Organic Prepper: The SHTF Is Happening Right Now

Daisy Luther at The Organic Prepper writes about the SHTF caused by economic problems in The SHTF Is Happening Right Now.

We’ve posted articles before on this website about the slow-burning SHTF that we’re witnessing here and here. Years ago, in 2016, I wrote about the economic crisis like this:

The bottom line is, income will remain the same, decrease, or even disappear entirely for many of us. Meanwhile, the price of darn near everything will go up. Expect to pay more for things like keeping your utilities on, feeding and clothing your family, and keeping a roof over your heads.

Aside from that, those dollars you are carefully saving? They are only providing you with the illusion of security. The economic collapse will hit nearly everyone, and they’ll feel like they did something wrong with their finances. It will be hard to see that the flaw is not with their money management but the management of the country itself.

I wish I’d been wrong.

Here are some of the situations people are finding themselves in right now. Do any of them look familiar? Do all of them look like your current experiences? Be aware that if it hasn’t happened to you yet, that doesn’t mean it won’t. Don’t be smug because we all know that pride comes before a fall. Be humble and know that while different decisions could have been made, this economic disaster is creeping across nearly all socioeconomic groups, and it may only be a matter of time before it happens to you, too.

Wages are staying the same, and it isn’t easy to find work.

A lot of folks think that jobs are easy to find right now. They cite the signs that are up everywhere, announcing that businesses are hiring. As the mom of someone in her early 20s who is out there looking for a second job to increase her household income, I can tell you that just because there’s a sign out doesn’t mean the business is actually hiring.

A lot of places are required by their corporate headquarters to put these signs out to make it look like they’re thriving, but they aren’t actually hiring. Go in with a resume, and you’ll soon find out this is true. Obviously, it’s not the case with all businesses posting such signs, but it’s very much the situation in urban North Carolina right now.

Places that hire minimum wage workers are operating with skeleton crews, leaving too few frazzled employees to handle long lines and unhappy patrons. Have you been someplace like Walmart or Target lately? At least at our local stores, there’s generally one register with a human operating, and quite often, the line winds down the front aisle with dozens of customers.

Wages haven’t matched the increase of inflation. If you’re still making what you made a year or two or three years ago, you’re able to pay for far less with it. This leads me to the next situation.

Inflation means you are paying more for essentials like food, utilities, gasoline, and rent.

Our esteemed leader, President Biden, managed to read the teleprompter and tell us that inflation is all in our heads and doesn’t actually exist. He claimed proudly that in July, inflation was at 0%.

Speaking from the White House, Biden said:

“I want to say a word about news that came out today relative to the economy. Actually, I just want to say a number: zero.” He continued, “Today we received news that our economy had zero percent inflation in the month of July.” (source)

While that is the official statistic for July, it doesn’t reveal the true economic suffering. Over the past year, the official numbers for inflation are at 8.5%. And in the real world, we know that there’s actually more to the picture than the statistics show.

People are skipping a lot of things that they used to be able to pay for with ease due to the high prices. For example, a friend pointed out to me that on her last trip to the grocery store, a jar of mayonnaise was $5 on sale. A pot roast that used to be around 12 bucks is now more than $20.

A gallon of milk that was $3.04 in 2019 is now $3.55 (if you’re lucky.) At my local Publix, a gallon of generic milk is actually $4.41 as of the writing of this article. If you’re still making the same thing you were in 2019, things like that certainly belie the 8.5% bandied about.

And don’t even get me started on the high price of gasoline. My Jeep now takes almost $100 to fill up, whereas it took $60 just a year ago. Rent is out of control. The official numbers for the year are .5%, but around the country, people are reporting increases of anywhere from 25% to a whopping 70%. (See this article from the AP and this one from ABC.) Electricity costs are also skyrocketing. In Pennsylvania, the Public Utilities Commission reports increases of as much as 19%.

How on earth are you supposed to pay for food, gas, accommodations, and power on the same pay you got a few years ago, especially if things were tight then? People are getting evicted, getting their power shut off, and losing vehicles to repossession because they are unable to make ends meet.

Credit cards are maxed.

Speaking of being unable to make ends meet, Americans’ credit card debt has leaped from 846 billion to $887 billion between the first and second quarter of this year. In August, that number was reported to be $930 billion.

You may be saying, “Just don’t use your credit cards.” And that’s easy to say when you can pay your bills, purchase fuel to get back and forth to work, and have a paid-off mortgage.

But if you are a person who was living paycheck to paycheck before all this, what choice do you have? You can’t get to work without gas for your vehicle. You have to pay your rent. You need to keep your power on. If you’ve got an empty credit card sitting there, you’re probably going to use it for gas and food while you use your paycheck to cover rent and utilities.

And then, there will come a time, particularly if prices keep going up, that you can’t even make your minimum payment. There’s simply not enough income to meet the necessary output. So the first thing you’ll stop paying is your credit card bill as you struggle to keep a roof over your head and food in your refrigerator. And on and on it goes until you feel like you’ve completely made a disaster of your finances.

But was that disaster really one of your own making? If you’re in a lease, in a car loan agreement, and have this bizarre urge to…you know…eat food? The whole situation spiraled out of control before you knew it.

And then it gets worse.

Fees are piling up.

As I wrote in America’s Poverty Trap: How A Small Financial Setback Can Spiral Into an Inescapable Disaster:

If you bounce a payment by so much as a penny, then you are hit with a charge from your bank and, most times, a charge from the business that was taking the payment from your account. Most banks charge anywhere from $25-$38.50 when you have non-sufficient funds for a payment. Businesses charge in the same range, so that means that if one payment goes awry, you can lose $50-$77 in the blink of an eye.

Banks love NSF and overdraft fees. Why? Because in 2017, Americans paid $34 billion in fees for not having enough money to cover a payment.

But that’s not all. Some folks are paying literally 17,000% in overdraft fees annually.

Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a report that raises concerns about the impact of opting into overdraft services for debit card and ATM transactions. The study found that the majority of debit card overdraft fees are incurred on transactions of $24 or less and that the majority of overdrafts are repaid within three days. Put in lending terms, if a consumer borrowed $24 for three days and paid the median overdraft fee of $34, such a loan would carry a 17,000 percent annual percentage rate (APR).

“Today’s report shows that consumers who opt into overdraft coverage put themselves at serious risk when they use their debit card,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “Despite recent regulatory and industry changes, overdrafts continue to impose heavy costs on consumers who have low account balances and no cushion for error. Overdraft fees should not be ‘gotchas’ when people use their debit cards.” (source)

And then there are the other late fees.

If one of the payments that went awry in your overdraft avalanche happens to be a utility bill, things get even worse for a person who is struggling. Particularly if you aren’t able to cover the bill in sufficient time to keep your utilities from getting shut off. How much you’ll be charged varies by company, but if they really feel like you’ll have trouble paying in the future, they stick it to you, making it nearly impossible to get your power or heat turned back on. Here are some examples

  • PG&E: “To restore service, you must pay the full amount due. You may also be required to pay a deposit twice your average monthly bill to re-establish credit.”
  • Coast Electric: $35-50 fee to reconnect service, $6.50 late fee, $35 NSF fee, and potentially even a $35 collection fee
  • Talgov: $28.50 each for gas, water, and electric

They can be charged late fees by all sorts of businesses. Now they’re really in trouble.

