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Wednesday, July 14, 2021

The Docent's Memo (7/14/2021)

 

VIDEO: "Ric Prado on Intelligence Operations and a Legendary Career in the CIA"--OODA Cast (48 min.) An interesting video discussing Prado's background and history with the CIA, including the CIA's initial involvement in Afghanistan following 9/11. He also discusses some training and self-defense issues. At around 35 minutes in, he has points applicable to the citizen defender.

Firearms/Shooting/Self-Defense:
  • "In Praise Of Dangerous Men" by Marcus Wynne. This article is about Ric Prado, whom Marcus describes as "one of the greatest and most lethal shadow warriors our country has ever produced: a gentleman, a scholar, a warrior and a patriot." Marcus also imbedded the video that I have included above. Prado is coming out with a book, Black Ops: The Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior, which will be released in March 2022, but can be pre-ordered.
    • Related: "What Does It Have In It’s Pockets, Precious?" by Marcus Wynne. Marcus shows off what he carries as a standard EDC. I always like checking out what people I trust and respect carry so that I can evaluate/reevaluate what I typically carry. 
    The title to this post brought a chuckle out of me as it reminded me of a part in Harvard Lampoon's Bored of the Rings. I will use the names for the characters from The Hobbit and LOTR so I don't offend anyone. Basically, Bilbo has resorted to his three-guesses-what-is-in-my-pocket during the riddle duel with Gollum.
 
Stumped at last for a riddle to ask, he cried out, as his hand fell on his snub-nosed .38, "What have I got in my pocket?" This [Gollum] failed to answer, and growing impatient, he paddled up to [Bilbo], whining, "Let me see, let me see." [Bilbo] obliged by pulling out the pistol and emptying it in [Gollum]'s direction. The dark spoiled his aim, and he managed only to deflate the rubber float, leaving [Gollum] to flounder. [Gollum], who couldn't swim, reached out his hand to [Bilbo] and begged him to pull him out, and as he did, [Bilbo] noticed an interesting-looking ring on his finger and pulled it off. He would have finished [Gollum] off then and there, but pity stayed his hand. 'It's a pity I've run out of bullets', he thought, as he went back up the tunnel, pursued by [Gollum]'s cries of rage.
  • Your bravado can and will be used against you in a court of law: "Be Careful What You Say" by Sheriff Jim Wilson, Shooting Illustrated. Wilson warns that what you say to investigators or post to social media can give you a lot of trouble should you ever have to defend your life. He notes of one suspect that had killed his assailant and was testifying before a grand jury:
Here’s an example from this case:  District Attorney: “At what point did you become afraid that your life was in danger?”  Citizen: “I never was afraid of that SOB!  He never could outshoot me!  I told him to come on and try if he felt lucky.” 

Even though the sheriff and the prosecutor believed it was a clear case of self-defense, that line and others that were similar nearly resulted in the grand jury indicting him for murder. Wilson warns:

Even something intended as a joke might be taken out of context and also might not sound so funny when related to a jury. Bragging about how dangerous you are is really not a good idea; it may come back to bite you. 

    ... In December 2014, before the Army sent out the MHS Request for Proposal (RFP) [for a new handgun], Beretta submitted the M9A3 to the Army via a mechanism called an Engineering Change Proposal. An ECP is where a manufacturer proposes changes to an existing product that’s already under contract.

    The M9A3 ECP would have upgraded all in-service M9 and M9A1 pistols to the M9A3 specification. M9A3 pistols feature a Vertec grip, accessory rail, improved trigger, and threaded barrel. ...

The article's author put the two handguns through a battery of tests. The M9A3 performed slightly better or tied with the M18 on the tests.  

I firmly believe that the .38 Special +P is the minimum anyone should carry for self defense or back-up.  In an autoloader, 9mm is the base line.  A .357 Magnum, .40 S&W, or .45 ACP are even better.  Anything less leaves too much to pure chance, which is never good in a life and death encounter.

As I've noted before, however, there is a big difference between the realities of carrying concealed as a law enforcement officer versus carrying as a civilian, including the fact that the law enforcement officer is generally required to carry a larger weapon while on duty and is acclimated by that fact, and doesn't face being fired if he accidently "prints" while at work. I give more weight to simply having a gun over having enough gun.
    ... is a modification for your concealment setup, typically in the form of an accessory for your Kydex holster.

    A holster claw’s primary purpose is to improve concealment by modifying your pistol’s orientation, resulting in less printing (or being able to see the gun’s shape through your clothes). The secondary purpose is improved safety and comfort, depending on your carry position and the particulars of your EDC setup.

The article further explains:

    A typical Kydex holster claw is an L-shaped attachment for your concealed carrying holster. ...

    This protruding element features a textured surface intended to engage with your gun belt, applying pressure against the belt and leveraging your handgun’s grip when worn.

    The user must align the claw with the belt clip to ensure the best possible results. ...

    When functioning correctly, the leverage causes your handgun to rotate slightly, turning your grip slightly inward (toward your body) and your muzzle outward (away from you).

    The handgun should appear to be completely flush against your body without protruding away from your body.

