Thursday, November 10, 2016

This wasn’t an election. It was a revolution.

It’s midnight in America. The day before fifty million Americans got up and stood in front of the great iron wheel that had been grinding them down. They stood there even though the media told them it was useless. They took their stand even while all the chattering classes laughed and taunted them.

They were fathers who couldn’t feed their families anymore. They were mothers who couldn’t afford health care. They were workers whose jobs had been sold off to foreign countries. They were sons who didn’t see a future for themselves. They were daughters afraid of being murdered by the “unaccompanied minors” flooding into their towns. They took a deep breath and they stood.

They held up their hands and the great iron wheel stopped.

The Great Blue Wall crumbled. The impossible states fell one by one. Ohio. Wisconsin. Pennsylvania. Iowa. The white working class that had been overlooked and trampled on for so long got to its feet. It rose up against its oppressors and the rest of the nation, from coast to coast, rose up with it.

They fought back against their jobs being shipped overseas while their towns filled with migrants that got everything while they got nothing. They fought back against a system in which they could go to jail for a trifle while the elites could violate the law and still stroll through a presidential election. They fought back against being told that they had to watch what they say. They fought back against being held in contempt because they wanted to work for a living and take care of their families.

They fought and they won.

This wasn’t a vote. It was an uprising. Like the ordinary men chipping away at the Berlin Wall, they tore down an unnatural thing that had towered over them. And as they watched it fall, they marveled at how weak and fragile it had always been. And how much stronger they were than they had ever known.

Who were these people? They were leftovers and flyover country. They didn’t have bachelor degrees and had never set foot in a Starbucks. They were the white working class. They didn’t talk right or think right. They had the wrong ideas, the wrong clothes and the ridiculous idea that they still mattered.

They were wrong about everything. Illegal immigration? Everyone knew it was here to stay. Black Lives Matter? The new civil rights movement. Manufacturing? As dead as the dodo. Banning Muslims? What kind of bigot even thinks that way? Love wins. Marriage loses. The future belongs to the urban metrosexual and his dot com, not the guy who used to have a good job before it went to China or Mexico.

They couldn’t change anything. A thousand politicians and pundits had talked of getting them to adapt to the inevitable future. Instead they got in their pickup trucks and drove out to vote.

And they changed everything.

Barack Hussein Obama boasted that he had changed America. A billion regulations, a million immigrants, a hundred thousand lies and it was no longer your America. It was his.

He was JFK and FDR rolled into one. He told us that his version of history was right and inevitable.

And they voted and left him in the dust. They walked past him and they didn’t listen. He had come to campaign to where they still cling to their guns and their bibles. He came to plead for his legacy.

And America said, “No.”

Fifty millions Americans repudiated him. They repudiated the Obamas and the Clintons. They ignored the celebrities. They paid no attention to the media. They voted because they believed in the impossible. And their dedication made the impossible happen.

Americans were told that walls couldn’t be built and factories couldn’t be opened. That treaties couldn’t be unsigned and wars couldn’t be won. It was impossible to ban Muslim terrorists from coming to America or to deport the illegal aliens turning towns and cities into gangland territories.

It was all impossible. And fifty million Americans did the impossible. They turned the world upside down.

It’s midnight in America. CNN is weeping. MSNBC is wailing. ABC calls it a tantrum. NBC damns it. It wasn’t supposed to happen. The same machine that crushed the American people for two straight terms, the mass of government, corporations and non-profits that ran the country, was set to win.

Instead the people stood in front of the machine. They blocked it with their bodies. They went to vote even though the polls told them it was useless. They mailed in their absentee ballots even while Hillary Clinton was planning her fireworks victory celebration. They looked at the empty factories and barren farms. They drove through the early cold. They waited in line. They came home to their children to tell them that they had done their best for their future. They bet on America. And they won.

They won improbably. And they won amazingly.

They were tired of ObamaCare. They were tired of unemployment. They were tired of being lied to. They were tired of watching their sons come back in coffins to protect some Muslim country. They were tired of being called racists and homophobes. They were tired of seeing their America disappear.

And they stood up and fought back. This was their last hope. Their last chance to be heard.

Watch this video. See ten ways John Oliver destroyed Donald Trump. Here’s three ways Samantha Bee broke the internet by taunting Trump supporters. These three minutes of Stephen Colbert talking about how stupid Trump is owns the internet. Watch Madonna curse out Trump supporters. Watch Katy Perry. Watch Miley Cyrus. Watch Robert Downey Jr. Watch Beyonce campaign with Hillary. Watch. Click.

Watch fifty million Americans take back their country.

The media had the election wrong all along. This wasn’t about personalities. It was about the impersonal. It was about fifty million people whose names no one except a server will ever know fighting back. It was about the homeless woman guarding Trump’s star. It was about the lost Democrats searching for someone to represent them in Ohio and Pennsylvania. It was about the union men who nodded along when the organizers told them how to vote, but who refused to sell out their futures.

No one will ever interview all those men and women. We will never see all their faces. But they are us and we are them. They came to the aid of a nation in peril. They did what real Americans have always done. They did the impossible.

America is a nation of impossibilities. We exist because our forefathers did not take no for an answer. Not from kings or tyrants. Not from the elites who told them that it couldn’t be done.

The day when we stop being able to pull off the impossible is the day that America will cease to exist.

Today is not that day. Today fifty million Americans did the impossible.

Midnight has passed. A new day has come. And everything is about to change.


h/t Daniel Greenfield,

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Viva la Revolución?

In every country where a revolution has taken place (whether it be a “soft” revolution or a violent overthrow), those who are part of the winning team make a point of glorifying the revolution and all the “good” that it has brought. For this reason, the inhabitants of most countries where a revolution has taken place at some point in their history will believe that the revolution was positive. In countries where that revolution was opposed, the people will most likely regard the revolution as negative.

