The Collapse

Picking a Fight

If you read the story below, you will see many similarities with our current situation:

For years, I have believed that taxes, not slavery, were the root cause of the War Between the States. Like the American Revolution, the Civil War was fought over taxation. Economic disputes between the North and South existed even before the Revolutionary War, and things got even worse with the Tariff of 1828.

The Tariff of 1828, which included very high duties on raw materials, raised the average tariff on imported goods to 45 percent. The Mid-Atlantic states were the biggest supporters of the new tariff. Southerners, who imported all of their industrial products, strongly opposed this tariff. They named the tariff the “Tariff of Abominations.” They blamed this tariff for their worsening economic conditions.

The tariff was nominally created to repay the debts incurred after the War of 1812. This wasn’t actually the case. By 1832 the national debt was paid and there was no reason for this tariff. What actually happened was that the tariff created a favorable situation for the North, who benefited greatly from such high taxes at the expense of the South. Since the Southern states didn’t produce manufactured goods, they were forced to buy those goods from either Europe or the Northern states. Since the South also needed to sell their agricultural goods in Europe, this created a situation where the Southern states were paying roughly 75% of all American taxes.

The Southern states just didn’t want to pay the tariffs, and began refusing to do so. (This idea of “State nullification” of Federal laws that states didn’t feel were constitutional was first advanced by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.) The states, led by South Carolina, declared the tariff null and void, and simply refused to pay.

So in 1833, the “Force Bill” was passed, allowing the president to use whatever force he deemed necessary, including the military, to collect taxes owed by the Southern states. Along came Lincoln, who campaigned on a platform of putting the tariffs back in place so that his sponsors could again enjoy the profits that the protectionist scheme caused.

Then it came to pass that in 1861, a new tax was passed, the Morrill Tariff. This tariff was the highest tax in American history to that point, and taxed imports at over 45%, with imported iron products taxed at 50%. This forced the South to buy northern iron products from the North at whatever prices the North wanted to charge. Victorious Republicans cheered the heavy taxes that benefitted the Northern industrialists who had backed Lincoln’s campaign.

In response, furious Southern states drafted a new constitution of their own which included a ban on high import taxation. The South’s strategy was to offer low import taxes so that North American trade would migrate to the tax-friendly ports of the South that included Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans.

The North was willing to live with slavery in the South, but were not willing to make such a concession on taxes. The forts in Southern ports were staffed by troops of the northern Army to enforce tariffs and collect taxes.

The South announced that it no longer wanted to be a part of a union where they would be robbed in order to make northern businessmen wealthy. They seceded. The north still enforced the tariffs using military force.

Fort Sumter, which was located at the entrance to Charleston Harbor and filled with federal troops enforcing the collection of taxes by U.S. customs officers, was fired upon by frustrated southerners on April 12, 1861.

I see many parallels between that situation and this one. The cities of the US used to produce manufactured goods, while the rest of the country produced the food, water, energy, and other products. Manufacturing is gone, and the only thing made in the cities now is more of the dependent class.

Even now, they continue to demand things like the elimination of automobiles, which aren’t needed in the cities, but are essential to the rest of the nation. I’m sure that you can see many other parallels. I think that, like the War Between the States, the real motivator behind our current situation is that the powers that be see that our current economic situation has run its course. The Social Security Ponzi scheme is running out of money. Our national debt is spiraling out of control.

So this is where we are.

By Divemedic, ago

Chickens Roosting

A man rapes a woman on a train while bystanders film it with their cell phones and people are amazed. How can you be? California has enacted a law that allows people to be sued for making 911 calls about minorities. The law is called the ‘CAREN Act,’ named for a racial pejorative that refers to middle aged white women and their “use of white privilege” to get their way or complain about the behavior of minorities. The left claims that the CAREN Act will save lives because blacks are being prejudged by people whose unfounded fear triggers them to call 911, then the cops are showing up and killing them.

So I have been commenting on local media sites that I completely understand why this is happening. Why would a white person risk a lawsuit or criminal prosecution for a stranger by calling 911 or otherwise intervening?

Ask George Zimmerman what happens when you intervene. You risk everything: you might be called a racist ‘wannabe’, prosecuted, cancelled, and having your life destroyed. You may even have to defend your life before having it destroyed by the media lynch mob.

EDITED TO ADD:

So I brought that up, and one leftie poster said:

You are comparing a child, Trayvon Martin walking through an apartment complex as the same thing as an adult raping a woman? Zimmerman shouldn’t have intervened. He deserved his future being ruined my killing an unarmed child.

So I see what I think is a man raping a woman. I call out and tell him to stop. He stops, and instead decides to pounce on me, beating my head on the steel floor of the train. I cry out for help, and the others on the train simply film it with their phones. I am about to have my skull caved in because it is being beaten on the floor of the train. So I draw my legally concealed handgun and shoot him. It turns out that it wasn’t a rape, it was a 17 year old and his 16 year old girlfriend who were just playing around. Now I am being tried for killing an unarmed child. Since he is not the same race as I am, I am accused of being a racist, my life is destroyed, and I am charged with murder.

