So, the important things to be aware of are ransomware attacks can cause chaos and delays in medical care, but also these types of cyberattacks aren’t resolved in hours or even days sometimes, but can take weeks. When the phones and computer systems are down for days or weeks, it creates endless problems for medical personnel and patients.
My primary care doctor’s medical group experienced some sort of cyberattack issue towards the end of June. On June 22nd I received a text msg. that their phones were temporarily offline and then another text msg. on July 12th, that the phones had been restored. I had two issues that required medical attention during that period and my doctor’s phone number was answered by an answering service, where the person told me that I would need to go into the office to make an appointment. I did go into the doctor’s office to schedule an appointment – both times. I needed to see my doctor. Aside from the text messages, I don’t know any actual details other than someone in the office told me they shut down the computer system out of concerns of a breach. A disgruntled person also notified a local newspaper, who ran a short piece about the phones and computers being down for that medical group, but there was no additional information.
I am concerned about the NYT report last weekend about Chinese malware buried in US computer systems, but there’s been no information that I’ve seen attributing these ransomware attacks against medical systems to China. I don’t want to make that leap of blaming China, because I haven’t seen any reports stating that.
In just the past couple months, I’ve experienced this cyberattack situation with my own primary care doctor. My power went out during a thunderstorm for several hours recently and that’s happened many times over the years. Last month, my water pressure was very low one morning and only a trickle came out of the faucet. Hours later the water pressure was back to normal, but my local water department issued a “boil water” advisory until they completed testing of the water. I got COVID and was sick a few weeks ago, so having plenty of food and medical supplies came in handy. I’m still encountering items at the store that are out-of-stock at times (often for a few days, but sometimes longer). Granted, so far these are minor inconveniences in my life, but each incident reinforces my belief that working on emergency preparedness matters a great deal. And, yep, I’m going to continue to beat the emergency preparedness drum, even if it often feels like very few people take this seriously..
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.”
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.””
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.”
The partisan political drama in America yesterday was about Biden’s 20 “perfect” phone calls with Hunter’s business partners and then later more Trump indictment drama. Here’s the bigger headline from yesterday:
““In Fitch’s view, there has been a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, including on fiscal and debt matters, notwithstanding the June bipartisan agreement to suspend the debt limit until January 2025,” Fitch said in its explanation.”
It’s very easy to get caught up in the political media drama-of-the-day or the partisan echo-chambers being hyped and completely miss the important news. This blog post will jump around a bit, from partisan politics to the larger global politics.
For the next year Americans will be bombarded with partisan presidential election garbage, so I’m going to try to look beyond those loud distractions and seek out news that’s getting drowned out.
Democrats will be selling “Bidenomics” and telling us how spectacularly the economy is doing, while Republicans will be in-fighting for the foreseeable future. The Iowa caucus, the first in the formal nomination process despite the hype about who is winning based on polling, isn’t until January 2024.
In the GOP roster of candidates, so far, it appears to me that Trump and DeSantis are the only two candidates who are likely to be the GOP 2024 candidate and Trump definitely has a huge advantage.
To get a sense of how immersed the GOP is in in-fighting, many Republican candidates and pundits quickly jumped on board the latest Dem “You Racist!” spin smear attack against FL governor, Ron DeSantis, over the new FL K-12 history standards – especially Trump’s campaign attack dogs. After all the unfair Dem spin smears against Trump, Trump’s campaign mouthpieces embrace and then amplify every vicious Dem smear against DeSantis.
I still believe DeSantis is the only candidate who has demonstrated an ability to dismantle radical Dem laws and efforts by getting laws passed in FL. Unfortunately, Trump never united the GOP while president and his defenders will insist it’s because of the “Uniparty in DC” or “RINOs in Congress,: but the truth is if you are the leader of a party, you are responsible for building a cohesive and unified team. Trump’s way of operating has always been to play people against each other, even in his own cabinet, which is poison to building a team that works together. Trump did take some actions as president, in the form of executive orders, to dismantle Dem policies, but those lasted only as long as Trump was president. The Biden administration reversed those Trump executive orders on day one.
