Category Archives: Culture Wars

March 6, 2024 · 2:19 pm

A few more blips in the information war

A few news bits, that will likely be quick blips that flit by caught my attention. There are so many bigger stories going on with the presidential politics, wars, and more high-profile issues, but these warrant some attention.

On March 4th, there were reports of three cables under the Red Sea being cut. The cause is unknown at this time. Here’s a bit from the Washington Post, :

“DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Three cables under the Red Sea that provide global internet and telecommunications have been cut as the waterway remains a target of Yemen’s Houthi rebels, officials said Monday. Meanwhile, a Houthi missile attack set a ship ablaze in the Gulf of Aden, but caused no injuries.

What cut the lines remains unclear. There has been concern about the cables being targeted in the Houthi campaign, which the rebels describe as an effort to pressure Israel to end its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The Houthis have denied attacking the lines, however.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/03/04/red-sea-undersea-cables-yemen-houthi-rebels-attacks/2f2c6b8a-da34-11ee-b5e9-ad4573c62315_story.html

US News & World Report ran a piece, 3 Red Sea Data Cables Cut as Houthis Launch More Attacks in the Vital Waterway This article reports:

“It described the cuts as affecting 25% of the traffic flowing through the Red Sea. It described the Red Sea route as crucial for data moving from Asia to Europe and said it had begun rerouting traffic.”

An attack affecting 25% of data moving from Asia to Europe seems like a blip to pay attention to.

There’s been a ransomware attack going on for over a week in the US, crippling many pharmacies and healthcare providers connected with Change Healthcare. Wired reports:

“The ransomware attack targeting medical firm Change Healthcare has been one of the most disruptive in years, crippling pharmacies across the US—including those in hospitals—and leading to serious snags in the delivery of prescription drugs nationwide for 10 days and counting. Now, a dispute within the criminal underground has revealed a new development in that unfolding debacle: One of the partners of the hackers behind the attack points out that those hackers, a group known as AlphV or BlackCat, received a $22 million transaction that looks very much like a large ransom payment.”

https://www.wired.com/story/alphv-change-healthcare-ransomware-payment

Last year the group that my primary care provider belongs to was hit by a ransomware attack, that took down their phone and computer system. I had to physically go into the office to schedule an appointment and when I saw my provider, they couldn’t access records on their computer system. They also couldn’t process payments. Ransomware attacks against hospitals, banks, governments, businesses in the US are increasing. A few years ago, my local water department was hit by a ransomware attack that took a couple months to resolve. During that time online payments could not processed, so customers had to physically show up with cash or a check at the water department or mail in a check.

Yesterday there was a short-lived blip on the domestic ideological culture war front:

This crazy announcement was authentic, but due to social media backlash from the right the VA Secretary overruled this decision. I saw some prominent right-wingers on X applaud the VA Secretary and suggest the person who made that decision be fired. This blip might seem like one random leftist crazy within the VA making this decision, but I am sure this is just part of a vast, orchestrated left-wing culture war effort. The person who penned that public announcement likely won’t be fired and we have no idea how many documents, records, or other information within the US government are quietly being altered, removed, or “edited” to fit the DEI thought police.

Why make a public announcement banishing an iconic image of America’s victory in WWII within all VA facilities?

Back in 2020 during the BLM protests, when the statue-toppling exploded as an acceptable form of public protest, all sorts of politicians, historians, experts rushed to embrace the BLM position that the protest was against US Civil War statues of Confederate generals and therefore noble and heroic, not criminal destruction of public property. Several US military bases were identified for renaming. Many Americans bought into the BLM cause, despite the glaring Marxist ideological undertones swirling. There were scenes of white people participating in white privilege sessions, where they were berated for their “white privilege” and pressured to publicly renounce their “white privilege.” These sessions were eerily similar to Mao’s Chinese cultural revolution and the struggle sessions, that used this exact form of ritualized public humiliation to force conformity to the new rules. Speaking out against anything connected to the BLM protests risked being labeled a racist.

Tell-tale signs were present back in 2020 that the statue-toppling was about more than statues of Confederate generals. By 2022, the historic homes of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, two of America’s most famous founding fathers, have now “gone woke,” A 2022 FOX News opinion piece, Jefferson, Madison’s homes become woke monuments attacking Founding Fathers’ legacies, by Douglas MacKinnon asserted:

“Jefferson’s Monticello is being reimagined to “finish the restoration of the landscape of slavery” — there is signage and interactive displays which incessantly link Jefferson to that subject. One of the main tours now at his home is entitled: “Slavery at Monticello.” On the website of the internationally famous home, visitors see: “Thomas Jefferson wrote that ‘all men are created equal,’ and yet enslaved more than 600 people over the course of his life.” 

There have been numerous other blips of efforts to erase American history since 2020, statues other than Confederate generals have been targeted, numerous historical sites are being “reimagined” is a popular leftist term that’s now used to smear founding fathers as evil racists, very similar to how the trans movement mainstreamed the term “gender-affirming care” to normalize puberty blocking drugs and mutilating genitals of children, as the only humane way to deal with gender dysphoria in children.

On February 14, 2024, protestors showed up at the National Archives and dumped a reddish powder on the display of the original US Constitution, while police looked on. The protestors were allowed to give their speech, before police escorted them away. Here’s a bit from an AP report:

““We are determined to foment a rebellion,” one man said, in a video posted on social media. “We all deserve clean air, water, food and a livable climate.”

Police then led the pair away, leaving a trail of powder out the door.

In the immediate aftermath, cleanup crews were reluctant to use any sort of water or liquids in the cleanup, especially since they were still unsure of the exact makeup of the powder.”

https://apnews.com/article/constitution-protest-red-powder-national-archives-evacuation-2a6dcfadbf35a3263887ac2fce1e813e

Here’s a NBC news report on the incident, National Archives closes after climate change protesters dump red powder on U.S. Constitution, which states, “The two men were immediately detained and escorted out by security personnel on site.” Well, I guess here we’ll have to haggle over the meaning of the word “immediately, ” since the NBC report includes a link to this social media video that was posted:

In the social media video the security personnel allowed the protestors to pour reddish powder all over the display and stood by and allowed them to make a prepared speech and it looks to me like the security guards didn’t even try to intervene until about 50 seconds into this video. The one protestor was spreading the red powder across the display case and this is an irreplaceable American historical document, but there was no rush to protect it.

In WWII, there were all sorts of efforts to try to preserve art, historical documents and books from Nazi destruction. Librarians, scholars, and even bookshop owners risked their lives hiding books and documents to preserve them for posterity. The US government embarked on hiring civilians, many librarians, to collect and microfilm documents, publications, and books from overseas, as part intelligence-gathering, but also to preserve this information from destruction. Now, we have security personnel, who just stood there while two extremists poured red powder on a display case of one of our most precious historical documents.

America today is nothing like the generation who won WWII.

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Filed under American History, Culture Wars, General Interest, Information War, Military, Politics

September 3, 2023 · 6:37 pm

Is America being hit by the “salami” technique?

Finally, getting to my sort of book report post on The Journal of David Q. Little, by R. Daniel McMichael, which was published in 1967. I’m sure I’ll reference this novel in future posts and to be honest, I’m only halfway through (it’s 557 pages), because I keep jotting notes on post-it flags and sticking them in the book and also writing down notes on paper. I can see how this novel influenced President Ronald Reagan, because it’s a story set in the late 20th century, after a US president signs onto a World Order of Nations (W.O.N.) agreement with the Soviet Union and other nations of the world to avert nuclear war (nuclear blackmail by the Soviet Union).

