Nothing to see; just another coincidence
This is clearly at least partial parody, since having communist relatives doesn’t make you a communist. But it’s good video anyway, because it is humorous and touches on many other truths.
Thanks to my friend at Oregon Guy.
Let’s hope whomever runs against Obama is better than McCain. Because Obama has a good chance of coming in third during the next presidential election.
In this first video, Russell Means quotes a portion of Chief Seattle’s 1854 speech, placing it, via YouTube title, in the context of the international banking crisis.
I heard Russell Means speak in the early 1990s, and a prominent point of his speech was on the use of Indian nicknames for sports teams’ branding. Russell Means was particularly incensed with the use of the moniker “Redskins,” citing how the term was used by young white hicks pummeling a young Indian in South Dakota, shouting “you filthy redskin, you dirty redskin, you stinkin’ redskin” as they delivered bloody blow after bloody blow. I believe his powerful speech did more to change views on sports teams than contrasting politically correct crybaby tactics ever could.
I put Russell Means up there with other plain speaking (and, sadly, politically unviable) firebrands that I like to hear from time to time.
I don’t agree with his take on everything. For example, in one Russell Means speech, while pointing out the Iroquois’ influences on the ideas of freedom and government on U.S. founding documents, he seemed to denigrate John Locke, which I take small offense. I think John Locke’s writings on the characteristics of legitimate governments should be required reading in the public schools. I would guess that Russell Means’ point wasn’t that John Locke was wrong, or evil–just that the Iroquois’ contributions are under-appreciated and too little known. I don’t know, and can’t claim to speak for Russell Means on this. It would be nice to correspond privately with him on the topic. Perhaps I could understand better.
Even so, to the useful idiots who stop by from time to time, if you really are interested in diversity of opinions and viewpoints, you owe it to yourself to read, understand, listen, and study the views of prominent hardline political agitators such as Ann Coulter, Russell Means, Malcolm X, Pat Buchanan, et al. These are people who do not sugar coat the truth in hopes that drones of the world will swallow their medicine. They say what they mean, they mean what they say, and they place the responsibility for taking whatever medicine you may need with you, where it belongs. They are interested in the truth, not in dispensing medicine that tastes or makes you feel good.
In the following video, Part III of an interview by Alex Jones, Russell Means discusses how the means of production has been exported from the United States, turning the middle class into Indians on a reservation.
Russell Means has a term for Republicans and Democrats: “Demolicans.” As for me, I have a term for people who participate in the two party system, “hang around the forts”–a Russell Means used during that 1990s speech I heard. “Hang around the fort”s were to Russell Means what the House Negro was to Malcolm X. Soft sellouts who hung around the fort in the 1800s, hoping to gain some favor or other from the men who built and ran the fort.
History repeats itself, and we are in the midst of consequences variously predicted by the likes of Pat Buchanan, Russell Means, Malcolm X, et al. It is going to get worse.
Arm yourself with knowledge, be prepared for the hardships we face, and don’t hang around the fort, or seek refuge in your master’s basement. Out of the rubble of this great Depression (and it is just getting started) be one of the strong that leads, through example, this country back to a shining city on a hill. Be self-sufficient, strong, productive, hard working, plain speaking, honest, and peaceful toward others who do no harm.
On my reluctance to post:
The government fears extremist speakers. It fears the actions they inspire.
The mainstream press fears extremists. It portrays them, citing the occasional off-his-meds lone actor, as highly likely to be terrorists.
All this, and other propaganda, works to keep you from considering important ideas,–by marginalizing not the ideas–but by emphasizing and sensationalizing a few bad apples.
After all, you don’t want to be a bad apple, do you?
And it makes me reluctant to disseminate and comment on such speakers. According to the media, those who are fond of such speech are highly suspect.
If you listen to such ideas you’re likely to become a brainwashed drone, the subtext goes, who wants to tear down your house rather than give it back to a bank, or to commit acts of violence against day care centers near government buildings. (Note, this will not happen if you listen to these ideas, unless you’re under the influence of psychoactive drugs lawfully prescribed by your doctor. In which case, please stop reading, and sign up for a 12 step program immediately).
