What I Don’t Like About Life in Post-9/11 America

The citizenry’s unquestioning acquiescence to anything the government wants to do in exchange for the phantom promise of safety and security has resulted in a society where the nation is being locked down into a militarized, mechanized, hypersensitive, legalistic, self-righteous, goose-stepping antithesis of every principle upon which this nation was founded…This is not freedom…This is a jail cell.

It’s time boys! All Trump has done is kick the can down the road. As soon as they get rid of him (and they will by hook or crook) we will go right back to Bareback Yomama 2.0.  — jtl, 419

By John W. Whitehead via Activist Post

By John W. Whitehead

“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”―Edward Abbey, American author

Life in a post-9/11 America increasingly feels like an endless free fall down a rabbit hole into a terrifying, dystopian alternative reality in which the citizenry has no rights, the government is no friend to freedom, and everything we ever knew and loved about the values and principles that once made this country great has been turned on its head.

We’ve walked a strange and harrowing road since September 11, 2001, littered with the debris of our once-vaunted liberties.

We have gone from a nation that took great pride in being a model of a representative democracy to being a model of how to persuade the citizenry to march in lockstep with a police state.

Osama Bin Laden right warned that “freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life.”

  These past 17 years have proven Bin Laden right in his prediction.

What began with the passage of the USA Patriot Act in October 2001 has snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse.

   The citizenry’s unquestioning acquiescence to anything the government wants to do in exchange for the phantom promise of safety and security has resulted in a society where the nation is being locked down into a militarized, mechanized, hypersensitive, legalistic, self-righteous, goose-stepping antithesis of every principle upon which this nation was founded.

This is not freedom.

This is a jail cell.

Set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, eminent domain, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches, roving VIPR raids and the like—all of which have been sanctioned by Congress, the White House and the courts—our constitutional freedoms have been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded.

Our losses are mounting with every passing day.

Free speech, the right to protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and transparency in government, privacy, press, sovereignty, assembly, bodily integrity, representative government: all of these and more have become casualties in the government’s war on the American people, a war that has grown more pronounced since 9/11.

Since the towers fell on 9/11, the American people have been treated like enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, and denied due process.

In allowing ourselves to be distracted by terror drills, foreign wars, color-coded warnings, underwear bombers and other carefully constructed exercises in propaganda, sleight of hand, and obfuscation, we failed to recognize that the true enemy to freedom was lurking among us all the while.

The U.S. government now poses a greater threat to our freedoms than any terrorist, extremist or foreign entity ever could.

While nearly 3,000 people died in the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government and its agents have easily killed at least ten times that number of civilians in the U.S. and abroad since 9/11 through its police shootings, SWAT team raids, drone strikes and profit-driven efforts to police the globe, sell weapons to foreign nations, and foment civil unrest in order to keep the military industrial complex gainfully employed.

No, the U.S. government is not the citizenry’s friend, nor is it our protector, and life in the United States of America post-9/11 is no picnic.

In the interest of full disclosure, here are some of the things I don’t like about life in a post-9/11 America:

I don’t like being treated as if my only value to the government is as a source of labor and funds.

I don’t like being viewed as a consumer and bits of data.

I don’t like being spied on and treated as if I have no right to privacy, especially in my own home.

I don’t like government officials who lobby for my vote only to ignore me once elected. I don’t like having representatives incapable of and unwilling to represent me. I don’t like taxation without representation.

I don’t like being bullied by government bureaucrats, vigilantes masquerading as cops, or faceless technicians.

I don’t like being railroaded into financing government programs whose only purpose is to increase the power and wealth of the corporate elite.

I don’t like being forced to pay for wars abroad that serve no other purpose except to expand the reach of the military industrial complex.

I don’t like being subjected to scans, searches, pat downs and other indignities by the TSA.

I don’t like VIPR raids on so-called “soft” targets like shopping malls and bus depots by black-clad, Darth Vader look-alikes.

I don’t like fusion centers, which represent the combined surveillance efforts of federal, state and local law enforcement.

I don’t like being treated like an underling by government agents who are supposed to be working for me. I don’t like being threatened, intimidated, bribed, beaten and robbed by individuals entrusted with safeguarding my rights. I don’t like being silenced, censored and marginalized. I don’t like my movements being tracked, my conversations being recorded, and my transactions being catalogued.

I don’t like free speech zones, roving bubble zones and trespass laws that restrict Americans’ First Amendment rights.

I don’t like laws that criminalize Americans for otherwise lawful activities such as holding religious studies at home, growing vegetables in their yard, and collecting rainwater.

I don’t like the NDAA, which allows the president and the military to arrest and detain American citizens indefinitely.

I don’t like the Patriot Act, which opened the door to all manner of government abuses and intrusions on our privacy.

I don’t like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has become America’s standing army in direct opposition to the dire warnings of those who founded our country.

I don’t like military weapons such as armored vehicles, sound cannons and the like being used against the American citizens.

I don’t like government agencies such as the DHS, Post Office, Social Security Administration and Wildlife stocking up on hollow-point bullets. And I definitely don’t like the implications of detention centers being built that could house American citizens.

I don’t like the fact that police departments across the country “have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft.”

