01MAY2003 – GWB declares victory in the War on Terror (too soon Bush II, too soon as Kabul, Afghanistan experiences a Saigon, Vietnam moment here in 2021)
I know this is extremely OLD news, but remember when the US Deep State accused Bin Laden and his gang (of 50-200) in Afghanistan of orchestrating 9/11? Remember when GW Bush accused Saddam Hussein of possessing WMDs (WMDs that we gave Iraq during the Iraq-Iran War 1984-1988)?
The RESPONSE to these two lies was excessively over the top. The response COULD have been a strategic targeted CIA/SpecialForces mission that involved 50 men in both countries to CSI. But no, the US decides to sacrifice our troops (both physical and mental death/PTSD) in both of these countries over the next two decades, sacrifice the innocent people in these counties (their life, their livelihood making many refugees while eradicating Christianity) while spending trillions of US taxpayer’s money.
What do we have to show for all that sacrifice here in 2021? Nothing!
The greater good was never achieved. Bringing “democracy” to the Middle East only brought death, heartache, pain and poverty.
So the US elite says: “Let’s bring this to the homeland”
Now consider the War on Covid.
Headlines read: “15 Days to Flatten the Curve”, “Hospitals are Overwhelmed” and “Vaccines are Totally Safe”
The RESPONSE domestically has again been over the top. Beginning with masks which Tony Fauci rightfully said initially as being a “comfort” mechanism before he went political and suggested 2x, this crowd submission method was a placeholder until the mRNA vaccines could be delivered less than a year later (thanks “Father of the Vaccine” Trump SARCASM).
When we think of the phases toward mandating the “vaccine”, I can’t help but think of the pressure the US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan accomplished when freedom fighters in those countries were hard pressed, they became ever increasingly resistant and resilient. “Terror” groups morphed overnight sporting names like Al Qaeda, Taliban and more. Geographic boundaries meant nothing as ISIS spread from Iraq to Syria. The result was opposite the stated goals of the US Empire’s CIA/Pentagon/MIC complex.
But no one remembers years later.
So too with this latest war. Fighting an obscure enemy (COVID is ONLY a set of ever evolving symptoms that can come from SARS-CoV-1, SARS-CoV-2, and other respiratory viruses like the flu), allows the fighters to shift their efforts while propping up their narrative, the “noble lie” (think Plato) that validates their forced mandates.
Consider the 1984 statement in the DHHS Federal Register, Vol 49 No 107 from June 1, 1984 in reference to the final rules concerning polio vaccination campaigns in the U.S.:
…any possible doubts, whether or not well founded, about the safety of the vaccine cannot be allowed to exist in view of the need to assure the vaccine will continue to be used to the maximum extent consistent with the nation’s public health objectives.
This is why the following narrative (propaganda) is enforced on the public by government, media, big tech, big pharma and large US corporations:
Herd immunity is required to enable economic and social recovery
Vaccines are the only route to achieving herd immunity
COVID-19 vaccines are perfectly safe
COVID-19 vaccines provide protective, durable immunity
This excessive push of mandatory vaccines is counter-intuitive and has some scary long-term effects not even thinking about the vaccine’s adverse effects themselves.
As of the early days of the mass vaccination campaigns, at least a few experts have been warning against the catastrophic impact such a program could have on global and individual health. Mass vaccination in the middle of a pandemic is prone to promoting selection and adaptation of immune escape variants that are featured by increasing infectiousness and resistance to spike protein (S)-directed antibodies (Abs), thereby diminishing protection in vaccinees and threatening the unvaccinated
The “hard press” on the virus is fueling the variants.
The “hard press” on the ‘terrorists’ fueled the variants.
I guess when you have a hammer like government .. everything is a nail.
George Washington knew this first hand when he led 15,000 troops into Pennsylvania to put down the “Whiskey Rebellion” which he and Alexander Hamilton caused due to the heavy tax (8x higher than King George’s taxes on the American colonies) on whiskey that they themselves had authorized.
A reasonable approach to this “War on Covid” would be as mRNA inventor Robert W. Malone suggests:
Full and complete disclosure on the vaccines
Comprehension of risks that the vaccines bring
Full voluntary participation with no coercion and no enticement
A healthy approach would follow more like Sweden’s strategy that has resulted in ZERO deaths there from COVID in the past weeks. A balanced response that allows the virus to move through the healthy younger population while protecting the older more frail population.
