasing temperatures have little effect on hydrogen peroxide until they drop substantially below 0 degrees C. Crystals do not begin to appear in 35% and 50% solutions until -33C (-27.4F) and -52.2C (-62F), respectively.

-Hydrogen Peroxide Safe Handling | USP Technologies

.

Most of what you can purchase off the shelf in America is diluted hydrogen peroxide solution. So you would need to have a higher concentration of the material from a warehouse.

"Set up your demonstration in an area that will be easy to clean up. A 30% hydrogen peroxide will make the most impressive explosion."

All this is nasty stuff

Yes it is. Its terrible and ugly.

I feel “icky” writing about this. I left my weapons development days a long time ago. And I really don’t want to revisit that situation. I really don’t.

From my point of view, you all should scram and get out of the line of fire. Why spend $2000 on a nice semi-auto weapon when you could (just as easily) spend the money on a round trip ticket to another part of the world and live off the remaining half in cheap hotels eating cheap food while you search for a local chick to shack up with.

But that’s just me.

The smart man avoids war, and gets way, far away, from any conflict. The sly man tries to get a technical advantage over his foes. The brutish man tries to fight his foes directly on their turf and under their terms.

Be the smart man, and head for the hills!

.

I have. I’m not fucking around. Dangerous times are ahead, and it’s not going to be waving a flag for this side of that side. You all are being played by a wealthy oligarchy who treats you all like dirt. Nope, no me. Tell you what, I’m gonna be quaffing some nice icy beers and cavorting with pretty girls instead. I recommend that you all do as well. Life is too short to fuck around.

Now, if you decide to stick around, here’s my advice;

  • You can never win a war alone.
  • You can never win a war if you play defense all the time.
  • You can never win a war if your enemies decide the terms of engagement (time, location, and weapons.)

Being an individual will be lethal if you stick around. Clan up or leave.

  • Anticipate back-stabbing and betrayal.
  • The “news” won’t report jack-shit.
  • Things will be going down, long before you are aware of it.

Do you want to see similar posts?

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The atrocities of the French revolution, a reminder for those wishing for sudden change in America.

As I watch from afar, I see numerous “interests” cheering for radical change inside the USA. I can see their sentiment, and for certain there are agitators and people promoting this level of extreme change. But people(!), history tells us that there is unpleasant change, and then there is REALLY UNPLEASANT CHANGE. Please be careful what you are wishing for.

Let’s look at the French Revolution. For in many ways it mirrors what the USA is going through right now…

…in many ways.

The French Revolution changed everything. France’s kings were replaced almost overnight by the most radical government the world had ever seen. France was suddenly a beacon of freedom: “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite” was the motto of the revolution.

Gosh. Really, it is still used to defend liberalism today.

But the revolution wasn’t all positive.

Thousands of innocent people lost their lives and the country was torn between different groups who used force to crush rebellion. It led France into dictatorship and, eventually, back to the days of kings and serfs…

Just like what might happen to modern contemporaneous America today.

The French Revolution (The Reign of Terror) 1789-1799

The story of the French Revolution is the story of a country collapsing in on itself.

It’s unfair to compare these events to the colonial uprising of the American Revolution. That is because that conflict did not take place at the center of power, and King George wasn’t exactly removed from the throne and decapitated.

… which is kinda how things went down in France in the 1790’s.

It was a time when the hostilities between the royalty and the common folk took on a real nasty tone.

Spoiler alert: things got ugly real fast.

Towards the end of the Eighteenth Century, France was dissected into three distinct classes / estates: the Nobility, the Clergy, and the smelly broke peasants who really didn’t count (aka everyone else).

At this time in France, people of the poorer classes were members of what was called the “Third Estate” in French legislature.

This is how things had been for longer than anyone could remember, and no one really second guessed it…

At least until a dangerous new idea came along…

The Third Estate: Other

The Enlightenment was a grass-roots movement that caused the underrepresented 99% to question EVERYTHING.

It was kinda like if Morpheus was going door to door with red pills and pamphlets about how the machines are harvesting our bodies as living batteries while we’re living our lives in virtual reality.

“No one can be told what <The Enlightenment> is, you have to see it for yourself.”

The Enlightenment, or Age of Reason, was an extension of the Italian Renaissance (meaning ‘Rebirth’), which brought new emphasis on discovery, and a search for truth and meaning through critical thinking, rather than just listening to what ‘they’ wanted you to think. This began an unprecedented drive for equality and individual rights which would ultimately challenge the hierarchy of the monarchy based government system.

The Catalysts of Change Chaos

Enter: the Bourbon King, Louis XVI (yes, that’s Louis the SIXTEENTH). Prince Louis (the 16th) was a reluctant ruler, with little to no interest in politics…

…then, suddenly he became the default king of France during the worst crisis of his country’s history in 1765.

The Bourbon monarchy reigned from the palace of Versailles.

This was Louis the 14th’s palatial estate. It was built 20 miles outside the districts of Paris, the nation’s capitol. Which was pretty handy. It was close enough for royal Kingly duties, yet far enough away from the stench of its open sewer system, and the complaints of the commoners.

This truly monstrous mansion would put every single house on MTV’s Cribs to shame.

Versailles: a 2,300 room, gold-plated, Sixty-Seven-THOUSAND-Square-Meter estate of PURE unadulterated EXCESS.

Versailles: Extravagance personified.
Versailles: Extravagance personified.

Not only did Louis get to be King, and live in a gigantic theme park dedicated to him…

…but he also married the young and beautiful, (albeit a little ditzy), Marie Antoinette, the Archduchess of Austria, in 1770. Louis XVI had won the lottery of arranged marriages and couldn’t really care either way.

Marie Antoinette: Madame Deficit
Marie Antoinette: Madame Deficit

Meanwhile, back in the real world: France was simmering in a toxic mixture of hunger, and anger.

Enormous fiscal mismanagement

On July 11, 1789, finance minister Jacques Necker, who was already not in good standing with the King, was fired for suggesting that the royal family go on a budget to help conserve funds.

To make matters exponentially worse, the French lost against Great Britain during the Seven Years War in North America, effectively draining the bank as it were.

They took all the money in the Treasury and used it on wars, and the salaries of the military forces.

Much like how the United States has been draining the Treasury on an endless expanse of wars and military policing activities.

The French people were the ones who ultimately paid the price, starving in the streets while their privileged leaders partied around the clock like it was already 1999.

Then, when America rose up against France’s long term nemesis (they were still bitter about that whole Hundred Years War affair), Louis further bankrupted the country to send money and troops to help out the revolutionary colonists, an oversight that worked out rather well in America’s interest, but not so much for the French people.

All the while, Louis’s Queen (Marie Antoinette), ran up the credit card bills with her increasingly extravagant purchases to the point where she earned the title: Madame Deficit.

