Tucker Carlson: Carjacking is sign that your civilization is falling apart

Tucker Carlson recently talked about how carjacking (also known as highway robbery in older times) is a clear sign of civilization failing as lawlessness prevents free travel.

Turns out the symptoms of societal decay are universal. They’re not unique to a specific society. You recognize them in any country at any time, now or a thousand years ago, always the same. The men become weak. The leaders get decadent. Law enforcement gets politicized. The currency gets devalued and then things begin to come apart.

Pretty soon, it doesn’t take long, the society can no longer perform its most basic function. The reason we have societies in the first place, which is to protect the weak from the strong. That’s where you have a society. Well, in places like this, it becomes, among many other things, very hard to travel anywhere. You just can’t go where you want to go. With legitimate authority in retreat, roads are not controlled by the police. They’re controlled by armed predators and the armed predators take exactly what they want from travelers because they can.

This is an ancient problem. It used to be called highway robbery, and for most of history, it kept people very close to home. Turns out it still exists, but now it’s called carjacking. Carjacking is the clearest possible sign that your civilization is falling apart and that’s why you find it in places like Somalia and South Africa, places where force, violence and clan loyalty have replaced law and order, places where might makes right. In the city of Johannesburg, for example, a vehicle is hijacked on average once every hour of the day. Now, once that happens, there’s really no coming back from it. Nobody’s going to build anything in the city with endemic carjacking.

In fact, most normal people will leave as fast as they can, as they have in Johannesburg, as they are starting to do, we are sad to tell you, in the city of New Orleans, where carjacking is now a permanent feature of life. Last summer, a law student called Madison Bergeron pulled into the driveway of her home in New Orleans. As she gathered belongings in the car, a young man appeared out of nowhere, stuck a gun in her face, and demanded that she hand over everything she had, including the car. He screamed at her. Terrified, she complied, and that’s what carjacking is always like. It is an act of violence.

People don’t want to give up their cars. They have to be terrified into doing so. That’s why the majority of victims are women, old women, young women, and that’s why the people who do it will do anything. If you will carjack, if you will steal someone’s car at gunpoint, you will also rape. You will also murder. You have no limits. You are willing to violate on the most basic level, the civil rights of another person and in this case, that was certainly true because that same perpetrator went on, after terrifying Madison Bergeron and stealing her car, to do the same to other women in the city, a lot of them.

“There was a car blocking me in,” one victim recalled. “And next thing I turn around, there’s yelling and there’s a gun barrel in my face. The kid is yelling to get the F out of the car, get the F out of the car,’ or else he will shoot me.” In all, the carjacker would terrorize five women and steal five cars in just two days before New Orleans police finally arrested him and it’s amazing that they did because there are virtually no police left in New Orleans.

In a city that probably needs about 2,000 cops, they’re under 500 active-duty policemen left in New Orleans. In New Orleans, they have definitely defunded the police. But in this case, the carjacker, a young teenager was ultimately caught, tried, convicted and sentenced for his crimes. Now, these crimes got a lot of attention in New Orleans.

So, the mayor of the city, Latoya Cantrell, showed up to the sentencing, but here’s the twist in the story. Mayor Cantrell didn’t show up to support the victims, the women who’d been terrorized by this predator. No, the mayor showed up to support the carjacker and to let the entire city know that she was doing it, to let everyone know whose side she was on. Watch.

REPORTER VOICEOVER: The mayor showed up in court as a character witness for a 14-year-old offender during sentencing. The teen robbed three women in separate incidents with a fake gun, stealing their cars and belongings. The victims told Fox 8 they were traumatized by what happened and then they felt victimized all over again when the mayor showed up in support of the young criminal.

WOMAN VICTIM: I was in shock she wasn’t there for us. She was there for the assailant and his mother and it felt like she was supporting the crime.

REPORTER VOICEOVER: Juvenile Judge Darensburg sentenced the juvenile to a three-year suspended sentence, meaning no jail time.

It felt like she was supporting the crime, said the victim. Well, yes, it did, because that’s exactly what the mayor was doing. Cantrell was taking the side of the carjacker over the traumatized, law-abiding woman. Now in New Orleans, Cantrell is known by her nickname Teedy, but many people call her exactly what she is: “Latoya the destroya.” She is, in fact, a destroyer. The mayor is incompetent. Mayor is an open race hater.

The mayor is an encourager of violence and she is destroying an already wounded city. We reached out to Mayor Cantrell’s office to ask why she is doing all of this. Why did she pressure a judge to release a convicted armed carjacker with no prison time? But of course, she didn’t reply to us. It turns out the mayor of New Orleans had a connection to this carjacker. Cantrell had enrolled this person in one of her administration’s welfare programs called “Pathways Youth Internship Program.” Using taxpayer money, the program says it provides young people who commit crimes with a reward, paid internships and a stipend.

We contacted the Pathways program this morning. We want to know how many people enrolled in that program go on to commit violent crime within five years. We also asked how much taxpayer money they spent, but of course they didn’t answer. But we don’t need an answer. We know exactly what this is. Pathways, like most social justice scams, is not, in fact, designed to reduce crime. It’s about siding with the criminal, giving the criminals as much support as they need, even a courtroom visit from the mayor, if necessary, so they can go out and commit more crimes as soon as possible. So, why would you do something like this if you were the mayor of a city of New Orleans? Why would you force people to leave your city, the people who pay all the taxes of all colors, by the way? Why would you do that?

Well, possibly because the people who are left tend to be the ones who vote for you. So, it is a kind of electoral strategy. It’s not just happening in New Orleans. It’s happening in a lot of places. The downside is it leads to carnage. There have already been 191 carjackings in the city of New Orleans this year alone. To all of last year, they were a total of 177. Now, most of these carjackings and this is true in a lot of other places, Washington, D.C., we think, most of these are committed by people under the age of 18…(article continues)

Kunstler: Crazyland

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Forward Observer: Historical Cycles – Mathematical Models & the End of the American Empire

Intelligence analyst Sam Culper of Forward Observer discusses Historical Cycles – Mathematical Models & the End of the American Empire

Medium.com: I Lived Through Collapse. America Is Already There.

A water tower bombed by the Tamil Tigers in the final stages of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2008. Photo: Creative Touch Imaging Ltd./NurPhoto/Getty Images

The following is a post from last year by a person living in Sri Lanka. We’ve posted a few times in the past about the end of empires and slow collapse versus quick. I Lived Through Collapse. America Is Already There. talks about how the very slowness of collapse can go unnoticed.

