American Thinker: The Election Coup Plot, Explained

Founder of American Thinker, Thomas Lifson, writes about the Presidential election in The Election Coup Plot, Explained. You can see the Tucker Carlson video by going through the link to American Thinker or clicking on the Fox News link near the bottom of the article.

Democrats have been thinking about this for a long time…

—Tucker Carlson, November 5, 2020

I fully expect that Twitter and Facebook will suppress circulation of this blog post, but so what?  The half of the country that never strays beyond the mainstream media narrative would find it unbelievable, a fantasy of conspiracy theorizing.  After four years of their media telling them that Russia hacked the 2016 election, and Hillary claiming she was cheated, the new media-approved narrative is that any questioning of electoral fraud is an attack on democracy.

Such people are a lost cause, unless (or until) crimes are proven in court and election cheaters are sentenced to prison.

But for the rest of us who have eyes and brains, there is no stopping suspicion and activism in the “nasty street fight ahead.”  “Samizdat” is a word that Americans are going to be using a lot, at least until Google gets around to changing the definition that still, for the moment, comes up when you search for it:


(source)

One truth-teller with an audience in the mutli-millions is Tucker Carlson, and last night he laid out convincingly the path ahead by which the left, principally relying on its media and social media dominance, will attempt to install as president a man who needed fraudulent votes to win.  The plot, in short, is to have the TV networks, AP, and NYT/WaPo declare the race decided.  At that point the social media censors step in and suppress all efforts — even those of a sitting president — to uncover the fraud as conspiracy theories and an attack on democracy itself.


YouTube screen grab.

If and when Trump-supporters (and a few others who see what is going on) take to the streets and actually threaten the coup, they will be repressed — bloodily, if necessary.  This response already has been signaled.

In the interest of saving your time, I have cued up his presentation last night to skip his review of the way the last presidential vote battle, Bush v. Gore, was covered by the MSM.  The contrast with today is instructive.  If you are not in a hurry, start at the beginning. [Note: the original video vanished. This is a new video that I could not cue up. The whole thing is worth listening to, though.)

https://video.foxnews.com/v/6207560134001

“Americans who love this country are beginning to fear it.

—Tucker Carlson, November 5, 2020

Alt-Market: As Predicted In July, 2020 Election Will Be Contested

Brandon Smith at Alt-Market writes Alt-Market Calls It Again: As Predicted In July, 2020 Election Will Be Contested

Just as I successfully predicted the outcome of the 2016 election months in advance, my predictions on the 2020 election are now coming to pass. In July of this year in my article ‘Election 2020: The Worst Case Scenario Is The Most Likely One’, after I outlined the strange factors surrounding Biden and Trump, I stated that:

“These factors and more lead me to predict that Election 2020 will be a contested election which ends with Trump staying in office but accused of usurping the democratic process. This outcome is the worst possible outcome and also the most advantageous for the globalist establishment.”

I also noted the predictive programming campaign by the media and members of the Council On Foreign Relations like Max Boot to acclimated the public to the idea of a contested election while also “wargaming” (planning) that exact outcome. I stated:

“…Boot is back again, this time writing about how he thinks Donald Trump will try to “hijack” the presidency in 2020.

In an article for the Washington post titled ‘What If Trump Loses But Insists He Won’, Boot outlines a scenario that was “war gamed” by a group called the Transition Integrity Project. The group played out a scenario in which there is a razor thin victory for Joe Biden, followed by actions by Trump to keep control of the presidency through lies and legal wrangling. The group also predicted civil unrest leading to potential “civil war” as the fight over the White House expands.

This article is, I believe, an attempt at predictive programming by the establishment. They are TELLING US exactly what is about to happen. A contested election, civil war, martial law, economic collapse and the US will be destroyed from within.”

The bizarre behavior of vote counters in swing states, including PA where they stopped the count altogether overnight, indicates a program to incite national tensions and rage. The media refusing to call certain states for Trump even though he held clear leads while rushing to call states for Biden even though the count was far from unfinished will only exacerbate people’s suspicions that the election is being rigged or stolen.

Trump has said he will take the results to the Supreme Court and there is no doubt that recounts will be held in states like Michigan and Arizona. I continue to predict that Trump will stay in office despite the close election. I also predict that numerous fake ballots will be discovered during recounts only throwing gasoline on the fire and implicating Democrats in certain districts with fraud. Social justice leftists will surely try to riot in response, and Trump will call for martial law if the current scenario plays out as I expect.

The leftists will NOT accept the results of a Supreme Court decision in favor of Trump. Conservatives WILL NOT accept a Biden presidency. I think it’s clear where this is all headed. Stay tuned to Alt-Market for further analysis on the situation as it develops.

American Partisan: Why the Pump Is Primed For a Rural Conflict

NC Scout at American Partisan writes When the Fight Comes To You: Why the Pump Is Primed For a Rural Conflict

There’s a common misconception in the Survivalist community. “I’ll retreat…get away from the major population centers…work to live off the grid…and let the urban hellholes rot.

Well…about that.

Rural living is, for all intents and purposes, a better way to live. We’re more in tune with the natural world by and large, not in spite of it, and for the most part the lifestyle lends itself well to harder people used to doing without. And for people like me, there’s nothing that replaces the generations-deep connections to your homeland. The people there are your people- and in spite of differences, there is a deeply ingrained love of place. It is home.

Sounds good until the problems begin to bubble up. The first issue is questioning exactly how many in those rural areas are actually self-sufficient. That answer is probably few. And the rates of addiction and substance abuse is in turn shockingly high, correlated with the inevitable poverty rate. This was not by accident. The trailer-hood is a thing. Opioids were dumped on our population by Big Pharma, just as with the rise of decentralized meth manufacturing two decades earlier, and the crack epidemic which made its way into rural America just the same as the well-publicized urban epidemics during the 1990s. Home invasions and thefts are the norm.

No, not quite the retreat paradise the suburbanites had envisioned…is it? 

Dusting off the old sociology coursework, I’d argue rather convincingly that this creates a populace primed for violent revolution. Decades of institutionalized poverty have created a primed pump. This in turn is a reality that one group on the Left whole-heartedly is attempting to exploit (albeit self defeated at times): Redneck Revolt.

Redneck Revolt is active in spaces in which white supremacist groups also often recruit, including country music concerts, flea markets, gun shows, NASCAR events, rodeos and state fairs. Chapters provide firearms and first aid training, food and clothing programs and community gardens and host needle exchanges, potlucks and educational events.

You may not think much of this crowd pictured, but the guy standing, centered, is a political science professor from UNC. He’s got an unlimited pool from which to recruit and influence. A strong place to be for a revolutionary leader.

Interesting bit there. While the Left is no stranger to infighting, at a possibly even worse level than their counterparts on the Right, Redneck Revolt admittedly is correct in focusing on rural areas as a  vanguard for fomenting revolution. This is reflective of the strategy employed by Che Guevara’s opinion on the same from his work Guerrilla Warfare. They are seeking to exploit the social and economic realities for their benefit. While the gun community snobs look down on guys with inexpensive gear, cheap weapons and optics, and a general lack of cool-guy bravado, they wholly embrace it. Its a more effective recruiting model than belittling a guy to whom $20 may mean the difference between if his kids eat why he can’t afford a NightForce and BCM AR-15.