This W.O.N. agreement sets up a new international organization with vastly more power than the United Nations and it supersedes the US Constitution, even though the people of the United States are led to believe that this is all about world peace and trying to get along with other countries. There’s also a Treaty of Friendship the US signed onto. In reality with the stroke of a pen, an American president signed away American sovereignty to the Soviet Union and the remaking of America and dismantling of American beliefs in freedom and individualism blaze across the nation, as this novel begins.

The nuclear blackmail incident centered on the Soviet Union secretly building a massive nuclear arsenal – “she had a nuclear superiority of about 20,000 megatons capable of rapid delivery, compared with the U.S.A.’s rapid delivery nuclear capability then of only 2000 megatons – down from a previous high some years earlier of about 53,000 megatons.” This suggested to me some previous unilateral downsizing of the US nuclear arsenal, which over the years I’ve heard many liberals advocate.

The story is written as a journal of some average guy, David Q. Little, that is found in the year 2223. Historians keep gathering bits of old Americana from the time the world devolved into tyranny under this W.O.N. one-world system, akin to how historians in our day search for clues to unravel the fall of Rome.

The author wrote this fictional novel with footnotes to fill in background of Little’s journal, which is a very interesting way of plotting a fictional novel. I love reading footnotes and appendices in non-fiction books, so this is my cup of tea. The explanation of the nuclear blackmail comes with Little’s mention of DD-Day in his journal, with this footnote, “Newspapers used this expression in referring to the December 20 “destruction deadline” set by the USSR; the day on which she, presumably, would have exploded nuclear devices over 24 United States cities.”

Obviously, you can see how Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative was likely influenced some by this novel.

A couple days ago I mentioned Stella Morabito’s piece from 2016 about this novel and then I followed with an X-thread of mine, so I want to be clear what I meant. Stephen Miller had commented on the above X-post about President Biden making that bizarre speech on September 1, 2022. Here’s a FOX News headline, Biden shocks viewers with ‘hellish red background’ for polarizing speech. He has continually fumed about Americans, who hold right-wing political beliefs, as being “MAGA Extremists,” and that term “MAGA extremist” could be applied to anyone who doesn’t agree with the left’s progressive views and agenda.

In this dystopian novel, David Q. Little comes to realize that anyone who dares question anything about the new rules being implemented can quickly be labelled an “extremist” and end up being tried in televised, staged public hearings, where the crowd has been coached on rallying a mob atmosphere to denounce the extremists, who are smeared as “Mr. X.” The hearings begin with a prayer about “the fulfillment of mankind’s oldest aspiration – peace” and then a new Pledge of Allegiance. The witnesses testifying in these public hearings are co-workers, friends and even family members. Then, if warranted the guilty are turned over to a world court system for trial.

Many of the communist indoctrination methods described in this novel remind me of how the progressive Left in America plays these same type of forcing new words and phrases on the American public and then tries to engage in public-shaming exercises to force people to comply. The intimidation of threatening people’s jobs for failing to comply seems eerily similar too. If Dems could get hate speech laws severely limiting speech passed in America, I feel certain they would avidly criminalize speech they want silenced. In Little’s journal anyone holding to the old ways, like American patriotism, rambling about the Constitution, questioning the new rules, possessing a firearm (guns were confiscated), and the list goes on and on, becomes a target of being labelled an “extremist.” Everything is rationed, travel is restricted, passes are needed for everything and worst of all the people are being forced to spy on each other and report their neighbors, friends, and even family for being extremists or breaking any of these new rules. So much of this sounds like the Great Reset green dreams and COVID social mitigation excesses.

Amazingly, most people in this novel adopt a go along to get along attitude and keep deluding themselves that they aren’t living under communism and rationalizing that making some adjustments to work for world peace is worth it, considering the alternative of nuclear annihilation. The main character, David Q. Little, a rather conformist type guy, begins to wake up to what’s really going on and begins his private journal as the only place he can express his thoughts and feelings openly. His wife is all-in on the “peace” plans. He is a man consumed by guilt, as he got sucked into testifying against other people and pressured to lead a march.

The footnote on the legislation prohibiting possession of firearms explains that law was enacted some years before the Treaty of Friendship “in order to assure greater public safety.” It also states the treaty sought to re-enforce this law.

President Biden and Dems repeating this “MAGA Extremists” public tarring has struck me as so egregious for any American president to try to engage in creating a mob mentality against a segment of society, especially “extremists,” who are so vaguely defined, that the smear can be adjusted at will – just disagree with the left’s agenda and you might be a MAGA extremist, just like anything imaginable now gets labelled as “racist.” I felt disturbed by this MAGA extremist smearing before I even heard of this novel.

I have several books on Ronald Reagan and in another book, I had read he often mentioned a book he read when he was 11, The Printer of Udell’s, as helping shape his moral sense, but I had never heard of this dystopian novel about the US surrendering to USSR nuclear blackmail, under the guise of signing onto a new international order dedicated to peaceful coexistence.

It’s become very trendy among the American right to rant about Marxists and communism these days, but I suspect most of the people doing that labelling have no understanding of the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution and the decades long Cold War era.

I’ve written about the left-wing Marxist-tinged movements, like BLM, the trans movement and the collectivist one-world governance effort being pushed by an assortment of unelected elites at the WEF, UN, international banking, and ultra-wealthy business leaders, in cooperation with many world leaders under the auspices of the UN’s 2030 Agenda and various green energy transformation initiatives and DEI programs.

America’s most determined adversaries assuredly target both political sides in America with efforts to sow divisions, fuel distrust and latch onto any means possible to manipulate Americans via the media. Minority factions have always been key targets by Marxists to exploit divides and ignite anti-American sentiments. Since Dems and the liberal media invested so much effort with the Clinton Trump-Russian collusion dirty trick effort and labelling just about anything “Russian disinformation,” at this point that term is pretty much meaningless, but that doesn’t mean the Russians, Chinese and other foreign actors aren’t busily fueling divides in America via information war and other penetration efforts. For instance see the Confucius Institutes. The Wahhabi movement has been a global movement too and put effort into spreading Wahhabism to American black universities and prisons. There are other international groups dedicated to spreading Marxist ideology too. And there are also melded ideologies of Islamic extremism and Marxism, like The Nation of Islam. The founders of BLM stated they were inspired by Marxist ideology.

I don’t believe Trump is a Russian agent but, I do believe he reveres strong men and authoritarian leaders, in addition to having no respect for following the rules. In fact, one of Trump’s big selling points in 2016 was about how Trump doesn’t follow the rules. He did encourage rally attendees to punch protestors that showed up in 2015-2016. A 78 year-old man got caught up in that “fight back” atmosphere that Trump escalated, when protestors disrupted the rally and the elderly man sucker-punched a protestor. That elderly man ended up getting arrested and charged – while Trump pretended none of that incitement effort was his fault (the same as what he did on J-6). Trump leaves other people facing their legal bills, and until just recently had offered no financial assistance to J-6 attendees facing charges for their legal costs.

Trump followers go to great pains to cherry-pick Trump’s public cover-his-butt line about urging protestors to go to the Capitol and remain peaceful, but I watched that rally and all of the speakers were using incendiary language to rile up that crowd and urging them to “Stop the Steal.” And while I do believe there was serious law enforcement failure that day and the FBI might have had informants in the crowd, Trump set up that rally to pressure Mike Pence to do something he had no constitutional authority to do.

So, we have this mob formation going on not just on the left with all their hate speech dramas and othering people, but on both sides of the partisan aisle in America now.

