GIVE TIL IT HURTS

The continued existence of this site depends entirely on contributions from its readers. If you're able to, please consider donating or subscribing to CF. Thanks!


  

THANKS!

Organization Men

Brandon Smith offers some ideas on how one might go about this thing.

There is a simple fact that must be understood when it comes to the fight for liberty: Such a fight cannot be won by lone individuals. Freedom requires organized resistance and it does not matter how many millions of people stand against an authoritarian regime, if they are completely isolated from each other they WILL lose. It’s a guarantee.

Actually, I’m kinda conflicted on that. Admittedly, humans seem to be genetically predisposed to create organizations and hierarchical leadership structures to run them. In this context, though, organizing at anything above squad- or cell-level numbers will also create infiltration and surveillance/intel-gathering opportunities, among other highly undesirable failure points.

Many of us are already clamoring about the need to organizate, and expressing great frustration that no inspiring Great Man has yet appeared to lead Patriots into battle, then on to ultimate victory. I don’t hold with any of that myself. When the time is right and the need for him is apparent, Team LIberty will find the leader it needs readily enough. Until then, such a person will only make himself a target, a resource whose usefulness the Enemy will identify and exploit posthaste. Unsurprisingly Brandon is smart and experienced enough to know it.

It is important to understand the difference between a Lexington Bridge moment and a Fort Sumter moment – During Lexington Bridge, the revolutionaries took action to stop a British detachment from arresting colonial leaders and confiscating rifles and powder stores. The British were in the midst of an undeniable attempt to disarm and snuff out the resistance. At Fort Sumter, the Confederate attack was in response to an attempted resupply of the fort itself; which made sense strategically but looked like an act of pure aggression to the wider public. The concept of states rights (more prominent in the minds of the confederates than the issue of slavery) fell by the wayside.

Eventually tyranny has to put boots on the ground. A totalitarian system can function for a time on color of law and implied threats, but it will crumble unless it is able to establish a physical presence of force. Once those jackboots touch soil in a visible way and the agents of the state try to expand oppressive measures, rebels then have a free hand to disrupt them or bring them down. But this only works if there are objectives and enough decentralization to prevent misdirection of the movement.

Some organization is essential. It cannot be avoided. All the “Gray Men” and secret squirrel preppers out there that think they are going to simply weather the storm in isolation and pop out of their bug-out locations to rebuild are suffering from serious delusions. I can’t help but think of that moment in ‘Lord Of The Rings’ when the Ents refuse to organize to fight against the invading orcs. Pippen suggests to Merry that the problem is too big for them and that they should go back to the Shire to wait out the war. Merry laments:

“The fires of Isengard will spread. And the woods of Tuckborough and Buckland will burn. And all that was once green and good in this world will be gone. There won’t be a Shire, Pippin.”

If this fight is not pursued now, there will be no world worth coming back to, even if one was able to successfully hide from it. There will be a “new world order” as the globalists like to call it. There will be nothing left of freedom.

So, organization must be accomplished, and it should be built at the local level. This is far more important than any dreams of a national organization, at least for now. There is no one we can trust to lead such a nationwide revolt, and that includes political leaders like Donald Trump.

And on that last, I feel no conflict or uncertainty whatever—Brandon is one hundred percent correct, right down the line. The dilemna we face at present is a thorny one indeed, of which the “who do ya trust, who do ya trust” issue is one of the largest and sharpest. Yes, you’ll want to read all of it. Delve into the comments too; as is his wont, Brandon pops up there throughout, and the insights he provides there are every bit as not-to-be-missed as the article itself.

Since Brandon was clever enough to bring up Lord Of The Rings as a metaphor, and since I already recommended his comments section, one of the posters therein suggests this next as a sort of companion piece, one whose aptness regarding the current contretemps will have any Tolkien fan nodding his head in quiet satisfaction.* The opening sets the stage:

“Do you not yet understand? My time is over: it is no longer my task to set things to rights, nor to help folk to do so. And as for you, my dear friends, you will need no help. You are grown up now. Grown indeed very high; among the great you are, and I have no longer any fear at all for any of you.”
The Lord of the Rings, Loc. 996
 
“‘Good, good!’ cried Farmer Cotton. ‘So it’s begun at last! I’ve been itching for trouble all this year, but folks wouldn’t help.”
The Lord of the Rings, Loc. 1008

Introduction
There are many things to be learned in Middle Earth, and this would include things that we all once knew, but have since forgotten. And the things we have forgotten fall into two categories. We have forgotten some of the things we have already completely lost, and we have also forgotten the foundation of some of the remaining things we (for some reason) still have. We have forgotten what is long gone, and we have forgotten what might still preserve our remaining good.

In The Lord of the Rings, the hobbits of the Shire, protected as they were by the Rangers, took all their peace and security for granted. All that peace and security was somehow their birthright. It was just how things were, of necessity. It would just continue, right? All by itself, isn’t that correct? Well, no.