  • "Simple Knife Carry Hack – The Static Cord"--Jerking the Trigger. Basically, the static cord is a small loop of paracord that goes around the belt and is attached to a knife sheath concealed inside the waistband (IWB). The cord serves to keep the knife sheath in roughly the same position, but to make sure the sheath comes off when the knife is drawn. The author remarks:
    The static line is simply a cord that is fixed to your knife sheath. It serves two purposes. First, it prevents the knife from falling down inside your pants while carrying. Second, it deploys the knife by limiting the travel of the sheath.

    Once you have the static cord tied to your sheath, you simply loop it onto your belt. This can be accomplished without even removing your belt with a simple girth hitch. Now you tuck the sheath into your waist line like you would an IWB holster or sheath with the handle exposed and oriented the way you want it for easy deployment.

    When you draw the knife, you simple grab the handle and pull away from your belt. The cord is attached your belt so that once the full length of the cord is reached, the sheath pops free of the knife. It works every time.

Among the tips included in the article, the author states:

Knives with bent handles like the Ka-Bar TDI or push knives work well because they can positioned at an angle so the handle rests on top of the belt. They are easy to grab, never move, and are very low profile in this position. 

  • "7.62 AK Mags: What You Need To Know"--Gun Digest. The article looks at good quality magazines, the ones to avoid, and those that are collectible. For stockpiling and normal use, the author recommends the surplus East Bloc magazines made of ribbed steel. Alternatively, of the surplus magazines are hard to locate and/or too expensive to stockpile, he recommends new-production steel magazines from Bulgaria or South Korea. And the all-plastic magazines, should you pick some up, should be limited to just range use. And the ones to avoid are the steel mags from either Croatia or from American manufacturers like ProMag.
  • Good news on the ammo front: Remington Ammo has resumed production and will be running shifts 24/7; and Sig Saur is significantly expanding manufacturing at its ammo plant in Jacksonville, AR.
  • This makes me feel old: "The 10 mm Is Here to Stay—Again"--NRA Women. "Even though the 10 mm cartridge is about 40 years old, admittedly I’ve not paid much attention to it." 
  • "The Dos and Don'ts of Gun Range Attire" by Maureen P. Sangiorgio, NRA Women. Good advice on what to wear (or not wear) while shooting. The biggie, however, is to "DON’T wear a tank top, low-cut V-neck or shirts with spaghetti straps. And as long as you can stand it, depending on the weather, try to wear long sleeves as often as possible." And along with that, she advises not to wear "open-toed shoes, such as sandals, flip-flops or ballet flats." I would recommend avoiding even closed-toed shoes that are open on the sides or have openings on the side that would admit rocks or other debris. Most outdoor ranges make use of gravel or crushed rock and you don't want to spend time digging that out of your shoe or sandal rather than concentrating on the shooting/training.
  • "The Army Isn't Getting Rid of Its M4s and SAWs Any Time Soon, General Says"--Military.com. Basically, it will take time for the manufacturers of the firearms and the new ammo to tool up to produce the new items, and it will take time to transition from the old gear to the new gear. Who long? The article indicates that it could take three to four years for the Lake City Ammunition Plant to fully transition to making 6.8mm rounds on a large scale. As far weapons, I would note that the M1 Garand started to be phased out at the end of the 1950's, but remained in use by some Guard and Reserve units until around 1980--i.e., about 20 years for a full transition. But I've also read elsewhere that the 5.56 weapons will be retained for support troops, so we may never see the new 6.8mm weapons completely replace 5.56 weapons.
  • "Woman, 65, is killed by a grizzly bear that dragged her from her tent while she was sleeping during a long-distance cycling trip in Montana"--Daily Mail. She and her companions had been sleeping inside a small town (population about 100), but that apparently did not dissuade the bear. The bear seems to have been attracted by the scent of food in their tents, although the campers had moved the food prior to the bear attack. The article mentions that the women's companions had used bear spray to drive off the bear, but it doesn't indicate when they first used it, whether right after the attack began or after the woman had already been killed.
  • "REPORT: Illegal immigrants burglarize Texas ranch house, steal weapons and ammo according to Border Patrol"--Post Millennial (h/t Instapundit).  The three illegals were arrested by the Border Patrol, so the firearms did not end up in the wild.
  • Good news if you live in the 4th Circuit: "Federal Court Rules Under-21 Handgun Bans Are Unconstitutional"--The Federalist. The court held that it was unconstitutional to keep 18 year olds from buying a handgun. The Fourth Circuit covers Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, they explain:
If the Fourth Circuit doesn't reverse this en banc, it seems very likely that the Supreme Court will agree to hear the case (given the disagreement between the Fourth Circuit and the Fifth Circuit on this question, and given that the Fourth Circuit panel has struck down a federal statute), assuming the federal government asks for Supreme Court review. If the Fourth Circuit does reverse this en banc, the Court may still hear the case (but would be much less likely to, if the Fourth and Fifth Circuits end up on the same side, upholding the federal statute).
Gun control is based on the faulty notion that ordinary American citizens are too clumsy and ill-tempered to be trusted with weapons. Only through the blatant abrogation of explicit constitutional rights is gun control even possible. It must be enforced with such violations of individual rights as intrusive search and seizure. It most severely victimizes those who most need weapons for self-defense, such as blacks and women.

But this, I think, is the money quote: "The gun control debate poses the basic question: Who is more trustworthy, the government or the people?"


VIDEO: "2 of the Most Important Preps for Grid Down or Supply Chain the Vast Majority Overlook..."--Serious Survivor (14 min.). Discussion of (1) planning your bugout, which will take time to research routes and visit specific routes or locations, and (2) practicing using your gear and skills.

