The American Mind: America Isn’t Make-Believe

President of the National Association of Scholars Peter Wood writes about what makes a nation and tells us that contrary to modern conceit America Isn’t Make-Believe. This is a little bit of a longer entry, so I’ve left here early on Saturday morning for your weekend perusal.

What is a nation? The no-sooner-established-by-President-Trump-than-abolished-by-Presidient-Biden “President’s Advisory 1776 Commission” understandably by-passed this question in its initial report. The report deals with a particular nation—our own—and had enough to do without entering the deeper thicket. But what is a nation?

In his 1983 book, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, the political scientist and historian Benedict Anderson proposed what has become the most popular answer among social scientists. A “nation,” in Anderson’s view, is a kind of myth. People imagine a community, larger than any actual community, and imagine themselves part of it.

This doesn’t happen by accident, says Anderson. Their imaginations are stirred by people who have something to gain by persuading people that a large collective “we” exists, where in reality people are truly connected by networks and small face-to-face social units. The folks who manipulate us into believing in nations were once the revolutionaries who were intent on overthrowing the kings. But in time, scheming capitalists saw the advantages of creating larger markets by manufacturing national identity.

Anderson’s idea has built-in appeal to post-modern intellectuals who see the purchase in brand positioning as “citizens of the world” rather than as citizens rooted in a particular nation. It also has a magnetic charm to those whom we might call “post-Americans,” who wander around as deracinated individuals and who define themselves by likes and dislikes instead of any core set of commitments.

If America is just an “imagined community,” we can choose to imagine it any way we want to, or even not at all. We could, for example, imagine it as a 400-year-old system of racial supremacy. That’s the narrative that Nikole Hannah-Jones and the New York Times have put on sale in the 1619 Project. That the historical claims in that Project are preposterously false is not an obstacle. It may even be an asset—a way of liberating believers from the tyranny of facts. The imagined community need only stir the willingness to believe. It need not rest on foundations of actual fact. Sophisticated people know, or at least “know,” that history itself is just story-telling, replete with events that never really happened.

The 1619 Story

Hannah-Jones does not mention the “imagined community” conceit, but she deploys it by describing the ideals of America as “false when they were written.” That is, America’s founders hoodwinked people into believing they were a nation because their real intent was to establish a durable race-based tyranny.

Whether Hannah-Jones sees her own history-telling (which she has now demoted to “a narrative”) as laying the foundation for a different “imagined community” is a perplexing question. She has sometimes written strident assertions that her account is based on real facts, but she has also played fast and loose with well-established facts and altered her own account as convenient. At one point she claimed on PBS that “our fact checkers went back to panels of historians and had them go through every single argument and every single fact that is in here…. So it’s really not something that you can dispute with facts.” This is demonstrably false. One of those fact checkers, Northwestern University history professor Leslie M. Harris came forward in March 2020 to explain that she had informed The Times in advance of publication that Hannah-Jones’s assertion about the cause of the American Revolution was flatly false, and Hannah-Jones and The Times declined to correct it.

In short, Hannah-Jones granted herself the license to tell the stories she believed to be useful, including the story that her assertions had passed rigorous inspection. This is the inevitable destination of all imaginers of community. They offer stories that are meant to sound plausible even if they are wholly or mostly fictions, because those kinds of stories give them a shortcut to power.

What’s What

Anderson’s idea, despite its popularity with the intellectual Left, is flimsy. Real communities often have charter myths, but such myths buttress underlying commonalities, interests, and ideals. Romulus and Remus play their part in imagining the origins of the ancient city of Rome, but Romans from the earliest days of the republic had a well-developed civic identity rooted in concrete practices and particular mores. (Many centuries later, the citizens of Rome would have to work harder to conceive what gave the sprawling Roman Empire, surfeit with subgroups, a cohesive identity. Even still, an answer was at hand: Roman law.)

Nations, like almost any human social unit—tribes or clans, for example—defy easy and neat definition. So too with ethnicity. Consider the idea of a “tribe.” What counts as a “tribe” in Madagascar differs considerably from what counts as a tribe in the Amazon. Tribe, after all, derives from a Latin word that itself acknowledges the multiplicity (at least tres) of people living near Rome (Latins, Volsci, Hernici, etc.). It certainly does not denote some form of social organization that happened to apply to the rest of humanity. If we ask how communities actually organized themselves, the answers are bewilderingly diverse. Tribe is no more than a convenient placeholder word for a bunch of people whose sense of themselves and whose manner of governance is a blank until we get down to details.

Likewise with “ethnicity,” “nationhood,” and other such concepts. We need to examine not just what makes them distinct from one another right now, but how they originally realized and built upon the possibilities of some kind of unity or commonality. For example, many nations trace themselves to a conquest or a series of conquests, with a founding king. France, England, and Spain offer origin stories of this sort. The United States, by contrast, frames itself as a unity achieved by a revolution against a king.

This might seem too obvious to warrant my emphasis, but it is apparently not obvious enough to prevent many modern Americans from stumbling over its implications. After all, our rebellion against a kingly power was our common liberation from a vast reservoir of culture and custom. We began not with a Romulus and Remus, or a Norman invasion, or a war to expel the Saracens, but with a decision to break with a good portion of the history of civilization—a history that frowned on self-governing republics.

This is where the United States, We the People, came in. We collectively defined ourselves in opposition not just to a British king (and more generally the divine right of kings), but to a whole social order. America was born from recognition of an emerging collective identity—and out of “self-evident truths” that were not yet self-evident to much of the rest of the world. Smart as Thomas Jefferson and the other founders were, they were hardly able to sell the inhabitants of the thirteen English colonies in North America on a self-evident lie, i.e., imagining themselves into a unity that had no basis in fact. Imagination counts for something, but it must discover and work with what is real.

Jefferson fully owned this when he wrote to Henry Lee in 1825 that the object of the Declaration of Independence was not “originality of principle or sentiment,” but to find an “expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. All it’s [sic] authority rests on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, & c.”

Stirring the imaginations of Americans to recognize and act on the facts of common interest and shared identity was the work of the Revolution, but the “American mind” had already been formed by common experience.

Cancelling 1776

The 1776 Report, issued by President Trump’s 1776 Commission on January 18, reflects this fact-based understanding of history. The report, however, was not long for this world. Two days after its issuance, on the day of President Biden’s inauguration, Biden abolished the Commission and de-commissioned the report from the White House website. It has been archived in the documents of the former administration and re-posted in several places (including the website of my own organization, the National Association of Scholars), so it has not simply disappeared.

I understand that the Commission intends to carry on its work in the private sector, perhaps under a modified name. Its forty-page report, after all, is more a preface to the work at hand than a final statement. It begins by saying that the Commission’s “first responsibility” is to summarize “the principles of the American founding, and how those principles have shaped our country.” And so it does, in spare, lucid, and only lightly argumentative prose. Three appendices, on faith, identity politics, and teaching are presented in a more disputatious tone, but the document as whole speaks with quiet confidence about what America is and where it came from.

One might not know that from reading accounts in the press. Kevin Kruse, writing for MSNBC, opined that “The Trump administration’s thinly-veiled rebuke of ‘The 1619 Project’ is a sloppy, racist mess.” Slate declared, “Trump’s ‘1776 Report’ Would Be Funny if It Weren’t so Dangerous.” The Daily Beast headlined, “Trump Admin Compares Racial Justice Activists to Slavery Apologists.” CNN wailed, “Trump Administration Issues Racist School Curriculum Report on MLK Day.”

One New York Times headline, by contrast, sounded almost sober: “The Ideas in Trump’s 1776 Commission Report Have Long Circulated on the Right.” But the first sentence in the article castigates the report for lacking “input of any professional historians of the United States” and for eschewing a bibliography. This is no doubt the Times winking at readers who remember that its 1619 Project lacked both professional historians and a bibliography.

It is a comparison the Times would be well-advised to avoid. The 1776 Commission included eminent scholars such as Larry Arnn, Victor Davis Hanson, and Charles Kesler, and its named sources include Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Cicero, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., Karl Marx, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Frederick Douglass, and Ronald Reagan, among others. This report was written primarily by political scientists. It does not pretend to be history, as does 1619, or anthropology. It might be criticized for the paucity of the latter.

Various left-leaning historians joined in savaging the report. A roundup of their jibes can be found on Wikipedia, which is a fitting repository for them. A sample:

James Grossman, the executive director of the AHA, criticized Trump’s push for so-called “patriotic education,” writing that genuinely patriotic history is a rigorous effort to study the past honestly and acknowledge complexity, rather than “cheerleading”; “nationalist propaganda”; or “simplistic and inaccurate narrative of unique virtue and perpetual progress.” Grossman described the 1776 Commission’s report as “a hack job” that was “not a work of history,” but of “cynical politics.” Grossman said, “This report skillfully weaves together myths, distortions, deliberate silences, and both blatant and subtle misreading of evidence to create a narrative and an argument that few respectable professional historians, even across a wide interpretive spectrum, would consider plausible, never mind convincing.”

Let me seize Grossman’s inadvertent compliment, “skillfully weaves.” It is something to ponder that a “hack job” is also an act of skillful weaving. But it is hard to extract much from the eructation of people like Grossman, who as executive director of the American Historical Association has remained steadfastly mum about the historical validity of the 1619 Project—which of course has had vastly more publicity and reach than the 1776 Commission’s report.

I will let the critics in the popular media and in the stagnant ponds of academe rest where they are. The report itself, however, deserves some attention, both for what it says and what it doesn’t say.

The True Report

The 1776 Report runs twenty pages and has four appendices that add another 20. In view of its brevity, I would have thought a summary unnecessary. But clearly some readers, including some highly educated ones, have struggled with the text. So here is the extra-condensed version. The report notes that Americans today are “deeply divided about the meaning of their country, its history, and how it should be governed.” But “the facts of our founding are not partisan.” Read the actual record and you will discover Americans have “ever pursued freedom and justice.” Of course we have made mistakes along the way. True American history is “the story of this ennobling struggle.”

America is a nation like other nations, but it has some unusual features. First of all, it is a “republic,” which historically is a fragile form of government. Knowing that, our founders took steps to counteract the forces that make republics typically fail. An important and original “step” was the separation of church and state. America is also unusual in having been founded on principles that its founders held to be “applicable to all men and all times”—those being Lincoln’s words. And, unlike most foundings, details of the American founding are well documented. Unlike most countries, our founding is a big part of our national identity.

We can pause here to observe that all the points I have summarized can be and in fact are disputed by the partisan Left. Even the idea that we are “deeply divided” can be shunted aside by sneering at those who dissent from the Left’s preferred narrative as ignorant folks whose views don’t warrant inclusion in the coming “Unity.” Are the facts of the founding nonpartisan? Replies the Left, there are no such things as “facts”; the founding is open to all sorts of interpretations. It could be seen, for example, as yet another effort of highly privileged white men to gain even more privilege. “Freedom and justice” were merely rhetorical flourishes intended to distract people from the real agenda of those oligarchs.

This post-modernist rejection of the founding ideals—the thesis that our received history is mostly myth—is one way of reading the 1619 Project. But given Hannah-Jones’ assertions about her accuracy, it is possible to read the 1619 Project as simply a profoundly mistaken account of our history. The ambiguity is in the original and may well be baked into the criticisms of the 1776 Report as well.

