SOAPBOX ORATIONS...

This page is offered as a public service to guest writers who wish to submit an article on current events, blow off a little steam (tastefully vented, of course), or enlighten others on a subject of interest, religious or secular, with some relevance to the topics on this web site. Submissions for this page should be sent to me at: miles@milesstair.com. Obviously, all articles are subject to discreet scrutiny and editing, and those chosen for publication will be posted here periodically.

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I Have No Fear Of Economic Collapse,
from Freedom Outpost

http://freedomoutpost.com/2015/09/i-have-no-fear-of-economic-collapse/
Sept. 11, 2015

I am not afraid of an economic collapse. Coming from someone that runs "The Economic Collapse Blog," I am sure that sounds like a very odd statement. But it is true. I have no fear of economic collapse, even though I am fully convinced that the hardest times that any of us have ever experienced are ahead. I spend countless numbers of hours in front of my computer immersed in deeply disturbing information, and yet I sleep more soundly at night than I ever have before. In fact, my wife and I seek to live in a constant state of "shalom", which is the Hebrew word for peace. So how is this possible? How can "the economic collapse guy" not be absolutely overwhelmed by fear, depression and paranoia?

Unlike so many that write about these things, I believe that preparation for what is ahead goes far beyond the physical. So I am constantly stressing the need for mental, emotional and especially spiritual preparation. Personally, I have absolutely no idea how atheists are going to make it through what is coming. They don't understand why they are here, they don't understand why history is unfolding the way that it is, and they have absolutely no hope for the future beyond this life. If you greatly fear death and you can't stand to lose the possessions that you have accumulated, the years ahead are going to be exceedingly difficult for you.

My relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ gives my life meaning and purpose. He took the broken pieces of my life and turned them into a beautiful thing, and He can do the same for you.

I also strongly advocate physical preparation for the hard years that are coming. My wife and I work very hard to store up food and supplies. The funny thing is that there are Christians out there that actually accuse me of being "anti-faith" for doing these things. Apparently they believe that we should all just sit around watching television while we wait for God to do everything for us.

But that isn't how it works. In the Bible, we see that exercising faith almost always involves action. Noah, Joseph and others acted in faith based on the warnings that they had received, and they were commended for it.

Are we acting on the warnings that we have received? For much more on this subject, please see my previous article entitled "Is It "Anti-Faith" To Prepare For The Coming Economic Collapse?"

Knowledge and preparation help to eliminate fear. If you understand what is happening, and you know why it is happening, and you have prepared for what is happening, it makes the challenges that are ahead of you easier to tackle.

When you were in school, who got the most freaked out by quizzes and tests?

It was those that were not prepared for them of course.

In the years ahead, a lot of people are going to be jumping off of buildings, jumping in front of trains, etc. Others will plunge into a dark hole of depression and despair that they will never come back from.

The vast majority of those people will have never listened to the warnings and will have done nothing to get prepared.

Those that accuse me and others like me of "spreading fear" have got it completely backwards.

We are not "spreading fear" at all. We are spreading hope. There is hope in understanding what is happening and there is hope in getting prepared.

The preparations that are being made right now all over the nation are going to save countless numbers of lives. Those that are mocking preppers and that are telling everyone that everything is going to be just fine are going to deeply regret doing so someday. Although I will admit that sometimes preppers are prone to a "bunker mentality," and that is not the right approach. Now is not the time to dig a hole and try to hide from the world.

You were born for such a time as this. It is when times are the darkest that the greatest heroes are needed. Personally, my wife and I believe that the greatest move of God the world has ever seen is coming, and we very much want to be part of it.

Yes, the years ahead are going to be extremely challenging. In fact, I don't think that any of us can truly grasp the horror that is coming because we don't really have any frame of reference for it.

It is kind of like trying to explain to someone that was blind from birth what a tree looks like. You can spend hours describing the tree, but unless you have some sort of frame of reference, the understanding simply is not going to be there.

Sometimes I try to sit down and write about what is ahead of us, but I find that words fail me. For example, I recently did a piece entitled "The Last Days Of Normal Life In America" that was very popular, but the truth is that it was woefully inadequate because I don't really have a good frame of reference for what we are about to face. I don't know that too many people out there actually do.

As "watchmen on the wall," those of us that are trying to warn this nation are just trying to do the best that we can with what we have.

And we aren't just sitting behind our computers "cursing the darkness" either.

A few of my fellow "watchmen" have joined with me to try to do something special. Nathan Leal, Benjamin Baruch, Lyn Leahz and I have organized a nationwide call to prayer and repentance on the weekend of September 18th to September 20th. It is going to be held at the Sandpoint Events Center in Sandpoint, Idaho, and we already know of people coming in from nine different states and Canada for this event.

In addition, similar gatherings are being organized all around the nation, and thousands that cannot attend an event in person are going to be able to participate by watching the livestream on Lyn Leahz's 69,000 subscriber YouTube channel.

In the end, there is a limit to what each one of us can do individually, but if we work together we can collectively make a great difference.

Now is not a time for fear. Perfect love casts out fear. This is a time for the Remnant to rise up and to spread a message of hope even in the midst of all the chaos and darkness that is coming.

Yes, the times ahead are going to be more chaotic that any of us could probably imagine right now. But let us reject all fear, depression and despair, and let us endeavor to become people of great faith, great hope and great love.
 

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Preparedness Critics Are History's Cannon Fodder
http://www.alt-market.com/articles/2638-preparedness-critics-are-historys-cannon-fodder
Wednesday, 08 July 2015 03:25 Brandon Smith

The world is entering a kind of no man's land, in between the realms of insane denial and utterly obvious crisis. Europe is now destabilizing amid the Greek soap opera (an event that I predicted in January would occur in 2015); China's stock market bubble is bursting; and the U. S. dollar's world reserve status is about to be decimated by the global shift toward the International Monetary Fund's basket currency reserve system. I'm afraid I'm going to have to say this because I don't know if anyone else will admit it: Alternative economic analysts were right, and the mainstream choir was either terribly wrong or disgustingly dishonest. However, as most of us in the liberty movement are well aware, being right is not necessarily a solution to disaster.

At the forefront of alternative economics and constitutional vigilance are the people doing the real work in the movement: the preppers. These are the activists taking concrete action in the tangible world (as opposed to the ethereal laziness of the intellectual world) first to make themselves as independent as possible from the mainstream grid, thereby removing themselves as a potential refugee or looter in the event of national crisis. Second, they are the people mastering valuable and necessary skills that will allow them to rebuild any collapsed social and financial system. Third, they are the people most capable of defending our inherent freedoms and the principles of our founding culture, and they are the only people organizing locally for mutual aid and security. The fact of the matter is preppers are free, and almost everyone else is a slave - a slave to dependency, a slave to doubt, a slave to ignorance, a slave to fear and, thus, a slave to petty establishment authority.

