Guest Post by John W. Whitehead
“What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It’s not good at much else.”—Author Tom Clancy
The American people remain eager to be persuaded that a new president in the White House can solve the problems that plague us. Yet no matter who wins this next presidential election, you can rest assured that the new boss will be the same as the old boss, and we—the permanent underclass in America—will continue to be forced to march in lockstep with the police state in all matters, public and private.
Indeed, as I point out in my new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, it really doesn’t matter what you call them—the 1%, the elite, the controllers, the masterminds, the shadow government, the police state, the surveillance state, the military industrial complex—so long as you understand that no matter which party occupies the White House in 2017, the unelected bureaucracy that actually calls the shots will continue to do so.
Consider the following a much-needed reality check, an antidote if you will, against an overdose of overhyped campaign announcements, lofty electoral promises and meaningless patriotic sentiments that land us right back in the same prison cell.
FACT: For the first time in history, Congress is dominated by a majority of millionaires who are, on average, fourteen times wealthier than the average American. According to a scientific study by Princeton researchers, the United States of America is not the democracy that it purports to be, but rather an oligarchy, in which “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy.”
FACT: “Today, 17,000 local police forces are equipped with such military equipment as Blackhawk helicopters, machine guns, grenade launchers, battering rams, explosives, chemical sprays, body armor, night vision, rappelling gear and armored vehicles,” reports Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. “Some have tanks.”
FACT: Thanks to an overabundance of 4,500-plus federal crimes and 400,000-plus rules and regulations, it is estimated that the average American actually commits three felonies a day without knowing it. In fact, according to law professor John Baker, “There is no one in the United States over the age of 18 who cannot be indicted for some federal crime. That is not an exaggeration.”
FACT: The number of violent crimes in the country is down substantially, the lowest rate in forty years, while the number of Americans being jailed for nonviolent crimes such as driving with a suspended license is skyrocketing.
FACT: Despite the fact that women only make up 8 percent of the prison population, they are more likely to be strip searched, though not more likely to carry contraband.
FACT: Despite the fact that we have 46 million Americans living at or below the poverty line, 16 million children living in households without adequate access to food, and at least 900,000 veterans relying on food stamps, enormous sums continue to be doled out for presidential vacations ($16 million for trips to Africa and Hawaii), overtime fraud at the Department of Homeland Security (nearly $9 million in improper overtime claims, and that’s just in six of the DHS’ many offices)HurricaHur, and Hollywood movie productions ($10 million was spent by the Army National Guard on Superman movie tie-ins aimed at increasing awareness about the National Guard).
FACT: Since 2001 Americans have spent $10.5 million every hour for numerous foreign military occupations, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. There’s also the $2.2 million spent every hour on maintaining the United States’ nuclear stockpile, and the $35,000 spent every hour to produce and maintain our collection of Tomahawk missiles. And then there’s the money the government exports to other countries to support their arsenals, at the cost of $1.61 million every hour for the American taxpayers.
FACT: It is estimated that 2.7 million children in the United States have at least one parent in prison, whether it be a local jail or a state or federal penitentiary, due to a wide range of factors ranging from overcriminalization and surprise raids at family homes to roadside traffic stops.
FACT: At least 400 to 500 innocent people are killed by police officers every year. Indeed, Americans are now eight times more likely to die in a police confrontation than they are to be killed by a terrorist. Americans are 110 times more likely to die of foodborne illness than in a terrorist attack.
FACT: On an average day in America, over 100 Americans have their homes raided by SWAT teams.There has been a notable buildup in recent years of SWAT teams within non-security-related federal agencies such as the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Education Department.
FACT: The FBI’s Next Generation Identification (NGI) facial recognition system, which is set to hold data on millions of Americans, will include a variety of biometric data, including palm prints, iris scans, and face recognition data. The FBI hopes to have 52 million images by 2015. NGI will be capable of uploading 55,000 images a day, and conducting tens of thousands of photo searches a day.
FACT: Comprising an $82 billion industry, at least 30,000 drones are expected to occupy U.S. airspace by 2020.
FACT: Devices are now being developed that would allow police to stop a car remotely, ostensibly to end police chases.
FACT: Everything we do will eventually be connected to the Internet. By 2030 it is estimated there will be 100 trillion sensor devices connecting human electronic devices (cell phones, laptops, etc.) to the Internet. Much, if not all, of our electronic devices will be connected to Google, which openly works with government intelligence agencies.
FACT: In 2015 mega-food corporations will begin rolling out high-tech shelving outfitted with cameras in order to track the shopping behavior of customers, as well as information like the age and sex of shoppers.