Provide personal risk assessment tools/apps
Provide clear and complete data on vaccine trials
Offer vaccination to high risk individuals
Understand that COVID is complex with different stages which means that allowing physicians to practice evidence-based medicine guided by laboratory testing
Use sequence-independent stage-appropriate medicines like Ivermectin, Famotidine/Celecoxib, Fluvoxamine, Apixaban, Vitamin D, etc.
Emphasize treating patients as soon as they develop disease in outpatient stage
Stop censoring and blocking repurposed drug development
Only when a healthier medical-industrial complex emerges will public confidence in healthcare rebound:
Public campaigns should be positive, ethical, truthful and empathic
People should feel empowered when making health choices
In both actions and words it is important to steer clear of fear, coercion and questionable ethics
Obey the law and be transparent about risks while not circumventing time tested processes and ethics
Trust, educate and respect citizens right to choose
Avoid authoritarian demands, information censorship and psychological manipulation via big media and big tech
I am not holding my breath. It took 20 years to unravel the “War on Terror”, so how long will it be for the truth to emerge around the “War on Covid”?
It was not that long ago, maybe 4-5 years, that Captain1776 and myself both found out that we each knew NO ONE who thought like us. In searching for like-minded individuals in our circles, we could not even name ONE name of a friend or associate who saw society and government for what they really were. Few had the combination of moral principles along with impassioned sharing with others the many ways government has failed the people.
We tried at guessing percentages, not just in our state (only one of 50 so-called “united” States) but just in our county of 200K. Were there 2,000 (1%) like-minded individuals in our county that we never came in contact with? We were doubtful.
It was obvious to us that this is not the natural state of man (men or women) but something that comes from wrestling with the truths we know and the lies we see time and again. Looking into the history of government or any of its heroes tends to reveal what these actors are really about.
Fast forward those years and now we find ourselves on the other side of a “crisis” (real or imaginary, novel or planned) that showed just how far both society and government has “progressed” (regressed?). Nothing like a crisis to peel back the onion to expose the true core, condition and characteristics of our true core.
In a recent article by Winter Oak we find ten things (at a minimum) that have been learned along the way. Let us take these a few at a time and just reflect.
Item #1
Our political system is hopelessly corrupt. Virtually all politicians are hopelessly corrupt. No political party can be trusted. They all can be, and have been, bought.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, in your heart you KNOW this to be true right? I know, not that it would have really changed anything because the American political party only allows us a choice of two people of their own choosing. Come on now, think about it one second at least. You saw the rallies, you know your friends and family, and you still think this 2020 election in the US was free of trickery? Sorry to burst your bubble, this trickery has been around for ages as even JFK’s own father encouraged and financed a common laborer to run for the same office his son was running for ONLY because he had the same name as his son’s opponent thereby splitting the opponent’s vote. As FDR said:
Okay then, with #1 out of the way and seeing clearly that voting does NOTHING I do hope the next election you do not vote for the lesser of two evils BUT think about how a slew of NON-VOTING might be taken by the establishment and government. Knowing what we know now, millions of votes CAN and WILL be fabricated out of thin air just like the USD$ that are printed daily, but I digress.
The next four can be easily taken on as a group of four (items 2-5):
Democracy is a sham. It has been a sham for a very long time. There will never be any real democracy when money and power amount to the same thing.
The system will stop at nothing to hold on to its power and, if possible, increase its levels of control and exploitation. It has no scruples. No lie is too outrageous, no hypocrisy too nauseating, no human sacrifice too great.
So-called radical movements are usually nothing of the sort. From whatever direction they claim to attack the system, they are just pretending to do so, and serve to channel discontent in directions which are harmless to the power clique and even useful to its agendas.
Any “dissident” voice you have ever heard of through corporate media is probably a fake. The system does not hand out free publicity to its actual enemies.
If you have been reading my blog you should by now understand the real meaning of the word “democracy”, and that is “mob rule”. Nothing at all good can come out of this. When the s**t politicians that rise to the top in our very dysfunctional and evil political system (with two wings, one red and one blue) you can expect them to mouth words that are negated by their very actions. Watch what they do, no not trust what they say!!!
“…democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” James Madison, Federalist Papers Number 10
Do I disrespect the working class in this country for backing the orange man? No, because he said the things that connected these masses with how they were feeling. The America they knew growing up is evaporating before their eyes and their hope was this politician who like Obama, promised a whole lot before he became president and delivered little. To show how much out of touch Trump still is in his political role, he is most proud of being the FATHER of the vaccines that have saved millions of lives in this country.