How in the world can you bail yourself out when every payment you make to catch up comes with an extra $12 “convenience fee,” a reconnect fee, and a late fee, along with an overdraft fee from the bank itself? It just takes one overdraft to unleash financial quicksand from which there’s no escape.

The SHTF is NOW.

How on earth are people in this situation going to survive?

That’s a great question with no easy or socially acceptable answers. There isn’t anything you can do about decisions you made in the past. You can’t undo the lease you signed on a place that skyrocketed in price, and then you couldn’t afford to move. If you’ve already used your credit card to buy groceries until you maxed it out, what’s done is done. You can’t change the price of gas, groceries, and utilities.

In retrospect, it may seem like you made a host of terrible decisions. But when you made them, the situation wasn’t like it is now. Your bills hadn’t skyrocketed. You hadn’t lost your job or had your hours cut. Beating yourself up for those decisions will not help you survive this.

If you feel isolated and completely at fault, of course, you do. That’s part of the insidious racket. Those responsible for this disaster don’t want to be held accountable for just how bad things have gotten for so many. So like an abusive spouse, they make you feel alone, like everything is terrible only because of your personal mistakes or stupidity.

You cannot see yourself as a victim of the economy – that mentality doesn’t help anyone. But you should quite clearly know that you are not alone and some of these things were out of your hands. This is what a financial collapse looks like in many cases. Millions of people suffering from humiliation when they can’t pay their bills, embarrassed, bruised, and feeling isolated.

You can’t control the economy, but you can adapt, even now, when things seem beyond repair.

What can you do if you’re in the midst of your own personal financial collapse?

The situation may not be completely “fixable” if you are one of the millions of people struggling financially. You may emerge with your credit razed, your self-respect beaten and bruised, and a brand new ulcer from worrying about it all. But please remember that people have faced extreme financial hardship many times in the past, and while they may not have come out unscathed, they did come out.

Some of these tips may help.

Talk to your creditors.

If you owe money that you cannot pay to credit card companies, call them. They won’t be able to waive it completely, but many companies will close your credit account, thus halting any additional fees and interest, and set you up with a payment plan. It won’t do your personal credit rating any favors, but then again, neither will defaulting, and that’s where you’re headed. Here’s more advice on contacting your creditors.

Cut your expenses radically.

Making radical changes to your monthly expenses may help you get through this difficult time and pay off your debt. Getting a roommate, cutting down to just one car for the family, and other strategies could be enough to get you through it. Check out this article.

Learn new ways to feed your family.

Check out our new product, a PDF of more than 500 pages that will provide you with strategies to feed your family, no matter what your situation is like. It’s currently listed as a “name your price” item, so you can pay very little to get this valuable book if money is tight. How to Feed Your Family No Matter What is a guide to producing, acquiring, preserving, and preparing food when it isn’t as easy as just going to the store to get more.

You may have to walk away.

If things are really bad, the advice above may not be enough to save you financially. There comes a time at which you simply cannot pay your bills. You may have to default, get evicted or foreclosed on, hand back your vehicle, and start over again. You can’t make money come from thin air. If you’ve done everything possible and you still can’t catch up, then read this article.

Find gratitude.

This may sound ridiculous when you are in the midst of losing everything, but finding a way to be grateful for some blessing will help you dramatically. Here’s a look at radical gratitude, a practice that has personally helped me beyond belief in improving my attitude, which in turn helps me to be more creative and more determined to overcome my difficulties.

Only people who have experienced true hardship can understand.

Sometimes it seems like nobody gets it when you find yourself in utter financial destitution. Others seem to think it’s your fault, and they often make this very obvious. Those people clearly haven’t had the same experiences. If they had, they would have more empathy.

We’re in a situation right now in our country – and actually the western world – where more and more people are finding out just what it’s like to hit financial rock bottom. It’s a horrible feeling, but it will not last forever. Please keep putting one foot in front of the other. Be willing to accept a hand up. One day you may be able to help another person going through this.

And if things are still looking good in your world, please be kind. Not everyone who is struggling “deserves” it. Remember that, except for grace, it could be your family who is struggling right now. If you can, help someone without strings. You cannot attach yourself to the outcome of what happens with the assistance you have given. Just know that you have done a good and kind thing, and let go of your attachment to it.

Has the economic SHTF hit your household?

Have you been affected by the increase in prices or other economic struggles? Are you on the verge of losing the lifestyle you have worked for to the economic collapse? Do you have advice for others facing the same problems? Share your stories and thoughts in the comments section. And please, be kind.

Kunstler: Crazyland

Author James Howard Kunstler writes about our current collapse in Crazyland.

In a confab of friends on a warm evening this weekend, someone asked: Do you think what’s going on is due to incompetence or malevolence? The USA is certainly skidding into a great and traumatic re-set featuring a much lower standard of living for most citizens amidst a junkyard of broken institutions. But so are all the other nations of Western Civ. If it’s not being managed by malign forces, such as der Schwabenklaus and his WEF myrmidons, then it sure looks like some sort of controlled demolition. The big question hanging over the 2022 election, then, is: Must America commit suicide?

What provoked the mental illness of the Left? What turned the Democratic Party into the Party of Chaos? It seemed pretty sane in 1996 when President Bill Clinton declared — to much surprise — in his State of the Union address that “the era of big government is over.” Of course, few understood back then how cravenly corrupt the Clintons were, even especially as Hillary launched her own political career once Bill’s turn was over. Few, I daresay, thought at the time that Hillary would come to eclipse Bill in influence — though not so few suspected that the first lady operated as the demented megalomaniac she has proved to be.

Gawd knows what went on in that Shakespearean marriage… but the Democratic Party in the post-2000 Hillary years discovered that its very existence required the government to get ever-bigger because the American economy — the real, on-the-ground economy outside Wall Street’s financialization hall of mirrors — was withering away with the off-shoring of industry and something was needed to replace it. And, by the way, let’s stipulate that the Republican Party mostly abetted all that, even despite transient rumblings from its Tea Party renegades.

Forgive me at this juncture for repeating my oft-stated theory of history: Things happen because they seem like a good idea at the time. Off-shoring seemed like a good idea at the time. Fob off all those filthy, polluting factories onto other countries, and pay the natives three bucks a day to make all the stuff we needed. Plus, pay for the stuff with US treasuries (IOUs). What a racket! But then every activity in America was turning into a racket — which is to say, making money dishonestly — until it became the immersive economic milieu of the land. Even the two most noble endeavors in our society, education and medicine, disgraced themselves with shameless moneygrubbing.

Something weird happened starting in 2004 when one Barack Obama came onstage at the Democratic convention that nominated the haircut-in-search-of-a-brain called John Kerry. The new star lit up the joint posing as a Great Uniter. And four years later he made a fool of Hillary, cutting her off at the pass from seizing her supposedly ineluctable turn — and supreme glass-ceiling-breaking triumph — as president. Where’d he come from? This pavement-pounding community organizer with the 1000-watt smile?