Back in the Cold War days there was a term, “useful idiot,” used to describe a person who unwittingly aided Soviet propaganda efforts. I don’t believe Trump is a Russian agent, but he’s one of the most useful idiots for Putin. Trump basked in Putin’s praise, Trump also trashed NATO constantly and talked about wanting to pull the US out of NATO. The US pulling out of NATO would be a huge victory for Putin and President Xi of China. That move would be surrendering America’s position as a world leader, without our adversaries having to exert any military or economic effort. Trump also refers to President Xi, another dictator, as a friend and he loved yucking it up with Kim Jong Un, the leader of one of the most repressive regimes in the world and for very little in return – North Korea didn’t stop any of their weapons procurement or alter their long-range objectives.

What America’s adversaries got was the sight of America’s military leaders having fits over the stupidity of frittering away the prestige of a presidential meeting with no real strategic gains. Trump’s followers believe he’s the greatest dealmaker in the world, but if you don’t even understand the foreign policy stakes for America- in detail – and believe a photo-op with you is winning, then how on earth can you negotiate a deal that’s to America’s advantage? Communist regimes are the most devious and deceptive regimes to work on deals with, because they play endless word games and have turned strategic ambiguity into an art form.

On the left we have a Democratic Party consumed by radical one-world collectivist dreams that reek of stale Marxist ideology. That ideology has literally captured academia in America and many American K-12 public schools and they’re working on turning our American military into a far-left institution too.

Our American political and public institutions really are being hit by both sides and I had hoped the communist threat was over in 1989.

In the author’s notes to this dystopian novel, McMichael, explains how the Soviets were trying to find a way to take down Czechoslovakia, the last remaining democracy, which fell in 1948. The Soviets were trying to sell their international image as working toward world peace and were trying to persuade the Americans to give up their nuclear weapons, so tanks rolling into Prague would have demolished that image. McMichael writes, “A way was found quite in keeping with the enigmas of the Marxist-Leninist world of dialectics. For the Czech problem: just turn everything upside down. Keep the military on the sidelines, stationed in other Bloc satellites but close enough to pose a frightening threat. Then, activate a concerted effort to break the will of the non-communist Czechs against a peaceful solution, this through the arts of propaganda, subversion and intimidation – components of which included: use of popular fronts, protest committees, disinformation, discrediting and decapitating non-communist leadership – all designed to generate loss of national confidence to resist the “inevitability of history and the will of the people.”

McMichael, went on, “The means employed was the continuing use of the strategy of “pressure from above, pressure from below” projects and the application of the “salami” technique to isolate leadership and institutions (such as bankers and banks) from lay public support. Targets involved leadership penetration of parliament, civil service, police, judiciary, as well as the electorate.”

This blitz started in 1946 McMichael states and Czechoslovakia fell in 1948.

I’ve been pondering the chaos going on in America for the past 20 years and in recent years it’s escalated dramatically, which has left me concerned that now both sides of America are dangerously polarized and unstable. This culture war, largely fueled by a relentless 24/7 spin information war, has played an outsized role in the culture war, I’ve believed since the late 1990s. I write about my thoughts about the spin information war on my blog and I’ve tweeted about it, but I stopped mentioning my ideas to my family members who are interested in foreign policy, because they just dismiss me as if I’m saying something ridiculous. Unless someone in the news says it – they don’t believe it. I have a high school education and when I first started trying to understand this spin information war, no one was talking about these repetitive messaging attacks that the liberal media and Dems launch (now in the right they produce clever videos, like that video of 3.4% fatality that kicked off COVID hysteria)- all the talk was about right-wingers complaining about “media bias.” I don’t care if anyone agrees with me, because I pay for my blog here and as long as I can get blog posts published, which is difficult with that autosaving problem, I mentioned, I’m going to keep writing. I usually end up having to do more background reading to even understand a lot of the issues and terminology I run into, as I wade through books and information online.

I’m going to continue to be a lone voice in the wilderness and I’ll keep reading through stacks of books and online searching trying to dig for information and hopefully find some answers. I highly recommend this dystopian novel, because while it’s very easy to invoke Orwell’s 1984, which I reread last year, I think this novel offers much more relevant food for thought about the culture war in America and the political chaos.

If you’re reading my blog, I sincerely thank you for your time.

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Filed under Culture Wars, Foreign Policy, General Interest, Information War, Military, Politics

August 9, 2023 · 8:47 pm

Hillary wants to fix America’s loneliness epidemic

A couple weeks ago I wrote a blog post, The federal government wants to manage our social connections, about a new National Strategy for Social Connection Act, introduced by Senator Chris Murphy, a very liberal Democrat from Connecticut. While most people probably will just dismiss this as more feel-good government posturing or as a family member told me they probably are concerned about addiction, I feel this is going to be another stealth effort to increase federal power and will go well beyond trying to help individuals with problems stemming from addiction, social isolation and helping communities promote “social connection.”

Lo’ and behold, a couple days ago, our premier social architect, the village expert herself, Hillary Rodham Clinton, penned a piece, The Weaponization of Loneliness: To defend America against those who would exploit our social disconnection, we need to rebuild our communities, in The Atlantic. Naturally, in her world everything that’s wrong with America is the fault of the “vast, right-wing conspiracy” and protecting Americans from right-wing demagogues plays large in her remedy for repairing social connection… Of course, one can only wonder what she’s got in mind to deal with the “basket of deplorables” and all the people who don’t agree with liberal policies…

As I mentioned in my previous post about this new “social connection” proposed federal government effort, Stella Morabito wrote a book last year titled: The Weaponization of Loneliness: How Tyrants Stoke Our Fear Of Isolation To Silence, Divide, And Conquer, in which she explains the history of Utopian revolutions, conformity impulse and mob formation. She makes a case for American identity politics and the leftist long march through our American institutions with the culture war and feminist movement being part of the vanguard leading to the social isolation and dislocation in so many families and communities. Hillary’s version of the “weaponization of loneliness” seems like she took Morabito’s ideas and flipped the script.

I’ll take a pass on any “social connection” policies Democrats and liberal social engineers conjure up, thanks!

We’re headed toward a digital currency, where our every online transaction would be tracked, and our every click online could be monitored to keep track of where we go online and our cell phones and in newer cars our location can be tracked too. Even newer household appliances can be monitored if you set up the app on your phone and turn on, for instance, your clothes dryer with your cell phone – the government could monitor when and how often you’re using your dryer.

The federal government collecting data about our “social connections” didn’t give me the warm fuzzies, but made me pause and keep repeating their innocuous sounding term, “social connections,” which could encompass surveillance of all of our movements.

Assuredly, a federal program designed and managed by leftists, who want federal government control of everything, would intrude into state and local jurisdictions on things like zoning and planning decisions to restructure communities that promote “social connection” and deal with communities where resources aren’t distributed “fairly” in disadvantaged neighborhoods. This will be another redistributive extravaganza, well beyond eliminating “food deserts” that was a Democrat pet project in the 90s and early 2000s.

“Fair share” was the old leftist lingo, while now it’s all about diversity, equity and inclusion, however, my gut instinct is that this benign- sounding, “social connections” program about helping combat the loneliness epidemic is similar to what was hidden from us during the pandemic “social mitigation” programs, where churches were closed, people were forced to close their businesses, lost jobs, couldn’t visit dying loved ones in the hospital or nursing homes, couldn’t even hold funerals in some cases, faced both arrest and social ostracism in some places. “Social mitigation” was sold to us as being good people, who didn’t want to spread illness to others.

Many Dems and liberal media folks have tried to selectively remember the draconian actions during the pandemic, but it’s important to remember what happened and be on guard against allowing the government to intrude into our daily lives and interfere in the exercise of our personal liberties. We must safeguard our private spaces from government intrusion or we’ll lose all of our personal liberties.

In 2020 Governor Gavin Newsom of CA issued Thanksgiving COVID guidelines that even told citizens how to manage the bathroom for guests in their own homes:

“Gatherings are defined as social situations that bring together people from different households at the same time in a single space or place. When people from different households mix, this increases the risk of transmission of COVID-19,” the CDPH said in a statement.