This image is of a self-described Antifa Guerrilla while fighting in Syria, equipped with both day and night optics. Think they haven’t brought that training back to the US?

This creates a serious potential in the rural areas. For all those I’ve personally heard claiming ‘that can’t happen here’, I argue that not only can a rural area be overrun quickly, but, without training and networking small isolated homesteads are easy pickings for a small team of determined attackers. With only one or two real trigger pullers in a home and little to no warning against a force that likely is well equipped with enablers such as night vision and thermal, you’d be easy pickings in the event that big balloon goes up.

So this begs the question as to mitigating this threat.

  1. Take every opportunity to get to know your neighbors and bring something of value to the table. Understand that if you’re an outsider to a rural place, you’ll be exactly that for years. Rural folks are slow to warm up to new people. Be quick and receptive to taking advice and rare to give it yourself.
  2. Take every opportunity to embrace the tradition of a place. The Left abhors tradition and the authority inherent in it. They exist to destroy it, viewing it only as an oppressive force maintaining status and social domination. Celebrate traditions and be a fixture in Church.
  3. Stop saying ‘it can’t happen here.’ It absolutely can, and likely will, post-election. A normalcy bias exists, especially among rural areas and so-called retreatists, that they’re somehow exempted from all this. You’re not. The Left has been laying the groundwork for their revolution for well over 100 years and despite a few setbacks, plan to steamroll ahead.
  4. Build an off-grid communications network. This is invaluable for early warning and critical for rural defense. Reliance on phone networks is problematic for a lot of reasons but central to that is its inherent fragility. I’ve been re-running old American Partisan communications articles on Brushbeater to refresh that knowledge, but nothing replaces training. Get some.
  5. Get Training. This is the urgent one. Whether its from a course I’m running, or one of the many run by fellow American Partisan contributors and trainers such as Sam Culper or JC Dodge, you owe it to yourself to learn from those that have the real-world bona-fides in their specific areas of interest. In fact, JC Dodge has a course coming up just after the election- go train with him.

The next seven days in America will tell us much about the shaping of our future as a nation, but the days after it will tell us much more. The Left sees an opportunity, and while many on the Right have completely written off the threat posed to rural areas by Redneck Revolt, I contend, with a substantial amount of history to back it up, that for rural areas the threat may very well be the highest.

Be a hard target.

KOMO News: Law enforcement agencies prepare for potential unrest after Nov. 3 election

From KOMO News, Law enforcement agencies prepare for potential unrest after Nov. 3 election

One week before the hotly contested presidential election that has fanned emotions on both sides, law enforcement agencies across the region are preparing for the possibility of civil unrest erupting in Washington state..

“We are making preparations and hoping for the best (but are) concerned about widespread civil unrest,” said Bellevue Police Department Chief Steve Mylett.

Some law enforcement agencies that are tracking extremist activity say they are seeing increased chatter among right-wing extremist groups.

“A lot of the chatter we’ve picked up over the last few weeks has been more directed at post-election civil unrest,” said Devin Burghart, executive director for the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, who has been monitoring elections professionally since 1993. “Talk of an impending civil war, depending on the election results and the taking back of America have certainly dominated those far-right corners.”

Burghart said his team has been monitoring the rhetoric at recent large gathering, on social media, walkie talkie apps and on HAM radios.

“This is the highest level of intensity we’ve seen in that entire time, by far,” Burkhart said, who added that the chatter so far has not amounted to any real threats in the Pacific Northwest.

Burghart believes the failed plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has deterred other extremist activity.

A spokesperson for the Seattle Police Department said the agency is ensuring they’re fully staffed around the November election date.

“The Seattle Police Department has limited time-off for personnel around November 3rd to ensure the department is able to adequately provide public safety services at any events, gatherings or demonstrations related to the election,” said police Sgt. Randy Huserik in a written statement Monday.

He also pointed to the readiness of the Community Response Group, a recently launched team, should an unplanned, large-scale event occur in the aftermath of the vote.

The Washington National Guard is also training crews in preparation for potential deployment.

“The Washington National Guard is merely taking proactive steps to ensure our men and women are properly trained and ready should local jurisdictions or law enforcement agencies need us,” said Karina Shagren, spokesperson for the Guard.

Shagren said crews are receiving the same training they received ahead of supporting local law enforcement agencies in Seattle and Bellevue during summer protests.

Officials in the FBI’s Seattle office said they are not aware of any legitimate plans for violence or unrest before, on or immediately after election day.

“We don’t have any specific credible threats here in Seattle,” said Assistant Special Agent in Charge. Abass Golfrey.

He said the office is planning on establishing a local command post ahead of the election and working with other local agencies to ensure national security through the election.

“Yes, there is heightened stakes, and within the FBI office here we’ve noticed that,” Golfrey said. “But this is what we do.”

Last week, Gov. Jay Inslee said his administration does have plans in place should unrest follow the election, but he did not say if those plans included deployment of the Washington National Guard.

“I’m very hopeful the margins of the election will be large enough that there is not a reason for controversy,” he said. “That would be a great blessing for the United States.”

Forward Observer: One Week Until D-Day

Intelligence analyst Sam Culper at Forward Observer sends this short reminder. Forward Observer provides tactical and operational intelligence on the groups driving civil unrest and domestic conflict. They just hired a new analyst to the team and are ramping up production ahead of what they are calling the “Royal Rumble”. If you’re concerned about the country’s slow descent into domestic conflict, and want the ground truth during the upcoming violence and disruption between November and January, then you can join Forward Observer. Subscribe here and get access to Forward Observer’s intelligence reporting.

I’ve followed Professor Peter Turchin for several years. He’s a scientist who studies history and uses models to forecast conflicts.

For the past 10 years, he’s been warning that 2020 would be a turbulent year in American history.

In a recent article co-authored for a think tank, Turchin writes, “The social system that we live in is extremely fragile.”

The domestic conflict has already started, he continues, “[b]ut worse likely lies ahead.” Turchin describes the conflict as “the turbulent twenties”.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise to long time readers. Our Low Intensity Conflict likely started in 2016, and maybe as far back as the 2008 financial crisis.

I started writing my intelligence report on a weekly basis in 2016 because I was very confident that domestic conditions would worsen to the point of armed conflict.

After spending three years in Iraq and Afghanistan as an intelligence NCO and contractor, I knew I had what it took to track a domestic conflict.

There’s one week before the election. I can’t say for certain that we’ll see armed political violence in the coming days, but I’m certain that politically-related killings will continue.

This low intensity conflict is not going to end in November, or December, or January.

This conflict is going to rage for years.

Here at FO, to stay on top of developing conditions, we’re adding regional forums, expanding our daily podcast, and introducing a new line of intelligence products starting in early November.

You won’t be disappointed. But if you are, you can cancel your free 7-day trial anytime you like.

Stay ahead of the curve with our reporting. Subscribe here.

Until next time, be well and stay out front.