During the Great Depression, the vast majority of American citizens were rural, farm-oriented people with survival skills far beyond the modern American. "Prepping" in those days was ingrained in our society, rather than marginalized and labeled "fringe." Today, the numbers are reversed, with a dwindling number of farm- experienced Americans and a vast wasteland of urban and suburban citizens - many with few, if any, legitimate skill sets. During the Great Depression, millions of people died of starvation and general poverty, despite the incredible number of people with rural survival knowledge. What do you think would happen to our effeminate; metrosexual; iPhone-addicted; lisping; limp-wristed; self-obsessed; Twitter-, texting-, video game-addled; La-Z-Boy-riding; overgrown-child culture in the event that another economic crisis even remotely similar were to occur? Yes, most of them would die, probably in a horrible fashion.

Think about it for a moment. An incredible subsection of Americans do not know how to feed themselves; they do not know how to hunt; they do not know how to grow crops; they do not know how to repair any necessary items used for subsistence; they do not know how to build anything useful; they do not know how to shoot; they do not know how to defend themselves; they don't even know how to cook a pot of rice properly. Their only skills involve parroting snarky remarks from their favorite lowest-common- denominator television and Web shows, building ample karma points on Reddit, and avoiding any stance contrary to what they perceive to be the majority opinion (which they also derive from mainstream media and websites).

It is decidedly ironic given the uselessness of such people that it is often the worst subsections of the blind, deaf and dumb that choose to "critique" the prepper lifestyle as "disturbed" or "dangerous."

In my view, they are absolutely damned pathetic and should be looked down upon with utter contempt as the most concentrated example of slithering human misery ever to smear across the pages of history.

But, hey, that doesn't mean I wish them harm.

People who are unaware and unprepared are not necessarily our enemies. At one time or another, we all were unaware of the underlying truths to our system and our future, until we woke up one day. On the other hand, there are some people who have truly evolved from the sickly and bitter bile scraped from the lower intestine of the grotesquely ignorant. These people are the anti-preppers.

Anti-preppers are well aware of the philosophies and fact-based arguments of prepper activism; but rather than ignoring or dismissing us outright and moving on with their vapid lives, they instead seek to destroy preppers and the prepping ideal. Why? To understand that, you have to understand the nature of statists and collectivists because that it where these people root themselves and their twisted worldview.

I recently read an article by Joshua Krause over at The Daily Sheeple in which he countered a mainstream hit piece article against preppers titled "Be prepared For preppers." The article is itself an immensely disturbed display, first using typical and unimaginative ad hominem arguments to marginalize preppers, then mutating into a treatise on why preppers should all be exterminated.

Krause did a fine job of dismantling the substandard and journalistically challenged propaganda essay, but I would like to go beyond the typical arguments of anti-preppers and into the mindset that drives them. I recommend you read "Be prepared for preppers" for good measure, being that it is a perfect example of the psychopathic nature of the common statist. Then, I would like to perform a little brain surgery here and peel away some layers of psyche so that you can understand why these people hate us so much.

The Prepper Stereotype The sad reality is most anti-preppers I've dealt with in person have never even talked to a prepper face to face until they had met me. They tend to enter into an immediate debate posture with multiple assumptions in terms of what a prepper believes and how a prepper lives. This posture begins with an incredulous and sarcastic demeanor. And as they begin to realize that the prepper they are dealing with is smarter than they are, their attitude devolves into conditioned talking points and generally indignant frothing.

Anti-preppers do not know or associate with real preppers. Rather, they derive their opinions of us from popular media, which is in most cases openly biased; episodes of "Doomsday Preppers" and other shows designed to make us look ridiculous; and Southern Poverty Law Center-influenced news articles loaded with carefully crafted slander. They rarely, if ever, confront a prepper or preppers on neutral ground and address facts or figures honestly.

The bulk of what makes up the prepper stereotype is utter nonsense. But it reinforces the anti-prepper's hateful inclinations, so they eat it up without question.

They Hate Us Because Of Our Freedom Are anti-preppers "terrorists?" Yes, they are. It might sound harsh, but consider the attitude of the anti-prepper for a moment. He hates you because you have chosen a lifestyle that is independent from the system and ideology of which he chooses to remain a part. He hates you because you have a measure of freedom he does not have, but could have if only he had the guts to do something about it. He hates you because you do not want to participate in the meaningless game of collectivism he has spent his whole life attempting to master. He hates you because you are walking away from his system and doing your own thing. How dare you do your own thing!

Many of us who appreciate libertarian-oriented ideals are proponents of the "non-aggression principle," which, to summarize, states that respect for individual freedom is the paramount value of any society that seeks to sustain itself peacefully and indefinitely. Human society is not a nexus; it is not a hive. Society, if it is anything at all, is a collection of individual minds and souls acting voluntarily for the advancement the community, but never at the cost of personal liberty. Contrary to popular mainstream belief, the individual does NOT owe society a thing.

Non-aggression requires that society will not violate personal liberty for arbitrary collective gain and that individuals will not use violence or coercion to forcefully mandate the participation of others. That is to say, you leave me to my dream and I leave you to yours. But if you try to deliberately trample my dream in order to enrich your own, I am then within my rights to bring a mighty friggin' hammer down on your skull until you leave me alone. Anti-preppers have no capacity to grasp this concept. To them, each human being is property of the larger group and defiance of the state is blasphemy.

Such collectivists are also predictably devout followers of the religion of resource management, and often argue that preppers are in fact "horders" of resources. Under this ideology, resources do not belong to the people who actually worked to earn them. Rather, resources somehow belong to EVERYONE no matter how lazy they are, and must be constantly redistributed so that all people (common people, not elites) have the same exact amount. They can never seem to define what exactly a "fair share" actually is, and I believe this is because as long as a "fair share" remains ambiguously up to them, they retain the ultimate power to take what they want whenever they want always under the rationale that yesterday you and I had enough, but today we again have too much. The anti-prepper argument that "hording" is harmful to the collective and that all resources, even your food storage, should be managed by the group (the state), is THE propaganda model of the future. Do not forget this because you will be seeing this propaganda take center stage very soon.

Anti-preppers are often the kinds of social justice circus clowns that preach unerring tolerance and claim disdain for any form of discrimination, yet they are at the same time violently discriminatory against anyone who will not preach their particular collectivist gospel. The social collectivist model is by every definition a form of cultism, and in most cases the god of this cult is the state. It treats the state as an infallible omnipotent presence: mother and father, caretaker and disciplinarian.

To refuse participation is to deny the collectivist god, and the kinds of horrors we read about of the religious zealotry of medieval Christian inquisitions pale in comparison to the death and destruction dealt by modern collectivists.

Their worship of the state is energized by their love of its collective power - the state is the ultimate weapon to those who think they can successfully wield it. The state has the ability to "legally" imprison and/or kill, and it has the ability to threaten such consequences against anyone who refuses to conform to the ideological whims of the people who exploit it. Unless, that is, the victims of the state become revolutionaries. This is the great fear of collectivists in terms of the prepper movement; they see us as potential revolutionaries that could conceivably extinguish their mechanism of control, and they don't like that one bit. The Psychotic Zealotry Of Anti-Preppers Many anti-preppers are not content only to attack the character of the prepper movement - at least, not anymore. You see, despite the rabid attempts to undermine the validity of prepping and dissuade the growth of the movement, preppers are now legion, with millions of active participants and effective alternative media experts who are dominating Web traffic and crushing traditional media into archaic bone meal. We have made the mainstream media a mainstream joke, and this does not sit well in the minds of statist adherents who once had the power to bottleneck all discussion. If we are so desperately fringe, there would be no need to write unprovoked hit pieces against us to begin with. Who are they trying to convince?