France had grown significantly in a short period of time, putting increased pressure on the government. Bakery raids, and riots swept the country. So between the food shortage, increased taxes, economic crisis, and political discourse, France was one gamma-inducing-accident away from Hulking out.

Maximilian Robespierre

That’s when a man named Maximilian Robespierre, leader of the Third Estate, came forth as the voice of the poor and disenfranchised.

You might want to consider the "Third Estate" to be the party of the "common man". It's closest equivalent would be the American Democrat Party.

Max reasonably demanded that the wealthy paid their fair share in taxes.

In his address, he blamed the royal court for their pile of problems, and essentially called Louis XVI a greedy jerk, which he definitely was.

Maximilian Robespierre
Maximilian Robespierre

The Oligarchy refuses to listen

“A great revolution is never the fault of the people, but of the government.” 

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

1789: During an appeal to the courts, the nobility and clergy completely ignored their pleas.

Since legal channels didn’t work, they decided to take a different route.

The representatives of the Third Estate got up during the meeting, and simply walked out.

Well, that didn’t sit well.

After being locked out of a meeting, the members of the Third Estate regrouped outside the court house in a tennis court (randomly), and announced an Oath against the King’s authority and formed The National Assembly.

The aptly named Tennis Court Oath was basically like a French version of the Declaration of Independence.

Perhaps some compromises might help…

King Louis, unsure of how to proceed, attempted to make both sides happy, which he failed to do, on both ends.

Then as a last step, he called in troops from abroad to ‘keep the peace’. Within days 30,000 troops surrounded Paris. 

Sort of like how President Trump had called up the DHS and Border Patrol troops to seize people off the streets in Portland, Oregon. 

In response, The People formed a guard to fight the power! 

Sheer revolt had taken hold at long last. Paris erupted into violence as the people of Paris demanded retribution. Revolution had come at last, and things were about to get fugly…

The only problem? The make-shift militia had plenty of muskets…

…but not much in the way of ammo…

The solution: Raid the Armory!!!

The French Revolt!

Spurred on by these factors, on the morning of July 14, 1789, members of the Third Estate stormed the Bastille, a political prison in Paris, in search of gunpowder. 

The Bastille, though only housing seven prisoners, was a symbol of government tyranny at the time. The assault on the Bastille is now considered a flashpoint of the Revolution, and is still celebrated today in France.

“Storm the Bastille!”  they cried (in French, presumably).

And so the 99% marched towards the Bastille, ready to dish out some old school justice on some fools. 

The Bastille was a literal fortress. It was a tall dark fortress with an enormous dungeon that symbolized the monarchy’s absolute power, and the citizens of Paris were about to tear it apart, quite literally brick by brick!

Storm the Bastille!
Storm the Bastille!

“Enough is enough!” – a French Revolutionary

The soldiers stationed at the Bastille crapped their collective pants as the entire population of Paris came down on them shouting ‘Vive La France!’ 

Those that were too stupid to abandon their posts met a gruesome death at the hands, knives, and pitchforks of the angry mob that swarmed the castle like a colony of killer bees!

Afterwards the amount of blood splashed on the walls and pooling on the floor become a symbol for the “revolution!”.

The mob reaches the palace.

Meanwhile, ¡Vive la Revolución! had reached the gates of Versailles.

The angry mob of mothers and bakers tore into the palace, pillaging the flour storage… and royal blood!

Accounts of the time claim that more than one of the palace guards was literally ripped limb from limb.

According to an urban myth of the time, when Marie Antoinette was approached by her servants about the starving, angry, people rioting outside, the Queen dismissively pointed to the leftovers from the party, and told her advisors, “Let them eat cake.”

As funny as that is, she never actually said it.

In reality Marie was shocked.

She had no idea just how bad things had gotten, from her sheltered lifestyle in the palace.

Some claim that as she was running for her life, she may have said something in panic, along the lines of “If they’re hungry, can’t we give them some Brioche?” not fully grasping the severity of the situation.

Surrender!

King Louis XVI looked out the window, saw the torches and pitchforks, and immediately set about dipping his quill in ink to sign their Declaration of the Rights of Man, relinquishing his power.

The King and Queen attempted to sneak away, but were captured, and marched unceremoniously back to Paris in a parade of revolutionaries waving red, white, blue…

… oh and the severed heads of the royal guards on pikes. 

The National Assembly took control of the system, aristocracy was thrown out for democracy (by extreme means) and a Constitutional Monarchy was established by the people of France.

Now…

Now…

If you think that’s the happy end of our triumphant story you’re dead wrong.

Now, we get to the entire point of this.

It is now 2020. America is in a state of upheaval, and the ruling Oligarchy are oblivious. The actions taken are "half-measures" and doomed to fail. Soon, one way or the other, a successful change will come about, and when it does, there will be a period of readjustment.

Consider the readjustment that occurred during the French Revolution...

The REIGN OF TERROR Begins…

The Reign of Terror.
The Reign of Terror.

In 1791, the King and Queen attempted an escape to Austria, disguised as servants. Unfortunately they kinda sucked at acting. They were found out, arrested, and dragged back to Paris to await trial.

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette kept their identities secret from the people of France, and only guests who stayed at Versailles really knew what they looked like. This came in handy during the Revolution as the pair tried to make their escape, but there was one flaw in the plan: the king’s face was stamped on all gold coinage. They made it as far as the border before being recognized.

All the while, Jon Paul Marat became the voice of the Revolution. As it turns out, Marat was a voice of insanity.

Jon Paul Marat
Jon Paul Marat

His solution to every problem was the rolling of heads.

In his newspaper (entitled, “The Friend of the People”), he claimed that betrayal was everywhere.

He was sort of the Alex Jones / Bill O Reilly of Eighteenth Century France. 

Jon Paul Marat demanded the execution of hundreds, and when that wasn’t enough, he upped it to hundreds of thousands!!

As it turns out, people believed every angry word he put into his one-sided tabloid, and took up arms to carry out his will…

The September Massacre

1792: War breaks out between Prussia and Austria!

The Revolution back home in France takes a turn for the worse: The September Massacre – 1600 prisoners are slaughtered by crazed revolutionaries.

Many are given quick, biased show-trials before being hanged, or worse. Enemies of the revolution are made an example of. Criminals and aristocrats alike are killed without mercy.

A noble woman, Charlotte Corday, eventually got sick of all the death and destruction brought about by Jean-Paul Marat’s poisonous words.

So with a concealed knife she set about silencing him.

Charlotte shanked Marat (in the bathtub, mob-style) with hopes of bringing peace to her country.

Unfortunately, things didn’t work out that way…

… seeing as who he was, he suddenly become praised as a martyr…

…which only made things much, much worse.

 Jon Paul Marat's famous death
Jon Paul Marat’s famous death.

