Big tsimmis – Page 50

Tyranny comes to your house

Posted on July 25, 2021July 25, 2021 by Mike

It’s roosting on our friend Wes’s doorstep even now.

Yesterday a news headline came to my attention that will affect mine and my families lives.

Charlotte hospitals announce mandatory COVID vaccine requirement for all employees

Charlotte hospital systems Atrium Health and Novant Health will begin requiring all workers get the COVID-19 vaccinations, hospital officials confirmed Thursday.

Atirum Health will require all workers — including remote workers, physicians, medical residents, faculty, fellows, trainees, contractors, medical staff, students, temporary workers and volunteer staff — to get vaccinated or have an approved medical or religious exemption by Oct. 31.

And Novant Health will require the same for all of its employees, contractors, vendors and students by Sept. 15.

My wife is a NICU Nurse and a damn good one. She loves saving babies. She doesn’t want to take the jab and refuses to take this experimental poison.

The fight it seems has now landed at my door. Will anyone help me? Or is it just my problem since your lives aren’t affected by this decision. I’ve got many friends whose wives are nurses and I heard from many of them yesterday. “What do we do?” was the question I was asked. The first option is to try for the religious exemption. Not sure how that is going to go over though with over half of their staff trying to claim it. Hospitals already don’t have enough staff for their patients, what happens when they lose even more staff due to the refusal to take their mandated poison? The second option? Well let’s just say they hope we don’t have to go there. Honestly though, the second option for me is the first, if you know what I mean.

The time to throw down draws near. Sooner or later it’s going to affect us all. All major employers will end up mandating the poison as a condition of employment, due to pressure from TPTB. Or how about if you have to have it to collect Social Security, unemployment, or just being a government employee. I’m tired of waiting for trouble to come to my door. Sadly they are slowly but surely backing good people into a corner. Trouble is here America, and 99% of the people have no clue how bad things can and will get.

Wes is one of a handful of blogosphere colleagues and allies I regularly correspond with; I know him as a good guy and consider him a friend, although we haven’t met face to face. The predicament he now finds himself in is extremely upsetting, even moreso since he’s also literally a neighbor of mine, located no more than 15-20 miles from where I live. Troubling doesn’t even BEGIN to cover it.

And that’s only the personal side of all this. Bottom line is, there’s some seriously unsavory shit going on, and it is now or soon will be on everyone’s agenda, not just one poor ol’ blogger and his spouse. The Überstate’s (Not)Vaxx goon squads are out and about, and they’re all around us. No matter who you are, no matter where you are, they’re coming for you. As Wes said, they are slowly but surely backing good people into a corner.

By now y’all know what I always say about these malefactors: They will not stop; they will have to BE stopped. As they relentlessly, arrogantly snatch all other options away from us one after another, we will soon find ourselves left with but one last, desperate resort. I don’t have to tell you folks what that is. I don’t know what I can possibly do to assist Wes, what any of us can do. What I DO know is that the inflection point, the hour of decision, is nigh upon us all. And none of us—not Wes, not me, not you —should have to face it alone.

Spicy time cometh, and that right soon. Gird your loins, people. Be ready.

That makes two of us

Posted on July 21, 2021July 21, 2021 by Mike

I’m with him.

The trouble with researching anything having to do with Covid-19 is that from the very beginning, the numbers have been falsified. When a person died in a motorcycle accident, who also had asymptomatic Covid, determined by a test that was being improperly used, i.e., at greater than 25 cycles, above that it is wildly inaccurate it, (the PCR test for Covid was usually run at 35-45 cycles) was listed as a Covid death. This was done to create fear and panic, drive lockdowns and mask mandates, all to the benefit of the government, it was a test of the people. As early as May 2020 Colorado had to reduce the number of Covid deaths by 25%. Coincidentally, Alameda County, in California, had to reduce their number of deaths by the same 25%. I doubt that the numbers were inflated by the same rate as a matter of coincidence.

No one knows exactly how many people died of Covid across the nation, so comparing those deaths with the deaths of those taking the injection is impossible. The interest of the state and the medical community pushing the injection leads one to believe that the numbers of those adversely affected by the injection would be similarly corrupted downward as the Covid deaths were pushed upward. But using what we have available from the CDC and VAERS reporting system, of the roughly 500,000 people who have so far had adverse reactions to the injection, 1.7% of them resulted in death. To keep the message clear, 1.7% does not reflect the percentage of people dying from the shot, just 1.7% of the people who suffered adverse reactions to it.

If 161,000,000 Americans have received the injection and there have been 11,000 deaths as a result that’s not that far off as a percentage of those who supposedly died of Covid where they were otherwise healthy with no comorbidities. That was enough to shut down the entire Western world, but a similar 99.993% survivability of the injection is regarded as “safe and effective.”

Either .003% deaths caused by a virus is nothing to worry about or .003% deaths caused by the injection is enough to stop the program in its tracks. It cannot logically be both.

Some of you greybeards among CF Lifers may remember the swine-flu panic of ’76; certain echoes from that clown-car act resound pretty powerfully today.

Swine flu ‘debacle’ of 1976 is recalled
Warren D. Ward, 48, was in high school when the swine flu threat of 1976 swept the U.S. The Whittier man remembers the episode vividly because a relative died in the 1918 flu pandemic, and the 1976 illness was feared to be a direct descendant of the deadly virus.

“The government wanted everyone to get vaccinated,” Ward said. “But the epidemic never really broke out. It was a threat that never materialized.”

What did materialize were cases of a rare side effect thought to be linked to the shot. The unexpected development cut short the vaccination effort — an unprecedented national campaign — after 10 weeks.

The episode triggered an enduring public backlash against flu vaccination, embarrassed the federal government and cost the director of the U.S. Center for Disease Control, now known as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, his job.

The pandemic fears of the time and the resulting vaccine controversy may be fueling some of the public’s — and media’s — anxiety about the current outbreak, said health officials who recalled the previous event.

Do note that the “current outbreak”rferenced above is NOT the Fauxvid scam. It’s actually the swine-flu rerun from 2009 they’re talking about.

Starting to sounding familiar at all yet? If not, just cool your jets, people, we ain’t anywheres NEAR done.

Ward said his family discussed the vaccine in 1976 and decided not to get it. If a vaccine is ordered for this latest threat, he said, “I’m not getting it. I felt back then like it was a bunch of baloney.”

The swine flu brush of 1976 — some call it a debacle — holds crucial lessons for the government and health officials who must decide how to react to the new swine flu threat in the days and weeks ahead.

For starters, officials must keep the public informed. They must admit what they know and don’t know. They must have a plan ready should the health threat become dangerous. And they must reassure everyone that there is no need to worry in the meantime.

Okay, that’s a departure from the past year and a half’s shitshow: instead of trying to “reassure everyone that there is no need to worry,” today’s goobermint “health” and Enemedia apparatchiki have gone well out of their way to sow as much panic as they could.

Officials should be prepared for plenty of second-guessing, especially for any decisions regarding vaccination, which was at the core of the 1976 controversy, said Dr. David J. Sencer, the CDC director who led the government’s response to the threat and was later fired.

Fired, eh? Gee, if only somebody had pulled then-President Trump aside in January of 2017 and quietly re-introduced him to that word. Herr “Doktor” Fauci would have long since been frogmarched to the exit—him, and a whole bunch of others along with him— and we’d all be much better off for it.