I don’t like America’s infatuation with locking people up for life for non-violent crimes. There are thousands of people in America serving life sentences for non-violent crimes, including theft of a jacket, siphoning gasoline from a truck, stealing tools, and attempting to cash a stolen check.

I don’t like paying roughly $29,000 a year per inmate just to keep these nonviolent offenders in prison.

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I don’t like having my hard-earned taxpayer dollars used against me.

I don’t like the partisan nature of politics today, which has so polarized Americans that they are incapable of standing in unity against the government’s abuses.

I don’t like the entertainment drivel that passes for news coverage today.

I don’t like the fact that those within a 25-mile range of the border are getting a front row seat to the American police state, as Border Patrol agents are now allowed to search people’s homes, intimately probe their bodies, and rifle through their belongings, all without a warrant.

I don’t like public schools that treat students as if they were prison inmates. I don’t like zero tolerance laws that criminalize childish behavior. I don’t like a public educational system that emphasizes rote memorization and test-taking over learning, synthesizing and critical thinking.

I don’t like police precincts whose primary purpose—whether through the use of asset forfeiture laws, speed traps, or red light cameras—is making a profit at the expense of those they have sworn to protect. I don’t like militarized police and their onerous SWAT team raids.

I don’t like Department of Defense and DHS programs that transfer surplus military hardware to local and state police. I don’t like local police dressing and acting as if they were the military while viewing me as an enemy combatant.

I don’t like government programs that reward cops for raiding homes and terrorizing homeowners.

I don’t like being treated as if I have no rights.

I don’t like cash-strapped states cutting deals with private corporations to run the prisons in exchange for maintaining 90% occupancy rates for at least 20 years. I don’t like the fact that American prisons have become the source of cheap labor for Corporate America.

I don’t like answering to an imperial president who operates above the law.

I don’t like the injustice that passes for justice in the courts.

I don’t like prosecutors so hell bent on winning that they allow innocent people to suffer for crimes they didn’t commit.

I don’t like the double standards that allow government officials to break laws with immunity, while average Americans get the book thrown at them.

I don’t like cops who shoot first and ask questions later.

I don’t like police dogs being treated with more respect and afforded more rights than American citizens.

I don’t like living in a suspect society.

I don’t like Americans being assumed guilty until they prove their innocence.

I don’t like technology being used as a double-edged sword against us.

Most of all, I don’t like feeling as if there’s no hope for turning things around.

Now there are those who would suggest that if I don’t like things about this country, I should leave and go elsewhere. Certainly, there are those among my fellow citizens who are leaving for friendlier shores.

However, I’m not giving up on this country without a fight.

I plan to keep fighting, writing, speaking up, speaking out, shouting if necessary, filing lawsuits, challenging the status quo, writing letters to the editor, holding my representatives accountable, thinking nationally but acting locally, and generally raising a ruckus anytime the government attempts to undermine the Constitution and ride roughshod over the rights of the citizenry.

Our country may be in deep trouble, but all is not yet lost.

The first step begins with you.

1. Get educated. Know your rights. Take time to read the Constitution. Study and understand history because the tales of those who seek power and those who resist them is an age-old one. The Declaration of Independence is a testament to this struggle and the revolutionary spirit that overcame tyranny. Understand the vital issues of the day so that you can be cognizant of the threats to freedom. Stay informed about current events and legislation.

2. Get involved. Become actively involved in local community affairs, politics and legal battles. As the adage goes, “Think nationally, act locally.” America was meant to be primarily a system of local governments, which is a far cry from the colossal federal bureaucracy we have today. Yet if our freedoms are to be restored, understanding what is transpiring practically in your own backyard—in one’s home, neighborhood, school district, town council—and taking action at that local level must be the starting point. Responding to unmet local needs and reacting to injustices is what grassroots activism is all about. Getting involved in local politics is one way to bring about change.

3. Get organized. Understand your strengths and weaknesses and tap into your resources. Play to your strengths and assets. Conduct strategy sessions to develop both the methods and ways to attack the problem. Prioritize your issues and battles. Don’t limit yourself to protests and paper petitions. Think outside the box. Time is short, and resources are limited, so use your resources in the way they count the most.

4. Be creative. Be bold and imaginative, for this is guerilla warfare—not to be fought with tanks and guns but through creative methods of dissent and resistance. Creatively responding to circumstances will often be one of your few resources if you are to be an effective agent of change. Every creative effort, no matter how small, is significant.

5. Use the media. Effective use of the media is essential. Attracting media coverage not only enhances and magnifies your efforts, it is also a valuable education tool. It publicizes your message to a much wider audience.

6. Start brushfires for freedom. Take heart that you are not alone. You come from a long, historic line of individuals who have put their beliefs and lives on the line to keep freedom alive. Engage those around you in discussions about issues of importance. Challenge them to be part of a national dialogue. As I have often said, one person at a city planning meeting with a protest sign is an irritant. Three individuals at the same meeting with the same sign are a movement. You will find that those in power fear and respect numbers. This is not to say that lone crusaders are not important. There are times when you will find yourself totally alone in the stand you take. However, there is power in numbers. Politicians understand this. So get out there and start drumming up support for your cause.

