From Max Morton at American Greatness [irony alert] :
On one hand, you have traditional Americans. They come in every race, creed, and religion. They believe in law and order, expect everyone to follow the rules, and mostly just want to be left alone.
Family-oriented, self-reliant, and armed, traditional Americans populate the working-class ranks of the military, law enforcement, and industry. Sadly, most are technically illiterate. They underestimate the threat from the surveillance state and Securitate. Many still believe the FBI only goes after bad guys, and they cannot grasp that the national security apparatus now views them as the enemy. They rightly bristle when slandered with “white supremacist” or “terrorist” labels. A habituated trust in authority makes them vulnerable to snitching on others and collaborating with those they shouldn’t. Many are infected with white knight conspiracy theories that counsel remaining submissive. In general, they have nearly zero control of the nation’s money, media, government, academia, legal system, and surveillance state.On the other hand is the ruling elite. They advocate a multi-tiered justice system and expect others to follow their rules, beliefs, and norms. They are politically savvy and disciplined. They view traditional Americans and their beliefs as an impediment to their wealth and utopian dreams, going so far as routinely to advocate extreme actions such as genocide, re-education, and the removal of the children of their political opposition.
They employ proxy forces, such as Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and journalists to bully ordinary Americans and weak-willed corporations. In order to intimidate and discredit their political opposition, they’ve weaponized the use of labels such as “white supremacist” and “terrorist” on their enemies. They are generally opposed to religion and personal firearm ownership, and they cannot allow you to be left alone. They will attempt to nudge wrong-thinkers into accepting the ruling elite’s ideology. If that doesn’t work, they’ll force compliance via law enforcement, military, and the intelligence agencies they now command. They control most of the national wealth and all of the media, government, academia, legal authorities, and surveillance state.
Not much I can add to that. For various options for us to combat the above, read the rest of the article.
Be warned: much of that is not only difficult, but beyond the reach of average Americans like me.
“Sadly, most are technically illiterate. They underestimate the threat from the surveillance state and Securitate. Many still believe the FBI only goes after bad guys, and they cannot grasp that the national security apparatus now views them as the enemy. They rightly bristle when slandered with “white supremacist” or “terrorist” labels. A habituated trust in authority makes them vulnerable to snitching on others and collaborating with those they shouldn’t. Many are infected with white knight conspiracy theories that counsel remaining submissive.”
Kim,
I’m not sure that part is entirely correct, except for the “bristle when slandered” part.
It may have been correct 20 yrs ago, but in the last 4 yr many “traditionalists” have had their “blinders” removed; not in small part, due to Donald Trump revealing a lot of unpleasant truths about the “ruling elite”.
And more and more people are researching & discovering how to lower their electronic footprint thru VPNs, turning off/modifying settings on their cells phones when not needed, etc.
The blindfolds can only fall off those who haven’t had them epoxied on through a steady diet of CNN and other mainline media hallucinogens.
“A habituated trust in authority makes them vulnerable to snitching on others and collaborating with those they shouldn’t. Many are infected with white knight conspiracy theories that counsel remaining submissive. ”
Maybe 40-50 years ago (my mother was absolutely sure it was illegal to not do something a cop told you to) but today the working class seems to have lost respect for authority and it more likely to tell someone looking for a snitch to FOAD. They see themselves as one class in a class-war they didn’t declare, didn’t start, didn’t want, and would rather not fight, but they’re also the same class of people who found themselves in the same situation in 1941 and got the job done. Those who are actually trying to start that class war might want to look up the Wikipedia articles on Dresden, Berlin, Tokyo, and of course Hiroshima and Nagasaki first.
Millions of Americans (tens of millions? hundreds?) really want nothing more than to go to work, come home, go to church, take the grandkids fishing, watch the game over a burger and beer on Saturday afternoon and be left alone. Try to take all that away from them at your own risk.
All those activities you list in your last paragraph were near and dear to the people who rendered Hamburg, Dresden, Berlin, Tokyo, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki the garden spots they were in 1945 and later, and the people who want us all to become pawns think those were terrible activities for someone to spend his or her life doing, which is why they all think the Fifties were so boring.
The long march through the institutions is complete or nearly so, and we let them get away with it. Not so hard to understand.
I have a group of “working class” friends at the gym. Over the past year they have gone from what Morton is describing to very “red-pilled”. They no longer believe any of it.
Your book – Prime Target https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B008PN6NF0/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_d_asin_title_o01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 – does a good job ouf outlining what the survelience state is doing.
Back when I wrote it, I tried to imagine the most outrageous, most outlandish and most egregious ways that Government could possibly misuse the personal data of citizens.
Six months after publication it was out of date.
I wish there were a hardcopy/paperback version, not just a Kindle.
I may have stated this or something like it before ( I KNOW I’ve said it before)
If so, please take pity on an old man !
After 40+ plus years with mainframes and watching not only speed but also storage capabilities skyrocket to almost unimaginable levels, I’ve come to ponder, from time to time, –
What could a totalitarian regime have done with those capabilities had those capabilities been as available and as CHEAP in, say, 1937 as they are today ?
Given the data collection level of peoples’ information, personal and otherwise, that I see today, the answer to that question is frightening !!
Had the capabilities been available there would have been almost NOTHING you could do without a record of it created and stored SOMEWHERE by SOMEONE or SOMETHING !