“There were good things and bad things about it,” said Sencer, who is retired and lives in the Atlanta area. “People have to make science the priority. They have to rely on science rather than politics.”

The question of whether politics overtook science in 1976 has been the fodder of books, articles and discussions for 33 years.

Whoooa NELLIE. Not repeating, perhaps, but rhyming all to hell and gone. And now we come to the part (bold mine) that’s really gonna ring your bell.

At the CDC, Sencer solicited the opinions of infectious disease specialists nationwide and, in March, called on President Ford and Congress to begin a mass inoculation.

The $137-million program began in early October, but within days reports emerged that the vaccine appeared to increase the risk for Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare neurological condition that causes temporary paralysis but can be fatal.

Waiting in long lines at schools and clinics, more than 40 million Americans — almost 25% of the population — received the swine flu vaccine before the program was halted in December after 10 weeks.

More than 500 people are thought to have developed Guillain-Barre syndrome after receiving the vaccine; 25 died. No one completely understands the causes of Guillain-Barre, but the condition can develop after a bout with infection or following surgery or vaccination. The federal government paid millions in damages to people or their families.

Got that, folks? In 1976, 25 deaths were all it took to bring a vaccine program to a screeching, smoking halt. But that was then, and this is…not. Today, with untold thousands of deaths caused by the untested, unproven, and extremely shady chemical cocktail which they claim is a “vaccine” but which does none of the things actual vaccines are by definition supposed to do, our FederalGovCo “health” bureaucracy prefers to continue imperiously pressuring rightly-skeptical Americans into taking the NotVaxx; censoring all discussion of the various issues involved; and blacklisting those of us who have absolutely no intention of surrendering to the dubious-at-best mass propaganda campaign and submit to the Jab.

This is what is some call “progress.” Back to TL for the closer.

These globalists feel above the rest of humanity. They have no compassion or interest in letting the rest of us alone. We are a bother and a nuisance. They don’t see the rest of us as human beings, we are just the masses that eat too much, drive too much and destroy everything with our multitude. In their minds, if they could get robots to serve them food, laugh at jokes and fill the jet with fuel, etc., they could get rid of 90% of humanity and wouldn’t it be so cool to ski Aspen with just friends and family?

Keep in mind they have tried to reduce the population with wars and internal conflict, constantly finding ways to divide us. They’ve done it by destroying the nuclear family. They’ve done it by trying to pit white against black, black against Asian, Hispanic against black. They’ve done it with the influx of drugs, the increase in sexual slavery and abortion. Wherever there’s a chance to increase war or reduce population, they’ve facilitated it in any way they could. If a world war won’t do it without destroying everything they want to keep, perhaps a world-wide poisoning would be better.

Trust us, sayeth the goobermint? Not on your life, sez I.

I think it’s easier to eliminate those with such a mindset than to wipe out ninety percent of humanity to accommodate it. But that’s just me.

Not just you, buddy. And at the risk of pointing out something entirely obvious here, allow me to say that—purely as a practical matter—it would be a lot easier to eliminate THEM instead. There are far fewer of ’em, for one thing, which spares our precious Gaia from the serious harm having to dig a bunch of mass graves or burn all those greasy corpses would cause. Plus, in ethical terms it’s no more than what the rotten bastards deserve.

“Is America Still Our Country?”

Posted on July 21, 2021July 21, 2021 by Mike

Ask a silly question.

White advocates have long worried about demographic change, mass immigration, and race differences. Of course, these remain very important, but for many, the realities of life itself have become a more immediate burden. Politicians give tax dollars directly to blacks. Monuments and statues of the white founders are vandalized or come down. Students of all races are taught contempt for whites. A 100-year-old race riot is now called a massacre of blacks even though the violence was a two-way street and may have been started by blacks. A spate of black-on-Asian attacks is called “white supremacy.” These examples are just from late May to early June 2021.

Coca-Cola tells employees to “Be Less White.” College officials claim that “all whites are racist.” Critical race theory (CRT), which teaches that whites are inherently evil and responsible for black people’s failings, is now taught in the military. Christian churches confess that they are “racist” and “too white.” Even conservative denominations support BLM.

All four of the major American sports leagues: National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), National Hockey League (NHL) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) fund and spread BLM propaganda. All the big tech companies promote it.

President Biden claims that “terrorism from white supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today,” while BLM and antifa continue to riot and attack people. Mr. Biden proclaimed that the government would give precedence to reopening small businesses hurt by COVID-19 that are owned by blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Indians. Whites can wait and suffer.

Kristen Clarke, a black woman who heads the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, claimed blacks have “superior physical and mental abilities” compared to whites. Utah governor Spencer Cox, a conservative Republican, claims it is not racist for whites to be excluded from college scholarships.

The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association recently wrote:

Whiteness is a condition one first acquires and then one has — a malignant, parasitic-like condition to which “white” people have a particular susceptibility…Whiteness renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse. These deformed appetites particularly target nonwhite peoples…There is not yet a permanent cure.”

Whites — even while they are still a majority — have been dispossessed in the nation their ancestors built. And, as a look at Zimbabwe or South Africa tells us, things could get a lot worse. Should whites feel anything but contempt for the United States?

Wellll, I can’t speak for anybody but myself, unnerstand, but I can tell you which way I’m leaning more and more these days.

It is a shock to many Americans to realize that their country may have become their enemy. This must be harrowing for older whites who fought for the flag and who were taught to love their country. But it isn’t their country anymore.

Patriotism has been falling steadily over the last two decades. Whites still show higher levels than non-whites, who tend to identify instead with their race or a foreign country. But white levels are also declining, particularly among younger whites. Some of this is certainly due to being told their country is racist. But whites are also beginning to realize that the new America is anti-white. What should they feel for such a nation?

The aforementioned contempt works, for openers. But if whypeepo want to at the very least survive the escalating, eventually genocidal onslaught currently being openly promised them, implacable fury might end up being the best and most useful choice.

Breaking down the breakdown

Posted on July 20, 2021 by Mike

As I’ve said in a different but very much related context: a process, not an event.

How Breakdown Cascades Into Collapse
Maintaining the illusion of confidence, permanence and stability serves the interests of those benefiting from the bubbles and those who prefer the safety of the herd, even as the herd thunders toward the precipice.

The misconception that collapse is an all or nothing phenomenon is common: Either the system rights itself with a bit of money-printing and rah-rah or it collapses into post-industrial ruin and gangs are battling over the last stash of canned beans.

Neither scenario considers the fragility and resilience of the socio-economic system as a whole. It is both far more fragile than the believers in the permanence of the waste is growth model grasp and more resilient than the complete collapse prognosticators grasp.

The recent relatively mild logjams in global supply chains of essentials are mere glimpses of precariously fragile delivery-supply systems. These can be understood as bottlenecks that only insiders see, or as unstable nodes through which all the economy’s connections run. Put another way, the economy’s as a network appears decentralized and robust, but this illusion vanishes when we consider how the entire economy rests on a few unstable nodes.

One such node is the delivery of gasoline and fuels. It’s such an efficient and reliable system that 99.9% of us take it for granted: there will always be plenty of gasoline at every station, the tanks of jet fuel will always be topped off, and so on.

The 0.1% know that this system, once disrupted, would knock over dominoes all through the economy.

Hyper-efficiency and hyper-globalization has reduced the number of producers of essentials to the point that disruptions cannot be overcome with redundant sources. We see this everywhere in the global economy: a handful of plants and companies (sometimes a single source of essential components) process or manufacture essential components in much larger systems.