7. Take action. Be prepared to mobilize at a moment’s notice. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re located or what resources are at your disposal. What matters is that you recognize the problems and care enough to do something about them. Whether you’re 8, 28 or 88 years old, you have something unique to contribute. You don’t have to be a hero. You just have to show up and be ready to take action.

8. Be forward-looking. Beware of being so “in the moment” that you neglect to think of the bigger picture. Develop a vision for the future. Is what you’re hoping to achieve enduring? Have you developed a plan to continue to educate others about the problems you’re hoping to tackle and ensure that others will continue in your stead? Take the time to impart the value of freedom to younger generations, for they will be at the vanguard of these battles someday.

9. Develop fortitude. What is it that led to the successful protest movements of the past headed by people such as Martin Luther King Jr.? Resolve. King refused to be put off. And when the time came, he was willing to take to the streets for what he believed and even go to jail if necessary. King risked having an arrest record by committing acts of nonviolent civil disobedience. A caveat is appropriate here. Before resorting to nonviolent civil disobedience, all reasonable alternatives should be exhausted. If there is an opportunity to alter the course of events through normal channels (for example, negotiation, legal action or legislation), they should be attempted.

10. Be selfless and sacrificial. Freedom is not free—there is always a price to be paid and a sacrifice to be made. If any movement is to be truly successful, it must be manned by individuals who seek a greater good and do not waver from their purposes. It will take boldness, courage and great sacrifice. Rarely will fame, power and riches be found at the end of this particular road. Those who travel it inevitably find the way marked by hardship, persecution and strife. Yet there is no easy way.

11. Remain optimistic and keep hope alive.  Although our rights are increasingly coming under attack, we still have certain freedoms. As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we can still fight back. We have the right to dissent, to protest and even to vigorously criticize or oppose the government and its laws. The Constitution guarantees us these rights. In a country such as the United States, a citizen armed with a knowledge of the Bill of Rights and the fortitude to stand and fight can still be a force to be reckoned with, but it will mean speaking out when others are silent.

Practice persistence, along with perseverance, and the possibilities are endless. You can be the voice of reason. Use your voice to encourage others. Much can be accomplished by merely speaking out. Oftentimes, all it takes is one lone voice to get things started. So if you really care and you’re serious and want to help change things for the better, dust off your First Amendment tools and take a stand—even if it means being ostracized by those who would otherwise support you.

It won’t be easy, but take heart. And don’t give up.

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Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  (SelectBooks, 2015) is available online at http://www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.

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CONSERVATIVES FOR RESPONSIBLE STEWARDSHIP: Our Petition to Restore Multiple-Use Management

As a matter of fact, government can not ethically “own” anything because everything it possesses was taken from someone at the point of a gun. — jtl, 419

Land & Livestock International, Inc.

I find nothing “conservative” about this release or the petition. Both presume the federal government should own and manage nearly one-third of the lands in the U.S. I don’t see how anyone interested in limited government can support this view. — Frank DuBois

As a matter of fact, government can not ethically “own” anything because everything it possesses was taken from someone at the point of a gun. — jtl, 419

From: THE WESTERNER

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On September 5, CRS petitioned Secretary of the Interior Zinke to temporarily withdraw approximately 117,000 acres of public lands in Colorado, Montana, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming from oil and gas leasing.  Over the past year-and-a-half, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has unsuccessfully tried to sell oil and gas leases on all of these lands.  It is now time to take a step back and reexamine whether other uses of these lands, such as hunting and…

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Lincoln as He Really Was

The Lincoln myth is thus the ideological cornerstone of the global American empire, and has been for generations.

The most lied about part of American history. — jtl, 419

by Thomas DiLorenzo via LewRockwell.com

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The following is the foreword that I have written for the outstanding new piece of Lincoln scholarship, Lincoln as He Really Was, by Charles T. Pace.

Despite the fact that there are well over 10,000 books in print about Abraham Lincoln it is almost impossible for the average American – or anyone else – to know the truth about the real Lincoln.  Having given hundreds of public presentations, appeared on dozens of radio talk shows (including the Rush Limbaugh Radio Show), and participated in numerous debates on the subject of Lincoln, I have learned that the average American knows nothing at all about the man except for the few slogans and platitudes that we are all taught in elementary school (and then repeated endlessly in the popular culture).

As an elementary school student in the Pennsylvania public schools I was taught that Lincoln was so honest that he once walked six miles to return a penny to a merchant who had mistakenly undercharged him.  Decades later, when I debated Harry Jaffa who, like the man he called “Father Abraham,” was a student of rhetoric (but not of American history), Jaffa assured the Oakland, California audience of several hundred that Lincoln’s political speeches were in fact “the words of God.”  (This presumably did not include his dirty jokes, for which was famous).

Lincoln As He Really Was Charles T. Pace Check Amazon for Pricing.

Abraham Lincoln is the only American president that has literally been deified like a Roman emperor (Like Julius Caesar, his image is the first to be placed on his country’s coinage).  Lincoln’s deification eventually spread to the presidency, and then to the entire federal government.  The Lincoln myth is thus the ideological cornerstone of the global American empire, and has been for generations.  As Robert Penn Warren wrote in The Legacy of the Civil War, the deification of Lincoln (and of the government in general) has been used to argue that the “Civil War” left the U.S. government with “a treasury of virtue,” a “plenary indulgence, for all sins past, present, and future.”  Consequently,  American foreign policy intervention anywhere in the world is said to be always virtuous, by definition, because it is, well, American.

