Remember the head cage with the rat in it in the movie “1984.” I like rats but that was too close up and intimate. That is where we are going, folks. We are headed for a full blown police state presided over by a man who was always a screamer in private. not Uncle Joe. No! No! I have been there while he raved, “Hey c’mon man …” would be the least of it. This guy goes home to his Wilmington sanctuary just about ever’ weekend. Do they take the dogs along to comfort him. His VP is another flake who dropped out of the Democrat primaries because she was such a phony. She laughs at the idea of going to the border. Why should she? The process of mass immigration is following their game plan. pl
The 3rd POTUS with an anti-America agenda.
Obama (elected twice by a “systematically racist” country) definitely not a fan of the USA and Clinton was borderline with a wife who tried (badly) to disguise her contempt for the country.
Biden is obviously demented, being handled by a coterie of America-haters.
BUT, no more mean tweets and THAT’S what’s important.
People get the government they deserve.
Biden = Harris + Obama + Rice
The Hate America trifecta.
TV,
I think you forgot one. You can make a pretty good case that G.W. Bush should be included in this ignoble company. He, and his pal, Karl Rove, did nothing helpful to the US, and kept the Republicans safely ensconced in Cucksville, all teed up for the 8 years of Obama to follow during which things went beyond attitudes, and on to the institutionalization of the mechanism of centralized tyranny.
I ran across this link in a comment thread. I have made mention of the erosion of the power of the States within the federal republic, and my sense that on the evidence this was entirely by design. This linked post elucidates some of the details missing from my intuitive feeling, and traces the likely consequences emanating therefrom. Not a happy read, but a useful catalogue of things to come if the cabal can get away with it:
https://wirepoints.org/mass-federalization-how-washington-is-bailing-out-failed-states-decapitating-competitive-ones-and-ending-america-as-you-knew-it-wirepoints/
Disagree. I don’t put “W” and Rove in the anti-America camp. Sloppily inept swamp creatures certainly.
TV
“W” – dumb rich kid, “skull and bones,” etc.
If the police state is run by incompetents like the FBI or chickenshit wannabes like the Portland, Seattle or US Capital forces, not a lot to worry about.
I would say the early signs of a police state appeared quite some time ago… but by now the masks are off
EoL
So you are blaming Trump. He never did any of this. Never locked up his opponents, none of this.
Dear Col. Lang,
No, even before Trump.. Obama and Bush Jr were planting these seedlings.
EoL
Which “seedlings” did Trump plant?
I think seedlings were planted by Neocons under the Bush and the Obama administrations. Trump failed to curtail the existing seedlings but I dont believe he was an active part in plating new ones per se. I guess that’s why neocons saw him as such a threat .. whilst he in many ways tried to appease them (leading to things ending the way they did)
I do not blame Trump for the current problems; if Biden ushers in a police state, Trump will be remembered as having fought it to his last breath. Police states are like degenerative diseases. They slip in bit by bit and the patient is not sure whether the symptoms are really bad on any given day. Furthermore, some painful twinges are problems unrelated to the disease.
For example, was the Homestead labor dispute leveraged to maximize tyranny? In my opinion, no, but it was a terrible milestone on the road to a police state. In the end, systematic suppression of labor grievances by Pinkertons paved the way for systematic abuse of civil liberties by traitors in power.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Homestead-Strike
When Lincoln shut down newspapers, that was not a complete police state; it was somewhat dictatorial, but it was happening in the context of war.
https://www.historynet.com/stop-the-presses-lincoln-suppresses-journalism.htm
When Wilson concentrated the nation’s credit for private profit, was that a police state? Probably not, but it certainly accelerated the degeneracy. When FDR assisted Wilson, was FDR planning to build a police state? Probably not, but many lovers of liberty blame FDR for many wrongs.
https://www.activistpost.com/2011/09/global-bankers-fdr-us-federal-reserve.html
When J. Edgar Hoover made blackmail into a systematic tool of policy, was that the beginning of the police state? At that point, the degenerative disease was well underway, but the patient was so vigorous and healthy that few people suspected that the disease was present.
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover
Was Prescott Bush a Nazi collaborator trying to make an American police state? No, in my opinion. History was complicated, but Prescott Bush was probably trying to work honestly to get rich honestly. Other members of his family were probably less honest.
https://spartacus-educational.com/MDbushPR.htm
There is a lot of ruin in a nation. There are a lot of people who did selfish, short-sighted things that tempted America away from the lofty ideal of its Founding Fathers. There were a lot of people who lowered their standards and were content to slide downward when they should have struggled to steer their communities back to liberty.