I lived through the end of a civil war — I moved back to Sri Lanka in my twenties, just as the ceasefire fell apart. Do you know what it was like for me? Quite normal. I went to work, I went out, I dated. This is what Americans don’t understand. They’re waiting to get personally punched in the face while ash falls from the sky. That’s not how it happens.
This is how it happens. Precisely what you’re feeling now. The numbing litany of bad news. The ever rising outrages. People suffering, dying, and protesting all around you, while you think about dinner. If you’re trying to carry on while people around you die, your society is not collapsing. It’s already fallen down.
I was looking through some old photos for this article and the mix is shocking to me now. Almost offensive. There’s a burnt body in front of my office. Then I’m playing Scrabble with friends. There’s bomb smoke rising in front of the mall. Then I’m at a concert. There’s a long line for gas. Then I’m at a nightclub. This is all within two weeks.

Photos from two weeks in 2006, courtesy of the author

Today I’m like, “Did we live like this?” But we did. I mean, I did. Was I a rich Colombo fuckboi while poorer people died, especially minorities? Well, yes. I wrote about it, but who cares.
The real question is, who are you? I mean, you’re reading this. You have the leisure to ponder American collapse like it’s even a question. The people really experiencing it already know.
As someone who’s already experienced societal breakdown, here’s the truth: America has already collapsed. What you’re feeling is exactly how it feels. It’s Saturday and you’re thinking about food while the world is on fire. This is normal. This is life during collapse.
Collapse does not mean you’re personally dying right now. It means y’all are dying right now. Death is sometimes close, sometimes far away, but always there. I used to judge those herds of gazelle when the lion eats one of them alive and everyone keeps going — but no, humans are just the same. That’s the real meaning of herd immunity. We’re fundamentally immune to giving a shit.
It honestly becomes mundane (for the privileged). As Colombo kids we used to go out, worry about money, fall in love — life went on. We’d pop the trunk for a bomb check. Turn off our lights for the air raids. I’m not saying that we were untouched. My friend’s dad was killed, suddenly, by a landmine. RIP Uncle Nihal. I know people who were beaten, arrested, and went into exile. But that’s not what my photostream looks like. It was mostly food and parties and normal stuff for a dumb twenty-something.

Collapse is just a series of ordinary days in between extraordinary bullshit, most of it happening to someone else. That’s all it is.

If you’re waiting for a moment where you’re like “this is it,” I’m telling you, it never comes. Nobody comes on TV and says “things are officially bad.” There’s no launch party for decay. It’s just a pileup of outrages and atrocities in between friendships and weddings and perhaps an unusual amount of alcohol.
Perhaps you’re waiting for some moment when the adrenaline kicks in and you’re fighting the virus or fascism all the time, but it’s not like that. Life is not a movie, and if it were, you’re certainly not the star. You’re just an extra. If something good or bad happens to you it’ll be random and no one will care. If you’re unlucky you’re a statistic. If you’re lucky, no one notices you at all.
Collapse is just a series of ordinary days in between extraordinary bullshit, most of it happening to someone else. That’s all it is.
One day, I was at work when someone left a bomb at the NOLIMIT clothing store. It exploded, killing 17 people. When these types of traumatic events take place, no two people experience the same thing. For me, it was seeing the phone lines getting clogged for an hour. For my wife, it was feeling the explosion a half-kilometer from her house. But for the families of the 17 victims, this was the end. And their grief goes on.
As you can see, this is not a uniform experience of chaos. For some people it destroys their bodies, others their hearts, but for most people it’s just a low-level hum at the back of their minds.
What’s that buzzing sound you hear now?
Today I assume you went to work. Bad news was everywhere, clogging up your social media, your conversations. Maybe it struck close to you. I’m sorry. Somewhere in your country, a thousand people died. I’m sorry for each of them. A thousand families are grieving tonight. A thousand more join them every day. The pain doesn’t go away, it just becomes a furniture of bones, in a thousand thousand homes.
As a nation you don’t seem to mourn your dead, but their families do. Their communities do. Jesus, also, weeps. But for most people it’s just another day. You’ve run out of coffee. There’s a funny meme. This can’t be collapse, because nothing’s collapsing for me.
But that’s exactly how collapse feels. This is how I felt. This is how millions of people have felt, including many immigrants in your midst. We’re trying to tell you as loud as we can. You can get out of it, but you have to understand where you are to even turn around. This, I fear, is one of many things Americans do not understand. You tell yourself American collapse is impossible. Meanwhile, look around.
In the last three months America has lost more people than Sri Lanka lost in 30 years of civil war. If this isn’t collapse, then the word has no meaning. You probably still think of Sri Lanka as a shithole, though the war ended over a decade ago and we’re (relatively) fine. Then what does that make you?
America has fallen. You need to look up, at the people you’re used to looking down on. We’re trying to tell you something. I have lived through collapse and you’re already there. Until you understand this, you only have further to fall.

Viking Preparedness: Dark Days Ahead

Pastor Joe Fox of Viking Preparedness talks about collapse of empires and what you can’t do about it.

Sovereign Man: It’s Started Already – “We Have a List”

Simon Black of Sovereign Man writes about the fall of empires in It’s Started Already: “We have a list.”

On September 18 of the year 96 AD, a fairly obscure and elderly politician named Marcus Cocceius Nerva was proclaimed Emperor of Rome by the Senate.

Rome was in chaos at the time; the empire had suffered from years of turmoil, economic decline, and oppression.

Most of the last several emperors– going back before the suicide of Nero in 68 AD– had been extremely destructive… plundering the treasury, waging expensive wars, and dismantling individual liberty.

The government was also extremely unstable; it was not uncommon at that point for emperors to be deposed or even assassinated.

In fact, Nerva’s predecessor– the emperor Domitian– had literally been murdered that morning.

Nerva was seen by many Senators as the ‘safe choice’ to take over the government. He was old, frail, and sick… so he wasn’t expected to last very long.

Most of all, Nerva was completely unremarkable.

He had spent his entire professional life in the service of the Empire, yet his name is barely mentioned in any historical record or associated with any major achievement.

But ‘unremarkable’ was exactly what Romans felt like they needed at the time: Nerva would be a break from the chaos. Or so they thought.

We know now with the benefit of hindsight that Rome would never fully recover.

There would be a few ‘good’ emperors along the way– people like Marcus Aurelius who were able to temporarily hold back the decline.

But the long-term trends were unstoppable.

Rome was slowly going bankrupt, destroying its currency, and rejecting the basic principles of its civilization that made it so powerful and prosperous to begin with.

And no politician was able to put the brakes on those big trends and reverse the inevitable decline.

This is a common theme throughout history: empires rise and fall, not because of a single individual, but from decades of major trends that gradually cause an inevitable decline.

These same trends keep surfacing over and over again across the centuries.

Economic mismanagement is an obvious one: empires in decline almost invariably hold an arrogant belief that they are exempt from the natural laws of finance.

In other words, they believe they can spend as much as they want, accumulate infinite amounts of debt, and debase their currency without limit, and somehow there won’t be any consequences.

Another trend is that the empire abandons its core values. Integrity, civic-mindedness, and hard work give way to corruption and entitlement.

And perhaps the biggest trend of empires in decline is that society frequently turns on itself. Civility ends, and rage takes over.