“I am the father of the vaccine. It was a miracle, it saved tens of millions of lives. Pausing the J&J vaccine was stupid!” – Former President Donald Trump
But I digress yet again. Trump had the opportunity to make good on his promises but instead went down the political road ignoring the very people that put him in office. At a critical point in March of 2020 he ignored sound council regarding the pandemic/plandemic and initiated Operation Warp Speed. This operation to vaccinate” ALL of America is something he would like as his legacy. Sorry, just another politician (99%) who gives the rest (1%) a bad name.
Number 6 of this list has to do with society. There is no way you can not see this. In fact, now that mask mandates have been dropped by the CDC you will continue to see this:
Most people in our society are cowards. They will jettison all the fine values and principles which they have been loudly boasting about all their lives merely to avoid the slightest chance of public criticism, inconvenience or even minor financial loss.
I know for myself, there have been many friends, acquaintances and co-workers who had the brain-power to evaluate what this season was all about and instead believed it all as if they had drank the Kool-Aid themselves.
It was so sad to see, but also so enlightening. They acted like politicians in that you had to wait to see what they did when this crisis, and the government’s response, hit and not rely on the years of what they had said. Their principles were tossed aside so fast that I have only one word to describe them. Sheep. Now Jesus did not hate sheep, in fact, He had compassion for them but at the same time He did not expect any different behavior from them. I guess I have too high expectations then.
The balance of these (7-10) has to do with various arms of government. Yes, even science (Medical Industrial Complex) has made their bed with government .. so here we go:
The mainstream media is nothing but a propaganda machine for the system and those journalists who work for it have sold their sorry souls, placing their (often minimal) writing skills entirely at the disposition of Power.
Police are not servants of the public but servants of a powerful and extremely wealthy minority which seeks to control and exploit the public for its own narrow and greedy interests.
Scientists cannot be trusted. They will use the hypnotic power of their white coats and authoritative status for the benefit of whoever funds their work and lifestyle. He who pays the piper calls the tune.
Progress is a misleading illusion. The “progress” of increasing automisation and industrialisation does not go hand in hand with a progress in the quality of human life, but in fact will “progressively” reduce it to the point of complete extinction.
Mainstream media’s history (Project Mockingbird vintage 1950s) should be known even pre-Covid, and the police issue (tied to politicians they can never be focused solely on public safety done correctly) the same and surely should have come as no surprise.
The rather new item is that of the science community that I belong to but am highly embarrassed by. While I have seen the corporatist leanings for some time (I actually left the military in the 1980s thinking that private business would be different, but I was wrong for the category of large businesses) I found that especially beginning with Pharma’s backing of Obamacare that pushed mandatory insurance and associated premiums on our youth who were NOT sick, as a very sick and selfish move towards their own long-term profits. While they claim there heart is with patients, they are actually most in love with big government and this past season has solidified that allegiance.
The “progress” that government has brought society has been laced with awful side-effects that can easily taint one’s own soul if one is not careful. Although I am fond of automation myself, I do know that any tool used wrongly can be manipulated to be an enemy of humankind.
As I wrote in this blog the last time, the Great Spiritual Reset is underway and the positive of this is that maybe the ‘church’ (ekklesia – the people who really follow Jesus) can impact with their love of others in. As this past 14 months have given us all new eyes to see others and government with, we are all wiser to those who might pretend to embed themselves in our circles as insurgents to report back to elements of the state.
The so-called progress has brought us all into a technocratic police state that is obsessed about geting real-time data on all subjects in the homeland called America. The 1st century church based in homes operated very well in the presence of the Roman Empire’s police state. We shall see if America’s new tools will allow them to be better oppressors of the people. Time will tell.
As I have explained for decades, a Tower of Babel has no common ground. There are no shared values, no shared culture, no shared holidays, no shared history. In their place is the cultivated hatred taught in public schools with critical race theory, the NY Times 1619 Project, and reinforced with sensitivity training in corporations, universities, and the US military. This means there is no basis for law. Whatever law exists is seen as a tool of the ruling race, not as something to respect.
One consequence is that the public interest disappears because there is no public interest—only the interests of the races, genders, classes. As has been clear throughout history, the lack of ethnic homogenuity means multicultural states are dysfunctional. They have no common basis.
White liberals will dispute this even as they live in an increasingly dysfunctional multicultural state that is thoroughly disunited and themselves spread disunity with their screams for death to Trump supporters.