In retrospect, Barack Obama appears to have been manufactured out of some misty Marxist cabal of the subterranean Far Left that infested a sub-basement of the Democratic Party. He came on-board in 2009, just as all that skeezy financialization blew up the banks and launched the era of government rescue operations that heaped previously unimaginable quantities of debt on the USA’s already unmanageable burden. Republican George Bush II got the blame for all that and Mr. Obama proceeded to make it a lot worse.

Barack Obama served as liberalism’s bowling trophy, the capstone of the great civil rights crusade: a black president, proof of America’s moral uprightness. He managed to do next to nothing to change the conditions that had wrecked black America — namely, the paternalistic policies that shattered families — but he put up a good front while the country teetered economically. And notice that his DOJ, under Attorney General Eric Holder, managed to avoid prosecuting anyone but mortgage vampire Anthony Mozilo for all the banking crimes of the day. Meanwhile, President Obama took care of Hillary by anointing her Secretary of State, from which perch she grifted tens of millions of dollars into the coffers of the janky Clinton Foundation. Smooth moves there. In the end, Mr. Obama remained an enigma, passing the baton to Her Inevitableness in 2016 — which she commenced to blow utterly in overestimating her own political charm — she had none — and underestimating the appeal of her opponent, the Golden Golem of Greatness, Donald Trump.

Mr. Trump’s astonishing victory apparently disordered Hillary’s mind. She was reportedly too drunk late that election night to even appear at the podium to make the excruciating concession speech. But her Russian Collusion operation ginned up months earlier had already set in motion a great vengeance machine which partisans in the DOJ, FBI, CIA, and State Department ran with through the whole of Mr. Trump’s term in the White House, climaxing in the orchestrated election frauds of 2020, which installed Barack Obama’s empty vessel of a stand-in “Joe Biden” as president.

The amalgamated pathologies of Barack Obama’s reign — which includes the birth of Wokery, the Jacobin-Marxist crusade to trash culture and economy — and Hillary Clinton’s psychotic thirst for revenge has transformed the Democrats into the Party of Chaos, presiding over the suicide of America, and Western Civ with it. Which, of course, prompts the question: Who exactly is running Barack Obama? I don’t pretend to know at this point. Many people I know are sure it is an international banking claque. The part that doesn’t add up is the supposed banking claque’s utter lack of political charm. Nobody in Western Civ is for them, in the sense that they offer any salvation program from either the disorders of Woke culture or the disorders of crumbling economic globalism.

Mysteries abound now, and they are disconcerting to an extreme. How did the polite and rational society called Canada fall under the punishing sway of Justin Trudeau?  Ditto the Apparently insane Australia and New Zealand? Ditto the Europeans, who followed America’s absurd campaign to make Ukraine a war zone, and who now face a winter with no fuel for industry or home heating — and possible a descent into new medievalism. Perhaps the Covid bamboozle did that, just drove them over the edge. (And they will soon learn what a deadly con that was, especially the “vaccine” feature.)

Personally, I think we under-appreciate the tendings of history per se, and that tending these days is the set of circumstances adding up to a Long Emergency, a.k.a. the Fourth Turning, a.k.a, Mr. J.M. Greer’s Long Descent. In plain English, we’re exiting the techno-industrial fiesta of the past 200-odd years and entering the uncharted territory of what-comes-next, and that is driving the immense anxiety of the age. Our business model for everything is broken, mostly because the fossil fuel situation has become so uncertain, and it is driving us nuts. Understand that and you will have enough mental equipment operating correctly to stay sane.

Suicide is hardly the only option. Resist those who want to drag you into it. We are going to carry on one way or another. We’re going to make it through this bottleneck. Let the insane bury the insane. Keep your eyes peeled, keep your hearts open, and keep your powder dry.

WA Policy Center: Effects of Emergency-ordered School Closures on Children

The Washington Policy Center has released on study titled The effect of emergency-ordered school closings, learning loss and mask mandates on children. Here are the key findings:

1. The governor’s decision to close public schools for nearly two years in response to COVID-19 significantly affected Washington’s 1.1 million public school students.

2. Research shows many students suffered long-term learning loss and psychological and emotional harm, resulting in limited future opportunities in life.

3. State test scores show public schools failed to adequately educate 70 percent of students in math and 52 percent of students in English.

4. Low-income students were most severely affected, with 8,700 fewer such students applying for state-funded college scholarships.

5. Some public schools have dropped standard grading and are automatically passing all students, regardless of the true level of learning they have received.

6. High school students suffered academic, mental and social harms due to enforced isolation from normal community, athletic and school-related activities.

7. Public health findings show the negative educational and social effects of shut-down orders were greater for this very low-risk group than the limited risk of exposure to COVID-19.

8. The 1.1 million students who attend public schools are being automatically promoted to the next grade. 

Introduction

Governor Inslee responded to the national COVID health crisis by closing the public schools in Washington state to in-person instruction from March 2020 to September 2021, and allowing them to re-open sporadically the fall of 2021. Governor Inslee also mandated the use of masks and other face covering, and implemented social distancing rules in daycares and schools from March 2020 to March of 2022.

As a result of these three policies – school closures, masks mandates and social distancing, the 1.1 million students attending Washington’s public schools had their education disrupted for nearly two years.

The stated reason for imposing these policies was to slow or stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Recent studies have raised questions about whether or to what extent these extreme measures provided a public health benefit. There is no question, however, that these policies had a severe impact on children. This study reviews the human outcomes of school closures, mask mandates and social distancing and the impact they had on the social and learning losses experienced by children in Washington state…

Click here to read the entire study.

Radio Contra Ep. 177 The Mar-a-Lago Raid and DC Desperation

Here is NC Scout’s Radio Contra episode 177 – The Mar-a-Lago Raid and DC Desperation

I dive into the FBI’s raid on Mar a Lago last week and exactly how this ends any question of weaponized federal agencies against DC’s political enemies. Now that the jig is up, what will they do next? They may have already telegraphed their intent.

Radio Contra Ep. 177 – The Mar-a-Lago Raid and DC Desperation

S2 Underground: August 10 Intel Update

Here is the latest intelligence update from S2 Underground.

00:00 – Introduction

01:00 – Suspicious Fires

01:36 – Kinetic Incidents – Northeast

02:18 – Kinetic Incidents – Southeast

03:57 – Kinetic Incidents – East Central Midwest

05:41 – Kinetic Incidents – West Central Midwest

06:11 – Kinetic Incidents – Southwest (NSTR)

06:32 – Kinetic Incidents – West

07:30 – Significant Governmental Actions

22:04 – International Issues

31:36 – Closing

Thoughts If you would like to support us, we’re on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/user?u=30479515 And if you don’t like Patreon, we’re also on Utreon! https://utreon.com/c/S2Underground/

Just a few reminders for everyone who’s just become aware of us, in order to keep these briefings from being several hours long, we can’t cover everything. We’re probably covering 1% of the world events when we conduct these briefings, so please remember that if we left it out, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s unimportant. Also, remember that we do these briefings quite often, so we might have covered an issue previously that you might not see if you are only watching our most recent videos. We’re also doing this in our spare time, so again we fully admit that these briefings aren’t even close to being perfect; we’re going for a healthy blend of speed and quality. If we were to wait and only post a brief when it’s “perfect” we would never post anything at all. So expect some minor errors on the slides here and there. If there is a major error or correction that needs to be made, we will post it here in the description, and verbally address it in the next briefing, whenever that is. We do not have a set schedule for when these videos are published…when we get enough info that we think is worth it, we brief it. If we were bound to a schedule we would be obligated to provide fluff for the days where there isn’t anything worth commenting on. Also, thanks for reading this far. It is always surprising the number of people that don’t actually read the description box to find more information.