It goes without saying that these trends are alive and well in the West today, especially in the Land of the Free.

US finances have been in disarray for decades. Just this year alone, the national debt has grown by $4 trillion and the Federal Reserve has conjured another $3 trillion out of thin air.

And even before Covid struck when the economy was firing on all cylinders, the government was still adding more than $1 trillion each year to the debt.

Now there are entire factions of politicians that want to take those numbers to the next level.

In fact, there’s an entire school of economics now called “Modern Monetary Theory” which poses that governments can simply print as much money as they want without consequence.

This is pretty classic empire arrogance.

But, again, the even more powerful trend now is the growing rage that’s so prevalent.

We’ve seen it unfold in front of our very eyes– violence, arson, assault, looting, vandalism, intimidation.

And if the this angry mob isn’t out in the streets causing mayhem, they’re on social media trying to destroy someone’s life who committed the thoughtcrime of intellectual dissent.

The election results last week proved that this angry mob is still a numerical minority.

Unfortunately they are a very powerful minority that has taken over a number of important institutions.

They already control the media. Objective journalism doesn’t exist anymore– it’s just activism and propaganda.

(And if anyone needs any proof, look no further than a prominent CNN ‘reporter’ weeping tears of joy over the weekend on live television. How can these people expect to be taken seriously as objective journalists??)

The mob has also taken over education too.

Schools and universities are now filled with enraged Marxists who spend dozens of hours each week indoctrinating our children with their new woke religion.

They’ve even reinvented science, history, and mathematics to conform to the principles of critical race theory.

The mob also exerts extreme influence over major corporations.

You can’t watch a Disney movie, or an NFL game, or even a commercial for men’s razors anymore, without having identity politics shoved down your throat.

They also hold extreme influence over Big Tech, whose one-sided censorship policies have become so absurd they’re starting to rival the Chinese Communist Party.

Over the weekend, for example, Twitter was ablaze with activists who launched an ‘accountability project’ to create a database archiving every supporter, donor, staffer, etc. who supported the current Presidential administration.

The project’s tagline is “Remember what they did,” and “We must never forget. . .”

And they’re targeting “those who elected him,” and “those who funded him,” referring, of course, to the President and the 70 million people who voted for him.

One reporter from the Washington Post deemed that everyone archived “should never serve in office, join a corporate board, find a faculty position, or be accepted into ‘polite’ society.”

She concluded her thinly-veiled threat by saying, “We have a list.”

Twitter, of course, did not see fit to censor this shining example of objective journalism, which now has 40,000 likes.

It’s a pretty blatant sign of decline when people start keeping ‘lists’ of political opponents they want to punish. And this madness is just getting started.

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.

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.

International Man: Six Reasons Why the Wrong Party Will Win the Most Important US Election Since 1860

Doug Casey at International Man writes his thoughts on the 2020 election in Six Reasons Why the Wrong Party Will Win the Most Important US Election Since 1860

The upcoming election may be the most important in US history. At least as important as that of 1860, which led directly to the War Between the States. In 2016 I believed Trump would win and placed a money bet on him. This time I’m not so sure, despite Trump’s “incumbent advantage” and the fact the Democrats could hardly have picked two worse candidates.

I see at least six reasons why this is true, namely:

The Virus

The economy

Demographics

Moral collapse of the old order

The Deep State

Cheating

The consequences of a Democrat victory will be momentous. Let’s look at why it’s likely.

1. The Virus

Despite the fact COVID is only marginally more deadly than the annual flu, and the fact it’s only a danger to the very old (median death age 80), the hysteria around it is changing the nature of life itself. It’s proven much less serious than the Asian flu of the late ’60s or the Hong Kong flu of the late ’50s. And not even remotely comparable to the Spanish flu of 1918-19. None of those had any discernable effect on the economy or politics. COVID is a trivial medical event but has created a gigantic psychological hysteria.

The virus hysteria is, however, a disaster from Trump’s point of view for several reasons. None of them have anything to do with his “handling” of the virus—apart from the fact that medical issues should be a matter between a patient and his doctor, not bureaucrats and politicians.

First, the virus hysteria is severely limiting the number and size of Trump’s rallies, which he relies on to keep enthusiasm up.

Second, more people are staying at home and watching television than ever before. However, unless they glue their dial to Fox, they’ll gravitate towards the mainstream media, which is stridently anti-Trump. People who are on the fence (and most voters are always in the wishy-washy middle) will mostly hear authoritative-sounding anti-Trump talking heads on television, and they’ll be influenced away from Trump.

Third, older people have by far the heaviest voter turnout, but roughly 80% of the casualties of the virus are elderly. And over 90% of those deaths are related to some other condition. Be that as it may, fear will make older people less likely to vote in this election. The COVID hysteria will still be with us in November. Older people tend to be culturally conservative and are most likely Trumpers.

Fourth, in today’s highly politicized world, the government is supposed to be in charge of everything. Despite the fact there are thousands of viruses, and they’ve been with us thousands of years, this one is blamed on the current government. Boobus americanus will tend to vote accordingly.

2. The Economy

Keeping his voters at home is one thing. But the effects the hysteria is having on the economy are even more important. The effect of COVID on the economy should be trivial since only a small fraction of the relatively few Covid deaths are among people who are economically active.

Presidents always take credit when the economy is good and are berated when it’s bad on their watch, regardless of whether they had anything to do with it. If the economy is still bad in November—and I’ll wager it’s going to be much worse, despite the Fed creating trillions of new dollars, and the government handouts—many people will reflexively vote against Trump.

In February, before the lockdown, there were about 3.2 million people collecting unemployment. Now, there are about 30 million. So it seems we have over 30 million working-age people who are . . . displaced. That doesn’t count part-time workers, who aren’t eligible for unemployment but are no longer working.

The supplementary benefits have ended. If they return, it will be at lower levels. The artificial good times brought on by free money will end too. It will be blamed on the Republicans.

Worse, the public has come to the conclusion that a guaranteed annual income works. This virus hysteria has provided a kind of test for both Universal Basic Income and Modern Monetary Theory—helicopter money. So far, anyway, it seems you really can get something for nothing.

An important note here: Trump—whatever his virtues—is an economic ignoramus. He’s supported both helicopter money and artificially low-interest rates since he’s been in office. But especially now, because he knows it’s all over if today’s financial house of cards collapses on his watch.

I’ll wager that, out of the 160 million work-force Americans, 30 million will still be out of work by voting day. The recognition that the country is in a depression will sink in. The virus hysteria was just the pin—or sledgehammer, perhaps—that broke the bubble. But that’s another story. What’s for sure is that the average American will look for somebody to blame. As things get seriously bad, people will want to change the system itself, as was true in the 1930s.

The only economic bright spot for Trump is the stock market. But it’s at bubble levels. Not because the economy is doing well, but because of the avalanche of money being printed. Where it is in November is a question of how much more money the Fed will print, and how much of it flows into the stock market. Even then, there’s an excellent chance it could collapse between now and the election.