For more than 150 years this “treasury” of false virtue has been invoked to “justify” the slaughter of the Plains Indians from 1865-1898; the mass murder of some 200,000 Filipinos at the turn of the century; the imperialistic Spanish-American War; entry into Europe’s war in 1918; and myriad other interventions, from Korea to Vietnam to Somalia, Lebanon, Bosnia, Grenada, Panama, Nicaragua, Yugoslavia, Haiti, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and on and on.  It is all a part of “our diplomacy of righteousness, with the slogan of unconditional surrender and universal spiritual rehabilitation for others” (emphasis added), wrote Robert Penn Warren.  Professor Mel Bradford called the Lincolnian rhetoric that is the ideological basis for all this interventionism “the rhetoric of continuing revolution.”

By Robert Penn Warren … Robert Penn Warren Best Price: $8.46 Buy New $13.78 (as of 01:00 EDT – Details)

This revolutionary rhetoric is alive and well today.  When Newt Gingrich authored a Wall Street Journal article in which he advocated the military invasion of Iran, Syria, and North Korea during the George W. Bush administration, he naturally titled the article “Lincoln and Bush,” implying that such belligerence would be “Lincolnesque” and therefore should not be questioned.  When the Marxist historian Eric Foner of Columbia University opposed the breakup of the Soviet Union in an October 1991 article in The Nation magazine he titled the article “Lincoln’s Lesson.”  Unlike Gorbachev, he said, Lincoln would never have let the Soviet satellite states secede in peace.The Communist Party USA used to hold “Lincoln-Lenin Day” rallies and had a giant portrait of Lincoln in its New York City offices.  Even the former dictator of Pakistan, Pervez Musharref, invoked Lincoln’s unconstitutional suspension of the writ of Habeas Corpus to “justify” martial law in his country.  The deification of Lincoln has become a useful rhetorical tool for tyrants, militarists, and enemies of freedom everywhere.

Americans have been progressively dumbed down about Lincoln thanks to the avalanche of myths, superstitions, and propaganda produced by generations of “Lincoln scholars.” It wasn’t always that way, however.  During his lifetime Lincoln was actually the most hated and detested of all American presidents, as documented by historian Larry Tagg in The Unpopular Mr. Lincoln: The Story of America’s Most Reviled President.  For example, on page 435 of his book Larry Tagg cites an 1864 Harpers Weekly article that compiled a list of terms that the Northern press used to describe Lincoln including “Filthy Story-Teller, Ignoramus Abe, Despot, Old Scoundrel . . . Perjurer, Liar, Robber, Thief, Swindler, Braggart, Tyrant, Buffoon, Fiend, Usurper, Butcher, Monster . . .”

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This all changed after the assassination as the Republican Party reveled in what Larry Tagg calls a “propaganda windfall.”  They would rewrite history with the help of the New England clergy in order to impose on Americans their version of what is essentially a New England theocracy composed of a government of nannies, pests, busybodies, tyrants, and money-grubbing plutocrats (known as “Yankees” by some).

New England pastors who had excoriated Lincoln for four years all of a sudden “rewrote their Easter sermons to include a new, exalted view of Lincoln as an American Moses, a leader out of slavery, a national savior who was not allowed to cross over into the Promised Land” himself.  Senator James Grimes of Iowa boasted that the Republican Party’s deification of Lincoln “has made it impossible to speak the truth about Abraham Lincoln hereafter.”

Senator Grimes was right.  In his 1943 book, The Deification of Lincoln, historian Ira D. Cardiff wrote that by then Americans were not even “interested . . . in the real Lincoln.  They desire a supernatural Lincoln, a Lincoln with none of the faults or frailties of the common man . . . a savior, leading us to democracy and liberty – though most said readers are not interested in democracy or liberty.”  Moreover, said Cardiff, “a biography of Lincoln which told the truth about him would probably have great difficulty in finding a publisher.”

The Deification of Lin… Ira D. Cardiff Best Price: $12.50 Buy New $9.57 (as of 07:05 EDT – Details)

Well, no longer. Lincoln as He Really Was by Charles T. Pace is a refreshingly truthful antidote to the standard Lincoln mythology.  It is refreshing because it is so fact-based and well documented and devoted to historical truth.   Lincoln as He Really Was is not your typical boring, voluminous biography filled with thousands of disconnected (and often irrelevant) facts dug up by a dozen graduate research assistants and published by a card-carrying member of the Ivy League Lincoln cult.  It is the first book since Edgar Lee Masters’ 1931 classic, Lincoln the Man, to attempt to reveal the truth about what kind of man Abraham Lincoln really was.Based on voluminous research of Lincoln’s actions, first and foremost, and not just his rhetoric, Pace describes how Lincoln was an expert manipulator of people; extremely lazy when it came to physical labor (contrary to the “rail splitter” legend!); was not at all well read; and what he did read was almost exclusively books about speech-making and rhetoric, with titles such as Lessons in Elocution.   The book confirms in spades what economist Murray N. Rothbard once said about Lincoln in an (online) essay entitled “Just War”: Lincoln was a “master politician,” said Rothbard, defined as one who is a masterful “liar, conniver, and manipulator.” He makes any “master politician” or our time look amateurish by comparison.