Prepping/Survival:
    Bugging out with a baby should always be your last resort.

    Not because bugging out on foot is dangerous, but because babies tend to make a lot of noise and attract attention. That attention can and make you an easy target and easily get you killed.

    An infant or toddler will also increase the difficulty of bugging out in a variety of other ways as well.

    Besides having to carry that extra weight, you also have to keep them fed, changed, and entertained. 

    And trust me.. You want to keep your baby entertained.

    For the reasons above, it’s simply easier (and safer) to bug in if you have a baby.

The next part of the article covers 15 prepping items/essentials you want for the infant. Read the whole thing.

  • "Ultralight Get Home Bag Backpack"--Skilled Survivor. This article assumes that some disaster or emergency has happened that will require you to walk home from your place of work. The author begins by noting that if we are having to walk home because of a disaster, we do not necessarily need to avoid people--a lot of other people will be in the same situation. He discusses the need to figure out how fast can you walk and how far do you need to walk (taking into account terrain features) in order to put together your plan. Other factors to consider is whether anyone will be accompanying you; how you plan on hydrating; whether you will have or need something to eat; the weather you can expect and what changes to clothing and other items will need to be done; what type of first aid or toiletry items you might need; self-protection issues; how to find your way; and a lot more.
  • "3 First Aid Kits Worth Your Consideration" by Terry Nelson, Gunners Den. The author relates that "[t]he Outdoorsman First Aid Kits from DTLGear and the Yellowstone Trauma Kit from Mountain Man Medical both contain tools that are essential for stopping major blood loss, a leading cause of deaths in outdoors related accidents." He also looks at the SFD Responder (Safer Faster Defense), an ankle pouch that allows you to carry needed gear for dealing with massive bleeding.
  • "How Much Land Do You Need to Be Self-Sufficient" by Tom Marlowe, The Survivalist Blog.
How much land does it take to be self-sufficient? The amount of land required is highly variable, with answers ranging anywhere from two and upwards of 10 acres. A more realistic assessment is around of 2 – 5 acres depending on factors such as climate, soil health, viability for crops and animals, personal skill and aptitude, as well as diet, number of people in the household, available technology, and more.

The rest of the article explores a few of the more important factors in greater detail. If you are truly wanting to be self-sufficient, and live in an area where trees grow or can be grown, you also should consider how much land you will need for timber that you can harvest for heating or construction. 

    According to TikTok user @Katieyowyow, a recruiter with over 300,000 followers on the platform, as many as 1 in 4 employees are planning to leave their job this fall. These employees, she says, intend to spend the summer months using their vacation days and enjoying the benefits of full-time employment before they jump ship and turn in their notice in autumn.

    Daniel Zhao, a labor economist with the employment website Glassdoor said, "We haven't seen anything quite like the situation we have today."


VIDEO: "Rioters and looting in South Africa"--Loose Rounds (1 min.)

The Collapse of Complex Societies and the Decline of the West:
When we Black Americans see this flag we know the person flying it is not safe to be around. When we see this flag we know the person flying it is a racist. When we see this flag we know that the person flying it lives in a different America than we do. When we see this flag, we question your intelligence. We know to avoid you. It is a symbol of hatred.

Per the article, "Lex Scott, the founder of BLM Utah, told The Salt Lake Tribune that the post was intended to provoke a reaction. 'The point of the post was to make everyone uncomfortable,' Scott said." Actually, it will make people more comfortable with opposing Scott and his/her/its kind.

    The article continues (underline added):

     In another Facebook message, BLM Utah referred to its critics as ‘Karen.’

    ‘Listen Karen,’ BLM Utah wrote.

    ‘Confronting you and this country about your racism isn’t hatred. Addressing racism isn’t racist.

    ‘We will not bow down to you. We will not beg you to stop being racist. We will proactively destroy the systems that continue to give you the power to marginalize people of color. Period.’

    In any event, this is part of the new messaging following the recent New York Times article calling the American flag divisive. 

  • "New Evidence Indicates Enough Illegal Votes In Georgia To Tip 2020 Results"--The Federalist. From the lede: "New evidence indicates that more than 10,300 illegal votes were cast in Georgia in the November 2020 general election — a number that will continue to rise over the next several months, potentially exceeding the 12,670 votes that separated Joe Biden and Donald Trump." This creates quite the problem for how can you justify retaining a president in power if he was elected by fraud? I don't know if there are any legal means to remove a fraudulently elected president other than impeachment. 
    What I do know is that this is playing into the hands of those that want to abolish the Electoral College. The real election was actually the votes cast by the electors, not the popular votes in the individual States. All of the States approved the electors. Pence could have forced an investigation before allowing the acceptance and counting of the electoral votes, but did not. If it turns out that Biden did not, in fact, obtain the votes necessary to win the Electoral College, see the Democrats turn to arguing that it just proves that the Electoral College should be eliminated or "reformed."

    David Smith, CEO of the US's largest wholesaler Associated Wholesale Grocers, told the Wall Street Journal they have been buying 15 to 20 percent more goods - particularly packaged foods with long shelf lives. 

    'We're buying a lot of everything. Our inventories are up significantly over the same period last year,' said Smith. 