Eat This: Guillotine Cuisine!

Speaking of bloodshed… There was A LOT of it going around, which was not only work, but (as you can imagine) created quite a mess.

The French janitors were tired of mopping up crimson streets.

Turns out, Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotin had just the invention to streamline the whole mass execution process. His shiny new killing machine was christened, ‘The Guillotine’!

The Guillotine was created as a ‘humane’ form of decapitation. I can only imagine Doctor Guillotine giving a demonstration like a day time TV commercial, “It’s quick, efficient, (effortless), and ‘painless’!” CHOP! (Thud.)

The Guillotine was placed in the center of a town square in Paris, for all to see. This unsanitary death-dealing device soon became the bloody symbol of the French Revolution, with a name that evokes a cross between a pro-wrestler and a death-metal band: “The Nation’s Razor”!!

The Nations Razor.

Maximillian Robespierre, a former adversary of the death penalty, did a 360, flip flopping with the times, and became the Guillotine’s most outspoken supporter overnight.

Robespierre would help fulfill Marat’s blood lust as the people demanded it.

By the end of the century, 40,000 would lose their heads to the dreaded Guillotine!

Peasants looted and burned homes of tax collectors and landlords in what became known as “The Great Fear.” Many nobles fled France at this time, fearful of the rebellion. This inspired the end of feudalism, which was officially abolished on August 4, 1789.

Death of the King

1793: The King is tried as a traitor. He is declared guilty of treason.

The punishment: Death.

Both King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette were beheaded during the Revolution. The king was beheaded on January 12, 1793. Marie Antoinette followed her husband to “The National Razor” on October 16, 1793. Her last words were “I'm sorry”—not to the people, but to her executioner; she had accidentally stepped on his foot.

A few argued that the death of the former King would only excuse violence as a means to happiness. Those who spoke against it however were drowned out by the savage calls for his head.

King Louis, the 16th, was led to the maroon-stained scaffold.

He turned to his people in remorse and attempted to give a dignified final speech.

The crowd toned him out, booing and throwing rotten cabbage. They had come for blood (especially those in the splash zone).

Poor Marie Antoinette was also put on trial. When she was brought into the courtroom, she barely resembled her former self, as a list of made-up charges was rattled off. At 38 her hair had gone gray while awaiting her sentencing in a dungeon.

She too was led to the Guillotine.

“Whose next?”

It wasn’t all smooth sailing: the so-called “Reign of Terror” followed the initial revolutionary events, starting from around 1793 and ending with the fall of Robespierre in 1794. During the Reign of Terror, many political dissidents or perceived enemies of the Revolution were executed. Between June 1793 and July 1794, there were 16,594 official death sentences across France.

Britain takes advantage of the situation

Then, without warning, Britain began invading and panic filled the streets! (More so then before.)

An emergency government was put in place, the constitution suspended, and a police force of spies were institutionalized.

A revolutionary tribunal – a 12 men council – the ironically titled ‘the Committee of Public Safety’ was a collective dictatorship.

The government became extremely paranoid.

The Catholic Church was abolished, religious icons and statues were destroyed, thousands of priests drowned.

People were rounded up and sent to the guillotine on the most mundane of charges. Even a lack of enthusiasm could be seen as traitorous.

The Reign of Terror was in full swing.

France becomes a dictatorship

Maximillian Robespierre implemented dictatorial powers, declared himself the supreme ruler, and made lists upon lists of people to kill.

“Terror without Virtue is disastrous. But, Virtue without Terror is powerless!” 

-Maximillian Robespierre spoke before his groupies. 

In 1794, Robespierre helped sponsor a cult based on the Goddess of Reason in place of Christianity.

In his free time he established a new holiday: The Festival of the Supreme Being.

During the festivities, Maximillian Robespierre symbolically descended from atop a paper-machete mountain in the clouds, clad in robes.

This was seen as a thinly veiled attempt at making himself appear divine.

Though, in general, people were convinced that he’d lost his marbles, and began to get suspicious.

Robespierre chose this moment to deliver a speech of threats, with an all new list of enemies against the Republic.

The best way to tell what side a man was on was to check out his clothing. The French nobility wore knee-length silk breeches, whereas the lower class militiamen wore long trousers, short-skirted coats, clogs, and red caps that symbolized liberty.

This (of course) backfired in his face when the people flipped out and silenced him.

He was immediately arrested, and sentenced to death before he could finish reading off his latest hit list.

While in captivity, Robespierre attempted suicide. His advisors succeeded, but Max only managed to shoot off his jaw. The revolutionaries carted him off to the guillotine to finish the job for him.

As poetic justice would have it, Maximillian Robespierre was killed by his own revolution. FAIL

Maximillian Robespierre guillotined.

Enter… Napoleon

By 1804, a guy by the handle of Napoleon had risen through the ranks from General to Emperor.

On November 9, 1799 Bonaparte staged a coup d’état that abolished the Directory, the government in power at the time; he then pronounced himself as “first consul” of France. This event ended the French Revolution proper and began the Napoleonic era in France.

France had gone full circle, trading one monarchy for another.

After the rise and fall of Napoleon, the other European powers reestablished a constitutional monarchy in France.

King Louis XVIII (the 18th) was followed by Charles X (not to be confused with Professor Charles Xavier), and Emperor Napoleon III. During this time France would go on to have a few more Revolutionary movements.

The subsequent French Revolutions were minor in comparison to the first, and were by and large unsuccessful:

  • The July Revolution of 1830
  • The June Rebellion of 1832 (which was a complete disaster – as seen in the play / multiple movie adaptations of ‘Les Misérables’, by Victor Hugo)
  • The French Revolution of 1848.

The last of which established the Second Republic of France, which lasted until Napoleon the Third’s coup in 1851, effectively establishing the Second French Empire.

The Second French Empire eventually collapsed…

… and the Third Republic of France was established in 1870.

Everything was peachy until of course World War II when Hitler’s Nazi Party went around their massive defensive perimeter (the Maginot Line) to invade and temporarily conquer France (1940-1944).

The *FOURTH* Republic of France that followed ended up imploding in 1958 due to the Algerian Crisis (long story) to finally be replaced by the current administration:

The FIFTH (and Final?) Republic of France.

THE (first) French Revolution may have been a bloody mess that seemingly accomplished little, but it’s arguable that it had a greater impact on the world at large than the American Revolution, by challenging the old ways, and making way for the modern era.

In the end, the French Revolution would lead to a century full of instability, with two more Revolutions taking place. The country would be governed as a dictatorship, republic, constitutional monarchy, and two different empires before reaching equilibrium.

The Beheading Louis XVI

The beheading of Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette was one of the biggest events of the French Revolution, but it didn’t have to happen.