FACT: If knowledge is power, it’s no wonder Americans are in hot water. According to a study by the National Constitution Center, 41 percent of Americans “are not aware that there are three branches of government, and 62 percent couldn’t name them; 33 percent couldn’t even name one.”
FACT: The United States is one of the highest TV viewing nations. According to a Nielsen report, the average American over the age of two “spends more than thirty-four hours a week watching live television . . . plus another three to six hours watching taped programs.”
FACT: Only six out of every one hundred Americans know that they actually have a constitutional right to hold the government accountable for wrongdoing, as guaranteed by the right to petition clause of the First Amendment.
FACT: According to a Gallup poll, Americans place greater faith in the military and the police than in any of the three branches of government. However, when asked to name the greatest problem facing the nation, Americans of all political stripes ranked the government as the number one concern. In fact, almost eight out of ten Americans believe that government corruption is widespread.
Perhaps the most troubling fact of all is this: we have handed over control of our government and our lives to faceless bureaucrats who view us as little more than cattle to be bred, branded, butchered and sold for profit.
If there is to be any hope of restoring our freedoms and reclaiming control over our government, it will rest not with the politicians but with the people themselves. When all is said and done, each American will have to decide for themselves whether they prefer dangerous freedom to peaceful slavery.
If it didn’t matter who wins the White House, they wouldn’t be spending billions to try to win.
@Iska: it matters to people with BIG money. It matters to the oil and land cabal vs. the wall street finance cabal. If your net worth is less than 8 digits, neither side is thinking about you, except as a pawn to be led.
OMG Do you mean my vote for Hillary will be worthless? I want more freedom for my gay friends, and more government benefits. Will the powers that be give me more if she does not win? I am afraid I am going to have to leave for another country if my freedom to do as others do.
IMO the billions are to finance the MSM dog-and-pony-show theater that will once again keep most of us fighting among ourselves and not looking at the real issues.
The dynastic characteristics of a Clinton/Bush run has *some* of my leftie friends disgusted – it gives me a bit of hope.
I talk with dozens of different people of both sexes, and all racial, ethnic, and socio-economic groups every week, and nowhere do I encounter anyone of any description who is ” eager to be persuaded that a new president in the White House can solve” ANY problem that plagues us.
What I do encounter is the apathy that is the result of overwhelming disgust and hopelessness. Most people I meet are just trying to survive- keep their jobs, keep their businesses, deal with ever-rising expenses and taxes on shrinking business revenue and stagnating or dropping wages and salaries, and most of all deal with the fear that everything is going to continue to get worse. All thought is devoted to coping with the problems of the moment- the new, steeply-higher property tax bill, the new business regulation that will increase the cost of hiring by another $3,000 per hiree, the feared layoff or store closing that will do you out of a job, the higher cost of food, the hike in the health insurance premium. Many people I know are prepping for harder times and devoting most of their waking attention to that- how to sell this house so you can buy one much smaller and cheaper in a less desirable neighborhood, or move out to a rural area, while stockpiling stuff you need that is getting more expensive daily.
Maybe one person in 100 really believes that whatever troll we elect is going to make a difference, and that it will likely be for the worse.
As a wise man said….who quit writing to blogs like this, “stay off lists”.
It is hard to believe another bullshit election will pound the entire world for over a year. It is also hard to believe that people will believe real change is possible, especially after Hopey Changy leaves office.
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Paulo, we’re all on so many lists that the Inquisitors won’t know where to start. Information saturation.
The reason nothing changes is because, at its core, the dominant philosophy is corrupt.
I don’t care what people say, the act on the belief that the state and those who run it are demigods. All you need notice is that the pronoun “we” is peppered everywhere. This is the hive-mind, its wordings are herd-speak, not even Newspeak.
There is no “we.” “We” do not exist. I exist, and I care most about my family. I care a little less about my neighbors and I care very little, except in the abstract, about everyone else. I care that my fellow men are not being herded onto rail cars or poisoned or bombed from on high, but only insofar as I would worry that I was next.
But the obsession with status, with what everyone else is wearing, or listening to, or what model cell phone they use, or their hair color, or the tattoo they just got, or a thousand-million other little meaningless things? It’s all herd-behavior of the highest order.
We are surrounded by ruminants. We are encouraged to live like bees in a hive (after all, it TAKES A HIVE to raise drones.)