Since they now know they cannot win the war of information, they increasingly foster fantasies of genocide. This quote (in reference to methods for solving the "prepper problem") from the article linked above truly says it all:

"Furthermore, consumed with the heady lust of their own unexpected survival (see any episode of The Walking Dead), and with only expired condoms at their disposal (not even Doom and Bloom stocks birth-control pills) these mouth-breathers will doubtless multiply rapidly, and, ergo, must be stopped before such an advent. That can mean only one thing: key preparation in any disaster for the rest of us (other than a map to all of Wal-Mart's distribution warehouses) is this: be prepared to neuter preppers by any means available. . Not only will such noblesse oblige ensure a stronger gene pool going forward, but hey - those bastards have all the gear and food and fish antibiotics you'll ever need."

And there you have it: the comic book delusion of the anti-prepper, so desperate to stop us from stockpiling food and essentials, so disturbed by our local organization and ability to defend ourselves, that they would prefer to see us all "neutered," i. e., killed. Note also the obsession with the sterilization of the gene pool as socialists in their psychotic fury often harken back to their fascist and communist forefathers.

It is perhaps not coincidental that the people most in love with the state are often the first ones to be annihilated by it. Avid lower echelon and middlemen agents of tyranny are in many cases exterminated by the very system they helped to dominance. If they do not meet their demise at the hands of the establishment, then they invariably meet their demise at the hands of those fighting against the establishment.

The problem for anti-preppers is that most of them are weaklings and cowards who are incapable of carrying out their vision of a final program. They have always needed a warrior class mandated by the state to implement the killing they desire. Hilariously, this particular anti-prepper spends 80% of his article shoveling poorly written character assassinations like so much manure as if our concerns of crisis are inconsequential, then goes on to describe his idea of wiping out all preppers and stealing our supplies in the event that the system does collapse. If we are all such "kooks" and paranoid hillbillies, then why even entertain the notion of having us snuffed out so that our stores can be redistributed? Surely, such a collapse will never occur in the midst of our invincible American economy; and, thus, preppers are nothing more than harmless eccentrics wasting our money on boxes of food we won't touch for another 20 years. Right?

History does not support the assumptions of anti-preppers. And throughout history, anti-preparedness people tend to be the first to meet an early demise in the wake of fiscal and social collapse because they have no utility and because, frankly, no one really likes them. They also aren't the brightest bulbs around (the guy actually thinks he's going to find food at a Wal-Mart distribution center after a breakdown in civil order).

Anti-preppers today are promoting violent action against preparedness culture because in the far reaches of their sickly subconscious, they know we are right and that we will not be controlled when the system breaks. These people accuse us of lusting after collapse, when it is in fact they who salivate over mass die-off scenarios in which they fantasize that they will somehow be the survivors despite the fact that they are born victims. They imagine a time when, after the "gene pool has been cleansed," they will rebuild society as a perfect socialist utopia in which every ideology contrary to their own has been erased from all memory, leaving their ultimate prize: a blank slate world to do with as they wish.

The goal behind the prepper movement is simple, not sinister; we seek to defuse crisis before it occurs by providing our own necessities without the need for a mainstream grid that could easily malfunction and a government that is corrupt beyond repair. If your neighbor is a prepper, be thankful, for you have one less person on your street to worry about as a potential looter during an emergency. If your neighbor is an anti-prepper, beware, for this person sees you as a potential source of supply and thinks you owe him merely because you have something he does not. The bottom line is if the world were full of preppers, there would be no such thing as crisis because there would be no lack of necessity or individual ingenuity. In the land of preppers, disaster vanishes. When was the last time an anti-prepper did anything to improve anything for anyone other than himself? Ask yourself which you would rather be in the end: ready for anything or ready for nothing?

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 America's Coming Guerrilla War
http://thecommonsenseshow.com/2013/07/01/americas-coming-guerrilla-war/

by Dave Hodges - thecommonsenseshow.com
July 1, 2013

How many of you believe that this country is plunging head first into a state of revolution? How many of you believe that a planned currency collapse coupled with the implementation of a brutal martial law and gun confiscation will be the trigger events which will incite the coming revolution?

revolution 2nd americanMany of us in the alternative media believe that this is the likely scenario that will very soon turn this country into the most dangerous planet on the face of the earth. It might behoove us to look a little closer at the nature of revolution in order to predict where all of this is likely headed. In the present political climate, I see no way to stem the tide of unthinkable brutality and violence which seems imminent. It is in this mindset that I set about to research the topic of revolution and this series of articles reflects the results of the research. And as a result of past and common patterns of revolution, it appears as if a clear picture is beginning to emerge.
Four Levels of Warfare

Most military strategists identify four levels of conflict; (1) nuclear war is the trump card of all conflict; (2) conventional warfare; (3) guerrilla warfare; and, (4) terrorism.

It is safe to say that if our country does indeed descend into revolution, nuclear war will not come into play, for if it did, there would be nothing to rule over in the aftermath.

The United States has witnessed civil war of a conventional nature In the 1860?s as two mighty armies of that era locked horns in what proved to be the conflict in which America suffered her greatest loss of life. In the Civil War, both sides had equivalent weaponry and as a result employed conventional tactics. However, given the disparity of technology and resources between the people the globalist controlled forces of the government, a conventional war would prove to be a disaster for the rebel forces. If key elements of the military were to break away and support the people, perhaps a conventional war would unfold. However, it is not likely that the upcoming civil war will be conventional as it is not probable that the military will bifurcate and turn in on itself. The likely mode of the revolutionary war conflict facing the people of the United States is that it will consist of either guerrilla warfare or terrorism.
Guerrilla Warfare Or Terrorism?

guerrilla war 2Terrorism is the least preferred option by any insurgent group. With terrorism, there is absolutely no hope of final victory because territory is never occupied. For that reason, nobody aspires to engage in terrorism if they have a viable alternative and the American people do have a choice given how well armed we are. However, terrorism arising out a defeated guerrilla force is a distinct possibility as it would represent American guerrilla's fallback position should they be defeated. Subsequently, does the MIAC Report which labeled Libertarians, Constitutionalists, Second Amendment Supporters, Ron Paul Supporters, Veterans and now Christians as domestic terrorists, make a little more sense as to why DHS made these bold proclamations? DHS understands has demonstrated their understanding of these facts and has prepared for what I just wrote about in the previous paragraph.

The Veterans Administration estimates that there are approximately 21.5 million veterans living in the United States. We also live in a country with over 300 million privately owned guns. These combined factors point clearly to a guerrilla war being the preferred and necessary mode of combat which will likely be visited upon the this country.
What Is Guerrilla Warfare?

Guerrilla warfare, for most of human history, is not new. Tribal war, which traditionally pits one guerrilla force against another, is the oldest form of warfare. The new "conventional" form of warfare, which pits guerrillas against "conventional" forces, is more recent as it arose in Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago.

