The Federal Government And The Lost Mandate Of Heaven

In Chinese philosophy, the Mandate of Heaven was the idea that: 

    ... there could be only one legitimate ruler of China at a time, and this ruler reigned as the “Son of Heaven” with the approval of the gods. If a king ruled unfairly he could lose this approval, which would result in his downfall. Overthrow, natural disasters, and famine were taken as a sign that the ruler had lost the Mandate of Heaven.

    The Mandate of Heaven did not require a ruler to be of noble birth, and had no time limitations. Instead, rulers were expected to be good and just in order to keep the Mandate. ...

In other words, a ruler that had lost the Mandate of Heaven was unworthy of rule and, consequently, had no legitimate claim to power. 

    Last week, the author of the Postcards from Barsoom substack published a piece entitled "Hurricane Helene and the Lost Mandate of Heaven." It catalogs many of the reports of delayed or even denied relief, interference with private individuals and organizations trying to carry out relief efforts independent of the government and major NGOs, as well as offering some ideas as to why the federal government has largely fumbled its response.

    But one thing that stands out--and which many other pundits have discussed--is the focus of the elites on foreign entanglements whilst ignoring the disaster in Appalachia. The author notes, for instance:

    To be fair, most of the aid to Ukraine is an accounting fiction: military equipment is assigned a market price and sent to the war zone, with the financial beneficiaries being American arms manufacturers. But this distinction is one of those autistic hair-splitting arguments that avoids the underlying issue, which is that Washington observably cares about its foreign ambitions far more than it does about Americans.

    It certainly doesn’t help when Lindsay Graham gets on Fox News to perfunctorily commiserate with the North Carolinans, only to pivot immediately to remind viewers not to lose sight of what really matters: rocket attacks on Our Greatest Ally. If ever there was a time to put the Zionist enthusiasm away for a few minutes, it’s now. But the barely closeted homosexual just can’t help himself, anymore than he could when he was doing whatever it was that Mossad caught on video.

Nor does he ignore FEMA's priorities:

Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security who threw the borders open to invite in millions – possibly tens of millions – of invaders, has announced that FEMA is all tapped out. They spent their whole budget on social programs for people who should never have been in the country in the first place: $640 million in the current fiscal year, and $1.6 billion since 2022. There’s been a lot of outrage over the paltry $750 being offered to the flood victims, but to be fair this appears to be the legally mandated maximum for short-term emergency assistance, with long-term assistance for e.g. housing capped at more generous $42,500. None of which changes the fact that FEMA blew its wad on illegals. This is no doubt an essential element in FEMA’s strategic plan, the number 1 goal of which is not disaster relief, but the promotion of equity.

The illegals have been caught looting and, it has been reported, raping orphaned children. But at least the liberal NGOs are there to support the LBGT+ and offer abortion services.

    But in assessing the overall attitude and actions of Washington and the federal departments and agencies, the author warns:

    That points to the other major theme running through these events, which is the instinctive distrust – the bone-deep hatred, in fact – that many Americans have developed for their ruling class.

    When I was a teenager, an ice storm hit in early January, covering everything in inches of ice. Trees fell down, dragging power lines with them, taking out the electrical grid over a huge area. Some places didn’t get power back for weeks; I had friends who were showering at the school gym well into February. Over thirty people died as a result. Meanwhile, the entirety of society – including the military – mobilized to rebuild and to get relief supplies to outlying areas. There were no conspiracy theories; no rumours of the government deliberately slowing the recovery; no distrust at all. People simply came together and got it done.

    America in 2024 is not like that. The mood is dark, now. There is no trust left. Nor should there be, after everything that’s happened so far this century: the pointless forever wars; the great robbery of the 2008 financial crash; the COVID lockdowns; the vaxx mandates; the stolen election of 2020; the censorship and soft HR tyranny of the Great Awokening; the visible mental decay of the ruling class, many of whom can barely string together a coherent sentence anymore; the population replacement of mass immigration; the open borders; the filth and crime and drugs flooding the streets; food price inflation, the real estate bubble, and the steady collapse in living standards.

    The default assumption many people hold now is that the regime is composed of criminals, of enemies. It is difficult not to feel this way. It is, indeed, almost foolish not to.

    So when the regime fumble’s the response to a disaster, many will assume that it did so deliberately.