Before he was king, Louis XVI was quiet, dedicated to his studies and painfully shy. It took him seven years to consummate his marriage to the beautiful and intimidating Hapsburg heiress.

When he became king he was cautious and indecisive, eager to be loved. In another age he would have been a great king, but he was entirely unsuited to the political crisis of the time.

People around him took advantage of his weakness to seize more power.

Louis was little more than a figurehead.

It was no surprise when the new government voted to abolish the monarchy shortly after.

Some revolutionaries argued against executing Louis, but the revolution was in full swing and the public hated him. Louis XVI was killed by guillotine in January 1793.

Louis XVI guillotined.

The move shocked many across the world since Louis had always been seen as a moderate king. His death enraged nearby European countries and led to a war that might have been avoided. He faced his death fearlessly: with his final breath, he forgave those who condemned him and hoped that no more blood would be spilled.

The Toppling Of Statues

Executing Louis wasn’t enough: later that year, the rebels decided to remove all trace of the old kings from the country.

They started with the tombs of St Denis, the traditional resting place of France’s royals.

To begin with, the masons were happy just to destroy the old Carolingian statues and other symbols of royalty.

Destruction of Statues in America in 2020.
Destruction of Statues in America in 2020.

But within a month they were hammering into the old vault that held the kings from the House of Bourbon.

When they were in, they started destroying the old coffins.

Some of the kingly remains were put on public display, while others were dumped into a large burial pit, to cries of joy from the crowd.

Many people came to watch—so many that the laborers struggled to do their work. According to eyewitnesses, members of the crowd grabbed at the bodies when they could, taking stray hairs, teeth and other things as personal mementos.

These acts were later condemned both within France and across the world, but by that time it was too late.

Destruction of Statues in America in 2020.

After the Bourbon Restoration, the kings were retrieved from the pit and moved to the crypt in the basilica, but the damage was already done: many of the kings were unrecognisable.

The Law of Suspects

The revolution started because the rebels wanted everyone to be free and equal.

After they won, though, their anger didn’t come to an end: instead, they started hunting down anyone who might be a threat.

This period is now known as the Reign of Terror, and it resulted in thousands of innocent deaths.

Reign of Terror
Reign of Terror

The Reign of Terror started with the Law of Suspects, which granted the government the power to accuse pretty much anyone of being a rebel.

They attacked the priests, who were driven underground—for a while, being Catholic was actually illegal. In the end, anyone who might have been connected to the old nobles could be imprisoned and executed.

Over two years around 500,000 people were accused—a huge number for the time.

So many were accused, in fact, that the prisons were too full and people had to be put under house arrest.

Though most were eventually allowed to walk free, around 16,000 people were killed—and many thousands more died in prison.

Under the law, anyone whose “conduct, relations or language [showed them to be] partisans of tyranny … and enemies of liberty” was arrested and put on trial.

The Lyon Erased

Not everyone in France supported the revolution.

The city of Lyon backed the moderate Girondins, a group who were part of the revolution but were not as bloodthirsty as the others.

The rebel leaders considered Lyon a centre of royalist support, so they laid siege to it in 1793.

Over the course of the fighting over 2,000 people were killed in Lyon and the city was conquered. The revolutionaries had won, but they had further plans for the city.

In October, the National Convention issued a decree calling for Lyon to be destroyed.

Everyone who lived in Lyon was to have their weapons taken away.

They would be given to revolutionaries.

Any building “inhabited by the wealthy” was to be torn down, leaving only the homes of the poor, factories, and some monuments.

They even planned to purge the city’s name from history.

The city’s name would be erased: Lyon would be called Liberated City (Ville Affranchie) instead. They planned to build a column with an inscription on it saying: “Lyon made war on Liberty; Lyon is no more.”

Fortunately, this project was never finished.

The Girondins Executed

France’s new government had two main groups: the Girondins and the Montagnards.

  • Girondins – Moderates
  • Montagnards – Extremists

The Girondins were moderates: they wanted to build a free, capitalist, democratic country where everyone had a say in how they were ruled—regardless of who they were.

They were supported across France but the people of Paris liked the Montagnards more.

They were extremists who “wanted everything leveled”.

Anyone seen as elite had to give up their status or be executed. The groups got along well to begin with, but fell out over Louis’s death. The Montagnards wanted to kill him, but the Girondins wanted the country to vote on it. The Montagnards said they were plotting to save the king and called them traitors.

Things boiled over on the streets of Paris.

A group of soldiers and citizens surrounded the government buildings and demanded the Girondins be kicked out of the government.

The Montagnards duly did so.

Some Girondins were able to escape, but a few months later, those who were left were rounded up and guillotined.

Many Girondins guillotined.

The Drownings at Nantes

The city of Nantes was a center of revolution, but much of the countryside surrounding it was royalist. The region rose up in rebellion, leading to the Battle of Nantes. After this, the new French government decided to purge the city of anyone who still supported the monarchy.

To do this, they sent Jean-Baptiste Carrier, one of their most committed supporters.

Jean-Baptiste Carrier
Jean-Baptiste Carrier.

Jean-Baptiste took his job very seriously. In around five months, between 12,000 and 15,000 people were killed by his order.

Nantes lies on the Loire, which Jean-Baptiste called “the national bathtub”.

He and his men built special boats called lighters which were specifically designed for drowning prisoners.

The captives would be shackled to each other, often naked, and herded onto the boats—which had trap doors on the bottom.

The boats were then sunk with the prisoners on board. The elderley, pregnant women and children were all drowned without distinction.

In the end Jean-Baptiste’s methods were too extreme even for the revolution: he was recalled to Paris by the Committee of Public Safety, put on trial and executed by guillotine.

Jean-Baptiste guillotined.

The Law of 22 Prairial

Over the course of the Reign of Terror, thousands of people were imprisoned, some for absurd reasons. By June 1794, the prisons of France—particularly Paris—were overcrowded, so action had to be taken.

Robespierre and his allies drafted a new law which would allow trials to be concluded much quicker: they pushed this law through the Convention and it was passed on 10 June 1794.

It meant that people could be put on trial for simple things like ‘spreading fake news’ or ‘seeking to inspire discouragement’.

Citizens were expected to confront or report their neighbors if they expressed any kind of opposition to the government.

When these people were put on trial, they weren’t treated fairly: the judges and jury only had three days to come to a conclusion, and they had to choose whether to allow the accused to go free or be put to death.

This new law marked the beginning of the Grand Terror.

Executions per day increased dramatically across France, and most of those killed were undoubtedly innocent. The Grand Terror came to an end after two months, but not because people were horrified by the killings.

No, the new law had also made it so members of the Convention could now be put on trial. Looking to preserve their own skins, the members of the Convention removed Robespierre and guillotined him, bringing an end to the killings.

Robespierre guillotined.

The Massacre in the Vendee

The revolution was supposed to be a movement that freed the French lower classes and gave them liberty and security.