DISCLAIMER: This content is purely educational and does not advocate for violating any laws. Do not violate any laws or regulations. This is not legal advice. Consult with your attorney.

Tenth Amendment Center: Resistance is Crucial to the Advancement of Liberty

Resistance is crucial to liberty.

In Resistance is Crucial to the Advancement of Liberty, the Tenth Amendment Center discusses the importance of resisting the consolidation of power in government. Consolidation of power is the most destructive danger to liberty. In the United States, the Constitution separated federal power into three branches – the legislative, executive, and judicial – and much power was left to the individual states. Resisting that consolidation is the most important thing a citizen can do to preserve liberty, and the government knows it. The government is so frightened of resistance that they recently declared the electrical symbol for resistance shown above a domestic terrorism symbol, because it fears any threat to the consolidation of power.

As is now obvious to the open-eyed observer, the federal government has absorbed most of the state power and the distinctions between branches are becoming more and more blurry. The various federal administrative agencies are ostensibly part of the executive branch, but watching the previous administration fight with congress over control of the agencies shows just how blurred the lines have become. Congress delegates most lawmaking to these administrative agencies in order to dodge responsibility for laws, and the executive has little control over the agencies actions or even over who heads the agencies.

Additionally, the recent talk about expanding the Supreme Court and limiting the current life tenure of justices to some shorter period, is an attempt not just to politicize the court but to bring it under the sway of both the Congress and national political parties. What better way to control the justices than to control their future job prospects? A limited term justice must find a job after leaving the bench, and it today’s environment of blacklisting, boycotting, and otherwise threatening political opponents, a former justice will have to have toed the party line or otherwise ingratiated themselves with powerful figures in order to get that coveted professorship or corporate law position.

While there are definitely cracks in the federal edifice and signs of failure and opposition, there’s no telling how powerful or destructive the federal government may become before falling apart.

Patrick Henry told us that “government is no more than a choice among evils.”

Thomas Paine held the same view. In Common Sense, he wrote, “Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”

What makes government become intolerable?

Consolidation.

That was the term the founding generation used to describe a centralized government with vast power and control – the kind of government we have today.

During the Virginia Ratifying Convention, Patrick Henry warned against consolidation.

“Dangers are to be apprehended in whatever manner we proceed; but those of a consolidation are the most destructive.” [Emphasis added]

He went on to predict that consolidation would, “end in the destruction of our liberties.”

History proved Henry correct.

If consolidation ends in the destruction of our liberties, the key to regaining liberty is “un-consolidation,” or to use an actual word — decentralization.

Political decentralization devolves and distributes political power. This promotes competition in the political marketplace, with various jurisdictions opposing and checking growing power in others.

Most people intuitively understand the problems inherent in economic monopolies. With no competition, a monopolist can easily abuse its customers. It can limit selection. It can raise prices. It can get away with crappy customer service.

Now, think of the federal government as a monopoly. Because that’s exactly what it is.

We need to break the monopoly if we want to regain liberty. We need to decentralize, disperse and minimize political power in order to shrink government to, as Paine put it, “its best state … a necessary evil.”

This strategy requires letting go of centralized political power. That includes resisting the temptation to try to wrest control of the overreaching consolidated government and impose liberty from on high.

This is a difficult concept to grasp in an American political culture that operates almost exclusively through the consolidated government in Washington D.C. People always tend to think in terms of grabbing and wielding political power. This will always fail because political power is the problem.

But a lot of people argue that you need political power to force decentralization. As one person put it, “The great paradox is that in order to diffuse power, you must first acquire it.”

This is wrong.

The paradox is that forcing a diffusion of power is actually a centralization of power. In order to diffuse power, you must first resist it.

Lysander Spooner nailed it on resistance.

“The right of the people, therefore, to resist an unconstitutional law, is absolute and unqualified, from the moment the law is enacted.”

He called resistance “a constitutional right.”

“And the exercise of the right is neither rebellion against the constitution, nor revolution—it is a maintenance of the constitution itself, by keeping the government within the constitution.”

At the Tenth Amendment Center, we talk a lot about resisting overreaching federal power through state and local action. This leads people to believe they have to consolidate power at the state or local level. Having political allies in state and local government certainly helps, but it’s not necessary. And it’s certainly not the first step.

It starts with people resisting.

Think about the nullification of federal marijuana prohibition. Before California legalized medical marijuana in 1996, there were a lot of people who were willing to violate the “law” and use cannabis anyway. It was that groundswell of resistance that led to political changes at the state level. Rosa Parks offers another example. Her willingness to say, “No!” to an unjust law sparked more widespread resistance that eventually led to political change.

Necessity forced the American colonist to adopt a strategy of resistance. They had no political power – and there was no way they were ever going to gain any in faraway London. They had two choices – resist or submit.

They chose to resist.

The Sugar Act in 1764 sparked resistance and it ramped up significantly with the passage of the Stamp Act in March 1765.

The Stamp Act required all official documents in the colonies to be printed on special stamped paper. This included all commercial and legal documents, newspapers, pamphlets, and even playing cards. As historian Dave Benner explained in his article on the Stamp Act,  the standard American position held that the act violated the bounds of the British constitutional system. Objecting to the notion that Parliament was supreme, and could impose whatever binding legislation it wished upon the colonies, the colonies instead adopted the rigid stance that colonists could only be taxed by their local assemblies. They claimed this principle stretched all the way back to 1215 and the Magna Carta.

Resistance started with protests. Patrick Henry drafted a series of resolutions. In the seventh, He asserted, “the Inhabitants of this Colony, are not bound to yield Obedience to any Law or Ordinance whatever,” outside of those passed by the colonial assemblies.

John Dickinson wrote, “IF you comply with the Act by using Stamped Papers, you fix, you rivet perpetual Chains upon your unhappy Country. You unnecessarily, voluntarily establish the detestable Precedent, which those who have forged your Fetters ardently wish for, to varnish the future Exercise of this new claimed Authority.”

John Hancock was perhaps most emphatic, declaring, “The people of this country will never be made slaves of by a submission to the damned act.”

They didn’t.

Patriots throughout the 13 colonists blocked the distribution of stamped paper, forced stamp agents to resign, and effectively made that act impossible to enforce. Ultimately, mass resistance and noncompliance forced Parliament to repeal the hated law.

Historian Dave Benner summed up colonial resistance this way.

“Rather than hoping the next election will produce preferable results or waiting for the courts to weigh in on controversial law, the patriots took a fierce stand against an odious law. In doing so, they inspired tireless masses to their cause, brought about a reversal of policy without representation in Parliament, and changed the world as we know it.”