And for you readers concerned about privacy, be cautioned that the videos above are hosted on youtube, part of google, and the very fact that you watch these videos is tracked, recorded, databased and, I believe, most likely shared with not only the U.S. government, but also with other governments around the world, either as part of official policy, or through intelligence assets within google, a tactic historically documented by James Bamford in his book The Puzzle Palace. Indeed, google has an intelligence gathering infrastructure that the NSA, by itself, could never develop or deploy in house, even if their budget were increased by a factor of one hundred.
Government protect their own interests, and, in particular, the U.S. government fears that right wing extremist violence against government interests is on the rise. Coincidence Theories concurs that such violence is on the rise, at least as far as reporting goes, but believes that it is usually committed by individuals acting alone, and that such violence is counter-productive as it makes it easy for the press to marginalize valid criticisms of current events by casting those criticisms as the ravings of madmen predisposed to violent courses.
But to close your ears, or to refuse to disseminate, simply because you’ll potentially be portrayed as a dangerous political extremist, and subjected to increased scrutiny when, for example, you travel, is cowardly. Better to ignore the attempted tactics, and disseminate the ideas, for the consideration of others who actually care about our future.
Source
U.S. Department of Commerce, Census Bureau
One of the most popular posts here has been Michele Bachmann will refuse to answer census questions, posted back in June of last year.
Well, I received my census questionnaire today, inside an envelope, which was itself inside an environmentally unfriendly plastic bag, hanging on the handle to my storm door on the front of my home (the creeps didn’t bother to use the U.S. Mail service, and they probably took the GPS coordinates of my front door while they were here, too. Speaking of which, what could the government possibly want with every home’s GPS coordinates? Guiding drones, or cruise missiles? One would think the street address and house number would be sufficient for legitimate purposes.)
Anyway, let me recount a conversation I had a few months back. I was on a plane flying to Kansas City, and struck up a conversation with an unattractive woman next to me, who turned out to be a medium/big shot working for the U.S. Census Bureau. Prior to her stint as a government employee, she worked as a director in a “non-profit community organization” (read: acorn?). She was not Caucasian, so I diplomatically attempted to steer the conversation toward the invasiveness of the Census questions, while pointing out that U.S. Census data on race has been misused in the past. But she quickly fell changed the subject with an obviously practiced retort regarding the the importance of the census.
The following is from memory, but it is pretty accurate, so I’ll blockquote it. She explained:
It is estimated that for every person not counted, Minnesota would loose $1,000 per year in federal funds. That is $10,000 over ten years. For 100 people that equates to $1,0000,000.00 in lost federal funds over a ten year period.–U.S. Census worker
She didn’t strike me as particularly bright, or capable of doing this admittedly simple calculation in her head (I would guess 90% of the population could not do this calculation without a calculator, sadly), so I assume it was rehearsed.
If the $1,000,000.00 figure is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, it provides motive for cities and states to stack the deck and game the system. For example, a state could provide short term affordable housing to out of state homeless, at a cost of say $2000/person, in order to boost population around April 1, 2010 (the date of the census). This would cost $200,000 per 100 people, and would net, over 10 years, $800,000.00 in “profit”. In other words, this has a better return on investment than electricity generating windmills. And, you could probably attract homeless to your area simply by offering $500.00 checks, and cut the cost in half (yes, I know $500/$2000 is 1/4, but it costs the government much more than $500 to distribute a $500.00 check.) In Northern states, the winters would naturally drive the homeless toward warmer climates.
Since Census Bureau middle managers are using the above “cost” of missing 100 people to train their managers and worker bees, and since the worker bees are probably former Acorn workers predisposed to milking magical federal money trees, I expect the government will be very aggressive in their efforts this year. (I also expect fraud, for obvious reasons.)
But why the questions on race? I really don’t know, and I don’t care, except that I do not wish to provide the government with more information than seems necessary, or required. This should not be considered an extraordinary desire in a free country.
Article 1, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution provides that a census shall be taken every 10 years for purposes of determining the number of representatives each state is entitled to send to Washington. It says nothing about doling out federal dollars or calculating demographics.
I object to the census form for the following reasons:
I. It asks my race, and the race of my children and spouse.
The reason this concerns me is that the U.S. census data has been misused in the past.
