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End Game - Would US Police/Troops Fire Upon US Citizens?
End Game - Would US Police/Troops Fire Upon US Citizens?
By
Cognitive Dissonance
This is the first in an occasional series examining the end of the American Empire and the global shock waves it will produce. Contrary to popular belief I suspect the unraveling will take place over many years, decades even, with sudden plunges and slow partial recoveries aka dead cat bounces. I call this series of examinations “End Game”.
I would wager that the vast majority of people reading this essay have already come to their own conclusion regarding the answer to the title’s query. Certainly you may have several qualifiers and stipulations with which you framed your answer and maybe even a few facts and proofs ready for quick rebuttal if challenged. But my own experience with explosive questions such as this is that there are few who have not already formed an opinion on the matter. If you have not you would be the exception to the rule.
And at this point in the meltdown it would be fair to say there are no correct or incorrect answers to be found, only supposition, assumption and what I expect will be full throated argument to follow in the comment section. May I suggest that whatever answer you’ve come up with wasn’t necessarily arrived at through careful deliberation or contemplation, but rather as an integral part of your overall belief system? And while you may consider all that you believe to be valid and fact based, for all people other than possibly the sociopaths walking among us this is far from the case.
Personally I find that sitting down and writing about a subject forces me to push through all the fuzzy logic and tenuous connections that make up my system of beliefs. For most of us what we think we know or believe is similar to a loosely connected debris field of facts, thoughts, myths, hopes and desires floating on the mind’s surface. Only in this case there really isn’t much mixing or removal of the thought debris by intellectual wave action, just a lifelong rearrangement of the floating deck chairs. When strong emotions are brought into the mix, it’s like a hurricane came through and made an even bigger mess of things.
Much of our belief system is firmly stuck in heavy mud by our late twenties, having been absorbed and adopted during our early years by way of our state mandated education, the popular press, corporate branding initiatives, consensus opinion, deliberately false public myth making and the always present and rarely subtle corporate and governmental propaganda machines. And what we call our mid life crisis is simply that period of time when we begin to call into question many of the basic and fundamental tenets that have guided us to that point. We usually get through this moment of clarity when the bills start piling up and the libido finally begins to fail care of our chemically treated foodstuffs. In practice what we believe is not a coherent jigsaw puzzle held together by reason and “facts”, but rather little islands of hope and belief that would contradict or outright cancel each other like matter and anti-matter if they ever came into contact with one other. I see this all the time not just here in The Hedge (both in the comment section and in various articles from multiple sources) but in newspapers, magazines, blogs, TV and radio; the list really is endless. Selective memory and a convoluted thought process isn’t just the domain of think tanks and the MSM. The alternative press and blogosphere are often just as guilty as well, it being one of the hazards of swimming in the same festering cesspool. Read or listen to any person long enough and you eventually begin to detect errors in logical thought and fact as well as serious conflicts between a person’s articles, books, and lectures; even at times within a specific article or essay. I find this holds true for nearly everyone (including myself) regardless of our denial that it’s happening. Courage is required to challenge our own thinking and weed these discrepancies out. Sadly it’s so much easier to isolate and ignore these inconsistencies then to purge them and face the ugly truths left behind. We hide from ourselves long before we flee the boogie man. The masks we wear in public are crude imitations of the ones we carry within.
Judging from conversations I’ve had with many people from diverse backgrounds the majority of souls seem to come down into one of two camps. For the most part the responses I’ve gathered consist of either “No….but” and “Yes….but” with the clear winner the middle ground of qualified “buts”. When questioned more than superficially and asked to explain or justify their stance, many shamelessly switch back and forth between sides and arguments, proving to me that their opinion is based upon nothing more substantial than wishful thinking and hope. However, most do understand that there are huge variables involved anytime a gun is pointed and fired, regardless of whether the person fired upon is armed or not.