    At SpartanNash in Michigan, the retailer has bought up around 20 to 25 percent more than normal including frozen meat.

  • Vox Day has had several posts over the last few weeks highly critical of the Baby Boom generation (aka, "Boomers") including a few on how they screwed over their kids, Generation X, by their selfishness and greed. I don't think that Boomers were all the same, but it is clear to me that those that grew up in upper middle-class and wealthy circumstances were quintessentially r-select in their values and outlook. Born in the first half of Gen X, I was in a position where I was old enough to see the Boomers pull up the ladder after themselves in socio-economic terms via various means such as reducing college grants and scholarships to the children of white working class and poor at the same time as college costs exploded; encouraging taking on student loan debt; eviscerating America's industrial base (and source of good jobs) through a combination of off-shoring and overly zealous environmental regulations; importing millions of foreigners to further erode wages; etc. Anyway, I came across an Investopedia article on Generation X that is quite telling in demonstrating the perfidy of the Boomers (footnotes omitted):
    Gen X numbers around 65 million, while the baby boomers and the millennials each have around 72 million members. Gen X is also sometimes referred to as the “latchkey generation” as they were often left unsupervised at home after school until their parents came home from work. 

    Like the silent generation, Generation X has been defined as an "in-between" generation. The group's earning power and savings were compromised first by the dotcom bust, and second by the financial crisis of 2008 and the Great Recession. In terms of social and political power, Generation X is sandwiched between the baby boomers, who came of age during the Vietnam and Reagan eras and the millennials of the Obama era.

The article notes that more Gen Xers believe they will have more trouble obtaining the financial security of their parents compared to Boomers and Millennials, have significant credit card debt compared to Boomers and Millennials, and the least likely to use financial planners. And:

Gen X accounts for just 16% of the nation’s wealth, while baby boomers hold more than half (56%), an analysis of Federal Reserve data by economist Gray Kimbrough shows. In 2008, at a median age of 35, Gen Xers owned just 9% of the nation’s wealth, less than half of what baby boomers had when they were 35.

  • "Race Quotas And Affirmative Action Are What They Wanted And Now They’re Mad People Noticed" by Eddie Scarry, The Federalist. The subject of the article arises out of leaked comments by Rachel Nichols, a white female ESPN reporter, complaining that a particular gig went to a black reporter, Maria Taylor, because of Taylor's race. The New York Times reported on the incident, stating that black ESPN employees believed that Nichols' comments “confirmed their suspicions that outwardly supportive white people talk differently behind closed doors.” Scarry reasonably asks in his piece: "Wait — when did it become contentious for a person to professionally advance and financially gain on account of her race? That is literally what the entire Black Lives Matter movement is about."
  • "Nationalizing the Capitol Police" by Taylor Day, American Thinker. There is talk about expanding the jurisdiction of the Capital Police, which right now is pretty much limited to the grounds of the Capital and other office buildings used by Congress, and open branch offices in various locations. Day asks: "Do we really want a nationwide federal police force accountable solely to a small number of legislators, not subject to FOIA and other citizen protections applicable to the executive branch?" 
  • The Left is burning churches in Canada based on a lie: "Anti-Christian Hysteria Has Grown Into Church-Burning Terror, And People Might Be Next"--The Federalist. It becomes clearer everyday that the way to tell if a journalist is lying is if their lips move. We have been hearing about "mass graves" at residential schools in Canada--schools used from the 1870s up to the 1990s to educate Native Americans and inculcate them with Western Culture. The truth, however, is that they are not mass graves. They are individual graves, often in cemeteries also used by the surrounding communities, where the wooden fences and grave markers have deteriorated or disappeared over time. But the lies have led to real world consequences:
    Overall more than two dozen churches in Canada have been targeted over the past few weeks — and people are cheering it on. Not just anonymous people, either: On June 30, Harsha Walia, the executive director of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, responded to a story of another church arson, saying “Burn it all down.”

    Others rallied to her defense. Naomi Sayers, a lawyer and blue Twitter checkmark, said “I would help her burn it all down … and also, I would help anyone charged with arson if they actually did burn things.”

And that pretty much sums up Leftist philosophy: burn it all down. 

    Jihadists were also able to seize the border crossing with Tajikistan - a site worth millions of dollars a year - on Wednesday, after Afghan soldiers abandoned their posts. 

    The American-built Sher Khan Bandar bridge usually takes upwards of $5million a year in customs, money which the Taliban will now collect. 

    Taliban sources told The Times they had agreed a tacit arrangement to take over the running of the bridge effective immediately. 

    Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid said revenue from the bridge would be put in the group's unofficial treasury - the 'bayt al mal' - to be spent on 'the people's welfare'. 

    It marks a quiet acquiescence to Taliban rule by Afghanistan's neighbours, despite Tajikistan's once strong opposition to the jihadist group. 

    The Taliban exists because Pakistan sponsors it. Since Pakistan has nukes, everyone preferred to not notice this.

    Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, Pakistani Military intelligence, the ISI, accurately foresaw what is now happening in Afghanistan as I post this:

when Afghanistan’s history came to be written, it would record that the ISI, with the help of America, defeated the Soviet Union. And next, historians would record that the ISI, with the help of America, defeated America.

    The violence was sparked by a judicial investigation into Zuma, a veteran of South Africa's fight against apartheid and white minority rule, over his relationship with Indian-born businessmen and brothers known as 'the Guptas'.