All gatherings must include no more than three households, including hosts and guests, and must be held outdoors, lasting for two hours of less.

“The longer the duration [of the gathering], the risk of transmission increases,” the statement noted.

“Gatherings that occur outdoors are significantly safer than indoor gatherings. All gatherings must be held outside. Attendees may go inside to use restrooms as long as the restrooms are frequently sanitized,” the statement added.”

https://www.newsweek.com/coronavirus-california-gavin-newsom-new-rules-gatherings-thanksgiving-1541402

I believe the loneliness problem is a real thing, considering the fall-out from school closures/lockdowns during the pandemic, decades of family structure breakdown, fraying of community bonds, decline in church-going, and the negative impacts of social media replacing real-life friendships. The left’s progressive culture movements and government policies facilitated and helped create many of our social ills, so the last people I would trust for a remedy are progressive “experts,” like the ones we were told to trust during the pandemic. In fact, there are still diehard COVID social mitigation proponents and plenty of Dem activists and politicians, who would avidly impose more rules on Americans’ daily lives. There are even “zero-COVID” true-believers in America, who believe that if more stringent social mitigation rules, like China tried, were imposed, COVID could be eradicated and there are still some masking zealots. I also suspect there are more than a few liberals who would not be opposed to forced relocation of Americans whom they consider “MAGA” or those “basket of deplorables” Hillary finds not fit for polite society.

Dealing with such a vaguely defined problem as “social connections” could encompass just about every activity humans engage in and that, I suspect, was why Democrats used this nebulous term – it disarms most Americans, because it sounds harmless and caring. It could also, in the hands of governmental “expert” busybodies, who think they know what’s best for all of us, include massive surveillance and data collection on individuals’ daily lives, to include our associations within our own neighborhoods and communities. You could get evaluated on the clubs or organization you join, the people you hang out with, where you shop, etc. It could include a federal effort to decide how our communities should be set up to best enhance “social connection,” based on some sort of DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) criteria. Not only could schools, churches, private organizations, and private businesses be evaluated on whether they promote “social connection,” but assuredly they’d be evaluated on “social justice” and “environmental justice” goals too. In another post about climate change I’m thinking about writing, I’ll include how “environmental justice” is integral in the Biden climate change agenda – so even with a supposed climate crisis – all the other identity politics gets worked in like this: Biden signs order protecting Grand Canyon lands sacred to tribes.

A “social connections” program about helping combat the loneliness epidemic in America might be even more intrusive than the pandemic “social mitigation” efforts.

Don’t let soft and fuzzy words fool you. The government is not your friend, nor should you trust the government to manage your “social connections.”

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Filed under Culture Wars, General Interest, Politics

August 4, 2023 · 12:56 pm

Where has President Obama been?

Yesterday, there was some buzz on politics Twitter about an interview, The Obama Factor, of a historian, David Garrow, who wrote a biography, Rising Star, about former President Obama in 2017. I don’t recall a lot of talk about this biography in 2017, but then again our political media was in complete #Resist mode and 24/7 meltdowns about how President Trump was going to destroy the world.

I realize that most people don’t have time to read a lot and this interview is a long piece. It covers Obama’s life, his writings, and a lot of other topics beyond the part that caught my attention the most – the weaponization of the federal government. Here’s the paragraph that stuck out:

“But while the attention of Republicans in Washington turned to questioning the FBI, more careful observers could not fail to notice that the FBI had hardly acted alone. After all, Russiagate had not originated with the Bureau, but with the Clinton campaign, which having failed to get even sympathetic mainstream media outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post to bite on its fantastical allegations, was reduced to handing off the story to campaign press apparatchiks like Slate’s Franklin Foer and Mother Jones’ David Corn. The fact that the story only got bigger after Clinton lost the election was due to Obama’s CIA director, John Brennan, who in November and December of 2016 helped elevate Russiagate from a failed Clinton campaign ploy to a priority of the American national security apparatus, using a hand-picked team of CIA analysts under his direct control to validate his thesis. If Brennan was the instrument, the person who signed the executive order that turned Brennan’s thesis into a time bomb under Trump’s desk was Barack Obama.”

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/david-garrow-interview-obama

Brennan has become a permanent “Trump/Russian Collusion” mouthpiece on CNN and MSNBC since Trump took office in 2017 and yet this interview points out that Obama has pretty much disappeared from being in political news a lot, other than the stories of the Obamas fancy mansions and hobnobbing with the ultra-rich elites. Obama’s people are everywhere though – in the media and in the White House, but Obama wasn’t out there ranting about Trump or politics. This interview mentions that, unlike other former presidents, the Obamas live mostly in their home in Washington DC, yet the press never talks about what they’re doing in Washington or who visits them.

This other paragraph was illuminating too:

“That Obama might enjoy serving as a third-term president in all but name, running the government from his iPhone, was a thought expressed in public by Obama himself, both before and after he left office. “I used to say if I can make an arrangement where I had a stand-in or front man or front woman, and they had an earpiece in, and I was just in my basement in my sweats looking through the stuff, and I could sort of deliver the lines while someone was doing all the talking and ceremony,” he told Steven Colbert in 2015, “I’d be fine with that because I found the work fascinating.””

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/david-garrow-interview-obama

Well, the Biden White House is filled with Obama’s people and it’s been obvious since that Locked In The Basement 2020 campaign that Joe Biden isn’t running things. Obama had initially tried to generate political momentum for his friend and ally, Deval Patrick, former Massachusetts governor in the 2020 Democratic primary, but that effort failed. Biden won the Democratic nomination and there seemed to be a bit of a power struggle within the Biden circle.

I didn’t know the Obamas still live in Washington DC, because the media only mentions their other mansions and their vacations. However, I’ve suspected Obama was running the Biden White House and this interview bolsters that opinion.

In recent months, Hunter Biden has moved into the White House and is by his father’s side constantly. I’ve wondered if the top Dems (Obama and his peeps) are working to orchestrate a “dignified exit” for Biden to drop out of the 2024 race and if Hunter’s there to squash a palace coup. Who is really running the Office of the President right now, Hunter or Obama? At this point it’s hard to tell. What is clear is Michelle Obama and Gavin Newsom keep getting liberal media buzz as alternatives, not Kamala Harris, if Joe Biden drops out of the race.

Before ending this blog post, I wanted to touch on my own waffling about the focus of my blog. I started this blog in 2012 blabbing about politics, foreign affairs, military matters and assorted culture war topics, but as the polarization and “politicization of everything” in America escalated, I’ve thought about skipping the politics and writing about less controversial topics and about other things I think are important – like emergency preparedness. However, I really do enjoy reading through articles and books and reports hunting down information and I’ve been writing about how America’s political and culture war are being fought out via a corrupt, media-driven spin information war, long before most politicos even talked about the weaponization of news. In an information war – digging for reliable or accurate information is vital, because the spin efforts create walls of lies and deliberate misdirections.