For reasons I’ve detailed in the past, the economy is now entering the trailing edge of a gigantic financial and economic hurricane. The Greater Depression will be much different, longer-lasting, and nastier than the unpleasantness of 1929-1946. And people vote their pocketbook. Bill Clinton was right when he said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” If stocks fall, it will compound this effect. A high stock market just gives the illusion of prosperity. And, at least while stocks are up, contributes to the atmosphere of class warfare. Poor people don’t own stocks.

3. Demographics

Since the gigantic political, economic, and social crisis we’re in will be even more obvious come November, people will want a radical change. Since that—plus lots of free stuff—is what the Democrats are promising, they’re likely to win. But there are other factors.

The last election was close enough, but now, four years later, there are four more cohorts of kids that have gone through high school and college and have been indoctrinated by their uniformly left-wing teachers. They’re going to vote Democrat overwhelmingly.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), and people like her, are both the current reality and the future of the Democratic Party—and of the US itself. She knows how to capitalize on envy and resentment. The Black Lives Matter and Antifa movements have added the flavor of a race war to the mix. Racial antagonism will become more pronounced as whites lose their majority status over the next 30 years.

Nobody, except for a few libertarians and conservatives, is countering the purposefully destructive ideas AOC represents. But they have a very limited audience and not much of a platform. Arguing for sound money and limited government makes them seem like Old Testament prophets to Millenials. Collectivism and statism are overwhelming the values of individualism and liberty.

It’s exactly the type of thing the Founders tried to guard against by restricting the vote to property owners over 21, going through the Electoral College. Now, welfare recipients who are only 18 can vote, and the Electoral College is toothless.

For the last couple of generations, everybody who’s gone to college has been indoctrinated with leftist ideas. Almost all of the professors hold these ideas—as well as high school and grade school instructors. They place an intellectual patina on top of emotional, fantasy-driven leftist ideas.

When the economy collapses in earnest, everybody will blame capitalism. Because Trump is rich, he’s incorrectly associated with capitalism. The country—especially the young, the poor, and the non-white—will look to the government to “do something.” They see the government as a cornucopia.

A majority of Millennials are in favor of socialism, as are so-called People of Color. By 2050, whites will be a minority in the US. A straw in the wind is that a large majority of the people who commit suicide each year are middle-class white males—essentially, Trump supporters. The demographic handwriting is on the wall. Trump’s election in 2016 was an anomaly. No more than a Last Hurrah.

4. Moral Collapse

There’s now a lot of antagonism toward both free minds and free markets. A majority of Americans appear to actually support BLM, an openly Marxist movement. Forget about free minds—someone might be offended, and you’ll be pilloried by the mob. Forget about free markets—they’re blamed for all the economic problems, even though it’s the lack of them that caused the problem. The idea of capitalism is now considered undefendable.

Widespread dissatisfaction with the system is obviously bad for the Republicans and good for the Democrats, who promote themselves as the party of change.

It used to be pretty simple—the Republicans and the Democrats were just two sides of the same coin, like Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Traditionally, one promoted the warfare state more, the other the welfare state. But it was mostly rhetoric; they were pretty collegial. Now, both the welfare and the warfare state have been accepted as part of the cosmic firmament by both parties. The difference between them is now about cultural issues. Except that polite disagreement has turned into visceral hatred.

The Dems at least stand for some ideas—although they’re all bad ideas. The Republicans have never stood for any principles; they just said the Dems wanted too much socialism, too fast, which is why they were always perceived—correctly—as hypocrites. Antagonism between the right and the left is no longer political or economic—it’s cultural. That’s much more serious…(continues)

The Organic Prepper: Our System Is Crumbling Right In Front of Our Eyes

Daisy Luther of The Organic Prepper talks about how Our System Is Crumbling Right In Front of Our Eyes.

Back in January, when the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to catch globe attention, Selco wrote an article stating, “It’s not the virus you need to worry about. It’s the system.”

Virus or illness on itself might not be a problem in its essence, but the impact that it brings to the system and people might be so huge through the media that it causes the system to stop working in the normal way. So you could find yourself in a collapse not necessarily because of a huge pandemic, but because of the reaction to it.

Another case might be the simple unwillingness from the system to admit how bad the situation is in order to stop the panic when folks realized the truth.

So, what might bring the system to collapse might be a real pandemic or a reaction to the pandemic (which might or might not be controllable) or simply the government’s poor or late response to the pandemic. (source)

As things were just beginning to unfold, the article took a lot of heat on social media, with people saying Selco didn’t understand how things would go because he is not American and doesn’t know how things work here. Whoops. I guess that’s rather embarrassing in retrospect.

Because here we are, seven months after Selco wrote his warning, and our system is indeed falling apart.

Our system is failing in many ways.

It’s indisputable that our system is now failing in numerous ways. Some of these things directly relate to the virus and the subsequent lockdown, while others are tied to the nonstop riots that have been going on in some areas for more than 100 days. The riots began after the death of George Floyd when a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck until he suffocated.

From the economy to the justice system to the infrastructure, our system is grinding to a halt in a variety of manners that stand to completely change the American way of life. Let’s take a look.

The economy

As predicted, our economy took a massive hit when government-mandated lockdowns closed the doors to many businesses. Despite billions of dollars in relief (much of which went to large businesses in an act of crony capitalism), the new economy has been nothing short of disastrous.

Millions of jobs are gone and are never coming back. Millions of small businesses have fallen. Corporate landlords aren’t getting paid rent and mom and pop landlords are being forced by the CDC (that’s right – the Center for Disease Control) to house people who can’t pay their rent, while still maintaining their mortgages.

Obviously, this trickles down to the average American who just wants to go to work and pay his or her bills. If you’ve lost your job, you are now in a heated competition for the few jobs remaining. The effect on the economy was “swift and severe” according to a paper published by the Brookings Institute. Now that the CARES Act financial assistance has run out, more and more families are being pushed into desperate levels of poverty. (If this is happening to you, please check out this article for essential advice on surviving this situation.)

But it goes even further than that – in a puzzling turn of events, our country is running out of coins. Many stores no longer give out change that is less than a dollar. You can choose to donate your change digitally to the charity of the store’s choice or get it back on a store loyalty card. Many people are concerned that this is a push toward a cashless society, something that would cause even more day to day financial problems for people who are already struggling. (And this is not as far-fetched as it might seem – it’s happened in Venezuela, too.)

Consumer inventory

And what about the folks who do have money? Well, spending it might be harder than it used to be.

Remember when the first hints of a looming lockdown occurred and store shelves across the country were emptied? And remember when all the shortages were blamed on those selfish hoarder preppers? And remember when they said if you would just buy for the next few days or for the week all the inventory would quickly be replenished because the supply chain was A-OK?

Yeah. I remember that too. And guess what?