This is how you end up with thousands of newly manufactured vehicles parked in lots awaiting one critical part that is in short supply.

We’ve seen this movie before; we already know how it ends, or we should. Yet somehow, a great many of us seem unable—or unwilling, perhaps—to learn.

Love Desire wins!

Posted on July 16, 2021July 16, 2021 by Mike

The mopping-up phase of the Culture Wars is upon us, when the victors walk the field shooting enemy wounded.

Some still have hope the war can be won, as seen in this headline: “Christopher Rufo says he’s outmaneuvering ‘hostile media’ on [Caucasians Require Termination]: Most people ‘on our side’”.

Rufo is right the majority of people are against teaching Caucasians Require Termination (CRT), but that counts for little, because in wars the side with the more powerful weapons win. Teachers unions, for instance, have already vowed to continue promoting the evilness of whites in spite of any rules against it. True, the baizuo pushing this might come to grief when it is realized they are white, too, but for now, they are triumphant.

All rulers and Experts say “Diversity is our strength”. There is no state more conducive to turmoil than Diversity. And maximal Diversity is CRT.

Think on it. There isn’t any major entity, from religion to education to business to government, that is not now in the hands of the Enemies of Reality. Their victory would now be complete were it not that the victors are a minority of persons. And because Reality must continuously be fought. You will have to repeat forever, and with great force, that men can be women or it will soon be disbelieved.

The 2020 election functioned as a tearing down of the Berlin Wall, a visible symbol of the futility of continuing the war. Regular readers will recall how we tried to fight the Fortifying, as they victors called it. But we lost. The truism that history is written by the victors will apply here, and has been applying to our memories for some time. The statues of great men like Lee fall to the cheers of Desirists, to be replaced by those celebrating the wastes of society.

Some, like Ed West, are painting the end of the war as not much more than a regime switch. When Reality ruled, busybody aunts, the Karens of their day, kept public morality in line. Now, with Desire the soon-to-be-victor, busybody aunts, the Karens of our day, will perform the same duty. This is nothing more than the commonplace observation that women in societies do most of the morals policing.

He says, “The revolutionaries were always going to create new rituals, new speech codes and new forms of censorship. England has changed a huge deal since our great victory in 1966, but in many ways it has barely changed at all.”

Of course it is true that public morals will be monitored and maintained. That is a constant. Somebody’s beliefs must be imposed and others’ shunned, canceled, or even censored. It’s that the wrong side’s views are now imposed.

West is right, however, when he explains how moral relativism was one of the weapons of war wielded with great success by the Desirists. “Relativism is a position you employ when you’re weak, to be abandoned when you win.” It is more than clear that it has been abandoned in their victory. The woke are all vehement moralists.

We know that we have lost because their morality has become official. Yet we also know that we cannot accept it.

So how to fight? First, save yourself and your family. Then think about your neighbor. Then think about your neighborhood and village. Then think about your county, then your state or region. Worry last about the country as a whole. As they move towards nationalizing everything and then toward supra-state governance, there will be less and less you can do about the state anyway.

Do you really think they’ll let you vote your way out of this at the national level?

Those still foolish or blind enough to believe that the systemic corruption of our “elections” only began in 2020 (CLUE: it did not) notwithstanding, it’s plain to more sentient types among us that free, fair, and honest US elections have long since been no more than a myth—a comforting fantasy naifs cling to as a toddler does his passie, his teddy bear, and his blankie. Of all the aphorisms, folks sayings, and old saws in existence, there’s probably none more apposite to Amerika v2.0 than this one: If voting could really change anything, it would be illegal.

SHOCKER: “American” Communists refuse to denounce Communism, won’t help anti-Communist protesters!!!

Posted on July 15, 2021July 16, 2021 by Mike

Somebody should tell Cuban protesters that the US flag they’re waving no longer stands for what they think it does.

On Sunday, thousands of Cubans chanted “Freedom!” “Enough!” and “We want liberty!” as they marched on Havana’s Malecon promenade. “People in Cuba are protesting 62 years of socialism, lies, tyranny & misery,” tweeted Sen. Marco Rubio, “not ‘expressing concern about rising COVID-19 cases/deaths.’ Why is it so hard for @Potus & the people in his administration to say that?”

Sen. Rubio was referencing a statement by Julie Chung, acting assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs. As Chung explained, “Peaceful protests are growing in #Cuba as the Cuban people exercise their right to peaceful assembly to express concern about rising COVID cases/deaths & medicine shortages.” The protesting Cubans, yearning to breathe free, might wonder what Chung is talking about.

As Nestor Almendros documented in Improper Conduct, Fidel Castro banished homosexuals to forced labor camps. As Orlando Jimenez-Leal showed in 8-A, Castro held a show-trial for General Arnaldo Ochoa and fellow officers, all executed. Fidel Castro called American jazz the “music of the enemy” and jailed trumpeter Arturo Sandoval for listening to the Voice of America. Saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera defected in 1981 but it was ten years before the Castro regime would allow his family to join him.

The Voice of America report on the Sunday protest did not use the word “Communist” or “dictatorship” in regard to the Cuban regime. “President” Diaz-Canel, who blamed the protest on a “Cuban-American mafia,” is not described as a dictator or Communist, a word that does not appear in the report. Julie Chung and national security advisor Jake Sullivan invoked “universal rights” but indulged no criticism of the Communist dictatorship. This now seems to be the pattern at the Voice of America (VOA).

During the 2020 primaries, Bernie Sanders said Fidel Castro “totally transformed the society.” No word about mass executions, the rationing of food, political prisoners, and more than half a century of Stalinist repression. For the Rip Van Winkle communist and his leftist “squad,” Cuba is the Buena Vista Socialist Club, the sort of arrangement they want to see in America.

The addled Joe Biden is only a figurehead, and the Sanders faction is now prevailing. That’s why it’s hard for anyone in the administration to say anything about Cuba’s 62 years of socialism, lies, tyranny and misery.

Well, naturally. Why on earth would we expect Amerika v2.0’s homegrown Commies to denounce Communism in Cuba, or for that matter anyplace else? They’re all playing for the same team—yesterday, today, and forever. God bless Cuba’s brave freedom fighters, but God help ’em if they’re relying on the FUSA to step in and lend a hand in their struggle against tyranny. There’s no help coming from here.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez (R) recently wrote:

“The Cuban regime’s military police are shooting unarmed Cuban protestors fighting for freedom. 60 years of communism, cruelty, & oppression cannot last any longer! We are imploring the USA to take action as we peacefully demonstrate on the streets of Miami.”

And the protests by the Cuban Americans in Miami were indeed peaceful, if exuberant, frenzied and excited and jubilant, as many spoke in Miami and Tampa and all across Florida. One protestor, eighty-two-year-old Hermin Soler, who fought against Castro and spent ten years as a political prisoner in Cuba, suggested that the Cubans were finally emerging from the “dream of the revolution” as they fight the realities of the communist regime, and he asked Miami’s people to encourage the Cuban people in their uprising, by letting them know that they are not alone in their struggle.

We hear calls for U.S. intervention alongside calls for U.S. restraint in the matter, and virtually no call for anything from the Democratic Party socialists and communists, such as Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT). And although a great argument could be made for invading Cuba and freeing its people, since America is actually responsible for its creation as a sovereign nation in 1908, it’s an inescapable matter that the freedom loving people of this nation, including two million Cuban Americans, who might seek an intervention, would be asking Joe Biden, the man who would be dictator of the U.S., to carry out so important a mission. The last thing Cuba needs today is Joe Biden’s communist advocacy involved in any of their affairs, since his involvement would most certainly help Cuba’s dictator, “President” Miguel Diaz-Canel and do great harm to the cause of freedom and liberty for the poverty-stricken ordinary Cubans in the streets.