The good news for future American freedom fighters is that guerrilla war has been getting more successful since 1945, but unfortunately guerrilla fighters still lose most of the time. An analysis of past conflicts featuring guerrilla war, reveals that only 25% of guerrilla forces, out of 443 such conflicts since 1775, were successful. The government prevailed almost 64% of the time with the remainder of the conflicts ended in a stalemate. Conversely, since the end of WWII, the percentage of success for guerrilla forces has indeed gone up to 39.6%. Yet that still means that government forces have continued to prevail 51% of the time. When the American people engage in a guerrilla war in the upcoming years, the people have less than a 40% chance of success.
Length of Guerrilla Wars

Guerrilla wars are rarely short and as a result do not favor the American culture and our collective psyche of instant gratification. When Americans flip the switch on the wall, we expect the light to come on. Will Americans set aside their entitlements as well as their entrenched soft lifestyle and rise to the occasion? Only time will tell.

The Vietnamese culture with an external locus of control predominating the people where the group is more important than the individual is the perfect mindset for guerrilla fighters. This could prove to be the American rebels biggest challenge because guerrilla warfare is not something that one does like driving over a speed bump. It is a way of life, a very hard way of life filled with misery, extreme sacrifice and unspeakable losses.

For my money, the best guerrilla fighters in the modern era were the Viet Cong in which Vietnamese people were involved in some form of guerrilla war from 1942-1975. After the Americans invaded Vietnam, the forces in the north had a saying, "born in the north, to die in the south." There were nearly two generations of Vietnamese people in which war was an unavoidable part of life. What General Westmoreland and LBJ failed to recognize was that in order to defeat and totally subdue the Vietnamese people, the Americans would have had to have engaged in unspeakable genocide because despite the fact that the US won every single battle of the war, the Vietnamese rebels were never going to give up. Do we Americans have that same tenacity to persevere like the Vietnamese?

Prior to WWII, guerrilla wars lasted an average of seven years. Following WWII, guerrilla conflicts lasted an average of 10 years. Will Americans embrace the tenets and sacrifices of guerrilla war and can it ever become a way of life? I believe that conditions would have to be unspeakably horrendous for America to embrace a conflict under these conditions. I think that things would have to be so bad, so completely genocidal, that fighting and dying would be the only viable alternative for America in order to embrace guerrilla warfare as a way of life. What I am saying here is that we are a very soft people.
How Close Are We to the Inevitable Conflict?
Vo Nugyen Giap, the architect of the Viet Cong strategy.

Vo Nugyen Giap, the architect of the Viet Cong strategy.

Successful guerrilla leaders such as Lawrence of Arabia, Mao, Castro and Giap all concur that there are three phases of any guerrilla war. However, before the phases can unfold there are two preconditions which must be met.

The first condition which is a prerequisite for guerrilla war, is based upon the fact that there has to be a decisive battle for the belief systems of the people as a whole. The globalists have invested billions of dollars in order to dominate the mainstream media. On the other side is the alternative media. Both sides are vying for control of the belief systems of the country.

There are two very distinct ideologies playing out today in the court of public opinion. On one hand, the future rebels are adept at exposing the loss of national sovereignty and civil liberties every chance they get. Conversely, the globalist dominated media is spending billions of dollars to convince the masses that there is no such thing as a conspiracy theory and despite some governmental incompetence, the government loves and protects its people. And the globalists are being somewhat effective. Have you ever noticed that when you are describing a globalist inspired conspiracy such as what happened at Benghazi, and no matter how well documented your position is, that your audience frequently responds with "you must be one of these conspiracy theorists." Our facts are rarely attacked because they are accurate, but the idea of the existence of any kind of conspiracy is what is challenged. This kind of programming coming from the media is brilliant and effective. Who is winning this war of words? The jury is still out, but the unmistakable conclusion is that the ideological battle lines for the upcoming conflict have clearly been drawn.

media controlThe globalists sell the sheep on the notion that we have to control you to protect you (from a threat of our creation), and the other side is saying "we will take our chances, give us freedom."

The second precondition which must be met prior to descending into guerrilla war consists of both sides engaging in an arms race. In response to the Obama administration's threat of seizing our guns for the false flag events of the Aurora Batman massacre and Sandy Hook, Americans went on a gun-buying frenzy which continues to this day. DHS has engaged in their own arms buildup as they have purchased 2.2 billion rounds of ammunition to go with 2700 new armored personnel carriers and that is not all. The federal government has invested in 30,000 drones, super soldier robots and intelligence gathering techniques which are mind-blowing. As an aside, Snowden's public revelation related to the extent of the NSA's illegal surveillance activities contained nothing that most of us in the alternative media did not already know. It is my belief that Ed Snowden knows a lot more than has been reported related to the reasons underlying the spying and the media is refusing to report on it.

In summary, the American people and their government have engaged in an arms race very similar in nature to two rival countries preparing to go to war.
Conclusion

The preconditions for armed conflict and the likelihood that the conflict will be guerrilla is very likely. In Part Two of this series, an analysis of the commonalities between past guerrilla conflicts (e.g. Giap, Mao, Castro, etc.) will be offered. Emerging from the discussion in the next part in this series is the discovery of the fact that there three overlapping phases to guerrilla war and it will be a shocking surprise to all of us as to how far along this country is in relation to these three phases. All that is needed is the right trigger event and that will be discussed in the next part as well.

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Studying TEOTWAWKI: Why the "Smartest Men in the Room" are Worried, by F.S.

By James Wesley, Rawles on June 4, 2010 10:17 PM
http://www.survivalblog.com/2010/06/studying_teotwawki_why_the_sma.html

Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse, by James Wesley Rawles.

In recent American memory the fundamental game changers were the dual warnings of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. These two events demonstrated that man-made and natural disasters could seriously disrupt a modern society, and that governmental plans were insufficient to respond quickly to large scale events. These events have spawned a large and growing body of work on emergency response and mitigation. The flagship publication is the Journal of Emergency Management, an excellent source of articles running the full gamut of neosurvivalist concerns, a mission shared since 1993 (in the wake of the governmental failure to properly respond to Hurricane Andrew) by the Federal Emergency Management Higher Education Program, itself designed to research and educate in areas of emergency planning concerns.

During the Cold War national attention was focused on fallout bunkers and bomb shelters and there was little public interest in broader problems associated with societal collapse until the mid-90s. That it has now reached a point of near universal concern at operational and strategic planning levels is most evident in the last couple of years. While the nuclear Civil Defense Programs of the 1950s and 1960s are well-known, there was little focus by federal planners on other societal threats until the creation of FEMA in 1979, which slowly expanded from almost purely nuclear civil defense to the current focus on full spectrum and or integrated all-hazards disaster response. Prior to this it was assumed local and state agencies would lead disaster response, and they often did not. Cold War preparations assumed a Federal-Individual partnership, in which the government assisted individuals by preparing self-help programs for citizens protection. The classic example was the backyard bomb shelter for individual families, a mitigation program continued today with state block grants usable for individual family safe rooms or in-ground tornado shelters. To highlight the American public s general unwillingness to prepare, at the height of the Cold War fewer than 3% of the population had taken any personal measure to defend against radioactive fallout. Current assessments (following the U.S. Government s introduction of the Ready preparedness program in 2003) of those likely to prepare for disasters typically include the following characteristics:
1. Pays attention to the news
2. Aware of and concerned about socio-environmental threats
3. Has personal experience with disasters
4. Has children in the home
5. Has strong community relationships (church, civic organizations, etc.)
6. Has disposable income available to make preparations
These characteristics are important because the surge in neosurvivalism is often attributed to religious, suburban professionals with families. These are the people, to be frank, with the awareness, good sense, and money necessary to make preparations capable of producing a meaningful result.