    He is accused of allowing Atul, Ajay and Rajesh Gupta to plunder state resources and peddle influence over government policy. 

    The 79-year-old has refused to cooperate, describing the investigation as a witch-hunt by his successor Cyril Ramaphosa, and last week defied a court ruling to appear before the inquiry and give evidence.

    A judge subsequently jailed him for 15 months for contempt of court, and he was taken to prison on Thursday last week after surrendering to police.

    His jailing sparked a wave of violent protest that began Friday and has continued ever since, centered around his home state of KwaZulu-Natal.

The article notes, however, that the violence had spread into neighboring Guateng state and its largest city, Johannesburg.

    It is certainly true that notions of racial superiority were a prime motivator for apartheid, but there was another factor in play: Communism. The Suppression of Communism Act was passed by the first apartheid government, banning any Communist organization. The Act took a broad view of what constituted “Communism.” However, given the infiltration of mass movements, particularly in the developing world at the beginning of the Cold War, this is perhaps less cynical than it is commonly made out to be. The Act was used to suppress the African National Congress, something we will talk about in detail later.

    Finally, it’s worth mentioning that Afrikaner society is fundamentally and deeply conservative. Pornography and gambling were illegal in apartheid-era South Africa. Most businesses could not open on Sundays. Abortion, homosexuality and reproductive education were tightly regulated. There was no television until 1976, as this was believed to be immoral and a vehicle of Communism. English-language programming was seen as a threat to Afrikaans culture.

A Brief History of South Africa: The Rise of the ANC and Nelson Mandela
 
    The Suppression of Communism Act was the instrument used to outlaw the African National Congress. While the ANC is typically thought of as a democratic-liberal organization, this is simply not true.

    The ANC’s closest ally was the South African Communist Party. Indeed, Nelson Mandela, the face of anti-apartheid resistance, was not only a member of the SACP, he served on its Central Committee, something he denied for decades. The SACP has never to this day contested its own candidates in South Africa, instead fielding their people on ANC slates.

    What’s more, the SACP partnered with the ANC in forming Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), the paramilitary wing of the anti-apartheid movement.

    The average person on the street likely thinks that Nelson Mandela was imprisoned simply for being black or opposing apartheid. In fact, he was imprisoned for a bombing campaign carried out by Umkhonto we Sizwe, of which he was the head. In fact, Nelson Mandela was convicted of 193 acts of terrorism. He was offered his freedom multiple times on the simple condition that he condemn terrorist attacks against the apartheid regime. He refused every time.
    Venezuelan authorities have closed roads in Caracas amid intense raging gun battles between security forces and organized crime gangs that analysts say are trying to expand the territory under their control in the capital.

    Heavily armed criminal groups have moved in the past month to residential and commercial areas from slums in the city’s hills, and violence has exploded over the past 24 hours with firefights breaking out in at least five populous neighborhoods.

    “State security agencies continue to be deployed in the areas affected by these criminals,” the interior minister, Carmen Meléndez, wrote on Twitter.

    She said some highways in the areas were closed as part of the operation, and urged members of the public to stay at home.

    President Nicolás Maduro’s government has not mentioned any casualties as a result of the clashes. Human rights activists in the area have said at least four civilians were killed on Wednesday and half a dozen have been wounded.

Amazing, isn't it, how strict gun control never actually prevents criminals from getting weapons. 

    A senior official in the San Francisco District Attorney's Office linked fears of a crime surge to racism in a tweet that raised eyebrows Sunday evening. 

    Kate Chatfield, a senior director in far-left District Attorney Chesa Boudin's office, downplayed safety concerns amid a nationwide crime spike. 

    Chatfield was reacting to a Twitter user who said that "every single one of my friends right now is considering leaving" San Francisco due to crime fears. "My friends are scared for their children, and their husbands are scared for their wives," the user wrote. 

    "'Husbands are scared for their wives' —-your reminder that the ‘crime surge’ crowd shares the same ideology as The Birth of a Nation," Chatfield fired back, referring to an early 20th-century White supremacist film. 

If concern about crime is racist, isn't that an admission that minority groups disproportionately commit the crime?

        Six Target stores in San Francisco are adjusting their times, opening hours later and closing hours earlier to try to curtail soaring theft.

        They join Walgreens, which has closed 17 stores over five years in direct response to criminal activity. Last month, a video went viral of a hooded and masked man riding his bike into a San Francisco branch of the chain, loading a trash bag with merchandise, and riding back out — past a powerless security guard and two others filming on their phones.

    Good for Amazon, though. 

  • It's just a lefty paradise: "VIDEO: Shoplifters ambush San Francisco Neiman Marcus, make out of store with thousands of dollars in items and flee in getaway cars"--New York Daily News. "Police in San Francisco are searching for multiple suspects after they were caught in a viral video running out of a Neiman Marcus store with 'several tens of thousands of dollars' worth of stolen items and fleeing in getaway cars."
  • "‘Major gang war’ in Bronx leaving teens dead in the streets"--New York Post. We don't have a gun problem, we have a black problem, to wit: inner-city gangs.
    A “major gang war” between ruthless Bronx crews who are unafraid of cops has left a 13-year-old boy and two other teens dead in just the past five days, law enforcement sources told The Post on Monday.