Store shelves are still pretty spotty in many parts of the country. Some places still have limits on how much meat or toilet paper you can buy. If you go to your local Target, it’s difficult to find things like bedding and certain cleaning supplies.

Food plants continue to close due to outbreaks. Canned goods are still in high demand. (source) And what is affecting us even more is that we still aren’t getting the shipments from China that we used to receive. When all of this began, I posted a list of essentials that we were getting from China which might affect our supplies, and unsurprisingly, many of these items remain difficult to find.

When you can find supplies in your local stores, you may find that the selection of options is far more limited than before. This is pretty startling, but something that I noticed when I spent several months abroad was that most other countries don’t have chicken cut in 12 different ways or 47 different brands of laundry detergent. What feels like a “shortage” to us is somewhat normal elsewhere and this is something you can adapt to fairly well.

At the same time, limits on purchases make it incredibly difficult to stock up for the future, and you can also expect to see fewer and fewer choices in the months ahead unless something happens to change the situation dramatically.

Education

One of the first casualties of the lockdown was the education system. Most schools simply gave up and didn’t continue the school year after the March lockdown. Colleges and universities turned to distance learning. Graduations were held virtually, if at all.

The new school year looks a lot different too. The schools that have reopened for in-person learning have stringent – and somewhat unsettling – social distancing policies. Many schools are only open for distance learning via Zoom or other online portals. (And don’t even get my started on the privacy issues this has unlocked – not to mention the overreaction of at least one school so shocked at the sight of a Nerf gun in a boy’s room that they called the cops and suspended him.)

Some schools reopened only to close again within a week when a new outbreak erupted. Huge outbreaks are occurring at universities as (big surprise) students party without a lot of regard for social distancing. Many colleges are fighting this by offering as many classes as possible in an online format. This is causing many families to question why they’re still paying the same exceptionally high prices for the education as they did when everyone spent time in the classroom, used campus facilities, and had the benefit of an active social life.

The postal service

The US Postal Service has been losing money hand over fist for years. After the COVID pandemic, it lost a whopping 2.2 billion dollars in the second quarter. In a recent Senate hearing, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testified that they could not guarantee the ability to deliver mail-in ballots for the November election in a timely manner.

And it isn’t just the mail-in ballots that are a problem. There have recently been massive delays with the mail. These delays have led to mailed prescription drugs arriving late to patients who depend on them, thousands of dead baby chicks, and shipping delays that are causing unprecedented issues for small businesses that mail products to customers – and 70% of small businesses use the USPS regularly.

Many have blamed changes made by Postmaster General DeJoy, who donated to President Trump’s campaign, for the crisis.

The new leadership of the U.S. postal service has come under fire from lawmakers and advocates who worry that a slower mail system will affect the presidential election in November. But the impacts could disrupt everyday life for Americans in many other ways.

The U.S. postal service, which has suffered from financial troubles for years, has lost billions of dollars amid the coronavirus pandemic . But last month, new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy issued a number of orders aimed at cutting costs within the agency. Those changes include eliminating employees’ ability to log overtime and barring workers from making extra trips to deliver late-arriving mail. DeJoy’s changes have been blamed for reported widespread mail delays.

“Let me be clear about the reasons behind our restructuring and the need for our plan. Our financial condition is dire,” DeJoy said in a memo sent to USPS staff on Thursday, NBC reported. “Our critics are quick to point to our finances, yet they offer no solution.” (source)

Regardless of the specific cause, it appears a reliable postal service has been yet another systemic casualty. One recent video even came to light of massive bags of mail simply being dumped in a parking lot.

The legal and criminal justice system

After the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, the country erupted. Protests were widespread. The organization Black Lives Matter reached peak popularity. The movement was quickly co-opted and groups like Antifa and the Occupy movement took over. Protests soon turned into violent riots that saw cities across the country turn into battle zones.

The unrest has lasted for more than three months and shows no signs of slowing down soon. Armed conflict has broken out in numerous cities. In fact, a demonstration promising to “lay siege” to the White House is planned for later this month through the election.

This goes hand in hand with calls to defund the police in many of the cities where the protests/riots are taking place. Massive budget cuts have already occurred in Minneapolis, New York City, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Oakland, Portland, Philadelphia, Hartford, Salt Lake City, and Seattle, just to name a few cities. (source) It’s important to note that some of these cities have been the sites of extreme upticks in violence, looting, destruction, and arson.

And it isn’t just the criminal justice system breaking down. The court system in general has been on hiatus. Family court closures have halted divorce and custody hearings. Civil suits are at a standstill. Once the courts reopen, the massive backlog will mean even further delays.

The wheels have simply stopped turning.

The election

The upcoming election is the next broken element of the system. This year hardly feels like an election year in the first place.

Many people are hesitant to vote in person due to the virus. The postal service has said they may not be able to get ballots to people on time. Big rallies are a thing of elections past. We have yet to see a presidential debate between the candidates. We probably won’t know who won on election night. In fact, it could be weeks before a winner is announced, and even then, it looks as though Biden and Trump are both intent on questioning the outcome if it isn’t in their favor.

In short, it’s going to be a huge bone of contention that is likely to escalate the violence discussed above for weeks, if not months. We could have the fifth contested presidential election in American history. (And I’d say that isn’t just a possibility, but a likelihood.)

If an already divided country can’t agree on who won the election, would that be the final nail in the coffin of our system?

What can we do?

A lot of these are “big circle” things that are out of our personal realm of control. We can’t do anything about imports from China, we can’t stop the riots in Seattle, we can’t fix the postal service.

But we can focus our energy on getting as prepared as possible for what promises to be a bumpy road ahead. And we must also stop focusing on a system that is broken to solve our problems. Selco wrote:

Do not forget one basic fact: you as a prepper/survivalist, at your core, most probably do not trust the system.

I am not saying you hate it, but you just do not trust it completely.

So, watch the news and announcements. Help if possible, obey if possible (and if it makes sense) but always keep in mind that the system at its core has a very basic obligation: to keep that system running. If that means the system has to lie to you or let’s say, bend the truth, it will do it, because to the system you are an individual, and the system is machinery that needs to run.

So, keep some common sense, and trust your gut instinct. (source)

Pieces of the system are tumbling over like one domino after another. Every stressor added is knocking out more of the system as time goes on.

Do you think the system is fixable or do you believe it is broken beyond repair? What do you foresee for the rest of the year?

Of Two Minds: Intolerance and Authoritarianism Accelerate Disunity and Collapse

From Charles Hugh Smith at the Of Two Minds blog, Intolerance and Authoritarianism Accelerate Disunity and Collapse

Scapegoating dissenters only hastens the disunity and disarray that accelerates the final collapse.

Authoritarianism is imposed on us, but its sibling intolerance is our own doing. Intolerance and authoritarianism are two sides of the same coin: as intolerance becomes the norm, the intolerant start demanding that the state enforce their intolerance by suppressing their enemies via increasingly heavy-handed authoritarian measures.

