Category: Cultural War

Front Cover

Whether we want to admit it or accept it, America and the West have been embroiled in a Cultural War since at least the mid-1960s. There have been times when traditionalists and conservators did not actively fight the battle and times when radicals, progressives, and destroyers were less vocal, but the battles have raged.

At stake is the very nature of government, freedom and the entire future. Traditionalists have ceded the “high ground” of compassion and succumbed to the narrative of hate and villainy that progressives and destroyers paint all disagreement with. Allowing radicals to paint any and all with claims of ‘racist’, ‘bigot’ and hateful has silenced many.

The articles below discuss what is at stake in this Cultural War, how it is being waged, what is right and what is wrong and what the future may hold.

If interested, see my book The Philosophy of Commonsense: A Cultural War Primer.

Tyranny of the Asylum

I came to realize, around February of 2021 that my experience, education, and knowledge ceased to help me explain the world, in terms of politics and geopolitics, a day before the U.S. election in November of 2020. If I look harder and I am very honest, I was likely out of my depth at the beginning of 2020. Frankly, I am not alone. Political pundits, armchair analysts that follow events on social media, geopolitical ‘experts’; all of these have gotten so much wrong. There are reasons for this; the closer one gets to the fire, the more likely one is to become confused; I explain below.

For my part, going into 2020 I believe I can say that only two things are true. First, ideologies of various flavors had a profound impact on attitudes, argumentation, and the use or disuse of logic and reason. Second, I am certain, positively certain, that I observed methodologies at play throughout 2020 and continuing to the present, methodologies associated with controlling perception and attitudes in a population; techniques generally used to affect political outcomes. [1] I have written often of those two observations, words that have never been popular with either ‘side’ of our current dialectic. It is obvious, clearly apparent, that neither ‘right’ nor ‘left’ have seen the world as it is, that both have been susceptible to the methodologies and each has succumbed to the trap of ideological thinking.

We must be clear, however. The above ought to not be construed to indicate that there exists no truth in all of this. There are Archimedean points that can be referenced, universal truth if you will. We are equipped with tools, some inherited via tradition, others gifted to us that should assist in our inquiries; common sense and reason. We have examples of history, nothing we have faced in the last eighteen months is that unique, it all relates to human nature and the flaws inherent in man. However, none of that is of any help whatsoever if one filters their search for truth and answers through their ideological bias, and actively consumes deceptions.

My entire argument below begins with the premise that bad philosophy begat bad ideology and a worldview that supplanted all tethers to ultimate truth. You cannot arrive in an age of absurdity and deception where most of the population has lost the ability to reason and think without first polluting the foundation. See The Rise of Absurdity in Western Philosophical and Political Views for the foundational argument.

If we can accept that the majority of the population, no matter their political identification, has fallen prey to paralysis by deception, that their common sense and reason no longer serve them it might then follow, in the minds of some that all are equally guilty; perhaps, and then again, perhaps not. The entire MAGA movement was and is very often absurd. Blind devotion to a man that never really espoused the values this group held in slogans as important is and was flawed. But MAGA was reactionary, a reaction to the visible and obvious threat presented by the numerous absurdities held as tenants by progressives.

I have intentionally not delved into the various subsets of each large camp above, ANTIFA, BLM, Q, etc., for two good reasons. First, those subsets, as vocal as they often are, do not represent the majority of either side. Second, those three groups (and more) are in my opinion constructs, not organic organizations but rather something created by somebody with the intention of propagating division and propaganda.

What is noteworthy is that neither ANTIFA and BLM on the progressive side nor Q on the ‘conservative’ side are complete pariahs within the larger groups. Affiliation may not be widely accepted, but the underlying ideas percolate far beyond affiliation on each side. “Reasonable” people on each side likely deny this fervently, but the observational data is there; those that deny such are not as reasonable as they like they believe themselves to be.

But this is not all ‘just the same’. MAGA as a reactionary movement lacks a solid philosophical and ideological basis. It is fractured, confused, always attempting to counter-punch; the result of the failure of conservatism in America to espouse a true political philosophy. The same cannot be said of progressivism, not insofar as ideology goes. Progressives may struggle internally with the political philosophy they will eventually settle upon, but they are settled on an ideology.

If we accept that MAGA is reactionary and progressivism is ascendant; only a fool could look at the progression of events in the recently concluded culture war [2], shifting demographics, and many other factors and believe that true conservatism has any chance of a real resurgence – if we accept that, and if we accept that the progressive ideology is prevalent in culture, entertainment, education, politics and much of religion then it is proper to evaluate progressivism as our future and ignore neo-reactionaries.

Yes, progressives would disagree with the above, the more radicalized one is along the spectrum of change the more they would disagree. I am not referencing minor counter-punches by neo-reactionaries, nor of the last vestiges of the old hegemony that progressives would like to tear asunder – of course, some of that exists. If, however, we speak only of major trends and extrapolate those, well – yes, only a fool denies the ascendancy of progressivism in the big picture.

There are numerous issues and points of public policy that we could provide as examples of just how far divorced from reason the ascendant worldview has become but recent events in Texas and the counter-reaction and argumentation among progressives provide the most succinct and poignant example.

The Abortion Argument as an Example

Consider if you will the Texas Heartbeat Act, variously called “radical’, “repressive”, “tyrannical” among just some of the terms one might find in mainstream media articles written about the law. In essence, the law merely allows various people involved with performing or enabling an abortion of an unborn child in the womb with a heartbeat to be sued. A heartbeat is often present at about six weeks. It does not outlaw abortion; it does not assign criminal penalties for those that terminate the life of a child with a heartbeat and it does not hold the woman that solicits the act accountable criminally or civilly. The law leaves much to be desired by those that oppose abortion; but in the mainstream, it is ‘radical’.