    “We can’t keep them in [jail], and they’re going after each other,’’ a high-ranking police source said, referring to juvenile suspects who end up back on the streets after being sent to family court instead of being prosecuted as adults.

    A city prosecutor added, “They don’t go to jail, so they do robberies, get in fights and carry guns.

    “Life on the streets in 2021.”
    ... let’s take the wayback machine to 1990. That was the year the rap group Public Enemy released its magnum opus Fear of a Black Planet. Full disclosure: I can’t stand rap. There are only two types of music that physically repel me: rap and mariachi. But my rap-loving friends tell me that Fear of a Black Planet is a good album, and these are people I respect so I’ll take their word for it.

    The initial copies of the album contained supplemental material tucked inside (for you kids who only know MP3s, back in the days of actual record albums, it was commonplace for LPs to include liner notes and sometimes even small booklets). What Public Enemy chose for Fear of a Black Planet was a fifteen-page essay titled “The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation and Racism (White Supremacy).”

    As explained by the band’s members, the “Cress Theory” was necessary to understand the album’s themes. Lead “singer” Chuck D explicitly stated that the entire album was a musical ode to, and illustration of, the Cress Theory.

    So what is the Cress Theory? Well, critical race theory, pure ’n’ simple. It was written in 1970 by Washington psychiatrist Frances Cress Welsing, a certifiable lunatic who today would likely be provost of Harvard or head of Biden’s DOJ.

    In Welsing’s own words, here’s her theory in a nutshell:

Racism (white supremacy) is the local and global power system dynamic, structured and maintained by those who classify themselves as white; whether consciously or subconsciously determined; this system consists of patterns of perception, logic, symbol formation, thought, speech, action and emotional response, as conducted simultaneously in all areas of people activity: economics, education, entertainment, labor, law, politics, religion, sex, and war. The ultimate purpose of the system is to ensure white genetic survival and to prevent white genetic annihilation on Earth—a planet in which the overwhelming majority of people are classified as non-white, (black, brown, red, and yellow) by white skinned people.

    As I said, CRT.

    In later works, Welsing would describe white people as “genetically defective descendants of albino mutants” who’d been expelled from Africa by the noble black pyramid-builders. In retaliation, whites gave blacks AIDS, cancer, and homosexuality. To her dying day, Welsing held fast to her view that whites are subhuman, hence why they create institutions that keep the real humans (blacks) subjugated. As she explained to the L.A. Times while promoting the album’s release,

I define racism as a global system of behavior that exists for the purpose of white genetic survival. I understand that my theory is disturbing. But science can be disturbing…. White people must first acknowledge that something awful has been going on, just as the Germans would have to accept responsibility for what they did in the Holocaust. Unfortunately, in white America, there’s a denial among 99% of the people that anything has happened.

Line for line that quote could’ve come from any academic today defending CRT.

    A small (very small) number of people objected to Public Enemy’s promotion of Welsing’s claptrap. Entertainment Weekly music critic Greg Sandow wrote, “It’s understandable to be frustrated and infuriated by racism, but this explanation is really loony. It’s crackpot and offensive. You don’t know whether to laugh or weep.”

    But most critics hailed the album and supplemental material as genius. L.A. Times music critic Robert Hilburn called it a “confrontational social commentary” that “questions the integrity of a nation where black blood is considered impure.”

    The album was a hit, selling over a million copies in its first week, and Welsing was honored as one of the “Legends in Our Time” by Essence magazine.

    Looking back, one of the things I recall quite vividly is how my white friends who dug the album dismissed the Cress Theory as silly and inconsequential. “Oh those wacky black musicians! Guuud fer them voicing their opinions! I don’t have to agree to allow them the right to have their say.”

    And now those whiteys have kids who are forced to learn the Cress Theory in school, or at work, or in the armed forces, and hey guess what morons, you’re no longer allowed the right to disagree.

    Shoulda nipped that cancer in the bud in 1990. But that’s the irony: The Cress Theory, which denied white tolerance, grew and metastasized because of white tolerance. If whites were as evil as Welsing claimed, Fear of a Black Planet would’ve been mass-burned like a Judas Priest album at an evangelical BBQ. But no, it was embraced by whites.

    And here’s the corker: As whites were tolerating—even dancing to—Welsing’s race hatred, Welsing herself was being denied tenure at Howard University, where she’d been properly pegged as a maniac. She told the L.A. Times that the tenure rejection “was definitely because of my political theories. I spoke with the head of the medical school who told me he felt my ideas did not make sense.”

    While whites were beatboxing to what would become the theme song of their twilight, commonsense black academics were calling a psycho a psycho.
  • Unfortunately for blacks, they are just tools of the Left and when their usefulness is ended, so too will they. "Useless Eaters" by Linh Dinh, Unz Review. The author explains:
    Men have gone from hunters to farmers, to factory workers, and they’re also counted on to build, repair, police and defend society. With the rise of the machine, however, they are increasingly pushed into feminine jobs, or simply become redundant.

    Automation and artificial intelligence accelerate this radical transformation. Soon enough, apparently, men won’t even be needed to drive trucks or taxis, and war, too, can be fought mostly by drones, robots and computer geeks, at a distance. The disappearance of many jobs will also affect women, of course, so who will be left to bring home the bacon?