The American people had a good thing going, and they stupidly let it be taken from them.
Yes, the masses are stupid and the twelve year indoctrination that most of us have in government schools seems to seal the deal on that, but this too can be used for good as well going forward. There are plenty of people that can be approached to see things for what they really are.
After having protected themselves while working class were exposed to the virus, the vaccinated Zoomers now want Vaccine Passports where immunity from prior infection does not count, despite stronger evidence for protection. One more assault on working people.
So the American Empire does what Robert E. Lee prophesied about ..
To the empire whose previous 70+ years of global intervention has accomplished, these are all coming home to roost. In this unfolding environment, anyone seen as opposed to the state will be seen as a threat. Hang on y’all .. and trust and hope that God can get us through the next season of this nation and this world.
Find your like-minded friends and cultivate those relationships for the days to come.
There is no wonder why capitalism gets a bad name. Ever since the dawn of time, governments have been used by large business ventures to secure their market and guarantee their revenue.
Back in colonial days, the East India Company had a monopoly supported by the British Empire, and in more recent times the canal/railroad building and steel industry in the United States were given favored treatment to drive away competition.
In the past decade and especially during the plan-demic, it is obvious that most large businesses and their owners have benefited (top 0.1% elite’s wealth increased dramatically) from the government connection as they were exempt from the strict and arbitrary rules that government handed down to small businesses, in effect scaring them out of business.
There is a name that is appropriate for this arrangement, crony-capitalism.
Understanding this, it is easier to ready articles that criticize capitalism, because one know that the target is not free market capitalism, but capitalism achieved by exploiting a government connection to get favored treatment.
In the United States, there is no one who better understood this connection and profited from it than Abraham Lincoln, a railroad lawyer who made land purchases based on the insider knowledge he had of the railroad-industrial complexes intentions. Once president, he would further intertwine private corporations to enter into partnership with federal government to set the stage for all the fraud that the Grant administration had to face. Truth comes out eventually, and that is a treat that the political establishment has to live with every day. The corrupt US government/big corp/big tech web of deceit of 2021 is only the natural progression of what has happened over the past 200+ years here in America.
Now that we have this knowledge, there is an article by Caitlin Johnstone that helps us all understand the mental harm we are being subjected to in and around the Covid-19 overreaction.
How many of people’s mental health diagnoses are really just them struggling to function in a capitalist system that is amoral, destructive, overwhelming, overbearing, unsatisfying, and bereft of meaning?
It’s surely one of the most under-examined questions in the field of modern psychology. People in general and researchers in particular all too rarely think to take a step back from the data they are looking at and consider the large-scale framework within which that data is materializing, and to consider whether there’s anything about that particular framework which is giving rise to the particular data sets they are seeing.
Specifically:
How many people end up consulting with mental health professionals because they find themselves psychologically unable to keep up with the frenetic corporate pace that’s demanded of them in order to “earn a living”? Or earlier on as children because they are unable to successfully navigate the capitalism boot camp known as school? How many people are given diagnoses, and corresponding bottles of pills, simply because they can’t march to the beat of the capitalist drum?
Know anybody? Know yourself?
I know that listening to my company’s CEO makes me ticked that he feels he can impose HIS political agenda on the sheep in his company. Especially this past year it seems that this occasional ramp-up of subtlety saying that BLM is inherently good and Trump was 100% bad. The Kool-Aid has been moved from favored beverage almost to a point of being a mandatory IV in the past year.
But I digress.
While the sheep will always be with us, I believe there are some critical thinkers that may have been tricked by a slick marketing campaign as well as Covid-19 narrative has given hope to the climate change cult that their agenda is not dead. No doubt that the evil high priests that believe man can totally shape his world into the perfect utopia that has failed in the past, that Marxism 15.0 accomplished by an exceptional USA can give everyone equality and no hurt feelings. The marketing of this “new normal” is obvious to those that look and are not afraid of questioning the various cult’s claims:
How many of these stressors are exacerbated by being psychologically pummelled with mass media propaganda day in and day out, artificially twisting your mind into the belief that this is all normal, and that if you can’t keep up, you’re the problem? Telling you that it’s fine and normal for there to be billionaires and empty investment properties while you struggle to keep a roof over your head? Telling you it’s fine and normal for wealth and resources to go toward murdering strangers overseas while you’re forced to choose between medicine and groceries?