I suppose the question of the day is: Are there any Americans today who would put their lives on the line to see the Cuban people live free once more? Many expatriates have built nice, comfortable free lives here in America, complete with homes, families and businesses. How many are willing to drop what they are doing and rush to aid the people of Cuba, many who are their own relatives left behind?

Unfortunately, given the political environment of the day in America and war fatigue and too many lost lives over twenty years of war in the Middle East, it appears that the Cuban people are on their own, waving the American flag or not. Unless, of course, people of good faith and a love for freedom rush to their aid however best they can, just as we saw many foreign nations, like France, Spain and the Netherlands, and foreigners such as Jean Lafitte, a buccaneer, aid America to win Her freedom from the British in 1776. The Cuban people’s freedom will be won or lost by them alone, but they will surely lose without outside support willing to smuggle guns and ammunition and food goods and other necessities to their resistance movement, and if anyone is so inclined, they should get to it while the iron is hot.

In the face of all their adversities, we should all pray that the Good Lord helps them find the freedom and liberty they long to experience and deserve. Pray that Cuba’s children will one day live free. It’s been a long time coming.

I repeat: God bless ’em; I wish them the best, and I hope they succeed. But just as Team Liberty is here in the FUSA, the Cuban freedom fighters are pretty much on their own. Real Americans might be inclined to support them right enough, but we have enough on our plates right here at home to deal with.

Update! Ran across this meme someplace or other recently, liked it, and downloaded it in the absolute certainty that a use for it here would easily be found.

South Africa intel

Posted on July 14, 2021July 14, 2021 by Mike

If you’re looking for a sitrep on the festivities taking place now on the southern end of the Dark Continent, only not written in Afrikaans, DuToit would be the obvious place to find such.

What I witnessed over the last 48 hours tells us a lot, so let me distill the essence. In the beginning the mob was in control. Yes they were clearly in control as they marched relentlessly forward like an army ant formation advancing through the jungle. They devoured all before them and they were unstoppable. But importantly, they were controlled and focused. There was a clearly defined plan, so command and control is alive and well, but invisible. They knew when to hit designated targets. They knew where the police were absent. They knew where shopping mall security was most vulnerable. They were collectively acting as part of a plan.

Who are those central but invisible command and control people? Will our intelligence services possibly start to figure this out?

But the other thing that was clearly visible was the rapid way that civil society responded to the communal threat. Groups of citizens rapidly formed into militia, and mostly acted with restraint and to great effect. I don’t know the final numbers, but my gut feel is that more arrests were made by citizens acting in well-organized groups, than by the police.

I also note that some of the militia went beyond the act of arrest, and meted out instantaneous justice. Its unclear what the body count it, but certainly there were many. Some shot, some beaten and some even hacked to pieces by machete. I have seen credible video evidence across this entire range.

But the core lesson is that civil society responded by organizing themselves, rapidly and effectively. We will now see the dawn of a new era, where those civil groups become better organized than the government, which has clearly failed. In effect we had no government over the last 48 hours, because while this mayhem was playing out, Jesse Duarte gave a press briefing about an NEC meeting pretending to still be in control.

The Ruling Party has simply lost control. The civil service is so dysfunctional as to be a liability now easily bypassed by an increasingly confident and effective civil society.

Clearly attempts by government to disarm civilians will fail. Of this I am certain. Just as certain as I am about the emergence of self-organized militia centered on credible leadership and existing networks of security force personnel that have been sidelined by government purges.

This is the real New Dawn. Not the feeble message spewed out by the now embattled and increasingly illegitimate Ruling Party. Their days are numbered.

That’s not actually Kim talking there, but a former military intelligence guy he excerpted. As for Kim his own self, he sees things the same way I do.

Anyone who thinks this can’t or won’t happen here is deluding himself. The only reason that this hasn’t happened in the U.S. so far is that unlike South Africa, Blacks are in the minority; but it means that where they are a significant proportion of the population, this will happen — think Minneapolis and Ferguson, times ten.

I see burned-out city centers, and rampant poverty and lawlessness therein. After that, I’d really rather not speculate.

No point in it anyway. Historically, once balls of this type have dropped, there’s simply no way to know which way they’re going to roll or where they’ll end up coming to rest. Predictions are no more than a way for idle hands to pass the time until the tsunami of violence and anarchy washes over their own personal doorsteps.

More useful analysis from DuToit here.

See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya

Posted on July 14, 2021July 14, 2021 by Mike

Unexpectedly, inadvertently, and for the first and only time in his entire useless existence, senile alleged “President” Grampy Fingerbang has done the right thing.

Good Riddance, Afghanistan
merican forces are finally departing Afghanistan. While Donald Trump had promised to end the inconclusive war there, he eventually gave in to the pleas of the defense and intelligence community and continued the war. Other than a few dozen more dead Americans, and a few more hundreds of billions of dollars up in smoke, it’s not clear what these additional years of effort achieved. Now Joe Biden has finally acknowledged the political and military reality: if we haven’t lost, we certainly are not winning or making any progress.

One of the most remarkable things about the last few weeks is how utterly brittle the Afghan security forces and government have turned out to be. After billions of dollars spent on training, equipment, and support, the Afghan National Army is abandoning large bases, along with state-of-the-art guns, optics, and military equipment. These are now in the hands of the Taliban. For all the talk of our Afghan partners and their heroic national commitment to democracy, none of it turned out to be worth much when the training wheels were taken away.

It is not even clear if the American-supported Afghan government will last as long as the Soviet supported regime, which held on for three years after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.

While it is clearly time to leave, it is worth thinking for a moment about why the entire Afghanistan mission, particularly after 2002, was a fool’s errand.

The mission became distorted over time. After 9/11, Americans wanted revenge. That mission was a simple one: punish the Taliban, destroy al-Qaeda, and capture or kill Osama bin Laden. Within a month of the attacks, our troops were in the field.

The campaign featured a novel operational approach. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wanted to show the military that it needed to learn to do more with less. His concept of “transformation” limited troop numbers, a feature of what was called the “Revolution in Military Affairs.” This theory proposed that the combined effects of high-speed communications, sophisticated sensors, and precision air power, would succeed where the traditional military’s risk-averse, heavy footprint would fail.

At first it seemed Rumsfeld and the revolutionaries were right. Very quickly, the Taliban melted away under pressure from American special forces, the Afghan Northern Alliance, and a fusillade of precision guided bombs in the months after 9/11.

But the first hint of trouble appeared soon thereafter. In the Battle of Tora Bora and later in Operation Anaconda, the Army’s lack of artillery (on Rusmfeld’s order) and the lack of sufficient blocking troops allowed the lion’s share of al-Qaeda, including Bin Laden, to slip away and obtain refuge in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas. He wouldn’t be killed for another decade.

Unable to use our forces in our nominal ally’s territory, the United States and NATO emphasized the secondary aspects of the mission. They got to work on “nation building.” Political and military leaders defended this approach as enlightened realism, because al-Qaeda flourished at the extremes, in either weak states or politically repressive ones. Developing governing institutions and security forces, while expanding human rights to women and minorities, would create enduring stability and reverse the conditions in which al-Qaeda previously thrived.