The report does little to defend itself against these sorts of cynical dismissals. That is a wise tactical move. Anticipating and answering the pseudo-sophisticated jibes of Marxists and post-modernists would only have diverted the 1776 Commission from its purpose, “to enable a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States in 1776 and to strive to form a more perfect Union.” The real problem is that a significant number of Americans now simply have no interest in that history, those principles, and a more perfect Union. What do they want? If it’s the 1619 Project, what they want is a newly invented history that rejects the significance of the founding and the republic as fatally flawed constructs, and dreams of a more complete Union imposed from above, by the experts, rather than perfected in the hearts and minds of everyday Americans.

There follow some key points in the report: that the U.S. made Americans citizens, rather than subjects; that the new country had a large share of common ethnicity and religion but chose not to make ethnic identity or religious affiliation central; in other words, that America’s founding was not, unlike that of virtually every other country in the world, based on blood and soil. Rather it was built on a principle—all men are equal—that the founders made into their nation’s core assertion. They built on the established idea that civil law and religious law were separate, still protecting religious freedom; they upheld the “rule of law;” they conceived that the role of federal government should be limited to performing those tasks that only a national government can do. The founders understood they had guard against both the tyranny of the government and the tyranny of the majority of the people. To these ends, they included a series of protections for those in the minority (most notably in the Bill of Rights) and established “separation of powers” achieved by “checks and balances” among the branches of government.

Back to Basics

In other words the 1776 Report offers what not so long ago was a basic primer on the American Founding. It doesn’t say anything that would have challenged the intellect of an average middle school student—which is a point some of its critics, including on the Right, hold against it. They ignore that this average middle school student I conjure would not have been subject to seven or eight years of contemporary dis-education that emphasizes above all the need to combat global warming and to pursue social justice initiatives. For our actual middle school students—indeed, most of our college graduates —this primer might almost have been ancient Greek.

Page ten of the report begins a chapter on “Challenges to America’s Principles”: slavery, progressivism, fascism, Communism, and racial and identity politics. The arguments set forth under these headings are nothing novel. They are crisp and compelling. The last of them bears special emphasis. “Identity politics” is to be seen as a new form of “explicit group privilege,” and is a “stepchild of earlier rejections of the founding.” As a consequence, it makes “racial reconciliation and healing” less likely.

Imagined, Invented, or Recognized?

In drafting the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson drew on a body of learning, including historical, philosophical, and political thought far above the level of most of his countrymen. The educations of the men who gathered in Philadelphia in 1776 for the Continental Congress could have set them apart from their compatriots, but the founders chose instead to put their learning in service of the common cause. They were able to put into refined words the prevailing sentiments of ordinary Americans. When the Declaration was written they were counting on the power of these new words to help crystalize America’s national identity out of the shared resentments, beliefs, and aspirations of colonists who were not yet formally a nation.

That is where the idea of “imagined community” comes into play. Were Jefferson and the others just imagining? Or were they molding into political shape a national identity that had already emerged but not fully defined itself? The question is pertinent today because so many post-Americans are busy trying to talk us out of our national identity.

“Nationalism” is now seen as a destructive ideology, next-door to or perhaps cohabitating with “fascism.” Our would-be liberators hold that the Declaration and the Constitution are instruments of tyranny, and that taking them seriously poses a grave threat to the kind of wise, benevolent government that the experts are earnestly trying to “deliver” for us. A nation, after all, has borders and other kinds of boundaries. If it is a republic, it expects its citizens to take responsibility for electing its leaders and helping to shape its laws. These are unquestionable goods in the eyes of those who uphold the teaching of the American Founding, but they are obstacles to progress in the eyes of those who are eager to move us into a new historical epoch.

Patriotism

What that epoch would look like is hard to say. Biden, in his first steps as president, gave us some hints. He abolished the 1776 Commission. He announced steps to open our borders to illegal immigrants and to offer citizenship to 11 million illegals already here. He decided that “transgendered” individuals would have novel legal rights. He cancelled a major oil pipeline project. He said he would re-open America’s participation in the Paris Climate Accord. These may sound like a grab bag of leftist policies, but all of them lean heavily against the sense of American identity. Thus they are all of a piece with the Left’s project to restructure our national identity, our traditional way of life shared by the 74 million or so nationalistic Trump supporters—and, I suspect, many others.

In his September 2020 speech announcing the creation of the 1776 Commission, Trump evoked the need for “patriotic” education. Biden and his fellow travelers believe patriotism works against the Left’s project. The word “patriotic” elicited hoots from leftist intellectuals, but it didn’t go down easily with conservative intellectuals either, who tend to see “patriotism” as too crude a form of nationalist sentiment. It evokes flag-waving and enthusiastic crowds rather than thoughtful essays (like this one!).

But Trump surely hit the right chord. Americans who see themselves as part of the American nation, and not as citizens of the world or as participants in the great post-national flux, do indeed look for spirited patriotism, not just enunciations of an abstract creed. A national identity is felt as much as it is thought. This feeling scares those whose identity rests on feeling themselves to be thinkers. They don’t know how to control those who do have it. And so they resort to thuggish techniques to shut it down.

The new social media censorship, the Nationally Guarded inauguration, the withering scorn visited on anyone who mentions election irregularities are all parts of this anti-patriot agenda. They are also excellent reasons why Americans who do love their country, and are not ashamed to wave a flag now and then should read the 1776 Report carefully. It is subversive literature—the kind of thing that circulated in the years before the revolution that gave the Declaration of Independence an audience, one which understood and welcomed that birthday of Freedom.

Organic Prepper: The Global Supply Collapse Continues to Get Worse

Robert Wheeler at The Organic Prepper tells us that The Global Supply Collapse Continues to Get WORSE: Shortages of Clothing, Appliances, Food, and Other Essentials.

The United States and the world have been suffering under a slow-burning economic depression for three decades now. Although the US began inching slowly out of the clutches of depression under the Trump administration’s quasi-Americanist tariff policies, COVID mandates, and the government’s war on independent businesses, personal finances, and the economy thrust both the United States and the rest of the world straight back into a financial and economic hole.

This time, however, that hole is much deeper than even the most negative predictions could have foreseen.

While PPE loans, stimulus checks, extended unemployment benefits, and a terrified shut-in population, as well as a mainstream media that peddles nothing but 24/7 propaganda, are hiding the real effects of what has taken place, there will soon be no way to cover up the economic fallout from the Great Reset.

The global supply chain is overwhelmed.

For one example of what is lurking under the surface, an article published in the Washington Post entitled, “Pandemic Aftershocks Overwhelm Global Supply Lines,” details the fast arriving price increases, inflation, and scarcity. The article states,

One year after the coronavirus pandemic first disrupted global supply chains by closing Chinese factories, fresh shipping headaches are delaying U.S. farm exports, crimping domestic manufacturing and threatening higher prices for American consumers.

The cost of shipping a container of goods has risen by 80 percent since early November and has nearly tripled over the past year, according to the Freightos Baltic Index. The increase reflects dramatic shifts in consumption during the pandemic, as consumers redirect money they once spent at restaurants or movie theaters to the purchase of record amounts of imported clothing, computers, furniture and other goods.

That abrupt and unprecedented spending shift has upended long-standing trade patterns, causing bottlenecks from the gates of Chinese factories to the doorsteps of U.S. homes.

In other words, money that was once spent on luxuries such as eating out or going to the movies, entertainment, etc. is now being spent on necessities.

The price of everything will continue to rise.

This is, of course, due to the fact that many good jobs were sent overseas already before the COVID mandates took hold but also because the lockdowns and fearmongering of media outlets have now driven many of the businesses that were left into extinction.

Unemployed people and business owners who no longer own their businesses are faced with rising costs for the items they need and have no money left over for the items they want, something that has driven many more people to steal food and other necessities in an alarming trend.

The article continues,

Glimmers of sticker shock are starting to vex corporate planners. The cost of imported industrial supplies jumped 4.2 percent in December and is up 27 percent since April’s pandemic low, with manufacturers complaining of shortages of materials such as steel.

Shipping issues are affecting familiar brand names such as the Gap, where an executive recently told investors that “port issues” were hamstringing operations. At WD-40, higher freight and warehousing costs dented profit margins last quarter, Jay Rembolt, the chief financial officer, told investors this month. Bang & Olufsen, a maker of music systems and televisions, said it had resorted to more expensive airfreight to compensate for a lack of seaborne options.

“These challenges have put inflationary cost pressures on our and many businesses and, as the market is anticipating, will put further inflationary pressure on transportation rates in 2021,” said Shelley Simpson, chief commercial officer for J.B. Hunt Transport Services, on a recent earnings call.

Shortages will continue to emerge.

Just in case you were somehow unaware of the crisis, you might notice that there have been shortages of household appliances as well as clothing in recent months with many of those items costing more than they did pre-panic. In fact, many of those imported goods have risen by 0.9 percent since August. So much for those cheaper goods that you were promised for sending your high wage jobs to China.

In fact, we’re seeing shortages and higher prices of many essential products that come from China, as well as Chinese-made parts to maintain our own goods.

And it’s not just shipping costs. Higher oil prices, inflation from “stimulus” checks, and other factors are all combining. In fact, the Washington Post article surprisingly addresses this by writing,

By themselves, shipping cost spikes are likely to have only a modest effect on inflation, according to Neil Shearing, chief economist for Capital Economics in London. But they will reinforce the effects of other factors, such as oil prices and ample fiscal and monetary stimulus, that are expected to drive the current 1.4 percent inflation rate higher, at least for a while.

“All of these temporary factors come together at the same time the market narrative is primed for a post-covid inflation surge,” Shearing said.

This new spiral is not just a temporary hiccup.

If you read closely you will find that it is not merely a question of the market catching up with demand or resetting itself. Chinese goods are flooding the US market with Chinese companies fighting one another over cargo shipping space while American imports have taken a nosedive.

Essentially, what is happening is that a totaled American manufacturing sector is now being flooded with foreign goods while exports are stuck at the docks. Things are about to get very bumpy in this country and if you haven’t started preparing, now would be the time to do so in earnest.

To assess your preparedness level for this type of event, go here to get a copy of The Prepper’s Workbook absolutely free. Also check out this article for advice on how to perform an objective self-assessment.

Preparing isn’t as easy as it once was due to shortages of both goods and money, but that doesn’t mean that all hope is lost. Here are some tips for getting prepared now that things have changed dramatically. Pay attention to the items that are currently in shortage and stock up if you can. Items like clothing, footwear, appliances, electronics, computers, and food are all likely to continue to be affected. (While computers wouldn’t have necessarily be seen as an essential before, an ever-growing number of Americans are working from home as their children are “distance learning.)

This crisis has been apparent since day one to anyone who understands the basics of economics and anyone who is capable of reading the writing on the wall…

Washington Policy Center: U-Haul’s yearly move-out report shows surge of people leaving Washington state

According to the Washington Policy Center U-Haul’s yearly move-out report shows surge of people leaving Washington state.

British historian Thomas Macaulay famously said, “The best government is one that desires to make the people happy, and knows how to make  them happy.”