The problem is this strategy is scary, hard, and often requires sacrifice. Many people felt the heavy hand of the law in the early days of the movement to nullify marijuana prohibition. Rosa Parks went to jail. And the British ultimately drug American colonists into a war.

On the other hand, politics is relatively easy. You just gain power and then impose your will. But this is the antithesis of liberty. And at some point, the political pendulum will swing away from you as it always does and people you hate will control that power.

There is no easy path to liberty. As Thomas Paine wrote, “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.”

Ammoland: Leaked ATF Resignation Letter Shows Agents’ Frustration Over Politicization

Ammoland has an article citing an ATF agent’s resignation, complaining over the increasing politicization of prosecution through the Department of Justice. While one person’s letter cannot cover the entire range of agents’ beliefs, it is still unlikely that this agent’s complaints are unique. The entire resignation letter is posted at the original article linked just below.

Leaked ATF Resignation Letter Shows Agents’ Frustration Over Politicization

A leaked resignation letter provided to AmmoLand News shows the ATF agency in turmoil over political pressure.

Brandon M. Garcia was a career Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) special agent until he resigned over the politicization of the federal agency and the Government’s attempt to divide people.

Garcia sent a lengthy six-page resignation letter (embedded below) laying out his reasons for leaving the Bureau after 18 years of service. He explains that he didn’t do the job for money or “fun.” He wanted to put violent criminals behind bars. But lately, he doesn’t feel like he knew what the mission was anymore. He was asked to do things that didn’t make sense, and when he asked “why,” he was always told because “they” said so.

“I don’t know what the mission really is anymore, but I don’t like it. For the past couple of years, I have found myself asking “why” a lot more often. As of late, the answer is typically because “they” said so. I still don’t know who “they” are. But I seem to disagree with whoever “they” are on pretty much everything,” Garcia wrote in his resignation letter.”

The former Special Agent highlights how crimes across the country are prosecuted differently depending on if the state is a “red” state or a “blue” state. He explains that agents are expected to set aside their personal and political beliefs but says that the same standard doesn’t apply to the entire Department of Justice. He claims other ATF employees are struggling with the same realization.

Garcia claims that the “woke left” is running the country. He specifically targets the DOJ Civil Rights Division. He insinuates the low morale at the ATF and in law enforcement, in general, is because of the anti-law enforcement movement that he feels is being pushed by the administration and Joe Biden’s Attorney General. Merrick Garland. He says the DOJ was using COVID as a “scapegoat.” He points out that the last time that morale was as low as it is now was under the Obama administration, which was also hostile to law enforcement. He also points out that each administration celebrates diversity unless it is the diversity of thought.

“The last time morale was this low with ATF was probably 2013-2016. Coincidentally, that was also the last time we had an administration openly criticize law enforcement,” Garcia wrote. “Both administrations preached diversity, or rather “celebrate” it, but then expect everyone to have the same liberal opinion.”

The now former Agent wrote that he believes the country is more divided than ever, pushing people to extremes, and leaving those in the middle to suffer. He thinks the Government is “adding fuel to the fire.” Garcia thinks that the ATF’s leadership isn’t fighting for agents. According to him, the leadership is just going along with the administration not to lose their job. Biden demoted former ATF Acting Director Marvin Richardson for not going far enough with the new final rule surrounding the redefinition of a firearm.

Garcia believes that the ATF focuses too much on “the gun.”

He claims the recent actions by the ATF show that it is aligned with the left and says he doesn’t want to investigate the gun. He wants to investigate the criminal. He claims that the ATF used the failed vaccine mandate to increase the ATF’s budget to concentrate on “the gun.” He claims that the ATF “catered” to Biden’s dislike of guns. He says that most ATF agents are pro-gun and anti-criminal. He states that ATF agents didn’t become agents to go after law-abiding citizens for non-compliant firearms or to argue what a gun is or is not.

“Did our leaders forget that ATF agents are law enforcement? Most agents are pro-gun. All agents should be anti-criminal. We did not become ATF agents so we could collect data, ensure firearms are in compliance, seize trigger groups, argue about what a firearm is or is not, seize firearms for reasons other than prosecuting criminals, or spend countless hours inputting data to justify someone else’s existence in HQ. We became ATF agents so we could work the streets and smack evil in the mouth. We took this job because we are willing to risk it all and hope that we can make the streets just a little bit safer for the law abiding, upstanding citizens of the USA. At least that’s why I became an ATF agent,” Garcia wrote.

Garcia talks about how the Biden administration talks about guns and violent crime in the same sentence and pushes for banning certain types of firearms, but in blue states, those charged with gun crimes are only given a slap on the wrist.

He also states that violent crimes committed with firearms are usually “pled down to non-violent crimes, and the defendant again avoids prison.”

He also believes that banning guns wouldn’t stop crime. Garcia logically points out that criminals do not obey the laws. He doesn’t think criminals will stop using firearms no matter what the law says. He believes that banning guns will only affect law-abiding citizens.

The former Special Agent believes that the administration is targeting the conservative population. Garcia points out that very few people were charged with rioting during the summer of 2020, but hundreds have been arrested for the January 6 event for just being there. He even insinuates that pallets of bricks and frozen water bottles were planted at the scene of the 2020 summer riots.

“We can probably agree that law abiding citizens do not commit gun crime. I think that we can probably also agree that the majority of gun owners tend to be more conservative than liberal. So essentially, gun control will only affect law abiding, conservative citizens. Therefore, the Government is only punishing the conservative population. Similarly, in the summer of 2020, rioters were allowed to burn cities, assault the police, and terrorize citizens with little to no consequence. However, the chaos associated with January 6 has resulted in hundreds and hundreds of prosecutions. The vast majority of the defendants have been convicted of simply being there. They didn’t even have pallets of bricks or frozen water bottles staged at the scene, let alone Molotov cocktails for them to throw at the police. Still, 18 months later, the left continues to be absolutely obsessed with it,” Garcia said.

Garcia calls out President Joe Biden for blaming January 6 on Trump. He highlights Biden was saying you can’t be “pro-insurrection and pro-cop.” He insinuates that Biden and the Democrats are not “pro-cop.” he says that the administration changed the definition of “hypocrisy” like they changed the definition of “vaccine.”

“Where was the support of law enforcement from the Democratic party during the presidential campaign? For at least the past 10 years, the Democratic party and the DOJ Civil Rights Division has consistently justified criminal behavior, advocated for decriminalization, and scrutinized the officer’s actions when an officer was assaulted. That is the equivalent of asking a domestic violence victim what they did to cause their spouse to beat them up,” Garcia wrote.

During the January 6 event, a Capitol Police Officer shot and killed Ashli Babbitt. Garcia surmised if the protestors and Babbitt were left-wing, then the liberal media would crucify the officer, making sure he would never have worked again. He believes the DOJ is the “driving force behind this double standard.” He calls for equal treatment under the law.

He claims that politicians do not care about the truth. He says that they only care about public opinion. Garcia claims that the majority of the population supports law enforcement. He says most criminals dislike cops but that the Democrats are trying to appease the criminal population.