But anyone who opposed the new government was harshly punished, even those who were lower class.

In the early days, the church was singled out for its wealth and excess.

The revolutionary government veered between atheism and a new state religion, the Cult of the Supreme Being, but they were united in their desire to destroy the old Catholic system.

In the Vendee, however, the people rose up to protect their priests and churches from the new revolutionary government.

When the government ordered them to form a conscript military unit, they rebelled, joining together in local militias which were collectively known as the Catholic and Royal Army. This alarmed the new government, who sent the army to tackle the problem. After a series of pitched battles, the Catholic and Royal Army was defeated.

But the government didn’t stop there.

Determined to prevent another such uprising, the government sent General Louis Marie Turreau with twelve columns of troops to destroy to Vendee. Farms, villages, supplies and forests were destroyed, and the soldiers killed without restriction.

When it was over, General Francois Joseph Westermann wrote a letter back to the government saying:

“There is no more Vendée… According to the orders that you gave me, I crushed the children under the feet of the horses, massacred the women who, at least for these, will not give birth to any more brigands. I do not have a prisoner to reproach me. I have exterminated all.”

“Scorched Earth” on the Vendee.

The Law of the Maximum

Unlike many other atrocities on this list, the Law of the Maximum was implemented with good intentions—though the government was forced to do it. One of the biggest reasons people joined the rebellion in the first place was because food was too expensive, but by 1793 even the basics were going back up in price.

The enrages, a collection of anti-elite protestors who might today be called Marxists, argued that the nobility had been replaced by greedy merchants. Action was needed to take away their wealth and help the poor.

The government passed the Law of the Maximum in response.

It set a maximum price for goods, from bread and wine to iron and shoes.

Merchants had to display a list of prices outside their stores and, if any of their prices were above the maximum, they would be fined. Instead of going to the government, the fine went to whoever informed the authorities about the illegal pricing, encouraging people to rat out merchants who ignored the law.

It had a disastrous impact on France.

While merchants did reduce their prices, it left them with almost no money.

The less honest shopkeepers began watering down their goods, disguising ash as ground pepper, starch as sugar and pear juice as wine.

Farmers in rural areas began hoarding their produce because they couldn’t get a good enough price in the cities, meaning that people in the cities starved.

The result was a black market where the rich could still buy the goods they needed, while the poor had no access to food at all.

These famines were fixed temporarily when the government sent soldiers to take food from the farmers and bring it to the city by force, but this only caused more unrest.

The September Massacres

Or, in other words, the whole-scale slaughtering of all the prisoners in all the jails and prisons throughout France…

After Louis was killed, the government fell into chaos. No-one knew who was in charge. In the meantime the Paris Commune, who were supported by the armed mob, had all the power. Chaos reigned as the new government fought over who should be in power, alongside issues like the economy, the army, and the justice system.

What dominated, however, was a fear of counter-revolutionary backlash.

The new movement had been denounced in Britain, Austria and Prussia, and war loomed on the horizon.

Meanwhile, French royalists were gathering support in other parts of the country.

The revolutionaries feared that, if a royalist army was to attack Paris, the new revolutionary government would fall.

In particular, they came to believe that the inmates of the city’s prisons would join with the counter-revolutionaries if given a chance. These fears were exacerbated when it came time for the new army to leave the city, with the people believing it would leave the city vulnerable to a prison break.

Between the 2nd and 6th of September 1792, the inmates were attacked by revolutionary mobs, with over 1000 being killed in the space of a single day.

Half the city’s entire prison population was massacred, with corpses left mutilated in the streets.

The revolutionary government sent letters to regional governments saying that conspirators in the city’s prisons had been executed. The act was repeated elsewhere: murders of prisoners took place in 75 of France’s 83 departments.

Conclusion

History can be interesting.

This is especially true if you are living through a time period that would most certainly be put into the history books.

This is 2020. A revolution has been brewing for some time, and (rightly so) many people are beginning to recognize the start of this period in America as 2008 when the banks fell, and massive financial fraud was committed. Now, the chain of events are starting to accelerate and it’s starting to look like elements of numerous historical catastrophes are starting to converge within America…

  • The Wall Street Crash.
  • The Fall of the Roman Empire.
  • The collapse of the Soviet Union.

…and…

  • The French Revolution.

Most certainly the elements are all there, and I cannot tell you what will happen. But I can paint some broad “brush strokes” for you all to ponder…

  • Do not expect any election to change anything substantially. It will only change form, but it will still keep moving in the same direction.
  • Things are going to get worse before they get better. We have not yet reached the peak.
  • When it appears that the old order has been toppled, and a new order is forming, that is when the REAL DANGERS will start to appear.
  • Expect some kind of foreign war or military action to distract attention. Expect a villainization of some nation, race or people. But note that it will not really work the way it is intended to.
  • The implementation of all the strife and chaos will not be uniform. It will be patchy, with some areas more dangerous than others.

Who survived the French Revolution?

Not the oligarchy, nor those that lead the revolution. Not those that were “moderate”. The survivors were those that lived outside the cities that also had strong connections with friends and families within their communities.

The American culture of “lone wolf” and “every man for himself” will be problematic at this time. I do not advise it. instead I strongly advise the formation of small tightly knit communities that share and work together.

I recommend the following…

  • Stay away from crowds.
  • Do not get involved in politics at any level.
  • Practice strong provisioning, and practice familial disciplines.
  • Be a member of your local community.
  • Offer your time, resources, and supplies to your community. Think of it as an extended family.

Do you want some more?

Do you want to see similar posts?

I hope that you found this post curious. Please take care. You can view other similar posts in my SHTF Index, here…

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This is it. This is the start of the much dreaded “Fourth Turning”, the collapse of the USA, and full SHTF.

Let it be well understood that today 1JUN20 that SHTF in the United States is now official. Elements have been building up for some time, most certainly. And there have been some events that definitely contributed to this situation, but make absolutely no mistake. SHTF is now active and the entire United States is in turmoil.

As with anything, it’s difficult to pick a time when an event starts. Does Christmas start at 12:01 25 December, or when children wake up? Does it start when the presents are opened? Or, is is a month-long holiday with different phases.

Ah…

Let’s not parse the details too severely. All that wonderful “freedom”, “liberty” and “democracy” that Americans are so very happy that they have has…

… reared it’s ugly face.

In fact, it is nothing of the sort. It’s all just fancy slogans, endlessly repeated, by a dumbed down mindless mass of serfs. The United States is a military oligarchy-run empire, and the peasants are tired of it.

People are pissed off.

Some of them are just bored, and want a “regular” life.

Some are opportunists.

Some want to burn it all down, and literally kill anyone who is doing better than themselves.