While it is common today for the Census Bureau to publish reports that detail the number of people of a given race living in an area as small as a city block, such information was generally not available in the 1940s. But the authors of the paper contend that the Census Bureau provided such detailed information as well as age, sex, citizenship and country of birth to the War Department, now the Defense Department, on only one group — Japanese Americans.(Holmes 2000)
Now, I do not think we will be at war with Japan again, in the near future, but China is a real possibility, as is Iran, Pakistan, and other countries with large Islamic populations. Consequently, I would encourage U.S. citizens concerned about being sent to internment camps (or some other modern technological equivalent) to *not* answer the questions, or to check the “some other race” box and print “human” in the squares immediately under “Print race.”
If you want to get technical, you could write “homo sapien sapiens,” which contains 19 characters including spaces, and conveniently fits in the 19 squares allocated for “print race.” Homo sapien sapiens is a scientific term that simply means modern human beings.
II. It asks my age. Worse, it asks my wife’s age, and she loathes sharing her age.
III. It asks my name.
Granted, answers to these questions will be very useful to demographers, but that is beside the point. I don’t think I am under any obligation to make demographers jobs easier.
The real question is, does the U.S. Census Bureau have a right to force Citizens to answer private questions such as age, gender, name, and race? I’ll do some research on that, and blog about it before the month is up. Meanwhile, don’t send your census form in before it is “required.”
Sources
Political asylum was granted for a German home school family, the Romeikes. The Romeikes were being harrassed and intimidated by the German government for home schooling their children there. Thankfully, they were able to flee Germany for a country that still has some freedom left, the United States.
My children are home schooled, but we also send them to a good private school. Even there, the teachers are annoyed that our children already know so much.
Teachers have a difficult job, and classes with a diversity of intellectual levels. The path of least resistance is too often the lowest common denominator. No child left behind is a recipe for bright children being dragged back.
We send our children to private school not for book learning, but for their social development. If there were a lot of parents in my neighborhood who wanted to home school, and wanted to get the children together daily for gym, recess, and music instruction, I would probably home school my children. Admittedly, the teachers do cover materials that we have not, from time to time, and that’s a benefit.
But even if I do not home school (exclusively) my children, I am thankful to live in a country that not only allows parents to home school their children, but also grants political asylum to parents from other countries that bar the practice.
Three cheers for Lawrence Berman, the judge who granted the Romeikes asylum from the repressive German government.
Sources
KSTP’s Susanna Song and Becky Nahm did a report about a family robbed while attempting to purchase a vehicle via Craigslist. After recounting the ordeal, the report concludes with Susanna Song describing in exquisite detail, not the suspect, but, get this–the car the suspect drove off in.
Susanna Song's shoddy reporting
I am not sure what journalists are thinking when they consciously decide to not provide a physical description of an apparently still at-large suspect.
Most likely, Song and other journalists attended a seminar in which they were taught (read: intimidated into believing) that journalists should not describe persons of color who are also suspects in crimes, because it contributes to and reinforces stereotypes in society.
If this is the case, it doesn’t make much sense. KSTP had no problem identifying innocent bystanders, such as the Craigslist website, and buildings in the neighborhood where the crime occurred–buildings full of people who had nothing to do with the crime, with residents who may want to legitimately sell their own vehicles via Craigslist someday, but whose potential buyers will be frightened off due to KSTP casting the area as a den of carjackers.
Susanna Song [sitting in newsroom]: Well Leah and Bill, the family, whom I’m keeping anonymous, for their own protection, is frightened by what happened to them last night. Around 8:30 last night, they met — they met a man who was selling a Camery on Craigslist, only to realize the whole thing was a setup.
[Video cuts to footage of neighborhood where crime occurred.]
Song: It was car ride one metro family thought would end in their own death. They met their Craigslist contact here on the 200 block of Birmingham street on St. Paul’s east side. The father walked out to make the transaction when suddenly…
victim of crime [voice over]: He put the gun to my head and he said, “Do you see what I’m working with?”
Song: The suspect followed him back to his own car, where his wife and two year old were waiting.
[video of St. Paul Police Sgt. Paul Schnell talking]
Sgt. Paul Schnell: They were at that point did exactly what [inaudible] we would expect people to do and we would encourage people to do, and that is to, to be complaint and survive the situation.