Obviously at this point in the great American unwind no police or military units are patrolling the streets gunning down all who are seen as threatening. And this wasn’t what I was suggesting would happen……at least not unless worse case scenarios are achieved. But the end of the American Empire is approaching, a process that will unravel over decades. And it would be hopelessly naïve or even terminally ignorant to believe that any high ranking “authority” in America has anyone’s interest first other than their own. We can love our slave masters all we want, but they love us only for any remaining productive worth we may offer and no more.
Any remaining belief in high ranking honorable “public servants” should have been thoroughly abandoned after witnessing the outrageous antics of the financial elite and politically connected over the last ten years and particularly the last five. We are all expendable cannon fodder and contrary to any official assurances from the professional propagandists that we are all loved and cared about, we have always been so. Denial of this basic fact is the only real roadblock to a fuller understanding of what’s being done in my name and yours.
False hope inevitably binds us to truly impossible situations and this has consistently been our Achilles Heel, a weakness ruthlessly exploited by the rich and powerful for millennium. The almost universally accepted Abrahamic religious redeemer complex is the ultimate (self) enslavement vehicle. In effect, it forgives those who dish out the punishment and glorifies the suffering of those who are being punished. Talk about your dysfunctional relationship, how are we to live in peace and harmony when the basic tenets of the majority of the world’s religions glorify those who grind our bones to make their bread?
First let’s take a look at who or what would be patrolling the streets under the guise of “keeping the peace”, “finding the terrorists” or whatever excuse the government manufactures in order to justify placing armed uniformed men and women in the population centers of America. And for the purpose of this essay there is the assumption that something has happened or was caused to happen that will be used by the powers that be to deploy police/troops in America under the cover of maintaining law and order.
BTW, we should clearly understand that the real reason the troops will be deployed is to maintain and possibly even consolidate the existing power structure of the powers that be. Or at a minimum to keep the lynch mobs and revenge seekers at bay long enough to make their escape. Is this truly that surprising? After all we have devolved into a banana republic and that’s the way all bananas are eventually peeled.
Initially there would be the local police, supposedly the first line of defense in maintaining the peace. And despite the obvious fact that over the last ten or so years they have been increasingly militarized, the police are for the most part trained to resolve conflict through non-violent means. Or at least that’s the official public myth. Only after you don’t agree with their non violent solution do they pull out their Tasar or Glock. If the first thing you experience is fear when you see flashing lights in the rearview mirror, I would ask you to reconsider the validity of their “non-violent” mission.
Just conduct a “police brutality” YouTube search if you’d like a video lesson on officially sanctioned violence in America. Between the images cruiser dashboard cams have documented and those candid camera videos various citizens have captured via camera phone it’s quite clear police violence isn’t just perpetrated by a few rogue cops on an occasional basis. Instead it appears to be a systemic problem that’s growing worse by the day. A Google word search using the same term will bring back tens of thousands of hits, more than enough to turn your stomach and send the meek and mind controlled scurrying back to the safety of their warm beds. The formerly carefully hidden police state is now coming into full view.
The second line of defense would be the National Guard. If we were talking twenty years ago I might make a disparaging remark about weekend warriors more dangerous to themselves than to others. But eight years of rotations through Iraq and Afghanistan have turned the National Guard into something your father wouldn’t recognize. Without getting too deep into the merits of today’s Guard, better trained has its pluses and minuses as long as we understand what they have now been trained to do.
Then there is the military itself, most likely Army and possibly Special Forces units that will provide the actual boots on the ground. Ever since the creation of NORTHCON on October 1, 2002, supposedly as a direct result of 9/11, the political and financial elite have been overtly preparing for the inevitability of social unrest. Covert preparations extend back decades under cover of any available and plausible excuse in the book.
The military readily admits that it’s not properly trained to execute (no pun intended) domestic police actions and they agree they would be poorly suited to maintain order during any chaotic domestic uprising. And I agree. Home invasions by the military would be just as distasteful for Americans as they are for the Iraqis regardless of what it’s called and under whatever bullshit legal premise it has been authorized.