As much as government agencies and private industry have embraced a general preparedness philosophy in recent years, it often seems as if academia largely undermines civil defense strategy. Books such as The Imaginary War, One Nation Underground, and Bracing for Armageddon seek to ridicule and discredit preparedness concepts in general, arguing the government cannot be trusted to deal truthfully with the public on such measures (a mantra most obvious in the media frenzy over the duct tape and plastic advisement issued by the new Department of Homeland Security in 2003). That this view often emanates from those corners which often wish for more government and more governmental control a schizophrenic position perched perilously on the anti-nationalism ideas of Eric Hobsbawm and Ernest Gellner, and the liberal-democratic faith in deterministic concepts of man s inevitable progress. It s important to consider that media treatments of private individuals engaged in preparedness typically attack along these lines suggesting that preparedness is a statement of little faith in the government to handle emergencies, and that individuals that do so are dangerous or at least hold dangerous ideas. At the same time, the media typically depicts governmental agencies and programs as necessary, particularly if their budgets are cut. Often journalists interview academics who seem to invariable fall in line with depictions more appropriate for Cold War interpretations of governmental malfeasance than the day-to-day realities of a post-9/11 and Katrina world. This and raw political partisanship explains much of the disconnect the average American feels about his place in society. That this can manifest in profoundly important political ways (such as the Security Moms so often depicted in the media in 2004) only adds to the lack of clarity in the general consciousness of the population.
Fundamentally, Americans having been asking themselves questions such as Is it wise to prepare for disaster? If so, how much is enough? To what degree should I believe the government or the media? Journalists and leftist academics generally provide a negative reply.

It s important to understand that the above actually represents a very small contrarian academic view, and that generally academic specialists support the conclusions of neosurvivalism. Researchers such as Tainter, Diamond, and Zartman all find the modern state as an incredibly imperiled and fragile edifice. Joseph Tainter s The Collapse of Complex Societies follows in the footsteps of earlier historians such as Oswald Spengler s Decline of the West and Arnold Toynbee s A Study of History in that it predicts that societies do not enjoy progress endlessly, that eventually societies reach a point of diminishing returns when solutions to their problems invariably cost so much that they create more serious problems. This is an assessment shared by Vaclav Smil in his book Global Catastrophes and Trends. Smil foresees a connection between global stability and energy consumption; military and economic engines are powered by the energy source of the nation, a reduction in which can create substantial geopolitical problems. Peak Oil researchers will find much to agree with in Smil s work.

Jared Diamond is a Pulitzer Prize winning academic whose work Guns Germs and Steel was followed by his equally impressive Collapse: How Human Societies Fail or Succeed. Diamond comes down on the side of environmentalist fears as a major threat to human civilization, though to his credit he s more than willing to entertain a joint effort at sustainability with corporations. That Diamond s Collapse has received positive reviews buttresses the idea that societies can indeed fail, and that human action or inaction can cause that collapse. Posner s book, Catastrophe: Risk and Response, comes to similar conclusions as Diamond, and his exploration of events which can wipe out humanity and how we should rationally respond to them is a remarkable read.

William Zartman s book Collapsed States uses post-colonial African Nations as the subject for his study of how nations cannot easily be put back together. Once a polity collapses, he ominously predicts, only a powerful outside force can reestablish its authority, and even the success of such operations is spotty at best (as U.S. adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan can attest). The typical result is ongoing instability, tribalism, and intranational violence. Zartman is supported by R.J. Rummel s work on what he calls democide in his book Death by Government, which demonstrates that failed states are generally highly active in either perpetrating or supporting genocide. Mary Kaldor comes to similar conclusions in her work, including her excellent book Old Wars, New War. Fearing one s government as an agent of violence against its own citizens is not paranoia it s an academically supported position, and a cause c l bre of the Amnesty International and its supporters.

Finally, consider the concept of societal collapse, something that Mr. Rawles and many others write about. This too is a well-studied and supported concept in academia. George Mason University economist Robin Hanson has this to say about it: While there are many kinds of catastrophes that might befall humanity, most of the damage that follows large disruptions may come from the ensuing social collapse, rather from the direct effects of the disruption. He also goes on to say that if individuals vary a lot in their resistance [to disaster], however, then it may pay to increase the variance in such resistance, such as by creating special sanctuaries from which the few remaining humans could rebuild society. Archaeologists Harvey Weiss and Raymond S. Bradley have said that The archeological and historical record is replete with evidence for prehistoric, ancient and pre-modern societal collapse. These collapses occurred quite suddenly and frequently involved regional abandonment, replacement of one subsistence base by another (such as agriculture by pastoralism) or conversion to a lower energy sociopolitical organization (such as local state from interregional empire). Thomas Homer-Dixon s work, such as Environment, Scarcity, and Violence maintains (as an extreme simplification) that environmental scarcity results, ultimately, in violence (something Smil and many other scholars have concluded). That these scarcity issues cannot always be solved is something Homer-Dixon explores in his book The Ingenuity Gap. The result is fragmentation and destruction, if not extinction.

What I have attempted to do here is layout the academic and intellectual work that has been done in support of neosurvivalism. This is necessarily only a short introduction to the topic, and it focuses only on the academic research angle, the books published largely through academic presses such as Oxford University Press, MIT Press, and Princeton University Press. These books are read mostly by policy makers and planners, generally not by journalists or non-specialists. The reason I have focused on these is to inform the general neosurvivalist community of the immense support that government and academia provide for them as they make individual contingency plans. When faced with family members and others who are dubious about the practice of emergency preparedness, a library stocked with the texts I listed above may be the very best tools available because they may help convince loved ones of the importance of emergency preparedness.

In closing, the U.S. government has been urging American citizens to prepare for nuclear war since 1947, for all-hazards emergencies since the late 1970s, for terror attacks since 1999, and for national health disasters, such as pandemics, since 2006. Every U.S. state has a disaster management agency, which often has funds available for disaster mitigation in individual homes. The Red Cross urges emergency preparedness as well, including the requirement for two weeks of food at home and one gallon of water per person per day, as well as the packing of an evacuation bag, with three days food and water in it. The reason people do not prepare is because they do not match the criterion I listed above they either do not have the disposable income (meaning they choose to spend family funds on other priorities) or they are unaware of the dangers to which they are exposed. In addition, academic researchers from the best universities have produced copious evidence to support any number of rational preparation schemes, to include preparation for total societal collapse. Following the recommendation of the government disaster planning agencies and the scholars who specialize in studying disasters is the result of neither paranoia nor foolhardiness. It is prudent, logical, and rational. Pretending none of this is an actual threat, and refusing to make even the most basic preparations, is lunacy.