Words really are the weapons in spin war. Back in 2016, I wrote a blog post, The “War about Words” (Part 1), and here’s a bit from that:

“Trying to explain this dichotomy of Americans who boldly proclaim their principles and independent-thinking, then become devoted followers of obvious con men and demagogues, I remembered  this book by Brian Burrell.  He relates DeTocqueville’s observations on Americans from 1831 and perhaps this American characteristic still gets passed on in our cultural DNA. DeTocqueville identified the American reliance on “experts”, that still persists today:

“On his visit to the United States, Tocqueville noticed that the Americans he encountered tended to exhibit two opposing tendencies: they did not want to be told what to do or think, and yet their collective will could easily be rallied behind certain carefully chosen words, to which he gave a name.  “In the United States, Tocqueville concluded, “the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of the individuals who are thus relieved from having to form opinions of their own.””

pages 4-5, The Words We Live By: The Creeds, Mottoes, And Pledges That have Shaped America, by Brian Burrell”

There’s still a great deal of truth in DeTocqueville’s observation that Americans tend to rally behind the loudest “public opinion” and the architects of our American spin information war use many tools driving public opinion to con the American people. They eagerly use repetitive messaging bombardments in the media, where the liberal media jump on repeating the same inflammatory and/or deceptive words to incite mob type behavior and fuel the latest cancel culture trends. At this point the Trump circle effectively borrowed the same Dem/liberal media spin tactics too and they’re using the polling spin game against DeSantis – hyping “winning in all the polls” to con Republicans into believing that polls reflect the will of the GOP voters. In reality polls are only a momentary snapshot of the opinions of only a very few people. When the media hypes the majority in polls they’re trying to convince people that if you aren’t in the majority your views are “out of the mainstream” of the group being polled. Many people don’t want to be called fringe and they will move to be part of the mainstream. This media/political effort to drive public opinion by hyping polls creates opinion cascades to push public opinion in a certain direction. It’s fascinating to realize that DeTocqueville in 1831 recognized this culture trait in America.

The traditional terms “disinformation and misinformation” are pretty meaningless at this point, because Democrats and their vast liberal media sphere have called just about everything “Russian disinformation” to attack Trump or during the pandemic calling information that differed with their experts’ views as “COVID misinformation” and working to silence them, so I’m going with “deliberate misdirections” (LIES). I’m hoping providing links to information I come across might help others be aware of this information and be encouraged to do their own research.

I continue to work on my own preparedness, but I feel there are loads of better preparedness sites and videos online than what I can write or create. In my own life I get frustrated when people I care about don’t seem to take my preparedness advice seriously and ignore my warnings about how if they wait until there is a serious crisis to prepare for an emergency, it’s too late.

Along with natural disasters, the constant growing threat in America continues to be the polarization and politicization of everything,” fueled by our media and social media. Most of the spin war hits us daily through controversies that seem like trivial, stupid stuff – like the Jason Aldean song or arguing about pronouns. However, all of these culture war media/social media controversies are part of the larger political war, being waged constantly via the 24/7 spin information war. While it’s understandable to try to ignore these ridiculous controversies and the partisan dramas, as American citizens we all should at least be aware of the partisan divides and about how media and social media play a major role in the political and culture war swirling constantly.

In the words of the Aaron Tippin country song, “You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.”

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July 27, 2023 · 12:31 pm

About “benefiting” from slavery…

This post isn’t about whether you support DeSantis or Trump or Biden or Cornell West, or whoever else is running for president, even though I’m going to mention another of those “Racism” dramas in the 2024 presidential election. I’ll tell you upfront, the point of this post is about reading history, not just repeating partisan talking points you see on TV or social media.

The Florida Department of Education has been working on their own African American history standards, after rejecting the AP standards in mid-January, which they claimed focused on Black Lives Matter, reparations, Black feminism – you get it, the woke topics. So, Florida put together a work group to come up with Florida’s new African American history standards for grades K-12. A few days ago those standards were approved by the Florida state board of education. Then the backlash started.

Democrats “pounced” – here’s a NBC headline to give you the gist of the complaints: New Florida standards teach students that some Black people benefited from slavery because it taught useful skills. The big issue was mentioning “benefited.”

FL governor, Ron DeSantis backed the new standards, Democrats, liberal media and activists rushed into full-throated condemnations of DeSantis and the usual “Racist!” smears, but Trump’s campaign also decided to jump on the Dems’ smear effort too. Vice-president, Kamala Harris, usually mercilessly mocked for her ridiculous, disjointed speeches, rushed to Florida to grandstand about… how dare they teach children that slavery benefited slaves.

After all this brouhaha, members of the work group that developed the new standards spoke out and defended their standards. Here’s Megyn Kelly interviewing, Dr. William B. Allen, Professor Emeritus, Michigan State University, who was part of the FL work group:

Dr. Allen mentions Frederick Douglass in this interview (at minute 5:32), as an example of a slave who “benefited” from skills he learned as a slave.

Then last night DeSantis’ press secretary tweeted out information about the AP African history standards, which include the same point that the VP, Dems, liberal media and Trump campaign were ranting about to attack DeSantis:

And what ticks me off the most is this is just another idiotic political media circus, to label DeSantis as a racist and this actual point – the power of how individuals persevere in even the most awful conditions – is something every American should learn in school. In the Megyn Kelly video, Dr. Allen mentions Frederick Douglass, who grew up a slave, became a abolitionist, writer, and famous orator. Dr. Allen says we should listen to the words of these people in history. I find Douglass’ words truly inspiring.

I wonder how many of the people ranting about the FL standards have ever read Frederick Douglass’ writings? I have a high school education, but I’ve always been a voracious reader. I also like studying history and researching things just to satisfy my own curiosity. I always want to know, “Well, what really happened?” and “Why?” With the internet, you can easily hunt down Douglass’ writings and read them free online.

This bogus racial drama brought to my mind Frederick Douglass immediately. I’ve mentioned Douglass in other blog posts and I believe every American should read his story, My Bondage and My Freedom, if they want to feel the inhumanity of slavery, in heart wrenching, but eloquent words. I’ve linked it to a free copy at guternberg.org.

Douglass related that while a slave learning to read was forbidden, but a white mistress began teaching him how to read, until her husband found out and forbade her to continue. Douglass, then undertook a secret and dangerous mission to learn to read and educate himself. I have these quotes in a 2015 blog post, The power of free thinking:

“Seized with a determination to learn to read, at any cost, I hit upon many expedients to accomplish the desired end. The plea which I mainly adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, was that of using my young white playmates, with whom I met in the streets as teachers. I used to carry, almost constantly, a copy of Webster’s spelling book in my pocket; and, when sent of errands, or when play time was allowed me, I would step, with my young friends, aside, and take a lesson in spelling. I generally paid my tuition fee to the boys, with bread, which I also carried in my pocket. For a single biscuit, any of my hungry little comrades would give me a lesson more valuable to me than bread. Not every one, however, demanded this consideration, for there were those who took pleasure in teaching me, whenever I had a chance to be taught by them.”

Douglass, Frederick (2009-10-04). My Bondage and My Freedom (p. 85). Public Domain Books Kindle Edition.

Douglass wrote about hearing white schoolboys talking about a popular schoolbook, The Colombian Orator, which was filled with essays and speeches on republican virtues (learning about liberty and good citizenship) and he determined to get a copy. I located a link to The Colombian Orator years ago, because I was curious about why Douglass found that school book so inspiring. I am always curious about books that inspired important people in history. Here’s what Douglass wrote about what The Colombian Orator meant to him.:

“I had now penetrated the secret of all slavery and oppression, and had ascertained their true foundation to be in the pride, the power and the avarice of man. The dialogue and the speeches were all redolent of the principles of liberty, and poured floods of light on the nature and character of slavery. With a book of this kind in my hand, my own human nature, and the facts of my experience, to help me, I was equal to a contest with the religious advocates of slavery, whether among the whites or among the colored people, for blindness, in this matter, is not confined to the former. I have met many religious colored people, at the south, who are under the delusion that God requires them to submit to slavery, and to wear their chains with meekness and humility. I could entertain no such nonsense as this; and I almost lost my patience when I found any colored man weak enough to believe such stuff.”