Thanks for the reminder on Bush et famille, Harriman et al. I’ve seen that stuff over the years but to take it all in again at one go is staggering. Think maybe owning the steel and munitions in pre-WWII Germany might stand to benefit from a massive war or two and consequent fifty year superpower hyperarmament standoff? And imagine all the need for pharmaceutical tranquilizers and sedatives. As child, what were our first lessons from cartoons, film, TV and earlier fairy tales? What did our elders and our civilization whisper repeatedly into tender little ears to warn and protect them? Monsters. Beware of monsters. Dracula, the Mummy, Frankenstein, the Werewolves . Super strength. Almost impossible to kill. Silver bullets, wooden stake in the heart under a full moon .. . When the tsunami killed hundreds of thousands in the Pacific people marveled over the animals who broke their fetters and survived on higher ground while all the humans were helpless. But they did find a remote island where curiously the apparently very Stone age people made it. Anthropologists discovered, after deciphering their lullabies for young children that the songs repeatedly said, to unforgettable melody and rythymn — when you see birds flying like this and so on and so forth, and the monkeys scream and the beaches are empty .. then get into the trees in the high places. Those kids who heard those lullabies over and over again lived. The vacationers? Well, good luck young woke duckings. Monsters don’t exist. Nope. Never did. That’s prejudice to even suggest.
Col. Lang and friends,
Here is a link I have been saving against the time that its import finds a convenient occasion on which to share this.
The link is to an article found on the Internet Archive from a blog that has gone dormant, apparently. The reason that I am posting this is that it reinforces the logic advanced by the article hotlinked at the head of your post, Colonel; namely that the pernicious relationship of private corporations acting in concert with the federal (though not exclusively…) government is undermining personal liberties otherwise guaranteed under the Constitution.
The author of this post draws attention to Hayek’s belief that both socialism and fascism culminate in similar results for the citizenry. I share your thought, Colonel, that the trend of affairs, albeit sedulously concealed, on the grand scale is toward fascism. But perhaps as a sop to the socialists, I believe that certain of their pet projects may be instituted so long as the overarching fascist merger of States and Corporations is acceded to, and the authoritarian rule emanates from that quarter.
Anyway, here is the link:
https://web.archive.org/web/20201202193807/https://macris.substack.com/p/tyranny-inc
This post approaches the merged behavior and its benefits to the partners from one perspective. This is pretty negative in its own right.
Yet, further consider the overwhelming amount of information under the aegis of the Social Media corporations being made available to elements of the State to rigidify dictatorial powers in many areas where the current Constitution prohibits direct governmental action, and the evil symbiosis that is arising becomes crystal clear. Corporations/Private Contractors (recall all those “Private Contractors” empowered to access governmental databases which information is then exploited through their combination with social media resources?) can do lots of useful dirty work for the government. And what do they get from this? Impunity, and laws that serve to favor their dominant, or monopolistic positions. In a word, Fascism, unscrupulous authoritarianism, driven by mutual backscratching at the expense of the rule of law, and supposedly enshrined, inherent civil liberties.
Placate the leftists, perpetuate fascist dictatorship. Stick to the plan, and institute The Great Reset.
In the first place, thank you for that link. Like you, I am a Jeffersonian, and from your post, I learned a bit. I admit that I am still foggy on some of the finer points. I hope the wise writers here keeping writing so that I might continue trying to absorb some wisdom.
In the second place, corporations should not have more rights than human beings. The law might demand it, but the law is an ass. The USA should not be afraid to say that its legal traditions went astray and must be pruned back. Big-picture legal theories went awry and the small-scale culture of endless harassment with lawsuits became a form of privatized tyranny.
In the third place, the fact that this blog is located in Iceland is — in a way — grounds for celebration and hope. Although the USA might be sliding down a rocky slope to ruin, as long as the Internet connects Americans to havens of free speech, such as Iceland, some Americans will remember that free speech is possible. We Jeffersonians have no excuse for despair. Further, Trump seems to be planning to roll out a free speech platform. That platform might turn the tide.
In the fourth place, hope is not an excuse for complacency. It would be insouciant to suggest to the man in the street that someone will come from outside and solve all the problems in our lives; thus I am not willing to wait idly for Trump to ride in on a white horse and protect everyone with a shiny new free-speech platform. However, and blind action for the sake of action is likely to weaken our position. I don’t have the wisdom to know when to act, and I don’t have the wisdom to know what action is best for the current situation. Thus I am here, trying to soak up as much wisdom as possible.