Garcia also takes issue with the amount of “violent federal defendants released following their detention hearing.” He says the system was broken. The agent blames the revolving door of prison as the reason for the rise of violent crime over the past few years.

Garcia says guns are not the problem. He believes that the problem is not holding criminals accountable for their actions. The former agent doesn’t think seizing firearms will combat violent crime. He believes that more violent criminals should be locked up and accuses legislators and members of the judicial system with neglecting their oath to uphold the Constitution.

He ends by saying he believes in God, I believe “in The Constitution, and I believe that bad guys belong in prison.” He doesn’t think the Government believes in those anymore.

Project Veritas: Leaked FBI Domestic Terrorism Symbols Guide

Historic Gadsden Flag

Project Veritas has published an FBI memo titled Domestic Terrorism Symbols Guide which purports to show the symbols of anti-government and anti-authority violent extremists. Unfortunately it shows a plethora of very common symbols, including anything referencing the Second Amendment of the US Constitution and the historic Gadsden flag.

FBI Whistleblower LEAKS Bureau’s ‘Domestic Terrorism Symbols Guide’ on ‘Militia Violent Extremists’ Citing Ashli Babbitt as MVE Martyr

Project Veritas released a newly leaked document today provided by an FBI whistleblower, which shows how the Bureau classifies American citizens it deems to be potential “Militia Violent Extremists” [MVEs].

In the document, the FBI cites symbols, images, phrases, events, and individuals that agents should look out for when identifying alleged domestic terrorists.

The “Unclassified/Law Enforcement Sensitive” document says it is for “FBI Internal Use Only.”

Of note, under the “Symbols” section, is a prominent citation of the Second Amendment, where it explains that “MVEs justify their existence with the Second Amendment, due to the mention of a ‘well regulated Militia,’ as well as the right to bear arms.”

Right below that, under the “Commonly Referenced Historical Imagery and Quotes” section, Revolutionary War images such as the Gadsden Flag and the Betsy Ross Flag are listed. Each flag displayed in the document comes with a brief description of what it means.

Under the “Common Phrases and References” section of the leaked document, Ashli Babbitt is cited as a person that MVEs consider to be a Martyr.

The same document also refers to Ruby Ridge, Waco, and even Timothy McVeigh, tying in traditional American ideas and symbols with radical and/or violent events in the past.

S2 Underground: Shortwave – The Warlord’s Radio

In the following video, S2 Underground talks about shortwave/HF radio and how to use it during emergencies, disasters, and other scenarios. In the US, authorization to transmit on HF comes mostly with the General level amateur radio license, though there are some limited allocations for the Technician class to use CW/morse code. If you’re already involved with an emergency radio group like AmRRON, then you may already be familiar with a lot of the topics he discusses, but if you haven’t been involved with communications at all, then this may give you a good overview.

00:00 – Introduction

04:10 – The Emergency Itself

08:10 – The Nature of the Communication

10:26 – MARS Mod

14:24 – Mobility and Fitness

18:40 – Data Modes – RTTY

23:26 – Sending Images

28:37 – JS8Call

31:56 – Winlink

35:41 – Comm Scheduling

41:42 – Encryption

42:58 – Thinking Big

47:15 – Closing Thoughts

See also S2 Underground’s follow up video on HF radio:

Imprimis: The Rise of Wokeness in the Military

Thomas Spoehr is director of the Center for National Defense at the Heritage Foundation. He served previously for over 36 years in the U.S. Army, attaining the rank of Lieutenant General. The following is adapted from a talk delivered on July 20, 2022, at the Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship on Hillsdale’s Washington, D.C. campus, as part of the AWC Family Foundation Lecture Series. 

The Rise of Wokeness in the Military

Complaints by veteran soldiers about younger generations who lack discipline and traditional values are as old as war itself. Grizzled veterans in the Greek phalanx, Roman legions, and Napoleon’s elite corps all believed that the failings of the young would be the ruin of their armies. This is not the chief worry of grizzled American veterans today. The largest threat they see by far to our current military is the weakening of its fabric by radical progressive (or “woke”) policies being imposed, not by a rising generation of slackers, but by the very leaders charged with ensuring their readiness.

Wokeness in the military is being imposed by elected and appointed leaders in the White House, Congress, and the Pentagon who have little understanding of the purpose, character, traditions, and requirements of the institution they are trying to change. The push for it didn’t begin in the last two years under the Biden administration—nor will it automatically end if a non-woke administration is elected in 2024. Wokeness in the military has become ingrained. And unless the policies that flow from it are illegal or directly jeopardize readiness, senior military leaders have little alternative but to comply. 

Woke ideology undermines military readiness in various ways. It undermines cohesiveness by emphasizing differences based on race, ethnicity, and sex. It undermines leadership authority by introducing questions about whether promotion is based on merit or quota requirements. It leads to military personnel serving in specialties and areas for which they are not qualified or ready. And it takes time and resources away from training activities and weapons development that contribute to readiness.

Wokeness in the military also affects relations between the military and society at large. It acts as a disincentive for many young Americans in terms of enlistment. And it undermines wholehearted support for the military by a significant portion of the American public at a time when it is needed the most.

***

Let me give some examples of what I mean by wokeness.

In 2015, then Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus rejected out-of-hand a Marine Corps study concluding that gender-integrated combat formations did not move as quickly or shoot as accurately, and that women were twice as likely as men to suffer combat injuries. He rejected it because it did not comport with the Obama administration’s political agenda.

That same year the Department of Defense opened all combat jobs in the U.S. military to women, and Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter committed to “gender-neutral standards” to ensure that female servicemembers could meet the demanding rigors involved in qualifying for combat. Since then, the Army has been working for a decade to put in place the gender-neutral test promised by Carter. But after finding that women were not scoring as highly as men, and under fierce pressure from advocacy groups, the Army threw out the test. Now there is no test to determine whether any soldier can meet the fitness requirements for combat specialties.

In 2015, near the end of his second term, President Obama initiated a change to the Pentagon’s longstanding policy on transgender individuals in the military. Before that change could take effect, the incoming Trump administration put it on hold awaiting future study. Subsequent evidence presented to Secretary of Defense James Mattis—including the fact that transgender individuals suffering from gender dysphoria attempt suicide and experience severe anxiety at nine times the rate of the general population—raised legitimate concerns about their fitness for military service. 

This led the Trump administration to impose reasonable restrictions on military service by those suffering gender dysphoria. But only hours after his inauguration in January 2021, President Biden signed an executive order that did away with these restrictions and opened military service to all transgender individuals. Since then, the Biden administration has decreed that active members of the military can take time off from their duties to obtain sex-change surgeries and all related hormones and drugs at taxpayer expense.

Along similar lines, the Biden administration has recently ended support for a longstanding policy prohibiting individuals infected with HIV from serving in combat zones. The policy had been based on sound science tied to the need for HIV medications and the danger of cross-infection through shared blood.

Physical fitness has long been a hallmark of the U.S. military. But in recent years, fitness standards have been progressively watered down in pursuit of the woke goal of “leveling the playing field.” The Army, for instance, recently lowered its minimum passing standards for pushups to an unimpressive total of ten and increased its minimum two-mile run time from 19 to 23 minutes. The new Space Force is considering doing away with periodic fitness testing altogether.