Douglass, Frederick (2009-10-04). My Bondage and My Freedom (p. 87). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition

When I compare the stirring, eloquent words of Douglass, a man who grew-up in slavery and basically educated himself, to the bumbling, blathering of our Vice President, Kamala Harris, a woman who attended both Howard University and the University of California, Hastings College of Law, I feel sad for the state of our country. Sometimes, it seems to me that we, with all our modern conveniences and advantages, fail to even understand how ridiculous most of our political and culture war dramas really are. VP Harris could learn a lot studying Frederick Douglass’ writings and speeches. It might improve her public-speaking skills.

Douglass absolutely “benefited” from those few reading lessons his white mistress taught him when he was a slave and then he set about doing everything possible to learn more. Douglass’ soaring oratory helped drive the abolitionist movement in America.

Frederick Douglass’ life is a slave story every American schoolkid should learn about. He fought against slavery with every fiber of his being and his is an American freedom story every American should know about.

7/27/2023, 8:54 pm, Note: Just like in the Jason Aldean “racist” song allegations, with the pushback from DeSantis and the work group who developed the FL African American history standards, the attacks from the left are shifting. A new term was floated today – “policy violence.”

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Filed under American Character, American History, Culture Wars, General Interest, Politics

June 3, 2023 · 9:31 am

Another link for Matt Walsh’s film

It appears that YouTube has censored Matt Walsh’s film, What is a Woman, so here’s a link for it on Twitter. It’s available free for a limited time.

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June 2, 2023 · 1:04 pm

A point of view that shouldn’t be banned

I’ve generally avoided writing about the trans movement, because it mainstreams an ideology that I believe is counter to basic biology and reality. I don’t prefer to live in a world of pretend. I hoped it was a fad movement that would fade away, but it’s part of a determined leftist agenda and steamrolling anyone who challenges it.

When I was a teenager in the 1970s, the Women’s Rights movement was gaining steam and everything was about “Girl Power” and knocking down barriers to women and being a strong-willed girl, I bought into modern feminism. When I joined the Army, reality clashed with my feelings that women can do anything men can and that men and women are interchangeable. I saw women in jobs, that they could not physically do and they happily worked in the orderly room doing secretarial work or moved to some other less grueling job. On paper they remained filling a slot for the grueling job they weren’t doing. That left a readiness gap, because on paper that unit looked fully-staffed. This type of thing happened years later when my husband deployed to Desert Storm too, with pregnant soldiers, who were non-deployable.

Women can enter many traditional male-dominated fields and succeed, but when the rubber meets the road, if you put even the most fit men against the most fit women – the men have more upper-body strength and muscle mass, more endurance and will outperform the women. That reality changed my perspective on “women’s rights,” especially when it’s given more importance than having the strongest, most well-trained fighting force to defend America. Having the best-trained and performing military outweighs women’s rights or any other leftist political ideology.

Modern feminism is a leftist political ideology, that has been going through “waves” by their own definition. That feminist movement has now been consumed by the trans movement. We’re watching “trans girls”(biological males), who would not be top athletes competing against other biological males, now joining girls sports teams and outperforming top girl athletes. We’re supposed to pretend we see no physical size differences – taller, larger upper bodies, etc.

I do think most military jobs, even most non-traditional ones, should be open to women, but a few of the heavy-lifting, grueling combat jobs, I believe are best left to the strongest, most fit men. Even most fit men don’t make it into those jobs. Around the Army, the reality of what’s really going on, has been covered up for decades, because it’s career-suicide for commanders to speak the truth about the realities and now on top of the smiley face, they’ve had to put on about any problems that center on women in the military, due to political pressure, the US military is now into promoting the trans movement too. A leftist political movement now surmounts warfighting capability as a focus and that bodes poorly for America’s national defense. However, even in American families, the trans movement also has been working to eliminate parents rights to decide on irreversible medical procedures for their children or drugs that are really chemical castration drugs renamed ” harmless puberty blockers.”

I’ve never watched Matt Walsh, so I asked someone I know if he knows who Matt Walsh is and he said, “He’s a douche!” After watching the Walsh movie, What is a Woman, well, I can say the person I asked despises right-wing media and viewpoints. He reacted like most of the activists Walsh interviewed and talked to in this movie. However, he is against the trans movement targeting children, so perhaps there’s a tiny bit of common ground there. There’s been a liberal effort to get this movie banned on social media and that’s why I wanted to watch it and that’s why I’m sharing it.

I highly recommend this movie, because Walsh delves into the history of the gender ideology movement, which no one on the Left wants to talk about. The trans proponents he talked to offered circular definitions about gender and emotionally-charged reactions about feelings – no truth or science. I’ll state this clearly, I believe and have believed that the trans movement is a destructive leftist ideology that’s being mainstreamed, it’s a social contagion, and it’s targeting children. I don’t hate “trans people,” but I do believe Americans have a right to speak out and say they do not agree with this movement. I don’t know if this link to the movie will be censored or this entire blog post blocked, but here goes.

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May 16, 2023 · 8:35 pm

More spin garbage to wade through

This blog post is politics and jumps around a bit. It’s a little of this and a little of that, but the spin information war ties it all together. Yesterday, John Durham’s final report on his Trump-Russia investigation was finally released. I haven’t even looked at it and I’m not going to waste my time pouring over it, as I used to do with government reports. All of the Clinton and Dem efforts to invent, ignite and then fan the flames of “Trump-Russia Collusion” was to create and operate a years-long mass media spin information war effort to destroy Donald Trump.

Andrew C. McCarthy wrote a book, Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency in 2019, which I listened to the audiobook version on Hoopla a few years ago and that covered much of the corruption I’ve seen reported with the Durham report. And since I’ve yammered on about the Dem’s corrupt spin information war for decades now, there’s really no point in going through the Durham report with a fine-tooth comb and fuming about the mountains of lies and how the Clinton machine, along with the Obama administration spread via their vast army of foot soldiers in news media and on social media platforms. They all worked tirelessly to amplify and keep these Trump-Russia narratives burning.

The Durham report won’t change a thing.

If House Republicans run headlong into ramping up investigations into the Durham report and rehashing 2016 corruption, with the 2024 presidential election right around the corner, they’ll basically be making a contribution in kind to the Biden campaign. The House Republicans can investigate and make criminal referrals to the DOJ, until the cows come home, and there is no way the Biden DOJ is ever going to prosecute top Democrats or former FBI and intelligence officials, who diligently carried water for them, especially not over Trump-Russia Collusion. You also aren’t going to find many Dems or liberal news media folks who will admit they were wrong about Trump-Russia Collusion. As evidence of this Jake Tapper, tried to admit to getting some facts wrong, in light of the Durham report, and he has been lambasted by Dem pundits relentlessly. He’ll likely be back to propping up the Dem spin narratives, even if they relaunch the Trump-Russia Collusion spin effort (which is likely). Add to that as we move toward a presidential election year, what most Americans will care about is more current issues, not rehashing the 2016 election. Many Trump supporters want to see top Democrat villains in this scandal perp walked and in jail, but that’s never going to happen with the Biden DOJ… or even a DOJ in a Republican administration.

The main thing I wish Republicans had learned from this Trump-Russia Collusion political dirty trick is that the Dem’s brand of spin information war is poison to America’s political system and poison to American culture. The entire Trump-Russia spin narrative was intended to be hyped over liberal news media, and other liberal-controlled media, to include social media. Instead of realizing that the spin war is a surefire way to divide and tear America apart, the lesson a lot of Trump-supporters learned was they just wanted a spin-warrior, who could beat the Democrats at their own spin game. They found their spin warrior in Donald Trump, a former Clinton friend, a man who hired a series of grifters and unqualified nincompoops, who invariably quit or were fired and then showed up on liberal news media to trash him 24/7. How Trump managed to pick so many disloyal and duplicitous people still amazes me, but beyond all that Trump entered politics to advance himself and he turned his WH into a daily Trump vs. the liberal media spin show, which his fans loved.

