Who are the US police really protecting?

Source: Who are the US police really protecting? | USA | Al Jazeera

http://www.aljazeera.com

By Kim Kelly

Kim Kelly is an editor at Noisey, VICE’s music and culture channel, and is based in New York City.

July 21, 2017

Anti-fascist protesters and bystanders hold their hands in the air while law enforcement officers detain them during competing demonstrations in Portland [David Ryder/Reuters]

 On June 12, 2017, New Jersey’s Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness (OHSP) added a new name to its list of “domestic terrorist” threats: Antifa.

The report characterises “Antifa” as a group of “anarchist extremists” who “focus on issues involving racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism, as well as other perceived injustices,” a half-baked definition, while technically accurate, is far from comprehensive. Unlike the other American entities that have earned this dubious distinction (and despite what hysterical FOX News hosts like to shrill), Antifa isn’t an organised group, a gang, or even a society.

Antifa – shorthand for anti-fascist – isn’t an organisation at all; it’s an idea, one that’s been knocking around since the 1930s and that has found newfound relevance on our shores since the rise of Trumpism and the current administration’s sharp pivot towards the far right. It’s also one of the few bulwarks left against the rapid growth of America’s white supremacist movement, a development that seems to leave the state, the authorities, and the police wholly unconcerned.

Given the simmering threat of violence, police are a constant fixture at the now routine public clashes where the far left meets alt-right in the drawn-out battle for the soul of Trump’s America. During these rowdy protests and counterprotests, there’s often nothing but a thin blue line in riot gear separating the twain, armed to the teeth and bearing pepper spray, sound cannons, and L-RADs alongside their firearms. 

That line holds when it’s escorting Ku Klux Klan members or acting as a barrier between alt-right attention-seekers and black-clad Antifa protesters, but becomes awfully porous when it wants to be. I’ve witnessed many instances in which non-violent, masked protesters find themselves beaten or behind bars while Trump devotees and white nationalists brandishing Confederate flags and wearing flag bandanas (do those masks not count?) are herded into safe spaces and given police protection at protests. 

While both sides have been known to employ violent tactics, there’s a double standard at work; for example, critics of the black bloc have been oddly silent about the gun-toting Klansmen in Charlottesville and the National Rifle Association’s bloodthirsty threats masquerading as advertisements. The police seem to know who they want to target, and somehow it’s never the old white men wrapped in American flags or spotty teenagers in Roman warrior cosplay.

‘Moderate threat’

One of the more interesting tidbits in an accompanying NJ OHSP report, titled The Face of White Supremacy in 2017, noted that, “NJ OHSP assesses white supremacist extremists remain a moderate threat to New Jersey. Since January, white supremacist extremists conducted four attacks, one plot, and three stockpiling incidents across the United States”. The write-up mentions several white supremacist groups like Identity Evropa and Vanguard America, noting their campaigns to intimidate and recruit at New Jersey universities; curiously, militia groups like the Oathkeepers, 3 Percenters, and Patriot Prayer and gangs like 211 and the Proud Boys are not mentioned, despite their violent track records and penchant for harassment. 

With all of this tension and violence percolating throughout the country, placing Antifa in the same category as hatemongers like ISIS, the KKK, and Identity Evropa is not only disingenuous, it’s patently absurd.

In the report on Antifa, though, there are no such warnings; instead, the report seems to grasp at straws to justify its own existence. It cites out-of-state incidents in Berkeley and Sacramento to illustrate the perceived threat, while a “small fight” on March 28 serves as the sole example of Antifa allegedly causing problems in New Jersey.

If anything, the OHSP’s efforts show that Antifa’s more disruptive tactics are a direct response to the danger posed by white supremacists, et al: “Violent confrontations between Antifa members and white supremacists – as well as militia groups – will likely continue because of ideological differences and Antifa’s ability to organise on social media. In the past year, Antifa groups have become active across the United States, employing a variety of methods to disrupt demonstrations.”

Why, then, has Governor Chris Christie and his cohorts decided to brand a loose group of anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-Trump protesters as “domestic terrorists”? As he’s made quite clear over the course of his fitful eight-year term, Christie is not overly concerned with the well-being of the people of New Jersey, and certainly doesn’t give a fig about how the state’s marginalised communities are coping under the Trump administration’s draconian policies.