Song: For at least two miles they drove. The father behind the wheel, and the suspect in the passenger seat.
victim of crime [voice over]: He puts the gun in my gut and says if I do anything stupid, he’s gonna kill me.
Song: When they reached Conway Street and Maria Ave., the suspect forced the family out of their own car, and took $2200.
victim of crime [voice over]: He gives me one hundred bucks and says, “yeah, that’s the bus ride home.”
Song: And drove away.
Song: [unintelligible], how is your wife doing?
victim of crime [voice over]: Ahm, she’s pretty shaken up. And my kid, my kid didn’t even know what was going on. She was sitting in the back, playing.
Song: Police say this was a dangerous situation that people can take steps to avoid.
Sgt. Paul Schnell: It becomes very important to go to places where there is ah, a lot of activity, a lot of people. And that minimizes risk.
Song: And take a good look at the description of the car that was stolen. It is a 1996 green honda civic, license plate LFD 609. Now, if you spot this car, or know anything about this crime, call St. Paul Police. Reporting live in the news room, Susanna Song, Eyewitness news.
Message for Susanna Song: In future crime stories, either describe the suspect, say he was already captured, say the police don’t want you to describe the suspect, or say that you or your handlers are refusing to describe the suspect because you don’t want to reinforce racial prejudices that some of your viewers may have, i.e., in the name of political correctness.
But be a journalist for goodness sake, not news babe feeding what you consider to be the under educated masses bite sized and predigested news stories. Your story was worthless without fundamental details such as suspect’s height, hair and eye color, clothing style, ethnicity. People should be on the look out for–not a car, not a website, not a neighborhood–but a carjacker.
What does he look like?
Song says, it doesn’t matter. Be on the lookout for a likely already abandoned and wiped down car:
Stolen Green Honda Civic
Sources
Water meter
The following story caught my attention for its journalist’s obvious concern for city coffers, and his apparent state of obliviousness regarding citizens’ privacy.
Cash-strapped LA going after unlicensed dogs
Associated press
1 hr 28 mins agoLOS ANGELES – Cash-strapped Los Angeles is going to the dogs — literally.
The City Council voted Tuesday to have two departments share information in order to track down people who haven’t licensed their pets.
Council President Eric Garcetti estimates two-thirds of the city’s dogs are unlicensed. Licenses cost $15 for a sterilized dog and $100 for an unaltered pet.
Getting all dogs licensed would mean at least an additional $3.6 million in fees to the city.
The Department of Animal Services has eight full-time people whose job is to find and license dogs. The Department of Water and Power keeps a meter-reader database of homes with dogs. The council ordered the departments to coordinate to find the pooches.
It is as though the associated press is performing a ministry of propaganda function, for free.
Postmen, meter readers, et al. need to keep track of which homes have dogs because, as everybody knows, dogs hate unknown men in uniform. (However, my UPS delivery man keeps a box of dog treats with him, and the dogs in the neighborhood seem to love him. Smart man. Another fruit of private enterprise.)
Back to the point. Allowing the L.A. meter reader database of “addresses with dogs” to be used to fine citizens who have not licensed their dogs is wrong in my view, and a violation of privacy, as well as the implicit agreement homeowners have made with meter readers when they allow the meter readers onto their property.
It is a short step between this policy, and getting meter readers to keep track of which homes have had recent remodeling done (to be cross checked against homes that pulled construction permits), or which houses have swarthy inhabitants that deserve extra scrutiny during times of increased threats.
Meter readers should have one job: read the meters. They should not be used as spies against our own citizens.
Journalists should not act as government mouth pieces, but should at least ask and report answers to questions of government officials, such as, “Do you think it is legitimate to mine the meter readers’ dog database to generate additional revenue, and why?”
Sources
Minneapolis in the 20th Century: The Growth of an American City
Mayor Albert Alonzo Ames and corruption in early 1900s city government…
Minneapolis in the 1930’s: crime lords, contentious labor relations, The Citzens League and the 1934 trucker’s strike.
Minneapolis was the Capital of Antisemitism…
Source
So here is the story. A janitor finds ammunition in a trash can Wednesday night.
The principal, Robert Anderson, doesn’t hear about it until Thursday morning.