    Admired by Bill Gates, Angela Merkel and Mark Zuckerberg, Yuval Noah Hariri is one of today’s most celebrated public intellectuals. Of this rising “useless class,” his term, Hariri comments, “The most important question in twenty-first-century economics may well be what to do with all the superfluous people. What will conscious humans do, once we have highly intelligent non-conscious algorithms that can do almost everything better?”

    And, “In the twenty-first century we might witness the creation of a massive new unworking class: people devoid of any economic, political or even artistic value, who contribute nothing to the prosperity, power and glory of society. This ‘useless class’ will not merely be unemployed—it will be unemployable.”

Of course, as the author relates, the elite and their offspring will never by "useless" no matter how degenerate they become. After discussing some elitist fantasies of injecting people with a fake vaccine to make them sterile (the plot of the Netflix show, Utopia), the author continues:

    [If] To thwart human life is utopia, then, to the elite, so we need to be culled, for sure. War will also depopulate, and with increased demand for just about everything, there’s also lots of money to be made. Borrowed cash will fatten banks.

    Rid of unsightly useless eaters, the elite will have more space and nicer views. The prettiest among us will be retained to pleasure them, for isn’t that what life is all about?

    With their minds uploaded onto computers, their cells rejuvenated and their defective organs not just replaced, but fantastically upgraded, they’ll live forever as gods.

    We won’t even get to become devos, just forgotten history.

  • "Stalin’s Willing Executioners: Jews as a Hostile Elite in the USSR" by Kevin MacDonald, Darkmoon. The article is a re-print of book review by Kevin MacDonald of Yuri Slezkine’s The Jewish Century. Key point: "When the Jews achieved power in Russia, it was as a hostile elite with a deep sense of historic grievance. As a result, they became willing executioners of both the people and cultures they came to rule." Another excerpt:
    The main weapons Jews used against national cultures were two quintessentially modern ideologies, Marxism and Freudianism, “both [of which] countered nationalism’s quaint tribalism with a modern (scientific) path to wholeness” (p. 80). Slezkine correctly views both of these as Jewish ideologies functioning as organized religions, with sacred texts promising deliverance from earthly travail. While most of his book recounts the emergence of a Jewish elite under the banner of Marxism in the Soviet Union, his comments on psychoanalysis bear mentioning. Psychoanalysis “moved to the United States to reinforce democratic citizenship with a much-needed new prop…. In America, where nationwide tribal metaphors could not rely on theories of biological descent, Freudianism came in very handy indeed” by erecting the “Explicitly Therapeutic State” (pp. 79–80). The establishment of the Explicitly Therapeutic State was much aided by yet another Jewish intellectual movement, the Frankfurt School, which combined psychoanalysis and Marxism. The result was a culture of critique which fundamentally aimed not only at de-legitimizing the older American culture, but even attempted to alter or obliterate human nature itself: “The statistical connection between ‘the Jewish question’ and the hope for a new species of mankind seems fairly strong” (p. 90).

    And when people don’t cooperate in becoming a new species, there’s always murder. Slezkine describes Walter Benjamin, an icon of the Frankfurt School and darling of the current crop of postmodern intellectuals, “with glasses on his nose, autumn in his soul and vicarious murder in his heart” (p. 216), a comment that illustrates the fine line between murder and cultural criticism, especially when engaged in by ethnic outsiders. Indeed, on another occasion, Benjamin stated, “Hatred and [the] spirit of sacrifice…are nourished by the image of enslaved ancestors rather than that of liberated grandchildren.”29 Although Slezkine downplays this aspect of Jewish motivation, Jews’ lachrymose perceptions of their history—their images of enslaved ancestors—were potent motivators of the hatred unleashed by the upheavals of the twentieth century.

Another bit:

    Slezkine’s main contribution is to summarize previously available data and to extend our understanding of Jewish dominance of the revolutionary movements before 1917, and of Soviet society thereafter. (Oddly, he makes only a passing reference to Albert Lindemann’s important Esau’s Tears, which makes many of the same points.) Not only were Jews vastly overrepresented among revolutionaries, they “were particularly well represented at the top, among theoreticians, journalists, and leaders” (p. 155). Radical Jews, like other Jews, were very talented, highly intelligent, hardworking, and in addition dedicated to creating effective ethnic networks.51 These traits propelled them to the top of radical organizations and made the organizations themselves more effective.

And:

    Despite the important role of Jews among the Bolsheviks, most Jews were not Bolsheviks before the revolution. However, Jews were prominent among the Bolsheviks, and once the revolution was under way, the vast majority of Russian Jews became sympathizers and active participants. Jews were particularly visible in the cities and as leaders in the army and in the revolutionary councils and committees. For example, there were 23 Jews among the 62 Bolsheviks in the All-Russian Central Executive Committee elected at the Second Congress of Soviets in October, 1917. Jews were the leaders of the movement, and to a great extent they were its public face. Slezkine quotes historian Mikhail Beizer who notes, commenting on the situation in Leningrad, that “Jewish names were constantly popping up in newspapers. Jews spoke relatively more often than others at rallies, conferences, and meetings of all kinds.”54 In general, Jews were deployed in supervisory positions rather than positions that placed them in physical danger. In a Politburo meeting of April 18, 1919, Trotsky urged that Jews be redeployed because there were relatively few Jews in frontline combat units, while Jews constituted a “vast percentage” of the Cheka at the front and in the Executive Committees at the front and at the rear. This pattern had caused “chauvinist agitation” in the Red Army (p. 187).