 

Always Out Front,

Samuel Culper

The Burning Platform: Fourth Turning Election Year Crisis

Fourth Turning Election Year Crisis comes to us from The Burning Platform.

“The next Fourth Turning is due to begin shortly after the new millennium, midway through the Oh-Oh decade. Around the year 2005, a sudden spark will catalyze a Crisis mood. Remnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation and empire. The very survival of the nation will feel at stake. Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, commensurate with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World War II.” – Strauss & Howe The Fourth Turning 

How a contested election could send the U.S. into a constitutional crisis - MarketWatch It's not the chairman of the Joint Chiefs' job to remove Trump from office if he won't leave.

“There is no darkness but ignorance. The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.” William Shakespeare

I read The Fourth Turning in 2006, after seeing it described in John Mauldin and Doug Casey’s newsletters as an uncannily accurate assessment of American history based upon generational configurations which recur on eighty-year cycles, a long human life. Strauss and Howe wrote the book in 1997 and used their generational theory to predict the Crisis that would begin in the mid-2000’s and come to an indeterminate climax in the mid-2020’s.

As a student of history, the theory spoke to me. I have been writing articles since 2009, using the Fourth Turning as a guide to interpreting what has been happening and what might happen as this crisis period accelerates towards its violent culmination. The quotes above perfectly capture exactly what has happened since this crisis began in September 2008, with the Fed/Wall Street created financial collapse. The existing social order is disintegrating, but they are willing to destroy the country rather than relinquish their wealth, power and control.

Strauss & Howe identified the core elements of this Crisis as debt, civic decay, and global disorder. No one can argue the severe distress engulfing the nation and the world traces its origins to these core elements, with the catalyst for this Crisis being the 2008 central banker manufactured financial collapse. Nothing has been normal since 2008. And 2008’s epic implosion was driven by the disastrous financial, political and military decisions implemented by the puppets of the Deep State from 2000 onward, with the Federal Reserve obligingly creating bubble after bubble as the “solution” to the previous bubble.

And now we are here again, in the midst of the greatest bubble in the history of mankind. A bubble of willful ignorance. The obliviousness of most Americans to the danger awaiting them is akin to the day before Fort Sumpter was bombed, the day before Pearl Harbor was attacked, or the dinosaurs unaware of a giant meteor rushing towards the planet and about to transform their future in a challenging way.

Real hardship has beset the land, for those not in the .1% or Deep State lackeys being rewarded for propagating mistruths, outright lies, fear, and propaganda on behalf of their oligarch benefactors. These apparatchiks mainly consist of corrupt politicians, central bank lackeys, mainstream media hacks, neocon warmongers, surveillance state traitors, and big pharma captured health “experts”. The severe distress does involve class, race, nation and empire, but most of the distress has been artificially created by those pulling the strings – Bernays’ invisible government manipulating the masses.

As the looming election advances like a deadly avalanche crashing down a mountainside towards an unsuspecting village below, a battle wages between an evil ingrained establishment and a few dedicated patriots of truth. If you don’t feel the very survival of the nation hangs in the balance, then you are either delusional, willfully ignorant, or unwilling to recognize your own cognitive dissonance. The next five to ten years will alter the course of history in a profound way. Whether the outcome is positive for average American citizens is very much in doubt.

“Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.” – Aldous Huxley

I wish it were not so, but most human beings seem incapable of critical thought regarding how history follows a cyclical path due to human nature retaining its flaws, weaknesses, vulnerabilities and fortes throughout history. We believe we have advanced because our inventions, discoveries, and technology, but the desire for wealth, power and control over others still consumes a sociopathic portion of mankind who tend to rise to the top through any means necessary.

As Huxley lamented in the 1950’s, technological progress has actually propelled mankind backwards in terms of its humanity and relationship with nature and other human beings. The very technology we glorify as an example of our advancement is now being used by the totalitarians to imprison us. It has happened slowly and methodically over decades as generation after generation have entered the government indoctrination centers (public schools) to be taught ignorance and obedience to the state. This indoctrination has been reinforced by ceaseless propaganda injected into their brains by media conglomerates doing the bidding of the state.

The dystopian use of disinformation, false narratives, blatant lies and propaganda by the totalitarians constituting the Deep State, as their never-ending coup attempt against a duly elected president attests, will be the catalyst for the next vicious phase of this Fourth Turning. For the last four years the Russiagate coup has dogged Trump, as Obama, Clinton, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Mueller and a myriad of lesser co-conspirators have propagated the Big Lie to cover-up their traitorous actions of trying to overthrow Trump.

An honest truth-seeking press with unbiased journalists would have uncovered this conspiracy and revealed the truthful facts to a concerned public. Instead, a completely captured corporate media has turned a blind eye to the truth as they have acted as accomplices of the coup culprits. Just as evil is the suppression of truth through censorship and keeping silent regarding the truth. Huxley understood how totalitarian propagandists operated decades before the current batch of Silicon Valley authoritarians initiated their national truth repression scheme.

The Children of Silicon Valley | by Robert Pogue Harrison | The New York Review of Books

“Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects… totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations.” – Aldous Huxley

A perfect example of this is my local ABC news affiliate doing an hour long broadcast last night with absolutely no mention of the Hunter Biden – Joe Biden pay for play scandal. The truth dies in silence. The left-wing media dominated by six mega-corporations and social media billionaire titans (Bezos, Zuckerberg, Dorsey) have colluded with other left wing billionaires (Soros, Bloomberg) and the traitorous Deep Staters (Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Clinton) to bring down a sitting president and now to memory hole proof of Joe Biden corruption and his son’s illegal dealings with foreign enemies.

These anti-rational propagandists are enemies of freedom, as they systematically pervert reality and knowingly manipulate the minds of the masses towards how they require them to think, feel and act. After years of socialist indoctrination in government schools and universities, the masses have been taught to feel rather than think. Victimhood is celebrated, while personal responsibility is scorned…(continues)

Click here to continue reading at The Burning Platform.

International Man: Is There Hope for the US?

Here’s another article from Jeff Thomas at International Man – Is There Hope for the US?

For the entire lives of anyone under the age of seventy-five, the US has been at the top of the heap in almost every way. For decades, it had greater freedom, greater prosperity and higher production than any other country in the world.

America was a cornucopia – the centre for innovation and trends in technology, the arts and social development. And today, many Americans, even if they complain about changes for the worse in their country, come back quickly to say, “This is still the greatest country in the world.” Or, “Everybody is still trying to come here.”

Well, truth be told, neither of these knee-jerk comments is accurate any longer. But even those who have come to that realisation tend to resort to the inevitable fall-back comment: “Well, whattaya gonna do? It’s just as bad everyplace else.”

And yet, this is also inaccurate. Throughout the history of the world, whenever a country had entered its decline stage, others were in the process of rising up.

And this is just as true today. There are countries where prosperity and production are far greater than in the US and, increasingly, countries where the key ingredient that made America great – Liberty – is present to a far greater degree.

In fact, this is the one characteristic of America that’s most rapidly in decline. This is especially true in 2020, when a virus has been used as a justification to dramatically increase governmental dominance of the populace.

