[Steve]

Ten secrets about America -

... that will make you wonder where all the freedom went

It’s no secret the definition of ‘freedom’ in America has changed a great deal in recent decades. While 9/11 was a major turning point, setting in motion a slew of changes to the American mindset and to the legal framework which governs the contract between the State and the people, our natural rights have been under assault for generations.....

https://www.nexusnewsfeed.com/article/hu...ut-america

[awakened53]

Know Your Rights.. Don't talk to Cops at Airports
by John Kiriakou

I confess to a dislike of the police; any police at any level. I dislike equally local cops, state troopers, federal law enforcement from a myriad of agencies and prison guards. I’ve always said, “Give a man a badge and a gun and you’ve created a monster.” I also believe that my opinion about law enforcement in the United States is in the minority. 

Most Americans like and trust the police. We’re bombarded on social media by exhortations to “Back the Blue!” We say “thank you for your service” along with the military at sporting events. I’m something of a “progressive constitutionalist.” I believe in freedom, equality, and individual rights. I’m not going to back the blue.

I had the pleasure of flying back to the United States this week from an overseas trip. The airline socially distanced passengers, so I had an entire row all to myself. It was one of the easiest flights I’ve had in recent memory. I arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport after 10 hours in the air and was happy to be home. I have an app on my phone called “Mobile Pass” that allows me to put my passport, flight information and photograph in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement system so that I can just breeze through Immigration and go on to baggage claim. It saves a lot of time.

‘Come with Me Sir’

I got off the plane at JFK having already completed the Mobile Pass and I went directly to the very short line for Mobile Pass holders. The ICE officer was very nice, but after he scanned my passport, he said, “Please come with me, sir. We’re going to have you talk to one of my colleagues.” I’m not stupid. I know what that means. It means “let the harassment begin.” But I was ready for it.

I was placed in secondary, where I sat for about 25 minutes. Finally, an ICE agent named Officer Oh called my name. He was assisted by Officers Hippolyte and Castellano. Apparently, it takes three armed people to deal with me.

“Have you ever been arrested for a crime?” I wasn’t surprised that was the first question. I’ve said consistently over the past eight years that I wear my conviction for blowing the whistle on the CIA’s torture program like a badge of honor. I said so on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and NBC’s Today Show. It’s no secret. 

My response was, “You know I have been. You otherwise wouldn’t ask me a stupid question like that, which has literally nothing whatsoever to do with my travel today.” The ICE agents looked at each other. “What was the nature of your crime?” Oh responded. I think he also didn’t expect my own response.

“I’m going to tell you guys exactly the same thing that I tell your friends at Dulles Airport when they harass me. I’m represented by counsel. I don’t talk to cops. You have no right to detain me. I’m a journalist and I’m going to write about this incident using your true names. And you have no legal right to keep me from entering my own country.” 

‘Free to Go’

Again they looked at each other. Finally, Oh said, “you’re free to go.”

You’re damn right I am.

I called my attorney as soon as I got out of baggage claim. He told me that I did the right thing and that he wouldn’t have given answers any different from the answers I gave. It occurred to me, though, that most Americans have no idea what their rights are. 

The American Civil Liberties Union has a great article on its website telling people what to do when they are confronted by tin horn authority at airports around America. The bottom line is that if you are an American citizen or a permanent resident (green card holder) you don’t have to answer any questions. 

ICE can delay you, but they cannot stop you from entering your own country. Tell them that. Repeat it as a mantra if you have to. And remember my personal mantra. It works: 

“I’m represented by counsel. I don’t talk to cops. You have no right to detain me.”

Cops are tough when they can hide behind each other, behind their guns, behind their badges, or behind qualified immunity. But they’re powerless when faced with the power of the Constitution. Know your rights.

Reprinted with author's permission from ConsortiumNews.

[awakened53]

Mile Markers of Tyranny: Losing Our Freedoms on the Road from 9/11 to COVID-19

“No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end.”—George Orwell

You can map the nearly 20-year journey from the 9/11 attacks to the COVID-19 pandemic by the freedoms we’ve lost along the way.
The road we have been traveling has been littered with the wreckage of our once-vaunted liberties, especially those enshrined in the Fourth Amendment.
The assaults on our freedoms that began with the post-9/11 passage of the USA Patriot Act laid the groundwork for the eradication of every vital constitutional safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse.
The COVID-19 pandemic with its lockdowns, mask mandates, surveillance, snitch lines for Americans to report their fellow citizens for engaging in risky behavior, and veiled threats of forced vaccinations has merely provided the architects of the American police state with an opportunity to flex their muscles.
These have become mile markers on the road to tyranny.