That standard is clearly not what people are experiencing in Washington state.  For years leaders in state government have been increasing the tax burden and imposing ever-tighter regulations that limit personal opportunity, lower household incomes, and fall hardest on working people, middle-class families and small business owners.  On top of that statewide trend, Washington recently experienced deadly political violence in its largest city, accompanied by rising crime, public camping and drug use, and similar signs of widespread lawlessness.

We all know that bad government makes people want to leave, but how does one measure that exactly?  One method is to use U.S. Census estimates.  Another is to track income tax filings with the IRS.  For independent researchers, however, these government sources include flaws and are often out of date.

There is one data source, though, showing where people are moving that is highly accurate and reported in near-real time; U-Haul rentals.  Because rented trucks, trailers and moving vans have to be returned locally after use, U-Haul knows exactly where its customers are moving to, and just as importantly, from what states they are fleeing.

And because it is the largest do-it-yourself mover, this private company is in the best position to reflect current national trends.  To preserve the privacy of its customers, U-Haul only reports anonymous aggregate data, never personal information.

The latest annual report from U-Haul on some two million, one-way household moves in 2020 shows Washington dropping precipitously from the coveted number five spot as most desired place to live all the way down to number 36.  That position of unpopularity is not as bad as California’s, at number 50, but it is a long way from top-ranked Tennessee, Texas and Florida as the most-sought destinations for one-way U-Haul movers.

The three most popular states on the list have one good policy factor in common; none of them impose a tax on personal income.  Washington state has the same advantage, which is likely the single greatest reason our state hasn’t seen even more people move away.

Still, to fall 31 places in one year is no compliment and reflects the fact that, in a year that was tough on everyone, people in Washington had it tougher than most.  The governor’s emergency executive orders, issued in March, remain firmly in place, with little sign of wider economic opening, easing of social restrictions or a return to normal public school operations (although most private schools have managed to open and operate under social-distancing restrictions).

The result is an economic and emotional strain that feels worse every passing week.  While other states and even whole countries are progressively opening their economies with health guidelines, Washington, California and others remain in a limited lock-down.

When health conditions improve and COVID restrictions are over things will undoubtedly improve, but our underlying high-tax, high-regulation governing policies will remain.  The health crisis is temporary, but with the structural burden of poor governance Washington is likely to continue to fall down the list, until one day we may earn the unhappy distinction of becoming the number one place people want to leave.

Of course our elected leaders hopefully will choose a better path, building on our having no income tax, the natural beauty of our region and our friendly communities to add more good reasons for people to move to, instead of away from, the Evergreen State.

Forward Observer: Early Warning for Thursday, Jan. 28, 2021

Intelligence company Forward Observer send out to subscribers a daily summary of national information with analysis. Occasionally, Forward Observer will publicly publish these so that you can see what you get for your subscription. Below is their Early Warning report for Thursday, Jan. 28, 2021.

Good morning. Here’s your Early Warning for Thursday, 28 January 2021.

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TODAY’S BRIEFING:

  • The GameStop pump is a populist revolt
  • Significant Activity Rollup 
  • Leftists employing risk assessment tools
  • Anarchists call for suburban riots to regain 2020 drive
  • Alleged III% militia member and Trump supporter arrested for explosives
  • Upcoming Event Calendar

InFocus: The GameStop pump is a populist revolt

In yesterday’s InFocus, I wrote about the GameStop trade, where a group of Reddit users, gamers, and trolls have now reportedly caused a total of $23.6 billion in losses for hedge funds and others short-selling the GameStop stock. I described it as a form of digital plunder and questioned when social tribes would realize the immense power they could wield by weaponizing things not traditionally thought of as weapons. More than digital plunder, though, this is a populist revolt against the financial elite.

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian described it as a “bottom-up revolution,” adding that he doesn’t believe society can come back to a world where this never happened. Anthony Scaramucci of Skybridge Capital described it as “the French Revolution of Finance.” In other words, social bases are realizing they can build new forms of non-traditional power through tribal communities connected via the internet, which is exactly what you’d expect in a Fourth Generation war.

Fourth Generation War is waged by tribal entities, against each other or against the state (sometimes both), and it exists because citizens increasingly give their allegiance to their tribes — social, ideological, political, racial/ethnic, religious, etc. — rather than to the nation-state. Nationality becomes a secondary or tertiary identity at best. There are probably lots of reasons that explain why this is happening, but I believe it’s primarily because unpopular wars, financial crises and bailouts and public corruption have eroded the federal government’s legitimacy over the past 20 years. We know that governments suffering from a legitimacy crisis virtually always leads to internal strife, which is why we’re in a protracted low intensity conflict likely to last well into this decade.

Here’s why this gets worse. Instead of taking the loss, the elite class struck back. Reddit restricted access to the Wall Street Bets forum (where the GameStop plan was hatched), chat service Discord deleted the Wall Street Bets server, NASDAQ (the exchange where GameStop is listed) suggested a future trading halt “to give investors a chance to recalibrate their positions,” and popular trading apps like Robinhood restricted new buy orders on GameStop to reverse the rise of the stock price. There are likely to be new regulations and possibly legislation aimed at preventing another iteration, and there may even be bailouts for Wall Street firms wrecked by this nasty trade reversal. Yes, there was a potential for large losses to worsen if no action was taken, with debt defaults being passed off as losses to banks and insurers, which some say could threaten financial contagion. But the attempts to both limit the damage and erase these tribal villages from the internet will backfire. Instead of giving up, members of the digital populist revolt are vowing to redouble their efforts to drive the GameStop share prices higher and punish the hedge funds, even if it means financial ruin. On this morning’s open, GameStop soared momentarily to $469, and sits at $226 at the time this report was published. According to NASDAQ data, 129% of GameStop shares are still in open short positions.

Ultimately, this is a net win for populists and another “red pill” that delegitimizes the ruling class. The extremely online Generation Z was exposed to possibly it’s first glimpse of “the system” in action, where it’s okay for Wall Street to profit from the demise of others, but it’s not okay for financial elites to get wrecked. This is probably going to ensure the survival of populism for another generation in what the elites hope is a post-Trump, counter-populist, technocratic society. They’re going to be wrong. – S.C.

Significant Activity Rollup

WHITE HOUSE: 

  • The Biden administration is developing a commission to study reforms to the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary. At least one commission member has expressed openness to expanding the Supreme Court. (Analyst Comment: As we recently see, lawsuits filed by conservatives states are likely to plague the Biden administration’s efforts to enact some executive orders and other federal policies. Texas won a lawsuit this week after a federal judge, a Trump appointee, blocked the administration’s plan to “pause” deportations for 100 days, which likely confirmed administration expectations of judicial roadblocks spurring the commission in the first place. The order is temporary, and the Biden administration is appealing. – S.C.)

SENATE: 

  • Nothing Significant to Report (NSTR)

HOUSE: 

  • NSTR

DHS: 

  • The Department of Homeland Security issued a national terrorism bulletin yesterday, warning that domestic violent extremists (DVE) “could continued to mobilize to incite or commit violence.” (AC: The report didn’t cite a credible or specific threat. I’m not discounting the risk of political violence, but this really looks like an attempt to keep this topic in national headlines and create latitude for the Biden administration to pursue DVE security policies and possibly legislation. For years, we’ve reported on “accelerationist” chatter, while accelerationists have complained about the lack of accelerationist violence. For now, there simply isn’t enough right wing violence to justify the Biden administration’s policy plans, which leads me to believe that these efforts are directed towards a future where domestic policies foment unrest, protests, and possibly political violence by right wing groups or individuals. Biden executive orders, regulation changes, or legislation aimed at gun control will likely be a trigger for renewed unrest, which could follow immediately after these new DVE policies and/or laws are passed. – S.C.)

LOW INTENSITY CONFLICT INTSUM

Leftists employing risk assessment tools

Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists and antifascists are conducting risk assessments when building affinity groups, identifying member roles, and planning for public disruptions. One basic risk assessment tool they are employing is PEARL — physical capabilities, emotional capabilities, arrest-ability, roles, and loose ends. (AC: Far Left groups continue to riot and carry out disruptions this year, but lack the massive public attendance of 2020. They are utilizing these risk assessment tools, especially considering the wave of federal action against anti-state suspects, in an effort to reduce excessive or unnecessary exposure to law enforcement. In addition, they could allow for better role identification within affinity groups and better planning for higher impact disruptions. – M.B.)

Anarchists call for suburban riots to regain 2020 drive

In response to a loss of momentum of 2020 level riots, the anarchist groups Leveller and Ultra called for Leftists to shift their efforts away from large metropolitan areas and focus on the suburbs or smaller cities. They observed that urban areas are heavily policed, awash with surveillance systems, and can easily be cordoned off to stifle rioting. They stated and provided supporting materials that detail the weaknesses and advantages of these smaller cities. They noted that suburban police departments tend to be heavily equipped, but lack the experience and skill to handle unruly crowds. They highlighted the fact that they can easily be provoked into overstepping and responding with disproportionate force. They also noted that these areas often lack proper, established law enforcement staging areas, are harder to cordon off, and give the advantage to larger crowds. Finally, they recommended that rioters adopt a tactic of small groups employing vehicles to outmaneuver overwhelmed police, setting fires, looting, and serving as mobile “nodes of the riot.” (AC: We’re observing multiple groups proposing the establishment of anarchist hubs in suburban areas or smaller cities. This roughly began in October 2020 when Far Left mutual aid groups called for supporters to build infrastructure in smaller cities like Kenosha, Wisconsin, and later in Vancouver, Washington. Moving out of dense metropolitan areas into smaller cities is based on tactical considerations as well as a likely attempt to avoid isolation. – M.B.)

Federal court charges alleged Three Percenter and Trump supporter

Federal prosecutors charged Ian Rogers of Northern California for possessing unregistered explosive devices this week. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) raided Rogers’ home on 15 January following anonymous tips received in late 2020 from a disgruntled former employee that he possessed illegal firearms. The FBI repeatedly dismissed the tips on the basis that there was no connection to terrorism. The JTTF decided to act on the tip following the 06 January riot at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. In total, law enforcement seized five pipe bombs, “materials to make more,” 49 firearms, and several bomb making manuals. According to documents, agents also noted III% stickers on Rogers’ vehicles, a reference to the Three Percent ideology. Rogers’ attorney said he has no connection to the 06 January riot and added, “Mr. Rogers is not a member of any militia, or any hate group. He doesn’t espouse extremist views, even the tipster endorsed that when he was interviewed by law enforcement.” (AC: Rogers could face terrorism charges due to an exchange of text messages concerning bombings and attacks on Democrats, technology companies, and George Soros in combination with possession of explosives. Federal prosecutors highlighted a III% sticker on his vehicle and a gag gift “white privilege” card to suggest he was part of a larger, anti-state, white supremacist movement. Members of conservative militia groups will be increasingly scrutinized by federal law enforcement over the next few years, especially with any new domestic terrorism legislation being passed. We can likely expect more raids from federal law enforcement under the new administration as they appear to be taking action on a backlog of previously dismissed tips. Further attribution of acts of political violence or terrorist plots with the gun rights movement could trigger high intensity conflict. – M.B.) [source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/press-release/file/1360811/download%5D

Upcoming Event Calendar

30 January: Justice for Juan Hummel Jr. (Bothell, WA)

31 January: “Black Lives (Still) Matter” disruption (Seattle, WA)

 

— END REPORT

 

S.C. indicates analyst commentary from Samuel Culper

M.B. indicates analyst commentary from Max Baer

Forward Observer: January’s Unrestricted Warfare

Intelligence analyst Sam Culper of Forward Observer summarizes January’s Unrestricted Warfare in the ongoing saga of America’s low intensity conflict.