DeSantis has many flaws as a candidate too – he’s too invested in imitating Trump’s spin drama tactic of harping about whatever the latest “woke” spin drama is, but what he’s missed is that the segment of the GOP that eats up that spin drama is Trump’s most loyal group of supporters – who aren’t going to switch to DeSantis. DeSantis’ potential base is former Trump supporters, who lost faith in Trump’s abilities and more moderate Republicans and independents. DeSantis also empowered too many online campaign mouthpieces, who created unnecessary controversies of their own and did nothing to build support for DeSantis. The responsibility for that falls on DeSantis, so as his campaign is undergoing a restart or whatever they’re calling it, it’s going to be difficult to make up lost ground and almost impossible to regain lost trust or voters his campaign has alienated. Trump is immune from that sort of accountability, because his supporters don’t hold him to any standards whatsoever and will excuse him for just about anything (and usually blame someone else for Trump’s bad behavior).
Anything could happen between now and November of 2024, but one thing I am sure of is Dems, the left’s vast activist apparatus, liberal media and liberal big tech, and even global entities committed to the green transformation will be working overtime to make sure a Democrat remains in the White House in 2024. The global green transformation depends on having an American president who is fully-committed to the UN Agenda 2030 radical world transformation.
Here’s a reminder from May 2023 on where things are going with the green push: John Kerry targets agriculture as part of climate crusade. Along with targeting home appliances as a threat, agriculture in America, which has helped feed the world for decades, is now on the environmentalist chopping block:
“Kerry lamented that agriculture production alone creates 33% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions, arguing that reducing those emissions must be “front and center” in the quest to defeat global warming, during remarks Wednesday morning at the Department of Agriculture’s AIM for Climate Summit. The former secretary of state also touted so-called climate smart agriculture as a potential solution.
“A lot of people have no clue that agriculture contributes about 33% of all the emissions of the world,” he said during his keynote address. “We can’t get to net-zero, we don’t get this job done unless agriculture is front and center as part of the solution. So all of us understand here the depths of this mission.””
I remember this Global Zero movement, because I wrote a blog post, Global Zero: Another Nothing-Burger Plan, about it in 2013. Yep, I’ve been tired of hearing about “zero” movements a long, long time. I wrote, “Here’s a thought, perhaps, the greatest threat just might be weakness, which this loopy movement would increase dramatically. My best advice for people – if some morons come up with a plan that has ZERO in the title, consider it null (nothing but hot air).”
I still feel the same way about “ZERO” movements. Even back in 2013, when this Global Zero movement started, Dems were hard at work laying the groundwork for the UN Agenda 2030, which was signed onto by 193 countries, including the US, in 2015. Unfortunately, it seems many right-wing Americans seem to have only awakened to this UN global effort in the past few years. Dems have embedded these global 2030 “sustainable goals” in US Congressional spending bills and other legislation for years now, while most of the right in America is just now figuring out the scope of the global transformation ready to steamroll over us.
Although it may seem like a long time ago, the Chinese spy balloon floating over America’s most sensitive military sites happened in February of this year. We never got any real answers from the Department of Defense or our intelligence agencies about what that was all about. Here’s a quote from a June BBC article,Chinese spy balloon did not collect information, says Pentagon
“Pentagon spokesperson Brigadier General Pat Ryder said on Thursday that the US was “aware that [the balloon] had intelligence collection capabilities”.
But “it has been our assessment now that it did not collect while it was transiting the United States or over flying the United States”.
He said the efforts the US took to mitigate any intelligence gathering “contributed” to the balloon’s failure to gather sensitive information.”
So, then last night, I came across this NYT article: U.S. Hunts Chinese Malware That Could Disrupt American Military Operations. This report, if true, is so alarming that I wonder how on earth the Pentagon could be downplaying that Chinese spy balloon incident in June, when this NYT’s article states:
“The Biden administration is hunting for malicious computer code it believes China has hidden deep inside the networks controlling power grids, communications systems and water supplies that feed military bases in the United States and around the world, according to American military, intelligence and national security officials.
The discovery of the malware has raised fears that Chinese hackers, probably working for the People’s Liberation Army, have inserted code designed to disrupt U.S. military operations in the event of a conflict, including if Beijing moves against Taiwan in coming years.”