Free speech, the right to protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and transparency in government, privacy, press, sovereignty, assembly, bodily integrity, representative government: all of these and more have become casualties in the government’s ongoing war on the American people. In the process, the American people have been treated like enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, denied due process, and killed.
What the past 20 years have proven is that the U.S. government poses a greater threat to our individual and collective freedoms and national security than any terrorist, foreign threat or pandemic.
In allowing ourselves to be distracted by terror drills, foreign wars, color-coded warnings, partisan politics, pandemic scares, and other carefully constructed exercises in propaganda, sleight of hand, and obfuscation, we failed to recognize that the U.S. government—the government that was supposed to be a “government of the people, by the people, for the people”—has become the enemy of the people.
Indeed, the U.S. government has grown so corrupt, greedy, power-hungry and tyrannical over the course of the past 240-plus years that our constitutional republic has since given way to an idiocracy, and representative government has given way to a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves) and a kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of American citizens).
Although the Bill of Rights—the first ten amendments to the Constitution—was adopted as a means of protecting the people against government tyranny, in America today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.
“We the people” have been terrorized, traumatized, and tricked into a semi-permanent state of compliance by a government that cares nothing for our lives or our liberties.
The bogeyman’s names and faces have changed over time (terrorism, the war on drugs, illegal immigration, a viral pandemic), but the end result remains the same: in the so-called name of national security, the Constitution has been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded with the support of Congress, the White House, and the courts.
What we are left with today is but a shadow of the robust document adopted more than two centuries ago. Sadly, most of the damage has been inflicted upon the Bill of Rights.
Here is what it means to live under the Constitution, post-9/11 and in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic.
The First Amendment is supposed to protect the freedom to speak your mind, assemble and protest nonviolently without being bridled by the government. It also protects the freedom of the media, as well as the right to worship and pray without interference. In other words, Americans should not be silenced by the government. To the founders, all of America was a free speech zone.
Despite the clear protections found in the First Amendment, the freedoms described therein are under constant assault. Increasingly, Americans are being arrested and charged with bogus “contempt of cop” charges such as “disrupting the peace” or “resisting arrest” for daring to film police officers engaged in harassment or abusive practices. Journalists are being prosecuted for reporting on whistleblowers. States are passing legislation to muzzle reporting on cruel and abusive corporate practices. Religious ministries are being fined for attempting to feed and house the homeless. Protesters are being tear-gassed, beaten, arrested and forced into “free speech zones.” And under the guise of “government speech,” the courts have reasoned that the government can discriminate freely against any First Amendment activity that takes place within a government forum.
[center]Activist Post Recommended Book: Snitch Culture: How Citizens Are Turned Into The Eyes And Ears Of The State[/center]
The Second Amendment was intended to guarantee “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” Essentially, this amendment was intended to give the citizenry the means to resist tyrannical government. Yet while gun ownership has been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court as an individual citizen right, Americans remain powerless to defend themselves against SWAT team raids and government agents armed to the teeth with military weapons better suited to the battlefield. As such, this amendment has been rendered null and void.
The Third Amendment reinforces the principle that civilian-elected officials are superior to the military by prohibiting the military from entering any citizen’s home without “the consent of the owner.” With the police increasingly training like the military, acting like the military, and posing as military forces—complete with heavily armed SWAT teams, military weapons, assault vehicles, etc.—it is clear that we now have what the founders feared most—a standing army on American soil.
The Fourth Amendment prohibits government agents from conducting surveillance on you or touching you or invading you, unless they have some evidence that you’re up to something criminal. In other words, the Fourth Amendment ensures privacy and bodily integrity. Unfortunately, the Fourth Amendment has suffered the greatest damage in recent years and has been all but eviscerated by an unwarranted expansion of police powers that include strip searches and even anal and vaginal searches of citizens, surveillance (corporate and otherwise) and intrusions justified in the name of fighting terrorism, as well as the outsourcing of otherwise illegal activities to private contractors.
The Fifth Amendment and the Sixth Amendment work in tandem. These amendments supposedly ensure that you are innocent until proven guilty, and government authorities cannot deprive you of your life, your liberty or your property without the right to an attorney and a fair trial before a civilian judge. However, in the new suspect society in which we live, where surveillance is the norm, these fundamental principles have been upended. Certainly, if the government can arbitrarily freeze, seize or lay claim to your property (money, land or possessions) under government asset forfeiture schemes, you have no true rights.
The Seventh Amendment guarantees citizens the right to a jury trial. Yet when the populace has no idea of what’s in the Constitution—civic education has virtually disappeared from most school curriculums—that inevitably translates to an ignorant jury incapable of distinguishing justice and the law from their own preconceived notions and fears. However, as a growing number of citizens are coming to realize, the power of the jury to nullify the government’s actions—and thereby help balance the scales of justice—is not to be underestimated. Jury nullification reminds the government that “we the people” retain the power to ultimately determine what laws are just.
The Eighth Amendment is similar to the Sixth in that it is supposed to protect the rights of the accused and forbid the use of cruel and unusual punishment. However, the Supreme Court’s determination that what constitutes “cruel and unusual” should be dependent on the “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society” leaves us with little protection in the face of a society lacking in morals altogether.
The Ninth Amendment provides that other rights not enumerated in the Constitution are nonetheless retained by the people. Popular sovereignty—the belief that the power to govern flows upward from the people rather than downward from the rulers—is clearly evident in this amendment. However, it has since been turned on its head by a centralized federal government that sees itself as supreme and which continues to pass more and more laws that restrict our freedoms under the pretext that it has an “important government interest” in doing so.
As for the Tenth Amendment’s reminder that the people and the states retain every authority that is not otherwise mentioned in the Constitution, that assurance of a system of government in which power is divided among local, state and national entities has long since been rendered moot by the centralized Washington, DC, power elite—the president, Congress and the courts.
If there is any sense to be made from this recitation of freedoms lost, it is simply this: our individual freedoms have been eviscerated so that the government’s powers could be expanded.
Mind you, by “government,” I’m not referring to the highly partisan, two-party bureaucracy of the Republicans and Democrats. Rather, I’m referring to the Deep State—the corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that has set itself beyond the reach of the law and is unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and staffed by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country and calling the shots in Washington DC, no matter who sits in the White House.
This is a government that, in conjunction with its corporate partners, views the citizenry as consumers and bits of data to be bought, sold and traded.
This is a government that spies on and treats its citizens as if they have no right to privacy, especially in their own homes.
This is a government that is laying the groundwork to weaponize the public’s biomedical data as a convenient means by which to penalize certain “unacceptable” social behaviors.
This is a government that subjects its people to scans, searches, pat downs and other indignities by the TSA and VIPR raids on so-called “soft” targets like shopping malls and bus depots by black-clad, Darth Vader look-alikes.
This is a government that uses fusion centers, which represent the combined surveillance efforts of federal, state and local law enforcement, to track the citizenry’s movements, record their conversations, and catalogue their transactions.
This is a government whose wall-to-wall surveillance has given rise to a suspect society in which the burden of proof has been reversed such that Americans are now assumed guilty until or unless they can prove their innocence.
This is a government that treats its people like second-class citizens who have no rights, and is working overtime to stigmatize and dehumanize any and all who do not fit with the government’s plans for this country.
This is a government that uses free speech zones, roving bubble zones and trespass laws to silence, censor and marginalize Americans and restrict their First Amendment right to speak truth to power. The kinds of speech the government considers dangerous enough to red flag and subject to censorship, surveillance, investigation, prosecution and outright elimination include: hate speech, bullying speech, intolerant speech, conspiratorial speech, treasonous speech, threatening speech, incendiary speech, inflammatory speech, radical speech, anti-government speech, right-wing speech, left-wing speech, extremist speech, politically incorrect speech, etc.