Apparently, the elites believe that they have too many people to manage in this world (right Bill Gates?) and the case-demic/plan-demic is intended to be version 1.0 of an annual ritual where select sections of society can be culled so that future people management attempts may be easier to carry out with less insurrection, revolt or rebellion.
And by the capitalism propaganda known as advertising? How is our psychological health affected by a nonstop barrage of corporate messaging informing us that we are deficient, and that there are things we lack which we must obtain in order to become whole? That we’re not beautiful enough, not skinny enough, not fashionable enough, not affluent enough, that we don’t own enough of the top-line items which only the well-off can afford?
Expanded areas of deficits might be some are too white, too racist and not doing enough good to keep our neighbors safe.
If you don’t know this is slavery, then you might want to research things for yourself.
The antidote to all this is to connect with others on similar paths and talk openly about your own fears for the future as society blindly follows the diktats of the ruling elite and all those who “only are following orders”. Simple actions like walking into a store sans masks as a group and watch others embolden by your actions remove their masks as well. Plan for the future in strategic ways so you are prepared for what our government might have in store for us as this twisted and demented decade rolls on, squashing freedoms and liberties. Make a hobby out of learning and training to be able to live in a much different world that is more like East Germany of the 1970s or Venezuela of the 2010s.
Good luck in all you do while seeking to really living your life in spite of the tyrannical diktats of disillusioned political types that have finally exposed their superiority complex. Small businesses and individuals need to be encouraged while big government and all their complexes who desire to group us serfs into various groups that will determine our futures needs to be frustrated by our throwing sand into the gears of their plans and programs in non-aggressive ways.
Every little bit accomplished in our communities helps. The small things do add up as there is more of us than there are of “them”.
Those of us that treasure the principles of liberty and freedom for all will have some very difficult choices in the days, weeks and months ahead. Knee-jerk reactions will have to be avoided as critical thinkers think through the consequences of possible decisions, not just the initial consequences, but the second and third tier consequences as well (something all political types are ignorant about). Unintended consequences of good intentions are still a problem. The end does NOT justify the means.
An article published today by Tom Luongo of Gold, Goats and Guns website challenges the conservitives of today to avoid the trap that the elites have laid out that was highlighted by this Brandon Smith (Alt-Market) quote:
To be clear, what I believe is happening is that conservatives are being prodded and provoked, not to separate and organize but to centralize. I think they want us to support actions like martial law which would be considered totalitarian. Conservatives, the only stalwart defenders of civil liberties, using military suppression and abandoning the Bill of Rights to maintain political power? That is a dream come true for the globalists in the long term. And despite people’s faith in Trump, there are far too many banking elites and globalists within his cabinet to ensure that such power will not be abused or used against us later.
Tom rightly responds:
Nothing would give Klaus Schwab and The Davos Crowd [moneyed global elites] more pleasure than turning us into them — willing to use indiscriminate violence to push otherwise humble and decent people into crazed killers and repudiate their inherent meekness, their inherent desire to pursue their bliss, allowing everyone else that same courtesy.
Principles people! Politics is NEVER a good answer. Fight the good fight using the Golden Rule even if it looks tough and shortcuts look appealing.
Part of the problem is that a vast majority of over 70M people who voted for Trump still believe in the Mythology of America. America as mythology has always stood as the ‘shining house on the hill’ for this enlightened idea that the wishes of the individual pursuing his bliss creates the community and culture which lifts the world out of a less attractive reality. This is why the US destroyed Iraq and Libya, which were each enjoying their own version of success to bring about US democracy, which left them in fractured states decades later, producing many dead innocent men, women and children, reducing Christian influence in these regions and causing many to be refugees, leaving their ancestral homelands of centuries.
That America has been dead since before the myth was birthed. In reality, the 1776 revolution brought HIGHER taxes and more central tyranny to this land than the Brits had even dreamed of. The 1865 reaction to a peaceful secession forever removed the sovereign states as a barrier to full blown federal tyranny, which is the prime reason we are seeing what we have now.
So we have all been taught a myth .. and now we have to critically think about our real options now that the myth has been shown to be a lie.
Tom laments:
What if the mythology of America today has these two wars backwards? What if all the conservatives mourning the Constitution today thanks to a feckless Supreme Court and treasonous Congress have it all wrong? What if the America they mourn the death of today died in 1865 not 2020?
Would that America still be worth finally fighting a bloody civil war for? Because that’s what The Davos Crowd is daring Donald Trump to do.
What if the better response is to do what the South tried to do and failed.
Simply walk away and say, “No more.”