Did someone shoot comrade Kirov while I was seasoning the clam chowder? Has Trotsky escaped to Mexico City yet?
Someone or something has taken the Uncle Joe moniker a bit too seriously perclaps?
Maybe a contest for most creative proposal for what NKVD now stands for?
Neo Kleptocratic Volunteers of Dystopia
Not bad. Beats North Korean Vacation Dates.
The people is being tested to what extent they will swallow with curtailing of freedom and basic rights…New Laws rinforcing the police state are currentl ybeing passed in almost all Western countries while the people remain ignorant, as thosewho they think are their representatives are those who are passing these laws, the alleged Euroleft…which equates the neoliberal right as they are commanded by the same people behind the curtains…Almost all countries are passing also “pandemic laws” so that in the future governments do not need to go to Congress to ask for permission to impose an emergency state, lockdowns and mandatory masks and social distancing…Italy is also considering passing a law to punish health workers who do not want to be vaccinated with experimental medical products which will leave them without wage and job…Jumping over the Nuremberg Code, this from a unelected technocratic government which most of italians thought will save them from bankruptcy provoked by the pandemic
Benidorm, Spain, a girl around 50kg weight being severely beated an grossly detained by two cops as if she was a dangerous criminal for walking in the streets some minutes after curfew ( 10pm ) and without mask…a fine would not be enough? What is this for?
https://twitter.com/ciudadfutura/status/1375941736330055681
Meanwhile in The Netherlands, the UK, where people were protesting pandemic measures or a new bill which will constraint more their rights and augment considerably police powers, they were thrown the dogs by the police, as if they were convict fugitives..
In Israel people returning home were put brazelets to keep them `permanently located so as to test they do not break mandatory quaratine…
https://www.i24news.tv/fr/actu/coronavirus/1615976598-israel-covid-19-la-knesset-approuve-l-utilisation-du-bracelet-electronique-pour-les-voyageurs-revenant-de-l-etranger..
But, well, Blinken and the whole NATO are mainly worried about the rights of Myanmar protesters as they were about Hing Kong protesters, as they were about Belarusian protesters…but astonishingly they say nil about all these…nor about Turkey withdrawal from Istanbul Protocol…
Past March 24th, as every year, it is celebrated in Argentine Memory Day…
When they came for the children of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo gave me a damn, since I was neither a children of them, nor a mother or father from amongst them…
https://twitter.com/ComisionOctubre/status/1374851787635748870
The journalist whom they ask for help, from The Netherlands, argues they say these women were lying….Nobody helped them in the whole Western world…
Bristol images…
https://twitter.com/afshinrattansi/status/1375596775315271681
How all is being step by step impossed…
https://twitter.com/Ben_L_Willard/status/1375590200131399682
Terrifying that clip from Spain. Is it any solace to recall that Franco put 186,000 people up against the wall after his victory? Or so I remember reading. Such numbers are often enhanced. Don’t forget Myanmar, also currently gunning down with abandon. You could look at the public mass murders here in the US as a not unrelated phenomenon but we have been desensitized by now and think “oh, just another nut.”
Terrifying is all, not less terrifying was watching how people in The Netherlands was detained by police after a dog was bitting their ankles.
My point is that precisely things like those which happened in Spain after Franco´s victory or in Argentina during Videla´ s dictatorship are returning over us, some who, may be, saw what happening to other people because of their ideas was fine, while it was not happening to them, as they were well adapted to those systems…
A friend was saying the other day at Twitter that such behavior by the police in Spain is just a reflection of all those people which look at you with reprobation when you dare to walk without mask….
No human outrage or genocide happens without some kind of legitimation by the people…
A British Lord who was judge at Supreme Court stated in an interview that these coercitive measures are here to stay.. may be for the next 10 years!…as people have grown accustomed since make them feel safe…
Psychologists say that it gets a month to built a patern, a custom…
Then you take into account that they wake up, have breakfast, have lunch, dinner and go to bed hearing in the radio or the TV unending menaces from growing positive cases, coming nth waves, menaces of coming lockdowns and curfews…
Masks in this escenario act like those soft objects babies use for consolation in absence of the mother´s breast…
Nobody wants to break the enchantement, so that things do not turn even worse, but slowly, step by step, a harsh dictatorship is being impossed..
While all this happens in Spain, the debt of the “bad bank”, that which needed to be rescued with hundreds of thousands of millions of euros in the past 2008 banking crisis, has been translated to the national debt, under Brussels mandate, that is Spanish people never will recover all that money..Do you think this has been discussed in the radio or in the TV?