The following academic texts may prove interesting to the general survival community. These are not how-to survival texts, but nevertheless are books very worth the reading because they help the reader to understand the potential survival situation which may result from a disaster or societal collapse. (And this alone is an invaluable service for emergency planners, institutional or individual.) Those marked with an asterisk are, in the author s opinion, especially useful:

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Surviving Hyperinflation: An Update

by Eric Englund

http://lewrockwell.com/englund/englund54.1.html
by Eric Englund
Recently by Eric Englund:
Ford Motor Company, Goldman Sachs, the SEC, and the New  Wall Street

    

 

In the early 1980s, Harry E. Figgie, Jr. (the founder of Figgie International, Inc.) became concerned that the United States government was following the same destructive path that lead countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, and Brazil into hyperinflationary economic collapse. In the 1980s, each of these South American countries were running massive annual deficits, were accumulating unmanageable national debts, and each respectively had a central bank creating money, out of thin air, at a reckless pace. In looking at the frighteningly similar profligate behavior, on the part of the U.S. Government, Mr. Figgie became concerned that hyperinflation could emerge in the United States as well.

PARDON THE INTERRUPTION

I wrote the opening paragraph, and the balance of this essay, in January of 2004. Since then, the national debt has grown from $6.9 trillion up to $11.4 trillion an increase of about 65%. Uncle Sam s unfunded liabilities now exceed $100 trillion. Per the Federal Reserve s own data, the United States monetary base has skyrocketed from $735 billion, in January of 2004, to over $1.7 trillion today. To believe that the paper tickets in my wallet, Federal Reserve Notes, will somehow gain value over time has always struck me as absurd. In my opinion, the stage has been set for an explosion in the prices of everyday goods and services. Economists Robert Murphy and Thorsten Polleit have recently written essays (linked here and here) affirming my trepidation. To be sure, I firmly believe tough economic times, marred by harsh inflation, lie ahead of us.

AND NOW, BACK TO THE ESSAY

As a businessman and an entrepreneur, Harry Figgie was concerned that his business enterprises may not survive if his management teams were not prepared to operate under the unstable conditions wrought by heavy inflation. Since little had been written about managing a business under hyperinflationary conditions, Mr. Figgie initiated a research project to find out what a business must do to survive the ravages of inflation. So, in his own words, here is what he decided to do:

As a result, we initiated research of our own, and chose our target South America specifically Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina as the best available examples of economies suffering high inflation rates.

We put together a three-person team headed by Dr. Gerald Swanson, a University of Arizona economist and director of the Academy for Economic Education.

The team went to South America four times over a two-year period to study the development of inflation and its impact on businesses, individuals and governments. They interviewed 80 leading bankers and industrialists and a considerable number of ordinary citizens throughout Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia.

As a result of this research, Dr. Swanson wrote The Hyperinflation Survival Guide: Strategies for American Businesses; which was first printed in 1989. The superb content of this book can be attributed to Mr. Figgie s foresight and to the outstanding research and writing of Dr. Swanson. What follows are a brief "Austrian" perspective about this book and then specific details regarding the book s content.

AN AUSTRIAN PERSPECTIVE

The Hyperinflation Survival Guide: Strategies for American Businesses is a book that provides sound business strategies for business managers and entrepreneurs to implement when operating a business under economic circumstances in which monetary calculation becomes increasingly difficult due to a rapid decline in money s purchasing power. Although the term "monetary calculation" is not found anywhere in this book, it is crucial to understand monetary calculation is a method of thinking for a businessman. As the extraordinary economist Ludwig von Mises explains in his magnum opus Human Action:

Monetary calculation is the guiding star of action under the social system of division of labor. It is the compass of the man embarking upon production. He calculates in order to distinguish the remunerative lines of production from the unprofitable ones, those of which the sovereign consumers are likely to approve from those which they are likely to disapprove. Every single step of entrepreneurial activities is subject to scrutiny by monetary calculation. The premeditation of planned action becomes commercial precalculation of expected costs and expected proceeds. The retrospective establishment of the outcome of past action becomes accounting of profit and loss.

A tool businessmen use to determine the success or failure of past actions is a financial statement which includes a balance sheet and an income statement. It is important to understand that all entries in the balance sheet and income statement are expressed in terms of money. Under conditions in which money s purchasing power is stable, a businessman can directly correlate whether his company s capital base (i.e. the company s net worth as reflected in the balance sheet) is expanding or contracting depending upon if the company turned a profit or made a loss. Such monetary calculation assists a businessman in deciding to maintain or change a business plan based upon satisfying the ever-sovereign consumer.

But what happens to monetary calculation under conditions of inflation? As Murray N. Rothbard explains in his fabulous book Man, Economy, and State, businessmen may be "tricked" into making poor decisions thus causing consumption of capital:

the inflationary process inherently yields a purchasing-power profit to the businessman, since he purchases factors and sells them at a later time when all prices are higher. The businessman may thus keep abreast of the price increases (we are exempting from variations in price increases the terms-of-trade component), neither losing nor gaining from the inflation. But business accounting is traditionally geared to a world where the value of the monetary unit is stable. Capital goods purchased are entered in the asset column "at cost," i.e., at the price paid for them. When the firm later sells the product, the extra inflationary gain is not really a gain at all; for it must be absorbed in purchasing the replaced capital good at a higher price. Inflation leads him to believe that he has gained extra profits when he is just able to replace capital. Hence, he will undoubtedly be tempted to consume out of these profits and thereby unwittingly consume capital as well. Thus, inflation tends at once to repress saving-investment and to cause consumption of capital.

Indeed, inflation can lead to entrepreneurial error and, thus, to business failure.

SPECIFICS FROM THE BOOK

The Hyperinflation Survival Guide provides excellent strategies for businessmen to adopt and act upon should hyperinflation emerge. Although this book is geared more toward owners/managers of manufacturing companies, operating under inflationary conditions, any businessman (and any individual) can garner sound advice from this insightful book. The four chapters in this book cover financial management, marketing strategies, manufacturing decisions, and industrial relations.

Chapter one of this book titled "Financial Management" can be summed up as follows: "Cash management is the difference between profits and bankruptcy. The single fact that influences every decision is: Time eats money." The following list highlights a few of the important financial-management issues covered in this chapter:

• Make absolutely certain your managers understand the time value of money.

• Never allow your cash to remain idle.

• Good cash management can provide a major source of profit, while poor cash management can destroy a company in a matter of months.

• Be prepared to convert dollars into a stable foreign currency.

• Be aware that the stock market may become an uncertain source of capital.

• Be prepared to maintain more than one set of books.

• Inventory valuation should be based on NIFO (next in first out) rather than LIFO.

• Develop an appropriate inflationary adjustment for capital replacement or the value of your capital will disappear.

Chapter two is titled "Marketing Strategies." Pertaining to the "4Ps" of marketing (price, promotion, place, and product), this book concentrates on pricing and product.

Since government intervention and regulation inevitably become more oppressive during bouts of high inflation, it is important for businesses to sell products with the largest profit margins. As Dr. Swanson points out:

A fact of life in a hyperinflationary economy is the disappearance of products whose controlled price does not cover the cost of production. In Brazil, for example, dairy products such as milk, eggs and cheese became unavailable when the regulated price was set below their production cost.