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Forward Observer Dispatch, where I get to share my latest thoughts on Low Intensity Conflict, or the “war at home.”

I’m working my way through Unrestricted Warfare, a 1999 paper written by two colonels in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. The timing is serendipitous because I see this book reflected in current events.

The authors’ premise is simple: the United States is stuck with a view of warfare that’s going to be increasingly outmoded in the future. Facing a far superior conventional superpower, American adversaries (e.g., China) will simply change the definition of war to include traditionally non-war activities that will be used on non-traditional battlefields. This kind of asymmetry short-circuits conventional national security strategies.

The authors describe the use of any force — armed or unarmed, military or non-military, lethal or non-lethal — that exploits the myopic American view of war. Unrestricted Warfare sought a new concept of weapons: cyber, economic, commercial, financial, information, political, or literally anything else than can be weaponized and used against any adversary target, making just about anywhere a potential battlefield. This may seem like old news now, but it was ahead of its time more than 20 years ago.

Prior to 06 January, a concerted effort was already underway to set the stage for the “de-Trumpification” of politics and society. After the Capitol protest, I think we’re seeing a kind of Unrestricted Warfare develop against Donald Trump and everything in his orbit.

Here’s a hefty, albeit incomplete, list of political, economic, and information warfare against Trump and his supporters:

  • Lists of Trump administration officials, donors, and supporters, including personal information such as home addresses
  • Planned boycotts of companies that hire former Trump administration officials
  • Pressure against companies to not hire former Trump administration officials
  • Boycotts of companies that make political donations to Republicans who opposed the election certification
  • Banning of dozens of high profile, Trump supporting social media accounts
  • Initial claims by the Justice Department that Capitol protesters sought to “capture and assassinate elected officials,” which was later withdrawn due to a lack of evidence
  • FBI warnings of wide scale violence ahead of last weekend, repeated breathlessly by the media, but which ever materialized
  • Calls for the IRS to investigate and disqualify tax exempt political groups present at the Capitol protest
  • Calls for a “USA PATRIOT Act 2.0” to combat domestic right wing extremism
  • Legislation entitled “Insurrection Financing Transparency Act,” which would force the disclosure of ownership information of private companies alleged to have given money to tax exempt political groups at the Capitol protest
  • Calls for Facebook to expand de-platforming of “domestic terror networks,” and the encouraged hiring a full-time executive to counter extremism on the social media platform
  • Cancellation of data hosting services for Parler, and continued campaigns to prevent use of the social media site
  • Leaking and/or hacking of data on Parler databases, and the exploitation to expose personal information such as geolocation data and potentially images of driver’s licenses
  • Revoking the availability of Parler from the Apple and Google app stores
  • Calls for “de-programming” and “re-education” efforts against Trump supporters
  • Calls for a new domestic security agency to track right wing domestic terror groups
  • Calls for the Federal Communications Commission to counter broadcast outlets like Fox News, Newsmax, and OAN
  • Pressure against cable and data companies to drop FoxNews, Newsmax, and OAN
  • Pundit and “expert” comparisons of Trump supporters to Al-Qaeda and Islamic State terrorists, feeding further fear and needless agitation

I’m surely omitting some, but these are from recent recollection and our Early Warning reports.

If there’s a whiff of violence accurately or inaccurately associated with the right wing during tomorrow’s inauguration, then there’s going to be a long train of additional measures, regulations, and, probably, laws implemented to counter future violence and Trump-like political movements.

I look at the buildup of active duty Army and National Guard troops in D.C., and it is concerning. I think it’s primarily a show of force meant to deter attacks, and overreaction out of an abundance of caution.

It also carries with it substantial political benefits for the incoming Biden administration, which can use the drastic measures to continually warn of the dangers of boisterous political opposition.

In the coming weeks and months, we could see warnings towards Republicans to curb their language — something like, “You can disagree, but your anti-Biden rhetoric will inflame these potential domestic terrorists.”

I ask what kind of curbs might be put on political language and the freedom of speech in light of perceived potential violence. The Capitol protest has been built up into something much greater than it actually was, and those political and social effects are going to linger for years.

Until next time, be well.

Always Out Front,

Samuel Culper

Doom and Bloom: Labor and Delivery in Austere Settings

The Altons at Doom and Bloom Medical have an article on Labor and Deliver in Austere Settings. Given the topic, it is a longer article with more diagrams and visual aids than usual. Below is an abbreviated excerpt, so please click through the link to read the entire article with visual aids.

Pregnancy and childbirth are usually considered a blessing in modern times. Off the grid, however, the family medic/midwife will be thrown back to the 19th century, when childbirth was associated with a much higher rate of complications than now.

Even if the group has no women of childbearing age at present, at one point or another the medic may be called upon to attend a delivery without the benefits of a modern medical system. This article will focus on a pregnancy at term, classically defined as one that has reached 37-42 weeks from the first day of the last menstrual period. More articles on pregnancy diagnosis, care, and complications can be found at doomandbloom.net.

(Note: I am an actively-licensed Life Fellow of the College of Ob/Gyn and my wife is an actively licensed Certified Nurse Midwife.)

As the woman approaches her due date, several things happen. The fetus begins to “drop”, assuming a position deep in the pelvis. The patient’s abdomen may look different, or the “fundus” (the top of the uterus) may appear lower. As the neck of the uterus (the cervix) relaxes, the patient may notice a mucus-like discharge mixed with a little blood. This is referred to as the “bloody show” and is usually a sign that labor will occur soon, anywhere from the next few hours to a week or so.

If you examine your patient vaginally by gently inserting two fingers of a gloved hand, you’ll notice the cervix is firm like your nose when it is not ripe, but becomes soft like your lips when the due date is approaching. This softening and thinning out of the cervix is called “effacement”

Effacement is measured in percentages. When 50% effaced, the cervix is half its normal thickness and length. At 100% effacement (“completely effaced”), the cervix is paper-thin. Effacement usually occurs before any significant opening of the cervix (also called “dilation”).

Contractions will start becoming more frequent. To identify a contraction, feel the skin on the soft area of your cheek, and then touch your forehead. A contraction will feel like your forehead. False labor, Braxton-Hicks contractions, will be irregular and will go away with bed rest (especially on the left side) and hydration. If contractions are coming faster and more furious even with bed rest and hydration, it’s likely the real thing!

A gush of watery fluid from the vagina will often signify “breaking the water”, and is also a sign of impending labor and delivery. The timing will be highly variable, however, and sometimes urine leakage may confuse the situation. A product called “nitrazine paper” will turn a bright blue when it touches amniotic fluid due to its high Ph. A bright blue result (nitrazine positive) usually verifies that the bag of water is broken. If you have a microscope in the hospital tent, a little amniotic fluid on a slide will reveal fern-like crystals. This is called “ferning” and is more solid proof of membrane rupture than nitrazine positive tests.

There are three stages of labor:

FIRST STAGE (LATENT PHASE)

Latent phase

The first stage is the longest part of labor: lasting up to 20 hours or more. It begins when your cervix starts to dilate and efface, and is separated into a latent phase and an active phase. The first stage is considered complete when the cervix reaches 10 centimeters and is so effaced that you can barely identify it.

The latent phase is when labor begins. False labor has been ruled out and contractions are becoming stronger, more regularly, and in greater frequency. They may also last longer (60-90 seconds). The contractions cause your cervix to dilate and efface. In latent phase, dilation to about 4 centimeters or so often progresses slowly.

The mother should be given as much freedom to walk, sit, practice breathing techniques, or do other activities as she can handle. Keeping her occupied and moving is a good way to move the process along. A soak in a warm tub or shower is helpful if the water hasn’t broken. Oral hydration and small meals are also acceptable.

Once the cervix reaches 4 centimeters of dilation, a vaginal exam will allow you to place two (normal-sized) fingertips in the cervix. You’ll feel something firm; this is the baby’s head. In general, however, vaginal exams are invasive and shouldn’t be performed more often than, perhaps, every two hours.

FIRST STAGE (ACTIVE PHASE)

When the cervix reaches 5 centimeters or so of dilation, labor enters the active phase. Contractions get even stronger and spacing becomes closer. As the baby’s head descends, the mother may notice back pressure and bloody vaginal discharge. If the water membrane hasn’t ruptured, it will likely happen during this time.

Cervical dilation in active phase speeds up to about a centimeter an hour, although women who have had children may go much faster. Breathing techniques may be needed to manage discomfort during contractions (you won’t have epidural anesthesia or strong pain meds off the grid). Other strategies include:

-Changing positions. Some women prefer being on hands and knees to improve back pain.

-Walking between contractions with a helper.

-Emptying the bladder often.

-Gently massaging the mother’s back.

It may help to remind the mother that each contraction brings her closer to having a baby in her arms. Despite that, don’t encourage her to push until the cervix is completely dilated and the baby’s head has descended into the pelvis.

SECOND STAGE

Various position to help with contractions

The second stage of labor begins when the cervix is fully dilated and ends when the baby is born. This stage is usually completed within two hours, but is dependent on the strength and frequency of contractions. First-time mothers take longer than those who have had children.  Those who have delivered several children may proceed through this stage very quickly.

At this point, the mother will likely feel a strong urge to push. Encourage rest between contractions. When pushing, different positions may work for different mothers. Try squatting, lying on their side with a leg raised, or even hands and knees. The body should “curl into” the push as much as possible, almost exactly like have a bowel movement.

The delivery of a baby is best accomplished with the help of an experienced midwife or obstetrician, but those professionals will be hard to find in survival settings. If there is no chance of accessing modern medical care, you must prepare to perform the delivery…(continues)

AYWtGS: 5 Vegetables to Grow Indoors During Winter

A Year without the Grocery Store writes 5 Vegetables to Grow Indoors During Winter. Mint is basically ground cover in our garden, so we don’t need any more in the house, but we do usually have some green onion growing on a window sill.

Especially in northern climates, the winter months can not only mean a dearth of as much outdoor activity as we’d like. Maybe I’m the only one that the cold keeps bottled up, but I’m guessing I’m not alone. This time of year with its cold temperatures and short times of sunlight also put a damper on gardening and provides little opportunity to grow food whether that’s fruits or vegetables.

***There are links in this post.  The FCC wants me to tell you that some of the links may be affiliate links. My promise to you is that I will only recommend the most economical version of the best quality of items to serve you. All of these are the items that I have bought for my own family.  If you click on a link, your price will remain the same.  If you make a purchase, we may make a small commission that aids in covering the cost of running this website.*** 

While that’s not AS MUCH of an issue at this moment, in hard times, it will be much more of an issue.  We need to know how to grow food indoors in winter so that we can feed our family during much of the year.   While there are ways to grow food outside by using cold frames or greenhouses those take some time, money, and effort to set up.  Growing food indoors is much easier at the outset and can provide you with some foods in as little time as a few days? Don’t believe me?  Read on.