My bet is that the neo-Malthusians are 100% wrong. The planet is not going to go from its current 7 billion people to 14 or 21 billion in coming decades. It’s going to go back to a billion. Or 700 million. Because of the inevitable stupid things that large groups of people, the collective, do.
The USA needs to be broken up into 50 or 100 smaller polities. Ditto Europe, Asia, perhaps even China. Large for people is dysfunctional and murderous. Small is beautiful, or at least the Stupid Human Tricks tend to be less widespread.
Elections? The Deep State runs the USA+Europe+the Mideast (whether Israel is included is an open question.) The rest of us are no more than slaves in the quarry, cutting stones for our Pharaohs’ latest pyramids.
Another fact: BHO, Holder and Dems, in general, are successfully getting a race war started. At this point, only the blacks know it’s underway. Most whites would think you’re wearing a tinfoil hat if you mentioned it. The most recent example is from Panama City, FL where a mob of young black men and women were caught when their own video surfaced during another crime investigation showing a gang rape of a white women. She was drugged and passed out on the beach. The black men raped her while the black women formed a protective ring around them to screen out the view.
Megan Kelly had Dana Loesch on her show to discuss it. Neither Megan nor Dana seemed to get what was going on. They smudged the video, so you couldn’t see enough to tell the race of the girl being raped and they never mentioned race at all. Megan, in particular, has led such a pampered life that she probably can’t comprehend the evil that was on display. It’s unimaginable to white folks that black women would gleefully set up a white woman to be gang raped by their black brothers. For one thing, many white women have turned on white males and view them as lower than the scum on the Panama City beach. We are headed for some very violent times.
Every election move this country (the USA) one step closer to its denouement.
I predict open warfare between factions (with live ammo, mind you) within my lifetime.
Pavan, I wondered about that story, and whether there was a racial angle to it.
It remains taboo to say, but race relations are headed for open war, racial “cleansing” and every horror that the left attempted to blame on the KKK. It wouldn’t have happened if people had been left to associate with those whom they chose, instead of the leftists using government guns to compel people to live “next door” to people they didn’t really trust.
Now that the deck of cards has been shuffled, all that remains is a “target rich environment” where we may soon recall that some of the most bloodthirsty people in human history came from Northern Europe.
People have lived in peaceful, sedate times for too long. They will be astonished at how fast the facade of civilization falls if the narrative I believe is coming does in fact arise.
For the record, I wish it were otherwise. Had people been allowed to spontaneously choose to associate, in all likelihood there would have remained considerable segregation but the associating of people would be out of genuine commonality and caring.
Instead we have a reservoir of rage filled on every side of the divide, a reservoir that appears ready to breach the dams holding it all back. A lot of innocent people will suffer if this narrative breaks out like I suspect it will.
Pavan ,you are right about some white women. I have nothing but disgust and contempt for these vile Damn woman that try to protect these black criminals. If it ever comes down to a race war I would shoot the white trash liberal women before I would anyone else. I’m 53 so hopefully I’ll be gone before all this shit collapses into a civil / race war.
Yes, dc.sunsets. When the police first uncovered the video a Florida paper released an image of the white girl, because the police were wondering if she was even still alive. They found her and she told them she woke up on the beach with no memory of what had happened. She had been drugged. I’m sure Fox News knows this, but chooses to act like race has nothing to do with it. I agree that Northern Europeans are being forced to rediscover their Viking genes. Those who are pushing for this conflict will realize too late that they have awakened sleeping barbarians.
bb, unless you plan on exiting Stage Left soon, I suspect you’ll be around for the fireworks.
As I see it, the lid is still in place because social mood, as revealed by the major stock and bond indices, remains elevated (albeit in fantasy land.)
When that rolls over (I’m still astonished at its levitation 20 years and counting) and the Middle Class people who were abiding by the rules and thinking the thoughts they were told to think will suddenly lose everything…and as Gerald Celente said, when people lose everything they Lose It.
All that anger will boil up like magma in a supervolcano, and it will go in search of fall guys and monsters. It won’t be rational, it won’t be reasonable, and it won’t even be logical. It will be raw, pure emotion, the purest of them all: RAGE.
Enraged people don’t think. They can’t think. They do not respond to persuasion. They do not respond to reason. Some demagogue will point them in a direction and they’ll act like Army Ants, destroying everything and everyone in their path until the rage eventually burns itself out.
Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton talk like black people are angry. They seem to keep forgetting that black people are only 13% of the population, generally are concentrated, and are outnumbered by Caucasians and being completely over-run by Latino Meso-Americans.