For much of human history, a heartbeat is a sign of life. We still declare individuals to be deceased solely on the cessation of cardiac function. We could, and many do, devolve the conversation from ‘life’ to citizenship. This is unnecessary confusion. We know that with a separate heartbeat, there are two lives present, with one voice. The unborn child is not a ‘full’ citizen, with all the accompanying rights, but the most basic protections of our law must apply. This is reasonable. It is not only a “Christian” perspective, it is not radical. The mother has citizenship, she has responsibility and if a choice between her life and the life of the child is at play, her voice gets to speak. But the unborn child, by nature of possessing life, a heartbeat, immediately possesses the most fundamental rights our system of laws provides, the right to life.

The above is not complex, it is not controversial even in the scope of history – it is reasonable and rational. The symbiotic relationship between mother and child means several things (the child is not going to be counted in a census or register to vote), but the most fundamental things apply (the basic right to life that exists as part of natural law, solidified over centuries in common-law and codified in our highest civil documents). Yet, the counter-arguments remain, made unironically by people that consider themselves both serious and rational.

Beyond the question of life and the natural right to life, there exists the distinct likelihood that unborn children experience pain at about eight weeks. [3] We perhaps have no natural right to be pain-free, but it is ironic that progressivism, so based upon emotivism and the notion of protecting the weak finds itself as the chief protagonist supporting the infliction of pain on the weakest and most defenseless among us.

If you have bothered to look, you have been incapable of avoiding the counter-arguments. Supporters of what we must properly term infanticide claim support of life is merely a “Christian” thing. Many that profess to be Jewish have proclaimed their religion does not prohibit abortion – an odd contradiction considering Judaism is supposed to be subject to the Law in the Torah, taking an innocent life is definitely prohibited. There are the usual cries of ‘my body, my choice’ from the same sorts that demand others get vaccinated (an intellectually flimsy argument no matter how applied).

The counter-arguments, the absurd hypotheticals, the potentially untrue examples, the hyperbole – all of it matters only in that it shows the disconnect between reason, morality, and common sense. Debating the meaning of a heartbeat does not belong in the realm of public policy. A heartbeat indicates life, and life is protected as our most fundamental right. That so many argue so fervently counter to that obvious fact tells us much about our world and our future.

I chose the abortion example above for two reasons, first my own bias, and second, it strikes at the most foundational of all questions, Life. I could have selected arguments that say it is ok to burn and loot for justice or others that claim it is acceptable to pledge allegiance to a letter of the alphabet. Each is absurd, each shows a disconnect between reason and logic. All such examples, and the fact they gain wide support, are signs of something worse at play.

What it Means

The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their tastes, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim. – Gustav Le Bon

Cognitive dissonance (the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change) is a term often thrown at the ‘other side’ when ‘they’ just will not see the facts that one’s favorite team does. The meaning of the term has been diminished, sadly. However, it is real, and it is ubiquitous.

It seems there are too many examples on each side to ever allow dialogue to occur. In short, it is nearly impossible to point out truth to a lost person if there are provable examples of you yourself falling for absurdity. Social media provides ample opportunity for many of us to open our mouths and speak on subjects we ought to be silent about – we do not know enough. Better to be quiet and let people think you are an idiot than to speak and prove it. Better said, it is perhaps better to only weigh in occasionally and with solid facts.

But we cannot stop. Social media is the opioid of the masses, it is succor for lotus-eaters. We have lost the ability to reflect, think, analyze and discern. We cannot see that the world has gone mad, and we with it in our own way.

History has shown that there is often no cure for mass psychosis once it takes hold. We have the witch hunts, China’s cultural revolution, NAZI Germany, and the Jacobin revolution in France as examples. We have many Jacobins among us today.

The flood - really waves after wave, of increasing negativity and fear, permeates our culture now. We fear each other, ideas, words, and the very air we breathe. Many of us log in and consume the very poison that enables the psychogenic crisis daily, some thinking they will change the world.

You cannot fight illogic and unreasonableness with logic and reason no more than you could have entered an early 20^th Century mental institution and merely talked the patients out of their conditions. And, the longer you stay in contact with the disease, the greater the likelihood that it will eventually impact your own ability to reason and see clearly.

The sad fact is most among us have moved past the apathy and paralysis of the initial stages of mass psychosis, these have found coping mechanisms by combining fact and fiction into myth – the ideologies present in our system provide a ready vehicle for this. If one is “good” then all manner of immoral, hateful, and illogical behaviors makes perfect sense; cognitive dissonance is defeated by myth-building.

Progressivism as an ideology is designed for this sort of myth-building. The sorts of tyranny and authoritarianism that always arise from progressivism (idealism) happen because of the myths of community, heroism, and the struggle – this is the noble lie. [4] The reactionary myths that we see among us now, are not so different than their historic predecessors.

If I have not made it clear thus far, allow me to restate. Progressivism is ascendant culturally and politically and will likely be the ideology that shapes our present and future. The disconnect between the values and ideals that initially drove people to progressivism and neoliberalism is great and the gulf between fact and fiction cannot be bridged. Historically these rational voids have been filled by creating perpetual enemies; they conclude: it is not the ideology that is the problem, nor the facts, the real problem is “those people” (whoever they may be).