Lincoln never joined a church, and both his law partner William Herndon and his wife Mary Todd said he was not a Christian.  His White House assistant, Colonel Ward Lamon, called him “an infidel.”  His close associate Judge David Davis, whom he appointed to the Supreme Court, wrote that Lincoln “had no faith, in the Christian sense of the term.”  But his mother read him Bible stories as a child, and later in life he studied the Bible for political purposes – to use religious rhetoric to sway the masses to favor his political positions.  These positions were almost exclusively the Whig economic program of protectionism, corporate welfare, and a government-run national bank to dispense subsidies to politically-connected corporations, especially his former employers, the railroad corporations.  He boasted of always being a “Henry Clay Man,” Clay being the leader of the party of the corrupt, corporate welfare-seeking plutocracy – the Northern Whigs and then the Republicans.

Lincoln the Man Edgar Lee Masters Best Price: $74.50 Buy New $29.95 (as of 12:15 EDT – Details)

Pace shows what a political animal Lincoln really was, a “zealous party man” who honed his skills, such as they were, of personally attacking his political opponents with often over-the-top ad hominem assaults, similar to how the Marxists of his day, and our day, argue(d).

None of Lincoln’s family members voted for him, nor did 20 of the 23 ministers in his hometown of Springfield, Illinois.  He did not even carry his own county in the 1860 election.  These are the people who knew him best.

Lincoln was a master story teller, many of which were notoriously vulgar and crude.  He never passed up an opportunity to make a speech, writes Pace, as he spent years honing the skills of the master politician.  He could sound like an abolitionist in front of a Massachusetts audience, and the exact opposite in Southern Illinois.  His speeches were always vague and his positions hard to pin down, the hallmark of a successful politician.  He viewed politics as “life itself” and was intensely partisan, routinely denouncing his political opponent as “villains.”  He was a “born politician,” writes Pace.  He was, in other words, the very kind of man that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and James Madison warned their fellow citizens about with their admonitions about how government needed to be “bound by the chains of the Constitution” (Jefferson).  “[I]t is of great importance,” Madison wrote in Federalist 51, “to guard society against the oppression of its rulers.”

Lincoln invited no family members to his wedding; chose not to attend his own father’s funeral; and is said to have never had a real friend.  He had a “preacher’s voice” with a practiced “metaphysical tone” and was not afraid to tell outrageous lies for political purposes.  For example, he insisted that the South wanted to begin enslaving poor whites and immigrants and bring slavery back to New England, where it had ended for purely economic reasons.  He denied that he wanted war, or to destroy the union, or to destroy the South, and then proceeded to do every one of those things.

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Lincoln as He Really Was ends with a masterful exposition of how Lincoln used all the skills of the master politician, accumulated over three decades, to incite South Carolinians into firing on Fort Sumter in order to use the incident (where no one was harmed or killed) to “justify” waging war on the South.  His war cost the lives of as many as 750,000 Americans according to the latest research in order to “save the union,” his professed war goal, and that of the U.S. Congress as well.  Of course, in reality his war destroyed the voluntary union of states created by the founders and replaced it with a more Soviet-style, compulsory “union” held together by violence, death, mass killing, and coercion.

You, dear reader, may believe that there is something fishy about The Official History of Abraham Lincoln.  Or perhaps you are incensed that you have been lied to all your life by the politically-controlled/politically-correct education establishment.  If so, Lincoln as He Really Was is a must-read as a first step in your rehabilitation as an educated American citizen – or as the citizen of any other country.  It will be especially helpful in allowing your children and grandchildren to have an opportunity to learn the truth about this important aspect of American history.

The Best of Thomas DiLorenzo

   

        

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The Betrayed: On Warriors, Cowboys and Other Misfits. Although woven around the experiences and adventures of one man, this is also the story of the people who lived during the period of time in American history that an entire generation was betrayed It is the story of the dramatically changing times in which this personal odyssey took place. It is the story of the betrayal of an entire generation of Americans and particularly the 40% (of the military aged males) of that generation that fought the Vietnam war.

 

Moving the swamp to the West and possible CEQ revisions

Well, what should we expect? After all, a government job is a government job. — jtl, 419

Land & Livestock International, Inc.

Somewhere in the West, a chamber of commerce would benefit from the relocation of these headquarters. An urban area will welcome the federal employees and the additional spending they will bring. In the rural areas, where these lands and their users actually exist, little will have changed.

Well, what should we expect? After all, a government job is a government job. — jtl, 419

THE WESTERNER 

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Zinke’s folly

On July 21 in Denver, Secretary of Interior Zinke briefed a group of United States Geological Survey senior executives on his reorganization proposal. Zinke said he probably planned to move the headquarters of the BLM, the USFWS and the Bureau of Reclamation to Denver, based on notes taken by the senior executives and obtained by E&E news. The following is based on those notes.

There are some good thoughts here by Zinke.