This is a government that adopts laws that criminalize Americans for otherwise lawful activities such as holding religious studies at home, growing vegetables in their yard, and collecting rainwater.
This is a government that persists in renewing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which allows the president and the military to arrest and detain American citizens indefinitely.
This is a government that saddled us with the Patriot Act, which opened the door to all manner of government abuses and intrusions on our privacy.
This is a government that, in direct opposition to the dire warnings of those who founded our country, has allowed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to establish a standing army by way of programs that transfer surplus military hardware to local and state police.
This is a government that has militarized American’s domestic police, equipping them with military weapons such as “tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft,” in addition to armored vehicles, sound cannons and the like.
This is a government that has provided cover to police when they shoot and kill unarmed individuals just for standing a certain way, or moving a certain way, or holding something—anything—that police could misinterpret to be a gun, or igniting some trigger-centric fear in a police officer’s mind that has nothing to do with an actual threat to their safety.
This is a government that has allowed private corporations to get rich at taxpayer expense by locking people up in private prisons for non-violent crimes, while providing Corporate America with a source of cheap labor.
This is a government that has created a Constitution-free zone within 100 miles inland of the border around the United States, paving the way for Border Patrol agents to search people’s homes, intimately probe their bodies, and rifle through their belongings, all without a warrant. Incredibly, nearly 66% of Americans (2/3 of the U.S. population, 197.4 million people) now live within that 100-mile-deep, Constitution-free zone.
This is a government that treats public school students as if they were prison inmates, enforcing zero tolerance policies that criminalize childish behavior, failing to teach them their rights under the Constitution, and indoctrinating them with teaching that emphasizes rote memorization and test-taking over learning, synthesizing and critical thinking.
This is a government that is operating in the negative on every front: it’s spending far more than what it makes (and takes from the American taxpayers) and it is borrowing heavily (from foreign governments and Social Security) to keep the government operating and keep funding its endless wars abroad. Meanwhile, the nation’s sorely neglected infrastructure—railroads, water pipelines, ports, dams, bridges, airports and roads—is rapidly deteriorating.
This is a government whose gun violence—inflicted on unarmed individuals by battlefield-trained SWAT teams, militarized police, and bureaucratic government agents trained to shoot first and ask questions later—poses a greater threat to the safety and security of the nation than any mass shooter. There are now reportedly more bureaucratic (non-military) government agents armed with high-tech, deadly weapons than U.S. Marines.
This is a government that has allowed the presidency to become a dictatorship operating above and beyond the law, regardless of which party is in power.
This is a government that treats dissidents, whistleblowers and freedom fighters as enemies of the state.
This is a government—a warring empire—that forces its taxpayers to pay for wars abroad that serve no other purpose except to expand the reach of the military industrial complex.
This is a government that has in recent decades unleashed untold horrors upon the world—including its own citizenry—in the name of global conquest, the acquisition of greater wealth, scientific experimentation, and technological advances, all packaged in the guise of the greater good.
This is a government that allows its agents to break laws with immunity while average Americans get the book thrown at them.
This is a government that speaks in a language of force. What is this language of force? Militarized police. Riot squads. Camouflage gear. Black uniforms. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Surveillance cameras. Kevlar vests. Drones. Lethal weapons. Less-than-lethal weapons unleashed with deadly force. Rubber bullets. Water cannons. Stun grenades. Arrests of journalists. Crowd control tactics. Intimidation tactics. Brutality. Contempt of cop charges.


This is a government that justifies all manner of government tyranny and power grabs in the so-called name of national security, national crises and national emergencies.
This is a government that exports violence worldwide, with one of this country’s most profitable exports being weapons. Indeed, the United States, the world’s largest exporter of arms, has been selling violence to the world in order to prop up the military industrial complex and maintain its endless wars abroad.
This is a government that is consumed with squeezing every last penny out of the population and seemingly unconcerned if essential freedoms are trampled in the process.
This is a government that believes it has the authority to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe, pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation, the Constitution be damned.
In sum, this is a government that routinely undermines the Constitution and rides roughshod over the rights of the citizenry.
This is not a government that believes in, let alone upholds, freedom.
So where does that leave us?
As always, the first step begins with “we the people.”
Those who gave us the Constitution and the Bill of Rights believed that the government exists at the behest of its citizens. It is there to protect, defend and even enhance our freedoms, not violate them. Our power as a citizenry comes from our ability to agree and stand united on certain freedom principles that should be non-negotiable.
It was no idle happenstance that the Constitution opens with these three powerful words: “We the people.” In other words, we have the power to make and break the government. We are the masters and they are the servants. We the American people—the citizenry—are the arbiters and ultimate guardians of America’s welfare, defense, liberty, laws and prosperity.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we have managed to keep the wolf at bay so far. Barely.
Our national priorities need to be re-prioritized. For instance, some argue that we need to make America great again. I, for one, would prefer to make America free again.

ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email=johnw@rutherford.org]johnw@rutherford.org[/email].

Publication Guidelines / Reprint Permission
John W. Whitehead’s weekly commentaries are available for publication to newspapers and web publications at no charge. Please contact [email=staff@rutherford.org?subject=Commentary%20Reprint%20Permission]staff@rutherford.org[/email] to obtain reprint permission.

[awakened53]

Americans Are CONSTANTLY BOMBARDED With Propaganda

https://youtu.be/YGVWkV13EpA

It’s been often said that people were shocked as they watched Nazi Germany descend into complete fascism without anyone putting up a fight, and now, we are watching Americans do the same thing. It has a lot to do with the constant brainwashing and propaganda bein shoved on people all day, every day, manipulating them into being compliant with anything government commands.
Since the fear-mongering of COVID-19 started, there has been non-stop “beast mode” propaganda everywhere. There are media puppets actively pushing Big Pharma’s drugs and trying to convince everyone to take the coronavirus vaccine. This goes for all media outlets. It is becoming too obvious to ignore unless you’re willfully trying.
Trigger warning: this video calls out right-wing propaganda pushing for the vaccine. If you dislike hearing the truth about the left vs. right paradigm lie, you may not want to watch.