It is true, that some former progressive will ‘wake up’, perhaps the suggestion that the Temple of Satan is their best option to preserve Abortion “rights” will do this for some, but these numbers will be statistically meaningless – these will simply join the list of “those people”.

At some point in the mass psychosis/myth-building cycle, it is simply too late to turn back the tide. Witches must be burned, guillotines used and the culture purified. Perhaps in this iteration the solutions are less kinetic but make no mistake, it is not an insult nor hyperbole to state that the mentally ill and morally bankrupt are dominant now. It will be for them to decide how “those people” are dealt with.

Stop Drinking Poison

You cannot enter the mental asylum and talk sense into the patients. Likewise, “owning the libs” on social media is not helping, in fact, you are merely solidifying the narrative building, you are cementing in their mind that you really are evil. Facts and data no longer matter – not to the truly mentally ill, those that worked through cognitive dissonance and came out of it doubling down instead of evaluating their worldview are by definition suffering from a mental illness.

Your mere presence on social media not only solidifies them further into their illness – but also endangers you. All the negativity, the fear, the drama, the posts that strike you with a sense of “it cannot be real”, poisons you. Some of it is real, and some of it is just designed to make you ill. There is little chance that neither you nor I can really tell the difference.

You are not going to dig up just one more morsel of truth that will wake up anyone that matters (if they still sleep they do not have the faculties to think correctly). It is much more likely that you yourself will stumble onto rabbit holes that confuse you and negatively impact your ability to reason and discern. [5]

Extract information from it (social media) in small bites. Maintain your perspective and balance by alternating fishing expeditions for information with reflection and prayer.

All of the cognitive dissonance above applies even to churches and “Christians”. How is it that people can read the same words from the same book and some come up with radically new and different interpretations than anything found historically (outside of heresy)?

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound[a] teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions; 2 Timothy 4:3

The BlackPill Truth

It is not famine, not earthquakes, not microbes, not cancer, but man himself who is man’s greatest danger to man, for the simple reason that there is no adequate protection against psychic epidemics. Which are infinitely more devastating than the worst of natural catastrophes. -Carl Jung

There is no stopping this. If you are a conservative and still think just one more election will fix it, I have two points for you to consider.

First, look at any argument and then consider the position and the points that progressives make (like the abortion issue above). There is no honesty, morality, nor reason present and yet, these people will be with us, you will not cure them, you are not going to change their minds (they have ceased to operate rationally) and frankly, you cannot kill them. Their ideology is ascendant. This worldview will not go away until it reaches its natural conclusion and result. Elections cannot change that.

Second, just consider some of the absurdities that people on “your side” have fallen for. Those are your allies. Think that through, I will not insult anyone by saying any more.

Is there Hope?

Progressivism leads to authoritarianism and authoritarianism generally fails eventually. Technology might change that equation (prolong it past its shelf life), but we can hope. This worldview will not fail and die in most of our lifetimes.

However, there is hope – just not the sort of instant gratification change most of us want. More on that later.

Why 2020/21; Why Now?

If many are correct and America has undergone a color revolution, it is fair to ask why now, why in 2020/21.

First a couple of notes

I will reference both classic and cultural Marxist thinkers and events, what is going on is not either, these ideologies were simply used and leveraged.
I am only focusing on meta-dots, and one area specifically. It is not insignificant that much of the same thing is happening across the West, however, the U.S. is both unique and important in this event.
I have intentionally avoided some of the more esoteric elements of this. There is truth to many of those threads, but not necessary to paint part of the big picture.
I have also avoided the long history of this, it would belabor the point. I touch on the longer view here.

A summary of what I assess has occurred:

America just underwent a color revolution. January 6th was the culminating event, the election was the goal. All of 2020 was related. The deception operation that supported this effort was executed on both sides (ANTIFA, BLM, Q, MAGA). The MSM was part of it. It was very likely managed by our own INTEL agencies. Look at the history and methodologies of color revolutions (see a primer here). This just happened here, a color revolution in an advanced form.

But why, how, why now.

We could begin with Antonio Gramsci, and perhaps more importantly people that amplified his theories of cultural Marxism. One of the ideas that emerged from that circle was the notion of the necessity to ‘march through the institutions’ in order to replace an existing hegemony. Many in this group began to theorize in the early twentieth century that it would take about 100 years to accomplish this.
Also, in the second decade of the twentieth century, American socialists like William English Walling theorized that socialism could only come to America through progressivism. (read The Socialists and the War, I wrote about that previously here.)

At this point fast forward through the implementation of socialist policies in the 1930s, a repudiation of classical Marxism by the post-moderns in the 1950s, and a resurgence of socialists social and economic policies in the 1960s

Enter Saul Alinsky and his seminal tome Rules for Radicals. This book served as the basis for the entire battle-plan of the radical left in the cultural war (a key component in neutering the hegemony).
We must remember the words of Yuri Bezmenov, KGB propagandists turned defector, warning that in Soviet doctrine it took twenty years to educate a generation for compliance. He warned that the main event was proceeded (about twenty-years) before by a major event. (listen here)
Without delving into all the esoteric talk about who knew what when related to 9/11 two facts are true. 1) it was twenty years ago and 2) that event was formative in the lives of millennials and older GEN-Y. Their worldview was significantly shaped by that event. The implementation of the Patriot Act, TSA, and all the wars shaped us all.
If you accept any think of Strauss and Howe’s generational theory (The Fourth Turning), you realize we are inside the window for a fourth turning. This is America’s fourth, fourth turning, each has moved the ball a bit further down the field toward a bigger crisis.
We cannot forget Peter Drucker and his theories of social change through communitarianism (and his early exposure to philosophers and political thinkers later used by the NAZIs). The Leadership Network in the 1990s fundamentally changed American evangelical Christianity (The Megachurch’s Role in the Cultural Revolution)
Planning for the ‘pandemic began before 2001, all of the lockdowns of 2020 were plans on a shelf.
Numerous ‘thinkers’ have openly talked about their goals for 2030, those goals were unachievable without a significant change in governance.