Of all the racial groups in North America, blacks have the most to lose from antagonism. In this day and age of viral videos and alternate media, there is no way to control the dominant narrative. Sooner or later a really nasty one will arise, and then we’ll have our Rwandan/Khmer Rouge-style slaughter. I wish I could watch the chaos from afar (like Llpoh) but I’ve nowhere to go. I’m stuck here in the US of A, wondering what form of cataclysm awaits us all.
Its all Bill Cosby’s fault…
I hadn’t been reading the beach-rape story. Here’s some links for others who didn’t hear about it:
http://pix11.com/2015/04/14/graphic-disturbing-images-released-from-spring-break-gang-rape-in-panama-city-beach/
http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2015/04/gang_rape_on_florida_beach_wit.html
The media silence on black-on-white crimes is deafening. I agree with others above. FWIW, there are still places in the US that are less than 1% black, and over 95% white. Several options actually. (Hint: along the Canadian border.) It’s worth looking into for retirement or if you have the choice to live anywhere.
Young women have allied themselves with minorities, multigendered freaks, carbon tax crazies and every other miscellaneous fringe group with more than two members. They are enjoying their privilege as a protected class and all the benefits that come with it, including scholarships, hiring preference, the right to sue everyone, EBT, WIC, cushy government jobs, alimony, and custody rights. A gang rape story is not convenient to this alliance. Please disregard.
bb, This will all happen much sooner than you expect. BHO wants to administer as much punishment as he can before the end of 2016. The money printing scam can’t work much longer and the chaos that BHO has unleashed around the globe is out of control. Likewise, Sharpton and his ilk are tasting blood. They are much like Muslims and view civility and compromise as a weakness. As long as black on white violence is covered up by the media, it will continue to escalate.
i almost feel sorry for the next useful idiot (president) Who gets handed the mess Obama leaves.
It would take years to maybe undo some of this crap. The republicans will waste time and money trying to rid us of Obamacare. And of course, nothing gets done while the two parties argue.
I go with the idea that the people who really run the country will pick the next president,The guy who will do the most for them. Those that count the votes.Or at least tell us who won,even if they really didnt.
I also believe we have an economic collapse coming. I’m not sure printing and borrowing can prevent it. I get this thinking from articles here at TBP.
The idea of listening to Hillery cackle for a year makes me ill. And Jeb Bush? Really!
I see DOOOM on the horizon.
Only winners will be the Ad agencies. Billions for the right spin.
I didn’t mean to say that the election would change anything, only that it could. Like, maybe, 2% chance. And the money is spent to make sure it doesn’t.
A couple things occur to me about that FL beach gang rape story.
1. Young women who are unescorted by people who honestly care about them and go into public places are begging to be victimized. This is especially true if alcohol is involved.
2. The videos reveal a beach with a solid 95% African American presence. Unless something has changed since I was in college over 30 years ago, that should be a place where most Caucasians are uncomfortable.
3. The girl claims she was drugged and does not remember any of it. That could be true, or she may not want to face her own folly.
If I ask for trouble and trouble finds me, I am still a victim….but it is entirely possible to be both a victim and be responsible for putting myself in harm’s way.
The intersection between multiculturalism and feminism tells young women that behaving STUPIDLY is GOOD. Frankly, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for those who ignore common sense and put themselves in harm’s way.
Much violence took place in Panama City during Spring Break. I’m sure there were many instances of beach rape, since the video in the news at the moment was only discovered by accident. Another event that is mentioned is that on one Friday evening 7 young men were shot and killed. What is not mentioned is that all 7 were black. Probably it was a turf war between dealers who were selling to the stupid white kids.
I know there’s no chance of any candidate from either party of global corporate shills coming out against the full blown ,third world invasion of these United State and saying…WHOA! BACK THE FUCK UP! WE’RE FULL ALREADY! …but if there were , that’d be the candidate I’d cast a vote in favor of.
Mapped: The world’s immigration landscape
Immigration is a key issue ahead of the May 7 UK election, but how does the UK’s total number of international migrants compare with the world’s? Click on this interactive map produced using UN data to find out
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/11529421/Mapped-The-worlds-immigration-landscape.html
@dc, well said.
If you don’t want to be a victim in this world, rule #1 should be avoiding the places and activities where victims are continuously, easily, readily, made. Kinda like the morons that go walking around outside the De’toilet casinos flashing bling and cash. I’ve often thought the reason we don’t hear about those near DAILY crimes, is because it isn’t really news. It is dog bites man, not man bites dog. Idiots flashing temporary wealth in the ghetto tend to not keep said wealth very long. I won’t even wear my wedding ring when I go downtown, in the day, to Eastern Market (farmers market) and Mexicantown (best cheap taco lunch, and best, hands down, take home tamales, tortillas and one of the best Mexican bakeries for hundreds of miles) so that I don’t tempt the corrupted into making me the target.