5 Vegetables to Grow Indoors During WinterSprouts

Also known as Microgreens.  These are not only so simple to grow, but they are a nutritional powerhouse!  Sprouts are estimated to contain more than 100 TIMES more beneficial enzymes that your body needs compared to raw vegetables.  Some sprouts also protect against cancer.

Once seeds are sprouted, they also contain 10-100 times more of an enzyme inducer.  Our bodies need enzymes on a daily basis and can become depleted if we are not replacing them.  Sprouts are an amazing way to replace enzymes.

Sprouts are also rich in vitamin C.  Many sprouts also contain a good deal of protein.  If a disaster struck during the winter and it was too cold to grow a garden, you could subsist on sprouts – though it would be much less than tasty to eat them 100% of the time.

The biggest upside of sprouts is that you can have them in as little as 3 days.

Lettuce  5 Vegetables to Grow Indoors During Winter

Lettuce is a fairly easy food to grow inside during the winter.  The question isn’t could you grow it inside, though. Because the best types of lettuce to grow indoors are loose-leaf lettuce, there are some varieties that are better than others for growing indoors.  Some of the best varieties to grow include black seeded Simpson, tom thumb, and mesclun mix, The question should be why should you grow it inside? If your indoor gardening resources are in short supply…

Why grow lettuce?

  • It grows quickly!  Loose-leaf lettuce can be harvested as early as it has a sustainable amount of leaves.  If you want to grow head lettuce, it will take 45-55 days, but loose-leaf varieties will grow in much less time.
  • Lettuce contains anti-inflammatory properties.
  • Lettuce protects your brain.
  • Lettuce contains 20% protein!  This is a good thing if you need to grow food that will sustain your family.
  • Lettuce can actually help your body rid itself of toxins.  This, in turn, helps your body to remain healthy.
  • It’s an antimicrobial agent.
  • It also has anti-anxiety properties

5 Vegetables to Grow Indoors During WinterRadish

Radish is an easily grown veggie!  Not only are they easy to grow, but they are also a fast veggie.  These can be grown from planting the seed to decent size radish in about 3 weeks.  This is a huge upside in case you need to grow food to sustain yourself.  If you plant radishes weekly you will have a continuous harvest indoors throughout the winter.

On top of that, sometimes (especially in soups), you can cut up radishes and use them almost like potatoes in soup.  Do they taste just like a potato? No, but they have been used by a lot of people to replace potatoes.

But why grow radishes?

  • Help protect red blood cells
  • They guard blood pressure
  • Keep you from getting sick from their high vitamin C content
  • Contains anthocyanins which protect your heart
  • Helps keep our blood vessels supple and prevents atherosclerosis
  • High on nutrients and fiber

Tomato  5 Vegetables to Grow Indoors During Winter

Does that one surprise you?  Yea, it did me too, but they are possible to grow inside during the winter.  What I did discover is that smaller varieties like cherry tomatoes do grow better inside.  I also love the idea of growing tomato plants upside down!  You’ll need a sunny window, but it’s very possible to grow these indoors.

  • A single tomato provides 40% of your daily vitamin C
  • Improve your vision
  • Help protect healthy digestion
  • Protects against cancer.

5 Vegetables to Grow Indoors During WinterOregano

This is a wonderful perennial herb to grow indoors if for no other reason than to flavor your meals.  Oregano a grown easily in a pot – actually it’s best grown in a pot because it can take over spaces easily.

Oregano takes light, well-drained soil.  It will need a good deal of sun, so make sure that you have a sunny window to keep it in.  Oregano needs water, but not too much.  Only water it when the soil feels dry to the touch.

Oregano has so many wonderful qualities.  Throughout the years, oregano has been used medicinally to treat.

  • Respiratory Tract Disorders
  • Stomach ailments
  • Menstrual cramps
  • Urinary Tract Infections

Mint  5 Vegetables to Grow Indoors During Winter

Mint is just like oregano in that it will spread and easily take over space.  It is better to have this in a contained area or in a pot.  You can grow it indoors especially in winter because it only needs partial sun.  You can put it in a part of the house that gets sun some of the time, but it doesn’t have to have constant sun.

Fortunately, it takes more to kill mint than it does to grow it!  Even my black thumb (that I’m trying desperately to reform) couldn’t kill mint when I tried.  It’s pretty amazing!  So find needs partial sun.  They like moist, but well-drained soil.

Mint has been used medicinally for a long time especially when it comes to upset stomachs.

It’s benefits and uses include

  • Stomach calming tea
  • It has one of the highest levels of antioxidants around
  • helps stomach spasms
  • helps gallbladder spasms (shouldn’t be used if there are gallstones)
  • IBS
  • Bloating
  • Constipation
  • Diarrhea
  • Keeps numbers of bad gut bacteria in check

What About You?

Have you successfully grown any foods indoors in the winter?  What lessons have you learned?  I’d love to hear.  Leave a comment below and share your experiences with us so we can all learn.

Together lets Love, Learn, Practice, Overcome.

Alt-Market: Biden’s Presidency Will Be A Catalyst For Secession – And Perhaps Civil War

Brandon Smith at Alt-Market takes a stab at predicting the next few years in Biden’s Presidency Will Be A Catalyst For Secession – And Perhaps Civil War.

Over the past few months I have written a handful of articles which discussed what would probably happen if Joe Biden actually entered the White House and launched his administration. My initial belief was that Trump would refuse to concede and that this would be a trigger for national chaos blamed on conservatives, but I have also noted that Biden’s entry is almost just as disruptive, as it sends a signal to the political left that it is “open season” on anyone that disagrees with their ideology.

Of course, conservatives are not going to simply sit still and be purged and abused, they are going to strike back, and this sets the stage for a number of events and outcomes, some of which are completely unpredictable, even for establishment globalists.

First, though, we need to address how Biden and the globalists are going to create chaos so that they can then demand their own brand of “order”.

In my article ‘A Biden Presidency Will Mean A Faster US Collapse’, published in October, I outlined why the ongoing economic crisis will accelerate in the wake of a Biden takeover. More specifically, I predicted that Biden would implement a federal covid lockdown, probably within the first year of his presidency, similar to the Level 4 lockdowns implemented in Europe and Australia. Biden may lure Americans into complacency with promises of “relief” and less restrictions in his first couple months, but he will then use the rather convenient news of “covid mutations” to bring in even harsher mandates.

Such a lockdown, if Americans submit, would mean an even larger spike in unemployment, a loss of hundreds of thousands of small businesses as well as a huge loss in tax revenues for some states (mostly blue states).

Another scenario is that Biden leaves the lockdowns in the hands of state governments, but pursues a nationwide program for medical passports. The passport, of course, would require people to take the vaccine and accept contact tracing apps on their phones; meaning 24/7 surveillance on the public. At least 30% of Americans have said in polling that they will refuse the vaccines outright. Another 60% have said they are wary of the vaccines and need proof of their effectiveness. So, the medical passports will lead to millions of people being denied participation in the mainstream economy and collapse happens anyway.

In other words, the elites are going to try to hold the economy hostage while telling the public that if we don’t accept medical tyranny it will be OUR FAULT if the system breaks down.

The economic crisis, however, started long before the pandemic, long before Biden and long before Trump. It has been building since the credit crash of 2008, and in the 12 years since, the Federal Reserve and other central banks have been pumping out trillions in stimulus while encouraging non-stop debt accumulation. Right before the beginning of the pandemic, the US was suffering from the highest corporate debt in history, the highest consumer debt in history as well as the highest national debt in history.

What we are witnessing right now is the final phase of a collapse scenario that was more than a decade in the making, and Biden is about to help finish the job.

Biden will no doubt seek to hyperinflate the dollar in the name of offsetting the losses and keep things afloat for a short time, but the real agenda will be to trigger price spikes in goods as well as eventually killing the dollar altogether. No amount of stimulus will stop the crash that has already been set in motion; the bailout measures from this point on are Kabuki theater, a show put on for the masses to make us believe that the government and the banks “did everything they could” to save us. The elites have no intention of stalling or stopping the collapse; their “great reset” demands it.

One’s initial assumption would be that Biden would then take the blame for the economic crisis, but it appears that the establishment is going to set up a Herbert Hoover narrative and lay all the blame squarely on Trump and conservatives. In the past I have noted that Trump’s trajectory was very similar to Herbert Hoover’s, in that he was a business mogul and Republican that pushed for corporate tax cut policies and also extensive tariff’s.

Hoover also served only one term, taking the blame for the crash of 1929 and the advent of the Great Depression, even though the crash was primarily caused by the Federal Reserve’s ultra low interest rates and easy money, followed by a series of rate hikes (a fact which former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke would later openly admit to in 2002). This launched the three term dominion of Franklin D. Roosevelt, one of the most communistic presidents in our history and the initiator of socialist programs which have since buried the American public in Quadrillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities.

Biden’s latest statements indicate he will be introducing numerous executive orders to “correct the mistakes of the Trump administration”, thereby implanting the idea that whatever happens next is Trump’s fault. The “Reset” globalists and their central banking partners will have to bring down the US economy very quickly under a Biden White House. Why? Because if they wait, or if they try to drag out the collapse and the worst happens a few years down the road, Biden and the globalists will get the blame. They MUST crash the old world order now so that Trump and conservatives can be saddled with the consequences.

The strategy seems to be this: Demonize conservatives as much as possible as quickly as possible so that our purge from social platforms can be rationalized. When we are incapable of defending ourselves in the public sphere because we have been removed from the internet, the establishment and leftists can blame us for everything going wrong. The public would have no access to any other points of view or contradictory facts and evidence because the alternative media will be gone. We become the monsters, the bogeymen and the source of all American suffering.

We didn’t fall into the trap of supporting martial law measures during the BLM riots, so this must be Plan B.

Will their plan work? I doubt it. Just as the globalist rollout of the pandemic lockdowns and medical tyranny is failing to gain traction in the US as huge numbers of people refuse to take the questionable vaccines, I suspect millions upon millions of Americans are already savvy to the propaganda schemes of the establishment and will not buy in. But, that doesn’t mean the elites won’t try it anyway.

In early November in Issue #47 of my newsletter, The Wild Bunch Dispatch, I war gamed the Biden scenario extensively and concluded that if he was to enter the White House it would have to be followed by a massive erasure of conservative media platforms from the internet. I stated that:

“If Biden does indeed enter the White House and take control of the presidency, expect certain consequences right away: A complete full spectrum censorship campaign of conservative news sources will be undertaken by tech companies and government. There is no way Biden and the democrats could keep control of the situation while conservatives are able to share information in real time. Do not be surprised if web providers suddenly start kicking conservative sites off their servers, just as Bitchute (a YouTube alternative) was kicked off their server for 24 hours on election night.”

This is already happening, and Biden hasn’t even stepped foot into the role of “commander and chief” yet. The coordinated effort by Big Tech to remove Parler, a Twitter alternative, from the web completely was not all that surprising. Luckily, Parler will be back up and running by the end of the month, but the censorship campaign is only going to get worse from here on. Biden WILL support and defend the censorship efforts by Big Tech and the fascist marriage between government and the corporate world will be complete.

To summarize, the globalists have to silence us before they can effectively demonize us. The truth is on our side; facts and logic are on our side. They can’t win the war of ideas if we are allowed to speak; this is why they are so desperate to silence us.