Why risk it? Instead, I decide to mind my own business. It isn’t my responsibility to defend you, or anyone else. Try bringing a mental health counselor with you to deescalate the situation. 

By Divemedic, ago

Inflation continues

More stories about increasing prices on the horizon. The inflation we have been seeing for the past year is only the beginning. The president of Gristedes and D’Agostino Foods (A New York supermarket chain) thinks that food prices will rise dramatically in the next several weeks, and predicts a 10% increase in food costs over the next 60 days, just in time for the holidays.

No one can claim that the signs weren’t there, nor can they claim that they didn’t know this was coming. You were warned.

By Divemedic, ago

Shortages to come

The news is getting more and more obvious about the supply shortages to come.

You get the picture. The USDA has this to say:

There are currently no nationwide shortages of food, although in some cases the inventory of certain foods at your grocery store might be temporarily low before stores can restock.

You get the picture. It would be a good idea to continue rushing your preparations to completion. The collapse will come rapidly, and to those who ignore these signs, seemingly without warning.

By Divemedic, ago

Continued Warning Signs

The warning signs of worsening shortages continue. Things like Christmas trees, sneakers, chicken tenders, alcohol, Lunchables, coffee, and pet food are all reported to be in short supply.

Companies including AMC theaters, KFC, Starbucks, General Mills, Nike, FedEx, and Costco are all reporting shortages that will last at least through the end of the year and into the next. With the decrease in supply, there will be price increases, the law of supply and demand predicts it.

In fact, FedEx has already announced a 6% increase in shipping rates.

To complicate shortages, trillions in government stimulus during the pandemic has increased personal wealth, with household net worth up 4.3% in the second quarter while the debt carried by Americans rose by 7.9%. So not only decreased supply, but increased demand- more money chasing fewer products. Lovely.

The Fed will have to acknowledge all of this and make some drastic changes in monetary policy. When that eventually happens, everyone will claim that this new policy “caught them by surprise,” which will cause a decrease in stock prices.

The Fed can’t raise interest rates too much, because the US government simply doesn’t have the money to pay the extra interest on the $28.5 trillion that is already owed.

Things are going to get much, much worse.

By Divemedic, ago

Biden cutting off COVID medication to southern states

The Biden Administration, through the Federal Department of Health and Human Services, has cut off the shipment of monoclonal antibodies to Texas, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana and Alabama because of a claimed shortage. The federal government and mainstream media are promoting the restriction as “staving off shortages” due to “dwindling supplies.”

However, you will note that all seven of the states have Republican governors. One of those, Florida, is the governor that Biden threatened just last week. If you remember, he made the statement:

If they’ll not help, if these governors won’t help us beat the pandemic, I’ll use my power as president to get them out of the way.

Make no mistake, Joe Biden and the rest of his administration is at war with the citizens of this country. This decision WILL kill people. This is every bit as despicable as providing small pox infected blankets. This is a deliberate attack against the citizens of the southern US.

If it’s administered within ten days of the initial infection, the treatment can reduce the need to hospitalize a COVID patient by 70 percent, according to medical experts. Governor Desantis has been recommending the treatment since August. My mother and brother both received the treatment and recovered fully with only minor symptoms.

Now the President is using medicine to conduct biological warfare against the south. The first civil war started over much less.

By Divemedic, ago

Factions and the Power Struggle

In the old Soviet Union, there was a constant power struggle between factions. There were three main centers of power in that country, and after bloody infighting, they wound up in an uneasy truce, sharing the power of the entire nation. That is why the Kremlin was guarded by three different forces, each one loyal to a different faction.

I think that the Conservative Treehouse is on to something. The US government (and to some extent, the political parties) is fractured and the factions are struggling for power. For convenience, let’s just go with what CT began with, but make a few tweaks:

♦ TEAM One – The Department of State is aligned with the CIA. Their media PR firms are the majority of the MSM, most of Big Tech (Facebook, Alphabet, Twitter, etc.), and the Washington Post. Their ideology is favorable to the United Nations. Their internal corruption is generally driven by relationship with foreign actors. Members of Team One: Hillary Clinton, Clinton Global Initiative, Muslim Brotherhood, Samantha Powers, Susan Rice, Cass Sunstein, Brookings Institute, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Council on Foreign Relations, the NFL, NBA, and a majority of the Federal Bureaucracy (Dept of Ed, Energy, HUD, etc).

♦ TEAM Two – The White House is aligned with the Pentagon (DoD) and National Security Council (NSC). Their media PR firms include Fox News, The Wall St Journal, and other “right wing” news sources. New York Times, Politico, etc. Their internal corruption is generally driven by domestic influence. Members of Team Two: Barack Obama, George Bush, Dan Quayle, Mike Pence, Wall St, Big Banks, Multinational Corporations, Defense Contractors, FBI, most of the Judicial Branch, Nancy Pelosi, the “Never Trump” wing of the Republican Party, and Mitch McConnel.