Even in case this would had reached the public domain and the people would had wanted to protest, protesting in the streets has already been criminalized on the grounds of the pandemic alibi and the worst is that now the people see it well…but, do not complain you can come from every corner of Europe to Madrid to get drunken, and if you pass an antígen test, you can go to a concert very close along other 5000 people in Catalonia…This in spite that current antígen tests loses around 30% of positive cases…
Is it not a neoliberal dream while we are assiting to the greatest crisis of the capitalist system?
Perhaps it’s signs of desperation from a bankrupt state. I can see disaster capitalism coming home to roost , as those sitting on all that debt trade it for remaining public assets. Then wokism will just be trash on the side of the highway.
I think you are on to something.. it might be that the current dollar based globalisation is on its last legs.. and hyperinflation might just be around the corner (if the all those dollars used by the trust of the world come flooding back home, its a done deal). If this happens american standards of living will take an unimaginable drop .. since the government will not be able to fund its deficit by using the printing press. Now that has direct implications to private banks and also credit based consumption. Western governments are preparing for a big economic crash and the elites will use all their means at hand to hold on to power (and excuse themselves for their gross mismanagement).
Sidney Powell responds to the latest media fake news attack on her court statements. She never said ” no one would ever take me seriously”. Worth a read if you want to stay current with her court meet-up with the Brand X voting systems company:
https://defendingtherepublic.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/SPRespondsToFakeNews-1.pdf
NB: Sidney Powell slogged in the trenches for years in the government Enron case, long after the media spotlights stopped shining on this matter, and everything had been “settled”. Except it had not, and she finally won her case.
As long as they keep dishing out fake flack, she remains on target.
National Background Investigations Bureau, formerly under OPM was responsible for conducting most background investigations. The NBIB contracted 4 public companies to assist in doing that in 2016. The NBIB was moved under the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency in 2019. Those public companies are now working for the DCSA. This sounds like the precedence for DHS hiring public companies to scour social media for candidates for the new domestic terror watch lists. It’s the privatization of government functions in both cases. The difference is that to fall under the gaze of DCSA and its contractors, you have to apply for a security clearance. That’s not the case with DHS and its contractors in their search for candidates for the domestic terror watch list. I never liked the DHS and this gives me more reason not to like it. Trump made the DHS into his praetorian guard. Biden is going to do worse with this move.
Wyden and Amash fought the USG surveillance system when they were both in government. We need more of that effort now both in and out of government with senators, congressmen and civil liberties lawyers working in concert.
TTG
I never liked DHS for reasons too numerous to list. “Trump made the DHS into his praetorian guard” How?
I was referring to the more than 700 CPB, ICE and TSA personnel deployed to the White House during the BLM protests/riots, but not to the Capitol. A force of 50 were nearby for the Capitol riot, but unlike during the siege of the White House, the USAG refused to deploy them.
I got a bad, bad feeling when they put “Homeland” in that
agency’s name.. perhaps that was a part of the intent.
That scene from 1984 has been etched in my head since the movie was made. John Hurt’s begging and the sound of the rats. That cage in the shape of some medieval torture device…..After Bush and Iraq why should it be any surprise that they are capable of this. The deep state will not go down silently.
For another great movie that foretells the future check out “Children of Men” by Alfonso Cuaron. Every year that passes the more it matches the real world.
Steven Ogle
You are a cabinet maker?
Yes. For 30 years until I decided to be an artist/sculptor which is how I began my journey into a more “practical” skill after college. No Regrets. The skills acquired and lessons learned have served me well. Not much difference building furniture or sculpture with the exception of the function…..and the overhead costs for the machines! Interest in the craft? I enjoy TTG’s occasional posts about boat building and I’m guessing you and him are friends.
Steve Ogle
I hope so. I worked on a lobsterman when I was in HS. This was “down east.” I have owned several sail boats.
Sail Boats are absolute pieces of fine art/sculpture to me. Once had an opportunity to work for a yacht builder in R.I. but wasn’t willing to be a scab for the opportunity. Always had an attraction for the cloth as well. My sculptures are about not only the object but the space that surrounds it. The force that shapes it. Does your book go into all of this? Looking forward to reading it.
Steve Ogle
If you mean “tattoo” it is about the forces that made me. I think it mentions sailing in several places as well as the lobstah.