Sweeping gun control measures will be issued by Biden, but only after the conservative purge from the internet is close to finished. If conservatives are isolated from one another in terms of communication, this makes it harder to organize a defense against aggressive gun confiscation. Biden will most likely try to exploit Red Flag gun laws first, this would allow federal agencies to declare anyone to be “a threat to public safety” without due process, and have their guns taken away preemptively.

There is an obvious outcome to all of these actions and I don’t think it’s far fetched to suggest that conservative counties and states will demand secession. At the very least, conservatives are going to continue to relocate to red states and red counties, just so they can continue to do business and make a living without government interference. There’s no way that most conservatives controlled states or counties are going to submit to federal lockdown mandates or medical passports, and economies in conservative regions are going to remain stable because of this while blue states are going to crumble.

Biden will seek to retaliate against conservative controlled areas of the country in response.

There comes a point when it is impossible for those that value freedom, logic and reason to live side-by-side with those that are irrationally obsessed with control. The American constitutional framework in particular was designed to prevent collectivism from overriding individual liberties, but if the system is sabotaged through subversion and the Bill of Rights is violated, then maintaining the system is no longer plausible.

The best option for a number of reasons is to separate. Secession is often referred to as “running away” from a cultural problem, but this is an ignorant way of looking at it.

We are reaching a stage right now in the US where it will be virtually impossible to voice political concerns without risking retribution. If you are a conservative, you will be targeted.

If conservatives and moderates migrate away from leftist controlled areas and congregate in red states or red counties, then it will be difficult for leftists to attack them for voicing their views. If your employer is a conservative, then he’s not going to care if a leftist mob demands you be fired. If you own a business in a conservative community, then the people that live there will continue as your customers regardless of what leftists say about you.

Conservatives and moderates MUST start to physically separate from the political left. We must remove ourselves from the blood sucking parasites that have attached themselves to us. This allows us to remain free to think and speak as we like, and it takes all power away from leftists to hurt us by disrupting our means of making a living.

Secession is a more extreme measure, but it WILL become necessary if leftists refuse to accept that we are no longer participating in their games of fear and subterfuge. Leftists are collectivist by nature, and collectivists see people as property. Walking away is not an option in their minds. So, though we might successfully separate, this would only be the beginning of the battle.

The important thing is to first make sure that conservatives KNOW that there are places they can go where their civil rights are valued and defended. If conservatives feel completely isolated and alone, many will give up, go dark and pray they are not discovered. This is unacceptable.

The advantage of secession is clear; by separating, conservatives force the enemy to come to them, on ground they have prepared. The leftists will be the aggressors by default. They will try to present the situation otherwise, but it won’t matter. We will have the moral high ground as well as the superior strategic position.

There are multiple narratives that will be used to demonize the secession movement beyond the terrorism angle. In particular, I think the government and the media will try to tie secession to “foreign entities”. In other words, they will claim the secession movement is being funded or supported by Russia, or some other foreign power. This is what almost every government in history has done when faced with a viable secession or rebellion that could threaten their control – They accuse the people that want to separate of being agents for evil outsiders.

It doesn’t matter.

Conservatives cannot live with leftists, their cultism and zealotry has made it impossible. And, we will not live under a globalist tyranny built around their reset agenda. Separation allows us to consolidate for defense, and protects us economically. It is the only way to ensure that we remain free.

The globalists and the leftists will try to stop us; they can’t help themselves. They are insane, after all. This will lead to a war many of us have been expecting for quite some time. At the very least, with separation and secession we will be in the best possible position to stop them. If we remain isolated from each other, the fight will be over before it even begins.

TACDA: I’m Defending An Unpopular Idea – America Is Good

Utah Rep. Chris Stewart writes this article for TACDA‘s Journal of Civil Defense – I’m Defending An Unpopular Idea: America Is Good.

Published in the Journal of Civil Defense 2020 Vol. 54, I-2, “Civil Unrest”

Why, then, are so many of my fellow Americans taking to the streets and the internet to express their hatred for our country and culture?

I want to defend a radical idea. An idea that is increasingly unpopular — mocked and sneered at by some: The United States of America is good.

In fact, this country has been the greatest force for good the world has ever seen. We have sacrificed blood and treasure to free hundreds of millions of people from oppression worldwide. Free markets and liberal democracy have normalized a standard of living unmatched in human history. Our defense of individual freedom has allowed genius to flourish and enabled generosity to the needy at home and abroad.

Three important things make this possible:

  1. The Declaration of Independence is the world’s definitive statement on human rights;
  2. The U.S. Constitution is the greatest document of self-governance ever written; and
  3. The Bill of Rights is the strongest guarantor of liberty in the history of mankind.

I do not praise our founding documents out of a sense of arrogance, but of gratitude. Americans have lofty ideals to live up to — ideals that drive achievements and course corrections that make the United States a force for good.

Why, then, are so many of my fellow Americans taking to the streets and the internet to express their hatred for our country and culture?

A growing number of people believe that America’s foundations are rotten to the core. While reflection and a dose of humility are healthy, we all must resist any calls to division and disdain. Choosing an ideological group over our country is tribalism. It’s alarming that it seems to be in vogue to condemn the U.S. as a hateful place founded on deep moral sin and oppression. Those calling for a complete systemic teardown fundamentally misunderstand, or intentionally ignore, what makes America worth fighting for.

The current popular condemnations are neo-Marxist in that they portray societal and individual struggles through a tribal dichotomy of winners and victims. Neo-Marxism disenfranchises people by telling them they have no power to improve their lives. Even important discussions on race have devolved into neo-Marxist diatribes about unequal outcomes rather than equality under the law. It would be more helpful to empower individuals by ensuring the Bill of Rights is applied fairly than to focus on past sins.

Our goodness grows or is diminished in direct proportion to our commitment to our founding principles of liberty, justice and equality. The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, keep those ideas constantly in front of us as our guiding star.

I am not blind to the fact that a review of American history provides examples of moral failings. We have not always been led by perfect people. Some of them were not even good people — selfish, arrogant or power hungry. Slavery is a stain upon our nation. We have not always implemented laws, divided responsibilities, guaranteed religious freedom or instituted foreign policy fairly.

But, any fair reading of our history also reveals that things are getting better. By nearly every measure — racism, care for our environment, standard of living, protection of the middle class, human rights, education and many more — we are improving. I hope that future generations will build on our progress and be better than we are now. That is the great American promise.

Our Founding Fathers knew that imperfect people need noble principles to counter the human tendency toward abuse of power. We should be grateful that they recognized their failings and designed a system of checks and balances.

Many nations are unified primarily by ethnic identity and tradition. We are something different. Americans’ common bond is our commitment to our founding principles, our striving to uphold inalienable human rights, and progress toward a more perfect union. American patriotism is our love of and commitment to the process. We rally to liberty, justice and equality. We salute the flag — never a king, party or faction. American patriotism is the very antithesis of tribalism, and if we want to remain special, we must root out any tribal tendencies.

The U.S. is, and always has been, a symbol of opportunity. Opportunity is directly linked to capitalism. Without our economic system, the U.S. would not be a land of opportunity. Capitalism does result in unequal outcomes, but it has proven better than any other economic system at raising living standards for all.

If our common commitment to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution wanes — if we abandon our pursuit of opportunities for individuals or we divide into warring factions — we will cease to be exceptional.

All of us, therefore, must choose: Do we swear allegiance to a nation that is flawed but getting better? Or do we give in to tribalism, even while knowing that division and oppression have always left people destitute and disappointed?

I choose to defend the goodness of America.

Chris Stewart is the Congressman from Utah’s Second Congressional District. He is a multiple New York Times best-selling and national award-winning author, world-record-setting Air Force pilot, and the former owner/CEO of a small business.

CSG: Washington State Constitution Level 200 – Introduction | January 26, 2021

Washington State Constitution Level 200 – Introduction | January 26, 2021

$25.00

Washington State Constitution – Level 200

In C200, you will discover the distribution of your legislative power, the structure of your legislative branch or department, who has control of your legislative power, what controls your legislators have, and how your legislative branch functions.

Instructor Mark Herr
Materials Needed Pencil, Paper, Enthusiasm, Sweater/jacket as facility temperatures can be unpredictable
Location ONLINE
Date January 26, 2021
Time 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm PST
Type Of Training LIVE-ONLINE

Click here for registration information.

American Partisan: HF NVIS Antenna

NC Scout of American Partisan talks about the HF NVIS Antenna.  Also check out a follow up post here.

In the last Radio Contra I discussed a simple way of rigging up an antenna for NVIS HF use. Its a topic that gets a lot of attention, and in turn, a lot of confusion. But trust me, its simple. The whole point behind HF is creating regional communications- anything that’s beyond line of sight– and while you can spend a heck of a lot of money in a hurry and not get a lot, you can spend just a few bucks and with a little knowhow I’m about to impart here, have a great setup.

NVIS relies on sending as much of your radiated energy skyward as possible, with as close to a zero degree takeoff as possible. So, this means a horizontal antenna close to the ground. In case you’re wondering, the takeoff angle is perpendicular to the orientation of the antenna- so, if the antenna is vertical, you’ll have a very shallow takeoff angle, aka groundwave, if its horizontal, the radiation goes vertical. NVIS generally works best between 1.8-8mHz, with the higher frequencies working better during the day and the lower ones at night.

I’ll also add to this that the direction finding threat almost exclusively comes from groundwave. So on HF, NVIS is what you’re looking for. As little groundwave as possible.

So with that said, let’s talk about this antenna.

The first thing to know is that its built out of dirt cheap materials. 128ft 14AWG stranded wire, a Cobra Head, and ten plastic electric fence posts. Less than $25 or so.

For an 80M dipole antenna, each leg is going to be roughly 64ft long. You can make a loop or use a ring terminal to secure the wire to each end of the cobra head. Stretch it out- now you’ve got a dipole. Those plastic fence posts serve both as a suspension for the antenna and as an insulator. All you have to do is wrap the ends in a loop, and boom, you’re ready to rock and roll.

The antenna itself is roughly 2ft off the ground. This creates a high amount of reflectivity from the ground, sending your radiation almost completely vertical.

And with that, you’ve got a dirt cheap antenna that works pretty well. If you want to see how it works and get hands on building one, come out to class.

Practical Self Reliance: How to Make Cheddar Cheese

Ashley Adamant at Practical Self Reliance has a nice, detailed article on How to Make Cheddar Cheese. As usual with her articles, there are a lot of useful photos of the process through the link to her site.

Homemade Cheddar cheese is a labor of love, and the results are well worth the effort.  It can be made as either a waxed cheddar, similar to many of the nice options available at the cheese counter these days, or as clothbound cheddar. 

Traditional clothbound cheddar is unbelievably flavorful, and it’s dramatically different than what passes for fine cheddar on the supermarket shelves these days.

Whether clothbound or waxed, the process for making cheddar cheese at home is the same right up until the last steps and I’ll walk you through all of the options.

(If you’re new to cheesemaking, I’d highly recommend you read this beginner’s guide to cheesemaking before getting started.)

When I started making my own cheese, the first thing my kids asked for (of course) was homemade cheddar.