He does, however, care about currying favour with the boss, glumly playing lapdog to the petty tyrant who inadvertently launched one of 2017’s most delightful oxymorons by whining about “professional anarchists” ruining his paltry inauguration party. Demonising resistance wins Christie a few of those coveted “law and order” points, and makes him look like he’s actually doing something besides wasting taxpayer money and worming his way into the sports radio circuit.

Here, Christie is indulging in a perverse kind of “virtue signalling”, that favourite alt-right insult. By taking a specific stand against “Antifa” and using state resources to do it, Christie and his pals are saying, “Any enemy of Trump’s is an enemy of mine” and working to tamp down any signs of rebellion against their guy – even if it means tacitly turning a blind eye to the white supremacist organising that bears a far, far greater threat to the American people than the actions of ultimately utopian anarchist anti-fascists.

A win for the right wing

It’s telling that right-wing conspiracy theory site InfoWars and other alt-right blogs celebrated the NJ OHSP report; it was a definite win for them since they view any effort to delegitimise those they oppose as an endorsement for their own rancid ideologies.

It’s no surprise that conservative politicians are pulling out all the stops to quash dissent. They benefit the most from America’s ingrained white supremacist heteropatriarchy, and any challenge to their place at the top of the totem pole isn’t going to be met with open arms. Silence against the white supremacist threat signals complicity and is especially dangerous given the power that racist white nationalists like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller wield in the White House and the explosion of hate crimes that have rocked marginalised communities since Trump came to power.

In May, the Trump administration slashed funding for 30 organisations – including six police departments – that work to counter white supremacist extremism; anti-Muslim hate crimes have risen 91 percent since he took office, while anti-Semitic hate crimes have surged 86 percent; this year has seen the murders of 15 trans women of colour, while 54 unarmed black people have been killed by police since January 2017.

With all of this tension and violence percolating throughout the country, placing Antifa in the same category as hatemongers like ISIL, the KKK, and Identity Evropa is not only disingenuous, it’s patently absurd. The whole situation sounds like a rejected Sean Hannity bit, and yet, here we are.

An ongoing pattern

This cockamamie “domestic terrorist” ploy is part of an ongoing pattern. The mass arrests that took centre stage at Trump’s inauguration have set a worrisome precedent for his administration’s treatment of dissenters, as does the fact that over 200 protesters are still facing a bevy of felony charges that could land some in prison for 70 to 80 years.

In a throwback to the way lawmakers attempted to hobble labour organising in the 19th and 20th centuries, Republican politicians in 18 states have introduced legislation aimed at curtailing the ability to protest, and the president himself often lashes out publicly at anyone who dares to question him or his policies.

Even worse is the growing sense that, despite the expectation of impartiality that the adage “protect and serve” might inspire, as agents of the state – especially this incarnation of the state – the police cannot be trusted to protect protesters on both the left and the right.

Whether they’re turning a blind eye to violence (as I saw first-hand at a recent “March Against Sharia” counterprotest and myriad other protests in New York City), treating neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and the KKK with kid gloves, arresting Antifa and left-wing protesters on trumped-up charges, or reacting with seemingly arbitrary excessive force, it’s become exceedingly apparent to those on the left that the cops do not have our best interests in mind. Whether that’s because they’re following orders from up top or acting on their own prejudices remains to be seen, but it paints an ugly picture no matter what the impetus.

“Cops and Klan go hand in hand,” goes the sing-songy old protest chant that’s long been a staple at political demonstrations and protests – a battle cry that aims to infuriate its targets while galvanising those who stand in opposition.

Like any good slogan, it boils down a complicated belief system into a short, sharp shock of verbal ammunition that neatly encapsulates the anarchist viewpoint that the police are a jackbooted instrument of state repression, equating the men and women in blue with Klansman’s white hoods.

While this viewpoint may be difficult for many to stomach in a world where “Blue Lives Matter” is a popular T-shirt design, I implore you: watch the footage of Charlottesville police officers forming a protective phalanx around a small group of unapologetically sieg-heiling Klansmen to keep them away from crowds of angry protesters, and tell me just who the cops – and their bosses – are really trying to protect and serve.

Kim Kelly’s writings on music, culture, and politics have appeared in the Guardian, NPR, the Atlantic, Rolling Stone, VICE, and Pitchfork, among others. She’s currently an editor at Noisey, VICE’s music and culture channel, and is based in New York City. 