Likewise, in the United States, high volume products with extensive competition characteristic of many consumer products may be the first to disappear should inflation begin to rise, because they tend to have low profit margins.

With respect to pricing, the book conveys that pricing " policies undergo a dramatic transformation during hyperinflation. Fluid pricing becomes an absolute necessity, and prices must change frequently and sharply to accurately reflect the impact of inflation. True costs become increasingly difficult to track, even as the need to do so grows more important."

For Americans, it is hard to imagine products disappearing from the marketplace let alone having to cope with hyperinflation. Just imagine the nightmare Bolivian businessmen went through, in 1985, when inflation hit 50,000% annualized. Upward price adjustments would have to be made by the hour. These upward adjustments accumulate to the point of seeming absurd. For example, under 50,000% inflation, a $25 necktie would cost $12,525 one year later.

In chapter 3 (titled "Manufacturing Decisions"), Dr. Swanson emphasizes that management must be flexible and innovative. Corporate survival, furthermore, may require radical decisions. For example, during " periods of high inflation, manufacturing operations are particularly hard hit. In fact, in some extreme cases in South America, corporate attempts to survive have led some companies to shut down their manufacturing operations in favor of speculation, which can be a more profitable use of capital." The cold reality here is that the rates of return on speculating in commodities and currencies, under conditions of severe inflation, may exceed the rates of return on capital projects. Correspondingly, this means laborers will lose their jobs.

Other important points, covered in this chapter, include the following:

• Anticipate that your purchasing department will assume a more important role in the long-run survival of your firm.

• Be aware that hyperinflation creates increased opportunities for corruption.

• Effective cost control requires that you develop methods for estimating your internal rate of inflation.

• Anticipate difficulty in maintaining capital expenditure programs.

Chapter 4 of this book is titled "Industrial Relations." It could just as easily be titled "Employee Relations." As Dr. Swanson and his team discovered in South America, the impact of hyperinflation on wages and benefits was stunning. For instance, " Brazilian employees who were not given raises in the first three months of 1988 watched their buying power plummet 64 percent. Even worse was the spring of 1985, when Bolivians saw their real income drop 90 percent in only three months." Such bouts of inflation become especially difficult for businessmen to cope with as inflation is inflicted upon society by a government s reckless monetary creation (out of thin air) while, in turn, government regulations for the alleged purpose of controlling inflation prevent employers from granting raises to employees. Employers, unfortunately, take the brunt of the blame for the declining living standards (that employees experience during bouts of severe inflation) when government is the real culprit.

As standards of living decline, Dr. Swanson found that " individuals tend to seek the support of a group to represent them in order to survive constantly rising prices." He further articulated:

This is certainly true in Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina, where the union movement is very strong in both the public and private sectors. Some South American business leaders go so far as to complain that union leaders actually use hyperinflation to their own advantage, recognizing it as a major source of their power. Because wages continually lag behind rising prices during hyperinflation, there is a near-constant need for negotiations, as union members press their leaders to push for higher wages.

Other notable labor-relations issues covered in this book are summarized below:

• Labor relations staffs should be prepared to face stronger unions and virtually continuous negotiations.

• There is a high likelihood that wages will at some point be frozen, and labor will apply pressure on management to circumvent controls.

• Prepare to shorten pay periods.

• Anticipate morale problems among middle management, which often bears the greatest burden during hyperinflation.

• Consider the type of index you will use for cost-of-living adjustments, and be prepared to make adjustments often.

• Fringe benefits must be adjusted to reflect inflation or they can disappear.

This book s appendix provides a nice bonus as it covers the disastrous results of the wage and price controls President Nixon implemented to "combat" the United States 4.7% inflation rate and its 5.8% unemployment rate. Two of the most notable actions President Nixon undertook on August 15, 1971 included an immediate 90-day freeze on wages, prices, salaries and rents and of course, the reprehensible floating of the dollar; by severing the last vestige of the dollar s linkage to gold. For a president to assert that severing the dollar s link to gold will help reduce inflation completely defies logic. In reality, what President Nixon "accomplished" was to enable the federal government to create money without limit. How such an irresponsible action can be construed to be anti-inflationary is a sad testimony to the economic illiteracy of the American populace.

To buttress the point, about economic illiteracy, here is an excerpt from this book s appendix:

Domestic reaction to Nixon s proposal was overwhelmingly positive. Leaders of the nation s corporate giants, believing that some sort of action was overdue, responded with general enthusiasm, and opinion polls showed broad support among the populace.

Financial markets reacted with unprecedented gains, as trading on the New York Stock Exchange hit a record 31.72 million shares, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average set a one-day record by climbing 33 points. Bond prices also rose sharply in heavy trading

In all, President Nixon implemented four phases of wage and price controls, with the final phase ending in April of 1974; and the results were predictably terrible. There were, for example, shortages of beef and textiles. Prices rose, moreover, at an average annual rate of 6 percent while the controls were in place, yet in the eight months following the end of Phase IV, prices climbed at an annualized rate of over 12 percent.

CONCLUSION

Of the books published regarding hyperinflation, this may be the only one that provides effective strategies for operating a business under conditions of a rapidly depreciating currency. To reiterate, The Hyperinflation Survival Guide: Strategies for American Businesses was written by Dr. Gerald Swanson an associate professor of economics at the University of Arizona. Harry E. Figgie, Jr. sponsored the research and the original production of this book. As it was originally printed in 1989, it was way ahead of its time. This, however, does not change the fact that Dr. Swanson s book will prove to be an excellent resource for businessmen and individuals once the Federal Reserve's destruction of the U.S. dollar enters its terminal stage.

Let me close with a little bit of sobering humor:

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers. ~ Richard Feynman (1918 1988)

June 29, 2009

Eric Englund [send him mail], who has an MBA from Boise State University, lives in the state of Oregon. He is the publisher of The Hyperinflation Survival Guide by Dr. Gerald Swanson. You are invited to visit his website.

Copyright 2009 Eric Englund

 

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http://www.321gold.com/editorials/mathid/mathid101508.html