In summary, this moment has been building since the early 1900s, ideology changed and adapted but the central theme remained. Events twenty years ago placed in motion a series of events that led to other events that created division and chaos, (financial crash, reactionary pendulum swings to Obama and then Trump). This all leveraged the natural tensions that arise generationally in cycles. The methodologies of information operations, psychological operations, color revolution, and state capture have been used and refined over numerous iterations in other nations (our intelligence community has become expert practitioners).

Just looking at the meta-dots, looking at the nature of the thing we can see that all of this was not just by chance. 2020 was not just a target of opportunity.

Color Revolution and Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW)

Make no mistake, this is a color revolution (explanation of the term here) many pundits and social media 'experts' throw that term about now, here so late in 2020. Almost all of them failed to read the signs in January when some of us warned that something big was up, not just politics as usual. They will move on to the the next big term soon as they have yet to fully put all the pieces of the puzzle together. This is a far advanced version of color revolutions conducted in Ukraine, Georgia, and the middle east; technology, tactics, techniques, and capability have advanced. A paradigm shift has occurred, we have transitioned into fifth-generation warfare (5GW). We have been at war since 2016, perhaps since 2014 (as soon as the cold war that we called the cultural war was lost). This is a war for perception, perception that is shaped by a narrative and essentially defines reality for those that succumb to mass deception. The nation-state itself is the objective and because so many subsidiary institutions that are supposed to support and defend the nation-state and order have been usurped as part of 5GW, the nation is almost powerless to fend off attacks.

Nobody ‘Wins’

I hold the following to be true:

Assuming that Trump loses the election, the morning after it is over (whenever that occurs between Nov. 3 and Jan. 20) folks that voted for Trump will wake up, go to work and carry on with their lives.

Assuming that Biden loses, that will not be the case for many people that oppose Trump.

Tell me I am wrong. Make an argument. You know I am right.

Regular Americans suffered under Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama. Say what you will, but I would argue that if you added up the totality of the previous twenty-six years it was bad in the aggregate - corruption, wars, growth of bureaucracy, increase in racial division, moral decline and absurdity. You may have liked some of those guys, disliked others, but looking back in a big picture way most Americans know that we are worse off after them than before them (to paraphrase Ronald Reagan).

Perhaps Trump was going to be a failure. Perhaps his personality was such that he would have hoisted himself on his own petard. We will never actually know. We do know, with pretty clear fidelity at this point, that before he was even elected our own government did illegal things against him. I have some experience with FISA courts, there is no way that the Steele document should have ever passed muster. Yet, it did.

Trump’s presidency was marred from the beginning with the taint of illegitimacy. Claims of the sort that are unsustainable in a republic that wishes to remain just and free. We have an imperfect system, things happen, courts are not always right but true republics seek to apply justice within framework of the rule of law. If you do not like the result of an election, a court case or an incident between government agents and the public, civilized people do not try to figuratively or literally burn it down.

Even if most of the narrative of the last four years were true, none of that justifies deliberately obstructing the process getting on with regular life. The reasonable response for those that disagreed would have been to redouble efforts to affect the next election outcome in a way that respected traditions, conventions and norms. Essentially to act decently. If they hated Trump so much, act reasonably and work to make him a one-term president.

It seems now that Trump, as abrasive and aggressive as he can sometimes be with words, was never really the problem. The real problem (to those that have never accepted a position of just moving forward) it seems is a system that allows ordinary Americans to exercise power.

America is not systemically racist. “Right-wingers” are not running amuck causing chaos and destroying stuff. Trump has never said or even indicated that if it is clear he lost the election he would try to ‘hold power’. Almost none of the stuff that is repeated continuously across the media and social media is actually true. Much of it is absolutely absurd.

We have problems, economic problems, spiritual problems, and perhaps now problems of some that are so disaffected they have become radicalize revolutionaries. However, none of our real problems justify the violence or destruction we have seen this year – it does not justify a revolutionary movement. All reasonable people know that.

Agree with that or not. I cannot convince you that this is all foolishly dangerous if you do not yet see it. No matter how this ends, we will be worse off.

Consider this. Just yesterday, in three separate states, police arrested two groups of Christians for ‘gathering outside and singing’ and a mother for sitting far from the crowd watching her son play football without a mask (tased her too). All of this stuff going on in the streets against the police, and against societal order in general, will all come home to roost. At the end of all of this, no matter how it plays out, not matter who ‘wins’ this thing (not simply the election, I mean this larger event), we will end up with a more robust police state.

See my video about the Mutawa (Saudi Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice). If the radicals win the police will not be disbanded, they will be replaced with ‘morality police’ and anarcho-tyranny will reign.

Place holder, will make video later, the Mutawa are a cautionary tale.

If somehow something of traditional America remains, if what we were ‘wins’ – we will not be the same. To beat this will require state violence at this point. The radical groups are organized and financed. The ideology is entrenched. The narrative is just too sticky. To beat this, at this point, requires police powers we have never seen in the US. Nobody will be pleased with such an outcome, the violence would stop, societal order would be restored but we would be fundamentally changed.