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

Time for the “International Left” to Take a Stand on Venezuela

Source: Time for the “International Left” to Take a Stand on Venezuela

http://www.counterpunch.org

by Gregory Wilpert

July 17, 2017

Venezuela is heading towards an increasingly dangerous situation, in which open civil war could become a real possibility. So far over 100 people have been killed as a result of street protests, most of these deaths are the fault of the protesters themselves (to the extent that we know the cause). The possibility of civil war becomes more likely as long the international media obscure who is responsible for the violence and as long as the international left remains on the sidelines in this conflict and fails to show solidarity with the Bolivarian socialist movement in Venezuela.

If the international left receives its news about Venezuela primarily from the international media, it is understandable why it is being so quiet. After all, this mainstream media consistently fails to report who is instigating the violence in this conflict. For example, a follower of CNN or the New York Times would not know that of the 103 who have been killed as a result of street protests, 27 were the direct or indirect result of the protesters themselves. Another 14 were the result of lootings, in one prominent case because looters set fire to a store and ended up getting engulfed in the flames themselves. 14 deaths are attributable to the actions of state authorities (where in almost all cases those responsible have been charged), and 44 are still under investigation or in dispute. This is according to data from the office of the Attorney General, which itself has recently become pro-opposition.

Also unknown to most consumers of the international media would be that opposition protesters detonated a bomb in the heart of Caracas on July 11, wounding seven National Guard soldiers, that a building belonging to the Supreme Court was burnt by opposition protesters on June 12th or that opposition protesters attacked a maternity hospital on May 17.

President Maduro

In other words, it is possible that much of the international left has been misled about the violence in Venezuela, into thinking that the government is the only one responsible, that President Maduro has declared himself to be dictator for life (when he actually confirmed that the presidential elections scheduled for late 2018 will proceed as planned), or that all dissent is being punished with prison (when a major opposition leader, Leopoldo Lopez, who was partly responsible for the post-election violence in 2014 was just released from prison, now under house arrest). If this is the reason for the silence on Venezuela, then the left should be ashamed for not having read its own critiques of the mainstream media.

All of the foregoing does not contradict that there are plenty of places where one might criticize the Maduro government for having made mistakes with regard to how it has handled the current situation, both economically and politically. However, criticisms (of which I have made several myself) do not justify taking either a neutral or pro-opposition stance in this momentous conflict. As the South African anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu once said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

Perhaps the Venezuelan case is also confusing to outsiders because President Maduro is in power and the opposition is not. It could thus be difficult to see the opposition as being an “oppressor.” However, for an internationalist left it should not be so confusing. After all, the opposition in Venezuela receives significant support not only from private business, but also from the US government, the international right, and transnational capital.

Perhaps progressives feel that the Maduro government has lost all democratic legitimacy and that this is why they cannot support it. According to the mainstream media coverage, Maduro canceled regional elections scheduled for December 2016, prevented the recall referendum from happening, and neutralized the National Assembly. Let’s take a brief look at each of these claims one by one.

First, regional elections (state governors and mayors) were indeed supposed to take place in late 2016, but the National Electoral Council (CNE) postponed them with the argument that political parties needed to re-register first. Leaving aside the validity of this argument, the CNE rescheduled the elections recently for December 2017. This postponement of a scheduled election is not unprecedented in Venezuela because it happened before, back in 2004, when local elections were postponed for a full year. Back then, at the height of President Chávez’s power, hardly anyone objected.

As for the recall referendum, it was well known that it would take approximately ten months to organize between its initiation and its culmination. However, the opposition initiated the process in April 2016, far too late for the referendum to take place in 2016, as they wanted (because if it takes place in 2017 there would be no new presidential election, according to the constitution, and the vice-president takes over for the remainder of the term).

Finally, with regard to the disqualification of the National Assembly, this was another self-inflicted wound on the part of the opposition. That is, even though the opposition had won 109 out of 167 seats (65%) outright, they insisted on swearing in three opposition members whose election was in dispute because of fraud claims. As a result, the Supreme Court ruled that until these three members are removed, most decisions of the national assembly would not be valid.

In other words, none of the arguments against the democratic legitimacy of the Maduro government hold much water. More than that, polls repeatedly indicate that even though Maduro is fairly unpopular, a majority of Venezuelans want him to finish his term in office, which expires in January 2019. As a matter of fact, Maduro’s popularity is not as low as several other (conservative) presidents in Latin America at the moment, such as that of Mexico’s Enrique Peña Nieto (17% in March, 2017), Brazil’s Michel Temer (7% in June, 2017), or Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos (14% in June, 2017). Compare these to Nicolas Maduro’s 24% approval rating in March 2017.