Back in 2016, Navy Secretary Mabus decreed that Navy sailors would no longer be known by traditional job titles such as “corpsman,” adopting instead new gender-neutral titles such as “medical technician.” The resulting blowback was so severe from enlisted sailors who cherished those historic titles that the Navy was forced to reverse the changes. But wokeness has a way of coming back, and last year the Navy released a training video to help sailors understand the proper way of using personal pronouns—a skill Americans have traditionally mastered in grade school. The video instructs servicemembers that they need to create a “safe space for everybody” by using “inclusive language”—for instance, saying “hey everybody” instead of “hey guys.” Can the return of gender-neutral job titles be far behind? 

Much of the emphasis of wokeness today is on promoting the idea that America is fatally flawed by systemic racism and white privilege. Our fighting men and women are required to sit through indoctrination programs, often with roots in the Marxist tenets of critical race theory, either by Pentagon diktat or through carelessness by senior leaders who delegate their command responsibilities to private Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion instructors…(article continues)

GOA: Oppose the Biden Administration’s Attempt to Ban Lead Ammunition on Federal Lands

From Gun Owners of America

Oppose the Biden Administration’s Attempt to Ban Lead Ammunition on Federal Lands

Please Contact the U.S. Department of the Interior and Oppose the Lead Ammunition Ban!

Joe Biden is once again attacking our right to keep and bear arms, and this time he is also attacking America’s hunting traditions.

That is why Gun Owners of America is jumping into the fight, and we need you with us.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), run by radical gun-grabbing Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, is proposing to ban lead ammunition and fishing tackle on certain federal lands by 2026.

We have seen anti-gun and anti-hunting radicals do this at the state level in places like California where urban elites want to ban hunting and fishing.

They claim their bans protect wildlife, but the science on these matters is inconclusive at best, and studies have not proven that lead shot or fishing tackle present a widespread threat to people or wildlife.

California and some European countries banned lead ammunition years ago, and there has been no improvement in lead exposure among wildlife. It is clear that lead in the environment is coming from sources OTHER THAN LEAD AMMUNITION.

In fact, the “science” mentioned in the Federal Register is so weak the proposed ban wording claims lead shot and tackle “may” cause harm. By using the word “may,” the government is admitting they want to ban something they can’t prove is harmful.

Lead shot and bullets have been used by Americans for generations, and there is no clear evidence this ammunition causes widespread harm to humans or wildlife populations.

Every year, new science emerges that suggests a connection between lead poisoning in wildlife and alternative sources of lead in the ecosystem. In short, we just don’t have strong evidence to prove that lead ammunition is harming wildlife because there are so many lead sources in nature.

Gun Owners of America expects this is the start of a national ban on lead ammunition which will increase costs and decrease participation in America’s Centuries-Old Hunting Tradition.

We need you, and your friends, to click the links in this alert and make a formal comment on the Federal Register telling the Biden Administration you oppose any restrictions on lead ammunition.

Please use one or both of the methods below to contact the U.S. Department of the Interior. Tell them you are writing to oppose the National Lead Ammunition Ban proposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Please Contact the U.S. Department of the Interior and Oppose the Lead Ammunition Ban!

You can also Click Here to Submit a Formal Comment on the Federal Register Telling the Biden Administration You Oppose a Lead Ban.

Kind Regards,

Mark Jones
Certified Wildlife Biologist®
National Director, Hunter Outreach

P.S. You can read my full, fact-based analysis of Biden’s lead ammunition ban here.


Rutherford Institute: AI Surveillance Signals the Death of Privacy

John and Nisha Whitehead at the Rutherford Institute write about the growing digital authoritarianism around the world and the subsequent death of privacy for everyone. It’s not just happening in places like China or the middle east. Surveillance happens in the US on a massive scale. Private social media platforms sell their users’ information to any buyer, and censor their users based on advice from the government. The NSA engages in widespread surveillance of US citizens as well as foreigners. There are consumer reporting companies which gather information about you and sell it in order to provide tenant screening, employment screening, social media screening, employment and income reporting and verification, check and bank screening, fact checking for insurance purposes, medical checking for when you try to purchase insurance related to your health, utilities history, retail product returns and even gambling screening. The types of surveillance are nearly endless and mostly available to anyone with the money to purchase it, much less the government.

AI Surveillance Signals the Death of Privacy

“There are no private lives. This a most important aspect of modern life. One of the biggest transformations we have seen in our society is the diminution of the sphere of the private. We must reasonably now all regard the fact that there are no secrets and nothing is private. Everything is public.” ― Philip K. Dick

Nothing is private.

We teeter on the cusp of a cultural, technological and societal revolution the likes of which have never been seen before.

While the political Left and Right continue to make abortion the face of the debate over the right to privacy in America, the government and its corporate partners, aided by rapidly advancing technology, are reshaping the world into one in which there is no privacy at all.

Nothing that was once private is protected.

We have not even begun to register the fallout from the tsunami bearing down upon us in the form of AI (artificial intelligence) surveillance, and yet it is already re-orienting our world into one in which freedom is almost unrecognizable.

AI surveillance harnesses the power of artificial intelligence and widespread surveillance technology to do what the police state lacks the manpower and resources to do efficiently or effectively: be everywhere, watch everyone and everything, monitor, identify, catalogue, cross-check, cross-reference, and collude.

Everything that was once private is now up for grabs to the right buyer.

Governments and corporations alike have heedlessly adopted AI surveillance technologies without any care or concern for their long-term impact on the rights of the citizenry.

As a special report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace warns, “A growing number of states are deploying advanced AI surveillance tools to monitor, track, and surveil citizens to accomplish a range of policy objectives—some lawful, others that violate human rights, and many of which fall into a murky middle ground.”

Indeed, with every new AI surveillance technology that is adopted and deployed without any regard for privacy, Fourth Amendment rights and due process, the rights of the citizenry are being marginalized, undermined and eviscerated.

Cue the rise of digital authoritarianism.

Digital authoritarianism, as the Center for Strategic and International Studies cautions, involves the use of information technology to surveil, repress, and manipulate the populace, endangering human rights and civil liberties, and co-opting and corrupting the foundational principles of democratic and open societies, “including freedom of movement, the right to speak freely and express political dissent, and the right to personal privacy, online and off.”

The seeds of digital authoritarianism were planted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, with the passage of the USA Patriot Act. A massive 342-page wish list of expanded powers for the FBI and CIA, the Patriot Act justified broader domestic surveillance, the logic being that if government agents knew more about each American, they could distinguish the terrorists from law-abiding citizens.

It sounded the death knell for the freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights, especially the Fourth Amendment, and normalized the government’s mass surveillance powers.

Writing for the New York Times, Jeffrey Rosen observed that “before Sept. 11, the idea that Americans would voluntarily agree to live their lives under the gaze of a network of biometric surveillance cameras, peering at them in government buildings, shopping malls, subways and stadiums, would have seemed unthinkable, a dystopian fantasy of a society that had surrendered privacy and anonymity.”