In other words, they forgot the basis of their security and safety long before they actually lost their security and safety. And this meant that once they were in trouble, and knew they were in trouble, they were leaderless and didn’t know the way out. When despotic and irrational rule takes over any people, the corruption is centralized and organized, while the unhappiness with the corruption is decentralized and not organized at all. The corrupt ones are organized and have a plan, and those who suffer under their ministrations haven’t even thought about a plan.

But once the hobbits had that necessary leadership—which came in the form of Merry and Pippin, and Frodo and Sam—they found they had hidden reserves. These hobbits of the Shire found they had hidden reserves because they were rallied by those four adventurous hobbits who had found out earlier about their hidden reserves.

I recently finished reading The Lord of the Rings (yet again), and the penultimate chapter is The Scouring of the Shire—which to my mind is the most satisfying episode in the whole trilogy, and as you well know, that is saying something.

But this time through, it was different. It struck me, reading through that chapter, that there were numerous things that Americans of our generation really need to learn from this. And so I have assembled some of those lessons in a reasonable order, and have made some observations about what the hobbits learned. I was astonished at how much their situation was parallel to ours.

He’s perfectly right to be, I couldn’t agree more: the parallels are in fact nothing short of astonishing. Once you’ve seen them, it’s hard to imagine how you ever missed them in the first place. Then again, a certain timeless relevance is characteristic of all truly great literature—one of the traits that defines great literature, actually. The above excerpt ought to be enough to whet your appetite for more, I believe. It’s a long ‘un, but well worth your time and attention, whether you’re a devotee of Tolkien’s books (I definitely am, since the age of about, oh, thirteen or thereabouts) or not.

*NOTE: That would be the books, I mean, not the movies. Peter Jackson’s magisterial film adaption left the Scouring of the Shire chapters that close ROTK out of the third movie altogether, an omission that baffled some and angered others. Personally, I wasn’t bothered by it, since he had already made such a bang-up job of cramming in everything else. If Jackson had included it, he would have needed FOUR movies to do it, not three. Just thought I’d mention it, since that last article uses the Scouring as its springboard and central focus.

7

5 thoughts on “Organization Men

  1. As to the Confederate States, they had a separate governmental structure. As for armed forces, there was, after secession, a Confederate States Army, with formal organization. However, before then, many irregular groups of militia were formed locally. My great-great-grandfather organized one in Liberty, Missouri, where he practiced law. Some of the more famous members were Frank James – and later, Jesse, Cole Younger and his brothers, and William Quantrill. They were organized in 1855 and that year carried out a raid on the Liberty Arsenal, at Fort Osage. They made off with all of the guns, powder, and shot, and had target practice for several days. And then, some of the guns were returned – the fort commander was reduced to abject begging. They pretty much controlled Platte and Clay Counties in Missouri, and made numerous raids into Kansas Territory. In 1861, they raided the Liberty Arsenal again, this time taking the troops there as prisoners, and the guns, powder, and shot were kept – that was 5 days before Fort Sumter. Later, they were used at the Battles of Lexington – you can still see a cannon ball partially buried in one of the columns of the courthouse, today – and the Battle of Westport. Most of the Confederates had organized in a like manner before secession, by word of mouth, by people who knew each other. Before the CSA, there was no formal organization. Officers were put in place by election, generally because they had had prior military experience. My ancestor was a graduate of West Point, and was a captain in the US Army, serving out in Kansas Territory in the 1840s, up until 1849. He was commissioned as a Lieutenant Colonel in the CSA, and troops under him won the Battle of Lexington – the “Battle of the Hemp Bales”, in which hemp bales, soaked with water, were used as “rolling redoubts”, soaking up Yankee rifle fire… So that’s how it was done back then, small units of irregulars, who seized arms and ammo from the enemy

    1. During that period, organization was at the local or state level and most people viewed their state as a sovereign entity that had voluntarily chosen to be part of a confederation. Most of the military formations raised were local, and then transferred to control of the next level of government (north and south). You see it in the names such as 6th Kentucky, 4th Georgia, etc.

      Other than the state-level organization of the national guard, almost none of that exists today. Try to find someone under 25 who thinks of states as anything but administrative sub-units of the leviathan in DC. The state bureaucracies depend on federal grants or “matching” funds (which are taken from the states in the first place, then sent back with strings attached) for a huge share of their operations.

      Local and state governmental structures will not be trustworthy even in the reddest of red states. Too many lines of money and control lead back to DC. The fededal octopus has tentacles everywhere.

      1. Most local and state governmental structures are thoroughly corrupted, and alienated from the governed, as well, and that seems to be universal. It works out OK as long as the cash – and graft – keeps flowing.

  2. When the time is right and the need for him is apparent, Team LIberty will find the leader it needs readily enough.

    *nod* What’s the old quote? Something along the lines of, “Heroes arise when heroes are needed,” or something like?

Comments are closed.