This was an ambitious strategy, made twice as hard by the artificially low levels of troops. It became even more challenging after the start of the Iraq venture, which put Afghanistan on the backburner until the 2009 surge. Afghanistan is a famously violent and tribal place, where disparate tribes only unite under the banner of Islam to expel foreign invaders. The American concepts of democracy and liberalism were a message that worked at cross purposes to our efforts to obtain legitimacy and security. After all, these changes slowed down the decision-making of the Afghan government, while also alienating many Afghans, Taliban or not.

The biggest mistake we made in Afghanistan was presuming we had to turn the Middle East into an American-style democracy in order to have peace. We presumed we had to rectify the root causes in order to maintain national security. The same scenario played out in Iraq, Libya, and Syria. In all of these cases, our efforts did not increase our security or enhance stability, and sometimes made things worse.

More limited and realistic options were available, including the old fashioned punitive raid. Wrecking a place sends a message too, a message of deterrence. Because we viewed it as our duty to lift up the Afghans—strange people with whom we have no historical or other connections—and because no one wanted to admit the flawed foundations of the war, we ended up there for 20 years, long after most of al-Qaeda had decamped for Pakistan.

Even accepting the strategic premise, it’s not clear that anything we did enhanced stability or reduced international terrorism. Afghanistan has been in a state of civil war since our arrival. ISIS also materialized in the meantime. Al-Qaeda is still around. And attacks within the United States by immigrants and home-grown Islamic terrorists have continued the entire time.

By trying to do too much, we accomplished too little. The U.S. military is perfectly capable of bombing, killing, and capturing people. But, even with the help of its second army of contractors and do-gooder NGOs, the United States is not particularly good at nation building. We are no longer the America of the Marshall Plan, and the people of Afghanistan are not the same as Germans, Japanese, or even Iraqis for that matter.

To turn disorder into order is a difficult thing. Democracy is probably not the best tool for doing it. Historically, liberal democracy is normally an end stage form of government, not a foundational one. Moreover, our entire approach does little to account for the strict Islam of the Afghan people and their pre-Islamic tribalism. This comprehensive religion, coupled with this cultural inheritance, is not fertile soil for a democracy, let alone a liberal one.

Leaving Afghanistan does not diminish the bravery of our soldiers, the magnitude of the 9/11 attacks, or the need to avenge those deaths and remain vigilant against terror threats.

But we are neither avenging nor remaining vigilant in Afghanistan today. Since 2002 or so, we have been going in circles against a local resistance to our presence. Any temporary gains soon evaporate, as we lack sufficient troops to hold what we have cleared, and the Afghan security forces are woefully inadequate to consolidate the gains. The overall connection of any of this activity to U.S. security is minimal.

Our feckless, thoroughly politicized general-officer corps turned the Graveyard of Empires into the Playground of the Ruling Class, their own private test-bed for weapons systems, surveillance technology, and tactical doctrine. The experiments and aimless fiddle-fucking around cost too many good soldiers their lives, shattering morale and unit cohesion without producing anything of notable use. American troops trained to kick ass and take names were forced to bleed and die under preposterous ROEs that put them at severe hazard while granting every advantage to a savage and deadly foe.

From early on, it became all too clear that Afghanistan was to be an open-ended campaign in which victory would remain undefined, unpursued, and beyond reach, the ultimate outcome a foregone conclusion. The Playground should have been shut down years ago. The hapless Biden deserves no credit for it whatsoever, but I’m glad to see this unholy mess finally grinding to a halt, however ignoble and humiliating a one it might be. The FUSA—its “leaders,” its subjects, and its military—bears a moral obligation to not even dream of launching another war of any kind or magnitude until the multifarious issues raised by its Afghanistan dumpster fire have been properly addressed.

Preview of coming attractions

Posted on July 13, 2021July 13, 2021 by Mike

Extremely, extremely, EXTREMELY apposite to the FUSA’s domestic situation.

VIDEOS: Armed South African Citizens Engage And Repel Mobs Of Violent Rioters
“Yeah guys, no time to play here. We’re gonna do what we have to do.”

A wave of rioting, looting, and violence tore across South Africa this week after former president Jacob Zuma was jailed, with mobs setting fire to and ransacking every storefront in sight. Unlike the U.S. Black Lives Matter riots in 2020, however, where police often protected looters and where armed citizens were arrested for defending property, citizens in South Africa have been allowed to protect themselves in several neighborhoods.

Video footage shows citizens engaging a massive contingent of looters on a roadway, using shotguns that appear to be loaded with birdshot and less-lethal ammunition. In another clip townspeople can be seen confronting looters with handguns on a busy street.

Due to the widespread nature of the looting, civilians have taken to establishing roadblocks so that rioters may be searched for stolen goods and proof of having been involved in crimes.

Several scenes of the riots were indistinguishable from those that ravaged Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2020.

And if you think that’s mere coincidence, you have a lot more thinking to do. A lot. The photo at the head of the piece should chill every aware and awake Real American to the bone:

How many Normal, workaday Americans are staring into a very similar view, or will be soon? Yeah, it’s been by and large confined to divrsity-overrun shitlib dumps like Portland and Minneapolistan so far, but that won’t last.

They ARE coming for us

Posted on July 12, 2021July 12, 2021 by Mike

As Francis notes, via a Glenn Beck quote: First they nudge, then they shove, then they shoot.

Why is this administration so insanely anxious to get everyone vaccinated, even children and people who had COV?

More and more, we hear people demanding unconstitutional and mandatory vaccinations. They are just parroting what they hear. Americans have been terrorized into thinking this is appropriate.

Will the government come after us over the flu and pneumonia next?

As has already been demonstrated to at least my own satisfaction, they will use whatever pretext they feel they need to to put you securely, completely, and permanently under the FederalGovCo thumb. Count on it, people.

A CNN medical analyst, Dr. Jonathan Reiner said on Thursday that it’s time has come for private industry to demand that employees take “the jab” or face the economic ruination of themselves and their families.

In other words, you’re a murderer if you don’t do what they say.

CNN’s Erin Burnett asked Reiner about it on “OutFront.”

“Given where things are going, is it time to move on from saying please to mandating?” Burnett asked.

Reiner responded, “I do think it’s time to start mandating vaccines. And I think that the private industry and private organizations will do that. At GW university, where I work, starting in fall, you can’t be on campus unless you’re fully vaccinated.”

“We’re at the part of the pandemic now where the problem in this country is that 150 million Americans are not vaccinated. Half of that number is less than 18 years of age. But let’s look at the adults. Seventy-five-million adults have chosen not to get vaccinated.”

He added, “That choice has consequences. Now, we can’t force you to take a jab in the arm. But there are many jobs, perhaps, that can prevent you from working if you decide not to get vaccinated. So I think we need to be more proactive, and we will see industry take the lead in this.”

To quote Porretto again, the hour of decision is upon us. I can only speak for myself, but I repeat: when the Gestapo swine come to force their Mark Of The Beast injection on me, they better make goddamned sure to bring help along. I do NOT intend to go gently into that good night, and anyone reading this shouldn’t either.

Oh, and speaking of using any pretext they can conjure, no matter how ludicrous, to pimp the 666 Shot.

President Joe Biden’s administration responded to protests in Cuba against the Communist regime on Sunday by issuing a statement through a minor official commending protests “about rising COVID cases/deaths & medicine shortages.”