As an example, Frenchmen tend to praise their Revolution of 1789, in which the aristocracy were overthrown. Since then, the emphasis has been on the “little man.” The little man would not only be treated equally to the aristocrat, he would receive preferential treatment. Not surprisingly, this devolved into the socialism that dominates France today. In spite of the dysfunctionality of the French system, most Frenchmen fondly praise the Revolution and the “freedom” that it ostensibly created for them.

And then we have the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Its stated purpose was to overthrow the aristocratic Batista Regime and replace it with one that favoured the campesinos. The aristocracy was removed and ownership of most everything moved to the state. There is most certainly greater equality in Cuba today (albeit at a very low level), and yet we’re taught to regard the Cuban Revolution as having been destructive, as it devolved into socialism. Although the current system is largely dysfunctional, the Cuban people, even today, speak of the freedom that the Revolution created for them.

These two examples are similar, and yet Westerners are taught to regard the French government as an enlightened body of men and women who spend their waking hours legislating for ever-increased goodness for the French people, yet we’re equally taught to regard the Cuban government as tyrannical rulers lording over an oppressed people.

The perception of the results of the respective revolutions would seem to have little to do with the reason for the revolution, its immediate outcome, or its eventual outcome, and have more to do with whether the leadership of the country is “on our side” or not. Those countries where the leaders align themselves with our own country are good and enlightened, whilst the leaders who do not align themselves with our country are tyrannical dictators. The true level of freedom for the people is not really at issue.

“We’re Not Going to Take it Anymore”

So let’s take a thumbnail view of revolutions. The premise behind the desire for revolution is always the same – a segment of the population feels that the government (and very possibly their cohorts) have become oppressive and should be overthrown. When the history is written by the victors, they will endeavour to create the impression that the entire population rose up; however, this is never the case. A dissatisfied minority succeeded in taking over.

So what, then, of the majority? Well, prior to the revolution, they sat along the sidelines and tolerated whatever perceived injustices the former government imposed upon them. During the revolution, they often sat on the sidelines, hoping to have as little involvement as possible, and, after the revolution, they generally sat on the sidelines, hoping to benefit from the new regime, or at least avoid being victimised.

In Russia in 1917, a relatively small number of people overthrew the aristocracy and were then faced with the problem of taking over. They had no experience in this and didn’t know where to begin. Enter Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin, who had little to do with the revolution itself but, through funding from London and New York banks, were able to pay the Russian military and police to establish order, to a cursory degree. Once this was achieved, they used the military and police to establish order to a ruthless degree. (Not exactly saving the little man from the oppression of the aristocracy.) As Mister Lenin himself said,

“One man with a gun can control one hundred without one.”

In the aforementioned France in 1789, the aristocracy was overthrown by a relatively small number of revolutionaries, and, again, the victors had no real experience in running a country. Enter Maximilien Robespierre, a lawyer with a flair for control and a contempt for the hoi polloi. However, he was good at rhetoric, and the people cheered as he lopped off heads. This in spite of the fact that he most certainly did not deliver “freedom” to the French people, only the illusion of it. As he himself stated,

“The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.”

Meet the New Boss – Same as the Old Boss

And so it has gone, in one revolution after another. Whether it be a soft revolution, or a violent one, it’s generally followed by a disorganised and often violent period, where commerce, social stability, and freedom suffer, at the very least, for as long as it takes the new management to pull it all together, and, in most cases, long thereafter. From Juan Perón in Argentina, the Shah in Iran, Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, and countless others, revolution has meant diminished liberty and hard economic times.

Meet the New Boss – Worse Than the Old Boss

In some cases, such as Mao Tse-tung in China, Idi Amin Dada in Uganda, and Pol Pot in Cambodia, conditions worsened considerably after the revolution had “freed the people” – sometimes for decades.

It should be said that there have been a few cases of both soft and violent revolutions in which the new leaders were truly visionary and ushered in an era of greater freedom, such as the American Revolution of 1776, Corazon Aquino in the Philippines, and Nelson Mandela in South Africa. Yet, even in these cases, the rot set in almost immediately through individuals within the new governments who sought to recreate authoritarian power within an otherwise positive takeover.

Be Careful What You Wish For

The American Revolution notwithstanding, violent revolution almost never ends well. The odds are poor that you’ll get a more just leader or the greater freedoms that the revolutionaries have promised.

Today we’re observing the deterioration of the world’s most prominent capitalistic countries, all at the same time. Each has devolved into a fascist state. Again, to quote Mister Lenin,

“Fascism is capitalism in decline.”

Quite so. And, like many Russians in the early days of the twentieth century, we see an increasing number of citizens of the former “free world” realising that the decline of their countries is baked in the cake… that things are not likely to improve in their lifetimes.

And so, many fantasise that a revolution of some sort will occur. They hope for a soft revolution (virtually no chance of that happening) or a violent one – possibly generated by the millions of gun owners across the country. Unfortunately, no amount of handguns and assault weapons will equal their government’s arsenal of tanks, drones, chemical weapons, etc. A revolt could occur, and spontaneous nationwide guerrilla tactics could make it difficult to put down, but the likely outcome would be years of strife and bloodshed, followed by dramatically increased authoritarian rule.

A third option might be to accept that, yes, the decline into fascism is a dead end, but then so, in all likelihood, is revolution. That being the case, those who see two possible negative outcomes and no positive one might take the simpler step of internationalising – moving to one of the many countries that are not presently on the ropes.

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, most people have no idea what really happens when a government goes out of control, let alone how to prepare…

The coming economic and political collapse is going to be much worse, much longer, and very different than what we’ve seen in the past.