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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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Good article. I am rooting against our fascist country. I hope it looses. Everyone knows how bad they fuck us and the world. I don't care if the Muslims and Arabs are the winners. Maybe it's there time and they can break free from our domination. Maybe they are 7 chess moves ahead of everyone and can't loose but then again maybe not. Maybe they are not sure if they can keep up the swindle. Without the media they could not do what they are doing.
The short answer to your long article is yes, they would. Technically, don't they fire on criminals that are US citizens all the time? They just need to be made to believe they are doing the right thing. Remember Waco?
Regrettably, I have little doubt that U.S. forces would fire on U.S. citizens. Whether as a result of military groupthink (e.g., following orders) or because, in my opinion, moral integrity is slowly being leached out of the American spirit, I have little doubt. The last century is rife with examples of governments exterminating their own citizens and it is only our capacity for denial of the obvious that would lead to another conclusion.
Your best piece yet, CD. Thank you.
Ultimately, the success or failure of all speculative enquiries is supremely conditioned by the quality/efficacy of the epistemological/ontological frameworks/rubrics we employ - wouldn't you agree?
In that spirit - and I freely admit that I can only speak for myself/cohort - my considered answer to your central 'question' would be that, 'Although many will, most will not.'
On a brighter note, it is an axiom of asymmetric conflict that although committed 'insurgents' only seldom win their wars - they never lose them.
English....please! :>)
If 50 police line up and only 4 shoot, the crowd will see no difference between the 4 and the other 46. And once the 4 have shot, the other 46, seeing the crowd become furious, might just think to themselves......it doesn't matter anymore because the 4 made my decision for me. They are now committed to protecting the officer to their left and right because those officers are protecting them.
In that case, SHIT happens.
you had me at epistemological
yeah shoot the comy, i caint undastan him anyway. kiddin
Jesus H. Christ, can you shorten these posts of yours? When I grew up there were only seven tv stations and the tv went off air at 11:30 PM. Now with 600 stations, HD radio, Satelite radio and a thirty-second news cycle I can not concentrate for more than four short sentences.
Of course our millitary will fire on us, what do you expect them to do, think for themselves? The New Orleans Police Department, Coast Guard and National Gaurd were beating old ladys and confiscating people's firearms. The NOPD went on tv stating noone would be allowed to be armed. All you ZH's typing how you got extra ammo and GUNS will have it taken from you long before you will think to use it. Just go along with the game and be safe inside the FEMA camps, what could go wrong? The Japanese-Americans did not mind and they came out all right.
The Utah National Guard actually refused the order of gun confiscation. There is no way they can go door to door to take all fire arms. It is a logistics nightmare to do this. Plus many soldiers themselves come from gun owning background.
Yeah, the Mayor, and the Popo Chief broke the law, these officers could have been killed had they not beeen lucky.
The Chief, Mayor, and governor broke the law of the land, and should have been imprisoned for 10-15yrs.
Plus we had cops from 15-25 states in there all running the scene by the laws of their state.
New Jersey laws in Texas if done like NO, would have started a shoot out.And the cops would be wrong.20-25 NJ Offficers were ticketed and almost arrested going back home as they went theu I think Bama,for doing 85-90mph.
They THOUGHT being cops gave them justification, it didn't.
They were breaking thr states laws.
Fantastic article, CD. The military appears to be divided on this point. From my research, the majority of enlisted soldiers will not shoot at the populace but all it takes is a few percent to start the carnage. This lack of willingness to shoot is why the government has promoted the sociopathic killers above the 18 year old pimple-faced, otherwise unemployed soldiers. It is also the reason that foreign UN troops have been brought in to the US. History shows that bringing in foreign soldiers to fire on the local populace is a fairly common tactic. The mercs and foreign soldiers will most likely be the bad guys.
The US is not as aware of psy-ops tactics and agent provacateurs like the rest of the world due to our much tighter controlled media but the internet may be waking people up faster than we believe.