The NYT’s article mentions concerns were raised in May and the BBC article is dated June 30th and states the Pentagon spokesperson gave the Chines spy balloon update on Thursday, which would have been June 29th. Timelines always matter. Back to the NYT’s report: “The first public hints of the malware campaign began to emerge in late May, when Microsoft said it had detected mysterious computer code in telecommunications systems in Guam, the Pacific island with a vast American air base, and elsewhere in the United States.” So, a month after the first public hints of the malware began, the Pentagon was still busy trying to save face on the Feb. Chinese spy balloon fiasco, which took the President a week to take decisive action and shoot down that balloon, as it was done traversing the continental US and heading out over the Atlantic Ocean…
Further into the NYT report: “More than a dozen U.S. officials and industry experts said in interviews over the past two months that the Chinese effort goes far beyond telecommunications systems and predated the May report by at least a year.” (my highlight there). So, if this is true, our government knew about the Chinese malware efforts for at least a year and yet, they were hesitant to shoot down a Chinese spy balloon hovering over our most sensitive military sites for a week?
“The Chinese spy balloon that flew across the U.S. was able to gather intelligence from several sensitive American military sites, despite the Biden administration’s efforts to block it from doing so, according to two current senior U.S. officials and one former senior administration official.”
“China was able to control the balloon so it could make multiple passes over some of the sites (at times flying figure-eight formations) and transmit the information it collected back to Beijing in real time, the three officials said. The intelligence China collected was mostly from electronic signals, which can be picked up from weapons systems or include communications from base personnel, rather than images, the officials said.
The three officials said China could have gathered much more intelligence from sensitive sites if not for the administration’s efforts to move around potential targets and obscure the balloon’s ability to pick up their electronic signals by stopping them from broadcasting or emitting signals.”
So, my understanding thus far is that our officials knew about some buried Chinese malware threat while the Chinese spy balloon was hovering over our most sensitive sites and top generals were assuring us there was no “kinetic threat” from this Chinese spy balloon… they knew about this Chinese buried malware threat that could potentially disrupt our grid, critical infrastructure and disrupt our military’s ability to function. Doing Biden political damage control outweighed national security, is how I see it.
Here are some other stories about the Chinese malware threat, but to be clear these reports are quoting the NYT’s report – not independently corroborated:
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.
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:
Remember when Florida wouldn’t allow that AP African American Studies course because it focused too much on CRT and not enough on history, and the @WhiteHouse lost its mind?
Well, here is one of the standards considered “essential knowledge.”
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.”
Civil rights leaders say Gov. Ron DeSantis' defense of how slavery is taught in Florida's new public school curriculum on Black history is the latest example of what they call a pattern of 'policy violence’ against people of color by his administration. https://t.co/UfwuE3KSYV
Sometimes it’s good to step back and try to take a big picture view of things going on in the world. It’s easy to get caught up in the social media and dumpster fires of culture war controversy that flash up constantly. The Jason Aldean controversy, which I mentioned in my last two blog posts, is one of those flash ups, but here’s the thing – if the right/more conservative side wins the public relations battle against CMT or even inflicts some damage on CMT’s bottom-line, the outcome of that controversy isn’t going to amount to much in the vast leftist power grabs and cultural battles the left has won for decades, usually without even a fight.
Speaking up, even in these small cultural flash up controversies, matters, so please don’t think I’m trying to discourage people speaking up. Each small victory or having the courage to speak up, even when “popular” opinion is raging in the other direction, can encourage other people to speak up too. Free speech matters in America and whenever there’s an effort to silence opposing views, that should be like a rallying cry for Americans to stand firm on free speech – even controversial and “unpopular” speech. Stella Morabito, an analyst and writer explains why it matters to speak out in this video:
I’m trying to wrap my head around this latest Dem concern with having the federal government focus on combating loneliness. This effort will likely be sold as an effort to deal with the mental health crisis in America and the serious drug addiction problem and that pits you as being challenged about “You don’t’ care about the mentally-ill or drug addicts?” In fact, when I mentioned this new bill being introduced to someone with differing political views than mine, he dismissed my concerns about government power grabs and said, they only want to put money towards the addiction problem in America. And his trust in the government’s good intentions surprised me.