It shouldn’t matter “which side” is saying you should take the vaccine. The fact is, everyone in media, politics, and big Pharma, want you vaccinated. This should be a massive red flag.  “The bottom line, and the tenor of this whole thin, is that they want to convey to you that if you question this, if you question Big Pharma, if you question the biotechs, if you question the Gill Bates of the world, if you question science and all the experts they roll out, and especially if you question politicians…then we can’t have any of this critical thinking stuff.”

These talking heads in media actually want to believe that if you don’t take the vaccine, you’re a democrat suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome.”  Is it starting to make sense of how the media plays both sides in this illusion? The left vs. right paradigm is nothing more than theatre designed to distract you.  This segment was set up to play Trump supporters, and brainwash them into getting the vaccine.

Why The Federal Reserve Chose Trump Over Hillary In 2016

Truth is treason in the empire of lies, and we have reached a point where we have some critical decisions to make. We can go the way of the New World Order and just be docile slaves forever, or we can wake up and live as free and sovereign human beings we were meant to be. The choice is ours.



The post Americans Are CONSTANTLY BOMBARDED With Propaganda first appeared on SHTF Plan – When It Hits The Fan, Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You.
This article has been contributed by SHTF Plan. Visit www.SHTFplan.com for alternative news, commentary and preparedness info.

[awakened53]

Is The Pussification Of America's Youth Scientifically Engineered?

There’s been a lot of debate lately on what generation of Americans is the most to blame for the current failures of the US as a society.

Baby Boomers blame millennials for being weak, lazy and entitled;[/li]
millennials blame boomers for ruining the system before they were ever born while enjoying the fruits of a more prosperous economy.

The real answer is that it’s partially the fault of BOTH generations, but not for the reasons often argued.