Nobody ‘wins’ this.

I would be fascinated to hear, I would listen to the whole plan, from anyone that has supported this, how it all ends? How does it get better? How do we put the cap back on the bottle?

Have you honestly pulled back the curtains and watched and listened to what folks on the street are doing and saying? Do you still want to claim the most egregious words and acts are just anomalies? If your argument begins with your experience attending some protests during the day and you have refused to actually read what ANTIFA and BLM actually state as their goals (before they scrubbed their websites last week), then I can only say you are unaware of the true nature of this.

If you ask me the same questions, I would tell you it does not look pretty for traditionalism. The fact is, historically, ‘conservatives’ seldom come out on top of these sorts of events. Spain is perhaps the best contra-example, and they ended up with a nationalist dictator for twenty-five years. In the uprisings in the late 1840s in Europe, monarchies were able to withstand the onslaught (mostly) simply because they were unitary executives – they could act.

Our Federal system is our greatest strength, in good times. In times like this our Federalism one of our greatest weaknesses. Add to that the fact that conservatives, by their very nature are concerned primarily with preserving things, not changing the system – they are not designed to create plans for fundamental change. Conservatives suffer from ‘normalcy bias’ their worldview begins from an assumption that the old way is good enough to fix problems.

This ‘normalcy bias’ is not well-positioned to confront a popular movement, supported by an ideology of change. Thinking that this is just a moment, that things will return to normal and settle down – that is the weakness of conservatives. Normal folks will sit at home, afraid and confused hoping someone saves them and fixes it all until the day the mob comes for them.

More troubling. All of this violence, the organized nature of it (stop calling it protests, those happen, but protestors do not need shields or bats) could be shut-down quickly. If folks like me can trace the money, find out who rents U-haul trucks and use technology to identify leaders in the group appearing in different cities and different events you know the FBI can do this. Why has the institution of government not done this? Stopping the riots will not stop the ideology, but it would stop the tenor from rising. Why have we not stopped it?

Why have retired officers violated Article 88 of the UCMJ at historically unprecedented levels? This is not normal, it is illegal, they know that. On top of all of that, we see corporate media and corporations marching in lock-step in support of easily disprovable narratives. Why?

Something more nefarious, dastardlier even than the radical nonsense in the street is at play. (Color revolution)

Let’s see if what happens with this Supreme Court nomination. If Trump selects a Federalist Society nominee, well I want nothing to do with the road that leads down. It is almost as detestable as the Marxist dystopia being pressed by the radicals. If he goes the Federalist route, I will begin to dust off my theory that all of this was collusion between some Democrats and Republicans (in conjunction with corporate elites) to complete the color revolution.

Individual and Community Preparations for the Times Ahead

I am not positive that the book above (written by me) is worth your time. I am not grifting or trying to sell you something. I offer it for your consideration (the idea of it, not so much the book itself). I am wrong about many things, there is much I do not know. I got 2020 right and I suspect I am right about what is coming. This manifested faster than I perhaps thought, but not entirely so. My first and clearest articulation of this was in July of 2018 (America’s Great Cultural and Political Divide).

I am not suggesting you buy my book, I am suggesting that churches need to think about the issues covered there and think about how little communities stick together in what is to come. Old ways will no longer work. THIS IS NOT JUST A MOMENT.

We are not simply guaranteed to continue as we were, tax exemption for authentic Christian churches is not a given anymore. The culture war was lost rather quickly, things exploded after that. 'Christian' churches just down the street went along with all of this - they will be fine; for a while. If your church does not kowtow, you are much less safe. Elections matter, maybe this is all pushed off for a few years, but things have changed, drastically. Don't underestimate the hatred for authentic Christianity in the air.

Retrenchment dealt with how authentic Christianity and traditional communities survive in the aftermath of the revolution against the old 'hegemony' going on right now. The cultural war was a mere precursor, just preliminary skirmishes. Traditionalism lost at every stage of those battles, but those losses will pale in comparison to what is coming. The fact is, no matter the result of the 2020 election and all related to that, the ideology that propels the angst in the street, supported by millions of Americans, will not go away. The desire for change, the sense of emergency, the desperation will only increase - no matter who wins in 2020.

It is fairly clear at this point, that the cultural war against the hegemony is being leveraged by interests that seek to fundamentally change the balance of power in a permanent way are attempting a color revolution. Color revolution attempts have a poor history of sticking, they sometimes succeed in seizing power, but seldom stick. A month ago I thought the color revolution against the US had a significant chance of initial success, I would venture to say that chance is only moderate now. The threat is still very real. When color revolutions fail, often chaos of another sort follows.

Some speak of civil war, calling into the mind the idea of neighbor fighting neighbor. That is possible but unlikely. Violence is almost a certainty in our future, but it will be sporadic, greater in some locations, and almost absent in others. Anarcho-tyranny, the sort where mass violence is ignored and ordinary individuals are punished for small infractions is more likely. Poverty, shortage, and uncertainty are highly likely.