    Jewish representation at the top levels of the Cheka and OGPU (the acronyms by which the secret police was known in different periods) has often been the focus of those stressing Jewish involvement in the revolution and its aftermath. Slezkine provides statistics on Jewish overrepresentation in these organizations, especially in supervisory roles, and agrees with Leonard Schapiro’s comment that “anyone who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Cheka stood a very good chance of finding himself confronted with and possibly shot by a Jewish investigator” (p. 177). During the 1930s the secret police, then known as the NKVD, “was one of the most Jewish of all Soviet institutions” (p. 254), with 42 of its 111 top officials being Jewish. At this time 12 of the 20 NKVD directorates were headed by ethnic Jews, including those in charge of state security, police, labor camps, and resettlement (i.e., deportation). The Gulag was headed by ethnic Jews from its beginning in 1930 until the end of 1938, a period that encompasses the worst excesses of the Great Terror. They were, in Slezkine’s words, “Stalin’s willing executioners” (p. 103).

    The Bolsheviks continued to apologize for Jewish overrepresentation until the topic became taboo in the 1930s. And it was not until the late 1930s that there was a rise in visibility and assertiveness of “anti-Semites, ethnic nationalists, and advocates of proportional representation” (p. 188). By this time the worst of the slaughters in the Gulag, the purges, and the contrived famines had been completed.

It's long at 17,000 words, but worth the read. Be sure to read the portions concerning Jewish views of the United States.

  • This has a serious implication for whether there will be a civil war: "A Commie Has No Reverse"--Twelveround.com. Excerpt:
    The pandemic revealed the depths to which we have succumbed to governmental authority. The stolen election revealed the extent to which legality, crimes and punishment have been abolished for those holding Marxist views. The riots in the streets of Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle and other cities ignored by mayors and police alike revealed the grip Marxist ideology prevails among elected officials. ...

    Whenever the public comes out in numbers against the Marxists in government, they are arrested. The power of the state is supreme. The U.S. Constitution is worthless....

    The January 6th protest has been categorized by communists as an attempt to overthrow the government, a gunless coup. Ignored is the fact that ... many of the instigators were controlled by the FBI. ...

    Two significant developments only heighten the understanding that a significant number of government officials, both before and after Trump, considers a certain demographic (patriots) an existential threat.

    One is that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, embraces and encourages CRT for the military and views the January 6th protest as being conducted due to “white rage.” ...

    Another is in support of this declaration of war against whiteness by the Joint Chiefs of Staff by the Commander in Chief of the military, the occupant of the Oval Office, Joe Biden ....

    To start the assault on patriots, ... Biden put forth David Chipman as the head of the ATF. Chipman is a reliable Marxist who would use CRT and the sin of whiteness as an excuse to come after gun owners of all races, creeds and religions. ...

    What never happens with communists is introspection, a consideration that they might go too far, that there is a limit somewhere that they should not exceed. ...

    The one earmark of a communist, is they have no reverse, they have no introspection, they have force and more force, never a consideration that they might be violating the laws, the spirit of the law or even common decency. When in doubt, they accelerate. Eventually, this all causes a big wreck, but they don’t care, they were just following orders, pursuing the Marxist agenda many are too ignorant to recognize even while they implement it.

VIDEO: "HIDDEN ITEMS in Shroud of Turin Image (Nails, Belt, Tefillin, Pony-Tail, Crown of Thorns)"--Nelson Walters (14 min.)

Miscellany:
    Meanwhile, Colombia's national police chief, Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas, said that a Florida-based enterprise, CTU Security, used its company credit card to buy 19 plane tickets from Bogota to Santo Domingo for Colombian suspects. 

    Most arrived in the Dominican Republic in June and moved into Haiti within weeks, Vargas said. 

    He said Dimitri Hérard, head of general security at Haiti's National Palace, flew to Colombia, Ecuador and Panama in the months before the assassination, and Colombian police are investigating whether he had any role in recruiting the mercenaries. In Haiti, prosecutors are seeking to interrogate Hérard as part of the assassination investigation.
        World War II came but John Wayne did not serve due to his age and his family status. He was classified as 3-A, however, Wayne was not content to simply sit by the sidelines as his country went to war. He tried to enlist and even asked John Ford if he could join his unit, but the studio worked against him not wanting to lose their A-list actor who was under contract. This isn’t the braggadocio of the chickenhawk – there is ample evidence in official government records of Wayne attempting to change his status, as well as lobbying by his studio to keep him stateside.

        Wayne’s failure to serve is, by all accounts both personal and biographical, the most painful experience of his life. He was accepted into service in the Field Photographic Unit, however, his enlistment letter was delivered to his estranged wife’s house, who concealed it from him. He performed with the USO for the troops and even carried out a mission for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the precursor to the CIA).

    I particularly liked the films where he starred opposite Maureen O'Hara, my favorite being Big Jake.

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2 comments:

  1. John WilderJuly 15, 2021 at 10:53 PM

    Great pack of stories, though I will say this may be your grimmest memo yet.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. DocentJuly 16, 2021 at 2:51 PM

      We are ruled over by elites that are disproportionately peopled by narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths and who have nothing but disdain for the common citizen. It's hard to be positive.

      Delete