Now that we have addressed the possible reasons why the international left has been reluctant to show solidarity with the Maduro government and the Bolivarian socialist movement, we need to examine what “neutrality” in this situation would end up meaning – in other words, what allowing the opposition to come to power via an illegal and violent transition would mean.

First and foremost, their coming to power will almost certainly mean that all Chavistas – whether they currently support President Maduro or not – will become targets for persecution. Although it was a long time ago, many Chavistas have not forgotten the “Caracazo,” when in February 1989, then-president Carlos Andrés Perez meted out retaliation on poor neighborhoods for protesting against his government and wantonly killed somewhere between 400 and 1,000 people. More recently, during the short-lived coup against President Chávez in April 2002 the current opposition showed it was more than willing to unleash reprisals against Chavistas. Most do not know this, but during the two-day coup regime over 60 Chavistas were killed in Venezuela (this figure does not include the 19 killed in the lead-up to the coup, on both sides of the political divide). The post-election violence of April 2013 left 7 dead, and the Guarimbas of February to April 2014 left 43 dead. Although the dead in each of these cases represented a mix of opposition supporters, Chavistas, and non-involved bystanders, in almost all of these cases the majority belonged to the Chavista side of the political divide. Now, during the most recent wave of guarimbas, there have also been several incidents where a Chavista was too close to an opposition protest were chased and killed because protesters recognized them to be a Chavista in some way.

In other words, the danger that Chavistas will be persecuted more generally if the opposition should take over the government is very real. Even though the opposition includes reasonable individuals who would not support such a persecution, the current leadership of the opposition has done nothing to reign in the fascist tendencies within its own ranks. If anything, they have encouraged these tendencies.

Second, even though the opposition has not published a concrete plan for what it intends to do once in government (which is also one of the reasons why the opposition remains almost as unpopular among the general population as the government), individual statements by opposition leaders indicate that they would immediately proceed to implement a neoliberal economic program along the lines of President Temer in Brazil or Mauricio Macri in Argentina. They might succeed in reducing inflation and shortages this way, but at the expense of eliminating subsidies and social programs for the poor across the board. Also, they would roll back all of the policies supporting communal councils and communes that have been a cornerstone of participatory democracy in the Bolivarian revolution.

So, instead of silence, neutrality, or indecision from the international left in the current conflict in Venezuela, what is needed is active solidarity with the Bolivarian socialist movement. Such solidarity means vehemently opposing all efforts to overthrow the government of President Maduro during his current presidential term in office. Aside from the patent illegality that the Maduro government’s overthrow would represent, it would also be a literally deadly blow to Venezuela’s socialist movement and to the legacy of President Chávez. The international left does not even need to take a position on whether the proposed constitutional assembly or negotiations with the opposition is the best way to resolve the current crisis. That is really up to Venezuelans to decide. Opposing intervention and disseminating information on what is actually happening in Venezuela, though, are the two things where non-Venezuelans can play a constructive role.

Gregory Wilpert is a former director of the teleSUR English website and author of Changing Venezuela by Taking Power: The History and Policies of the Chávez Government.

More articles by:Gregory Wilpert

Meanwhile In Venezuela, The Real Mad Max Emerges (3 min)

Of course, we have to thank the USA for all this fun.

Source: Meanwhile In Venezuela, The Real Mad Max Emerges

http://www.blacklistednews.com

Source: Zero Hedge

July 13, 2017 

While Silicon Valley seems obsessed by ‘blood boys’, its another part of the world that appears to have gone full Mad Max. As the following clip shows a gang of bikers chase down and attack a truck (with molotov cocktails) to steal its sugar payload…

Not quite the “Guzzoline” or “Bullets” that Fury Road offers, but when all you have to eat is flamingoes or black stallions, sugar may be a good substitute worth risking your life over…

With each passing week, the situation in Venezuela keeps on getting worse.

More words:

Meanwhile In Venezuela, The Real Mad Max Emerges

 

Everyday carry: Here’s what a former SAS special operator carries in case of a terrorist attack

Source: Everyday carry: Here’s what a former SAS special operator carries in case of a terrorist attack

newstarget.com

by JD Heyes

July 11, 2017

 Because they are experts in close-quarter combat and other dangerous scenarios, they get asked all the time what they would do in certain situations, how they would respond and, more importantly, what kind of personal gear they carry in order to increase their chances of survival.