The Trump Presidency really made both teams angry. Since he was not an insider and thus not a part of either team, this represented a threat to both teams. He HAD to go. In a rare show of unity, they united to eliminate the threat he represented. He really wasn’t a great President and had his flaws, but he really pissed off both sides, and this was fun to watch. His Presidency was the last hope of avoiding the takeover of one team or the other, it just came too late.

China has its hands in both teams. They are the funding behind both teams, and are stirring the pot. We know that they are also funding dissidents in this country, so it isn’t so far fetched to think that they are funding BLM and Antifa. China doesn’t care who wins, as long as there is discord in the US. If the US is made weaker, China gets to do what it wants on its side of the world without concern for US interference.

The American people, you will note, are not involved in this power struggle. If they will care enough to get involved remains to be seen.

What I can’t figure out is where some of the more minor players fit. AOC, BLM, and Antifa are good examples of those who appear to not be a part of either team, but still have some influence in the game. Perhaps there is a third team here at play?

By Divemedic, ago

US Army has a history of trying to take over

General Milley’s actions in refusing to obey the orders of the President, along with the fact that his subordinates knowingly followed along changed the US military from a professional military force under Constitutional authority into an armed mob engaged in a military junta. Make no mistake about it, the four men pictured below engaged in a mutiny against legitimate Constitutional authority.

The framers of the U.S. Constitution worked to ensure the military would be under civilian control. When they wrote the Constitution, they separated the responsibilities for the military, placing the responsibilities firmly in civilian hands. Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution states, “The President shall be the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States when called into the actual Service of the United States.”

Oddly enough, Milley isn’t the first US military officer to attempt to overthrow the US government. In the early days of the Republic, before the concept of civilian control of the military sank in, some military officers actively plotted against the government.

General James Wilkinson was the senior military officer from June 15, 1800 to January 27, 1812. He fought in the Revolutionary War and outfitted the Continental Army. Wilkinson became a key figure in the plan to induce what was then the “southwest United States” to form a separate nation allied with Spain. He took an oath of allegiance to Spain, spied for his secret new patron, and received an annual Spanish pension of $4,000. He was the governor of the Louisiana Territory from 1805 to 1806.

He continued as the ranking officer in the Army through 1812, when his incompetence and scheming were finally recognized and he was relieved.

The fact that Milley unilaterally decided to disobey the orders of the Commander in Chief, along with his immediate subordinates means that the US military is no longer under civilian control. Not only that, but this also means that no one who is in the military has any obligation to obey the orders of their superiors.

Milley disobeyed orders repeatedly. He did so in 2019 when he lied to the President about troop strength in Syria. He refused orders in 2020 when ordered to deploy the National Guard to stop BLM rioters in the Capitol.

When Marine Lt Colonel Scheller resigned his commission, he cited a loss of trust and confidence in his superiors’ ability to lead. When Army Lt Colonel Hague resigned HIS commission, he complained of “an ideologically Marxist takeover of the United States government at their upper echelons.” It appears as though they both knew more than the rest of the American public were led to believe.

As I have said before, we haven’t even begun to see yet how bad things can get. As the wheels continue to fall off, things will get worse and worse. Sooner or later, some military units will mutiny. That’s when things get sporty.

That is exactly why the Biden administration freaked out when they began to think that the rank and file of the US military may not be following orders any longer.

By Divemedic, ago

I was right

Now it comes out that I have been right about the US President being ousted by a coup from within our government. The entire thing was orchestrated by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Speaker of the House, in concert with, and at the direction of, the Chinese government.

In July 2020, I warned that there was an apparent Communist insurgency attempting to overthrow the US government in what appeared to be a coup that was following the CIA’s insurgency manual. (That manual can be found on the “Training Manuals” link at the top of the page)

I posted about this coup for months. In fact, I was talking about it as early as 2019.

In December, I posted that opinion over at the “View from North Central Idaho” and other bloggers laughed it off.

On January 7, I made the following observations:

  • Trump had his email and Social Media access cut off because the Obamas ordered it.
  • The Vice President ordered the activation of the National Guard
  • Republicans quickly abandoned and distanced themselves from President Trump

I saw this and came to the conclusion that the only way the orders given by Pence would be lawful was that President Trump had successfully been deposed and overthrown in a coup.

Time magazine later admitted to rigging the election.

“General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay,” Milley said. “We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.”

“General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years,” Milley added. “If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.”

After the calls, Milley ordered his top service chiefs to monitor everything “all the time,” contacted Paul Nakasone, director of the National Security Agency, and said, “Needles up … keep watching, scan,” and told then-CIA Director Gina Haspel, “Aggressively watch everything, 360.”

“Milley was overseeing the mobilization of America’s national security state without the knowledge of the American people or the rest of the world,” the book states.

The US government has fallen. We are now fully owned and administered by the Chinese Communist Party.

By Divemedic, ago