It matters little whether the US had a hand in creating the virus, or whether it was merely co-opted as an opportunity to expand control.

The result has been heavy-handed governmental meddling in medicine, business and personal freedoms.

As regards the latter concern, the odd halfway measure of personal movement control is not great enough to keep a virus from spreading, but it has been sufficient to collapse businesses, create record unemployment and make it impossible for some people to feed themselves.

In the bargain, it has served as an ideal cover story for an economic collapse that had been inevitable. The government can say, “Don’t blame us for the collapse; it was those naughty Chinese and their pesky virus that did it.”

The decline is not an accident. It’s a planned demolition. And it’s going well. For those who actually pull the strings, profit will be made from the unfolding crisis. Not for everyone, of course, but most certainly for those few who are creating it.

But many say that the US is waking up, that its citizenry are coming to the conclusion that the Deep State – that corporatist ruling class that are made up of governmental and big-business leaders – has increasingly destroyed the prosperity, production and liberty that once existed and replaced them with massive debt, an exit of production to other countries and a vanishing middle class.

And they’d be entirely correct. The endgame for the once-great US Empire is now underway, and over the next few years, we shall bear witness as it tumbles downhill.

So, what are Americans to do?

Well, my belief is that – as is always the case when a country declines – the populace will divide into several groups.

The first group, which will be by far the largest, will increasingly grumble, but ultimately do little or nothing to save themselves. They will go down with the ship.

The second group will say, “We don’t have to accept this.” They’re the preppers, the ones who have a store of food and have been stashing away guns and ammunition. They’re the folks who are seen at the corner bar, saying, “If they come for me, I’m locked and loaded.”

Their friends nod in agreement, but in fact, if a trained and outfitted SWAT team were to arrive on their porch, there would be very few who would succeed in getting off a single shot, and for those who did, their remaining life would be brief.

On the more thoughtful side of this group would be the third group. They would also say, “We don’t have to accept this,” but their choice of a solution will be to “work within the system.”

This is a much larger group – the ones who wait for each election as though it holds a solution. Each time, they’re disappointed. If the party they supported is elected, the winners somehow fail to return the country to the free society it had once been. If the other party is elected, the decline only accelerates.

Incredibly, the lightbulb never seems to go on for this group. They never get to the point of realisation that, “Oh, I get it: neither party has any intention of returning the country to a state of liberty. The only question is which group of pretenders gets to be in charge of the decline this time around. Either way, I lose.”

It could be said that this is the most tragic group. They’re sincere and dedicated. They endlessly hope that a solution is just around the corner, without there being any actual substance for their hope.

The commonality in all three of these groups is that they all end up as casualties. They may differ in their approach to the decline, but they’ll share in the loss of their wealth (however large or small) and their liberty.

But there’s also a fourth group – those who leave. Their numbers are small and they tend not to make a large impact on the consciousness of the other three. In fact, they’re never even mentioned by the media. It’s as though they don’t exist.

So, let’s step back a few centuries. America was founded by a hardworking assortment of settlers who came from several countries in Europe. In their home countries they witnessed oppression – limitations to both their liberty and their ability to create a good life for themselves and their families.

They were independent-minded and self-reliant. They carved out lives in the wilderness and later built towns, then cities. But all the while, they hung on to their core belief of independence and liberty.

Today, they’re still revered as being the backbone of what made America great. And this view is accurate. Yet, today’s Americans are nothing like them. None of the three groups above thinks like them, although the middle group would like to believe they do, merely by owning guns. They’re not independent-minded. They’re not self-reliant.

The key here is that the founders of America recognised that there was no chance that they could change the corrupt and controlling systems they were born into in Europe.

So they left Europe and started over elsewhere.

The fourth group are following a similar path: Seek out a destination where the government does not yet have the power to rob you of your wealth and freedoms.

The choice is a simple one. If you value your liberty – the ability to make your own decisions and to keep more of what you’ve earned – pack your bags and go.

The Federalist: Trump Resistance Plans ‘Mass Mobilization’ After Election To Shut Down The Country If Biden Doesn’t Win

From The Federalist, Trump Resistance Plans ‘Mass Mobilization’ After Election To Shut Down The Country If Biden Doesn’t Win.

Riot and protest instigators plan to “make sure Trump leaves the White House” by any means necessary after the Nov. 3 election, according to website posts from the group Shut Down DC and their allies. “[W]e’re making plans to be in the streets before the polls even close, ready to adapt and respond to whatever comes our way,” the group says on its website currently.

“Trump has shown that he will stop at nothing to maintain his grip on power. Trump will not leave office without mass mobilization and direct action,” an Oct. 13 version of the same web page reads, according to Internet Archive records.

The group linked to protests at the homes of Trump administration officials tells its DC-area supporters to “Come to Black Lives Matter Plaza” on election night “to create serious disruption if Trump really tries to steal the election!” Black Lives Matter Plaza is the site of repeated anti-Trump summer rioting and defacement of the historic Saint John’s Church one block away from the White House.

On the page, Shut Down DC sketches out its plans for election night and immediately following. On Nov. 4-7, the group says it plans to “do whatever it takes”:

In the days following the election we’ll continue to come out into the streets every day to respond to rapidly changing events. We may be waiting for votes to be counted or we may be responding to major attacks on democracy. Over the next few weeks we’ll use our Spokes Council process to plan actions that are flexible and can scale to respond to a lot of different scenarios.

Then, on Nov. 8-11, the group’s plan is to meet members of Congress returning to Washington DC for the lame-duck session. “If Trump is trying to launch a coup, that’s no time for business as usual. We’ll meet them at the train station or the airports or if they drive into town we can meet them at their homes,” the website says.

A slide deck posted on the group’s website from an “organizing call” claims this group is working in concert with leftist groups around the nation to prepare for President Trump to “steal the election” and attempt a “coup.” The slides pinpoint now as the time these groups are “gathering gear” to respond.

The post-election plan of action links to the group’s advice about taking “appropriate precautions” for security. This includes forming “affinity groups” “that will go into more detail and possibly engage in higher risk actions.”

“Keep in mind that not everyone needs to know every detail of your plans,” says the post-election plan about “taking appropriate precautions.” “We don’t! Feel free to only share what people outside your [affinity group] need to know, and keep the specific action details close to the vest.”

What kinds of actions these might be are stated in a “Strategic framework for action following the 2020 election” that sketches out their plans for rioting and attacking American institutions and life until Biden is installed as president. It claims if Trump declares victory that will mark “the start of the coup.”

“At some point in the days following the election Trump will almost certainly either attempt to declare outright victory or attempt to invalidate the results of the election. That is the start of the coup,” it claims. “…Trump can only seize power if the world believes that he has the power. That’s why we’re starting this phase of the election in the streets… We need to show that we’re ungovernable under a continued Trump administration…That can mean blocking traffic at major intersections and bridges, shutting down government office buildings (why should ICE or the FBI be able to keep doing Trump’s bidding when he’s leading with a coup?!?), or blockading the White House.”