I love cheddar just as much as anyone, but my preferences are for an intensely sharp, crumbly wheel of traditional clothbound cheddar.  My kids love the mild smooth textured high moisture cheddar, that’s perfect for grilled cheese.

Why not make a bit of both?

In the process of writing this tutorial, I made quite a few wheels of cheddar.  Some using raw jersey milk from a farm down the road, and others using pasteurized grocery store milk.

Some wheels were waxed or vacuum sealed before aging, and only aged a few months for a mild high moisture cheddar.  Still, others were clothbound so they’d develop a natural rind, dry crumbly texture and aged for over a year for an incredibly sharp delicacy.

I’ll walk you through all the options after showing you how to make a traditional cheddar cheese.

Types of Cheddar

These days, most cheddar is either waxed or vacuum-sealed to mature.  That seals the cheese off from the outside environment and doesn’t allow it to naturally “breathe” throughout the aging process.

In an industrial setting, that’s ideal, because it’s a lot easier to age the cheese consistently.  Moisture within the cheese is maintained, regardless of the outside environment.

This is a great option if your aging space is less than ideal, and you can’t maintain proper humidity.  It’s also a good option if you have children in the family, as the waxed cheddar generally maintains a higher moisture content (thus it’s softer and less crumbly).

If you’d like a real treat, I’d suggest making clothbound cheddar, as it’s hard to find these days and it’s a truly artisanal product.  Since the cloth binding allows the cheese to breathe and develop a natural rind, it’s a complex live food full of unique and intense flavors.   (Nothing like the bland yellow dyed commodity sold on grocery store shelves.)

A few producers still make clothbound cheddar in the traditional way, wrapped in bandages, and aged in a controlled environment.  In fact, one of the best is right here in Vermont, and they sell their clothbound cheddar for $30 per pound.

It’s spectacular and totally worth every penny in my book, and it’s the reason I’m taking all this time to perfect my own homemade clothbound cheddar.

I’m going to walk you through a recipe for a 4-pound wheel of homemade cheddar, whether waxed or clothbound is your choice. 

Yes, it does take all day to make (mostly hands-off time), plus a week of drying, and then many months to age before it’s ready.  Given that the effort is the same, I’d strongly suggest trying your hand at clothbound if at all possible, if you have a way to control humidity in the aging space.

But there’s nothing like slicing into a $120 wheel of cheese you made yourself…

This recipe for traditional cheddar is adapted from Home Cheesemaking by Rikki Carrol.

It was one of the first home cheesemaking books written in the US, and it was the original spark that kindled a movement of home cheesemakers that’s burning strong 40 years later.

The book has a number of homemade cheddar recipes, from farmhouse cheddars to stirred curred cheddars and flavor-infused sage cheddar.   Ricki notes that “Making cheddar the traditional way takes longer, but is well worth the effort.”

If you’re going to go through the effort of making cheddar cheese at home, you might as well do it right and make really good cheddar…

(If you’re looking for a simpler recipe, try making this 18th-century farmhouse cheddar or Colby cheese instead.)

Ingredients & Equipment for Traditional Cheddar

The ingredients for making cheddar are pretty straightforward.  You’ll need just one cheese culture, along with a bit of rennet to form the curds, plus fresh milk of course.

I’m using raw milk from a dairy just around the corner, but pasteurized milk works as well (just not ultrapasteurized).  If you’re using pasteurized milk, add calcium chloride to help the curds form (since it’s damaged during the pasteurization process).

For equipment, you’ll need:

How to Make Cheddar Cheese

Start by heating 4 gallons of milk to 86 degrees F.  (Note: You can cut this recipe in half for a 2-gallon recipe.)

Sprinkle the packet of mesophilic starter culture over the top of the warmed milk, and allow it to rehydrate for 2 minutes undisturbed.  (This helps prevent clumping.)

If using farm-fresh raw milk, you can use half the culture because the raw milk already has natural cultures present.

(There are in fact traditional methods of making this cheddar without any added culture, though it’s tricky.  If you’re interested in that process, I’d suggest reading The Art of Natural Cheesemaking by David Asher.)

Mesophilic Starter for Cheddar

If using a direct set mesophilic starter packet (pictured above), you’ll need 2 packets for four gallons of pasteurized milk or 1 packet for raw milk.  Alternatively, use 1/4 teaspoon (1/2 teaspoon for pasteurized milk) bulk powdered mesophilic culture.

Stir the starter culture into the milk using an up and down motion for 1 minute.

Cover the milk and allow it to ripen undisturbed at 86 degrees F for 45 minutes.

After 45 minutes, check to make sure that the milk is still at 86 degrees, and if it’s cooled more than a degree or so re-warm it gently.

Dilute the rennet in 1/4 cup of unchlorinated water and add it to the cultured milk.  Add the diluted rennet, and stir it in using an up and down motion.  After 1 minute, use the spoon to still the milk (stop the motion).

Be aware that rennet comes in varying strengths, so check the bottle to be sure of the measurement.  My rennet, which I believe is single strength, says one teaspoon will set 4 gallons of milk in 45 minutes.

Cover the pot and allow it to sit completely undisturbed for 45 minutes.

Don’t try to heat the milk, take the temperature, or otherwise fuss over the milk during this time.  Ideally, it should stay at 86 during this period, but fussing over the milk will cause more harm than good.

The pot needs to be still for the curds to form properly, so really try to leave it alone during this time.

After 45 minutes, check to make sure the curds have formed into a solid mass and give a clean break.  (This shouldn’t be an issue unless it’s really quite cold in the room and the pot has cooled substantially.)

If they haven’t formed, give them another 5-15 minutes before proceeding.

Cut the curds into 1/4 inch cubes and then allow them to sit for 5 minutes.  (This allows the curds to heal a bit before you move along, which will improve the structure of the finished cheese.)

Slowly heat the curds to 100 degrees, increasing the temperature by no more than 2 degrees every 5 minutes.

This will take quite a while, be patient!

The curds likely cooled a few degrees as the curds were setting and are somewhere between 82 and 86 degrees.  Assuming they’re 84 degrees, they need to heat by 16 degrees total…at no more than 2 degrees every 5 minutes you’d need at least 40 minutes of gentle heating.

Placing the pot in a sink full of hot water generally accomplishes this, but you’ll need a big sink (possibly a bathtub…) to accommodate a pot holding 4 gallons of milk.  I gently warm the pot on my simmer burner, turning it on very low for a few minutes, then off for a few minutes.

Gently stir the curds during this heating period to prevent them from matting.

Once the curds and whey reach 100 degrees, hold that temperature for 30 minutes and continue gently stirring.

After 30 minutes, stop stirring and allow them to settle for 20 minutes.

Once settled, pour the curds through a cheesecloth-lined colander, reserving the whey.

Pour the whey back into the original cheese pot and set the colander holding the curds at the top of the pot over the warm whey.  A special “pasta making pot” that has a colander fit into it helps with this process because it allows the curds to be suspended over the whey (or warm water) for the cheddaring process.

Place the colander over the whey and allow it to drain and settle for 15 minutes.  The curds will quickly mat together forming a single mass.

Matted cheddar curds after draining but before slicing

Matted cheddar curds after draining but before slicing

Remove the curds from the colander and cut them into 1-inch strips, and then place them back into the cheesecloth-lined colander supported over the warm whey, stacking the curds so the weight of the top curds presses on the curds beneath.

Keep the whey warm, at 100 degrees F (38 C) for the next 2 hours.  During this time, flip the curds every 15 minutes to ensure they’re evenly pressed by their own weight.

This process of slowly pressing warm curds, flipping them often, is known as cheddaring and is what gives this cheese its name and distinction.

In smaller batches (from 2 to 6 gallons of milk), sometimes cheesemakers will fill a gallon ziplock bag with warm water and set it on top of the curds.  This additional weight helps with the cheddaring process, as traditionally cheddar is made in very large batches (at least 6 to 10 gallons).

If you don’t have a way to suspend the pot over the warm whey, you can simply place the drained curds in the cheesemaking pot and then put the pot in a sink full of 100-degree water for the cheddaring process.

(It’s not essential that it’s suspended over whey, warm water will work just fine.  If you prefer, strain off all the whey and use that immediately for making whey cheese, and simply suspend the curds in a colander over warm water.)

Periodically pour off the whey from the pot during the process, and flip the curds every 15 minutes as with the colander method.

Slabs of Cheddar cheese curds stacked inside a cheesecloth lined collander, suspended over warm water at the start of the cheddaring process. A ziploc bag of warm water will be placed on top for weight, and then the curds will be flipped every 15 minutes for the next 2 hours.

Slabs of Cheddar cheese curds stacked inside a cheesecloth-lined colander, suspended over warm water at the start of the cheddaring process. A Ziploc bag of warm water will be placed on top for weight, and then the curds will be flipped every 15 minutes for the next 2 hours.

Once the cheddaring process is complete, the curds should be quite tough and have a texture like cooked chicken breast meat.

Break the curd slices apart with your fingers into 1/2 inch pieces, still keeping them over the 100-degree water bath.

Stir the curds with your fingers every 10 minutes for 30 minutes to keep them from matting.  Just stirring, don’t try to squeeze whey from the curds, just gentle stirring.

After 30 minutes, add the salt (2 Tbsp cheese salt for 4 gallons milk, or 1 Tbsp. for a 2 gallon batch) and gently distribute it through the curds with your hands.

Line a cheese mold with cheesecloth.  This should be either a pair of 2-pound molds or a single larger mold capable of handling 4 pounds of cheese.

Press at 20 pounds of pressure for 30 minutes.  This initial press just gets the loose curds to start to hold together enough to be handled.

Remove the cheese from the mold, undress it, flip it over, and re-dress it with cheesecloth.

Then press it for 12 hours at 40 pounds of pressure.  (Usually done overnight.)

Pressing curds for traditional clothbound cheddar

In the morning, remove the cheese from the press, undress it, flip it and redress it.  Then press the cheese at 50 pounds pressure for 24 hours.

Remove the cheese from the press and remove the cheesecloth.  Allow the cheese to air dry for 2-5 days at room temperature, flipping daily, until it’s dry to the touch.

Dressing Homemade Cheddar for Aging

At this point, it’s time to decide how to “dress” the homemade cheddar cheese for aging.  There are three common methods used these days, clothbound, waxed, or vacuum packed.

I’m opting for a traditional clothbound cheddar, where strips of cheesecloth are slathered with lard to form a barrier around the outside of the cheese.  We render our own lard, so I have plenty on hand, but you can also use coconut oil or butter.

The cheesecloth helps the lard stick and forms a barrier that helps retain moisture, but still allows the cheese to “breathe” so that it can develop a natural rind and complex flavors.

Read more on bandaging cheddar for aging here.

Making a waxed cheddar is also an option, and the cheese is dipped in melted wax to create a barrier around the outside.  Since it’s fully surrounding the cheese in a waterproof layer, moisture isn’t lost during aging and it’s easier to age if you’re not able to maintain consistent humidity in the aging space.

The wax also prevents a natural rind from developing, which means you don’t lose the outer layer of the cheese.  (Thus a higher yield by weight due to the higher moisture content.)

The cheese won’t develop the complex flavors of a clothbound cheddar, but really intense crumbly aged clothbound cheddar isn’t everyone’s cup of tea anyway.  If you like high quality aged waxed cheddar, then this is a good option.