I can’t help but wonder if the UN Security Council will sanction an invasion of America by a “coalition of the willing” when our time comes around? Don’t laugh because I’m being deadly serious. Do not underestimate the measures the desperate will use to remain in power and don’t assume the rich and powerful are physically located only in the USA. It’s a global game and America has been the home field only for the last 70 or so years. It helps to remember that stock sectors aren’t the only thing that rotates. BTW notice that the eagle below covers all of North America, not just the USA.
On a side note, I still find it amazing how many political/military actions were a direct result of 9/11 yet nobody wants to seriously discuss what really went down that day. Careful because you might not like the stench of whatever it is you dig up. We all complain about political and governmental secrecy, but the vast majority of Americans don’t want to know what’s going on and are happier when they are deceived. The big lie we gratefully participate in is that we are a free and self directed people. It’s so much better to let buried dogs lay undisturbed where they can quickly decompose out of sight and mind.
And let’s not forget the foreign troops that will be invited to conduct joint exercises on American soil. On February 14, 2008 Northcom and the Canada Command agreed to come to each other’s “aid” in the event of a civil crisis such as floods, forest fires, hurricanes, earthquakes and “the effects of a terrorist attack”. While this description comes from the PR propaganda on Northcom’s web site I would love to read the actual document. Naturally Congress wasn’t consulted and were actually sidestepped entirely. It didn’t matter anyway since they were too busy whoring for re-election contributions at the time, a time honored spring, summer, fall and winter Congressional/Corporate pornographic mating ritual.
Of course, the obvious inference here is that if American citizen soldiers are unable or unwilling to “police” their fellow US citizens, we can always call in the Canadians to help us out. Certainly our Canadian brothers and sisters will be subjected to plenty of official propaganda to prepare them for their friendly invasion. I’m sure the psyops division of both countries can come up with plenty of video of homeless Americans swimming across the Saint Lawrence River in search of Canadian food stamps and citizenship….or at least their version of the green card. There are many other “agreements” with NATO and other individual countries that have been less publicized than this one if that’s even remotely possible
Now for the sleeper “police” force very few seem willing to acknowledge or even aware enough of to intelligently discuss, but who will most certainly be invited to the nationwide block party. Naturally I’m talking about private military contractors of the Blackwater/Xe ilk, also known as privately paid (with taxpayer funds of course) and controlled mercenaries of the increasingly privatized and corporatized America. This isn’t new but rather just a recycling of an old tradition of the Federal Government using private entities to provide “security” and “crowd control”. Blackwater is just the latest.
While everyone was watching what Blackwater and others like them were (and still are) doing over in Iraq and Afghanistan (and in many other countries where they are used as embassy and corporate “security” forces) rarely do we hear about the untold billions they’re being paid for services rendered in the good old US of A. Their presence in New Orleans after Katrina was a primer on how things will be done in the future. The almighty buck is their master and it’s the only flag they salute. God bless Uncle Ben.
Last, but most assuredly not least, will be the alphabet soup of government intelligence agencies (domestic and foreign) as well as too numerous to count private “interests” pushing, prodding and provoking wherever they can to influence the outcome of the civil unrest. This will be done for any number of reasons that will most certainly be at cross purposes with the interests of the American people in general and the actual protestors in particular. This will include the FBI, CIA, DIA, Mossad, MI6, BND and dozens of other public, private and foreign “security” and intelligence organizations whose primary purpose will be the protection of the vested interests of powerful people, corporations and countries. Guess where that leaves you and me?
So who will take to the streets? Ultimately this is impossible to say because the situation will be fluid and the variables unknown and in a constant state of flux. To be frank the time to push back was late in 2008 when the globalist’s financial agenda flipped from covert to overt and their plans were finally exposed for all to see who wished to look. But decades of conditioning and propaganda was sufficient to keep the American people trapped within their own minds and unable to muster the courage to begin the process of breaking free. And once TARP was rammed through without significant or sustained resistance, the financial elite knew it was game on and they’d better get it all while the getting was good.