The document bases its action plan upon the scenarios projected by the establishment leftist “Transition Integrity Project” for election night and sketches these activists’ response to each, explicitly rejecting the possibility that Trump could legitimately win. It continues:

We’ll keep it going until Trump concedes. We could be in the streets throughout the fall and into the winter– maybe as lots of rolling waves of action or possibly as a few major tsunamis! In other parts of the country, as vote counts conclude, our focus will turn from protecting the vote counts to themselves being ungovernable.

As it becomes clear that Trump’s coup is failing, institutions and the elites will start to abandon him – or we will approach them as part of the problem. Either Amazon will shut down AWS for the Trump loyalists in the government or we’ll shut down their fulfillment centers. Either governors will tell their national guards to stand down or we’ll shut down their state capitals as well. Over time, Trump will grow increasingly isolated and his empire will crumble down around him.

Then — and this is the important part — Biden will move into the White House and be sworn in as the 46th President of the United States.

On its Facebook page, the group recently posted a picture of a mob arriving at Sen. Lindsey Graham’s house at 6 a.m. to harass him for following the Constitution. In the picture, one protest sign reads, “We can’t sleep so neither should Lindsey.”

“Preventing Donald Trump from stealing the election and remaining in office is likely to take mass, sustained disruptive movements all over the country,” the group’s website posted on Oct. 7.

“Puting [sic] pressure on the media and social media agencies to refuse to declare a victor, resisting demands to call the vote in forvor [sic] of Trump, physically protecting the vote count from counter-protestors, federal agents, or white supremacist militias are all potential actions in this moment,” says the group’s “Disruption Guide for 2020.” The guide, a Google document, had 61 viewers at the moment it was reviewed for The Federalist.

International Man: The American Revolution—The Sequel

Jeff Thomas at International Man writes The American Revolution—The Sequel from his perspective outside of America.

The US is the most observed country in the world. Since it’s the world’s current empire (and since it is beginning its death throes as an empire), it’s fascinating to watch.

Those of us outside of the US watch it like Americans watch TV. It’s like a slow-motion car wreck that we observe almost daily, eager to see what’s going to happen next. We criticise the madness of it all, yet we can’t take our eyes off the unfolding drama. It has all the excitement of a blockbuster movie.

  • The national debt is, by far, the highest of any country in history.
  • The economic system is a house of cards, getting shakier every day.
  • The government has become mired in progress-numbing fascism and increasing collectivism.
  • The government is aggressively creating the world’s most organized police state.
  • The majority of the population have become wasteful, spendthrift consumers who apathetically hope that their government will somehow solve their problems.
  • The media consistently misrepresents international events, prodding the citizenry into accepting that the ongoing invasion of multiple other countries is essential.
  • The most popular candidates for president (both parties) are the candidates that are the most egotistical, out-of-control blowhards who preach provocative rhetoric rather than real solutions.

Still, most Americans retain the hope that, somehow, it will all work out.

Hope Is a Desire, Not a Plan

There are growing numbers of Americans who have accepted that the US is unravelling rapidly and is headed for a social, economic, and political collapse of one form or another.

Some talk of a new revolution (but hopefully a peaceful one, of the Tea Party sort). Some imagine that, if they can store enough guns and ammunition in their homes, they might be able to make a stand against government authorities. Others mull over the idea of organised secession by some of the states. A small, but growing, number are quietly leaving for more promising destinations.

Except for the last of these, most of the “hopes” are understandable, but any attempt at a “Second American Revolution” is unlikely to succeed.

Why? Well, just for a start,

  • The power of the US state is far greater than that of King George III in the late eighteenth century.
  • The present US state would be fighting on its own ground, not some continent thousands of miles across the ocean.
  • The US state is committed to the concept that it dealt definitively (and forever) with the concept of secession between 1861 and 1865.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s say that a breakup of the union, or complete removal and replacement of the government were possible in the US. What then?

Well, unfortunately, here comes the really bad news for those who hope that the US could start over as the free nation it was in its infancy:

  • In the late eighteenth century, America was a largely agrarian collection of colonies. Colonists had to work hard just to survive, so the work ethic and self-reliance were paramount in the colonists’ makeup. They were a brave people who were accustomed to providing for themselves and physically fighting off those who would challenge them.
  • Colonists received no significant largesse from the British or local governments. No welfare, no social security, no Medicare or Medicaid, no benefits of any kind.
  • Colonists made their own daily decisions. They had no government schools or media telling them what to think or what choices to make. They relied on common sense and self-determination to guide their decisions and actions.

Today, of course, the opposite is true. Less than 2% of Americans are involved in agriculture. A mere 9% are actually employed in the production of goods. They are rarely directly involved in their own physical protection (Most, if not all, combat is overseas and fought by defence contractors or those who voluntarily serve the military).

Most Americans receive benefits of one type or another from their government. Most recipients regard these benefits as “essential” and could not get by without them.

Most Americans receive their opinions from the media. Although this is not apparent to many Americans, it’s glaringly clear to those outside the US who can only shake their heads at the misinformation proffered by the US media and the wholesale acceptance of this “alternate reality” by so many Americans.

But what bearing does this have on what the future would be for Americans if they were to become determined enough to either remove their entire government or, alternatively, for some states to secede?

There have been many revolutions in the history of the world, both peaceful and otherwise. In the case of the American Revolution of 1776, the colonists themselves were largely self-contained as a people and possessed the ideal ethos to succeed as a productive country.

But this has rarely been true in history. Whenever a people have been heavily dependent on the State in one way or another, they had become accustomed to receiving largesse at the expense of others. This is a major, major factor. Such a group is unlikely in the extreme to either produce or elect a Washington or a Jefferson. They almost always choose, instead, to fall in behind someone who promises largesse from the State. In choosing such leaders, the people are more likely to receive a Robespierre or a Lenin. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

The pervasive difficulty here lies in the erroneous concept that there can be a return to freedom whilst maintaining the dependency upon largesse from the State. The two are mutually exclusive. Those who seek a return to greater freedom must also accept that “freedom for all” means an end to the State being empowered to steal from one person in order to give to another.

Or, as stated by Frédéric Bastiat in the mid-nineteenth century, “Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavours to live at the expense of everybody else.”

Whether the US continues on its present downward progression, or if it breaks free in a bid for greater freedom, the eventual outcome is likely to have more to do with the collectivist mindset of the majority than with the libertarian vision of a few.

Editor’s Note: Right now, the US is the most polarized it has been since the Civil War.

If you’re wondering what comes next, then you’re not alone.

The political, economic, and social implications of the 2020 vote will impact all of us.

American Partisan: Matt Bracken Review of Jack Lawson’s “Civil Defense Manual”

Matt Bracken at American Partisan reviews the recently released Civil Defense Manual by Jack Lawson – the co-author of A Failure of Civility. Matt Bracken was commissioned as a naval officer in 1979. Later in that year he graduated from Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, and in 1983 he led a Naval Special Warfare detachment to Beirut, Lebanon. Since then he’s been a welder, boat builder, charter captain, ocean sailor, essayist and novelist.