The challenges to counter and defeat the left’s vast “reimagining” America project, that’s been underway for decades, is masked in benign “helping” words. Many of the left’s efforts lull and con millions of Americans to let down their guard and even be amenable to vast federal power grabs and to buy into the false premises that lay the groundwork for the Democrat legislation that follows the propaganda effort to sell the narrative. No one wants to be labeled a bigot, mean, uncaring, a hater, racist, etc. and that sort of demonization and marginalizing that befalls people who challenge the liberal mass media narrative effort.
During the pandemic, the federal government and mass media stoked fear of an unknown contagious disease to con us into surrendering all sorts of rights – free speech, free movement, free association, and even forcing compliance to getting experimental vaccines in order to keep your job or have access to goods, medical services and travel. I honestly didn’t believe it was a con until after I read Klaus Schwab’s book: COVID-19: The Great Reset – long after 2020, but he published this book in the summer of 2020 and was writing it in the beginning of the pandemic. He stated that they knew this would be the least deadly pandemic in history and he also explained how all these pandemic social mitigation efforts could lay the foundations of social control for accelerating the green energy transformation.
The “helping” words during the pandemic centered on compliance to the new dictates meant you cared about other people and if you challenged the new impositions on your life and liberty, well, then you were a bad person and, as one conservative writer got labeled, “a grandma-killer.”
Even more than the COVID messaging war, the US government, both Dems and many Republicans, poured over $4.7 trillion dollars into COVID-spending and a lot of that money poured into other Dem culture war issues and their climate agenda. Last year, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, to the tune of $500 billion dollars in new spending. The Inflation Reduction Act was another of those benign word Dem games, because while Republicans were arguing about the “inflation reduction” issues in the bill, they completely missed the boat that this Dem bill was really about pouring more money into the green energy transition effort and other DEI programs. They initially were arguing about “inflation reduction” (a false premise set by deceptive title of bill), while Dems were really ramming through more green energy spending. That “inflation reduction” act also funded 87,000 new IRS agents.
Whether the right wins some largely social media PR battle against Bud Light or CMT, and even damages their bottom lines, those are small fry issues when Dems have pushed through trillions in federal spending to enact their green transition and social change policies across America. The little battles and big battles matter, but don’t sit back and declare victory, because the left has laid the groundwork for their culture war over decades, while the right gets worked up about one hot button issue or another, but remains largely disorganized and dysfunctional at countering the Democrat agenda or the left’s vast culture war effort that’s fought on media and social media every day.
The right-wing media and political class now spend more time operating as a circular firing squad and wasting time with their own identity political problem – the MAGA vs. RINO dramas than fighting the left, but for this post, let’s put that aside and look at a new Democrat power grab in the works – The National Strategy for Social Connection Act, which Senator Chris Murphy introduced July 18, 2023.
Many people, whose views fall on the political right, often are late to the game in understanding the American political left’s march through the institutions, ramming through social and political change, that’s been ongoing since the 1960s. That leftist movement has grown and advanced, while on the right, it seems to me, most people on the right don’t understand the scope of the left’s culture war and have never organized effectively to counter it. On some issues, I realize I have been slow to catch on to the left’s bigger objectives too, but if you only became aware of ESG or the UN 2030 Agenda goals in the past couple years, boy, you’re many years behind, because ESG initiatives started way back when GWB was president and the UN 2030 Agenda was passed in 2015, when Obama was president. If you wonder why you weren’t aware, don’t be too hard on yourself, because so often these left-wing policies are masked behind unicorn and rainbow phrases that we don’t even see the power grabs. I am one of those annoying people who always asks, “what does that really mean?” and I still sometimes get conned by the left’s word games.
Morabito was also way ahead of the curve in explaining how the left was targeting local elections, especially local school board elections to push their CRT and trans agenda, long before the right was even talking about or showing up to protest at school board meetings.
Speaking up, even in small ways, matters, but on the right we need to keep our eyes wide open to the bigger picture policies and actions too. A bill being sold as about combating “loneliness” seems to me like it’s about monitoring and controlling private organizations in communities all across America and even putting the levers in place to try to use federal muscle to interfere in local zoning policies. Even more ominous is this bill proposes:
(E) to the maximum extent practicable, coordinate with international bodies to integrate and inform the global mission to improve social connection;” page 10
Government is always about power, not about being your friend or helping you make friends. For private relationships and connections to flourish requires a private sphere, where we’re able to associate and speak freely, with no government monitors to manage our lives.