This is a good session with our senators at the border:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_U5jlob-P8
MIT researchers puzzled by continuing resistance to the “police state”, explored the personalities of “anti-maskers”. They reached the several conclusions about their obviously sub-culture personalities:
QUOTE FROM ARTICLE COMMENTS ABOUT THE RESEARCH:
………”So, we distrust elites and the medical establishment, preferring instead to get the accurate, hard data ourselves and interpret it in a common-sense, rational way. And we must be stopped, apparently. Oh, the humanity!
“As a subculture, anti-masking amplifies anti-establishment currents pervasive in U.S. political culture,” the paper reads. “Data literacy, for anti-maskers, exemplifies distinctly American ideals of intellectual self-reliance, which historically takes the form of rejecting experts and other elites.
The counter-visualizations that they produce and circulate not only challenge scientific consensus, but they also assert the value of independence in a society that they believe promotes an overall de-skilling and dumbing-down of the population for the sake of more effective social control.
As they see it, to counter-visualize is to engage in an act of resistance against the stifling influence of central government, big business, and liberal academia … Most fundamentally, the groups we studied believe that science is a process, and not an institution.”…………”
UNQUOTE
NB: Makes me long for the 1960’s when “Question Authority” was proudly displayed on every VW van. Or even the 1980’s, when Reagan pronounced the most terrifying words in the world were …..”I am from the government and I am here to help”.
See how some want to remove Fourth Amendment barriors to use of a politicized NSA for domestic surveillance (and many of us know how powerful a tool that would be):
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2021/03/28/senators-on-armed-services-committee-promote-expansion-of-nsa-domestic-data-gathering-and-surveillance-nsa-response-the-fourth-amendment-is-a-key-obstacle-you-need-to-remove/
John Whitehead had a column on his Rutherford Institute website earlier this month that addresses our galloping embrace of the American Police State:
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/digital_trails_how_the_fbi_is_identifying_tracking_and_rounding_up_dissidents
It would appear that our digital addiction is going to be the undoing of our freedom and personal liberty. The FBI has made extensive use of digital data from cell phones to arrest hundreds of those who willingly (or unwittingly) participated in the so-called Capitol riot on January 6th.
I am at the point where I frequently don’t carry my cell phone with me; throw caution to the wind and run errands with the phone sitting at home. No use leaving a crystal clear trail for the ‘authorities’ to follow.
And there’s this from The Diogenes’ Middle Finger website:
Joe Biden & CO. Taking a Wrecking Ball To The Republic
If I had told you five years ago that Joe Biden would put a man who thinks he is a woman in charged of the nation’s healthcare policy, one in favor of using children as a test bed for gender reassignment cultural experiments. Or that he would politicize the US military, or nominate some of the the most hate filled, unamerican, anti-white bigots to high level cabinet and policy decision positions, all while allowing hundreds of thousands illegals to pour over our border, your first reaction would probably be: Joe Biden President???
Yes, the President of the United States, who just said he “doesn’t criticize” China for its goal of becoming “the most powerful country in the world.” That Joe Biden, who was Court Jester of the Barky Obama Administration, now being used to engineer the most wide sweeping transition of the republic since reconstruction. You’d have to be a fool of epic proportions to believe this man, one who was once a sharp minded and respected legislator, who now can barely make a public statement without notecards, is the one swinging this wrecking ball.
Just this weekend we learned Biden’s DHS Head, Alejandro Mayorkas just fired almost all the members of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, a bipartisan panel made up of leaders appointed by both Democrat and Republican DHS secretaries of old, that has existed and provided expertise and advice for years to the secretary’s office.
This would seem the worst possible time to axe such a support, when they are in a middle of a border crisis, with the Biden making all kinds of mistakes and bad policy moves. The Council was non-political and actually knew their stuff. They would see what is going on and wouldn’t be able to be buffaloed. *so down comes the axe*
Meanwhile, Biden has been criticized for appointing yet another retired general to head up the Pentagon, one many believe won’t speak his mind when dealing with a new president and will wreak havoc on civilian-military relations. Yesterday, the new Pentagon chief, General Lloyd Austin, announced US Special Operations Command had made appointment of its first “chief of diversity and inclusion.” This attack of morale, good order, and discipline comes in the form of mandating “diversity and inclusion” (diversity and inclusion do not, apparently, extend to heterosexual males, particularly if they are white).