It included discussion of the secretary’s desire to shift more…

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An Open Letter to Governor Susana Martinez

Without question, the War of Yankee Aggression is THE most lied about period of American history. Nothing you read in any of those books they assigned you at the Mandatory Government Propaganda Camp (aka pubic–err not a typo) school you escaped from was true. — jtl, 419

To:  New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez

Dear Governor Martinez,

Congratulations on getting all of those Jefferson Davis markers removed from your rest areas.

You must feel so very proud in being a part of the Marxist cultural genocide crowd, trying to erase and destroy our history. Do you feel better now?  Are your rest areas safer now that those horrible plaques commemorating that awful Confederate are gone?

Do you have any idea that you are exactly what our Founding Fathers, and our Confederate heroes were fighting against?  They were fighting to prevent tyranny and oppression, but all of you on the side of cultural genocide are demonstrating just that.

Your actions are no different than those of Hitler or ISIS.  Ignorance of our true history is a disease that permeates throughout this entire country.  It has no political or racial boundaries. If affects the young, the old, the so- called “educated”, rich, poor, those elected to high positions, and the common every day person who works for a living.

What is the cause of this disease of ignorance affecting so many today?  Marxist indoctrination.  Our public schools and universities are filled with socialist teachers and professors who, either out of their own ignorance, or political agenda, push the rewritten version of the War of Northern Aggression.

This started back during Reconstruction, right after Lincoln’s illegal war to force the legally seceded Southern States back into a union they wanted no part of.

You say, “But, slavery had to be done away with.  The North fought to rid our land of this evil institution.”  Really?  Slavery had absolutely not one thing to do with the war.  Oh, it was a hot topic of the day, but not one person fought to end slavery, and not one person fought to perpetuate it.

Lincoln’s illegal invasion of the South had to do with forcing these states back into the union for the continued collection of excessive tariffs, not to “free the slaves”. You see, the South was the primary contributor of federal revenues and Lincoln could not bear to lose all that money which was being used for infrastructure, railroads, industry, etc.  All for the benefit of the North.  We call that “wealth redistribution”.

The Confederacy fought an illegal invasion of rapists, looters, arsonists, and murderers of civilians in defense of their homes, land, and families. Many Black, Mexican, Indian, and Jewish Confederates fought for the same reason. These Confederates were heroes fighting a much larger army, and were winning until halfway through the war.

Now today, monuments are being torn down, the names of schools, streets, and parks are being renamed, and Confederate Battle flags not permitted to be sold or displayed because of the mis-education passed down through many generations. What is taught in our schools and universities is not the truth. The South was not fighting to keep slavery.

  This is easily proven with the “Corwin Amendment”, the “Crittenden-Johnson Resolution”, thousands of letters from Confederate soldiers, as well as Lincoln’s own words. Answer me this – If freeing the slaves was the cause of the war, then why did the North not free the more than 420,000 slaves still in the union AFTER the South seceded?

Didn’t know that?  There is much you don’t know, and it’s not by accident.  The Marxist globalist socialists do not want people to know the truth.

The removal of our monuments, plaques, flags, and the name changes are a slap in the face to our brave dead Confederates and their descendants.  This cultural genocide has got to be stopped.  Ignorance is the disease.  Education is the cure.

Jeff Paulk

Tulsa, OK

“Silent Sam” Going Back? Don’t Kid Yourself!

I hope I am wrong, but I have the sinking feeling that the folks in North Carolina, unless they really raise the roof over this, have seen the last of Silent Sam. Six months down the road, I’d love someone in North Carolina to be able to tell me I was wrong. But, after all, Silent Sam was Confederate–and based on past performances…..

 

And I have that same sinking feeling, Al. — jtl, 419

 

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by Al Benson Jr. via revised history

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

Someone sent me, via email, while I’m still able to get stuff, a picture from http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2018/08/law-behind-silent-sam a photo showing the police “surrounding” the Silent Sam statue as it lay on the ground after having been pulled down by a gang of Marxist vandals.

I found it rather ironic. The police waited to “surround” the statue until after the Marxist goons had ruined it. While they were in the process of doing their damage the cops just stood down and let them accomplish their mayhem. Undoubtedly, anyone who had tried to stop them from completing their destruction would have been arrested. This seems to be SOP for police departments around the country anymore–stand around while the Marxists do their damage to make sure no one bothers them while they are doing it. After the damage has been done, they “protect” what has been ruined. They seem to take the same approach when it comes to protecting legitimate protesters against Antifa or Black Lives Matter thugs–let the Marxists do what they want to whom they want and then arrest anyone trying to protect themselves from Marxist aggression. After all, it isn’t “nice” to resist the Marxists don’t you know.

It’s sort of like the police letting robbers rob the local bank and then arresting any civilian who attempts to either stop or chase them–and then surrounding the bank after the thieves have departed. When it comes to Marxist aggression that seems to be the SOP of most police departments anymore. You do have to wonder who gives them their marching (or standing down) orders. Are many of our cities and colleges so infested with Marxists that we can expect nothing else? If so, we have a major problem we haven’t even begun to address yet.