If you all think that it’s going to die down in a day or two you are deluded. This is the start of a long slow collapse. Oh, certain regions will fare better than others. Certain people will do better than others, and certain situations will bring more advantages than others.

But that’s not what I am afraid of.

I’m afraid of the morons running the United States. For typically when there is economic turmoil such as this, the answer is always “distraction by war”. It focuses the people to something outside the poorly run domestic economy. And since this “domestic turmoil” is so expansive (this time), the up-scaled version of war could also be “up-scaled”.

Ah…

But that is just me.

And, I tend to be wrong about 50% of the time, don’t you know.

You are Here…

You are here.
You are here.

Leadership in hiding

The idea that President Trump is in a bunker, safe and sound under the White House while America is in flames reminds me of another event…

… when Hitler hunkered down in a bunker in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin while all of Germany burns.

While I actually am equating Trump with Hitler, it should not be misconstrued. I am actually equating the events of the collapse of the United States with the collapse of Germany. The mere fact that it is President Trump in Washington at this time instead of Obama, Bush, or Clinton makes no difference.

President Trump is a man of great strengths and great faults. He just happens to be at the helm at this historic event.

Other thoughts…

People of greater capability than I, and those with better writing skills have weighed in on this sequence of events. I find them illuminating. And now some “doom porn” for those of you who can stomach it…

One month ago, Daisy Luther at Organic Prepper saw desperation setting in:

A whopping 71% of jobless Americans haven’t gotten their unemployment payments from March. Lines at food banks are literally miles long in some areas. Rents and mortgages are not being paid. Anger is increasing. Soon it’s going to bubble over into rage and when it does, we could see unrest and crime like we haven’t seen in this country in centuries.

Charles Smith at Of Two Minds says What’s Collapsing Can’t Be Saved: Our Fraudulent Economy. Excerpts:

We live in a constantly distorted house of mirrors devoted to maintaining useful illusions of "democracy," "free markets" and other fairy tales we tell ourselves to reduce the pain of living a vast, all-encompassing fraud in which everyone who isn't a grifting insider is the loser.

We don't just have financial bubbles that are popping; we have bubbles in trust and credibility that are popping, too. All the lies, skims, scams, excuses, frauds, bezzles, artifices, profiteering, promotional schemes and rackets are unraveling, not because the virus shut down the economy but because the enormity of all the corruption, lies and fraud is now so great that the entire status quo is collapsing under its own weight...

Once the system collapses, we all lose, even the insiders who have traded every shred of their soul for financial gains, at the expense of everything that was once held dear.

National Post – Billionaire’s Instagram-perfect isolation on a luxury superyacht draws public outrage … as the world’s wealthy stay in vacation homes, custom bunkers or floating palaces, workers from nurses to supermarket cashiers juggle childcare and risk infection working essential jobs.

The Z Man (April 2020) – There’s lots of red lights flashing in the debt markets and the supply chain. The next months will be interesting. Maybe that will be how everyone forgets about this month of living like lepers and treating everyone like they stink. Before people can start to think about why they were locked in their homes, they will be directed to the next drama, the financial and economic panic of 2020. Perhaps the lesson here is the circus part of our bread and circuses is the government creating increasingly reckless panics seeing if they can blow it all up. Maybe this is all for their entertainment.

Riots, Z Man – The current black riots are being described as unprecedented, when in fact they are a regular feature of American life. Birds fly, fish swim and blacks riot. Amusingly, the man allegedly responsible for these riots, President Trump, you know, because of the low black unemployment, is in office because of the last round of black riots. In fact, black rioting is one of the regular features of the ongoing morality play that is modern liberal democracy. The usual suspects, looking for a reason to get white people to the theater, start scanning about for some case where a black was harmed by an unsympathetic white. They create a narrative around the incident, have the stories placed in the media and then encourage the black “activist groups” to start making an issue of it. From there, the story writes itself.

George Ure at Urban Survival: The food situation is getting dicey with meat, including pork and some poultry production coming off-line. And that will evolve over coming months into supply chain collapses and a general reset of lifestyles at a much lower-than-recent levels.

Putting everyone under house arrest and collapsing the economy is just the beginning. The can is being kicked and it moveth not. A historic catastrophe is plainly visible. Someone else's fine tuned and compelling opinion won't save you. Those who can save themselves will save themselves, not you. Those who can't save themselves certainly won't save you. Who does that leave?

Collapse, Of Two Minds – “Success” in America is now a game of creating believable facsimiles of what was once authentic. This requirement to hide the truth lest it collapse all the skims, scams, frauds, rackets and insider plundering and pillaging is the Monster Id of America. The more the insiders and institutional technocrat machinery attempt to censor and suppress critical inquiry, the greater the erosion of public trust in the credibility and legitimacy of the dominant institutions. When reality and truth become the sworn enemies of society’s political and economic elites, the society is well and truly doomed.

Steven Greenhut at Spectator reminds us how far we’ve fallen into a police state. An excerpt:

The current situation eventually will pass, but any time there’s any crisis — real, perceived, or exaggerated — government will instantly hit the police-state panic button. Thanks to so much of the reporting on the pandemic, which mostly has targeted those politicians who didn’t “do something” quickly enough, we’ll see an arms race over who can take the boldest moves without delaying over quaint concerns about our liberties.

Just as Americans have become accustomed to the TSA’s security theater and to endless police cameras and checkpoints, we soon may also become accustomed to routine lockdowns and arbitrary edicts any time officials get wind of a coming health or other problem. We won’t know for sure, of course, but just wait until next year’s flu season.

James Kunstler sees “a harsher, hungrier, angrier society of broken promises and dashed expectations” when “the hocus-pocus of Modern Monetary Theory” crashes in a heap. Excerpt:

The world never reached such a pitch of activity up to the blow-ups of 2008, and it went through the motions for a decade after that. Now that it’s stopped, all that’s left is the law of gravity, and it doesn’t get more basic. The “wealth” acquired in the decade since by the so-called “one-percent” was loaded onto a defective aircraft, like a Boeing 737-MAX, and an awful lot of it will fall to earth now on broken wings.

Their agents and praetorians on Wall Street are working feverishly to stave off that crash-landing, like a band of magicians casting spells on the ground while that big hunk of juddering metal augers earthward. Wait for it as spring brings new life across the land and things unseen before steal onto the scene.

Excerpts from an EMP op-ed at Washington Examiner:

Can you imagine if our grid went down and we lost electricity for an extended period of time? As bad as our current situation is, it could always be a lot worse. We relied on our government leaders to prepare our country for a pandemic, and we see what that got us. We rely on that same leadership now to protect our electric grid...

The EMP Commission estimates a nationwide blackout of the United States lasting one year could kill 90% of Americans from starvation and societal collapse...

The strategy of pretending to do something but really doing nothing and then throwing money at the threat when it happens will get millions of Americans killed when there is an EMP.