In a report for SOFREP, a subscription-based intelligence newsletter, a former British SAS operator revealed what he carries as part of his personal EDC — everyday carry — gear, to protect himself during a terrorist incident, since such events have become much more prevalent in Britain than in the United States — for now.

“There are many ways to increase your chances of survival, and one thing we can all do is incorporate appropriate kit in our everyday carry. I now have a complete set of items which will help me in a variety of ways should it ‘go noisy’ while I’m out and about. I don’t leave home without my day sack which now contains everything I need to try to keep myself safe, within the stringent UK law,” the operator, Phil Campion, writes.

[First, a word about legalities: It is against the law throughout Britain for civilians to carry concealed firearms or, really, any objects that can be considered offensive weapons (batons, knives, etc.). In the U.S., thanks to the Second Amendment, most jurisdictions outside of major cities allow for concealed carry of a firearm and/or knife. But Campion makes a great point: Know the law in your area, because they can differ from region to region, city to city, etc.] (RELATED: Preppers in California get a rare self-defense victory: Federal judge blocks state ban on high-capacity magazines)

“I have drawn on my experiences as a Tier One operator in some of the world’s most dangerous places to piece together gear which will give me and those around me the best chance of survival, should the worst happen,” Campion writes. “I have also managed to remain covert about the way I do business and not scare people, which is very important.”

Finally, he writes, discretion is the better part of valor; don’t make yourself a target by telegraphing the fact that you are the person best prepared to handle things.

What’s in the EDC?

Campion writes that his EDC consists of items that will help against attackers and to take care of victims in the aftermath of an attack:

— Flexible ballistic plate: Hidden in Campion’s carry pack is a flexible ballistic plate, transforming it instantly into a protector against both bullets and knives. In a retreat situation, the pack becomes a one-sided protector-vest.

— Large Maglite: In Britain, any form of a baton is considered a weapon and hence, illegal. But larger Maglites are made of metal and very durable; the can double as both a blinding and bludgeoning tool. He also carries a smaller Surefire defender. It has a blinding beam and can devastate an attacker when used to punch with.

— Gloves: Kevlar-lined and durable, these gloves allow Campion to actually grab the blade of a knife. In addition, they allow him the ability to pick up nearby shards of glass to use as a cutting weapon, or grab window frames containing broken glass safely.

— Tourniquets: These help stop severe bleeding until help can arrive. Wounds can be severe in a terrorist attack; tourniquets are Campion’s first line of treatment, since victims can bleed out quickly (3 minutes) if major arteries are severed.

— Blast dressings: Self-explanatory; heavy gauze bandaging and wraps do the trick.

— Clotting agent: There are commercially available dressings that come with blood clotting agents built-in. You don’t have to be a medical expert to use them.

— Bottled water: These are for drinking, of course, but also cleaning wounds and for burns.

— Heat packs/cold packs: Depending on the time of year, these come in handy for warmth/cooling/reducing swelling.

Other essentials include a pen and notepad, extra power cells to recharge your cell phone, and umbrellas (to use as light shields).

You may have some ideas of your own and that’s great, but the basic carry kit should at least consist of these items — so says an experienced operator.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources include:

SOFREP.com

Bugout.news

If They Don’t Notice The First 100 Million Bullets Fired At Them…

  Source: If They Don’t Notice The First 100 Million Bullets Fired At Them… | Video Rebel’s Blog

With permission

vidrebel.wordpress.com

by horse237

July 11, 2017

 

Americans have 350 million guns and 10 billion bullets. What do you honestly believe will happen when 120 million Americans cannot afford to eat? How many days would you be willing to let your children go without food? How many millions of your neighbors, friends and families will have to die before the Uber Rich learn to not steal from the poor?

How many millions will have to starve to death before Wall Street hears our voices?

In 1929 there were 123 million Americans. Three million starved to death. The Uber Rich made no fundamental reforms to the banking system to avoid another collapse. If anything, our government has become even more greedy and corrupt.

Fortunately for the elite, most people do not understand money. Let me explain a home mortgage as a fraud. Suppose a young couple applies for a home loan. If approved for a $350,000 loan, the banker gives the couple a checking account credit for that amount. Did he loan them Mrs Jones’ savings? No. He created money out of thin air and charged them interest. By adding to the money supply, he just devalued the purchasing power of our wages and pensions. The banker worked for a few minutes and made more money from that home than did the electrician, the plumber or even the foreman.