The Jason Aldean commotion will likely die down, because Aldean and his wife, aren’t backing down. Plus, the song that’s at the center of this leftist-created controversy shot to #1 on the country charts. At first the controversy was supposedly about the racist lyrics and when Aldean defended the song, the “racist” allegation shifted.
The next faux controversy floated by liberal mouthpieces was about the location where the video was shot – about the courthouse Aldean is standing in front of in the video: The grim history of the courthouse in Jason Aldean’s new music video. This second attempt to trash Aldean brings up some lynching in front of that courthouse in the 1920s. This old history explanation for the outrage is all bs and I’m going to explain another similar attack that happened recently on Twitter. I seriously doubt Aldean knew anything about that 1920s courthouse history.
Back in June, Casey DeSantis wore a black leather jacket with an alligator emblem on the back in Iowa and immediately when I saw a tweet, by this man, whose bio lists historian, author, progressive Democrat, I quote tweeted it, Later the Community Note discrediting the “alligators are racist “allegation showed up:
And this FL history of using alligators in racist FL humor, does that extend to the Gators too?
Very quickly, Donna Brazile, long-time Democrat strategist ran with that historian’s take and I quote tweeted that also:
Casey DeSantis is from OH, in her bio. Has anyone asked her if she's aware of early 1900s FL humor or is it easier to assume she's a racist? And if a gator is emblematic of racism, then the Gators have a problem… https://t.co/m49eCYdxJN
I had been avoiding Twitter for a while, but then I started checking out the political drama again. Anyone is entitled to their own opinion, but to make the allegation that someone is racist on the flimsiest evidence, citing some old history, is absurd and should be challenged.
With the attack on Aldean, “mainstream” media has jumped on board trying to breathe life into the “racist” allegation. The article about the courthouse I linked is from NBC, but there are other major “mainstream” news outlets trying to bolster that 1920s courthouse history angle too.
Aldean’s song speaks to the truth about a whole lot of people across America – of all colors and ethnicities – who don’t want the type of urban lawlessness they see flashing across the news daily happening in their small town or rural area. Why the left keeps trying to shut up people who mention the rise in lawlessness is because that lawlessness can be directly attributed to the BLM – Defund the Police effort and the Antifa chaos. Liberal policies have created the urban lawlessness. That’s the truth. All the people who rushed to support the Defund the Police policies will keep pointing the finger at everyone, but themselves for the chaos that has ensued where officials embraced those BLM policies. There are people of all colors and ethnicities who want the police to keep their neighborhoods safe. Law and order is important for all of us. Most people, regardless of race or ethnicity, yearn for a safe, close-knit community, where neighbors help neighbors, which is the overarching theme of Aldean’s song, I think.
Once someone on the political left in America launches these attacks, there’s usually a leftist pile-on effect (mob attack) from liberal media, liberal mouthpieces and politicians, to try to get the target to start apologizing and backing down. A few years back there was a media pile-on against the Covington school kid, that resulted in that kid and his school receiving death threats. No one wants to be dragged through the mud in public and labeled a racist or bigot, but the minute the target gives an inch, the radical left mob smells blood in the water and the attacks and demands intensify. The Covington kid, Nicholas Sandmann, filed defamation lawsuits – CNN and WashPost settled.
In America, we have the right to free speech, even controversial or unpopular speech. Many people in foreign countries don’t understand that, but free speech is a right in America, not something the powers that be allow us.
Certainly, CMT has the right to pull the video of the now #1 country song in the country. Country music fans also have the right to not watch CMT. I quit CMT years ago, when they started running all sorts of stupid shows and less and less music, but after this incident, well, I’d imagine CMT will face a backlash like the Bud Light ad campaign. I don’t drink, so I wasn’t a Bud Light customer anyway. I also was not a Target shopper. I am not a boycott or protesting kind of person, but as more and more companies jump on board these partisan political causes, well, I certainly will think twice where I choose to spend my money and I will speak up if I feel something is wrong. There’s a whole lot wrong with the media mob attacks in America.
The important thing is to stop and ask a lot of questions when these pile on attacks or allegations of racism hit social media and the news ecosystem. And don’t trust the “mainstream” media to present the facts. Speak up if you disagree.