At any rate, an article on the Daily Tarheel by Casey Quam notes: “In the week following Silent Sam’s forced removal on August 20, questions over what will become of the statue have centered on the interpretation of N.C. Senate Bill 22. North Carolina General Statute 100-2.1, a section of Senate Bill 22, dictates that ‘a monument, memorial, or work of art owned by the state may not be removed, relocated or altered in any way without the approval of the North Carolina Historical Commission’, unless, among other reasons, the monument ‘poses a threat to public safety because of an unsafe or dangerous condition.’ According to the act, a publicly-owned object of remembrance may be temporarily relocated, and then replaced after no more than 90 days, only for the sake of an object’s own preservation,  or if the object is blocking construction zones. If it is permanently relocated, it must be relocated to a ‘site of similar prominence, honor, visibility, availability, and access that are within the boundaries of the jurisdiction.”

Sounds pretty straightforward, but by the time the  Leftist lawyers get through parsing all the language I’d be surprised is this law didn’t end up being applicable to everything except Confederate monuments! And if this state historical commission gets to finally decide, then we might ask where on the political spectrum they are coming from. If it’s the same place as some of the university and town officials, then God help us. Silent Sam will end up being buried in some warehouse forever!

The good folks in North Carolina are going to have to start doing some homework and finding out where their state historical commission is at politically so they will know how to proceed from there. Is the historical commission anywhere near unbiased,  or is it RED?

I hope I am wrong, but I have the sinking feeling that the folks in North Carolina, unless they really raise the roof over this, have seen the last of Silent Sam. Six months down the road, I’d love someone in North Carolina to be able to tell me I was wrong. But, after all, Silent Sam was Confederate–and based on past performances…..

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Sometimes people do the wrong things for the right reasons. The author admits that to be the “story of his life” and openly shares much of it in this book. Although the book is largely an historically based auto-biography, it is part fact and part fiction. In cases where identities needed to be protected, the “facts” necessary to that end are changed but without altering the accuracy of the description of the event or its historical significance. It is a personal story. It is a cowboy-warrior’s story told in a cowboy-warrior’s language. It is the story of one man’s journey from bondage to freedom and from slavery to liberty. It is the gritty story of this man’s life-long education in the school of hard knocks as his journey took him from a sharecropper’s shack, through the rodeo arena and the boxing ring, across the football field and the drilling rig floor, into the Marines and two wars and ultimately culminating in the university… Read More

Media Justifies Ethnic Cleansing With Fake Stats About South African Farmers

It’s called “spin” and they actually pay people to do it. — jtl, 419

Land & Livestock International, Inc.

The Washington Post’s claim that “whites own 72 percent of the 37 million hectares held by individuals” has to be placed within the context of the 93 million acres of arable agricultural land in South Africa…Even if the claim were true, that would amount to white farmers owning 27% of the agricultural land…There’s a big difference between 27% and 72%.

It’s called “spin” and they actually pay people to do it. — jtl, 419

by Daniel Greenfield via Sons of Liberty Media

After President Trump tweeted about the mistreatment of white farmers in South Africa, the media rushed out stories justifying the ANC regime’s plans to ethnically cleanse white farmers by seizing land without compensation. These stories invariably contained a popular fake statistic abused by racists.

Bloomberg pretended to conduct a fact check by accusing Trump of misleading the public and claimed that, a “land audit released in February showed…

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Even President Trump Is Aware Of The Civil Unrest That Is Brewing, And He Just Warned That Violence Is Coming If Republicans Lose In November

This nation is becoming a cauldron of fury, and it isn’t going to take much to set off widespread chaos.

This has not been a question of “if” but one of “when” for almost as long as I can remember. This may be the event we’ve been waiting for. — jtl, 419

by Michael Snyder at End of the American Dream

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Are we going to see violence in the streets of our major cities following the mid-term elections in November?  President Trump seems to believe that this is a very real possibility, and he shared his thoughts on this with a group of top evangelical leaders on Monday night.  Previously, those that have warned that a “civil war” is coming to America have been heavily criticized, but perhaps people will start taking this more seriously now that President Trump is saying it.  Of course we have already seen dozens of attacks on Trump supporters all over the nation, but the mainstream media largely ignores those because it does not fit the narratives that they are pushing.  The mainstream media wants to make Trump and his supporters look as bad as possible, and so they do not like to report anything that may cause the public to view them in a positive light.  But everyone can see that anger and hatred are rising to unprecedented levels in this country, and the mainstream media and key politicians on the left are adding more fuel to the fire with each passing day.

On Monday, somewhere around 100 top evangelical leaders gathered for an intimate dinner with Trump, and this dinner made headlines all over the nation…

About 100 evangelical leaders were invited to dinner at the White House Monday night for what was a prayer-filled event that’s been compared to a church camp meeting and a campaign rally.

Dubbed a “state dinner” for evangelical leaders, the event was held specifically in the “honor of evangelical leadership.” The dinner was attended by dozens of evangelical pastors, evangelists and activists who’ve been involved in informally advising the administration including well-known figures like Franklin Graham, James Dobson, and Greg Laurie.

During his remarks at the dinner, Trump acknowledged that “the level of anger is unbelievable”, and he warned that there will be violence if Republicans lose in November…

“The level of hatred, the level of anger is unbelievable,” he said. “Part of it is because of some of the things I’ve done for you and for me and for my family, but I’ve done them. … This Nov. 6 election is very much a referendum on not only me, it’s a referendum on your religion, it’s a referendum on free speech and the First Amendment.”