Latest Posts

Latest Comments

CF Archives

Categories

Comments policy

NOTE: In order to comment, you must be registered and approved as a CF user. Since so many user-registrations are attempted by spam-bots for their own nefarious purposes, YOUR REGISTRATION MAY BE ERRONEOUSLY DENIED.

If you are in fact a legit hooman bean desirous of registering yourself a CF user name so as to be able to comment only to find yourself caught up as collateral damage in one of my irregularly (un)scheduled sweeps for hinky registration attempts, please shoot me a kite at the email addy over in the right sidebar and let me know so’s I can get ya fixed up manually.

ALSO NOTE: You MUST use a valid, legit email address in order to successfully register, the new anti-spam software I installed last night requires it. My thanks to Barry for all his help sorting this mess out last night.

Comments appear entirely at the whim of the guy who pays the bills for this site and may be deleted, ridiculed, maliciously edited for purposes of mockery, or otherwise pissed over as he in his capricious fancy sees fit. The CF comments section is pretty free-form and rough and tumble; tolerance level for rowdiness and misbehavior is fairly high here, but is NOT without limit.

Management is under no obligation whatever to allow the comments section to be taken over and ruined by trolls, Leftists, and/or other oxygen thieves, and will take any measures deemed necessary to prevent such. Conduct yourself with the merest modicum of decorum, courtesy, and respect and you'll be fine. Pick pointless squabbles with other commenters, fling provocative personal insults, issue threats, or annoy the host (me) and...you won't.

Should you find yourself sanctioned after running afoul of the CF comments policy as stated and feel you have been wronged, please download and complete the Butthurt Report form below in quadruplicate; retain one copy for your personal records and send the others to the email address posted in the right sidebar.

Please refrain from whining, sniveling, and/or bursting into tears and waving your chubby fists around in frustrated rage, lest you suffer an aneurysm or stroke unnecessarily. Your completed form will be reviewed and your complaint addressed whenever management feels like getting around to it. Thank you.

Ye Aulde CF Blogrolle–now with RSS feeds! (where available)

"Mike Hendrix is, without a doubt, the greatest one-legged blogger in the world." ‐Henry Chinaski

Subscribe to CF!

Support options

Shameless begging

If you enjoy the site, please consider donating:

Become a CF member!

Correspondence

Email addy: mike-at-this-url dot etc
All e-mails assumed to be legitimate fodder for publication, scorn, ridicule, or other public mockery unless specified as private by the sender

Allied territory

Alternatives to shitlib social media: A few people worth following on Gab:

Fuck you

Kill one for mommy today! Click to embiggen

Notable Quotes

"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."
Claire Wolfe, 101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution

Claire's Cabal—The Freedom Forums

FREEDOM!!!

"There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."
Daniel Webster

“When I was young I was depressed all the time. But suicide no longer seemed a possibility in my life. At my age there was very little left to kill.”
Charles Bukowski

“A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.”
Ezra Pound

“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”
Frank Zappa

“The right of a nation to kill a tyrant in case of necessity can no more be doubted than to hang a robber, or kill a flea.”
John Adams

"A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves."
Bertrand de Jouvenel

"It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged."
GK Chesterton

"I predict that the Bush administration will be seen by freedom-wishing Americans a generation or two hence as the hinge on the cell door locking up our freedom. When my children are my age, they will not be free in any recognizably traditional American meaning of the word. I’d tell them to emigrate, but there’s nowhere left to go. I am left with nauseating near-conviction that I am a member of the last generation in the history of the world that is minimally truly free."
Donald Surber

"The only way to live free is to live unobserved."
Etienne de la Boiete

"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid."
Dwight D. Eisenhower

"To put it simply, the Left is the stupid and the insane, led by the evil. You can’t persuade the stupid or the insane and you had damn well better fight the evil."
Skeptic

"There is no better way to stamp your power on people than through the dead hand of bureaucracy. You cannot reason with paperwork."
David Black, from Turn Left For Gibraltar

"If the laws of God and men, are therefore of no effect, when the magistracy is left at liberty to break them; and if the lusts of those who are too strong for the tribunals of justice, cannot be otherwise restrained than by sedition, tumults and war, those seditions, tumults and wars, are justified by the laws of God and man."
John Adams

"The limits of tyranny are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
Frederick Douglass

"Give me the media and I will make of any nation a herd of swine."
Joseph Goebbels

“I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.”
Ronald Reagan

"Ain't no misunderstanding this war. They want to rule us and aim to do it. We aim not to allow it. All there is to it."
NC Reed, from Parno's Peril

"I just want a government that fits in the box it originally came in."
Bill Whittle

Best of the best

Finest hosting service

Image swiped from The Last Refuge

2016 Fabulous 50 Blog Awards

RSS feed

RSS - entries - Entries
RSS - entries - Comments

Boycott the New York Times -- Read the Real News at Larwyn's Linx

Copyright © 2024