The only thing I would change in that book is my treatment of the 'community' element of the mega-church. I stated there that I had not directly observed heretical behavior in the megachurch, I had suspicions, but that I had observed how effective they were at the community building. In 2020, my suspicions about the megachurch were confirmed, it is just what Peter Drucker envisioned. I would delete or edit those few pages to reflect reality. (see my position of the megachurch's role in all this)

I was originally inspired to write Retrenchment in part by Rod Dreher's book The Benedict Option. I, like many others, saw some good arguments there, and some glaring weaknesses. Dreher is an odd bird, a man that claims to stand on principles and to see the utter collapse and danger around us. Yet, for the last four years he, and the magazine he writes for, has been incapable of seeing that Trump was a useful and necessary plug in the dam. Dreher threw rocks, cried (almost literally at times) that "Trump was not nice", Dreher acted basically as a prissy-con, not a man operating from real principles (in my observation). He is now shilling a new book to tell us all how to really weather the coming storm, a storm he was not willing to stand a post and fight against in a meaningful way. I would not recommend Live Not By Lies, Dreher lost his credibility. He has proven incapable of dialoguing with those that would correct him, he lives in a sheltered bubble, not the sort to listen to in the times that are coming.

I can, whole-heartedly, recommend The Fourth Turning. Much of one of my first books, The Philosophy of Commonsense, was inspired by the implications suggested by Strauss and Howe. Their generational theory is not perfect, but it is proving more accurate than simply applying histography, sociology, or economics to trend analysis. If the cycles they describe are real, and things have historically aligned, much of what we see going on today makes sense.

Other, random things you ought to purchase and read:

A provocative title that probably puts a lot of people off with visions of zombie hordes and bunkers. This book is simply written, well-organized, and useful. It contains not just zombie-level information, but stuff that is applicable to what is coming (shortages of stuff, increased crime, and greater uncertainty).

Everybody ought to know more about critical medical skills, for many reasons. Don't be put off by the word 'prepper' in the title, all rational people should be prepared for all manner of things. I have said before, and often, everybody needs to know things like how to put on a tourniquet and to treat a sucking chest wound. This book will teach you that and more.

BTW, buy stuff to treat wounds that will kill you and those you love quickly, learn to use it, and keep it on hand.

I did a video last April and suggested that 2020 was a good time to practice gardening skills. I think I was right. It is not too late to learn, the book to the left will help. It is a good time to buy up some non-hybrid seeds also.

Survival Garden 15,000 Non GMO Heirloom Vegetable Seeds Survival Garden 32 Variety Pack by Open Seed Vault

This book will not help you do anything except gain an understanding of how we got here.

How we Beat the Color Revolution

Over the last several days my website has had a 10,000% increase in traffic, all related to search terms related to ‘color revolution’. I know why this started, I tracked it down to the very minute it began and then to the major national news segment on cable news that spawned it. I have often wondered why I spend time writing, why put my opinions out there to a small audience. Why expose myself? I think this is why.

Americans need to know that not everything going on in the world, all the stuff that is getting us so mad and so divided is exactly what it seems. Most of it, I am convinced, is contrived and serves a nefarious purpose.

It has been impossible, as much as I try, to hide my biases, to simply present the facts as related to what I see as an ongoing color revolution. The facts themselves I would argue lead one to an undeniable bias. One party, it appears, has gone whole-hog in on this plan. Many in the other party appear also to be in on it. This thing that is happening is supported at its core by folks that simply want to control the system. They want to ensure that populism never again threatens their sweet deals. If Sanders had won in 2016, I would be willing to bet some of my prized possession that he would have been “trumped”. Trump and Sanders in the US, BREXIT in the UK, anti-EU movements in Europe, all of that is anathema to globalism. If I am mistaken as a Trump supporter, as in I am a MAGA guy, that is a misreading of me. I am anti-'the guys that want to keep power as they have always enjoyed' - with sons, wives, grandsons, and cousins running for high-office and corporate buddies getting sweet government contracts. Wars and endless wars, the Eisenhower military-industrial complex, those are the guys behind all of this. I am against them.

We have conducted color revolutions in several countries, some worked, some failed. All resulted in chaos and ended with a selected few taking power. The very same methods used there have been very clear here, to me, since December and unmistakable by April and inarguable by May. The various crises we have faced, whether contrived or leveraged, coupled with an accomplice established media are proof enough. The angst in the street, very often financed and organized, always covered dishonestly by the media, more proof. These groups and their causes are merely useful idiots to those that seek to solidify power. The chaos, fear, and division were necessary. The control, fear, and poverty surrounding our reaction to the virus, very Saul Alinsky-like. All of this stinks. We have been played.

When I retired from the Army in 2018, I wanted to write a few books of things in my head, do some hobbies, piddle around with a small business and enjoy life. I often thought the writing would serve no purpose. I am very grateful to the thousands of folks that have stumbled upon my little site this week looking for information about color revolutions. If all you take away is one thing, let it be this. Nothing is exactly as it is presented, there are people with bad intentions and there are real methodologies we have used to secure state capture, we can see those methodologies at work here.

Calm down, don’t be misled, love one another. We can sort through the confusion, the lies and maybe even some of the manufactured hate that has been pushed this year. We do not have to lose this; we do not have to give in to the deception. If none of that works, just prepare, and take care of your own and go into all of this with your eyes open. Don’t let ‘them’ pee on your back and tell you it is raining.

If we get through this, with hearts full and eyes open, things might change. All of those major media corporations that try to control us, they may die. We do not have to serve them. Political parties that would place power over the health, safety, and property of people just to score points, they may die. Old political divides between Democrat and Republican can shift, those parties can die if we but let them. We can fundamentally realign. We do not have to choose the establishment, we do not have to allow them to cement their hold on power through a revolution that makes all future revolutions impossible. We can reform the police smartly and not based on racist ideas that have been touted this year, break up tech monopolies, rid the system of money that corrupts politics. We can. But not with folks that have supported violence and hate in order to take power - they have shown their nature.

The country of Georgia whipped this, so can we!