Switzerland was obviously not spared because they were 'neutral' in WWII as we were taught in high-school but more likely because Hitler did not want to go door to door and slug it out with every home having an AR and 1000 rounds of ammo. Point is - don't underestimate the sheer logistics of millions of gun owners even if all they own is an old Browning Hi-Power.
Hmmm, sounds like I'm describing civil war....
Sounds like it to me as well....
CD;
We really appreciate all of your epistles and tho' they might be a bit on the conservative side, that is not necessarily a fault.
This one is really a "Part II" of your great Coup D'Etat piece.
Please keep up the good (hard) work writing the true facts for the sheeple.
It may well be too late, but as Benoit Mandelbrot pointed out, Chaotic Systems are not readily predictable.
And remember always Chairman Mao's dictum: "Political Power grows out of the barrel of a gun!"
I mentioned a while ago that the richer oil states would either pay out or stomp out the protestors. The lesser ones didn't have a choice but to crumble since they couldn't continue to subsidize higher food payouts or offer more and more to their protection. Mubark might have been rich, but the country was heading downward with their dwindling oil production and rising oil consumption.
Algeria and Saudi are able to hand out the pay outs for now, and Lybia had to resort to stomp out. Who knows how this plays out in a year
"The masks we wear in public are crude imitations of the ones we carry within."
The mask is the face..Susan Sontag. It is an aspect of who we are, Sybil-esque, we will pull out the character that is best suited to the occasion. What will it take to intergrate the parts into the whole? Can we be whole in this fractured world? Do we need to censor ourselves to leave space for the crazies as allowed by our constitution, and what yardstick do we use to measure what is crazy? Does anything around you seem sane? Is our Red/Blue divide leaving you confused as to what avatar to pull up? It really doesn't matter. It's asking for the same befuddled, go with the flow let's see which way it goes what the consensus is and who shouts the loudest to get my attention so I get washed out of this eddy for my next rush till I figure out that it was the wrong wave.
Here's a packet of commas and other punctuation to be used as seen fit. If you can't see it, it's ok. I didn't see it either.
Bill Clinton and Janet Reno burned alive a couple of hundred men, women , and children at Waco Texas after U.S. military tanks rammed the outer walls of the Branch Davidian building in Waco Texas.
Would Obama do something similar to U.S. citizens to 'save face'? He's letting bankers rob you and his TSA molest your groins right now. He'll damn sure order others to kill you you, when the time comes.
Do you know WHY & HOW they got the Helos, and PC's?, and the Abrams?.
Janet Reno LIED to the Governor of the state, and told her they had a Drug Lab in the Branch Davidians home.
This is /was the only lawful way to get them this equipment.
Janet Reno made a huge mistake and she regretted it until the day she died. Good riddance. On the other hand Bill Clinton has blood on his hands and could care less to this very day. He and wife Hillary sold their souls a long time ago. Just like Obama and the Bush family.
Janet Reno is alive Mr. Drives
All they count is mammon; they cannont envince their souls burning in hell - almost feel sorry for the SOB's - almost.
Well Koresh had a God complex and I guess Bill didn't want the competition.
Good point.
When will the sheeple realize the guns and flamethrowers are aimed at them?
Don't forget, Obama is a Mau Mau sympathizer.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau_Mau_Uprising
CD, Nice work.
No Jumping for you.
I jump for joy from your high praise. :>)
My next door neighbor is a hunter. He says you shouldn't shoot anything unless you're going to eat it.
coggyD, i liked your read, it hit H O M E !
you know if you just looked up ^ , once and a while, you might see another aspect of life or living. i mean Amerika has it pretty good, especially if you are pussy†
to answer the headline - you bet your ass they would....federal, state, and local police forces in all of their manifold forms - fema, tsa, batf, military, state troopers, local police, ad nauseum are trained criminal thugs in no way distinguishable from mobsters....they are a menace to liberty....
one came up to me to demand my id while i walked a parking lot waiting for a pizza....no arrest no nothing - he demanded my identification....i told him in so many words to fuck off or arrest me....
we live in a totalitarian nazi state with cameras at every corner to enforce the will of the banksters and plutocrats....they know who pays their salaries...
tony,
hate to tell ya, but if an officer asks for I.D., you are required to show it.