A Review of Jack Lawson’s Civil Defense Manual:

How to Prepare and Protect Your Neighborhood from Disaster, Riot and Civil Unrest

If you are reading this, chances are good that you consider yourself a liberty-loving patriotic American. You might also consider yourself, as I certainly do, a “prepper,” that is, an all-around survival and preparedness advocate. As preppers, we’ve long been anticipating crises ranging from financial collapse, to violent insurrection, to natural or even man-made disasters that could extinguish our electrical grid in a flash. Now, deep into 2020, the year of the Chinese Coronavirus pandemic and widespread Marxist-inspired riots, it appears that we may at last be on the doorstep of the long-anticipated SHTF scenario. Revolutionary Communists, (currently wearing the Antifa and BLM brands, and with the tacit support of today’s far-left Democrat Party), have declared that under no circumstances will they accept a Trump election victory. Instead, they promise to take their revolution to the streets, in violent nationwide riots beyond any yet seen in American history.

Across the political spectrum, the number of Americans who believe that a second Civil War is imminent is at an all-time high. This heightened concern is why, for example, it costs three to four times more to rent a truck to move household goods from a liberal to a conservative state than vice versa. This is also why common rifle and pistol ammunition is at unprecedented scarcity, and when it can be found, it can only be purchased at exorbitant cost. A hundred rounds of standard 5.56 or 7.62X39 rifle ammo can easily fit into your jacket pocket, and today they might cost you a hundred dollars — a buck a bullet — if you can find them. The reason for their shortage at this moment in history is that millions of Americans have come to the bitter realization that they might actually need them to defend their lives, families and property.

By comparison to the extra cartridges, what value would you place on obtaining the equivalent of a master’s degree in surviving through a period of violent insurrection, or even civil war? I’d imagine much more than the hundred or so dollars you might spend for a similar number of extra rounds for your rifle or carbine.

So, what is it about Jack Lawson’s Civil Defense Manual that makes it so valuable? First of all, it’s nearly a thousand pages long, making it too big to fit inside one book cover. Instead, it’s broken into two volumes that are sold as a set. And the two volumes are large in size, measuring 11 X 8.5 inches, typeset in a generous 14-point font. In the end, the CDM is meant to be readable even by candlelight, post SHTF. And it’s written so that ordinary people can understand it, completely free of esoteric military or technical jargon, with key sentences bolded to stand out.

The CDM is not just another long list of expensive survival gear and equipment, nor is it advice to move to a remote mountain in Montana. The CDM is much more practical than that. In fact, Lawson’s most essential idea, the Neighborhood Protection Plan, or NPP, can be adapted to any location and situation, from the urban high-rise, to apartment complexes, to single-family homes in the suburbs, and to rural areas. The critical concept behind the NPP is that the inhabitants of an individual home, townhouse or apartment building cannot stand alone and successfully defend themselves against determined attacks by roving gangs of armed predatory thugs. It will be too late to defend your single domicile when your neighbors’ homes are going up in flames.

Neighborhood Protection Plan is not a glorified Neighborhood Watch, which is a passive arrangement whereby neighbors communicate with existing local Law Enforcement. Nor is an NPP a “militia” or any other kind of independent paramilitary force. In the first case, the activation of an NPP is predicated upon the inability or even the unwillingness of local LE to protect a neighborhood or other area during a crisis. In the second case, forming a militia or other paramilitary force implies that this group is planning to undertake proactive operations extending beyond the defense of a neighborhood and its immediate surrounding area. The Civil Defense Manual does cover the entire range of defensive options from existing Neighborhood Watch programs, through Neighborhood Protection Plans, and ultimately to coordination between separate NPPs for the mutual protection of wider regions, with the ultimate goal of restoring pre-SHTF civility, public safety, and restarting any disrupted infrastructure.

Lawson provides a sample command structure for his NPP concept, as well as methods to organize the NPP well in advance of a catastrophic series of events that might require a self-defense force to be stood up in days or even hours, instead of in weeks.

In the author’s vision, the elected Primary Leader of the local NPP is given overall command authority during emergency situations, but tellingly, the Secondary NPP Leader in Lawson’s suggested hierarchy is also the Fire Chief. During a breakdown of civil order, and the collapse of local infrastructure, when existing fire departments might be unable to respond, the protection of homes within the NPP against the risk of fire becomes second in importance only to protection against armed gangs, gangs which might be using Molotov cocktail firebombs as terror weapons to elicit surrender. It should also be recognized that during a period when the normal infrastructure might be disrupted, and running water and electricity are unavailable, the threat to structures from open-flame cooking and heating fires, and even candles, will be extremely high.

Just below the Fire Chief in Lawson’s suggested hierarchy comes the Third Section, the Watch Center Leader, overseeing a constantly manned Watch Center. These are followed by the Communications and Intel Section, the Supply Section and the Medical Section. The roles and responsibilities of each section are covered in detail.

This is not to say that Lawson has designed the perfect one-size-fits-all organizational structure to cover every post-SHTF neighborhood self-defense requirement, but what he has done is to conceptualize and provide a practical template that will serve well during a time of escalating crisis. When your neighborhood is undergoing a period of unprecedented stress, a viable pre-existing Neighborhood Protection Plan will be a Godsend. Your particular organizational structure can later be adapted to your unique local circumstances.

Every neighborhood self-defense force or NPP will require a small cadre of individuals that Lawson refers to as “self-starters.” If you are contemplating the purchase of the Civil Defense Manual, then that initial self-starter is you. For the Neighborhood Protection Plan to move from concept to reality, you will need to find and recruit a small nucleus of interested volunteers. Until someone more suited to the task of primary leader emerges during the formation of your NPP, that initial leader is you. The CDM will guide you through the tricky process of germinating the idea of the NPP within your neighborhood, to organizing its first small meetings, until your NPP’s final culmination as an effective volunteer community defense force.

If you purchase the CDM, I strongly suggest that you read it now, from front to back. Don’t wait, because it will take some time to get an NPP up and running. The two volumes of the CDM blend hard data and information, contributions by subject-matter experts, short fiction and non-fiction survival vignettes, and Jack Lawson’s own African combat experiences and survival philosophy. In this review, I have only touched on a few key concepts found in this truly encyclopedic work. After you have read and digested the complete Civil Defense Manual, you will be miles ahead of the “herd” in the coming survival derby. You will not only learn how to protect your own home, but how to defend your entire neighborhood by pooling all of its combined talents and resources for the common defense through “strength in numbers.” By doing so, you will be maintaining vital pockets of civil society amidst a roiling sea of violence and barbarism.

Just the chapter on post-SHTF radio communication, written by the acknowledged subject-matter expert NC Scout, aka Brushbeater, is worth more than the entire cost of the two-volume CDM. Most folks, even preppers, do not sufficiently appreciate the critical importance of maintaining secure communications across a spread-out community during a prolonged crisis. The immeasurable force-multiplier effect of strength in numbers does not come into effect unless the entire NPP can communicate. (While we’re on the subject, go ahead and buy some inexpensive yet invaluable Baofeng UV-5R handheld VHF-UHF radios — while you can. You can thank me, NC Scout and Jack Lawson for the tip later on.)