Because fighting the bloody war of all against all, becoming raving fascists rising up to stop the rapacious (and economically backwards) communists in the process is always the wrong option.
Secession is always an option. Opting out of the hyper-collectivizing impulses of in-group/out-group bias is always the right choice. They want us to throw the first punch, to lash out, fire first out of fear, c.f. Fort Sumter, to justify their brutality afterwards.
Seems like many things in life appear to be black and while, high road or the low road, religion or hell. So in this election year where plenty of evil has been uncorked, there is a thought that the only recourse is to elect a certain leader, because “never before” has there been such an important election.
If it were only that easy. You see, those American colonists threw off the British Empire to be free, however, even before the American Revolution was over there were agendas afoot toward establishing a political power that would in fact bring less freedom and more taxes. Tax slaves once again.
Our rights, given to us by our Creator, were to be protected by this thing called government. The last two decades have seen our Bill of Rights evaporate “for safety from terrorists” (thanks GOP) ..
2012 version2018 version
.. and now our ability to elect representatives is about to be removed (thanks Democrats)!
I think it is that bait-n-switch that can get under the skin of those that do more than talk about freedom. Those that have either willingly chosen to serve in the military, or being drafted, gave it their all and then some that return to the USA quite disillusioned.
This happened with the Revolutionary War militia member of South Carolina that were indispensable in getting the British forces out of their region who NEVER were paid for their efforts. This is also what happened when Daniel Shay and his veteran groups found that being paid in worthless Continental dollars yet expected to pay back property taxes in gold in Massachusetts would sow the seeds of a rebellion whose core were those veterans who already gave more than lip service to liberty and freedom efforts.
More recently, we have many vets who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002 who today wonder how they could have been so willing to go and fight to “spread democracy” and yet realize that democracy was never the objective. PTSD [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder] is a real thing caused by an internal fight of morals for good or for evil. No one wants to wake up to the fact that they were used .. or to hear their leaders say things like this:
So as you see, this is nothing new. Every generation has to come to terms with this when they see their country and society being raped and pillaged by the evil in their midst. When politicians restrain law enforcement from protecting private property OR the citizens (that the US Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement had no obligation to attempt), it is up to “we the people” to take back what we had delegated to those who represent and serve us.
In 2020 we are seeing this vividly in the power struggle between the “establishment” (that has a swamp of their own) and the “Woke-Left” who desires to put their politicians and employer (Soros) into the US’s driver’s seat. Here is a chart that shows the span of principles (from tyrants to woke-left to real conservative) from Vasko Kohlmayer from his post at Lew Rockwell’s site today:
It should be no surprise what direction this nation is heading, and why there are those that say only Trump can save America.
Well, in truth, America has not had a healthy society or culture for many generations, and the more the federal government thinks it can fix things both in LA and in Podunk, Louisiana with the same tools, the more ineffective and out of touch it becomes. The more money it then needs to FORCE the fix. No wonder the bloated budget, the staggering bureaucracy and the perpetual of kicking the domestic issues down the road while we go and invade some nation, any nation somewhere elect on this globe.
But I digress. Maybe it is time, past time, to go full on local!
An example of think locally / act locally is what the last part of today’s blog post is set to communicate. I would like to now go back in time and unpack an era just after WWII in Tennessee where that corrupt local government combined with a corrupt law enforcement was finally “right-sized” by people of principle, veterans that knew something had to be done.
You see, in my mind, fixing this country where life, liberty and property are valued starts with me ..not relying on the state whose only tool is force:
Once we each have researched how people can live in proximity in this world filled with scarcity, it is THEN we can go about sharing ideas of freedom, liberty and prosperity with our neighbors, our co-workers and if possible, even with family!
With that, please either read the full post at the link below OR follow with me the Reader’s Digest version in the clips below from a post from Abbeville Institute’s Neil Kumar called ‘The Battle of Athens, Tennessee‘ :
Bill White, a vet, has seen the injustice and issues this declaration –
Well! Here you are! After three or four years of fighting for your country. You survived it all. You came back. And what did you come back to? A free country? You came back to Athens, Tennessee, in McMinn County, that’s run by a bunch of outlaws. They’ve got hired gunmen all over this county right now at this minute. What for? One purpose. To scare you so bad you won’t dare stand up for the rights you’ve been bleeding and dying for. Some of your mothers and some of your sisters are afraid to walk down the streets to the polling places. Lots of men, too!