Required by whom? The supreme court of shit bought and paid for for almost a century? There was a brief moment in the sixties when true justice was emanating from that clownish court but that got squashed right quick. Case in point: Thurgood Marshall being replaced by thwt insufferable buffoon Clarence Thomas. What about that old pervert Scalia? Oh and the prretty fascist boy Roberts. That Stalinesque Rehnquist? I could go on and on.
Give me a break.
I do remember that case though. Wyoming rancher (salt of the earth folks) sued because the pig stopped him without probable cause to ask for ID.
Papers, papers everone!
Long live the TSA!
Let's see, the four justices who are for protecting the Constitution, you know the document that created this unique experiment in liberty, the basic law of the land, are the fascist justices?
I'm sure you can "go on and on" as you've said, but it would good to hear from you which bits of the originalist interpretation of the Constitution should go, and what they should be replaced with, you know, succinctly.
Not true. There must be a probable cause, a reason, he or she is asking for ID. This has been upheld at the supreme court.
Of course in practice they can do whatever the fuck they want and it's their word against yours. We live in a police state.
Several good points. But here's one that you missed.
Why do many continue to put up with this? Because of the "we are superior" conditioning that not all but many have had. From an early age the message is, we are the GREATEST in the world. This is the best place in the world to live. Remember how lucky you are to be American.
Think for a moment about the last three sentences. If you disagree with them, why? Look at everything that's happened since 9/11. If you had lost a friend or loved in that attack, would you be angry if some "expert" said it's all rubbish so shut up already? Probably so. Many of these "pundits" have no scientific or engineering background whatsoever. So what do they do? Resort to amateur talk show bits purely for ratings. by cutting others down.
Now, it looks like many are struggling to break out of this conditioning. Also, like it or not, but the revolution is spreading. Now you can split semantic fine hairs all day long. Just what is a "revolution"? When is a "revolution" not a "revolution" but a "revolt"? Sounds like a Python sketch. You can also try to put up with the MSM "interviews" with Gadaffi and his kids. One kid says he likes to hunt, play football and party. This is "in-depth news analysis"? Do these well-paid "newspeople" feel at all silly doing these? Probably not.
Now, Obama's sending in "advisors" to Libya (troops to seize the oil that's ours). Imagine for a moment that millions actually do go out in the streets.
Considering everything that he's done up to this point, do you seriously think that Obama would hesitate before ordering police and troops to fire on protestors? We outsource torture. Bradley Manning is being tortured right now as you read this. Are millions screaming about that? No, they're not.
Not all but many think that protesting is beneath them. Only unemployed, students or retired people do that. If they really believe that, what does that tell you?
That tells me that not all but many who bitch about so much being outsourced are hypocrites for this reason. How many say Assange is my hero for fighting the evil neocons that secretly run the world? This is called outsourcing protest. Please take care of this for me because I have to go home and cook dinner, thanks very much.
When was the last time you hear any progressive person or group say that? That's part of the problem. Nobody's willing to face the truth. This in turn is why the nutcase Teabaggers get all of the attention.
Look at any major national MSM news magazine. In the last year, what percentage of covers featured Obama or a Democrat vs. some neocon? I rest my case.
Read Glenn Greenwald
Maybe you missed this part of the essay.
There's a lot of damage to be undone. You don't go through decades of cold war conditioning and come out the other side unscathed.
Not if, but how many will be shot before a sense of shame permeates the collective consciousness.
'Officer Bubbles' mentality can't be much different from those paid to bust unions or dispose of Freedom Riders.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGMTm3QRwEc
On the other hand, I think there are a lot of ex-military who went to the ME and became angry and disillusioned, and once back, found themselves abandoned by their own government in economic terms. These same ex-soldiers will also have the experience of observing the effectiveness of insurgent tactics up close and personal.
the "ex-military" who came back "angry and disillusioned" and "abandoned by their own government during the Viet Nam War found themselves on towers, acting out as snipers, shooting randomly, deadly - quite a spate of shoot-ups at family restaurants/McDonalds as well. . .