The boomer vs. snowflake conflict is a controlled narrative that deliberately avoids the greater issues at hand. Yes, the newest generations of Americans have been utterly pussified, but I believe this is part of a larger agenda, and baby boomer parents unwittingly and stupidly played a supporting role.
In 4th Generation warfare the concept is to destroy a nation or civilization without using direct military confrontation, at least, not right away. Instead, the goal is to destabilize the target society from within and let the citizenry self destruct. Then, once the population is in sufficient chaos, you move in with your military forces and take over, meeting minimal resistance along the way.
The strategy can also be used to undermine and control a population by it’s own government or by elites within that government as a means to stop potential rebellion against the establishment power structure. In other words, use controlled chaos to create panic and weakness, and then snatch up more power while the citizenry is distracted and disorganized.
In order to create chaos and panic in a population, that population must be completely unprepared to deal with crisis events. They must be mentally soft and lack resolve, otherwise they might become self reliant and defiant rather than fearful and easy to control.
I was recently studying psychological conditioning methods used to prepare people for combat and crisis scenarios. The phrase “stress inoculation” comes up often. In certain branches and units of the US military there is an increased emphasis on stress inoculation (beyond basic training) as a means to strengthen soldiers and their fortitude so that when they do eventually find themselves in a combat situation where they might die, they don’t panic and allow adrenaline to take over their motor and thought processes.
Department of Defense think-tanks like DARPA have published extensive white papers on the subject, and stress inoculation is also used to some extent to treat people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The ability to perform calmly under stress is the key to combat readiness. The most effective warriors, and the most successful people in life, usually have the ability to manage stress and perform at a high level while other people flounder in terror.
Historically, many civilizations have been very careful in how they choose and train warriors for defense. Native American tribes, for example, would carefully vet their warriors and make sure they chose men that would NOT run away at the first sign of trouble; rather, they picked men they knew would confront trouble directly. A small force of psychologically prepared men was considered far superior to a vast army of potential bed wetters and hysterics.
Mentally vetting people for stress management skills has been a common human practice for thousands of years.
Some people are simply born with a greater capacity for it, but many others can be trained for stress inoculation using basic methods. The key is for people to start learning stress management when they are children. This requires them to go through experiences which cause short term acute stress, rather than long term chronic stress.
Short term acute stress strengthens mental response time and increases confidence and psychological stability by acclimating a person to surprise and shock. Long term chronic stress does the opposite, never allowing the person to acclimate and causing them to revert to a constant state of fear.
Acute stress events include physical exercise, competitive play, being placed in unfamiliar surroundings and being forced to adapt, regularly undertaking new and useful skill sets, sticking with a skill set until it is mastered, and even interactions with larger groups of unfamiliar people, such as public speaking.
One could also apply the ancient philosophical concept of Zen to stress inoculation, particularly the practice of mastering a skill so completely that a person becomes “one” with that talent, and thus “one” with themselves and their place in the world. If you have ever met a person that is a true master of a useful skill, you know that they tend to be extremely calm and confident people that do not panic easily regardless of the situation.
While researching stress inoculation methods, it struck me – What if a society was to do the exact OPPOSITE of this? What if an entire generation of children were deliberately sheltered from all forms of short term acute stress? What if they were encouraged to never work hard at anything? What if they were not given any incentive to accomplish any goals? What if competition was discouraged and children were taught to despise it as “barbaric” and “debilitating”? What if accomplishment was dismissed and the idea of “winning” was eliminated in the name of “fairness and equality”?
What if a generation of kids were so thin skinned and untrained in stress management that they panic and run to the nearest authority figure for help at the first sign of trouble? What if they were so spoiled that they had never learned to take care of themselves? What if all of their life experiences were in the form of a safe, insulated digital fantasy world where there is no real risk?
Now imagine you then take this highly coddled and sheltered generation and you suddenly expose them to a massive crisis event; such as an economic crash, or even the threat of a global pandemic? How would this group of children, now moving into adulthood without any practical skills or emotional toughness, respond to the situation?
All of their actions would be reactionary and rooted in panic and terror. Because they have never trained to deal with acute stress events they are now a walking time bomb of fear. They might respond by running and hiding, or they might respond by lashing out violently, but in either case they will have no self-control and will be ruled by emotion and adrenaline rather than logic and reason.
Wouldn’t this be the most effective way to destroy or dominate a nation over the span of a couple decades?
In America today there is the more obvious trend of social justice warriors among younger generations and their complete inability to function in normal adult society without constant protection.
What is the purpose of concepts like “safe spaces”, trigger warnings, forced diversity, intersectionality, critical race theory, micro-aggressions, implicit bias, etc., other than to artificially swaddle people so they never have to deal with negative experiences?
The only reason for the existence of so-called “victim groups” is for people who have no stress management skills to continue to avoid any and all acute stress events for the rest of their lives by making it socially or legally unacceptable to criticize them, discriminate against them as individuals, or place practical demands on them. They become a protected class with special privileges.
They deny the need to compete based on merit in the working world because they claim competition is “racist” and creates inequality. Anything that causes them stress is immediately deemed an “aggression” against them personally, and all stressors are treated as equally offensive; meaning, an insult or criticism becomes the same as a physical attack, and they react with the same level of emotional panic to both.
I believe this is a major contributor in the rush by some young people to join the “trans movement”, as it represents an easy outlet to gain victim group status and thus attain protection from stress.
Did this movement of perpetual childhood develop out of this air? The evidence says no. The social justice movement with all its Marxist underpinnings was funded and managed directly by elitist organizations like the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation, it becomes clear that the pussification of America’s youth is not a natural progression but an engineered program.
This is openly admitted in Alison R. Bernstein’s book ‘Funding The Future: Philanthropy’s Influence On Americas Higher Education’. Bernstein is the vice president of Education at the Ford Foundation and the former Associate Dean of Faculty at Princeton.
It’s not just the SJW lunatics that are the problem, though. A vast number of young people are finding themselves completely unprepared for adult life and they blame boomers indirectly for their failings. Contrary to popular belief, boomers had nothing whatsoever to do with the decline of the US economy; if you want to find the culprits behind your financial pain, I suggest learning about the history of the Federal Reserve and how that institution has systematically destroyed our currency’s buying power and our economy over time.
Where boomers are culpable is in their terrible parenting model. They raised a generation of weaklings and rarely questioned the establishment and media propaganda that told them that helicopter parenting and the “self esteem model” was the best way to raise their children. While perhaps done out of love, boomers spoiled their own kids so completely and shielded them from all acute stress that as young adults they now have no capacity to succeed in a world where survival instincts might be required.
Consider the most common complaint among next-gen adults – That boomers all enjoy home ownership while they will never be able to afford the privilege because boomers ruined the economy. This, they claim, is the reason why boomers should not be allowed to criticize the inactivity and laziness of millennials. Yet, the majority of boomers had to leave home and become adults at age 18 (some of them even sooner), while a large number of millennials live with mom and dad well into their 30s, feeding off of them like parasites rather than working and saving. Gen Z appears ready to do the same. Boomers started their adult lives sooner, and thus they accumulated assets and wealth faster.
Of course, boomers share the blame. Helicopter parents have helped to ruin American culture, even though numerous psychological studies indicate that sheltering children from short term stress destroys their ability to cope as adults.
At bottom, though, boomers were encouraged at every moment to continue this style of parenting by the media and elitist foundations. The Ford Foundation in particular was a primary force behind the modern parenting and public education methodology of stress avoidance. The foundation was key in the development of such programs as Head Start and has spent hundreds of millions on the training of public school teachers in social justice methodologies.
Ford was also the primary engine behind the creation of the National Education Television Center, which later became PBS, and funded such prominent children’s shows as Sesame Street and Mister Rogers. This is not to say the people that produced these shows had any nefarious agenda in mind, only that both shows often promoted stress avoidance rather than stress confrontation and management. To this day, stress inoculation training is becoming more and more rare among America’s youth, and it is quickly being erased in public schools.
If history is any indicator, the weakest generations when faced with overwhelming crisis will demand protection, as they always have, whether it be physical protection or financial protection. And inevitably they will turn to government collectivism or the money elites for a feeling of safety in exchange for their liberties. They don’t value their freedoms because they have never enjoyed the feeling of independence anyway. The trade for comfort becomes easy for them.
Not all younger Americans suffer from this affliction. Many are strong willed, but those that are usually admit freely that they feel isolated among the majority of their peers. I find it hard to believe it’s mere coincidence that perhaps the weakest generation of Americans ever is now facing the worst series of crisis events in our history. The whole thing seems planned…
Stress inoculation is a lot like strengthening your own immune system – Sometimes you have to work through sickness when you are young in order to improve your immunity to sickness later in life. By the same token, you have to experience stress events when you are young so that you can better deal with crisis events later in life. Otherwise, you grow up as malleable as jello and just as easy to devour.
The good news is, even as adults stress inoculation can be learned. As our world grows more and more unstable and uncertain, being able to manage our own fears is becoming paramount to our continued liberty and livelihood.

[awakened53]

CORRUPTION IS NOW OUR WAY OF LIFE

Systemic corruption and the implosion of the social contract have consequences: It's called collapse.