We’re almost there today.
It seems that the constant ‘requests’ for information of some type is almost endless –
– your email so that we can notify you of …..
– take our survey so we can serve you better
– cookies – what a wonderful innocent appearing mechanism for filling
databases with all sorts of information to be sorted, sifted, SOLD etc.
– ‘you must have an ID on OUR system to …..’ ie: look at real estate listings !?
– be sure and use your ‘rewards card’ to get the lowest prices – I find this one
interesting because – show me EVERYTHING someone pays money for
over a month’s time and I can tell you quite a bit about that person.
On and on, and everywhere you turn the number of people who actually believe ‘if you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about !’
is breath taking.
I fear that we are about to find out the the answer to my pondered question above as well as the true depth, horror, and consequences and cost to us all for our apathy.
Wallace,
I think you’re right and I hope we don’t find out how various databases are used for nefarious purposes.
I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard for the government to coax amazon for copies of invoices and order forms for books and other items bought by people they are “concerned” about. If the merchants won’t release the information, they get tossed into jail or the government just goes to the credit card issuers. A couple of suits tossed into prison with MS13 and the Aryan Nation will change some minds lightning fast.
JQ
Just doing some thinking on one cup of coffee (always a dangerous thing.) The Dems have taken over Education, Media, and Technology. They will strive for their “two-tiered justice system (as for Bruce Stingspreen.)
Then what?
The uppity Liberals don’t have the slightest clue what happens after you piss off the Working Class with all this “Woke Snowflake” bullshit. Big Tech isn’t going to fix your Lexus when it breaks down. Liberal Media isn’t going to send someone out to fix your broken water pipes and frozen wind turbines, or repair the power lines when the lights go out and all your “techie” stuff is is as useful as a box of river rocks.
College graduates with $50 to 100+Thousand dollars of cancelled college loans aren’t going to gather your trash (recyclables or otherwise,) repair your infrastructure, or plow the snow off your streets. Antifa and BLM won’t drive your trucks, deliver your goods, or stock your shelves. All that is beneath them. It’s so “blue collar,” and those people SWEAT!
When we say we just want to be left alone to live our lives, the Liberal Left had better start paying attention, because it’s a sure sign that we’re reaching our limits. We can tolerate a lot of bull, but one of these days you’ll call for a sweaty worker to come and fix your problems, and we’ll be out fishing with our grand kids.
You Elites better be nice to us. We have you by the throat and you don’t even notice.
Tradesmen will have “elite” surcharges for their rates, take them or leave them.
I am reminded of a Frazier episode where his brother Niles discovered that his plumber made more than he did.
I don’t think it will work out that way. Growing up in farm country you usually get a derivative of the old Grange poem about “we can eat our corn and wheat, and they can eat their gold”. Historically the food seems to end up controlled by the gold. P.J. ORourke once wrote “never let the people with all the guns, and the people with all the money, be the same people” We are losing that separation.
I think the real problem is that we thought our Republican types weren’t in on the same shell game as the others.
” Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius. “
Did you notice the structural dependency?
>>” traditional Americans populate the working-class ranks of the military, law enforcement, and industry.”
and
>>”They will attempt to nudge wrong-thinkers into accepting the ruling elite’s ideology. If that doesn’t work, they’ll force compliance via law enforcement, military, and the intelligence agencies they now command. ”
It is an article of conservative faith that our own people won’t turn on us.
Those of us who study history know better.
Now that I’ve read his article, I have to say:
I dunno.
Full disclosure: I don’t have an answer. What I do have is a highly refined sense of what isn’t going to work, and of things that are doomed as a consequence of their internal contradictions.
On the one hand, he acknowledges that “We won’t be able to debate our way out of it, vote our way out of it, or tweet our way out of it.”, and then he spends the rest of the article describing how to build the infrastructure of a political movement whose goal is to wrest control of the polity, presumably through …er….uh….voting. Or even worse “making a message heard”.
Contesting for power playing in a rigged game isn’t going to work, and “making a message heard” is the province of propagandists, and let’s face it, our adversaries are much better at that game than us.
My days fighting for gun rights in the dark & oppressive state of New Jersey have made me a cynic. When my theory that a vast, untapped well of classically liberal values existin in NJ awaiting release proved not to be true, I left. Those who have an interest in a “message” have already heard it.
What I can say is that this is about power, and when it comes to power, you have to both enhance your own, and diminish your adversaries. Because power is not a zero sum game, these are actually two separate activities, although you can sometimes get a twofer, especially when it comes to a widespread tax strike. The tax strike needs to be held in reserve for a later phase, as it really does step across the Rubicon, because nothing that authentically power threatening would be tolerated, and violence, incited by the elites under the color of law, would ensue.
Geek or Mr 45,
How do you go on a tax strike? payroll tax is already taken out of your pay and you receive the net pay after Uncle Sam takes whatever cut they legislate. Sales tax, gas tax, they’re rung up at the register and the business collects the tax from you on behalf of the government. The only thing a person could do is claim the lowest deduction then refuse to pay in April.
JQ
Getting too old for this shit. It will come to a head when I am ready to retire, then I will be pissed. Nothing worse than an old man with nothing left but time till the end. Still in pretty good shape so we will see what that brings.
Ditto, only with more anger.