So instead of buying yet another box of bullets, I strongly recommend that you invest in Jack Lawson’s Civil Defense Manual, and earn yourself a master’s degree in post-SHTF neighborhood self-defense and community survival. What you learn from the CDM will be worth a thousand times more than another extra hundred cartridges to stack on top of your already existing prepper stockpile.

Sovereign Man: Antifa is real. It’s violent. And you need to plan for it.

From Sovereign Man – Antifa is real. It’s violent. And you need to plan for it.

American diplomat George Messersmith found himself in an awkward situation while attending a luncheon in Kiel, Germany in August of 1933.

As lunch came to a close, the attendees erupted into song with arms outstretched in the Nazi salute.

First they belted out Germany’s national anthem, followed by the anthem of the Stormtroopers– the paramilitary ”Brownshirts” who violently enforced Germany’s new social rules.

Messersmith was the US Consul-General overseeing America’s diplomatic ties with Germany, so he politely stood at attention. But he did not salute or sing along.

Germans were required by law to render the Nazi salute, especially during the anthem; Hitler had been awarded supreme executive authority only a few months before, and he made the mandatory salute law of the land.

Foreigners, however, were explicitly exempt from saluting or singing the anthem.

But that didn’t help Messersmith.

Even though he was legally excused from making the Nazi salute, angry Brownshirts menacingly glared at him for not participating in their rituals.

Messersmith later wrote in his memoirs that he felt threatened, as if the Brownshirts were ready to attack him.

“I felt really quite fortunate that the incident took place within doors. . . For if it had been in a street gathering, or in an outdoor demonstration, no questions would have been asked as to who I was, and that I would have been mishandled is almost unquestionable.”

Messersmith was one of the few US officials who grasped just how dangerous the Nazis were in 1933. Others had to witness it first hand before they understood.

A similar event unfolded when a US radio host and his family found themselves amidst an impromptu Nazi parade in Berlin.

And in order to avoid Hailing Hitler, they turned their backs to the parade and gazed into a store window.

But several Brownshirts quickly surrounded the family and demanded to know why they did not salute.

The family explained that they were from the US and didn’t know the customs in Germany. But the Brownshirts didn’t care. The family was assaulted as police officers watched… and did nothing to stop the violence.

News of these sorts of incidents quickly made their way overseas, and foreigners read the about Americans traveling in Germany being savagely beaten or threatened for not engaging in Nazi rituals.

But more surprising is that many foreigners actually sided with the Nazis.

Even the daughter of the US Ambassador to Germany defended the Nazis and their Brownshirt enforcers.

She said that news reports of these assaults and beatings were “exaggerated by bitter, close-minded people” who ignored the “thrilling rebirth” Hitler had ushered in for Germany.

Of course, we know in retrospect that these early warning signs were not at all an exaggeration. They were a small preview for what would come next.

Today we are obviously in a different time dealing with totally different circumstances.

But it would be foolish to ignore the early warning signs and pretend as if what’s happening now is not a preview for what could come next.

This is perhaps best illustrated by a CNN reporter in Kenosha, Wisconsin back in August who stood in front of burning cars and buildings, with a violent mob all around him, yet declared the protests “fiery but mostly peaceful.”

This willful ignorance of the undercurrent coursing its way through the Western world will not save anyone from the destruction it brings.

For example, just this past Monday, “peaceful protesters” in Portland, Oregon celebrated Columbus Day with an “Indigenous People’s Day of Rage.”

They weren’t even pretending to be peaceful. They called it what it is: RAGE. That’s literally the name they gave to their own actions.

Hundreds of people dressed in all black, covered their faces, and armed themselves with shields and nightsticks. They marched their way through the city, smashed windows, and forced any witnesses to stop filming and delete photographs.

A man who filmed from his apartment’s terrace had lasers shined in his eyes and was doused in some sort of liquid.

The protesters tore down statues of Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. They smashed the windows of the Oregon Historical Society building, and unfurled a banner that said “stop honoring racist colonizer murderers.”

Police did not even attempt to intervene until the rioters had been on the streets for hours and had already caused havoc and destruction.

(Ironically, much of the mainstream media still refuses to acknowledge that this group ‘antifa’– the fascists who call themselves anti-fascists– even exists.)

It’s obvious that a small, fringe, ideological minority has started to take control.

They have squashed civil discourse and free speech. Dissent is met with violence and intimidation. And if you dare to speak out, you become a target.

That could mean being “cancelled” by the Twitter mob. Or being accosted in public and forced to raise your fist. Several people have already been killed in protests across the nation.

When people like the former CEO of Twitter are calling for capitalists to be “lined up against the wall and shot,” it’s time to take the threat seriously.

This is far from the first time in history that a tiny fraction of the population has resorted to violence and extremism to force their agenda on an entire nation.

But you don’t have to watch helplessly as the born-again Brownshirts destroy everything you have worked for.

The first step is to recognize that the radical movement will not simply go away on its own. This has been growing for some time, and history tells us that it could become much worse.

Second, have a rock solid Plan B. This means deciding– in advance, when you’re still calm and rational– what steps to take in order to secure your family’s safety, your prosperity, and your freedom in a worst case scenario.

After all, you don’t want to be thinking about your next move when some antifa thug ‘peacefully’ hurls a molotov cocktail through your window.

Forward Observer: This Is a Fourth Generation War

Intelligence analyst Sam Culper of Forward Observer writes This Is a Fourth Generation War.

Earlier this year, I did a re-read of Bill Lind’s 4th Generation Warfare Handbook (4GW) to better understand the framework of our ongoing Low Intensity Conflict.

For those who are new to the term, Low Intensity Conflict is war below the threshold of conventional war (tanks and bombers) but above routine, peaceful competition. America is not at conventional war, but it’s certainty not at peace with itself. This is the gray area of Low Intensity Conflict.

As history shows, technology and human understanding of warfare evolves, so war itself evolves. Not everyone agrees with the “generational” description of warfare, but let’s look quickly at the framework.

According to the theory, Generations 1-3 of warfare focused on the development of conventional warfighting, generally understood as:

1GW: masses of troops meeting on the battlefield in somewhat orderly warfare, such as lines and columns; to

2GW: the inclusion of centralized indirect fire and war by attrition; to

3GW: the inclusion of combined arms (land, air, and sea) and maneuver doctrine.

But something interesting happened in the Fourth Generation: the nation-state lost its monopoly on violence.

War is less and less being fought among conventional militaries and nation-states, and it’s increasingly fought by tribal entities, where both armed and unarmed combatants wage war against an enemy. (Many make the case that this is the original form of warfare, or 0GW, and they’re not wrong.)

Yet, as Lind describes, “All over the world, citizens of states are transferring their primary allegiance away from the state to other entities: to tribes, ethnic groups, religions, gangs, ideologies, and ’causes.’” In 4GW, fighting for one’s “nation” increasingly means fighting for your social tribe, instead of fighting for one’s country.

We’re seeing this right now as the American identity is being redefined and the country becomes more tribal. Small groups, most often based on ideology or race, are trying to reform or replace state power, authority, and legitimacy to benefit their own self-interests. This is the battle between New America and Old America, where “American” is becoming, for many, a secondary or tertiary identity, often behind race and/or ideology.

