2016 election – The Burning Platform

SEE YOU ON THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Written in December 2019. Reposted in honor of the 50th anniversary of the album

And if the cloud bursts thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear
And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon

Brain Damage, Pink Floyd

And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon

Brain Damage, Pink Floyd

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Pink Floyd’s 1973 Dark Side of the Moon album is considered one of the greatest albums of all-time. It stayed on the Billboard 200 charts for 937 weeks. Roger Waters concept was for an album that dealt with things that “make people mad”. The Dark Side of the Moon’s themes include war, conflict, greed, the passage of time, death, and insanity, the latter inspired in part by former band member Syd Barrett’s worsening mental state.

The five tracks on each side reflect various stages of human life, beginning and ending with a heartbeat, exploring the nature of the human experience, and empathy. The themes of this album are timeless and are as germane today as they were forty-six years ago, if not more relevant. The country and world are awash in conflict, driven by the greed of evil men. Decent, law abiding, hard-working, critical thinking Americans see the world going insane as the passage of time leads towards the death of an American empire.

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Corrupt Worldly Power is an Illusion, a Fleeting Pleasure, a False Premise, a Broken Promise

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

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power

1 a: ability to act or produce an effect

b : legal or official authority, capacity, or right

2 a : possession of control, authority, or influence over others

b : one having such power specifically : a sovereign state

c : a controlling group

d archaic : a force of armed men

3 a : physical might

c : political control or influence

– Merriam Webster

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The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world.

– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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My blog was started four years ago this month. Inspired by the courage of other writers out here on the still-free internet, I thought I’d add my two cents, as it were; an American Nobody speaking truth to power. Indeed, in September 2016, I fully expected Hillary Clinton to win the presidency in a matter of weeks.

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US vs. THEM

“I’ll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. “I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.” “I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.” “Hey, wait a minute, there’s one guy holding out both puppets!”” – Bill Hicks

Anyone who frequents Twitter, Facebook, political blogs, economic blogs, or fake news mainstream media channels knows our world is driven by the “Us versus Them” narrative. It’s almost as if “they” are forcing us to choose sides and believe the other side is evil. Bill Hicks died in 1994, but his above quote is truer today then it was then. As the American Empire continues its long-term decline, the proles are manipulated through Bernaysian propaganda techniques, honed over the course of decades by the ruling oligarchs, to root for their assigned puppets.

Most people can’t discern they are being manipulated and duped by the Deep State controllers. The most terrifying outcome for these Deep State controllers would be for the masses to realize it is us versus them. But they don’t believe there is a chance in hell of this happening. Their arrogance is palatable.

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COMMON SENSE – 2017

“Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.” – John Adams

Thomas Paine was born in 1737 in Britain. His first thirty seven years of life were pretty much a series of failures and disappointments. Business fiascos, firings, the death of his first wife and child, a failed second marriage, and bankruptcy plagued his early life. He then met Benjamin Franklin in 1774 and was convinced to emigrate to America, arriving in Philadelphia in November 1774. He thus became the Father of the American Revolution with the publication of Common Sense, pamphlets which crystallized opinion for colonial independence in 1776.

The first pamphlet was published in Philadelphia on January 10, 1776, and signed anonymously “by an Englishman.” It became an instantaneous sensation, swiftly disseminating 100,000 copies in three months among the two and a half million residents of the 13 colonies. Over 500,000 copies were sold during the course of the American Revolution. Paine published Common Sense after the battle of Lexington and Concord, making the argument the colonists should seek complete independence from Great Britain, rather than merely fighting against unfair levels of taxation. The pamphlets stirred the masses with a fighting spirit, instilling in them the backbone to resist a powerful empire.

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If the Mainstream Media Were Patriots

by Uncola for TheBurningPlatform.com

Lately we’ve heard a lot regarding the evil Russian’s hacking of the 2016 presidential election and their sponsorship of fake news websites. Evidently them nasty Russians have unfairly denied the innocent and victimized Hillary Clinton her right to become America’s first woman president. This, after the poor woman went to all that trouble hitting the reset button with Russia just a few years ago. Them ungrateful Rusky bastards!

Not surprisingly, the Neocon Democratic Party Warmongers are now attempting to nullify the results of this year’s election while simultaneously striving to resurrect a new cold war abroad and a civil war right here in the United States. These sore losers are not messing around.

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Controlled Burn: Smoke, No Fire

by Uncola for TheBurningPlatform.com

On December 5^th, 2016, a brave and noble Texas paramedic by the name of Christopher Suprun, wrote his opinion in the New York Times and single-handedly declared Donald Trump to be a domestic enemy of the United States. As one of the 538 members of the Electoral College, Suprun made his stand against the will of 62,759,366 misguided Trump voters and 65,383,628 ill-advised Hillary Clinton supporters in favor of Governor John Kasich of Ohio, or someone like him.

With a few strokes of his keyboard, this lone Texan expressed his willingness to repudiate the 2016 Republican Primaries whereby Kasich, and others like him, lost; and, at the same time, challenged the entire presidential election in a way only Henry Fonda, as Juror 8, could appreciate.