And getting it all is precisely what they’ve done over the last 2 plus years as private debt was systematically bought by the Federal Reserve for 100 cents on each dollar in the name of “saving” the system. Now the next leg down has begun (I am not measuring economic legs by the stock market) and where it stops nobody really knows. But after 3 years of worsening economic conditions, carefully camouflaged by an artificially pumped stock market, more and more American citizens are waking up to the fact that they’ve been ripped off and to some extent they’ve let it happen. Or at the very least they barely said a word other than bitch and complain to each other about the highway robbery.
This is where the really destructive and ultimately self defeating rage will spring from. Obviously it will be acted out as simple righteous indignation over the repeated daylight robberies of the US treasury by public and private entities. But just like a women scorned, there is no anger quite like that enjoyed by the person who suddenly realizes he or she has been conned and the active ingredient was his or her own greed and willing participation. Facing this ugly self revelation, the ego has no choice but to push every emotional button it can find in a desperate attempt to keep the mind from recognizing that it is partially responsible for its own continuing enslavement.
What usually arises from this internal blame shifting and emotional thrashing about is mindless anger directed at the “responsible” con men whose motto is there will always be customers ready to purchase the lies and self deception they’re selling. Since we can’t possibly shoulder any blame for our dance with the devil no matter how small, this anger will eventually be directed towards any handy minority (group or individual, it doesn’t really matter) who happens to be in the wrong place at the right time.
Case in point is the very recent public services union bashing, themselves just another greedy patsy on a long list of willing participants in our own self destruction. Next up is unionized grocery baggers at the local Safeway followed by Meals-On-Wheels delivery drivers. There are no lows that will not be plumed by a population trying to escape responsibility and self examination and this too will be skillfully used against us.
There is one defining characteristic we Americans proudly boast of that is singularly unique in the entire world and it has nothing to do with our standard of living, GDP or total debt. “We The People” not only believed our leader’s lies about American exceptionalism, but we bought into those lies hook, line and sinker. And for several decades the lie worked magnificently thanks to the magic of a widely accepted reserve currency which enabled us to export most of the corrosive effects of our money printing (aka inflation) outside our borders and the military to enforce it when reluctance surfaced…..such as Iraq and Afghanistan to name just two. Good times were had by all, the punch bowl never ran dry and it was all due to our superior abilities. Until now that is.
This is in contrast to the citizens of various Middle East countries (or much of the developing world for that matter) who are always painfully aware of their real state of existence. Or even the Europeans, who have lived through several thousand years of regime changes, invasions and oppression and for the most part have a much better understanding of the magnitude and scope of the official lies and propaganda and how the dance plays out.
Ultimately this didn’t save the Europeans from their own greed and self interested pursuits, but at least they aren’t completely shocked that it’s all coming apart……..once again. The ice cold shower of awakening we Americans are about to experience will be unlike anything any nation has gone through since possibly WW2 Germany beginning around 1942 when civilian centers were deliberately targeted by Allied bombing and the German population began to really feel the sting of their own self deception and mass delusion. While I have no way of knowing exactly how America’s electro shock therapy will play out, it seems self evident it’s coming if for no other reason than because I can hear the electrical generators firing up in the background. Clear!
How this affects the American psyche as well as the various ways it could play out is well beyond the scope of this essay, but suffice to say it will not be pretty. For some of us escape will be had by digging ever deeper into denial. For others, especially those who become caught up in the vicious cycle of endless anger and fits of self pity and rage, the obvious targets of their self destructive outbursts will be any low level authority figure who stands up to them and that all time favorite among those who diligently practice slave mentality, their fellow slaves. Following our passive/aggressive conditioning, many of us will seek to punish those like us before we ever consider lifting a finger against our own masters.
While I expect cooler heads among the aggrieved will attempt to exert an influence over the angry mobs and demonstrators, we must not diminish the ugly truth that there will be plenty of domestic and foreign entities that will see the coming American domestic strife and unrest as an opportunity to foment violent demonstrations and even armed and violent insurrection. The use of infiltrated agents and agent provocateurs to incite violence and disrupt peaceful protest is a well known and time honored technique used by private parties, governments and even the resistance itself (to maintain plausible deniability for example) to further their own particular goals.