It’s suspicious how many articles about an EMP attack are showing up for no obvious reason.

Experts, Burning Platform – Not one penny of the trillions generated by the Fed out of thin air is helping the 38.6 million people who were thrown out into the streets by government decree. It wasn’t meant to trickle down. It’s just another example of socialism for the corporate fascists and another screw job for the average working stiff. The Fed’s sole purpose is to enrich their banker benefactors, corporate titans, hedge fund managers and corrupt politicians. The unemployment rate is headed toward 30%. GDP in the 2nd quarter will approach -40%. We’ve entered a 2nd Great Depression. The damage is permanent and ultimately fatal.

The reality in America today.
The reality in America today.

Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge comments on our collapsing food supply chain. An excerpt:

"It's not a lack of food, it's that the food is in one place and the demand is somewhere else and they haven't been able to connect the dots. You've got to galvanize people."

The immediate outcome of this food supply chain collapse will be even more rapid food inflation, hitting Americans at a time of unprecedented economic hardships with at least 26.5 million now unemployed since the pandemic struck the US.

And with a sharp economic recession, if not outright depression unfolding, more Americans are ditching grocery stores for food banks, putting incredible stress on these charities, which has forced the government to deploy National Guard troops at many locations to ensure food security to the neediest.

We’re just circling the drain. We ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Those ingénues who believe troops are being positioned to “ensure food security” will be among the first to discover otherwise. Get away, and stay away from crowds. It’s the indispensable first step.

Charles Smith at Of Two Minds says What’s Collapsing Can’t Be Saved: Our Fraudulent Economy. Excerpts:

We live in a constantly distorted house of mirrors devoted to maintaining useful illusions of "democracy," "free markets" and other fairy tales we tell ourselves to reduce the pain of living a vast, all-encompassing fraud in which everyone who isn't a grifting insider is the loser.

We don't just have financial bubbles that are popping; we have bubbles in trust and credibility that are popping, too. All the lies, skims, scams, excuses, frauds, bezzles, artifices, profiteering, promotional schemes and rackets are unraveling, not because the virus shut down the economy but because the enormity of all the corruption, lies and fraud is now so great that the entire status quo is collapsing under its own weight...

Once the system collapses, we all lose, even the insiders who have traded every shred of their soul for financial gains, at the expense of everything that was once held dear.

Lockdowns, Mises Institute – Those who have claimed that lockdowns are “the only option” had virtually no evidence at all to support their position. Indeed, such extreme over-the-top measures such as the general lockdowns required an extreme level of high-quality, nearly irrefutable evidence that lockdowns would work and were necessary in the face of a disease with an extremely high fatality rate. But the only “data” the prolockdown people could offer was speculation and hyperbolic predictions of bodies piling up in the streets. The lockdown crowd destroyed the lives of millions to satisfy the hunches of a tiny handful of politicians and technocrats.

Peter Grant at Bayou Renaissance Man mentions the unmentionable in his essay, Bailing out the states: the momentum and the prospect for violence builds. Excerpts:

If their residents find that government largesse is no longer flowing; and if they believe that they're entitled to such largesse; then they're going to get out of control and try to take what they want. The results are likely to be catastrophic for law and order, and civil society.

I think the ordinary people of America realize this. After all, that's why they bought more guns in March than any other month in previous US history. They're getting ready to defend what's theirs—and I believe they're right in anticipating the need to do so...

You want to know why my friends want me to upgrade their rifles? You want to know why I've been warning about COVID-19 as a threat to personal security, and suggesting ways to keep your shooting skills honed, even during the lockdown? ... Look no further.

American Gun News – Another Maryland Man Red-Flagged to Death by the Cops … cops shot him through a window while asleep in bed. They also shot his pregnant girlfriend

Power grab, Sovereign Man – If you think about 9/11 in particular, its remarkable how much power the government grabbed, and how many freedoms they took away. What I’m most concerned about at this point is not the virus, nor even the economic devastation.They have us all cowering in our homes, stripped of the most basic freedoms to do just about anything. People are being thrown off their own private property because they’re not an ‘official resident’ of the town. Others have been arrested for attending a funeral. Others threatened with jail for their social media posts. There’s going to be a huge impact on our freedom from this astonishing growth of unchecked government power.

Lockdown, The Z Man – You can’t help but wonder if what we are seeing is just a dry run for something more permanent in the future. I don’t think this was premeditated. Like the radicals of the French Revolution, our rulers are now captive to events they set in motion. As the evidence stacks up it is clear the lock downs were a terrible idea, but the people in charge have the whiff of authoritarianism in their nostrils and like a rutting beast they can think of nothing else. They are now busy dreaming up more insane restrictions just to humiliate people. It is increasingly difficult to remain a reasonable person. I’m getting a little salty.

Debt, Paul Craig Roberts – An economic system that enriches the rentier class by converting as much of personal income as possible to the service of debt is an economic system that is dead in the water. One possible way out is a debt writedown in order to create some discretionary income. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan substituted growth in consumer debt for the missing income growth, and by this substitution created discretionary income by loading up the consumer with debt. That load is now full. We are in the unenviable position of having very high stock prices in an economy that has no growth potential. The high stock prices are the product of trillions of dollars injected into financial asset prices.

Charles Smith at Of Two Minds has posted strategies for surviving tough times. He does not claim to deal with a collapse of civilization, but rather the slower and uneven “devolution” he sees as more likely. He advises developing multiple skillsets and social networks, cutting expenses and relying on health and social wealth.

Mr. Smith is not just one of my regular reads, he's one of those few I often reread. His particular "take" on events is worth close attention, always well thought out and grounded in fact. However, he's not talking about survival, he's talking about enduring tough times. To this end he suggests avoiding extreme preps as "predicated on a decisive 'end of the world as we know it'".

I believe he's an optimist.

Being a generous nice guy with community connections is not a viable strategy for surviving the emerging catastrophe. And emerging it is. Understand what we're looking at. Shopping became raiding as the collapse visibly accelerated. Civic compliance is being quietly withdrawn   as government leaders and their credentialed experts reveal themselves as corrupt opportunists and inept posers .

No one "survived" the Great Depression any more than they "survived" the good times. They bore up, endured and got through. People "survived" real catastrophes; Genghis Khan and the Golden Horde or the homicidal slave labor camps of the last century.

Survivalism is unpleasant and difficult, but it's the only alternative in unpleasant and difficult times. It won't be about becoming a handy, well liked member of a cozy little community. Open handed nice people with their Norman Rockwell settlements will be ruthlessly exploited and left for dead. Viable communities will emerge, but more like the Bielski or Forest Brothers woodland partisans, minus the antique politics.