The Bank of England hath the benefit of interest on money it created out of nothing.         William Paterson 1694, First Governor of the Bank of England.

America is nothing like it was in the 1930s. We have added 200 million people. Millions of Jews came in the 1930s and millions more after the war. But I doubt that Jews will be starving to death. The Democrats changed immigration laws in the 1960s  to allow a lot more non-white immigration. We are no longer a racially cohesive society. In fact liberalism has been based on Identity politics for several decades. The non-whites were told by Jewish liberals in the media, the Foundations, the universities and the schools that they were poor because white people are rich.

Whites do not own the media and Hollywood that demonizes them.

I read recently another article about the Overton Window. That is to say what is acceptable and unacceptable public speech in America. If our wages are cut 20% and our rents are doubled, we are not allowed to complain about immigration being excessive as that is racist. Gentile speech is regulated by a mostly Jewish elite.  Jews and Gentiles live in different Americas. I doubt that few if any of the 3 million Americans who starved to death in the 1930s were Jewish.

Liberalism decided that massive immigration while exporting jobs was good. Liberals covered up our poor jobs and pay situation by creating 31 million federal, state and local government workers whose salaries are paid by borrowed money. Gentile poverty had been covered up in the past because the US dollar was the international reserve currency. In 1973 Henry Kissinger created the Petrodollar system which required people all over the world to buy oil with dollars. The US was allowed to buy things from overseas by printing dollars. Young workers have had pay cuts of 20% from  what the previous generation made for the same jobs. But when the dollar collapses as a reserve currency, wages will drop 50%. We will be shocked by reality.

We are entering a period when foreigners will increasingly dump dollars and drive prices out of reach of diminished Gentile paychecks. Imported prices will increase 500%. Foreigners will buy our food because it will be cheap to them. We will have to cut spending on government programs that some people really need. An example would be Food Stamps. At least 120 million Americans will be eating as little as one meal a day or even less.  We can expect Nationwide Food Riots on the Day the Dollar Dies. We can expect every major American city to be destroyed.

As I said, Americans have 350 million guns and 10 billion bullets.  Presently, Americans are not allowed to do anything to defend themselves from assaults either by criminals or by the police. When the Dollar Dies, government and its rules will collapse. On that day our only police force will be the gun underneath our coat or the rifle in our car. Once the violence starts, one hundred million bullets could be fired in a relatively short period of time.

One option would be to escalate from 100 million to 200 to 300 and on up to one billion bullets fired at people in America. Another option would be for the government to declare martial law. That would not stop the violence as the Army has no food and cannot double wages for those who cannot afford to eat. But the US military could arrest the Bankers and seize $50 trillion from them. That is the amount of money that Catherine Austin Fitts said the Bankers stole from us. We could use that money to fund Debt Cancellation. The ancient kings of Sumer and Babylon stopped Depressions 4,400 years ago by cancelling Unpayable Debts. Of course we would need a non-interest bearing currency like President Lincoln’s Greenbacks. If we had that now, there would be no $20 trillion national debt and no crumbling infrastructure.

The third option is that we let the Bankers go into underground bunkers as their agents release a series of plagues killing 7 billion Gentiles.

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https://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2016/08/15/mortgages-are-instruments-of-fraud/

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How Do People Really Behave When Disaster Strikes?

For historians who study disasters and social collapse, there is hope that people won’t automatically turn into savages if the grid goes down.

Source: How Do People Really Behave When Disaster Strikes? | Ready Nutrition

Ready Nutrition

Joshua Krause

Jul7 7, 2017 

There are a lot of reasons why people prep for disasters, but there’s one reason that’s far more popular than the others. What people fear most when they think about what would happen if society collapsed, isn’t hunger, disease, or exposure. They fear what other people might do to them when the chips are down.They worry that members of their community might hurt or kill them to survive.

And though most preppers won’t admit it, I think most of us fear what we might be capable of in a bad situation. We don’t have to find out if we have enough food stocked up in our pantries.

However, it should be noted that there is an alternate view on what most people will do if society collapses. For historians who study disasters and social collapse, there is hope that people won’t automatically turn into savages if the grid goes down. A writer for Slate recently interviewed several experts on this topic, and here’s what they had to say:

Can this ray of sunshine be trusted? I’d love to believe it can be. I asked Scott Knowles, a historian of disaster, what historians and sociologists who study collapses and disasters have to say. His answer: It depends. “We help, and also we don’t,” Knowles said in an email to me.