On Sunday, protests broke out in Havana and several other Cuban cities, during which people chanted “Freedom!” and “Down with the dictatorship!” while marching against Communist Party institutions. The New York Times noted that while the demonstrations were triggered by “food and medicine shortages,” they also “openly protested against the Communist government” for the first time in nearly 30 years. Some activists called it the largest spontaneous popular protest since Fidel Castro took power in 1959, with protesters openly denouncing the regime of Miguel Diaz-Canel.

The administration’s statement ignored democracy and freedom altogether.

Well, of course it did. Why on earth would it not? Both of those are total irrelevancies in the FUSA now, not even worthy of making jokes about.

Cubans do not have the “right to peaceful assembly”; like many rights in the Cuban Constitution, it exists only in theory.

Yeah, well, hate to bust your bubble and all pal, but that applies equally well to certain other toilet-paper Constitutions I could name.

But let’s not beat around any bushes regarding why the clumsily-handled marionette Biden might make such a ridiculous statement. Our Mordor On The Potomac overlords fell short of their July 4 target badly; “vaccination” rates have slowly ground to a halt since; and the Shadow Men are perfectly willing to humiliate both themselves and their witless sock-puppet so as to keep the skeer on us as best they can, for as long as they can make it last.

I will say this in no uncertain terms, so there’s no mistake about it:

I WILL NOT SUBMIT to being injected with the phony, dangerous “vaccine” under ANY circumstances, and
I WILL NOT willingly, peaceably just sit back and starve because of that perfectly lawful, reasonable, and personal choice; there WILL be repercussions for any such demand, mandate or expectation, whether governmental or corporate, and you WILL NOT like them

Period. Fucking. DOT. I’m happy to take as my inspiration one of the best scenes from one of the greatest movies ever:

‘Nuff said. Bring it, motherfuckers. Just you try.

Great Recession redux

Posted on July 11, 2021July 11, 2021 by Mike

Arthur Sido says it ain’t gonna reset itself, y’know.

Something I return to again and again is that most of our fellow Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike, view politics in a deeply skewed manner. Most garden variety liberals think that Big Business is bad and we need more government to restrain it. Most NormieCons think Big Government is bad and we need more free markets to prosper. What neither side gets is that Big Business and Big Government are the same damn thing. Big Government loves Big Business because Big Business enriches politicians. Big Business loves Big Government because the dot gov types help Big Business to be more profitable. The last thing Big Business wants are free markets. They want state controlled markets that give them advantages in return for political donations. At Executive Board meetings for the National Housing Conference, non-profit types and corporate shills sit side by side and figure out ways to loot the American tax payer.

We are told that initiatives like using Freddie and Fannie to “help” low income Americans is a matter of “justice” and “equity”. The article twice mentions the “the racial wealth gap” as if giving blacks mortgages they can’t or won’t repay will make them wealthier. How exactly does it increase wealth to have blacks and mestizos getting mortgages that they end up defaulting on, thus making their poor credit even worse? Encouraging them to be responsible with credit? That would help. This won’t do anything to help them and in most respects will make things worse.

What it will do is vastly improve the profit of the major banks and mortgage lenders who will make shitty loans and then dump them onto Freddie and Fannie, and ultimately the American tax payer. In return, these banks and businesses will shower contributions on the politicians who made this windfall possible. As I pointed out before in Everyone Else Should Pay For My Poor Decision Making!, the top leaders in both parties tend to have a lot of campaign cash coming from the financial services sector. If you think that banks and investment firms are giving Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell alike millions in campaign contributions without a firm understanding that no matter which party is in power, the banks are protected, then you are kidding yourself.

You can see the end result of this from where we stand today. It doesn’t take a crystal ball, just a modicum of awareness. Lots and lots of crappy mortgages being issued to people who can’t handle them. Many or most of those will go into default and the tax-payers will be on the hook, which will be wrapped up into more make-believe money. Of course since “low-income” is often code for “not White”, there will be Congressional hearings and legislation to bail out these good folk who got in over their heads through no fault of their own. More money will flow to help keep them in their homes, magical bullshit money printed up out of thin air.

With a finite supply of homes and skyrocketing lumber prices making new home construction very expensive, we will have a bunch of new buyers in the marketplace looking to purchase homes. This increases demand and that will in turn cause prices to rise even faster. Next will come pressure to intervene in the home construction business to encourage faster construction. We already saw that in the quote from the article: “…expanding investment that supports the construction of multifamily rental properties”. “Investment” in this case is a fancy way of saying “tax breaks and government subsidies to build apartments and housing”. Groups like the National Association Of Home Builders will certainly support making “investments” as well as making it easier for people to get mortgages. That is where the real power moves are happening. Biden eating ice cream or empty blustering from politicians on C-SPAN? That is meaningless. Where things are really getting done are behind the scenes with regulators, congressional committee staff and lobbyists jockeying for position at the Fed Gov trough, all trying to stick their snouts in the sweet, sweet magical money flow.

Getting screwed in the deal? Us. Housing prices skyrocketing, inflation spiking. Housing is a huge part of the economy. Not everyone has an iPhone but just about everyone has to have a place to live.

This is all part of the plan. To enact the Great Reset, things have to be a widespread dumpster fire. People living in a decent society aren’t going to live in the pod. What better way to throw a society into chaos than to mess with the housing market that impacts everyone? Not to mention inflation being another tool for the Powers That Be to accelerate the Great Reset, there will be more on that later.

While sane people look at this move, which not only seeks to replicate the disaster of the Great Recession but to double down, and wonder what the hell they are thinking, it is critical to understand that torpedoing the economy is not an unforeseen effect, it is the whole point.

Annnnd bingo. In fact, that’s true of so many things happening to and around us these days it’s hard to keep track of them all. But if you still think these nefarious shitweasels aren’t working a Plan here, you need to think again.

A tale of two elites

Posted on July 10, 2021July 10, 2021 by Mike

One of these things is not like the other.

Without a doubt, the founding generation’s leading figures were from the colonies’ elite. Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and their fellow preeminent revolutionaries were wealthy and celebrated in their time. These were not hardscrabble peasants yearning to commit regicide and confiscate wealth.

As the Declaration makes clear, they already had their fortunes and honors. They could have ridden out the troubles with the English crown in comfort, occasionally petitioning the king for parliamentary representation or the repeal of offending acts. Thus, their stand for independence and liberty was as incongruous as it is inspiring.

The founding elite rebelled to expand the freedom of their fellow human beings. Patently, the expansion the founding generation sought wasn’t completed in their time. And while many of them tried mightily, they ultimately failed to abolish slavery and grant, without qualification, the franchise to all men and women. But to denounce the seminal victory for human freedom by comparing it to the current blessings it has borne is, at best, preposterous. It is injurious, at worst, because it masks the venality, mendacity, and cynicism of America’s current elite.

In an era resounding with cries against elitists, the current ruling class knows they are in the populist crosshairs—and this targeting is coming from elements within both major parties. The situation is still manageable for them, but only if Left (Sanders supporters) and Right (MAGA) do not combine to curb the elitists in both the private and public sectors.

So how best to divide the opposition? Become strange bedfellows with the only party willing and able to go all the way to crony socialism: the Democrats and their DIE (diversity, inclusion, equity—M) cult.