    Maybe it did, and maybe it didn’t; that so many assume this to be so is the significant fact.

    This is a government which has lost the mandate of heaven. It is no longer fit to rule.

Related:

• "Comparing Helene To Katrina Suggests Americans Are Left To Die Because Democrats Run The White House"--The Federalist. 

    Let’s compare Katrina with Helene. In Katrina, a three-star general was placed in command, along with the two-star commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division, with a full Airborne Infantry Brigade task force of the 82nd, a corps-support logistics command of thousands of soldiers, a signal battalion, a combat support hospital, robust Army engineer assets, and countless other support units. All of these units were on standby orders days before Katrina hit.

    In contrast, a week after Helene hit, a tiny 1,000-troop Airborne Infantry Battalion task force of the 82nd (one-third the size of a brigade) was given a warning order under the ground command of a mere one-star general. These forces are without the medical, engineer, corps-level logistics, signal/communications, and Division/Army HQ command and control capabilities that defined Katrina support.

    How about the Marines? In Katrina, they sent 2,600 Marines, under the command of a two-star Marine Division commanding general. For Helene, near as I can tell after extensive web research and quizzing my followers on X, the USMC has not been tasked to send a single damned Marine.

• "Feds say there’s no money left to respond to hurricanes — after FEMA spent $1.4B on migrants"--New York Post. 

    Over two years, more than $1.4 billion has been committed from FEMA-administered programs to support non-federal entities that are taking care of migrants.

    DHS allocated $780 million for the migrant crisis last year initially through the FEMA Emergency Food and Shelter Program, which funds relief not associated with natural disasters, and then through the new FEMA Shelter and Services Program, which was authorized in late 2022 by Congress to respond to the migrant crisis.

    The $640.9 million spent this year comes solely from the Shelter and Services Program.

 

The article notes that that the purpose of the Emergency Food and Shelter Program is supposed to be providing money to assist with homelessness. But it was spent on illegals.

• But not all the money for the illegals came from FEMA's own budget: "Fact Check: Did Biden-Harris Migrant Spending Drain FEMA Hurricane Budget?"--Newsweek.

    The $650 million cited by Republicans refers to the Shelter and Services Program (SSP), which had a budget of that amount for Fiscal Year 2024, which ended on September 30.

    SSP allocates funds to migrant support groups, nonprofits, and state and local governments to distribute to those in need of shelter, food or medical care.

    While the funds are distributed by FEMA, they do not come from the agency's budget.

 

    The DHS Appropriations Act 2024 shows that the money is from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) budget, which is then given to FEMA to hand out, "helping to facilitate the safe, orderly, and humane release of asylum seekers and families".

    CBP influences where the cash is spent, with a requirement to send operational data to FEMA on a quarterly basis. This data helps guide FEMA on where to allocate the funds, particularly to shelters that support CBP's border security mission.

• "FEMA abandons residents of devastated NC town because of 'road closed' sign"--New York Post. It's just a temporary barrier with a sign that can easily be driven around without even having to move it, but FEMA won't do it.
• "Harris Touts $157M for Civilians in Lebanon While Many Helene Victims Wait for Relief"--Breitbart. We pay for the munitions that Israel is using to bomb Lebanon and then pay to help the victims of the Israeli bombing. As Vox Day notes about this announcement: "If you didn’t understand that America is a nation governed by a wicked foreign elite, you sure do now."
  
• "Pete Buttigieg Skewered for Telling Drone Pilots to Stay Away from Hurricane Recovery Efforts"--Breitbart. Doesn't want the public to know how bad things are and how badly the Biden-Harris Administration has screwed up. 
• Wall Street Apes on X: "Another American Citizen CONFIRMS He’s Been Told Do Not Help Hurricane Helene Victims By Kamala Harris Admin “I had planned to go to East Tennessee — you know, trying to see who may need my thermal drone most and whoever I could assist better — We're being told to stand down”
• Dr. Ben Braddock on X: "🚨NEW - Federal Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has shut down aid flights into Western North Carolina. A NOTAM has been issued by the FAA that won’t allow anyone not approved by the state to fly aid missions. They said they would give permission but they’re not being"
• "Harris Giving $750 to Hurricane Helene Victims After Giving $8B to Ukraine"--Breitbart.