It is Time Sam Mathid Oct 15, 2008 What is beyond the collapse? The construction of the collapse was loosely as thus: Governments inflated their currencies. Malinvestment resulted To cope with the problems of malinvestment, governments inflated their currencies more. Huge malinvestments resulted. To cope with the problems of huge malinvestments governments inflated their currencies hugely. Currencies utterly collapsed (still playing out). The feeble construction known as the world economy has been held together with the glue of lies and pathetic conceits such as: Pieces of paper printed by governments, and not backed by anything of value, could successfully be used instead of real money. Wealth creation could be separated from production. The more control government took of the economy, the stronger the economy would be. The disintegration of the moral, spiritual and intellectual fabric of the western world had nothing to do with governments control of the economies. I have had readers make the point that if the whole edifice was built only on an illusion of wealth creation, then how come there was so much prosperity for the last few decades? The answer to that is horribly simple. We expropriated and wasted not only such real wealth (production) as there has been in the present times, but we wasted the accumulated wealth of all the preceding generations, and finally (and most disgusting of all) we then went into vast debt and consumed the wealth of future generations. The whole lot, every last nickel, has either been doled out in the gutter of political corruption, or flushed down Wall Street's slimy drain; all abetted by a malign, mumbo-jumbo nonsense called Keynesian economics. Nowhere is there reference to prior criminality and stupidity on such a grand scale. There is no historical precedent. For three generations the public have been lied to and lulled into a false sense of security by the media, by the education system and by governments. Now, more than ever, there is a desperate need for the truth. The restoration of hope for the future can only begin with the truth. A foundation of truth is the bedrock of any decent society, which is why the enemies of freedom seek so desperately to suppress it, and why sane people value the virtue of truth so highly. The truth is that the current system has become corrupted beyond possibility of repair, and needs to be allowed to collapse. It will do so anyway, whether we 'allow' it or not. It must collapse, so that something more attuned to the genuine needs of people can be created. Destruction must often precede creation... slums have to be razed before fine living quarters can be constructed. When a system is corrupt it will attract only corrupt people and only the corrupt will flourish. We have provided history with a wonderful example of that. Look at the legislators who sit in not only the American Congress, but in the UK and Australian parliaments, and in governments all across the western world. Only an utterly corrupt system could elevate and reward such second-rate people. As of this morning I see that the DOW rose almost 1000 points overnight in the US. This on the promise of politicians taking firm action. Looking to politicians to effect a solution for this situation is as futile as poking around in a parrot's entrails in an attempt to divine Saturday's winner at Randwick. Bush claims that it is an effort to preserve the free market. The free market needs no help, it needs less hindrance. It is government 'help' that has killed the economy. As Reagan once said: "the nine most scary words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.' It's actually eleven words, but what's a 20% error with any government figure. Look at the criminals who infest Wall Street, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury. How foolish and shifty they look as they sit blinking in front of the television cameras struggling to provide coherent answers to simple questions; and yes, on one level it is laughable, but that is our money and wealth that has been destroyed. That is the material present and future of our families that has been stolen. Our education system is run by people whose job is to ensure that children attain adulthood without gaining any dangerous ideas about personal integrity or individual responsibility. Our media no longer even pretends to publish the news, they are merely organs of propaganda for the government, and for those vast corporations allied to government. It is time to be done with all our institutions. No part of what we have is worth saving. The corruption has penetrated and permeated from the very top to the very bottom. Society has been rotted down to the last point of resistance... the core level of the family and individual. The institutions have become a part of the problem, not the solution. The solutions can now only be at the level of the family and the individual. We need a new system which allows people (who, despite all inducements to be otherwise, are mostly honest, hard working and decent) to produce and prosper. A system that allows everyone the rewards of their efforts. A system that keeps government locked away, not only by Constitutionally binding laws (we tried that), but by harsh and prescribed penalties for the flouting of those laws. We need a system that keeps government completely out of the economy. The first great breakthrough in the establishment of boundaries between government and people was the separation of the State from Religion, the second will be the separation of the State from Money and the Economy. There is no place for government in monetary or financial dealings between free people. No matter the occasional foibles and failings of individuals, people will always be as saints compared to the systemized criminality that infests our corridors of power. When government pokes its dirty and self-serving legislation into the economic pie, there is an immediate corruption of that pie. The pie then gradually deteriorates until eventually and inevitably the economic pie becomes so rotten that it collapses. That is the point where we now find ourselves. Eventually people are going to find out how it is that they have been ripped off so grossly. At that point the expression of the voice of the people will move from the sedateness of the ballot box to the get down and dirty level of the streets. What is important is that people's wrath is directed toward the right target. There are many easy yet wrong targets such as neighbours, other races, immigrants, religions etc. The right target is governments. The criminality and breathtaking greed of Bankers and Wall Street, that has brought the whole western world to its knees, could never have happened without the legislative complicity of government. Our western system of governments, not just the American system, are rotten to the core. Definitely the American system is more corrupt than any other, but that is only a matter of degree, not of standard. It is time for a revolution, but not just more of the same old mindless and horrendous violence of the 20th Century, with its pointless wars. Another century spent fighting wars to determine which is the best form of total government control of monetary and fiscal affairs would likely see the end of the human race. A pox on all of those governments. The original Constitution of the United States of America would be a good starting point, but with changes sufficient to ensure that the errors of the past could not again happen. It is time for the second American revolution. America is the only place with the tradition of freedom and the intellectual underpinning (not to mention the arms) to make it happen. There would be many willing and happy to come and help. There must again be a beacon for freedom in the world. The fight is not just for the future of America, but for the future of the world. Many in the American intelligence and military, from the top to the bottom, would renege on their allegiance to the government in an instant in the event of a revolution. They are deeply troubled by the nature of the system that they serve. Indeed, it is possible that there are very few who would fight to keep the current elitist system intact. Bush has already deployed the First Brigade of the Third Infantry Division within mainland America. More troops are to follow. Will these troops remain reliable and true for the elites against their own countrymen? Hard to say... especially for the elites. Bush's striking down of Posse Comitatus, which disallowed the use of the US military on home soil, is a double edged sword. It is a decision and a precedent that could come back to haunt him. It would be easy to argue the merits of a military coup in America. The arrest of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Hank Paulson, Robert Rubin et al with the dissolution of Congress, followed by an announcement of immediate criminal investigations into the whole upper hierarchy of the political and financial establishment would, after the initial shock had subsided, have massive public support. Colin Powell sitting in the White House and presiding over a new Constitutional Convention would do a lot to reassure Americans and the rest of the world that America was serious about addressing its problems. Maybe the military are the one institution that could redeem themselves. The fortresses of our ruling elites around the world were almost impregnable during the complacency of the past few decades. That complacency, born of the illusion of prosperity, is about to be replaced by a public rage, born of the reality of an imposed poverty. The time for truth is now, and the truth is that it is time to bring down the fascist and socialist elites and their Keynesian economic cronies who have destroyed so much and so many. Is my message 'doomy'? Absolutely not, it is a message of hope and salvation. Could poverty, violence, war, hatred, sickness, moral rot and spiritual oblivion become worse in this century than it was in the last? Only if we allow a continuation of the same corrupt monetary system. We are in a vast debtor's prison and the guards are the very people who created the monetary system that ensured the financial ruin. Not only is the message hopeful, but throwing these criminal and pompous bums into jail, or out into the street, would be a lot of fun. Sam Mathid

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"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American... There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

Theodore Roosevelt 1907

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"Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."
--Friedrich Nietzsche

DON'T BEAT YOURSELF UP WORRYING -- JUST PREPARE!
"All you can do is all you can do, and all you can do is enough;
the rest is God's grace." - Christos

"Once a government resorts to terror against its own population to get what it wants, it must keep using terror against its own population to get what it wants.  A government that terrorizes its own people can never stop. If such a government ever lets the fear subside and rational thought return to the populace, that government is finished." - Michael Rivero

"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind" - John F. Kennedy

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

"If man will only realize that it is unmanly to obey laws that are unjust, no man's tyranny will enslave him." - Mahatma Gandhi

"Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God." - Thomas Jefferson