The process for waxing cheese is outlined here.  Personally, I’d suggest the dipping method, as it’s much cleaner.  Brushing the wax is slow and incredibly messy.

The last option is vacuum packing, which is what happens to much of the industrial cheddar produced in the US.

This assumes you have a home vacuum sealer, but they’re not too expensive and handy for packing meat and frozen veggies anyway.

Simply place the cheese in a vacuum sealer bag, suck all the air out, and seal it up.  It’ll age in there similar to waxing, as either way it’s creating a waterproof layer excluding air around the outside.

Aging Homemade Cheddar

Regardless of how you’ve dressed the cheddar, it must be aged for at least a few months (preferably longer) to develop flavor.

The cheese cultures don’t have nearly enough time to work during the cheesemaking process, which is mostly about preparing the curd and developing the right texture within the cheese.

The flavor happens during the aging period, and it’ll get more pronounced the longer you age the cheese.

Ideally, cheddar is aged at 50 to 55 degrees F (or 10-13 degrees C) and 85% relative humidity for at least 3 months.  Ideally, it’s aged 6 months to a year, or up to 2 years if you’re patient.

Humidity isn’t important if you’ve waxed or vacuum-sealed the cheddar, that’s more of a concern with clothbound cheddar.

Normal refrigerators are much colder than 50-55 degrees F, and are too cold for the cultures and enzymes to work.  You can get a bypass that overrides the refrigerator’s temperature control unit, and many people set up a mini-fridge with a bypass as an aging cave.

I’m using a wine refrigerator, which allows you to set the temp to anywhere between 45 and 60.  That’s the perfect range for cheesemaking, and it has really nice built-in wooden shelves that work well too. 

Timetable for Making Cheddar Cheese

I know, that was a lot.  I’m going to briefly recap the process in bullet form, which will likely be easier to follow as you’re actually making the cheese.  Since timing is important, I’ve set the bullet points to times starting (as I did) at noon.  This is a time-intensive process, so you might want to start a bit earlier in the day…

That said, most of the time is waiting, so it’s easy enough for me to incorporate this into a rainy day afternoon of indoor play with my two preschoolers (so long as I set a loud timer for each step…).

On day one, the activity takes about 6 1/2 to 7 hours, on and off.  Then pressing and drying takes about a week.  Finally, the cheese is aged for months.

  • 12:00 ~ Heat the milk to 86 degrees F.
  • 12:12 to 12:15 ~ Sprinkle culture over the top, allow it to dissolve 2 minutes, then stir in for 1 minute.
  • 12:15 to 1:00 ~ Ripen the cheese for 45 minutes.
  • 1:00 ~ Dilute rennet in 1/4 cup of water and add it to the cheese, stirring 1 minute.
  • 1:00 to 1:45 ~ Allow the cheese to sit undisturbed for 45 minutes until curds form.
  • 1:45 to 1:50 ~ Cut curds into 1/4 inch cubes and allow them to set for 5 minutes.
  • 1:50 to 2:30 ~ Heat the curds to 100 degrees, raising the temperature no more than 2 degrees every 5 minutes.
  • 2:30 to 3:00 ~ Hold the curds at 100 degrees for 30 minutes, stirring gently.
  • 3:00 to 3:20 ~ Stop stirring and allow the curds to settle for 20 minutes.
  • 3:20 to 3:35 ~ Strain the curds through a cheesecloth-lined colander (reserving whey), and allow them to set 15 minutes.
  • 3:35 to 3:40 ~ Place the whey back in the original cheese pot and heat it to 100 degrees.  Cut the curds into 3-inch slices, stack them and place them back in the colander suspended over the warm whey.
  • 3:40 to 5:40 ~ Hold the curds at 100 degrees for 2 hours by keeping them suspended over the warm whey.  Flip the curds every 15 minutes so they can press under their own weight.
  • 5:40 to 6:10 ~ Mill the curds with your fingers into 1/2 inch pieces (keeping them suspended over the warm whey).  Stir the curds with your fingers every 10 minutes for 30 minutes.
  • 6:10 During the last stir of the curds, add salt and stir it in, ensuring it’s equally distributed.
  • 6:10 to 6:25 ~ Line a cheese press with cheesecloth and press the cheese for 15 minutes at 10 pounds pressure.
  • 6:25 to 6:30 ~ Remove the cheese from the press, undress it, flip it, redress it and then put it back in the press.
  • 6:30 to Next Morning ~ Press the cheese for 12 hours at 40 pounds pressure (or a bit longer if you’re sleeping in).
  • Day Two in the AM ~  Remove the cheese from the press, undress it, flip it, redress it and then put it back in the press.
  • Day Two AM to Day Three AM ~ Press the cheese at 50 pounds pressure for 24 hours.
  • Day Three to The rest of the week ~ Remove the cheese from the press and cheesecloth.  Allow it to dry at room temperature for 2-5 days, flipping daily, until it’s dry to the touch on all sides.

At this point, a full week later, the cheese is ready for dressing (cloth binding or waxing) and aging for at least 3 months (but preferably 6 to 12).

Real Clear Politics: Big Tech, Big Brother and the End of Free Speech

Real Clear Politics has an article on Big Tech, Big Brother and the End of Free Speech.

In George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” members of the Outer Party of Oceania engage in the Two Minutes Hate ritual against Emmanuel Goldstein, who is supposed to be the enemy of the people but may actually just be a fabricated symbol to distract the people from their real enemy — Big Brother.

In Nancy Pelosi’s “Twenty Twenty-One,” members of the Democratic Party engage in the Two Hours Hate against Donald Trump, who is supposed to be the enemy of the people, but may actually just be a fabricated symbol to distract the people from their real enemy — Big Tech.

 Two hours of hate — er, debate — was held in the House of Representatives last Wednesday for the avowed purpose of removing a president of the United States. That’s all it took. Two hours. That should tell you everything you need to know about the state of democracy in our country.

More time is routinely spent on picking wallpaper. But let’s face it, most families wouldn’t trust Congress to pick out wallpaper for their living room, so why should we trust these self-appointed moral arbiters to pick our president?

Well, we don’t. Not all of us.

Rep. Doug LaMalfa, a Republican representative from California, put it plainly in his 90-second speech when he said the “second annual impeachment” of Donald Trump “isn’t really about actual words spoken at a rally. No, this is all about the unbridled hatred of this president [by Democrats]. You use any extreme language and any process to oppose the core of what he has really fought for. You hate him because he is pro-life, the strongest ever. You hate him for fighting for the freedom of religion. … You hate him for Israel. You hate him for defending our borders. … You hate him for putting America first.”

They certainly shouldn’t hate him — or impeach him — just for telling a rally crowd that “everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” But that’s what they did. In two hours.

And before they ever got around to impeaching Trump, they de-platformed him. With stunning suddenness, Trump went from the most powerful man in the world to a cornered, desperate fugitive. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google — they all came for him. Most importantly, they came for us. Everyone who sided with the president, everyone who agreed with the president about the questions of election fraud, we are all now guilty by association, and Big Tech has turned its sights on all of us.

“Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?”

Those were the words that terrified millions of Americans in the 1950s when Joe McCarthy and other senators tried to purge the United States of what they considered a subversive movement designed to overthrow the government.

In that case, of course, it was conservative senators — both Democrat and Republican — who were trying to expose what they called a communist conspiracy. In their zeal to protect the nation, they trampled on the civil liberties of individual Americans and tried to strip them of their jobs, their reputations and in some cases their very freedom.

What was the crime most of those Americans had committed? They had either attended a meeting of the Communist Party, donated money to the Communist Party or signed a petition on behalf of the Communist Party. In other words, they had exercised their First Amendment rights of speech and assembly. They had used their own minds and reached unpopular opinions. That was all it took for McCarthy to try to ruin their lives.

Apparently the American left never forgot what was done to them, and now that they have achieved absolute power, it looks like they want revenge.

In the lead-up to the impeachment vote, Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts put Trump defender Jim Jordan “on trial” for the new crime of having a dissenting view on the 2020 presidential election. The question McGovern barked at Jordan in a congressional hearing last week could be repeated in job interviews for years to come:

“Will you admit that Joe Biden won fair and square and that the election was not rigged or stolen?”

Jordan avoided a direct answer, but of course he and millions of other people don’t believe that Biden won fair and square. In a free country, they could say so, but in Pelosi’s “Twenty Twenty-One,” you say so at your own risk. To begin with, you can lose your Twitter account or your Facebook account, but who’s to say that you won’t lose your bank account next? China has a “social credit” system that deprives citizens of certain rights if their score falls below a certain level of acceptability — meaning if they don’t follow the party line in their thinking and their public persona. You might lose your job. You might be denied a ticket on a train or a plane. The only recourse is to do what the party tells you to do — even if it means accepting that 2+2=5.

Now, in modern America, we are precipitously close to duplicating the monolithic control of information that Orwell predicted in “Nineteen Eighty-Four” and that the Chinese Communist Party has perfected.

In the last two weeks, we have seen the power of Big Tech unleashed mercilessly. With the complicit assistance of Big Media, the Silicon Valley oligarchs not only neutered President Trump as a political leader by taking away his bully pulpit but also effectively crushed dissent by demanding that only social media companies that censor unpopular opinions can have a platform on the Internet. Bye-bye, Parler. You can also make a reasonable case that Democrats in Congress would never have impeached President Trump from public office so hastily were they not goaded into action by Twitter and Facebook taking the first step of banning him from public life.

In a sense, Big Tech has taken cyberbullying to its logical conclusion. When 13-year-olds are entrusted with cellphones and Snapchat accounts, they can use them to bring shame on innocent children and even destroy their lives. Often, this involves spreading false rumors about the person or discrediting them for something they espouse, like their religion, their political beliefs or their sexual identity.

Tell me how this is different from what Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have done to Donald Trump and, by extension, the more than 74 million people who voted for him. This group of post-pubescent cyberbullies in Silicon Valley doesn’t like Donald Trump. They feel justified in calling him names like white supremacist and Nazi and racist. They don’t care whether it hurts him or not. They don’t care whether it is true or not. They are strangely enlivened by what they perceive as their ability to hurt him, to weaken him. Like the mob that they have attempted to link the president to, these bullies act in mindless concert, emboldened by each other to see who can strike the deeper blow, who can make the victim hurt more.

And over what? Differences of opinion, for the most part. Strong border or no border? Mask or no mask? Globalism or Americanism? Carbon credits or fracking? Abortion or no abortion? And then the last straw — fair election or fraudulent election?

These should be legitimate subjects for debate in a free society. But not anymore. Big Tech has banned debate about government policy on the coronavirus, and any discussion of election fraud is treated as if it were a crime. But wait? It’s only a crime to question the government in a totalitarian system, like that in communist China or Orwell’s fictional Oceania, right? In America, we have the right and obligation to question our government, don’t we? Because, if we don’t have that right any longer, then what are they afraid of? What are they hiding?

Bottom line: At some point in some election, the allegations of election fraud have to be real. It can’t always just be the figment of some right-wing president’s imagination. And if we aren’t allowed to have free speech, then how do we fight back? If Big Tech and Big Government have their way, we don’t. Just keep your head down and your nose clean — and never ever question what you are told.

Remember, 2+2=5.