The very fact that spontaneous demonstrations are by their nature unorganized and at best loosely controlled works against the intent of the people demonstrating when those who wish to disrupt and discredit are familiar with and comfortable using any means necessary to maintain or regain control over the population. The worst that can happen to any group of people working to unseat an existing power base is their failure to imagine the lengths to which those in power will go to keep it. Those who don’t lie cheat and steal for a living won’t give proper weight and consideration to the tendency of those who do so to continue to do so, let alone their desire to accelerate their methods of operation.
One would think that once the American people begin to wake up to the extent and breadth of official corruption and manipulation that they would at least be temporarily disabused of seeking additional flights of fantasy. Sadly this is not the case at all. The well worn path many newly awakened minds take is to substitute one form of self delusion with another. A conditioned mind that has been shocked into awareness will immediately begin to seek simple answers that help them rationalize away their own self deception and participation. This tendency will be repeatedly and skillfully exploited by foreign and domestic psyops campaigns. Out of the frying pan and into the fire is an apt description for how it works.
For those who may doubt the veracity of that last paragraph, consider the long and extremely painful path you have walked to get to where you are now in your awakening. How many times have you become demoralized and depressed along the way? How often did you backslide into denial with each new and shocking revelation? How many times did you try to bargain with the truth in order to forget only to fail miserably? How much easier was it for you to adapt to and then accept what you desperately wished to deny because the world remained relatively normal during your acclimation period.
Your awakening happened over a minimum of many months and most likely years and as much as you may have wished you could, it’s impossible to forget once you have been exposed to the previously unthinkable. Now consider what your state of mind would be like if all that you’ve experienced was compressed into a few short months or even several weeks. This is what the average Joe is facing at some point in the future. To have your sense of self identity and community ripped from you by the very people you’ve wanted to believe were your protectors is never easy to deal with under the best of circumstances. The easy road to awareness is behind us and it’s all downhill from here.
So while I can’t answer the title’s question for you I can offer my own opinion as to whether or not Americans will be fired upon. The short answer is that of course they will. Why would you think otherwise when US history offers up dozens of examples to choose from. The powers that be are ego maniacs, the elites have hundreds of years of experience controlling the masses and the masses are mostly living their lives in denial. I consider it inevitable that when the uprisings begin and they turn really ugly that those who are paid to protect the powerful and their assets will follow orders and do precisely that.
Hat Tip to William Banzai7 for the image below.
Once again you can’t see this from your own point of view because you most likely won’t be the one holding the riot gear and facing the screaming mobs. While I’m certain some within the police, military and National Guard will follow their heart and refuse to fire or even follow orders if doing so means hurting their fellow citizens, in effect declaring conscientious objector status, they will for the most part be a small minority and will be quickly weeded out of the ranks by the second or third round of protests.
Considering the insanity the police and troops will be facing as well as the economic collapse that threatens them as well, the police/troops will rally around each other and protect their own closed community using whatever means necessary. Throw in the mercenaries, the agent provocateurs, the psyops campaigns, the meddling from the various intelligence agencies and the only question I have is not if but when and how much.
Someone in the comment section the other day said that since the military is now an all volunteer fighting force, the standard of conduct has been raised and no one in the military would ever fire on their fellow citizens. While I would love to believe this, I see it from a different point of view. Those in the military want(ed) to be in the military, thus they were more likely to buy into military groupthink and its attendant mind control and propaganda. Rest assured that long before any uniformed service person (police or military) is asked to confront their fellow citizens they will be subjected to a barrage of intensive conditioning and will be propagandized to the nth degree.
In my opinion, to believe that the various forces arrayed against the protesting public won’t fire on them is to continue to believe in American exceptionalism and more specifically in the desire of the rich and powerful to finally see the error of their ways and thus immediately cease and desist from further exploitation and pillage. If this is the case, if this is what you believe, then all I can say is that you live in a dream world Neo.