The Way America Could End in 2020

I don’t listen to Glenn Beck. He is something of a bandwagon guy, a day late but comes to the table acting as if he discovered something new all by himself. He does a fair job of depicting what is going on in America’s color revolution.

See all color revolution posts, or see a primer Color Revolutions Explained

Media Role in Our Color Revolution

The above is almost like a glitch in the matrix, it is odd, telling, and bizarre. The news media, all of the established media, is a party to the deception going on. Many are now beginning to theory-craft about what is and is not a color revolution (a term many of these new experts had never heard of before only recently). Academic articles exist on the subject, there are snippets and hints littered through news articles over the last several years. It is discussed openly in various DoD courses of instruction, sometimes with specific names attached to it. It is no secret in the DoS. You can go and visit the country of Georgia, they all know what is it and who funded most of the color revolution efforts in their country. (see Gingrich’s response to this event)

Yet, most Americans have been unaware that this is something the US government, in cooperation with several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and non-profits, has done. Color revolutions are real, the methodology is real, it is a proven technique that has worked elsewhere.

A key component, perhaps the key element required for success, is information. The media is critical to this effort. In other nations, color revolution efforts have been facilitated by a co-opting established media, not necessarily every journalist but enough of them and enough editors and publishers.

Most Americans are not aware of the number of mainstream journalist connections to the inner sanctum of government, and sometimes the intelligence community. Search for major journalists and the time they spent as interns for the CIA.

The above video is bizarre.

Newt Gingrich, as reprehensible as he may be, claims to have evidence that George Soros funded election campaigns of district attorneys across America, DAs that have subsequently. He is not alone in this claim, the evidence is not difficult to find that this is true. Yet, Melissa Francis of Fox News interrupts him with ‘ no he didn’t’. What is her evidence, why the very weird silence and odd looks? I do not know, but this is strange.

What do we know?

George Soros, through his various organizations, has funded color revolution efforts in other nations, this is inarguable.
We have observed district attornies across the nation actually not fulfill their duties by refusing to charge rioters and preferring charges against ordinary Americans doing what is within their Constitutional rights.
Many of these DAs have been recently elected, most of them have common ties to ancillary groups that have common ties with BLM and Soro’s organizations.

But Fox says this cannot be discussed.

Anyone that pays any attention knows as a point of fact that CNN, MSNBC, the NY Times, etc. etc. are not only dishonest, but they actively spread false narratives. Many that know that as a fact assume that Fox News is the good guys. This is a misunderstanding of what a color revolution entails. Information on both sides of artificial divides must be controlled. Some of it is controlled opposition, intended to create the divide. Other aspects of it are designed to obscure and hide the fact that a color revolution is happening at all.

Fox News is compromised, perhaps not every personality over there, not as completely as CNN, but it is not trustworthy. This video, as odd as it is, as easy as it may be for some to try and explain it away is sufficient proof.

For the record, Soros is not (likely) the sole mastermind or only source of funding for the things Gingrich was trying to talk about. He has become something of a boogeyman to conspiracy theorists (for good reasons). However, this event is much more than one man, or one organization.

Previous Assumptions

I spent more time in my life than I care to remember living with, training and fighting beside fledging armies in the middle-east. There is nothing more eye-opening than living on some small camp with just a handful of Americans and hundreds of guys that you do not know, cannot fully communicate with and you have no real idea why they are there (what motivates them). It is simply an act of trust to hand them a rifle and ammunition and to go to sleep at night knowing that if enough of them wanted you dead it would be an easy task.

There is a lot of talk of our coming civil war (or insurrection/violence/troubles) that many now believe are almost a matter of fact to materialize in the next 50 days (hint it is a color revolution). I know people that have gone to Portland, I hear others say 'big and bold things' on the internet. The first is foolish, the latter is just stupid. Recently, a couple of men that I know began to work toward putting something together, based in part on some of the experiences we shared training armies in other lands.

I entertained this thought, have gone along, only because I know these to be reasonable, cool-headed, and common-sensical men. They do not want to go out and be some sort of revolutionary militia. It seems to me, based upon observations, things confirmed to me by others with more access, that there are radical revolutionary groups planning for violence. Organizing, planning and talking not so quietly about dark plans. It seems prudent if there are those that would, based upon all of their demonstrated previous behavior, to at least consider the possibility that there is a moral obligation to consider preparing for that eventuality.

These are complex things to think about. Many of us, those with red blood at least, have spent most of our lives looking favorably upon the patriots in our revolution in the 1770s. Most of us have always said tyranny and oppression can never reign here in free America, by God, real Americans will not tolerate it. There were a couple of assumptions, these assumptions were always falsely embedded in that belief.

Most always assumed that if tyranny came, it would either be 1) the government against the people and the people would stand together against it OR 2) it would come from the outside and the people and the government would stand together.

Did we ever, in our wildest dreams, imagine that the real crisis would come with entire elements of the government, most of the media, a vocal yet violent minority on the streets, an entire political party, and millions of 'ordinary' Americans that are now so lost in their worldview as to support, outright the revolutionary change that will bring about authoritarianism and tyranny. Many are so lost to absurd ideologies, false notions of the Christian message, nihilism, and a dozen other -isms that they cannot even see that authoritarianism and tyranny are even possible at the end of the road they now want to tread.

How do you fight that? Should you?