The local government had secured a monopoly that terrorized the local taxpayers. No one even wanted to walk past the jail in case a lazy deputy accused you of doing something wrong and locking you up. This environment had gone on for years, and neither the state OR the federal government helped:
There were no “elections” in McMinn County through the war years. The ballot boxes were in Democratic offices, and Cantrell’s deputies served as the election officers, some of whom were brutal killers with the blood of innocent civilians on their hands. .. Word was put out among elderly voters that their pensions would be held up unless they voted “the right way.”
When the Republican election judge, a disabled veteran of the First World War, attempted to view the ballot count, he was dragged into the corridor and beaten, leaving him paralyzed. Another man who attempted to observe the ballot count was pistol-whipped, and one gunman fired at a poll worker who tried to leave the courthouse … Several Athenians petitioned the Department of Justice for relief, knowing that local and State officials would not take any action against the machine. A hardware store owner wrote Attorney General Francis Biddle, imploring, “The good people of this county are sacrificing for the cause of America’s freedom but have lost their freedom at home. Both parties have lost the freedom of the ballot box, a dictatorship has been set up, the county treasury is being raided at the expense of the taxpayers, and the good people of this county would like to sell their property and move away. Your department is our last line of defense. Please, for God’s sake come to the rescue of a helpless people.”
The (typical) response from the federal government:
The Department of Justice compiled a report, observing that “the alleged violations in McMinn County were the worst ever brought to the attention of the Department of Justice.” Despite overwhelming evidence and continuing petitions, the Feds took no action. A separate ouster lawsuit against McMinn election commissioners was finally tried by the Assistant Attorney General, largely due to the fact that the U.S. Attorney and the two U.S. Senators who had recommended him were believed to be associated with the machine, but this case was held before a judge who was also rumored to be a part of the organization. The judge dismissed most of the charges and fined the men one penny for the charges that stuck.
At the end of the day, when corruption comes local, y’all will have to be ready yourself, because:
In this case, the returning vets had skin in the game, they had been fighting for freedom and was horrified at what they came home to and decided that the first recourse was political:
.. another veteran said, “It wasn’t really a town anymore. It was a jail.” Another GI deplored the deputies, who “were nothing but a lot of swaggering, strutting, storm-troopers, drunk most of the time, beating up our citizens for the slightest reason.” Yet another observed that “if you were on the right team, why, you could get away with almost anything. If you were on the wrong team, you couldn’t get away with anything.” This should all sound all too familiar for us today.
When Cantrell announced that he was returning to Athens to “run” for Sheriff, Mansfield his handpicked successor to the State Senate seat, the GIs knew that now was the time to take action. Despite having been warned to stay away from the polls and to not even consider running for office, the veterans began organizing. As one of the soldiers put it, “We just got plain tired of being pushed around by a bunch of thugs.”
Politics however was in the back pocket of the county’s thugs, but the process brought about public relations that allowed the people to know someone was trying to save them. The Republican party was actually honorable enough to give the GIs a shot at the offices up for election:
The local Republican Party resolved to officially endorse the veterans’ ticket instead of running its own candidates; after seconding the motion in favor of the resolution, one party official delivered an excellent summation: “We are involved in a conflict with desperate enemies who have sought to subject us to tyranny and oppression…We feel a deep sense of obligation and now seek in measure to repay…Young men who have fought against oppression abroad will continue that fight for honesty and decency at home.”
However, those in power do not concede it easily, if at all:
Election Day had finally arrived. A local minister exhorted his congregation thus: “If you do not vote as your conscience dictates, then you have sold your citizenship and do not deserve to be citizens. It is the responsibility of each and every person to preserve our most cherished possession, liberty, or forever lose it.” Armed deputies “guarded” each polling place, and reports of election fraud poured in to GI headquarters almost immediately. One veteran lamented, “They already started knocking our boys in the head and putting them in jail. They’re taking this thing… At one polling place, a deputy beat and shot a sixty-year-old whose only crime had been his surplus of gumption in exercising his right to vote. Meanwhile, another deputy delivered a brutal beating to a GI election judge after he protested the brazen voter fraud happening before his eyes; the deputy tried to draw his gun, and likely would have killed the veteran, but it snagged in his holster. When he had exhausted himself, he had the man dragged to the jail bloody and insensate.
By this time, DeRose notes, “there were twelve ballot boxes: one in the jail, another inside a heavily defended courthouse, a third barricaded in the Dixie Café, a fourth in the vault in the Cantrell Bank Building, and poll watchers had been ejected at two other locations.” Inside the courthouse, deputies held a handful of GI poll watchers hostage, two of them wounded.