The truth is the spin war, whether it’s the Democrat version or the Trump version is poison and can only deepen divides in America. Here’s the reality check, politics can’t fix what’s broken, because the American people feed on this partisan political spin theater and we pick a dog in these spin battles.

So, with the Durham report being released yesterday, an IRS whistleblower reported to Congress that he and his entire team, who are investigating Hunter Biden corruption, have been removed from the case:

WASHINGTON – A whistleblower at the Internal Revenue Service, which is investigating Hunter Biden for potential tax violations, told lawmakers Monday his entire team was removed from the probe, according to a letter from his lawyers obtained by USA TODAY.

The letter said the IRS criminal supervisory special agent “was informed that he and his entire investigative team are being removed from the ongoing and sensitive investigation of the high-profile, controversial subject about which our client sought to make whistleblower disclosures to Congress.” The Justice Department informed the whistleblower about the change.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/05/16/hunter-biden-investigation-irs-team-removed/70222248007/

That’s how concerned Democrats are about the Durham report. Hillary, top FBI officials, top Obama officials, like John Brennan and James Clapper, who became liberal media “Trump-Russia Collusion” experts, to give credence to all of the Steele dossier bs, aren’t ever going to be prosecuted and in fact, the liberal media will still give them airtime to keep propping up the Steele dossier lies and trash Durham’s report.

With another presidential election cycle about to kick into high-gear, it’s sure to become even crazier. I’ve found the Clinton machine corruption appalling since the 90s, but they, along with a lot of powerful political players in Washington, are above the law. That’s just the plain truth. The reality is conspiracies are very hard to prosecute and that’s why so many organized crime syndicates get away with it. The FBI and DOJ were implicated in this Trump-Russia Collusion scandal, so they aren’t going to hold themselves accountable. Andrew McCabe, the #2 FBI official under Comey, was already on CNN today spewing lies dismissing Durham’s report. CNN will continue to give McCabe airtime. A 2017 DOJ IG investigation found McCabe lacked candor (lied) repeatedly to investigators and he was fired. CNN still hired him and present him as a former top FBI official – someone with credibility…

The Durham report reaction reminded me of all the other swirling partisan spin dramas. The Biden/House Republican stand-off over the debt ceiling is more pressing, with the deadline and dire consequences for all of us, if the US government defaults. There’s also the Dem green agenda is still being rammed through – from killing fossil fuel to pushing insects onto American dinner plates. A couple weeks ago, NY state became the first state to ban gas stoves in new homes, beginning in 2026. In just the past few days, I’ve seen a few opinion pieces in liberal mainstream media advocating for eating insects. So, the “Great Reset” agenda is real and despite all the “don’t be ridiculous” or “that’s just a right-wing conspiracy theory,” the Great Reset is an effort to expedite the UN’s 2030 agenda, which was approved in 2015. As the radical changes escalate, don’t be surprised. When some Biden official first mentioned the ban on gas stoves, Sen. Chuck Schumer, from NY, tweeted numerous times that no one is banning gas stoves. Then lo’ and behold, NY became the first state a couple weeks ago to pass a gas stove ban. When the media starts pushing some new idea, like eating bugs to save the planet, it’s part of their spin war operations – mass media psychological operations with the goal of mainstreaming that idea. They want Americans to drop their aversion to eating bugs by wrapping it up in being a virtuous, environmentally-responsible citizen. The bad people will be the dreaded meat-eaters.

I wish there was some easy way to plan for how to weather these radical changes, especially the economic turmoil, but there’s not. I’ve been trying to simplify my lifestyle and learn more basic skills. I am continuing to stock up on food, water and supplies too. Working on personal preparedness has become a key focus for me. It should be a key focus of everyone, but unfortunately, I suspect, the vast majority of Americans will wait until the government tells them it’s time to prepare or that the government’s going to fix the problems, but by then it will be way too late. The government that has created all of these major problems, certainly isn’t who I’m trusting to fix anything. Here’s the truth – with the national debt, both parties spend like drunken sailors and politicians on both sides get rich and gain power by fueling divides.

It felt liberating to feel no reason to waste hours pouring over the Durham report and writing about all the disturbing findings. I decided to focus on things in my own life. A skill I never learned was how to properly sharpen knives. I used to have an electric knife sharpener that worked okay, but sharpening knives is a basic skill I never learned. One of my sons was visiting on Sunday and he was preparing a Mother’s Day lunch for us. He asked me if I have any sharp knives in my kitchen and I don’t. I did some googling about knife sharpening and I went ahead and ordered a whetstone set – so, instead of wasting time on Trump-Russia Collusion, I’m going to be practicing how to sharpen knives and working on other projects.

I keep paying attention to prices at the grocery store and nothing in the economy looks optimistic, I can tell you that working on my own preparedness is way more important than getting worked up about corruption in Washington, which I can’t change.

It’s still important to take note of the political corruption and be aware of some news, but I’ve changed my priorities. Before you know it, people you know might start buying into the eating bugs and embracing that, all due to the mass media psychological conditioning that’s being crammed down our throats. Everyday, I find more things I want to learn how to do to become more self-reliant and that’s a much better use of my time than getting worked up about the level of Dem corruption and media corruption. It still amazes me how dramatically the feminist movement took a turn to gay rights and then that veered into the trans movement. It’s been amazing to see drivers of the trans movement are literally destroying prominent liberal feminists, who dare challenge the trans agenda and that tells you who has the power in the feminist movement – it’s the biological men in the trans movement. Anyway, I refuse to participate in these leftist movements or buy into of any of this stuff, but then again, I have always identified myself as an independent, free-thinking American citizen, not as a feminist.

Oh, and before I end this post, everywhere we turn, I expect to be bombarded with more hysterical news about “white supremacy” and dangerous “MAGA Republicans.” Over the weekend President Biden gave an incendiary speech announcing his war against “white supremacy.” Then some weird group, Patriot Front, that is ostensibly a far-right wing hate group showed up to march on the US Capitol. The timing was perfect for liberal news media to spin up Biden’s war against “white supremacy.” I googled this group and on Wikipedia, it says this group is part of a group that split from another alt-right group after the Charlottesville protests. This Patriot Front group comes wearing “uniforms” of khaki pants and blue jackets, and masks. To me it looks like a Democrat false flag operation and that Charlottesville tie was a red flag to me. There were reports of busloads of paid protestors showing up in Charlottesville. Even back in 2016, all sorts of paid political actors and operators showed up at political events to create drama and wreak havoc. This went from plants in audiences to start a commotion, which happened at numerous Trump events or to ask embarrassing questions at both Dem and Republican events, but then there were the reports of busloads of paid protestors that showed up. And yes, the issue of paid protestors is a thing: https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-crowds-extortion-20181021-story.html.

For years with all these viral video dramas that fuel a lot of the political spin drama. I’ve told my adult kids that it’s best to ask more questions rather than reacting. I want to know what happened before the events in the video, what happened afterwards, who made the media, where was it shot, when was it shot, and was it edited. We are so used to “reacting” and social media has conditioned us to reacting rather than thinking. They’ve got buttons to click to express your emotions and they encourage controversy.

Think more and react less, is my best advice. Oh, and if you’re smart, you’ll start preparing for hard times, with at least the basics – food, water, supplies. Here again, most people I know rely on the news media and await the government experts to tell them they should be prepared for all sorts of emergencies and hard times. If you’ve been watching the lingering shortage problems, inflation climbing, political instability around the world and all the political and economic turmoil here in America and you haven’t thought, “Geesh, I should probably be prepared, in case things get worse,” then nothing I say can make an impact.