This takes place as Army Special Forces can no longer attract enough candidates to the selection course to fill vacancies, if anything like standards are maintained. This new Chief of Diversity & Inclusion who brings diversity, inclusion, thick glasses, and a double chin to U.S. Special Operations Command is Mr. Richard Torres-Estrada. What is glaringly absent from his resume is anything remotely related to being part of an organization that has a critical mission…..and a single day spent in uniform. The idea that you are going to pluck a goober like this from a failed organization like the Washington Metro (though they are very happy wallowing in their failure and not terribly concerned about doing anything except failing, so there is that) and have him oversee efforts to ensure more of the right kind of people make it to the top of the Special Operations community is nothing short of bizarre. His tweeter account includes statement comparing DJT to Hitler.
Under a sane president, this deliberate effort to divide the military into opposing camps based on race, ethnicity, and “gender” could have been mitigated. Unfortunately for all of us, we don’t have a sane president. What next? A soviet style Political Officer on all ships and Subs, Bomb Wings and Infantry Units to maintain the proper diversity and gender balance???
This all follows Biden’s his handlers decision to give Biden Rep. Marcia Fudge to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, who, with her $50 Billion budget favors racial equity by planting diversity in your neighborhood and turning your little slice of America into her own familiar Cleveland ghetto.
Then there’s Secretary of Energy: former governor of Michigan Jennifer Granholm, a fossil fuel hating bundle of sweetness who spent most of last year’s campaign season on daily MSNBC programs ranting like a meth head calling most all Republican Nazis, and says you WILL drive an electric car if she has anything to say about it! And at Transportation, little Pete Buttigieg, former mayor that couldn’t fill a pothole in South Bend, but does know a lot about trains, and wants you to rediscover the wonders of a bicycle seat, and unconstitutionally tax your freedom of movement.
Most of all the nominees, this Vanita Gupta chick is the most dangerous of all. Picked as Biden’s associate attorney general, her public record has proved extreme to say the least. She’s an avowed leftist and accused of lying about her stance on defunding the police, qualified immunity, drug legalization, and capital punishment. Her twitter account is most damaging. This is just a sample of what has come to light this last week.
For four years the mantra of the media was DJT was a danger to our democracy. But ladies and gentlemen, what ever that perceived danger DJT supposedly posed, it was nothing compared to what we now face. REAL danger from within by the leftist to our republic. Not imagined, but real.
At best you can hope that these hires are window-dressing for political purposes. You know – suitably hued figurines to smile, wave and bounce up and down in the backseat of limousines en route to important places. (And full pensions with benefits).
Remember the African American individual who was head of Reagan’s Housing and Urban Development in his second term? Huge scandal which of course the NY Times didn’t report on till it was well over. Over $300 million disappeared IIRC. I recall reading that the Dermatologic party had to pay Reverend Jesse several million every time an election took place – just to go away. I’m hoping what you describe is just another instance of the cost of doing business in political America.
Did you see the nonsense over translation of Amanda Gorman’s poetry?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/26/books/amanda-gorman-hill-we-climb-translation.html
Seems them Yurpeens are learnin’ to tow the party line. When I heard a few weeks ago about the Dutch woman’s initial translation being rejected by Ms Gorman (or her hustling rep) because she was .. what’s the correct terminology – white(?) if it’s in lower case “w” — I nearly laughed. But it’s “serious” evidently – our cultural masters at the Gnu Yawk Times say so, so how not? Imagine the Dutch woman not having the presence of mind to not kowtow low enough. Career ended.
Hope is not a strategy.
Having served in the DC cesspool for a couple of assignments, I can tell you the “window dressing” recruits and attracts like-minded people to government.
These people imbed themselves in the bowels of the bureaucracy, toiling away at their agendas. When a Reagan or Trump shows up as President, they covertly and overtly resist the threats to their turf.
The inability to fire these operatives has sealed our fate.
Rethought this one.
A look at history shows that the very effective political police in the Iron Curtain countries were not effective because of competence.
A rigged (more like non-existent) legal system and lots of manpower makes up for lack of competence.
A while back there was a “hide & seek” TV show out of Atlanta that had a short run. The premise was that 2 people would be given a bit of cash & they had to evade the “hunters”(a group of intel & computer folks) for 30 days. Teams that traveled on interstates, used credit cards or ATM’s or cell phones were quickly found. One team that was difficult to catch was found when the hunters posted a reward to their FB friends & they were turned in by a friend for 30 pieces of silver. Another team went to a camp ground in a swamp in eastern SC & sat. After 3 weeks they foolishly decided to celebrate with a fast food meal in a nearby town. They were caught immediately
I used to tease my tin foil hat friends. No more. There is no privacy in modern America. I fear that we are approaching “a time when good men must do evil things.”