In 4GW, the military and nation-state has clearly lost the monopoly on warfighting, as 4GW is fought primarily on the Mental (informational) and Moral planes of conflict. The Culture War being fought right now in classrooms, corporations, and media outlets is a great indicator of 4GW, as information operations and high-horse moral pleas have become warfighting techniques to win on the Mental and Moral levels of conflict. (Notice, for instance, the rhetoric re-defining “fundamental American values”.)

Lind makes the case that killing is rarely the preferred way to win a Fourth Generation War, and that winning the Mental and Moral conflict almost always dictates the outcome of the war. In a way, to win in 4GW, you don’t necessarily need to kill your opponent; you need to reshape the information environment and shift the perception of morality so that your opponent (and/or his ideology) becomes unpopular and immoral. Once unpopular and immoral by societal standards, political and social power dries up. At least in theory, that’s how you win at 4GW.

I’ve previously described how 4GW is being fought through community organizing, institution destruction, counter-institution building, economic dislocation, corporate activism, propaganda, terraforming the electorate, and several other ways.

If you’re like me, then you’re pretty far removed from the political and media power centers in D.C. and New York, where much of 4GW originates. But that’s doesn’t mean that 4GW is not being fought in your own area.

My challenge to you is to look locally for ways in which 4GW is being fought.

Are there community organizing efforts in your area to build competing social movements?

Are there subversive political groups trying to destroy local political, cultural, or religious institutions?

Are there subversive political groups trying to build institutions to counter your own political, cultural, or religious institutions?

Is there economic dislocation (targeting income or financial health) against political or cultural opponents?

Are companies or corporations engaging in the cultural and/or political fight?

Are there attempts to expand voting rights to non-citizens, or to shame those who oppose non-citizen voting?

There are a great many more ways that 4GW is being waged, and if we’re completely focused on the national level, then we’re likely to miss 4GW action in our own communities.

Until next time, be well and stay out front.

Of Two Minds: Corruption Is Now Our Way of Life

Charles Hugh Smith at Of Two Minds writes Corruption Is Now Our Way of Life on the collapse of the USA.

Systemic corruption and the implosion of the social contract have consequences: It’s called collapse.

Social and economic decay is so glacial that only those few who remember an earlier set-point are equipped to even notice the decline. That’s the position we find ourselves in today.

Many Americans will discount the systemic corruption that characterizes the American way of life because they’ve known nothing but systemic corruption. They’ve habituated to it because they have no memory of a time when looting wasn’t legalized and maximizing self-enrichment by any means available wasn’t the unwritten law of the land.

If you don’t yet see America as little more than an intertwined collection of skims, scams, frauds, embezzlements, lies, gaming-the-system, obfuscation of risk and exploitation of the masses by insiders, please read How Corruption is Becoming America’s Operating System. (nakedcapitalism.com, via Cheryl A.)

Here on oftwominds.com, you might want to read No Wrongdoing Here, Just 6,300 Corporate Fines and Settlements. (May 2015)

When JP Morgan Chase engaged in fraud and was fined a wrist-slap $1 billion, nobody went to prison because nobody ever goes to prison for corporate fraud and criminal collusion: JPMorgan to pay almost $1 billion fine to resolve U.S. investigation into trading practices.

Simply put, corruption is cost-free in America because most of it is legal. And whatever is still illegal is never applied to the elites and insiders, except (as per Communist regime corruption) for a rare show trial where an example is made of an egregious fall-guy (think Bernie Madoff: whistleblowers’ repeated attempts to expose the fraud to regulators were blown off for years. It was only when Madoff ripped off wealthy and powerful insiders did he go down.)

There are three primary sources for the complete systemic corruption of America. One is the transition from civic responsibility for the social contract and the national interest to winner-take-most legalized looting.

This transition is visible in the history of empires in the final stage of collapse. The assumption underlying the social order slides from a shared duty to the nation and fellow citizens to an obsession with evading civic duties: military service, taxes, and following the rules are all avoided by insiders and elites, and this moral/social rot then corrupts the entire social order as elites and insiders lean ever more heavily on the remaining productive class to pay the taxes and provide the military muscle to defend their wealth.

That corruption is now everywhere in America is obvious to all but those adamantly blinded by denial. The JP Morgans pay fines as a cost of doing corrupt business, while “public servants” game the system to maximize their pensions with a variety of tricks: colluding to boost the overtime of the retiring insider; finding a quack physican to sign off on a fake “heart murmur” so the insider pays no taxes on their “disability” check, and so on in an endless parade of lies, scams, skims and insider tricks.

The excuse is always the same: everybody does it. This is of course the collapse not just of the social contract but of morality in general: anything goes and winners take most. Insiders look the other way lest their own skims and scams be contested, and elites and insiders view those who aren’t skimming and scamming as chumps to be pitied.

The second dynamic is that financialization has completely corrupted the American economy, and that corruption has now spread to the political and social orders. Once the financial sector conquered the real economy, it began siphoning 95% of the economy’s wealth to the top .01% and their toadies, lackeys, apologists, enforcers and technocrats.

As they hollowed out the real economy, distorted incentives and made moral hazard the guiding principle of the American way of life, the recipients of financialization’s domination gained the wealth to buy political power from the pathetically corruptible political class.

The corruption that we call financialization corrupted democracy and undermined the social contract by eviscerating the value of labor and creating a pay-to-play political order that’s a mockery of democracy.

The third factor is the decay of America’s institutions into fronts for personal gain. While Higher Education insiders are masters of self-serving PR, the truth is they’re not concerned about their debt-serf “customers” (students) learning the essential skills needed in the tumultuous decades ahead–they’re worried that the revenues needed to pay their enormous salaries and benefits might dry up.

“Education” is nothing but a front for the corruption of self-enrichment by the elites and insiders at the top.

The same is true of “healthcare.” The concern of insiders isn’t the declining health of America’s populace, it’s the decline in revenues as fewer “customers” come in for the financial scalping of emergency care.

“Healthcare” is nothing but a front for the corruption of self-enrichment by the elites and insiders at the top.

Thanks to the Federal Reserve’s endless free money for financiers and endless federal borrow-and-blow deficits, the unstated belief is since there’s endless “money”, my petty frauds and skims won’t even dent the feeding trough–there’s always another trillion or three to skim and scam, and there will never be any limit to the feeding trough.

There is no limit until the system implodes. Then the collapse becomes limitless.

Ironic, isn’t it? The oh-so convenient belief that America’s wealth and power are eternal and godlike in their glory fosters the crass corruption that has weakened America to the point of no return: systemic fragility and brittleness.

American Exceptionalism has been turned on its head: America is now as perniciously corrupt as any developing-world nation we smugly felt so superior to, and with extremes of wealth and income inequality that surpass even the most rapacious kleptocracies. This destabilizing “exceptionalism” is now the defining characteristic of the American economy, society and political order.

Systemic corruption and the implosion of the social contract have consequences: It’s called collapse, baby, and the rot is now too deep to reverse.