Intolerance and authoritarianism increase as instability takes hold and living standards decline. In good times, dissent and differences of opinion are not only tolerated but celebrated, as this freedom to hold a variety of beliefs serves to unify society.

In bad times, dissent and differences are viewed as mortal threats to the social order. Perhaps there is a human instinct when times become troubled to insist “we must all row together,” i.e. to seek a unity enforced by a rising intolerance that demands more authoritarian action by the state.

For example, in wartime, pacifist views that were previously tolerated become criminal offenses.

The irony here is this forced conformity doesn’t generate unity–it fractures society into bitterly warring camps as the middle ground vanishes into either/or extremism that sees authoritarianism (in support of our side, of course) as not just justified but essential.

Intolerance and authoritarianism undermine and ultimately destroy the unity that was generated by tolerance and a wide variety of beliefs and dissenting views. As our own insecurities increase, we fall all too willingly to the temptation to see others’ recalcitrant refusal to join our camp without reservations as the source of our insecurity.

In this mindset of insecurity, the “solution” is to force compliance by any means available so everyone is in our camp. And since some might be hiding the insincerity of their devotion to our righteous cause, the need for an Inquisition becomes pressing, so the insincere or closet traitors can be unmasked and punished.

But the Inquisitors themselves inevitably come under suspicion, and an Inquisition of the Inquisitors soon lays waste to those who hubristically held themselves as the arbiters of conformity. There is no way to escape this drive to dissipate insecurity by forcing conformity except the complete collapse of the social, political and economic orders.

This is the path to madness and complete social breakdown. But such is the power of insecurity and uncertainty that history records our self-destructive urgency to abandon the middle ground and a diversity of viewpoints and beliefs for the totalitarian uniformity of forced conformity.

But once rooted, intolerance knows no bounds and the snake of intolerant authoritarianism ends up eating its own tail. In an era of intolerance, ideological purity is a constantly shifting landscape of quicksand. Those at the top passing judgment on others’ ideological purity soon find their own purity is under attack.

Increasingly intolerant, repressive authoritarianism marked the final days of the Roman decline and fall. Rather than face the profound and novel crises directly and unify around the sacrifices needed to resolve the crises favorably, it is so much easier to blame everyone who doesn’t agree with our position as the source of the crises.

This is delusional, of course: crises have real-world sources, and scapegoating dissenters only hastens the disunity and disarray that accelerate the final collapse.

TMIN: Chicago, Portland, Baltimore – The Things We Have Been Warned About Are Now Starting To Happen

Michael Snyder talks about escalating violence across the US at The Most Important News – Chicago, Portland, Baltimore – The Things We Have Been Warned About Are Now Starting To Happen

Whether for good or for bad, the United States always sets an example for the rest of the world, and right now people all over the globe are watching violence fill the streets of our major cities. For years, we could all see anger building to extremely dangerous levels in our society, but I think that most Americans never believed that it would actually cause such an eruption. It has been heartbreaking to watch Americans fighting Americans, and I wish that all of our politicians would come together and form a united front in calling for an end to the violence. Instead, they just keep blaming one another, and things just continue to escalate.

And when I use the word “escalate”, I am not exaggerating one bit. There are more than 100,000 gang members living in the city of Chicago today, and according to the FBI 30 gangs in the city “have made a pact” to shoot any police officer that draws his or her weapon in public…

A federal intelligence alert from the FBI field office in Chicago, Ill., warned that about 30 gangs in the city have made a pact to shoot police officers if they draw their weapons in public, ABC 7 reported on Monday.

Can you imagine what police officers in Chicago must be feeling right now?

I hope that they are well paid, because they are literally risking their lives on a nightly basis. This new intelligence report specifically said that these gangs have agreed to “shoot on-sight” any officer that draws a weapon, and the purpose of this violent pact is “to garner national media attention”…

The alert states that Chicago gangs have agreed to “shoot on-sight any cop that has a weapon drawn on any subject in public.”

“Members of these gang factions have been actively searching for, and filming, police officers in performance of their official duties,” the alert continues. “The purpose of which is to catch on film an officer drawing his/her weapon on any subject and the subsequent ‘shoot on-sight’ of said officer, in order to garner national media attention.”

Of course a lot of people have been shooting at Chicago police officers already. According to Chicago police superintendent David Brown, the number of CPD police officers that have been shot at this year has already smashed the all-time yearly record…

According to CPD Superintendent David Brown, there is an overall “sense of lawlessness” felt by local police, and the ‘danger to police officers is real and increasing.’

“I think it’s bigger than a suggestion,” said Brown. “I think 51 officers being shot at or shot in one year, I think that quadruples any previous year in Chicago’s history. So I think it’s more than a suggestion that people are seeking to do harm to cops.“

It is so sad to watch Chicago descend into complete and utter lawlessness.

Each weekend, the violence in Chicago makes national headlines, and last weekend was no exception. 50 people got shot, and that included “a mass shooting at a pancake house”…

Brown, now more than four months into his tenure, did not mention the grim milestone while talking to reporters. He also did not dwell on the toll from the weekend: at least 10 people killed and 40 others wounded by gun violence that included a mass shooting at a pancake house on the Far Southwest Side. A man died and four others were wounded as diners with children scattered.

In a little more than three hours beginning around 2 a.m. Sunday, Chicago police responded to 10 separate shootings, including three homicides and an attack on two officers who exchanged gunfire with an armed teen. All three were wounded.

In Portland, we are witnessing a different sort of chaos.

Political protests have been rocking the city on a nightly basis for three months straight, and on Monday night the protesters decided to target the mayor’s house…

Protesters in Portland gathered outside Democrat mayor Ted Wheeler’s apartment Monday night to ‘celebrate’ his birthday by letting off fireworks and singing ‘happy tear gas to you’.

A fire was lit in the street outside the 58-year-old’s apartment block in an upmarket area in the north of the city, as around 200 people gathered while blasting music, sounding horns, banging pots and pans, and playing drums.

This is a perfect example that shows why the violence is not going to end no matter who wins the election in November.

Ted Wheeler is not a Republican.

He isn’t even a moderate Democrat.

In fact, he is one of the most far left mayors in the entire country.

But they targeted his home anyway.

As I detail in my new book, so many people warned us in advance that tremendous rioting, looting and violence would erupt in our major cities. In some instances, these explosions of anger are being fueled by political unrest, but in other cases we are seeing acts of violence that are completely and utterly mindless. A perfect example of this is an incident which just took place in Baltimore…

Video emerged Monday on social media showing a man crossing a street and another man sneaking up behind him and slamming him in the back of the head, which resulted in the victim falling face-first to the sidewalk.

Just before the victim was hit in the head, a voice — presumably from one of the people recording the video across the street — can be heard whispering, “bitch you bet’ not run.” After the victim falls to the sidewalk, at least two people can be heard laughing and hollering in response.