As this push for mainstreaming the idea of eating bugs escalates, pay close attention to people you know – friends, family, acquaintances and see how quickly some people start buying into this. I betcha will be surprised at how quickly this mass media psychological conditioning takes hold – experts galore selling it, celebrities jumping on board selling it and mass media giving it loads of hot air for it to rise. I won’t be surprised if some celebrity food personalities go buggy too.

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October 26, 2022 · 10:19 am

Tipping points can happen suddenly

In my blog post yesterday I pondered how long Democrats and the leftist elites will stick to their accelerated green- energy transformation plan (the “Great Reset”.) While there’s likely no easy turning back course of action after a certain point in their transformation efforts, the thing is once there’s a massive public opinion shift, often major political shifts follow more rapidly than may have seemed possible even months before. I used the examples of growing public backlash against COVID mitigation efforts and the public backlash against the escalation in crime following Dems embracing the BLM “defund the police” policies.

There has been a growing right-wing populist movement in some countries in Europe and the US too, which bodes poorly for America’s future as a pluralistic society.

And yes, America has always been composed of people of diverse ethnic, racial and religious groups, but we’ve always managed to pull our country together by embracing some common values. Presently, it seems the more extreme views on both sides of our political spectrum scream the loudest and dominate the public spaces, where cultural and political battles keep erupting daily. Moderate voices don’t stand a chance in a spin war. Outrage theater dominates public “discourse.”

I also expect public backlash to accelerate against the transgender movement, against the media-run spin information war, and against social media word police antics that promote the leftist political agenda.

In democratic countries, where people are accustomed to and expect to be able to speak and interact freely, it seems highly unlikely that the left’s embrace of using media as a tool to herd people toward leftist ideological beliefs and coral them from other views will succeed for the long term. People accustomed to speaking freely aren’t likely to passively accept being prodded into submission by massive public-shaming/virtue-signaling political messaging efforts for long. Having social media honchos become de facto Democrat/liberal word police is already facing growing backlash, which will likely escalate.

The economic turmoil and green-energy transformation policies already in motion can’t be easily fixed, but a major derailment of this green dream plan seems very likely to me.

Tipping points often seem to happen much more rapidly than people think possible or expect. In the beginning of this year, I suspect, most Democrats believed they could still continue with their COVID hysteria and push more COVID mitigation policies (power grabs.) They were unprepared for the swift and dramatic shift (the tipping point) in public opinion on COVID policy, to the point that you aren’t hearing Dem political candidates running on COVID policy.

79% of people in an October 2022 Pew Research report said the economy is the top issue. I think most of the culture war that generates so much left vs. right drama in America are really boutique political issues, that while they generate a lot of buzz and fad followers, when push comes to shove and economic hard times hit, no one can afford to buy into these issues. Keeping food on the kitchen table, bills paid and gas in the car become the priority. As the economic situation worsens, fewer and fewer people will want to be lectured about transgender issues or hear about green-energy/climate change. That’s why I believe a tipping point is likely long before this green-energy transformation gets very far. It’s being run on hot air, without even having the necessary infrastructure in existence.

Things may get very messy. Famine, wars, some countries collapsing, civil unrest/civil wars and other awful events are possible around the world or even here, but I remain a believer that principled leadership can make the difference between getting people in a crisis to work together and total mayhem breaking loose. There are still people in America, who will put the political/cultural war drama aside and work together in a crisis.

Unfortunately, those kind of people are extremely rare in either political party these days, where spin kings and queens, people like AOC and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who can lob social media attacks and create non-stop political outrage theater drama daily are the type of people who seem to be getting the most media attention. They’re also attracting large followings, who cheer them on. On the left, if you don’t march in lock-step to the latest culture war cause, you’re toast and on the right, if you don’t foam and froth at the Left, you’re labeled a “RINO” and put out to pasture. That’s why I’m so ambivalent about this upcoming election. I don’t believe politics is going to “save our country” or even get us on a better path.

Interestingly, this same phenomenon happens on social media, where the most sensational headlines and flame-throwing personalities generate massive followings.

However, in a crisis, all these flame-throwers and “spin warriors” are completely useless, because a crisis requires real leadership, not just angry words and catchy sound bites. I’ve met loads of outstanding leaders around the military and even in everyday life. So, I don’t despair. History has shown that sometimes when we least expect it, the most unlikely people step up to the plate and lead.

This is especially true in America. There are all sorts of civic-minded people, who see a problem in America and start a fund-raiser or form a group to work on that problem or just set out and work to fix it themselves. America was built on a spirit of volunteerism.

With that I’m going to end with encouraging you to consider donating time, money or food this holiday season, to help feed people in need.

Feeding America is always looking for help to feed Americans in need. If you don’t want to donate to large organizations, just look around your own community and you can surely find churches, civic organizations, schools, local officials, who can point you toward ways to volunteer to help others.

If you’re worried about the state of America, just try to spread a little hope and encouragement or lend a helping hand to someone else.

Even the smallest flicker of light can defeat the darkness.

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Filed under American Character, Culture Wars, General Interest

August 12, 2022 · 7:08 pm

I refuse!

Today is another politics post. I spent a lot of time today on politics Twitter. I have 54 followers on Twitter, so perhaps it’s all just tweeting into the wind. I hope that maybe one tiny bit I tweet might help powerful voices on the right fight back against the Dem spin info war. This blog post is going to be short, because I don’t feel like posting a lot of links to news stories and other stuff tonight.

I’m just going to share what I am concerned about with the Dems effort to destroy Trump, by any means necessary. I expect the Biden DOJ will try to charge Trump with serious crimes and where that leads I do not know. I don’t know if it will lead to civil unrest, but I am positive that whatever happens in regards to Trump, it won’t end with Trump.

The Dems and political left in America will target any other Republican politicians, who appear to be gaining traction, as is obvious with the endless stream of attacks against Florida governor, Ron DeSantis. So, this is about much more than just Trump.

The left’s culture war has met a lot of resistance, with ordinary Americans speaking out against things like the climate-change zealotry & hysteria, the gender politics, and the attacks on even our American symbols, recently. There was a leak of a FBI bulletin listing American Revolution symbols. FBI Director, Christopher Wray was asked about that in a recent appearance and he pretended like he knew nothing about it, because I feel certain he knew he’d be asked about that. Here’s a quote from a Reason article, American Revolution Images Might Reveal You as a ‘Violent Extremist,’:

“When the FBI puts out a bulletin on symbols “used by Anti-Government or Anti-Authority Violent Extremists,” and it looks like a catalog of T-shirts half the country might want to wear, it’s a strong indication that the feds are way off-base. It gets even sillier when part of the bulletin resembles a brochure for a Revolutionary War museum. Then again, George Washington and the Continental Army were, arguably, “Anti-Government or Anti-Authority Violent Extremists,” which is a reminder that governments aren’t necessarily the good guys”

Beyond all the politics, there’s been a War of Words raging for years now, that propels much of the left’s culture war. When even the sitting president goes to great lengths to target “MAGA Republicans” repeatedly, however that is defined (and that’s the thing – the definition will be fluid), as enemies of the state, I feel certain, that wherever this political drama, with the effort to destroy Trump ends up, Democrats and the Left intend to expand well beyond just certain Republican politicians.

Sorry, I refuse to ever go along with the left’s culture war and spin word games. I have spent over 20 years trying to understand the Dems corrupt spin information war and expose the corruption, in any way I can. I am a law-abiding American citizen, who doesn’t even have a speeding ticket on my record, BUT…

I refuse to use or buy into the spin words they’re trying to cram down our throats. Period!

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Filed under Culture Wars, General Interest, Information War, Politics, Public Corruption