Country star Jason Aldean is under attack for his song, ‘Try That in a Small Town.” Here’s a billboard article: CMT Pulls Jason Aldean’s Controversial ‘Try That In a Small Town’ Video: Exclusive. I’m not sure exactly what is controversial about the video, because the way I took the lyrics and video was this song expresses that small towns are about community and won’t put up with the chaos and violence in American cities that flashes across the news every single day.
If you’re against violence and lawbreaking, well, I don’t see what’s controversial about that and the rise in crime, especially in many American cities, makes headlines in the news constantly. Americans in small towns and rural America don’t want the social chaos that’s growing in American cities and we shouldn’t be afraid to say that.
I expect the efforts to censor Aldean’s song will be met with an even stronger reaction than the Bud Light ad fiasco.
Back in August of 2015, I wrote a blog post, “He never means anything serious till he talks about justice and right”, explaining how I saw Trump’s emerging campaign and appeal much like Sarah Palin’s populist appeal. I think that 2015 post is still relevant to where America is at today. My blog started as a place where I bloviated on politics and vented about how much I disagreed with the Obama policies. And, while I’ve tried to get away from that at times, I do read a lot about politics and history, so that’s where I seem to end up.
To save you time, if you don’t want to read my opinions, I’d like to recommend some free online courses I found at Hillsdale College. I started a course on American Citizenship and Its Decline taught by Victor Davis Hanson last week and there are some other free courses at Hillsdale I want to take. I have not agreed with Victor Davis Hanson on some of his pro-Trump viewpoints, but he’s an excellent instructor and I have no reservations about learning from him. I believe I can learn things from people I disagree with, not only from “like-minded” people.
All around us are signs in America that American culture has changed dramatically in the past few decades and I suppose future historians will be trying to puzzle out what happened to America and why did it happen. Experts, politicians, pundits, social commentators offer all sorts of explanations, usually about how opinions became more slanted by political belief systems and less by religious belief systems. Headlines abound blaring about how fewer Americans now hold strong religious convictions and more and more Americans hold much stronger political viewpoints, that serve as a very shallow secular religion foundation. Even speaking openly about some very basic Christian moral beliefs can lead to calls from the far-left crowd that you should be banished from polite society for “hate-speech.” However, these sort of echo-chamber spaces have been growing on the right too in recent years, even in many traditional Christian American churches. Just watch how quickly Trump goes from praising people around him to branding them with disparaging nicknames and casting them into the RINO pit of hell – banished forever, to get a feel that the “cancel culture” is on both sides of the political spectrum in America.
With all the bad things happening, I still don’t believe we are doomed or should give up, if the “other side” wins and my preferred candidate loses. I believe God gives us all the power to work hard and try to face challenges and I refuse to ever buy into our destiny rests on one man being elected. I have always rejected the belief in thinking “one man on a strong horse” can save us, because God gives us all the power to do many things to save ourselves and frankly, if that “one man” you’re depending on dies or is incapacitated, do you just give up?
Even small daily efforts can reap huge benefits over time. I started working at building up my pantry storage and working at container gardening. It’s the getting into that belief system that these small personal efforts really matter and staying committed that has made me a true-believer in slow and steady wins the race. Don’t give up hope – no matter what happens.
My beliefs on leadership were really fully-formed when I joined the Army in 1979 and learned that it’s all about “the team” and no matter what happens in battle, whoever is still standing regroups to fight another day. The American team in the Army was filled with people of all nationalities, all sorts of political and religious beliefs, but they were bound by their oath to protect and defend the Constitution and a set of values: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, personal courage.
I believe we can all be warriors for American principles and being committed to protecting the Constitution. That’s why I reject the belief that “America’s future hangs on this one election” type thinking, because America’s future depends on all of us – today, tomorrow and in future generations. We need more Americans to learn about US history and especially about the Constitution. These free Hillsdale College courses are an easy way to learn more about American civics.
I hear so much about finding “like-minded” people and that’s the way to survive, but honestly, I think being open to talking to people who disagree with me and who hold differing viewpoints is the only way to get America back to any semblance of a free and functioning pluralistic society. “Saving America” isn’t about getting everyone to march in lockstep with my beliefs and indulging in this constant Us vs. Them divisiveness, it’s about finding common ground and trying to expand on that. That common ground should start with cultivating a belief in the Constitution of the United States.
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