The powerful WILL turn to violence to keep power. Keep that in mind people of California, New York State, Michigan and other states in between! Just know, at the right time when that line is crossed, one may have to fight fire with fire:
Do you know what your rights are supposed to be? How many rights have you got left? None! Not even the right to vote in a free election. When you lose that, you’ve lost everything. And you are damned well going to lose it unless you fight and fight the only way they understand. Fire with fire! We’ve got to make this an honest election because we promised the people that if they voted it would be an honest election. And it’s going to be. But only if we see that it is. We are going to have to run these organized criminals out of town, and we can do it if we stick together. Are you afraid of them? Why, I could take a banana stalk and run every one of these potbellied draft dodgers across Depot Hill. Get the hell out of here and get something to shoot with. And come back as fast as you can. – Bill White
Inspired by White, the veterans fanned out to procure all of the weapons and ammunition that they could. They returned with an arsenal of pistols, rifles, shotguns, squirrel guns, and European souvenirs like a German Mauser. White still wasn’t satisfied: “We need some more firepower.” A group got together to raid the nearby National Guard armory, where they found revolvers, a Thompson sub-machine gun, an array of .30-caliber M1917 rifles, and plenty of ammunition. For good measure, one man drove to his hunting lodge in Asheville to collect his stash of ammunition. DeRose describes the scene well: “They draped themselves with bandoliers of bullets, took everything they could carry, and drove back to town.”
Things were about to get real, but a noble cause does sometimes require violence, sometimes more than turning tables over in a temple!
He had sworn to defend America against all of her enemies, and he meant to satisfy his vow. Later, White would explain that “if it was worth going over there and risking your life, laying it down, it was worth it here, too. So, we decided to fight.” The GIs set out, ready for action. They formed a line on a hillside across from the jail and demanded that the machine men bring out the ballot boxes. From the jail, someone called, “You’re going to have to come get them.” The GIs answered that that’s exactly what they would do. Someone else inside the jail shouted, “Why don’t you call the law?” A GI delivered the rejoinder: “There ain’t no damn law in McMinn County!” According to Byrum, the first fire was a shotgun blast from inside the jail; in any case, gunfire erupted.
Flashes pierced the night, both sides keeping up a sustained assault on one another. Athens, DeRose writes, “rattled to the roar of Tommy-guns, rifles, and pistols” and the “blunt blast of shotguns mingled with the sharper crack of rifles and the whine of ricochets.” The GIs, under the ceaseless torrent of bullets, climbed rooftops to take positions atop a ring of buildings encircling the jail. In the streets, the veterans further hemmed in the crossfire, firing from behind walls and parked cars. The soldiers shot out the transformer that supplied the jail, Byrum notes, “leaving the deputies not only low on ammunition but with the difficult task of groping around trying to load guns in the dark.”
With the National Guard on the way, White and his men stepped it up:
After receiving news that the National Guard had been mobilized, the GIs asked White what they should do. He replied immediately, vowing, “We’re not going to do anything about it. We’re going to keep shooting here until we get those ballot boxes and get those people out of there.” Running out of time, they realized that they needed to pick things up. One of the veterans reminded Bill that there was an enormous stockpile of dynamite in the old county barn that the county used to clear roads and blast stumps and stones. The dynamite procured, the GIs commenced tossing dynamite in increasing amounts at the jail, aiming closer and closer with each throw, finally promising that the next would be through the window. This last threat was followed by the veterans’ ultimate volley. The machine men, outgunned and out of ammunition, surrendered, and the deputies marched out one after another, their hands held high in supplication to their victorious conquerors. A swollen crowd of townspeople cheered.
Unlike most insurrections and revolutions, this one was not followed by another team in power that sought to intimidate to maintain their position:
“They realize [that] they have taken a serious step, but do not interpret their action as [having taken] the law into their own hands. Rather, they say [that] they just put the law back in the hands of the people.”
Now that is honorable and principle-based.
On August 1, 1946, a group of Southern World War Two veterans in Athens, Tennessee, fought and won the only successful armed insurrection in the United States since the War of Independence.
May a grassroots growth of liberty and freedom-minded men and women set about to repair this land from the local and up in the weeks and months to come. Regardless if the USA remains a union is not important. The most important aspect is what these GIs fought for in Athens, TN in 1946.