Social and economic decay is so glacial that only those few who remember an earlier [i]set-point are equipped to even notice the decline. That's the position we find ourselves in today.[/i]
Many Americans will discount the systemic corruption that characterizes the American way of life because they've known nothing but systemic corruption. They've habituated to it because they have no memory of a time when looting wasn't legalized and maximizing self-enrichment by any means available wasn't the unwritten law of the land.
If you don't yet see America as little more than an intertwined collection of skims, scams, frauds, embezzlements, lies, gaming-the-system, obfuscation of risk and exploitation of the masses by insiders, please read How Corruption is Becoming America's Operating System. (nakedcapitalism.com, via Cheryl A.)
Here on oftwominds.com, you might want to read No Wrongdoing Here, Just 6,300 Corporate Fines and Settlements. (May 2015)
When JP Morgan Chase engaged in fraud and was fined a wrist-slap $1 billion, nobody went to prison because nobody ever goes to prison for corporate fraud and criminal collusion: JPMorgan to pay almost $1 billion fine to resolve U.S. investigation into trading practices.
Simply put, corruption is cost-free in America because most of it is legal. And whatever is still illegal is never applied to the elites and insiders, except (as per Communist regime corruption) for a rare show trial where an example is made of an egregious fall-guy (think Bernie Madoff: whistleblowers' repeated attempts to expose the fraud to regulators were blown off for years. It was only when Madoff ripped off wealthy and powerful insiders did he go down.)
There are three primary sources for the complete systemic corruption of America. One is the transition from civic responsibility for the social contract and the national interest to winner-take-most legalized looting.
This transition is visible in the history of empires in the final stage of collapse. The assumption underlying the social order slides from a shared duty to the nation and fellow citizens to an obsession with evading civic duties: military service, taxes, and following the rules are all avoided by insiders and elites, and this moral/social rot then corrupts the entire social order as elites and insiders lean ever more heavily on the remaining productive class to pay the taxes and provide the military muscle to defend their wealth.
That corruption is now everywhere in America is obvious to all but those adamantly blinded by denial. The JP Morgans pay fines as a cost of doing corrupt business, while "public servants" game the system to maximize their pensions with a variety of tricks: colluding to boost the overtime of the retiring insider; finding a quack physican to sign off on a fake "heart murmur" so the insider pays no taxes on their "disability" check, and so on in an endless parade of lies, scams, skims and insider tricks.
The excuse is always the same: everybody does it. This is of course the collapse not just of the social contract but of morality in general: anything goes and winners take most. Insiders look the other way lest their own skims and scams be contested, and elites and insiders view those who aren't skimming and scamming as chumps to be pitied.
The second dynamic is that financialization has completely corrupted the American economy, and that corruption has now spread to the political and social orders. Once the financial sector conquered the real economy, it began siphoning 95% of the economy's wealth to the top .01% and their toadies, lackeys, apologists, enforcers and technocrats.
As they hollowed out the real economy, distorted incentives and made moral hazard the guiding principle of the American way of life, the recipients of financialization's domination gained the wealth to buy political power from the pathetically corruptible political class.
The corruption that we call financialization corrupted democracy and undermined the social contract by eviscerating the value of labor and creating a pay-to-play political order that's a mockery of democracy.
The third factor is the decay of America's institutions into fronts for personal gain. While Higher Education insiders are masters of self-serving PR, the truth is they're not concerned about their debt-serf "customers" (students) learning the essential skills needed in the tumultuous decades ahead--they're worried that the revenues needed to pay their enormous salaries and benefits might dry up.
"Education" is nothing but a front for the corruption of self-enrichment by the elites and insiders at the top.
The same is true of "healthcare." The concern of insiders isn't the declining health of America's populace, it's the decline in revenues as fewer "customers" come in for the financial scalping of emergency care.
"Healthcare" is nothing but a front for the corruption of self-enrichment by the elites and insiders at the top.
Thanks to the Federal Reserve's endless free money for financiers and endless federal borrow-and-blow deficits, the unstated belief is since there's endless "money", my petty frauds and skims won't even dent the feeding trough--there's always another trillion or three to skim and scam, and there will never be any limit to the feeding trough.
There is no limit until the system implodes. Then the collapse becomes limitless
Ironic, isn't it? The oh-so convenient belief that America's wealth and power are eternal and godlike in their glory fosters the crass corruption that has weakened America to the point of no return: systemic fragility and brittleness.
American Exceptionalism has been turned on its head: America is now as perniciously corrupt as any developing-world nation we smugly felt so superior to, and with extremes of wealth and income inequality that surpass even the most rapacious kleptocracies. This destabilizing "exceptionalism" is now the defining characteristic of the American economy, society and political order.
Systemic corruption and the implosion of the social contract have consequences: It's called [i]collapse, baby, and the rot is now too deep to reverse.[/i]

[awakened53]

Does The Coronavirus Make Our Constitutional Freedom Of Assembly Obsolete?

By Brandon Smith
Over the past couple of weeks a trend has become apparent in the state of Idaho, specifically in Moscow, Idaho in Latah County. The city council of Moscow has issued a mandatory mask order, and they are using police to enforce it. Bizarrely, the city had ZERO deaths from Covid at the time the mask order was instituted, meaning their action was in response to…nothing.
Idaho has had a total of 500 deaths from Covid since the beginning of the outbreak. To put this in perspective, the state also has around 400 deaths from diabetes every year, and 250 deaths from the flu/pneumonia according to the CDC. Perhaps they should ban sugar, and make masks mandatory for the flu as well, just to be safe…
The residents of Moscow are not too happy with the city council attempt to unilaterally enforce such mandates. Church congregations in particular are fighting back by holding outdoor services without masks. The city has responded by ARRESTING the pastors of any church that dare to defy mask laws.