On a more positive note I do think something has changed and it’s still not being recognized for what it is and what it might mean. The interim resolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, while undoubtedly unsettled and tenuous at best, did not result in the massive loss of lives many people and governments thought could and would happen. Libya is playing out how many expected Egypt and Tunisia would, with the powers that be fighting to retain power with modern weapons and no mercy.
My question is this, why didn’t Egypt and Tunisia go up in flames? I have some thoughts on why this is the case and I saw WB7 made mention of this change in one of his posts as well. The people who said no more to the powers that be didn’t show up with broken bottles, rocks and other assorted weapons ready to fight. Instead they just said no in as peaceful a manner as they could and they were saying no to the global Ponzi, not just the local branch. Instead of joining a mindless mob, people were praying, talking, playing music and at times even laughing. This is a dramatic sea change in the herd mentality and one that I hope to examine more closely in the future.
03-01-2011
Cognitive Dissonance
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No one addicted to addictive drugs is free, ergo our drug laws are for the most part there in there in the service of liberty.
Quelle Garbage.
Don't look now, but your ignorance of the enlightenment ideal of freedom is showing.
Dude, here's you:
<obnoxiously whiny parody voice on>
If fat people have higher rates of disease because they eat too much then ergo and therefore ipso facto we should prevent fat people from getting food so they can get skinny to make them more libertyied.
<stupid high-pitched obnoxious voice of a juvenile thinker off>
I am Chumbawamba.
Dude, you are so fucking ignorant and unenlightened that it's painful. You also expose yourself as a fucking narc. What kind of ignoramus is in favor of drug laws?
Want some fucking high fructose corn syrup with that douche?
I am Chumbawamba.
i'm more in the niall ferguson camp that the end of empire potentially will happen quickly. you bring up some excellent fodder for thought. i might have missed it but another thought is that the distractions will also be between citizens - left, right, rich, poor, middle class, young, old, conservative, liberal etc - if it comes down to severe social acrimony.
The real break will come when things start breaking down and Texas decides it doesn't need the rest of the nation (it doesn't). However, Obama desparately needs the taxes collected from Texas and Obama has a bunch of guns.
the truth is simpler than it seems. usa is not an empire and that's the problem. it should be and is becoming one again. it's becoming the worst type instead of the best. they are already turning against us.
http://covert2.wordpress.com
For fucks sake people read a bit of Scifi. Damn near every possible scenario and outcome has ALREADY been explored.
I'm often really confused by the lack of intellectual breadth exhibited by people who consider themselves "intelligent".
Anyway the future will never be what we picture it.
Jose: Well, all's well that ends well. Though that's easy for Shakespeare to say... he'll be around for another millennium. But what of our own millennium? Will it all end well? No one can know, but that of course doesn't stop anyone from guessing. And the nature of those predictions always revolve around the usual suspects: salvation and/or self-satisfaction. With that in mind, I humbly add my own prophecy of what the dawn of the new millennium shall bring forth: one thousand more years of the same, old crap
This essay has been up for all of 15 seconds and there are 50 responses. No one can read that fast and reply.
Hope you are right about the quick fall. The NWO operates on the timescales of bureaucracy so a short, sharp collapse gives us the advantage. A drawn-out decline would give them time to steal everything, turn us against each other and exploit the crisis to consolidate power.
"A drawn-out decline would give them time to steal everything, turn us against each other and exploit the crisis to consolidate power."
...so, you mean the drawn-out decline that has been going on since the S&L swindle, of which 2008 and all else was/is a continuation?
The question of fire or no fire is trivial. The important thing we've learned from Epypt is we the people can change this situation without firing a shot. All we have to do is stop feeding the beast. How? Take all your money out of large NY banks and put it in community banks. Don't buy ANYTHING except food, fuel, necessary medicines and PM's. Stop watching TV, and for gosh sakes don't buy anything advertised on TV. Call it a "consumer strike".
These steps alone would cause such utter chaos, the elites and their thugs wouldn't know what to do. I'm convinced centralized authority and large corporations would just be ignored, and local markets would take their place.
What could they do, given that there would be no "crowd" to control -- just millions of people quietly sitting home and NOT participating. Starve us until we start shopping again? JUST GO ON STRIKE.