Preparationalism—known as  "prepping"—is part of survival, not survivalism itself. Preppers posit hard times and scarcity. Survivalists posit destitution, murderous chaos, pestilence and famine. Survival is prepping's precondition, not visa versa.

Mr. Smith talks like a nineteenth century idealist with a stock portfolio. It would please me if he were right, but betting the other way is wiser. We ain't seen nothin' yet.

Matthew Walther at The Week describes the decade ahead:

This is what the end of the end of history looks like. We had asked ourselves how it would appear and when. These questions mattered, and not only incidentally. They matter less now as we prepare for what I suspect will be at least a decade of immiseration on a scale unimaginable to at least three generations...

Here I think foreboding is justified. Trends that were worrisome long before we had heard of the new virus are accelerating to a point at which they are probably irreversible.

Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit notes the quiet self-authorized reopenings and says,

The shutdowns were sold as “two weeks to slow the spread,” and “flattening the curve,” and so on, and lots of people thought that was sensible, and it was. A two-month (or longer) shutdown is a different animal, and nobody consented to that. So now people are, mostly silently, withdrawing their consent from the state.

Ruling system, The Z Man – If you take time to read up on the Flynn case or the much larger plot around it, you see a large cast of people with one thing in common. They all live together as a social class and social relationships transcend the formal positions and titles of the people. Once a ruling class becomes a ruling community, reform is no longer possible. The only way to change the system is to decapitate it. The lesson of the Soviet system is that technology can perpetuate the community until it exhausts itself. The low quality of the people involved in the FBI shenanigans suggests they are reaching the same point as the Soviets in the 1980’s.

Serfdom, American Mind – The barbarians who seized Roman lands took advantage of chaos to fuel their ascendancy in what became the Middle Ages. Pestilence-driven depopulation and weakened political institutions enabled them to establish their hegemony over shrinking economies. Yet to assure their power, the Medieval aristocracies needed a belief system that would allow them to control the lower classes effectively. Today this role is played by a far-reaching “expert class” teeming with highly-credentialed functionaries.

Jim Quinn at The Burning Platform sees a catastrophic end to the ongoing disintegration :

The dichotomy between what is happening in the real world and what is happening in the world of the financiers will lead to violent upheaval on a timeline not anticipated by the ruling class. There is a good reason gun stores were overwhelmed with business at the outset of this over-hyped flu pandemic. Trust in the government, central bankers, the corporate media, and “experts” is disintegrating rapidly. The anger and disillusionment grows by the day and pockets of resistance are propagating throughout the country...

The only thing that matters is we will experience a disastrous outcome in the very near future from this reckless issuance of debt. The civic decay has entered the confrontational stage, with sides taken, weapons at the ready, awaiting the spark which will ignite the dynamite.

Reopen the nation, American Thinker – Hundreds of thousands of businesses are on the verge of bankruptcy and permanent closure. 33+ million are unemployed, and the federal government is creating massive unsustainable debt. This nation has made the biggest blunder in its history. The time has come for the politicians from the President to the Governors and Mayors to stop hiding behind the scientist/bureaucrats and fully reopen the nation. Focus on that segment of the population most at risk, without compulsory isolation or de facto imprisonment. And restore the civil liberties that have been wantonly eroded.

Fred Reed, Unz Review – We are told that In China, everything you say or do is monitored. Obviously China is a most terrible place. Who could doubt it? By contrast, in America, cameras are everywhere, all email is recorded, every bank transaction, credit-card purchase, who you called by telephone and when, and of course criminal records. Since little of this is directly done by the federal government, we do not live in a surveillance state. After all, none of the entities involved would share their information with the feds–would they?

From the woodpile report; July will tell the truth about the economy. I’ve chosen November as the month of general truth, whether the years following will be of manageable coping, of unexampled disaster, or something in between.

We could see a return to pre-Covid conditions, the economy revive, preps largely unneeded. Or hard times will persist but get no worse than they are now, with normalcy slowly returning, preps helpful but not critical. Or daily life could worsen long term and become the new normal, modest preps necessary but sufficient until a slow turnaround takes hold some years out.

Or systemic disruption and shortages could multiply, the recession deepen into a depression  , extensive preps needed to make it from one month to the next. Or it could become a general disaster with outright starvation, government rule by decree, cities uninhabitable, regional withdrawals into fiefdoms, and only extensive preps being enough to avoid personal catastrophe. Or we'll see a rapid and unstoppable national and global collapse, criminal raids on a regional scale, rule by force, preps depleted or confiscated and the widespread rise of outright survivalism.

Preppers attempt to maintain some or most of their present circumstances in tough times. The survivalist has his own definition of preps. He practices to survive by anticipating and training for the worst of the possibilities. 

Survivalism comes first, not last, because in the end preps assume the prepper survives to use them.

There are entirely reasonable variations on these themes. This is merely my personal arrangement.

He also goes on to say…

It appears we're at the start of an economic collapse similar to that of 1929 and into the 1930s. What we're seeing in Minneapolis and  elsewhere appears to add the danger of organized violence.

A widespread decampment from big cities began some time ago and appears to be accelerating. Bloomberg reports RV sales are up 30%  in some urban places. 

The causes are fascinating but in the end what matters is how their migration to the "flyover country" they so despise may affect your personal plans.

July, when the long term direction of the economy will be plain to see, may be your last opportunity to shape your preparations more exactly, meaning food, shelter and protection. November is the month of the presidential election, when all sides reveal their intentions and one is chosen. It's also when winter weather begins. 

Time is running out.

Conclusion

The much awaited “Fourth Turning” has arrived.

The United States is in a state of “free fall” and it’s only going to get worse. The American leadership are just actors reading scripted lines to appeal to the masses of under-educated, and easily manipulated serfs. This is a time when the actors and figureheads need to step aside and real leaders take the helm.

It’s not going to happen.

The only one that can prepare for this is you.

  • Friendships are your most valuable asset. Know everyone in your local neighborhood. Create strong friendships and alliances. Start today.
  • Keep your family close, protected and guarded. Youth must be corralled and controlled. They can easily create problems.
  • Organize and support each other. If no one stands up to lead, then you must do so. This could mean sharing resources, group patrols or sharing assets. Now is the time to organize.
  • Not every area is the same. Some areas will suffer more than others. Do not compare yourself to others. Just do the best in your little “neck of the woods”.
  • Things MIGHT calm down. I however, believe that this is the start of a three year long event cycle. Plan for the worst, but be cautiously hopeful.

About the urban rioters announcing that they are coming to the suburbs next…

“I would tell them, if you value your life, you probably shouldn’t do that in Polk County. Because the people of Polk County like guns, they have guns, I encourage them to own guns, and they’re going to be inside their homes tonight with their guns loaded. And if you try to break into their homes tonight and try to steal, to set fires, I’m highly recommending they blow you back out of the house with their guns.”

-Sheriff Grady Judd

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