Video of this deeply disturbing attack has been posted on Twitter, and watching it made me incredibly sad.

How evil do you have to be to celebrate when some random person is knocked unconscious by a brick to the head?

I truly wish that the entire country could come together and agree to bring an end to the violence. But of course that isn’t going to happen. If anything, societal tensions are likely to get even higher as we approach election day in November.

It should deeply grieve all of us when we see Americans fighting Americans. There is so much anger and hatred all around us, and any nation that becomes utterly consumed by anger and hatred has no future.

Ultimately, what we really need is to learn how to truly love one another, but unfortunately that is not a very popular message at all these days.

Ammoland: Barbarians At The Gates, Is Our Great Republic In Danger Of Falling

The Sacking of Rome is starting to resemble what we’re seeing in America’s cities. JN Sylvestre 1847-1926 / Public domain.

From Ammoland, Barbarians At The Gates, Is Our Great Republic In Danger Of Falling

The Barbarians are at the gates, the cities are in flames, the war for the soul of America is in full swing. What I say here I do not say lightly. America is on the brink of falling, and if history is a guide and a repeating cycle, there will be very little to stop the demise of the greatest nation in the world, just like there was little at the end that could stop the fall of the Roman Empire once the decay and rot had set it.

What we are watching in our streets is nothing that happened overnight, it’s a product of years of social decay, corruption, indoctrination, and just flat out apathy. For as long as I have been active in politics, twenty-five years, which isn’t that long, I have seen the decline of this country, the spread of the corrupt cancer that’s been eating the heart and soul of America spread from the federal government to the states, to the smallest towns. It’s in our colleges, schools, our movies, television shows and in the very fabric of our everyday lives. Now add to that a virus that some would say is dubiously overblown and regulations that a year ago would have been laughed off as insane paranoia but are now seen as patriotism that must be enforced, and you have the perfect storm for the complete downfall of this republic.

George Who?

The fear and pent up resentment reached a flashpoint with the death of George Floyd, who barely gets any mention anymore. Which proves that he was simply used as the match to the fuse that is sparking riots not only all over in our cities, but also round the clock protests in even the smaller communities that don’t get much mention on the nightly news. Companies and sports venues quickly caved in out of fear of being protested next for simply not picking a side. Multimillionaire athletes are now en masse kneeling during the National Anthem before every game or, in the case of the WNBA, walking right off the court altogether. These things would have been unheard of a decade ago, now they’re seen as “taking a stand”.

Monuments are being ripped down, an act that many said would not stop with Confederate statues. It now includes anything that simply offends anyone else. Christopher Columbus, the Founding Fathers, memorials to fallen police officers, military, and veterans, are all targets. We all watched a historic church in Washington, DC nearly be burnt to the ground by anarchists who have been emboldened by liberal politicians who not only have ignored their actions, but in some instances have joined with the protesters against police, all while businesses are being vandalized, looted, and burned.

Today New York’s Attorney General Letitia James announced that she was suing the National Rifle Association with one goal, to dissolve it entirely. Now, I have had many bones to pick with the NRA over the years, and it appears that there has been a lot of mismanagement at the top for a long time, but one thing that everyone needs to see, with eyes wide open, is that if the liberals start with the NRA, they won’t stop there. You can bet they will look into finding a way to shut down every organization that they don’t like, or that stands up to them to defend your rights. The fact that an Attorney General from any state unveils a massive lawsuit against what for decades has been seen as the face of the Second Amendment in America with less than three months to go before perhaps one of the most pivotal elections in America’s history has got to be looked at for what it is, a political move to knock the NRA out of being able to lobby or fundraise for any candidates.

I hope I am wrong, but I feel that the violence we’re seeing is only going to get worse, egged on by the fact that there seem to be no consequences for those who loot and burn, while if you have a business and violate one of the many arbitrary rules that make no sense, you risk having your business shut down, being fined or even facing jail time. In some cities, if you get caught without a mask on, it’s a stiff fine, whereas we all see, night after night, a protest somewhere in this country where it seems that the rioters and looters have been given complete control of the streets.

Our country has been turned upside down, and hardworking, law-abiding citizens are on the bottom and are being trampled by the rioters and the regulations coming from blue states that worsen from day-to-day.

What Americans seem to have lost is hope, and I think that is intentional. The media on every channel beats the public down with talk of sickness, possible school closures, the economy, riots, violence, and politics. There never seems to be any good news, and all the while, everyone is told to stay home whenever possible while protesters are told that their actions are patriotic and, in some cases, necessary to get their point out. Good people are living in fear while the cities are in free fall. So of course, they feel helpless and are at the mercy of their elected officials. Speaking out is not only not good, but it’s going against the grain. Americans are told to not question what’s happening, just shut up, put on your mask, and do as your told.

Where this country goes from here is anyone’s guess, and I am not someone who is simply into the “buy guns and ammo” crowd. You don’t try to buy guns and ammo during a crisis, you should have had them before this all began. A crisis rarely takes a lot of time to spring up, giving you the chance to stock up. I think people should be looking to their own, thinking about where they live and putting away supplies of all kinds. I’m not saying go out and hoard toilet paper, but you can bet if things head south, what you saw at the grocery stores in March will only be an inkling of what they will look like.

America is going through a serious crisis right now, and it’s not just about the Covid virus. The real virus is what we’re seeing elected officials doing to their citizens while allowing criminals to go free or not be arrested at all.

The real virus is the fear that’s now rampaging through the country, making Americans afraid to even go outside for the fear they will catch something that is proving to be far less deadly than we were told. The real virus is the mobs of looters and rioters we’re seeing in our streets every single night, trashing buildings, cars, and destroying businesses while the media calls their actions peaceful. It is yet to be seen if the virus infecting America right now will be fatal to the republic or if we will be able to rally and fight it off. One thing is for sure, we’re running out of time to save the patient.

The Trumpet: Escape “the Biggest Civilizational Catastrophe”

From The Trumpet, Escape ‘the Biggest Civilizational Catastrophe’ on family collapse and resulting civilizational collapse.

America is collapsing. On our city streets, youths are terrorizing people, vandalizing buildings, burning police cars, looting stores and inflicting violence on those who oppose them. Even more shocking, many leaders permit, justify and encourage the destruction! This is what a nation on the verge of collapse looks like.

You may think this crisis erupted after the death of George Floyd. The reality is, it has been building for decades. But it didn’t originate in the halls of government, the university or even the classroom. The chaos on our streets started in our homes. It came from the decades-long breakdown in our families.

In a Fox News interview in July, commentator Heather MacDonald said, “I am going to break a massive feminist taboo here, and say that males matter. Fathers matter. Fathers bring a set of values and norms to child rearing whether it’s self-reliance or self-discipline, honor and courage. On average, it complements what mothers can bring.”

In today’s culture, this sort of language is considered inflammatory, sexist and violent. In this upside-down world, MacDonald is one of the few people still brave enough to state the obvious.