If everyone refused to pay their taxes, they couldn't throw us all in jail.......
I've been thinking the same thing. Stop buying except food. Stop behaving as everyone is expected to behave by the powers that be. What would happen if everyone stopped paying property taxes and others that aren't auto-deductions?
I like this idea, the ultimate peaceful protest from our homes.
they are going to buy all the oil and food contracts on the market and make the price going to the moon. you are going to be finished.
We are way past that I'm afraid. There will be blood on the streets--lots of it. Milestones
Yes, go on strike. And STAY OUT OF CROWDS--that's where the shooting always takes place.
There's no need to amass in disorderly mobs that frighten TPTB. All that's needed is for enough individuals to quietly re-order their lives so that they leave nothing for the kleptocracy to feed on.
The people who control the various governments are not productive people. They have no real skills or ability to feed themselves--all their wealth is skimmed and stolen. You don't fight this dragon in the streets. You go dark, and stay dark until it dies from malnourishment.
It doesn't take a majority, just a small but committed minority. The beast is very near the precipice already; a modest contingent of Tyler Durdens can send it over the edge.
You are being dumb and naive. If you just sit on you hands, TPTB will simply tax you, and if you have no cash to pay, they will take everything you own. You can explain to your children that they are cold and hungry and living on the street to bring down the kleptocracy. Maybe it will give them a laugh, which is better than nothing.
Dumb and naive? I don't think so. I've found perfectly legal ways to reduce my federal tax burden to zero, while minimizing state taxes. My four properties are owned free and clear, my cars are paid for, I have no debt and I have control over my own power and water supply, with a new 30 gpm well on a property with a three acre woodlot.
And I just got back from spending January and February on the beach in Baja California. I've been working on this a long time. That's why I haven't lost my shorts. I was buying Englehard Prospectors when they cost $4.40 each.
The Leviathan kleptocracy is a dull, lumbering beast. We gnats can easily adapt to and outmaneuver whatever blundering strategies the beast adopts. Instead of defeatism, you would be better served by learning how to adjust your lifestyle to minimize tax and inflation confiscations.
Dumb and naive squared. You found perfectly legal ways to do this and that, until TPTB change the law. How are you going to pay the new well tax? The timber tax? What if they double your property taxes, and then double them again? Or confiscate your computer and mobile phone at the border and arrest you (for whatever, they will think of something)? They will do all of that if necessary for their own survival.
Maybe you can live your own gnat lifestyle in peace just by being a gnat, but your original premise was that people could defeat TPTB by imitating you. Not hardly.
You were a bit harsh, but I thought the same thing. Evidently the memo about Eminent domain hasn't gotten around to everyone yet.
It would be easy for TPTB to find a reason why someone's bug-out shelter is non-compliant with the latest and greatest regulation, and fine the mess out of you, or consume you with some new taxation scheme.
It wasn't too long ago they tried to tax carbon emissions. If they think they can tax people for exhaling, do you really believe we're untouchable?
Everything is on the table wrt-control.
News flash: All gun registration in Ill. is rebattering the door. as in, We can't get there without it.
No link, heard it on the radio this am.
You can "What if..." yourself right into doing nothing to save yourself, which I'll bet you have. His advice was cogent and intelligent. One cannot bemoan the possibles while doing nothing. Working within the present day rules to maximize ones survival is all that can be done. What have you done today to bring down the system?
I hear you, agree and am fairly self sufficient and lean, but most of the people I know are major consumers and will not go there willingly.
Not to mention, very few want to face or discuss the situation here.
Edit: Not here here - G. Lopez
++ 401K Tyler Durdens
"The people" in the US are not islamic, BTW, so the ends and means here in the US, and especially "the people" are entirely different from those in these arab countries.
Human nature is the same through out the world and the various societies. Being a Muslim, Christian, or Jew does not exempt one from being a human with all the traits and foibles hard wired into the species.
If you are older and have not learned this yet, then you are poorly educated, extremely biased, or some combination of the two and there is little hope for you.