Would US Troops fire on US Citizens.
I asked this question to a friend of my nephew who was trained in Fort Benning and is now in Afghanistan. I asked this question when he was last here on leave a few months back. His answer: "Sure. No problem. Why not?"
I've known him since he was 14 years old. I reminded him of that. I asked if he's shoot me if I was a "protester"...to which he said: "Yeah. It's my job. Sorry. Nothing personal"
you state exactly what i was thinking. our military take the young and not necessarily the brightest sad to say
I always thought whilst watching the tv series called "jericho" it was pulled after the first season and given a few episdoes to die, would be how it pans out.
In the series a selection of nukes go off around the US and at first it is blamed on terrorists.
Then we find out it was a gr oup who used Blackwater to do their bidding , to grab power from the then President.
We see various groups wrestle for power of the country, we see this on a local level in the towns and in fighting and rivalry between the small towns for the food and fuel that is left.
So yes this will happen in any country especially one with so many guns and nutjobs that have had their minds crafted by Fox News
If one goes with the premise that "science fiction" sooner or later comes true in some form or another...after watching all the episodes of this show I had the eerie (as in really bad) feeling that it was probably closer to reality than one would ever want to imagine. Reality in the sense that there are indeed those people in the world who are after power, and who will stop at nothing to get it. The show made me realize that if it came down to defending freedom, I would have to do so.
Excellent article, CD. I am late to the party (just discovered ZH this past year) - everything I've read here on ZH has made sense of what I had been putting together in my head.... I was raised poor on a farm - I can do just about anything with very little. As we were adding to our food stockpile last weekend (a great local grocery "outlet" store....don't worry, I worked in food manufacturing, I know about code dates and what they really mean) my husband and I joked about being able to living on very little if needed. We have three of the four Gs...just need to keep buying ammo. Haven't jumped in the PM game - I have a 401k at an old employer - have been tempted to cash it in and turn it into PMs.
The cops will, solders won't.
The cops will defend the system because the system privileges them. Most could never replace their current salaries if forced out into the private sector, and none could replace their benefits. They will gladly turn against the citizenry to protect the privileged because they are one of them... on a lower level than most, but privileged nonetheless.
The solders won't. They are low paid with low benefits, and most are not planning on a full career in the military anyway. They view their time in the government as temporary; they know from the beginning that they would be out in the real world soon enough. That is untrue for the cops, however. They think they've found a life-long sanctuary from the stormy seas of life... at least financially, if not in terms of violence and stress. And they will treat any threat to their comfy-retirement-at-50 plan as a theft.
Agree that the cops will fire, both before and after the currency collapse. Cops paid with worthless currency will be the worst gangs around. The active military won't be around to fight the cops it because the NWO will scam us into invading Saudi Arabia. The current pols and banksters trust the Pentagon, the DHS and other hand-picked psychopaths in special Federal units, but they don't trust the grunts, so best to keep them pinned down. This fight will be decided by the national guard, veterans, citizens' militias, and any active military remaining at home.
Sorry the extra spacing was accidental and it took me a bit to figure out how to remove it.
Ok here come the "junks"
Hard to read paragraph after paragraph when this can easily be condensed.
It is the eagle that is covering the entire continent and not the maple leaf.
I think it is also possible that this works the other way around.
Sure America has turned into a shithole when compared to its past glory. On the other hand, have you visited other nations recently?
Yes, and I can say, with absolute certainty, the export products of the US of A, in the form of poisoned GMO seeds (so called "suicide seeds") and defective financial products (derivatives) are the prime cause of systemic problems that emerge now like mushrooms on a cow heap. Not to mention the occasional bullet or Hellfire, fired from a drone.
This will increase. Not because citizens, farmers and clerk alike, hate the economic leader of the world, it has brought their elite wealth, and their country "progress", but because they've been led on a path to annihilation the last two decades, on which there is no easy return.
The very moment the USDA approves GMO Alfalfa, as the SEC did insider trading, you know it's intentional. This has not been priced into any market yet. But it will.
Consider yourselves warned.
Cheerio
*applause*