As noted previously, the Democratic Party’s powerbrokers aren’t democratic. Despite their professed concern for the downtrodden, today’s Democratic Party leaders hold that such “concern” can only be exercised by a top-down administrative monolith governed by a ruling elite who arbitrarily and capriciously dole out patronage and privileges and redistribute wealth to expand and perpetuate their power. The current elite—the vast majority of whom already identify with them and participate in the scheme—could find no better partner than the Democrats’ powerbrokers onto which to graft themselves in the pursuit of transforming our republic into “our oligarchy.”

It is just common sense, however cruel: the current elite must prevent Left- and Right- populists from combining and devising and implementing the means to bring elites to heel; and, consequently, safeguard liberty, equality, and prosperity in our republic.

They needn’t worry themselves overmuch about that. There is no common ground, no shared values, on which the two might unify. There is but one way the conflict can be resolved and the misnomered elite “brought to heel.” It assuredly does NOT involve voting, political compromise, or gentlemanly debate.

In defiance of both parties’ populist movements, one witnesses the incestuous marriage of America’s current elite and the Democratic Party’s power brokers in the temple of the DIE cult. You weren’t invited. But they expect you to visit the registry and send a gift—or else.

Talk about disparate visions. The founding elite risked their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to rebel against a tyrannical government to expand human liberty. The current elite has protected its wealth, power, and privilege by abetting a tyrannical government to curtail human liberty.

Of course, some may say that the current elite passing themselves off as the protectors of democracy at the very time they covet an oligarchy to curtail American liberty and protect their own wealth, power, and privilege does, indeed, take “balls.” I am not so sure. For even if the current elite fails in their oligarchic aim, they will still retain their lives and much of their fortunes.

Perhaps. But only if they’re allowed to. That one is still very much up in the air and, whether our third-rate “elite” scoundrels realize it or not, the choice won’t necessarily be theirs to make.

Carpe De Nation

Posted on July 10, 2021July 10, 2021 by Mike

Kunstler would kind of like his country back.

Something tells me there are still too many sane people with a sense of humor left in this tormented land for the flunkies of “progressive” Wokery to achieve the total control they seek over the hundred-million, give or take, who are starting to think: Y’know, I’d kind of like my country back. And what country was that? It was the country we were before the Intel “Community” took over, in the service of an utterly corrupt political elite running the system like it was their personal cash register.

About that country I would like back… for starters, the country that valued the rule-of-law. Yes, I know, that’s awfully high-toned — the rule of law — as if one is invoking some clichéd bronze blindfolded babe in a negligee, hoisting a scale in one hand and a sword in the other. I’m thinking, rather, of a flesh-and-blood judge, perhaps a corpulent fellow with bad knees, of, say, the DC federal court, who would dare to throw out the malicious political prosecution of figures like General Flynn or the journalist Julian Assange… or an FBI that would make a criminal referral for sedition against Senator Mark Warner… or a newspaper editor who might be interested in the connection between Marc Elias’s Lawfare outfit at Perkins Coie and the Central Intelligence Agency. One could go on endlessly with the pungent hypotheticals. So much evil mischief has not been seen in one polity since Berlin, 1938.

Anyway, the country we live in now no longer observes the rule of law because it has become a security state like the former Soviet bloc states, with a rogue Intel “Community” that has hijacked the truck that the wheels of justice run on. Here’s a thought: do we know for sure whether the CIA might have been involved in the late, lamentable 2020 election? Wow, that’s outside the box! But, hey, why not? Think of all the fakery they are so capable of engineering, and consider how avid they were to get rid of that pain-in-the-ass Donald Trump (who wanted to get rid of them!), and also consider that there is really no check on their activities whatsoever because the supervising authorities are 1) Adam Schiff’s House Intel Committee (bwaha!), and 2) the aforementioned seditious scoundrel Mark Warner’s Senate Intel Committee. These two are so owned by the CIA that they must have a standing weekly TGIF session to peel grapes for the C-suite at Langley.

Some savvy 2020 election skeptics are pointing at China as possibly having interfered in the election that installed their pre-paid errand-boy “Joe Biden” in the White House — but what if the real action was actually closer to home? And why wouldn’t the CIA queer the election and then set up China to take the blame, since China is already in America’s dog-house for gifting the world with SARS-Covid-19 and its lovely variants? Just wondering… just asking… maybe the thought has crossed your mind, too.

Have you groked that the virus affords such wonderful opportunities for exercising state coercion over a spooked public? Just yesterday, Sec’y of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra declared that it is, “absolutely the government’s business to know who’s been vaccinated.” Of course, it’s as much the public’s business to know what the correct figure is for Covid cases and deaths, as well as adverse mRNA reactions and deaths. And, just for instance, two counties in California recently revised down their overall case numbers for the whole virus melodrama by 20 percent — so many cases were just hospitals gaming the federal bureaucracy for higher subsidy pay-outs keyed to the virus. And, after a month of getting bashed around for lying about this and that, America’s chief Covid-19 health officer, Anthony Fauci (“The Science”) has gone back on cable TV telling the country to “get over it.” Their vax “hesitancy,” he means. Why would anyone besides the sebaceous Chris Hayes on MSNBC believe him?

Another feature about the country I would like back is the freedom to live without the harassment of Woked-up useful idiots working day and night to destroy the very meaning of language while hustling American culture, tradition, and heritage into its “anti-racist” gas chamber.

Yeah, well, hate to have to bring it up and all, but there’s only one way THAT is ever going to happen; as has been demonstrated for us time and again, ad infinitum ad nauseum, they’re never going to stop. Which brings us back around once more to the ultimate question: exactly how much DO we want our country back, anyways?

SO, how’s that globalism working out for ya, anyway?

Posted on July 9, 2021July 9, 2021 by Mike

Not too good.

So, have you heard about the massive international shipping crisis coming out of China, and the accompanying shortage of overseas shipping containers?

Actually, I have, lots of times—seeing as how my brother hauls containers out of Charleston and Savannah for a living, and calls me about five-six times a day, five and sometimes six days a week, to yell about one dipshit “good enough for gummint work” problem or another he’s currently dealing with while he’s sitting in endless lines at the port waiting to get either a container or the chassis the container sits on to pull back to NC. He’s been particularly perplexed over the sudden scarcity of both containers and chassis lately, and we’ve spent a good bit of time on the phone trying to suss out what the reasons for that might be.

Turns out, it’s a pretty complex problem.

Freight shipping is in the midst of a unique and unusual predicament. An unforeseen cascade of events caused by the pandemic has us facing a worldwide container shortage crisis. It’s a crisis because the lack of containers has a ripple effect down entire supply chains, disrupting trade on a global scale.

As the pandemic spread out from its Asian epicentre, countries implemented lockdowns, halting economic movements and production. Many factories closed temporarily, causing large numbers of containers to be stopped at ports. To stabilize costs and the erosion of ocean rates, carriers reduced the number of vessels out at sea. Not only did this put the brakes on import and export, it also meant empty containers were not picked up. This was especially significant for Asian traders, who couldn’t retrieve empty containers from North America.

Then, a unique scenario developed. Asia, being the first hit by the pandemic, was also the first to recover. So while China resumed exports earlier than the rest of the world, other nations were (and still are) dealing with restrictions, a reduced workforce and minimal production.

A consequence of this is that almost all of the remaining containers in Asia headed out to Europe and North America, but those containers did not come back quickly enough. Massive workforce disruptions due to coronavirus restrictions in North America affected not only ports, but cargo depots all across the country as well as inland transport lines. Without adequate staffing, containers started to pile up. As borders tightened, customs became more complicated to clear as well, worsening congestion. In addition, there were rapid shifts in tradelane demands that were challenging for carriers to adapt to.