If you are younger and have not learned this yet, then there is still hope for you.
Every despotic power has the where-with-all to buy the loyalty of thugs. See Libya.
<My question is this, why didn’t Egypt and Tunisia go up in flames?>
Well, it is not over yet. This was just the first inning. The entire game is well ahead of us.
Any real revolution is always very bloody but it starts as a peaceful change.
The Russian Feb. 1917 revolution deposed the Czar piecefully in just 7 days. Then, it was the Nov. 1917 follow-on revolution, the civil war, and the barbaric communist dictatorship that lasted 70 years and resulted in well over 50 millions dead.
Yes, you are right. And this is because, after the change brought by first stage of the revolution, the economic situation deteriorates so much, that the social tension usually degenerates in civil wars. There is a lag time between the first change and the real deterioration of functions.
I did not say it was over. In fact the paragraph before the sentence you highlighted said precisely that.
CD, all things considered, we might look at the Milgram experiment for an answer to the question as it pertains to the individual.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
Can you imagine the outcome had the subjects been members of the military or trained law enforcement?
CD- Excellent article. 5 stars, although I don't agree with everything you wrote it does make many valid points.
To answer the topic of discussion in brief, THEY WOULD SHOOT ON COMMAND. I know this because my brother-in-law is a Green Beret (served in Nam), and last week I mentioned that as in Wisconsin, Ohio, Ontario canada et al, if ordered to do so, they would take out a whole town- spare no lives.Think about it...
That said, I will pass this article on to everyone I know.
The answer to your initial question is Yes the authorities will order and the cops and army will snoot their fellow citizens. There will be a division of loyalty most likely.
It is obvious from Wisconsin that government employees see themselves as a separate category of citizens distinct from the drones paying their salaries and benefits. They disrepect the public and are disdainful of any attempt to rein in the power of government.
I don't want to be snot.
I see the power elite have you all ready splitting between your friends, neighbors and family. Unless you are a bankster, you have been had.
i guess i'm the exception there is no "but" in my beliefs. most cops will shoot at unarmed Americans they do it everyday. most of the military won't
oath keepers, vast majority are military
Being the exception to the rule didn't apply to not having a "but" in your answer. It applied to those who had not already formed an opinion. From my essay.
You are right, CD. Opinions are pretty much formed, but mine is that some military will and some won't. That's not conclusive, of course, since the situations and persons involved will vary. I just hope that my confrontation is not with some incarnation of the military that I met back in the 1960s who mumbled, "...fuckin' hippies" under their breath.
Nice to see you on the thread RR.
Aren't you a little long in the tooth to be manning the front lines of the coming protests? Why don't you go help out in the first aid tent gramps. :>)
(BTW that was something that I was told last year at a local protest. I smiled and told him he could hide behind me when they began to fire the rubber bullets. The look on his face was priceless.)
CD,
I have a new found respect for you. That was a timely, well thought out article. I thank you and I can assure you others have taken notice of this particular writing.
Be well.
If the military is ordered to fire on Americans, there will be no less than a civil war--with modern weapons for both sides. There will be government loyalists, and they will call themselves patriots. There will be the deserters (who refused to obey the order to fire), who will be called traitors. Much killing will happen. The armed forces will turn on themselves and the lines will be drawn. The real question is will this US Sergeant and his squad fire on that US Sergeant and his squad. To hell with any civilian skirmishes-the military infighting will win or lose the day.
This is why, believe it or not, the Generals could become the key people in all of this.
Luckily most of the current squad are probably quite educated (cos they don't seem good at waging war -correction- they don't seem able to convince their politicians how they want to wage war). Maybe they get the big picture.
I suspect that the military don't really care for the government, or the bankers. I think they rally to the flag. And the flag ain't Washington, and it ain't 200 West. Now where can we find a constitutional monarch who is willing to be the focal point, outside the system? Or an old quarterback.
I would not be surprised to find out that lots of little high-level officers are carrying out war-games just now (and acting on both sides) to see how civil insurrection might be cultivated/repressed.
the question is: would americans shoot back