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The 2016 Election: Ron Paul’s Deep Dive Into The Real Issues

By Ron Paul at the Ron Paul Liberty Report

The middle class, which as defined by politicians now includes almost everyone, is angry, fearful, and filled with rage. When politicians address this group it’s frequently defined as “populism,” of which there are many varieties. Whether liberals, conservatives, libertarians, socialists, or authoritarians, when the people become restless and angry, demanding change, the politicians pay attention. This reflects a need to appeal to the masses, and a populist message is well received. But there is never real agreement on the analysis and suggested solutions to the problems. Instead, scapegoats are easily found. Economic understanding is not of high priority, and demagoguery is a useful tool for politically mobilizing the “victims.” Since there are real reasons given for the conditions that exist, competition arises among those who want to take charge of the crisis and benefit politically. This only increases the anxiety and anger of the people, who see themselves as victims of an unfair system.

Until the political economic crisis became readily apparent, most politicians were unaware of the rapidly increasing distortions in wealth distribution. The dangers are conveniently ignored because most people live for the short term. If one is doing well financially, even though the system is financed with the whole country living beyond its means, worrying about preparing for a rainy day seems like wasted energy. However the payment is now coming due, and because few plan or understand it, any threat to benefits – both earned and unearned – creates great anxiety. Fear of being squeezed out of a share of the benefits that come with government intervention becomes the driving force for the whole country. The one group that seems the least worried about current conditions is the “one percent” who are financially secure by living off the special interest financial system. This does not include the wealthy who are financially rewarded for providing products and services that consumers choose to buy.

But even the one percent who benefit from government programs and the monetary system are concerned that the current uprising will interfere with their privileged position.

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Profiles In Irrelevance

This election offers an opportunity to throw a grenade at an establishment that well deserves it. This election, unfortunately, will not “cure” the multiple illnesses besetting this country. They’re terminal.

Submitted by Robert Gore at Straight Line Logic

When electroshock revives a heart attack victim, nobody pretends the resuscitation has cured the patient, it has only prevented him from dying. The heart attack may have been caused by overeating, smoking, stress, drinking, or lack of exercise. The physician will prescribe various drugs, but a true cure requires dramatic lifestyle changes and perhaps counseling to understand why the patient engages in self-destructive behavior.

A good portion of the American electorate wants to administer electroshock to a bloated, sclerotic government. A smaller percentage recognize that the patient’s symptoms will be terminal absent drastic and immediate changes. A relative handful are interested in diagnosing the philosophical and intellectual root causes responsible for the morbid deterioration.

Hillary Clinton is the embodiment of the disease, the obese grotesquerie who fills two trays at the all-you-can-eat buffet and goes back for seconds, thirds, desserts, and multiple refills of the Diet Coke. She has never met a domestic program or a foreign war she didn’t embrace, and the chance that she would shrink the government’s girth and power is infinitesimal. The corpulent state has made her and her husband quite wealthy and rewarded their cronies. Hillary and her party stand for nothing more than more: government, power, and corruption. Any noises she might make about curbing the government are just that—noise—the Diet Coke washing down the feast.

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The Rejection Election

Guest Post by Patrick J. Buchanan

With the Iowa caucuses a week away, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, who leads in all the polls, is Donald Trump.

The consensus candidate of the Democratic Party elite, Hillary Clinton, has been thrown onto the defensive by a Socialist from Vermont who seems to want to burn down Wall Street.

Not so long ago, Clinton was pulling down $225,000 a speech from Goldman Sachs. Today, she sounds like William Jennings Bryan.

Taken together, the candidacies of Trump, Sanders, Ben Carson and Ted Cruz represent a rejection of the establishment. And, imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, other Republican campaigns are now channeling Trump’s.

This then is a rejection election. Half the nation appears to want the regime overthrown. And if spring brings the defeat of Sanders and the triumph of Trump, the fall will feature the angry outsider against the queen of the liberal establishment. This could be a third seminal election in a century.

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Edward Snowden’s Libertarian Moment: We “will remove from governments the ability to interfere with [our] rights”

Guest Post by Nick Gillespie

Via Mark Sletten comes this thread from yesterday’s Ask Me Anything session at Reddit that featured Edward Snowden, Oscar-winning documentarian Laura Poitras, and journalist Glenn Greenwald.

The question posed to Snowden:

What’s the best way to make NSA spying an issue in the 2016 Presidential Election? It seems like while it was a big deal in 2013, ISIS and other events have put it on the back burner for now in the media and general public. What are your ideas for how to bring it back to the forefront?

His answer is well worth reading in full (I’ve posted it after the jump), but its essence is a full-throated defense of classical liberal and libertarian theorizing not just about the consent of the governed but the right to work around the government when it focuses on social order over legitimacy. And, as important, a recognition that this is what we at Reason and others call “the Libertarian Moment,” or a technologically empowered drive toward greater and greater control over more and more aspects of our lives. While the Libertarian Moment is enabled by technological innovations and generally increasing levels of wealth and education, it’s ultimately proceeds from a mind-set as much as anything else: We have the right to live peacefully any way we choose as long as we are not infringing on other people’s rights to do the same. Our politics and our laws should reflect this emphasis on pluralism, tolerance, and persuasion (as opposed to coercion) across social, economic, and intellectual spheres of activity.

As Snowden emphasizes, it’s not simply that governments (thankfully) fail at attempts for perfect surveillance and law enforcement. It’s that technologically empowered people are actively worked to route around government attempts to fence us in. “We the people will implement systems that provide for a means of not just enforcing our rights, but removing from governments the ability to interfere with those rights,” he writes (emphasis in original). “we can find ways to reduce or remove their powers on a new—and permanent—basis.”

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