I know, many keyboard warriors seem to believe they have the answer. They talk big but they have never seen an insurgency at work. Insurgencies are never purely ideological, and even in their ideology, they are never homogeneous. They almost always comprise ethnic, cultural, class, and economic factors. They are complex. General Petraeus sold a bill of goods to the US military in his theory of Counter-Insurgency Operations (COIN). I attended a COIN academy, I later trained it and actively employed it on deployments. It does not work. (ask me about the time I sat across for Petraeus with an Admiral and he gave me $25million to throw at a problem)

However, if COIN did work, if you could win hearts and minds by getting the disaffected to 'buy into" the system how would that work in the US? We are the land of opportunity, before all of these troubles this year we had innumerable programs yet many never 'bought-in". Apparently, none of that worked. There are clearly people that believe the system is not for them, and millions more that tacitly agree with them. COIN operations could never fix this. What does that leave?

We could look at the Romans. There is nothing new under the Sun, Rome dealt with all of these issues. Carthage was never going away, and they could not be turned to 'buy-in" so Rome razed their cities and sowed salt on their fields - the Cathagians disappeared. The "barbarians" in the west were easier, they actually bought in to a degree, the Germans essentially never. In the end, Rome was reduced to appeasing its own population with bread and circuses.

Obviously, the first option is no option at all. We have tried the last and are now faced with "Germans" that will not embrace the system. So I ask again, how do you fight this, and should you? If COIN does not work, the most radicalized have rejected the system, if we fight are we prepared for the Scipio Africanus option?

Of course not, not me. I can see no morality in that option. Freedom is important, rights are important, but not as important as higher law.

I do not have the answer to this. Laying down seems very un-American. Fighting against an insurgency that will not die unless most of its adherents were either killed or imprisoned seems extreme and immoral. Who the hell would one fight in any event? No matter where you live, you are surrounded by both absurd thinkers and traditional Americans. I do not have the answer. The only thing I can come up with is to pray, work, take care of your own, and prepare. What folks ought not be doing is taking to the street to face the radicals.

So back to my acquaintances that want to prepare more deliberately. They are attempting to build a large organization of folks. I joined them and offered to build a supporting group more locally (see here). The initial interest in both of these groups reminds me of the recruits in the Afghan and Iraqi armies. Hell, maybe these sorts of things are won by the side that can field the least idiotic army. I have not been encouraged over the last two days, better men than those fools throwing Molotov cocktails but...

I am also discouraged by talks I have had with a local police chief and a nearby county sheriff. Neither of these men understands that we are approaching a time that their departments alone cannot stand what is coming, they need good men to stand beside them. The time to build those relationships and authorities is now. Neither of these fellows really gets the big picture right now.

I have no idea what all this will become. I am not certain there is anything I, personally will or would fight for at this point (other than my home and those I love). I never thought I would say that. Perhaps I feel a bit like Mel Gibson's character in The Patriot - leave me alone, I will not fight this. I know what is right, I am not sure what is moral (considering what trying to do what is right looks like).

I will stand with my companion's effort, I will try to find reasonable, moral men to partner with, folks that see how serious these questions are. To this point, all I find are hot-head wanna-be's, and I will not deal with those types. I have trained amateurs that could not be trusted, I will not do it again.

What happened to my country? How did so many so easily embrace absurd and wrong ideas? Perhaps what is coming is our destiny and our punishment.

Our Color Revolution

One really never wants to actually be right about a subject like this (see previous post on color revolution in America). Some will claim I am not right, it is not yet proven. I suggest that even once this is all complete, some will deny it actually happened. That is the very nature of a color revolution - create a crisis, generate a reaction, foment chaos, fear, and apathy, create conflict, acquire power outside of the rule of law in order to solve the crisis. On the other side, many believe that 'democracy' has been restored, that placates the masses, yet everything has drastically changed...As Aldous Huxley described it in a Brave New World, what is occurring is very likely the revolution that makes all future revolutions impossible. (see Color Revolutions Explained for background, to those that just found this based upon Tucker, see America's Color Revolution)

I have done what I have done in life, seen what I have seen. I do not ask that you agree with me because of my experience - I make no public arguments based upon that. Look at the facts, the coincidences, and the patterns!

Violence is coming, Get ready!

See Practical preparedness for the unprepared

Others are beginning to see this now. They often see it through now irrelevant "right/left" which is mistaken. It is infinitely more complex than that. This is a conflict between folks that want to eliminate the possibility of populist opposition to globalism. BREXIT, Trump, and Sanders were and are obstacles to the coalition of corporate, political, and establishment types that see the future of the world differently than ordinary folks. To these, the violence in the street, ANTIFA, BLM, and all that are just tools to create the necessary crisis.

Here is a partial list of articles I have written on this subject (The Great Unraveling) or (see all Color Revolution posts)

If this is all true why does it matter to you?

Consider this, if those that want to see this through are willing to condone, incite and ignore the violence on the street in order to achieve a political objective, what does that tell you of their true nature? ('they' it seems to comprise almost all of the Democratic party, many 'Republicans', almost all major corporations and all of the major news outlets). If they would support the death, destruction, and impoverishment of Americans just to achieve a goal, who are they morally? If they do not respect life, liberty and property do you honestly believe they will respect the rule of law or real justice once in power? If they would do and support all that has been done in 2020 do you think they will ever concede power? (they may pretend to maintain a two-party system, but it will forevermore consist of the establishment). This Matters!

Take a gander at Australia right now. The Australians are disarmed, without the right to speech, and are now being terrorized by their own government. They are already defeated, only the US stands to oppose globalism and total control. If we fall to this event, the world falls.

I suggest you start with a video by Tim Pool, a former Democrat that has come full circle. He misses the larger picture, he does not see that yet, but he perceives the contrived crisis and coming violence.