I bring up this specific instance of coronavirus enforcement because the circumstances surrounded it are disturbing…
First, it is not surprising that Latah County is one of the ONLY counties in Idaho that leans to the far-left politically, and the majority of the city council of Moscow is made up of leftists. Moscow is also the home of the University of Idaho. It seems wherever the political left sets up shop, Constitution-violating mandates on the coronavirus are prevalent. Even if a state government is predominantly more conservative and less antagonistic on lockdowns, left leaning city and county officials have decided they are going to enforce their own restrictions anyway.
Second, the mask rules are being used against people who held meetings outdoors, and this is something I am seeing all over the world right now. Why is the science of virus behavior in outdoor open air environments not being discussed AT ALL in the mainstream? Why is no one talking about the fact that open air and UV rays from sunlight KILL microorganisms? The chance of contracting the coronavirus outdoors is next to zero, yet mask rules are being strictly instituted from Melbourne, Australia to New York, New York to Moscow, Idaho.
Government officials must surely be aware that the science contradicts these orders. And if this is the case, then this only confirms that such restrictions are not about saving lives; they are about control.
Third, the use of targeted arrests against organizers of group events is clearly an attempt to frighten the public into compliance without confronting their concerns directly. The goal is to encourage self-censorship and to manipulate citizens to avoid public assembly without coming out openly and saying “We are banning public assembly”. It’s an end-run around the constitution, and these actions are increasing in the US.
As I have noted in past articles, I have been watching the draconian coronavirus measures in Australia and New Zealand very closely. My concerns rest on the other side of the world because what I see happening there is perhaps a beta-test for high intensity lockdown restrictions in other Western nations including America.
Restrictions in these countries are rooted in what they are calling “Level 4 lockdowns”, and include mandatory mask orders (even outside), mandatory social distancing, bans on public assembly, church closures, citizens are not allowed to travel more than 3 miles from home (essentially people are under house arrest, with only one hour per day outside to exercise), people who contract the virus or are suspected of being infected can be locked up in Covid camps for as long as government officials deem it necessary, and in New Zealand these camps are managed by the military.
People speaking out against the lockdowns online are being arrested for “incitement”. Free speech in Australia is nearly dead.
I believe the establishment of medical tyranny is moving so quickly in Australia because the vast majority of the population has been disarmed and they have limited means to fight back. It’s an easy place to test out control measures. Protests are taking place, but without a means of self defense the citizenry is at the mercy of government and law enforcement. If the government wants to crack down violently on anti-lockdown groups, there will be little the public can do to stop them.
What I see happening in places like Moscow, Idaho is the initial stages of medical tyranny similar to what is happening in Australia. What I see is an incremental form of totalitarianism, and it simply cannot be tolerated.
We have heard it often during this pandemic event that we are “all in this together” and the lockdowns are “serving the greater good”, but this is nonsense. The constitutional rights of public assembly and freedom of religion in particular are being stifled, and these rights ARE the greater good. They are far more important than the lives of the select few people who are susceptible to the virus.
Beyond that, why are we not talking about the number of people that are losing their jobs due to the lockdowns? How about the number of people that will die over time from poverty or depression or economic collapse because of the lockdowns? Is it not a matter of the “greater good” that we end the restrictions rather than increase them?
No virus is worth this. It would not matter if we were talking about the Black Plague. Ultimately, though, Covid affects a very small portion of the US population. The real solution to the pandemic is simple


The people who are most susceptible should voluntarily stay home and quarantine, and the rest of us should get on with our lives with an open economy and normal constitutional rights. Why is this option not being presented?
Mask laws in particular are truly bizarre. There is little evidence that cloth masks are effective in the slightest, but the idea that “everyone must wear a mask” in order for the masks to work reveals the true nature of the restrictions.
If your mask is useless unless I also wear a mask, then the masks we are wearing are not offering much protection and their enforcement should be questioned. The fact that numerous states and counties across the US have had infection spikes even with strict mask mandates suggests to me that the masks are pointless. Even the CDC questions the effectiveness of cloth masks and recommends N95 masks for healthcare workers until there is some evidence that cloth masks function.
If the CDC doesn’t believe they work very well, then why are people even wearing them, and why are people being arrested for refusing to use them? Again, the science does not support the mandates, so they must be about control rather than saving lives. If you can get a population acclimated to having the government involved in the smallest intricacies of their lives on a daily basis then freedom goes out the window and the establishment enjoys total power to do whatever they please.
Don’t get me wrong, if a person WANTS to wear a mask, or take other precautions no matter how dubious, then I have nothing bad to say about them. That is their decision. If a business wants to require masks before entering, then that is also their right as property owners. I can choose to not shop there if I don’t like it. But it is not anyone’s right to attempt to force others to comply with their baseless rules just so they can personally feel safer. If I’m not wearing a mask and you don’t like it, then don’t come near me; it’s very easy.  As leftists like to say:  My body my choice.
Take note of how many instances we have seen so far of Mask Nazis physically attacking people not wearing masks. Isn’t this the exact opposite of what they have been preaching?  Also take note that Mask Nazis tend to be avid supporters of BLM and Antifa mobs that ignore pandemic restrictions.  Again, they don’t care about health issues, they are angry because you are not submitting to their control.
Another terrifying development during the pandemic is the use of executive orders and executive authority to initiate restrictions without public oversight. Here is the bottom line: No government, whether it be federal, state or local, has the power to violate your constitutional rights. Period. If a law or executive order tramples on the Bill of Rights, then it is automatically null and void and should be defied. National emergencies do no supplant the Constitution, regardless of what statists might claim.
Executive orders in particular are based on nothing other than color of law. In most cases they do not legally apply to the citizenry, only to government employees. Real laws are passed by the legislature, and are often added to a ballot to be voted on by the public. No governor, mayor, city council or president has the authority to assert new laws without oversight like a dictator.


The political left has been quick to point out these facts whenever Donald Trump issues executive orders, yet they are also quick to defend those orders issued by states and cities to enforce unconstitutional and illegal lockdowns.
In the end, whether you respect the Bill of Rights or not, laws are meaningless unless they are backed by principles. A law that is immoral and unjust should not be followed. Government representatives that abuse their positions to assert powers that are not granted them by the constitution should be unseated. The coronavirus changes nothing – not a thing.
I would suggest that anyone who lives in a place that is trying to enforce restrictions that are contrary to the Bill of Rights act now to disrupt what is likely an incremental march towards medical tyranny. If you don’t stand in opposition to these actions now, they will only grow over time until a majority of people become conditioned to accept them.