“The anarchy that we have lived through with the looting and the rioting of the last month,” she continued, “has been preceded by a more slow-motion anarchy and breakdown, which is the breakdown of the family because our prisons today are filled almost exclusively with fatherless men” (emphasis added).

MacDonald is exactly right: This has been slow-motion breakdown of the family! Children unloved, untaught and undisciplined in the home have become unhappy, unenlightened, unrestrained adults. Uncontrolled tantrums in the home have become Molotov cocktails hurled at police. Children never taught to be grateful have become rioters who loot what they can and burn what they can’t, even though they live in the wealthiest, freest, most blessed nation in world history.

Stability, discipline, happiness, gratitude, productivity, kindness: these qualities need to be learned. And they need to be taught in the home by loving, God-fearing parents.

MacDonald called the breakdown of the family the “biggest civilizational catastrophe that we’re facing today.” She said that breakdown is the “root of the spiraling crime, insane drive-by shootings that we see in the inner city, and the destruction of human potential.”

With an urgent tone, MacDonald said, “It’s a hard thing to turn this around, but we have to.” She’s absolutely right.

What she doesn’t know is that family breakdown, and the resultant societal breakdown, were prophesied. Isaiah 3:12 describes a society in which children “oppress” and women “rule.” Men, fathers and husbands, aren’t even mentioned in that verse! The family has been turned upside down and as a result, society has been turned upside down!

Thankfully, it does not have to be this way in your home. It should not be this way in your home! God gives instruction that will help you escape “the biggest civilizational catastrophe,” and build a strong, stable family.

That includes learning how to love your children God’s way, which takes unselfishness, patience, positivity, encouragement, vision and many other virtues. It includes teaching and training them in the way they should go. It includes guiding and correcting them as necessary. Above all it means getting your family structure right. The Bible provides marvelous detail about the God-ordained roles within the family (e.g. Colossians 3; Ephesians 5; 1 Timothy 3). The emphasis is on the husband and father ruling the household well. If the house is not ruled well, the results are catastrophic! A breakdown in the home leads to the breakdown of cities and society as a whole.

God sent a man in this end time in the spirit of Elijah to “restore all things” to the Church (Matthew 17:10-11). God said this man “shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers” before Christ’s return (Malachi 4:6). This beautiful scripture is talking about protecting, maintaining and strengthening the family structure! It is about getting our families right in the context of Jesus Christ’s imminent return! Why? Because God’s Family is going to be leading in the World Tomorrow. God is working with people right now who will be able to help Him in building excellent families during the Millennium and beyond. That starts with teaching them how to do this in their own physical families today.

This prophesied role was fulfilled by Herbert W. Armstrong. He taught and wrote extensively on how to build strong families. Since his death in 1986 we have carried on that work. As a starter to help you get your family life in order, we would like to offer you a free book: Child Rearing With Vision. This book will show you how to raise a family God’s way. Teaching God’s law and administering God’s government in the home is key to a happy, fulfilled life—and it trains you to teach and administer God’s way of life in the World Tomorrow!

Unconstrained Analytics: The Three Perils Threatening the United States

Former Director for Strategic Planning for the National Security Council Rich Higgins writes The Three Perils Threatening the United States for Unconstrained Analytics, citing internal and external threats.

The Republic is in grave danger.

There, I said it.

Does anyone really doubt it? America is stumbling and the vultures are circling. What is the nature of these perils that afflict us?

America sits atop a global system created at the outset of the 20th century. That century saw the United States elevated to the status of global imperial power, having been victorious in two world wars and the beneficiary of an international monetary system that, post World War II, provided for a vast global, if not regional, peace. Sure, there was a Cold War with the Soviet Union and other limited wars, but no true great global war in which the entire geo-political order came into question.

Times have changed. Today the United States is faced with three enormous perils:

an external threat,

an internal threat, and

a fulcrum on which the two interoperate to synchronize a multi-prong attack on America.

1

The first peril is that China has emerged as a geopolitical and economic challenger to the United States. The simmering geopolitical threat from China is multilateral in nature. In fact, a geopolitical reordering on an historic scale is taking place.

Supported by financial stakeholders, China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” seeks no less than the unification of the Eurasian landmass. This geopolitical and economic reordering has seen China peel off NATO ally Turkey, make common cause with Iran, align with Pakistan, and subsume Hong Kong. Even European Union nations, beneficiaries of 75 years of American security, are drifting into the arms of the Chinese Communists.

2

The second peril, a domestic counter-state, has emerged pressing a Marxist revolutionary insurrection in alignment with China’s objectives. With a century of Marxist subversion in the making, this counter-state manifested as a silent or soft coup attempt in 2017, and subsequently has evolved into a Marxist revolutionary insurrection rising to a boil inside the United States.

This insurrection has both overt and clandestine components, and while the underground remains largely anonymous, much of it is hidden in plain sight and is clearly visible to anyone familiar with unconventional warfare tactics.

One hallmark of this emergent insurrection is the state-within-the-state:

institutional control over executive branch function even when their affiliated political party is out of power,

control over media organs,

state employees elevated above citizens in the application of laws,

selective enforcement of laws based on political affiliation or policy desires (i.e. sanctuary cities), and

the abuse of intelligence, law enforcement, judicial and regulatory structures to punish or control political enemies.

It is important to note that all of the outcomes sought by this insurrection support Communist China’s ambition to see the United States displaced from her perch as global leader.

3

The third peril is a biological-economic crisis brought about by the Chinese, and exacerbated by the domestic revolutionary insurrectionists and their allies in the media and public health sector.

This public health crisis and its derivative economic calamity was spread intentionally throughout the world by China and its allies. COVID-19 has upended the global economic system and decreased the domestic productivity of most nations, thereby increasing governance challenges and opening the door to greater state controls.

Inside the United States, the Marxist insurrection is capitalizing on the virus and the counter-state’s control of the public health system to:

enact draconian population control measures,

extraconstitutional legal maneuvers,

propaganda and psychological warfare operations,

economic warfare targeting the middle-class business owner, and

intermittent escalatory violence including the use of anarcho-communists operating under the rubric of critical race theory.

Never let a crisis go to waste!

Any one of the three perils is potentially lethal in its own right. In the aggregate, this is a crisis of epic proportions.

Unfortunately, the underground revolutionary insurrectionists operating inside the government institutions interfere with executive branch function and make matters much more difficult to qualify, rectify, or even acknowledge. In so doing, these meddling government officials betray their oaths to defend the Constitution.

Many Americans see the vultures circling. The signs are everywhere; debt exploding, unemployment skyrocketing, currency uncertainty, the gold price rising, and record-high gun sales. The herd is nervous. Sides are being chosen. The tectonic plates are rumbling.

People are looking for crisis leadership that comprehends the three perils, is prepared to deal with them, and most importantly realizes that America is worth defending.

The Republic is at risk. There, I said it again.

Now defend it.