Now, that seems a little odd, since it doesn’t explain why containers and chassis would be so difficult to find on the US East Coast at all. In fact, the central premise of the article seems to completely contradict the issue my brother has been dealing with every day, for a cpl-three months now. But attentive readers can pick up at least one solid hint from the piece, involving what happens when instant despots—Just add Covid!!™—start behaving as if economies as sprawling as ours can be stopped and started as easily as flicking a light switch on and off, with no unanticipated ill effects.

Maybe Buck’s next link can clear things up a little further.

Never before has the humble ocean shipping container been this important to American business. If you can’t get one, you can’t move your international cargo — and supply has never been tighter. The cost of global trade is now contingent on how many containers exist, where they are and where they aren’t.

How many containers exist is controlled by China. Virtually every ocean shipping container in the world is built there.

Just three Chinese companies account for the majority of production, with Chinese factories now building more than 96% of the world’s dry cargo containers and 100% of the world’s refrigerated containers, according to U.K. consultancy Drewry.

Ahh, the Dinks, then. Quelle surprise.

Buck has plenty more along these lines, but the above ought to provide sufficient confirmation that allowing FederalGovCo to incentivize nominally American corporations to stab their employees in the backs with their own weaponized tax dollars via relocating virtually all US manufacturing to Red China might not have been such a hot idea after all. His closer:

I’ve got a simple idea that can mitigate a whole lot of these problems. Products that are to be sold in the USA can also be manufactured in the USA. Once manufactured, they won’t be impacted by exotic new virus outbreaks in China, or by a lack of Chinese containers, or by backups in Chinese ports, or even by the ick factor of China’s slave labor.

Even if manufacturing is simply moved from China to other countries, it is way past time to disengage from China.

Do I even need to remind anyone that Trump had made a pretty good start on that during his term, having already secured agreements with major US firms to either keep domestic plants running that they had been planning to shut down, or to build new facilities here? Of course, we all know how that ended up.

No Sooner Is Trump Out Of Office, Ford Is Switching US$900 Mln Investment From Ohio To Mexico
The Ford Motor Company has backed out of a pledge to invest US$900 million in an assembly plant near Cleveland, Ohio and will instead switch production to Mexico.

In 2019 – when Donald Trump was president – Ford had promised to invest in the factory in Avon Lake, which employs 1,700 workers producing the Ford E-series van and Super Duty pickup truck.

As a lifelong Ford fanatic, you can easily imagine how I felt about that. Bastards.

The Graveyard of Empires: “A complete and utter waste, aye?”

Posted on July 8, 2021July 8, 2021 by Mike

Aye.

Only other retarded thing I heard was some midwit fucktard reporter breathlessly talking about the weapons we left behind…So fucking what I sez Aye? Small arms. Big deal. MRAPs? So what? Like they’re going to form up a caravan of the fucking things and head to Europe overland? And do exactly what? 10 to 1 those over-sized over-armored RVs, once they fucking break down, (and believe me they -will- break down…ask me of how I know this) they’ll be stripped of any useful resalable metal, and turned into either small shelters, or just left to rot in place like they did to all the former Soviet Armor that got left behind.

Big. Fucking. Deal.

Mind you -I- personally was responsible in 2013 for signing off on the demo of a metric shit-ton of MRAPs. I also, no Bullshit, witnessed the reason for the “No Ship Home/Demo Excess” orders. Quite literally, there I was, in 2013, on Bagram. I waiting for a minibus to get me to work when:

Follows, a gin-yoo-wine Ho Lee SHIT!!! video of the actual 747 crash BCE goes on to discuss next, a horrifying thing to watch. Onwards.

Now, didn’t see the plane.
HEARD the impact.
Shit, felt that motherfucker.
Saw the fireball/impact like in the immediate aftermath. At first I was worried it was a C-17. When I got to work, word had gotten thru the contractor grapevine that it was a 747 Air Cargo that’d augured in. Ye Olde Contractor Grapevine used to work quicker n’ the pony express I swear. That particular shitshow came aboot because the DotMil -tried- to ship some MRAPs out of theater via air. The heavy motherfuckers broke loose during takeoff (instead of chains, they’d used cargo straps or some such retarded shit like that,) and you can see the moment when the whole cargo ‘shifted’ right before the plane completely smokes in in the vidya. End result of it was we got orders a few weeks later.
Scrap ’em.
Can’t take ’em out the way they came in via Air, and overland to ‘friendly lines’?
Whelp, ain’t no such t’ing mon.
So, Demo Time

7 billion in MRAPs.
65 Million of that -I- personally signed off on. No shit… I did the 1348A-1, to include the DEMIL annexes on the excess-to-needs first go around MRAPs in Kandahar. Almost exactly 100 of the fuckers. $600K and change per fucking truck. And without any sort of bullshit, some of them? Like the lowest mileage ever on a DotMil Truck. We’re not talking about beat-to-fuckall trucks. Nope. Brand. Fucking. New. Bit weather-worn, as these were replacements, some of them being the ‘on deck’ replacements. Try 6.7 MILES on one of them. Reason for this was that the trucks that units had on hand already? Already on hand, already on their property books. ALL the parent-child serial numbers too. To break out a new truck from deep storage, paperwork and time wise is a stone bitch. Most units didn’t want/need the fucking hassle. Hell, as the property book manager for 60 units, I needed the extra paperwork like another hole in the fucking grape.

So, via con Dios new trucks. Paperwork done, they went to a scrap yard, where quite literally, they were stripped of any and all useful shit that was quick and easy to remove, and then they were pushed into they BIGGEST metal eating grinding machine I’ve ever seen. MRAP in one side, large chunks of metal out the other side. I couldn’t take pics tho, as the DotMil was all ‘leery’ of ‘bad optics’ of brand new MRAPs going into the chipper.

A complete and utter waste Aye?

‘Fraid so, bro, ‘fraid so. I try, but can’t find any way around it. It’s sick-making, that’s what. Your tax dollars at work.

Of people lives, killed or wounded
Nevermind permanently damaged and psychologically shattered.
Of resources
Squandered money that would have been better spent elsewhere.
Of National Honor, if there ever was such a thing
And yet we’re saber rattling at Russia…again for the ten millionth time.
“”Maybe you aren’t up on current events, but we just got our asses kicked, pal!” Hudson, ‘Aliens’
AFTER the Russians got theirs kicked by the same exact farmers, goatfuckers, and wild-eyed Islamic Mountain men. I honestly said in 2001 that if we -did- invade Affy, we’d lose. Afghanistan is the “Graveyard of Empires”…The Brits tried it not once, but twice, thrice if you include them on this particular jaunt. The USSR at the height of it’s “We’re Badass Ivan!” times and they got their asses handed to them as well.
By doodz with Henry Martini rifles, AKs, supplied Stingers and a patchwork pastiche of small arms for the most part. As pure a guerilla war as could be. Tenacious badass hardcore Islamic fuckers who died in droves but never, ever gave up.

Talk about not learning from history.

Reminds me of the socialists/communists these days…”But that wasn’t real -insert ideology- This time it’ll work!” Also like them fucking idiots saying “Voat harder” after all the current shenanigans and bullshit.
Leave me the fuck out of it Aye.
Let me have my patch, my guns, my buzz, my woman and my family.
The rest? I’m content to watch it burn.

Likewise, plus. Glad you made it back, BC. All too many didn’t.

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