[awakened53]

Court Declares Gov. Newsom’s Abuse of Power Unconstitutional

California Assemblymen Kevin Kiley and James Gallagher sued to stop California Governor Gavin Newsom’s “one man rule,” as California Globe has reported over several months. They were in Sutter County Superior Court October 21st, arguing that Gov. Gavin Newsom has exceeded his emergency powers in issuing Executive Orders having nothing to do with the coronavirus pandemic crisis.
Monday, State Superior Court Judge Sarah Heckman tentatively ruled in favor of Gallagher (R-Yuba City) and Kiley (R-Rocklin) in their abuse of power lawsuit against Governor Newsom.
In the tentative ruling, Judge Heckman declared the Governor’s recent Executive Order N-67-20 unconstitutional. More importantly, Judge Heckman’s tentative ruling places a permanent injunction against the Governor which prevents him from unilaterally making or changing state law moving forward.
Assemblyman Kiley wrote:
The Judge ruled Newsom violated the Constitution. She also issued an injunction restraining the Governor from issuing any more unconstitutional orders. You can read the ruling here.
This marks an end to Gavin Newsom’s one-man rule. It makes clear that the laws of the State of California do not countenance an autocracy under any circumstances – not for a single day, and certainly not for eight months with no end in sight.
The ruling is “tentative,” meaning Newsom has a few days to try to persuade the Judge to change her mind, but it’s rare for a tentative ruling to change. While Newsom can appeal, we are confident the decision is on solid legal ground and will stand.
Kiley and Gallagher argue that California’s Constitution has an explicit separation-of-powers provision, which Gov. Newsom has violated. “A California Governor is constitutionally forbidden from doing the very thing Gov. Newsom has done here: exercise legislative powers,” they said.
Gov. Newsom’s Executive Order to create an all-vote-by-mail-election suspends and substantively changes California’s Elections Code. Gov. Newsom contends that the order “fits comfortably within the Governor’s broad grant of authority under the Emergency Services Act.”
Gov. Newsom’s attorneys argued that the governor does have the “”plenary” authority, along with “broad police powers” during a declared State of Emergency, and under the California Emergency Services Act (CESA).
In her ruling, Judge Heckman explains:
The Governor takes the position the California Emergency Services Act’s grant of authority to exercise “all police power vested in the state,” allowing him to “promulgate, issue, and enforce such orders and regulations as he deems necessary” authorizes him to legislate by unilaterally amending existing statutory law. Not only is this an active and ongoing controversy between the parties, but it is a critically important one for the Judicial Branch to resolve.
The Governor has issued three executive orders during the current state of emergency specifically regarding the November 3,2020 general election (Def. Exs. 4 and 5; Pl. Ex. D) and has issued more than 50 different executive orders changing numerous Califomia statutes since the state of emergency was declared. (Pl. Ex. F) Further, despite representations by the Governor’s legal counsel that Executive Order N-67- 20 dated June 3,2020 is “withdrawn,” there is no evidence it has been formally rescinded, and the Executive Order includes provisions controlling the election process for the November 3, 2020 General Election which were not superseded by the subsequently enacted legislation.
Specifically, despite the subsequent legislation, the Executive Order remained in effect requiring all county election officials to use the Secretary of State’s barcode tracking system for all mail ballots and altered the statutorily required outreach in Voter’s Choice Act counties to provide noticed, public meetings allowing for public comment on voting access for California voters with disabilities or limited English proficiency.

Read more: Court Declares Gov. Newsom’s Abuse of Power Unconstitutional

[Hill25]

Ten secrets about America -

... that will make you wonder where all the freedom went

It’s no secret the definition of ‘freedom’ in America has changed a great deal in recent decades. While 9/11 was a major turning point, setting in motion a slew of changes to the American mindset and to the legal framework which governs the contract between the State and the people, our natural rights have been under assault for generations.....

https://www.nexusnewsfeed.com/article/hu...ut-america

Land of the free, home of the brave (lyrics of American national anthem): Land of freedom, place of the courageous (lyrics from the American national anthem) idiom.
Liteblue

[awakened53]

Dismantling the Constitution: Police No Longer Have to Honor the Right to Remain Silent

“That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn’t even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn’t even an enemy you could put your finger on.”—Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

We are witnessing the gradual dismantling of every constitutional principle that serves as a bulwark against government tyranny, overreach and abuse.
As usual, the latest assault comes from the U.S. Supreme Court.
In a 6-3 ruling in Vega v. Tekoh, the Supreme Court took aim at the Miranda warnings, which require that police inform suspects that they have a right against self-incrimination when in police custody: namely, that they have a right to remain silent, to have an attorney present, and that anything they say and do can and will be used against them in a court of law.
Although the Supreme Court stopped short of overturning its 1966 ruling in Miranda v. Arizona, the conservative majority declared that individuals cannot hold police accountable for violating their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.
By shielding police from lawsuits arising from their failure to Mirandize suspects, the Supreme Court has sent a message to police that they no longer have to respect a suspect’s right to remain silent.
In other words, concludes legal analyst Nick Sibilla, “the Supreme Court has effectively created a new legal immunity for cops accused of infringing on the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination.”
Why is this important?
In totality, the rights enshrined in the Fifth Amendment speak to the Founders’ determination to protect the rights of the individual against a government with a natural inclination towards corruption, tyranny and thuggery.
The Founders were especially concerned with balancing the scales of justice in such a way that the innocent and the accused were not railroaded and browbeaten by government agents into coerced confessions, false convictions, or sham trials.
Indeed, so determined were the Founders to safeguard the rights of the innocent, even if it meant allowing a guilty person to go free, that Benjamin Franklin insisted, “It is better a hundred guilty persons should escape than one innocent person should suffer.”
Two hundred-plus years later, the Supreme Court (aided and abetted by the police state, Congress and Corporate America) has flipped that longstanding presumption of innocence on its head.
In our present suspect society, “we the people” are all presumed guilty until proven innocent.
With the Vega ruling, we have even fewer defenses for warding off government chicanery, abuse, threats and entrapment.
To be clear, the Supreme Court is not saying that we don’t have the right to remain silent when in police custody. It’s merely saying that we can’t sue the police for violating that right.
It’s a subtle difference but a significant one that could well encourage police to engage in the very sort of egregious misconduct at the heart of the Vega case: in which a police officer investigating a sexual assault isolated a suspect in a small, windowless room; refused him access to a lawyer or work colleagues; accused him of molesting a female patient; threatened him with violence; implied that he and his family would be deported; and terrorized him into signing a false confession dictated by the cop.