Over the years, academic researchers have gone back and forth on the question. “This whole area of work really got going in the Cold War when defense planners wanted to model post-[nuclear] attack scenarios,” Knowles wrote. The Disaster Research Center at Ohio State University (which has since moved to the University of Delaware) “did the work over years to model community response, and they pushed back strongly on the idea of social collapse—they found instead too much of the opposite—people converge on a disaster scene!”

And there are countless examples of people being altruistic and coming together during disasters; perhaps even more so than examples of people turning on each other.

In a 1961 paper (unpublished until 1996), sociologist Charles Fritz laid out the case for this “contrary perspective” that disasters and other majorly stressful events don’t necessarily result in social breakdown and trauma.

Fritz, who had begun his observations of disasters while stationed in Britain during the Blitz, reported that during that time he saw “a nation of gloriously happy people, enjoying life to the fullest, exhibiting a sense of gaiety and love of life that was truly remarkable,” with Britons reaching beyond class distinctions, sharing supplies, and talking to people they had never spoken with before.

Marshaling sociological and historical evidence, Fritz recounts example after example of people pulling together in the middle of tragedy: black and white police and militia members uniting to maintain order during the yellow fever epidemic in Memphis in 1878; enemies forgetting old quarrels during the German bombing of Krakow in World War II; community members reporting strengthened personal relationships with neighbors after the White County, Arkansas, tornado of 1952.

In general, researchers agree that people will try to form alliances and help each other.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise. If humans didn’t have an inclination towards supporting each other, then we wouldn’t have a sophisticated society to begin with.

However, I think we all know that there is a dark side to our species as well, and many of the examples provided by the author don’t reflect that. It is true that we are a social species whose members would rather work together to build a society, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t disasters which could easily bring out the worst in us.

The best example that comes to my mind, is the Siege of Leningrad during World War Two. For more than two years, the city was encircled by German forces who cut off all supplies to the city. This lead to the deaths of more than a million civilians, mainly due to starvation. And during that time there were thousands of people who were arrested for murdering others for their ration cards, or killing strangers and family members before cannibalizing them. And in most cases, these people were found to have no criminal records when they were caught.

Point being, there are disasters that will drive ordinary people to commit heinous crimes, and there’s a big difference between those incidents, and the disasters that don’t lead to massive crime waves. In most cases, a destructive event only leads to temporary disruptions to the supply of food, medicine and fuel. People are happy to work together, knowing that everything will return to normal in short order.

But on the rare occasion that a disaster disrupts the flow of goods and energy for months or years at a time, a significant percentage of the population will turn on their neighbors to survive. There’s a direct relationship between how desperate people are, and how far they’re willing to abandon their morality to keep themselves and their family fed, and that’s something that preppers should never forget.

Joshua Krause was born and raised in the Bay Area. He is a writer and researcher focused on principles of self-sufficiency and liberty at Ready Nutrition. You can follow Joshua’s work at our Facebook page or on his personal Twitter.

Joshua’s website is Strange Danger

China: Cops Beat a Woman, Thousands of Men Begin Stoning Cops in Streets (Kill 4 of Them)

Yikes! That’s one way of fighting police brutality.

Source: China: Cops Beat a Woman, Thousands of Men Begin Stoning Cops in Streets – Filming Cops

filmingcops.com

June 12, 2017 

WENZHOU — Tens of thousands of enraged Chinese citizens crowded the streets after a horrific act of police abuse.

The citizens killed four police officers, and troops were called to minimize the rebellion.

According to reports, it began when the police were seen beating a woman in public.

Crowds formed and demanded that the officers stop beating her. But the officers continued.

A man who tried to film the incident was struck repeatedly by officers, so much that he began vomiting blood. According to reports, the man died on the way to the hospital.

In response, tens of thousands of Chinese citizens surrounded the officers and began attacking them with rocks and baseball bats, chanting “Kill them! Kill them for what we just saw them do!” 

The officers, who were part of an elite law enforcement unit called Chengguan, were called “government thugs” and other names as they were stoned and beaten to death while trying to find shelter in their van, according to reports.

The officers were found dead, the van was smashed to pieces, and troops were called to disperse the rebellious crowd.

The truck that the troops were driving was also flipped over and riot police flooded the streets in an attempt to quell further dissent.

The images that follow are graphic. Discretion is advised.

–> See many more images here.  (GRAPHIC)