If the GOP loses, he said, “they will overturn everything that we’ve done and they’ll do it quickly and violently, and violently. There’s violence. When you look at Antifa and you look at some of these groups — these are violent people.”

With only a little more than two months to go before the mid-term elections, I think that President Trump is starting to realize how dire the situation is.  Pro-Trump Republicans have lost in primaries in Arizona, Idaho and elsewhere, Democratic candidates are raising far more money than Republican candidates are, and the left has far more energy and enthusiasm than the right does at the moment.

If the mid-term elections were held right now, the Democrats would almost certainly take control of the House, and they might even win a majority in the Senate.

And Trump is correct that there will probably be violence if Republicans lose, but there will also probably be violence if Republicans win.  Either way, Antifa and other groups on the radical left will continue to escalate the rhetoric and the violence.

In addition to rioting in the streets like we have already witnessed in cities such as Portland, individual Trump supporters are already being attacked at an alarming rate as well.

You can find a fairly comprehensive list of attacks on Trump supporters right here.

This nation is becoming a cauldron of fury, and it isn’t going to take much to set off widespread chaos.

At the dinner on Monday night, Trump also warned evangelicals that our religious freedoms are in serious jeopardy…

“I just ask you to go out and make sure all of your people vote. Because if they don’t — it’s November 6 — if they don’t vote, we’re going to have a miserable two years and we’re going to have, frankly, a very hard period of time,” he said.

“You’re one election away from losing everything that you’ve gotten,” he added. “Little thing: Merry Christmas, right? You couldn’t say ‘Merry Christmas.’ “

And even though we probably aren’t going to lose the right to say “Merry Christmas” any time soon, the truth is that we are certainly seeing our religious freedoms being eroded at a staggering pace.

In fact, earlier today I came across an article about a plaque containing the Ten Commandments that was just removed from a park in Ohio.  The left wants to remove every trace of the Christian faith from public life, and they are absolutely relentless in their effort to get this done.

If the Democrats take control of both the House and the Senate in November, they will probably make an effort to impeach President Trump.

But if President Trump gets impeached, Mike Pence will become president, and many on the left hate Pence even more than they hate Trump.

In his brand new book about Pence, radical leftist Michael D’Antonio attempts to portray Mike Pence as a “Christian supremacist” that is basically functioning as “a president-in-waiting”…

Biographer Michael D’Antonio is releasing a new book about Vice President Mike Pence, and though he’s clearly not in Pence’s corner, his appearance Tuesday on CNN summed up perfectly the Christian values that drive the vice president’s actions.

D’Antonio told CNN’s John Berman that he is confident Pence feels God is “calling him” to “function as a president-in-waiting.” The biographer, promoting the new book, “The Shadow President: The Truth About Mike Pence,” argued “absolutely everything” the vice president does is about “becoming president.”

Ultimately, removing Trump from the picture won’t change a whole lot.  The left would still be seething with hatred and anger, and we would continue to see more violence all around the country.

At this point, there really isn’t any conservative that the left would be willing to accept in the White House.  And there are many on the right that would not be willing to acknowledge any liberal as a legitimate president.

America is rapidly getting to the point of becoming ungovernable, and no matter who wins in November, it is quite likely that we will soon see clear evidence of this as chaos reigns in our streets.

This article originally appeared on End Of The American Dream.  About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

Child of the State, Man of War

The man never owned a company, made a payroll or dug a post hole in his entire life which he lived as a parasite on the backs of the productive class. — jtl, 419

Land & Livestock International, Inc.

A better way to understand John McCain is to see him for what he really was and what he never escaped, although in his wistful moments one wonders if he dreamed of it.  He was a child of the state, the military state specifically.  He was the namesake of men who fought for the state, sacrificed their principles and families for the state, he was schooled by the state, both in the many military base schools he attended as a child, then the Naval Academy, later the US Navy, even later a prison camp – and in all of these places John McCain was treated and handled just a little bit different than the average Joe.  In every way, he owed his very life and his very liberty to the fact that he was deeply connected to the elites who are the shining beneficiaries of the American empire.

The man…

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NPR: Over 66 Percent of Claimed Shootings Never Happened

Does this surprise anybody? — jtl, 419

Land & Livestock International, Inc.

Does this surprise anybody? — jtl, 419

NPR examined a U.S. Education Department study and discovered that over 66 percent of reported school shootings for 2015-2016 school year never occurred.The Education Department claims there were “nearly 240 schools … [which] reported at least 1 incident involving a school-related shooting.”

But NPR contacted schools and districts and was able to substantiate that 161 of the incidents “never happened.” They verified that something did occur in four instances, “but it didn’t meet the government’s parameters for a shooting.” Moreover, they received no response regarding 25 percent of the Educated Department’s reported school shootings.

NPR was able to confirm only 11 of the 240 reported shootings. They note: “A separate investigation by the ACLU of Southern California also was able to confirm fewer than a dozen of the incidents in the government’s report, while 59 percent were confirmed errors.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second…

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