Who could have predicted that 50 years after George Orwell typed the final words to his dystopian novel 1984, “He loved Big Brother,” we would come to love Big Brother.

Yet that is exactly what has come to pass.

After 9/11, Rosen found that “people were happy to give up privacy without experiencing a corresponding increase in security. More concerned about feeling safe than actually being safe, they demanded the construction of vast technological architectures of surveillance even though the most empirical studies suggested that the proliferation of surveillance cameras had ‘no effect on violent crime’ or terrorism.”

In the decades following 9/11, a massive security-industrial complex arose that was fixated on militarization, surveillance, and repression.

Surveillance is the key.

We’re being watched everywhere we go. Speed cameras. Red light cameras. Police body cameras. Cameras on public transportation. Cameras in stores. Cameras on public utility poles. Cameras in cars. Cameras in hospitals and schools. Cameras in airports.

We’re being recorded at least 50 times a day.

It’s estimated that there are upwards of 85 million surveillance cameras in the U.S. alone, second only to China.

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

Beware of what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, and with whom you communicate, because it will all be recorded, stored and used against you eventually, at a time and place of the government’s choosing.

Yet it’s not just what we say, where we go and what we buy that is being tracked.

We’re being surveilled right down to our genes, thanks to a potent combination of hardware, software and data collection that scans our biometrics—our faces, irises, voices, genetics, microbiomes, scent, gait, heartbeat, breathing, behaviors—runs them through computer programs that can break the data down into unique “identifiers,” and then offers them up to the government and its corporate allies for their respective uses.

As one AI surveillance advocate proclaimed, “Surveillance is no longer only a watchful eye, but a predictive one as well.” For instance, Emotion AI, an emerging technology that is gaining in popularity, uses facial recognition technology “to analyze expressions based on a person’s faceprint to detect their internal emotions or feelings, motivations and attitudes.” China claims its AI surveillance can already read facial expressions and brain waves in order to determine the extent to which members of the public are grateful, obedient and willing to comply with the Communist Party.

This is the slippery slope that leads to the thought police.

The technology is already being used “by border guards to detect threats at border checkpoints, as an aid for detection and diagnosis of patients for mood disorders, to monitor classrooms for boredom or disruption, and to monitor human behavior during video calls.”

For all intents and purposes, we now have a fourth branch of government: the surveillance state.

This fourth branch came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum, and yet it possesses superpowers, above and beyond those of any other government agency save the military. It is all-knowing, all-seeing and all-powerful. It operates beyond the reach of the president, Congress and the courts, and it marches in lockstep with the corporate elite who really call the shots in Washington, DC.

The government’s “technotyranny” surveillance apparatus has become so entrenched and entangled with its police state apparatus that it’s hard to know anymore where law enforcement ends and surveillance begins.

The short answer: they have become one and the same entity. The police state has passed the baton to the surveillance state, which has shifted into high gear with the help of artificial intelligence technologies. The COVID-19 pandemic helped to further centralize digital power in the hands of the government at the expense of the citizenry’s privacy rights.

“From cameras that identify the faces of passersby to algorithms that keep tabs on public sentiment online, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tools are opening new frontiers in state surveillance around the world.” So begins the Carnegie Endowment’s report on AI surveillance note. “Law enforcement, national security, criminal justice, and border management organizations in every region are relying on these technologies—which use statistical pattern recognition, machine learning, and big data analytics—to monitor citizens.”

In the hands of tyrants and benevolent dictators alike, AI surveillance is the ultimate means of repression and control, especially through the use of smart city/safe city platforms, facial recognition systems, and predictive policing. These technologies are also being used by violent extremist groups, as well as sex, child, drug, and arms traffickers for their own nefarious purposes.

China, the role model for our dystopian future, has been a major force in deploying AI surveillance on its own citizens, especially by way of its social credit systems, which it employs to identify, track and segregate its “good” citizens from the “bad.”

Social media credit scores assigned to Chinese individuals and businesses categorize them on whether or not they are worthy of being part of society. A real-name system—which requires people to use government-issued ID cards to buy mobile sims, obtain social media accounts, take a train, board a plane, or even buy groceries—coupled with social media credit scores ensures that those blacklisted as “unworthy” are banned from accessing financial markets, buying real estate or travelling by air or train. Among the activities that can get you labeled unworthy are taking reserved seats on trains or causing trouble in hospitals.

In much the same way that Chinese products have infiltrated almost every market worldwide and altered consumer dynamics, China is now exporting its “authoritarian tech” to governments worldwide ostensibly in an effort to spread its brand of totalitarianism worldwide. In fact, both China and the United States have led the way in supplying the rest of the world with AI surveillance, sometimes at a subsidized rate.

This is how totalitarianism conquers the world.

While countries with authoritarian regimes have been eager to adopt AI surveillance, as the Carnegie Endowment’s research makes clear, liberal democracies are also “aggressively using AI tools to police borders, apprehend potential criminals, monitor citizens for bad behavior, and pull out suspected terrorists from crowds.”

Moreover, it’s easy to see how the China model for internet control has been integrated into the American police state’s efforts to flush out so-called anti-government, domestic extremists.

According to journalist Adrian Shahbaz’s in-depth report, there are nine elements to the Chinese model of digital authoritarianism when it comes to censoring speech and targeting activists: 1) dissidents suffer from persistent cyber attacks and phishing; 2) social media, websites, and messaging apps are blocked; 3) posts that criticize government officials are removed; 4) mobile and internet access are revoked as punishment for activism; 5) paid commentators drown out government criticism; 6) new laws tighten regulations on online media; 7) citizens’ behavior monitored via AI and surveillance tools; 9) individuals regularly arrested for posts critical of the government; and 9) online activists are made to disappear.

You don’t even have to be a critic of the government to get snared in the web of digital censorship and AI surveillance.

The danger posed by the surveillance state applies equally to all of us: lawbreaker and law-abider alike.

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

As Orwell wrote in 1984, “You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”

In an age of too many laws, too many prisons, too many government spies, and too many corporations eager to make a fast buck at the expense of the American taxpayer, we are all guilty of some transgression or other.

No one is spared.

As Elise Thomas writes for Wired: “New surveillance tech means you’ll never be anonymous again.”

It won’t be long before we find ourselves looking back on the past with longing, back to an age where we could speak to whomever we wanted, buy whatever we wanted, think whatever we wanted, go wherever we wanted, feel whatever we wanted without those thoughts, words and activities being tracked, processed and stored by corporate giants, sold to government agencies, and used against us by militarized police with their army of futuristic technologies.

Tread cautiously: as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, 1984 has become an operation manual for the omnipresent, modern-day AI surveillance state.

Without constitutional protections in place to guard against encroachments on our rights when power, AI technology and militaristic governance converge, it won’t be long before Philip K. Dick’s rules for survival become our governing reality: “If, as it seems, we are in the process of becoming a totalitarian society in which the state apparatus is all-powerful, the ethics most important for the survival of the true, free, human individual would be: cheat, lie, evade, fake it, be elsewhere, forge documents, build improved electronic gadgets in your garage that’ll outwit the gadgets used by the authorities.”