Try buying a computer from an Apple store. Don’t have a credit or debit card? No problem – you have cash. Hold on a moment. Produce picture ID (as cameras run) so they match internal chip numbers with ID data (which they can vacuum up remotely if it’s state of the art ID technology). Facial ID tech freaked me out several years ago. Not only were my prescriptions being readied as soon as I entered my local pharmacy – I was certain they knew I was on my way to the store ahead of time. How? Cell phone telling them covertly? Cameras on streets, in buildings? Don’t know. I do know it was very spooky and in NY City under Bloomberg and they were doing all sorts of cutting edge snooper duper security stuff when they weren’t illegally frisking every non- Caucasian hominid out and about. Poor poor Mikey. Cost him his shot at being POTUS.
New depths – this is from a Glenn Greenwald email today which I subscribe to. Entire piece is behind a paywall but here’s a few paragraphs basically newspaper reporters are ratting out defendants in the Jan 6 Capitol invasion and preventing them from raising defense funds online. (Why not just do what Stalin would have done and shoot the lawyers and their families?):
.
FP via Getty Images)
The daily newspaper USA Today is the second-most circulated print newspaper in the United States — more than The New York Times and more than double The Washington Post. Only The Wall Street Journal has higher circulation numbers.
On Sunday, the paper published and heavily promoted a repellent article complaining that “defendants accused in the Capitol riot Jan. 6 crowdfund their legal fees online, using popular payment processors and an expanding network of fundraising platforms, despite a crackdown by tech companies.” It provided a road map for snitching on how these private citizens — who are charged with serious felonies by the U.S. Justice Department but as of yet convicted of nothing — are engaged in “a game of cat-and-mouse as they spring from one fundraising tool to another” in order to avoid bans on their ability to raise desperately needed funds to pay their criminal lawyers to mount a vigorous defense.
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In other words, the only purpose of the article — headlined: “Insurrection fundraiser: Capitol riot extremists, Trump supporters raise money for lawyer bills online” — was to pressure and shame tech companies to do more to block these criminal defendants from being able to raise funds for their legal fees, and to tattle to tech companies by showing them what techniques these indigent defendants are using to raise money online.
The USA Today reporters went far beyond merely reporting how this fundraising was being conducted. They went so far as to tattle to PayPal and other funding sites on two of those defendants, Joe Biggs and Dominic Pezzola, and then boasted of their success in having their accounts terminated:
As of Wednesday afternoon, the Biggs fundraiser was listed as having received $52,201. Pezzola had received $730. Biggs’ campaign disappeared from the site shortly after USA TODAY inquired about it….
Friday, a USA TODAY reporter donated to Pezzola’s fundraiser using Stripe. Stripe told USA TODAY it does not comment on individual users. A USA TODAY reporter was able to make a $1 donation to Pezzola’s fundraiser using Venmo, a payment app owned by PayPal. After being alerted by USA TODAY, Venmo removed the account.
Soon a PayPal account took its place. PayPal caught that and removed it, too.
Wow, what brave and intrepid journalistic work: speaking truth to power and standing up to major power centers by . . . working as little police officers for tech giants to prevent private citizens from being able to afford criminal lawyers. Clear the shelves for the imminent Pulitzer. Whatever you think about the Capitol riot, everyone has the right to a legal defense and to do what they can to ensure they have the best legal defense possible — especially when the full weight of the Justice Department is crashing down on your head even for non-violent offenses, which is what many of these defendants are charged with due to the politically charged nature of the investigation.
The right to a vigorous defense has always been a central cause of mine as a lawyer and a journalist (it also used to be a central cause of left-wing groups like the ACLU, years ago; it was that same principle that caused then-candidate Kamala Harris to solicit donations last summer that went to protesters charged with violent rioting). A federal prosecutor was recently referred for disciplinary procedures for publicly threatening to charge some of these Capitol protesters with sedition, one of the gravest crimes in the U.S. Code. That is how grave the legal jeopardy is faced by these people trying to raise money for lawyers.
What makes all of this extra grotesque is that, as The Washington Post reported, most of those charged with various crimes in connection with the January 6 Capitol riot, including many whose charges stem just from their presence inside the Capitol, not the use of any violence, are people with serious financial difficulties: not surprising for a country in the middle of a major economic and joblessness crisis, where neoliberalism and global trade deals have destroyed entire industries and communities for decades:
Nearly 60 percent of the people facing charges related to the Capitol riot showed signs of prior money troubles, including bankruptcies, notices of eviction or foreclosure, bad debts, or unpaid taxes over the past two decades, according to a Washington Post analysis of public records for 125 defendants with sufficient information to detail their financial histories. . . . The group’s bankruptcy rate — 18 percent — was nearly twice as high as that of the American public, The Post found. A quarter of them had been sued for money owed to a creditor. And 1 in 5 of them faced losing their home at one point, according to court filings.