So guess what he does? He arranges to lock down the school, calls the police, and allows thugs with government pay checks to subject Blaine High School students to pat down searches. Student Amanda Pfiefer says:
You had to put your hands against the wall, and they searched every single person in the classroom.–Amanda Pfiefer(KSTP 2010)
So here is a clue for our young students being conditioned to live in a police state. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. constitution recognizes your right to be secure in your person, papers, and effects. Specifically, it states:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The Fourth Amendment originally applied only to the Federal government. However, the courts, in Mapp v. Ohio, ruled that the Fourth Amendment is applicable to state governments by way of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.(367 U.S. 643 1961)
Now, the plain English meaning of this is that you, your papers, or effects, cannot be searched against your will, unless a judge has issued a search warrant, and this warrant must be backed by an oath or affirmation sufficient to establish probable cause.
Even so, we live in a country were rights recognized by the Bill of Rights are not recognized in practice. In practice, courts have held that probable cause is sufficient to conduct intrusive government searches, and that warrants are not always required.
For example, in Terry v. Ohio, another court case from 1968, police officers searched three men after watching them very obviously case a store for robbery, and found concealed weapons.(392 U.S. 1 1968) (They had acted very suspiciously, walking by and studying a store window, 24 times, and holding a conference nearby after every time they walked by the store.)
The line has been blurred, starting with Terry v. Ohio, which, by itself, seems to be a reasonable case. But it has been extended in practice, to the point where government officials believe they may pat you down, “for your own safety,” in high schools and airports simply because criminals exist, and they want to find them. This is a dragnet, done in the guise of concern.
Simply being a student in a large school that has one bad apple is not, in my view, probable cause to conduct dragnet searches on all students. If I were a student, I would simply refuse to be searched.
If thugs in uniforms search you anyway, you should also be aware that you can sue them personally, in a court of law, for violating your constitutional rights. See, for example, Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, in which government agents conducted a search, seizure, and arrest without probable cause.(403 U.S. 388 1971)
I would certainly love to see students sue the school district and police department for violating their constitutionally protected rights. I am not so certain that they would win–with the security is more important than liberty mindset that pervades society today–but I would like to at least see those in authority be forced to go on record distorting the plain English meaning of the fourth and fourteenth amendments even more.
It’s as though they studied the pigs in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, who famously rewrote the farm’s 7 commandments.
The authorities in Blaine also seem to have learned first, don’t teach the youth about their rights and heritage, and then you can do whatever you want, including rewriting and flagrantly violating those rights.
How many students at Blaine have taken a class studying the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, separation of powers, and their roles in theory and practice?
Consider this your first lesson.
Here is another clue: If the authorities were concerned about your safety, they wouldn’t lock you down in a classroom with an unarmed teacher, where you would be, if there were really a threat, sitting ducks.
Sources
The mass media is finally pointing out these failed campaign promises.
I never believed President Obama cared about what people thought.
Despite my doubts, I did attend a “listening to America” healthcare symposium once, at the behest of a friend. It was set up by President Obama’s “Organizing for America.”
Many college professors and medical doctors showed up, expecting to find a forum to share their thoughts on the matter, based on email invitations they had received.
However, “listening to America” was a fraud, where former Obama campaign officials present were merely interested in collecting names as a resource to use if a final push of support were ever needed.
Many of the attendees at the meeting became openly livid upon realizing the bait and switch, and expressed their disdain for the contempt showed by the former campaign officials toward the attendee’s time and considered viewpoints. No matter, the former Obama campaign officials quickly shut down all verbal protest, and continued to collect names of those willing to continue helping the cause, whatever that cause turned out to be.
The following useful idiots were not representative of the Organizing for America event I attended:
See also
EMD Safety bracelets, also known as TAZER or TASER bracelets, seem like a bad joke. But this video makes it seem real.
It would be trivial for an evil doer to thwart this thing, or even use it as a weapon.
It has to be a joke.
Right?
It seems that even Fox News is shilling for the product.
Though their expert doubts the EMD (Electro-Musclar Disruption) aspect of the device will ever see the light of day…
A large percentage of the U.S. population are sheep, and such a device might very well receive significant support.
Just remember what you learned from Animal Farm: “four legs good, two legs better.”
Bahhhh. Bahhhh. Bahhhh.
See also