And those places tend to be FULL of families and cops, but I learned long ago not to shake the red flag in front of the bull and expect him to behave like a sheep.
Partying alone as a young female, or even in a group of young females, is risky, risky, business, unless you KNOW the men are honorable. And knowing that takes time; months and years, not minutes while drunk at 1 am
In 1963, JFK sanctioned a coup against our ally President Diem.
GAWD! I hope no one inadvertently leaks this to SSS, he shit his Depends.
Democracy has nothing to do with freedom. Democracy is a soft variant of communism, and rarely in the history of ideas has it been taken for anything else.
Hans Hermann Hoppe
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hans-Hermann_Hoppe
“The reason women shouldn’t vote in a representative democracy is they are significantly inclined to vote for whomever they would rather f***. Hence the studies about height and hair being relevant to US presidential politics. That’s why women’s suffrage was pushed by the Communists and why it is the first plank of the Fascist Manifesto.
In a representative system, yes, only certain types of males should vote. And before you leap to any silly conclusions, please keep in mind that I have lived most of my life in political systems where I am not allowed to vote. Voting does not equal maximizing freedom and liberty.”
Vox Day
D.C. Sunsets, when I was a young woman- skinny & attractive & frisky- I went “unescorted” EVERYWHERE.
But, of course, I knew better than to go into minority neighborhoods at all, or to places known to be frequented by them – though I had surprisingly little trouble when I later worked a “man’s” blue collar job that forced me to deal with hordes of them.
Most of the men I’ve dated have been assaulted much more than I have, mainly because I learned after a couple of scrapes with thugs. I stopped dating one guy because he insisted on taking shortcuts through the worst neighborhoods in the city, being of the conviction that if he just “refused” violence, that it would not happen to him. “I’m big and hairy” he said, and I asked him if being big and hairy was going to avail when he was staring down the business end of a sawed-off, the favored weapon of St Louis thugs at that time. Another boyfriend, a wealthy man here in Chicago, got mugged in his wealthy neighborhood, which might have been easier to avoid if he’d not been stone drunk at the time.
Some tips for young women and everyone else:
1. Thugs go for vulnerability, and target people who are obviously not aware of their surroundings. So don’t be drunk or stoned in public, and don’t be strolling along with your earbuds blasting music , or staring down at your little screen. Be aware and don’t let people get close to you. You can often head off trouble just by getting across the street.
2. Don’t flash cash. A lot of really sad looking beggars are just trying to get you to pull your wallet out so they can see how much money you have on you. If you like to give to poor people now and then, which I do, have a couple dollar bills or some change in your pocket to hand them.
3. As far as possible, keep your belongings close to you in inside pockets, or pouches under your clothes. Save your purse for combs and lipstick- don’t carry real money and debit cards and such in it.
4. Do I have to tell you not to get into a car with somebody you just met? If you like the guy, arrange to meet him in another public place somewhere, and get his name and address and phone no so you can do a search on him. Do NOT go to a stranger’s home, or to a public place in a neighborhood you don’t like or are not familiar with.
5. And does anyone have to tell you not to travel to a strange place to meet someone you “met” online?
6. Do not get into verbal altercations with people who piss you off out on the road, or try to pick a fight with you on the sidewalk.
7. If you see a “girl gang” of black or hispanic females, get across the street FAST and cut down another street. They are ALWAYS very, very bad news and they will attack an older woman with no hesitation. I have and do walk past black male gangbangers, though it makes me nervous and I try not to. But Hispanics of both sexes are very bad news because they will jump a woman in a heartbeat and beat her to a pulp, and the girl gangs are absolutely evil.
The reason women shouldn’t vote in a representative democracy is they are significantly inclined to vote for whomever they would rather f***.
Not true, Flash.
However, it is true of men, else why would crazed harridans like Michelle Bachmann ever get a public forum, let alone get elected? Because men like pretty women and Michelle is physically attractive. Conversely, when men are attacking a female candidate, the first thing they attack is her physical appearance.
Speaking as a woman, I do not care what someone who runs for office looks like, and I’d like to see some “plain” candidates again. I’m sick of “television” candidates, from Reagan on down.
I wish we could resurrect Eisenhower.