This USA Today article is thus yet another example of journalists at major media outlets abusing their platforms to attack and expose anything other than the real power centers which compose the ruling class and govern the U.S.: the CIA, the FBI, security state agencies, Wall Street, Silicon Valley oligarchs. To the extent these journalists pay attention to those entities at all — and they barely ever do — it is to venerate them and mindlessly disseminate their messaging like stenographers, not investigate them. Investigating people who actually wield real power is hard.
> This USA Today article is thus yet another example of journalists at major media outlets abusing their platforms to attack and expose anything other than the real power centers which compose the ruling class and govern the U.S.: the CIA, the FBI, security state agencies, Wall Street, Silicon Valley oligarchs. To the extent these journalists pay attention to those entities at all — and they barely ever do — it is to venerate them and mindlessly disseminate their messaging like stenographers, not investigate them. Investigating people who actually wield real power is hard. <
That is one *important* paragraph, as will become even clearer, I think.
Yes. How is it functionally distinct from say, Soviet Pravda of the 1930s?
Seems Greenwald posted the entire article on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1376577693425274888?s=21
Newspapers have transformed from newsprint purchased in local shops or delivered which you read in privacy to smart tablets and phones which READ US via the well known monitoring through website cookies and ADMONISH, chastise, even threaten any one of us they so choose to, and PUBLICLY, broadcasting identifying information to an entire world.
Well they were always as invasive as they could manage safely to be and instruments of mass influence, sending multitudes off to this fashion show, that movie, this short war, that two decade debacle, such and such mass hysteria, fad and various national, ideological, or sectarian hatred and scheme.
If you believed it is really the Big Government Employee Unions who run the show behind the scenes for the DNC, what you stated a as incredulous five years ago was all well within realm of possibility; and in fact is now our present reality.
Big Government Employee union bosses suffered a huge loss when Trump beat Clinton. Their cozy Obama III plan practically bankrupted them. They held back in 2020 if you noticed, until they could be sure they had a willing puppet – Bernie Sanders was too rogue for their tastes.
They finally made their move, and of course it is obvious they would use any means at their disposal to put this fool in place as long as they kept their hands on the levers of power behind the curtain.
Mission accomplished – including all the election night chaos and aftermath. “Covid” was the opportunistic horse they rode in on. We were robbed. By the masters of deceit and disguise.
You see *Unions* as some deeply pernicious problem? Mmm, they get co-opted
by the same small cast of characters as all the other entities do.
No, unions per se are not the problem: look higher up the food-chain, way higher.. Unionization is trivially low here in the Exceptional Nation as compared to the rest of the world. Wish I could have joined one, but Prop 13
here in CA put paid to that notion..
Open your eyes Carey, particularly since you live in California – the entire state is now run by the powerful CTA – California Teachers Association – even maverick Gov jerry Brown publicly acknowledged this.
You may still be confusing private industry unions (declining influence, membership and power) with the massive recent growth of the public sector unions which are in total ontrol of this state (except curiously High tech)
The big public sector unions made their moves after “term limits” went into effect. They swooped into the newly created power vacuum and used the early equivalent of HR-1 “election reform” to cement their power base in this state to the point we cannot undo this one party control.
One of my favorite authors and books is Gilbert Murray and his The Five Stages of Greek Religion. One of the interesting points he makes is that as there was little distinction between culture and civics for the Ancients, it wasn’t that they were ignorant of monotheism, but that they equated it with monocultural absolutism. As in one people, one ruler, one God.
Remember democracy and republicanism originated in pantheistic societies, as that was how multicultural societies incorporated all the old belief systems.
Also keep in mind the Romans adopted Christianity as the Empire became fully embedded and any vestiges of the Republic were shed. Consequently the default political system for the next thousand plus years was monarchy and feudalism. When the West went back to more populist forms of government, it required the separation of church and state, culture and civics.
Logically a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell.
Conflating the ideal, which is aspirational, with the absolute, which is elemental, creates the assumption our particular social ideals are universal, rather than unique and that premise has motivated quite a few unsavory, single minded ideologies.
So it isn’t like all this social control is anything new. That this current effort is built on an enormous bubble of debt, drawn on a rapidly arriving future, should be kept in mind.