DHS Purchases 21.6 Million More Rounds of Ammunition
Federal agency has now acquired enough bullets to wage 30 year war
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
February 7, 2013
The Department of Homeland Security is set to purchase a further 21.6 million rounds of ammunition to add to the 1.6 billion bullets it has already obtained over the course of the last 10 months alone, figures which have stoked concerns that the federal agency is preparing for civil unrest.
A solicitation posted yesterday on the Fed Bid website details how the bullets are required for the DHS Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia, New Mexico.
The solicitation asks for 10 million pistol cartridge .40 caliber 165 Grain, jacketed Hollow point bullets (100 quantities of 100,000 rounds) and 10 million 9mm 115 grain jacketed hollow point bullets (100 quantities of 100,000 rounds).
The document also lists a requirement for 1.6 million pistol cartridge 9mm ball bullets (40 quantities of 40,000 rounds).
An approximation of how many rounds of ammunition the DHS has now secured over the last 10 months stands at around 1.625 billion. In March 2012, ATK announced that they had agreed to provide the DHS with a maximum of 450 million bullets over four years, a story that prompted questions about why the feds were buying ammunition in such large quantities. In September last year, the federal agency purchased a further 200 million bullets.
To put that in perspective, during the height of active battle operations in Iraq, US soldiers used 5.5 million rounds of ammunition a month. Extrapolating the figures, the DHS has purchased enough bullets over the last 10 months to wage a full scale war for almost 30 years.
Such massive quantities of ammo purchases have stoked fears that the agency is preparing for some kind of domestic unrest. In 2011, Department of Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to prepare for a mass influx of immigrants into the United States, calling for the plan to deal with the “shelter” and “processing” of large numbers of people.
The federal agency’s primary concern is now centered around thwarting “homegrown terrorism,” but information produced and used by the DHS to train its personnel routinely equates conservative political ideology with domestic extremism.
A study funded by the Department of Homeland Security that was leaked last year characterizes Americans who are “suspicious of centralized federal authority,” and “reverent of individual liberty” as “extreme right-wing” terrorists.
In August 2012, the DHS censored information relating to the amount of bullets purchased by the federal agency on behalf of Immigration & Customs Enforcement, citing an “unusual and compelling urgency” to acquire the bullets, noting that there is a shortage of bullets which is threatening a situation that could cause “substantial safety issues for the government” should law enforcement officials not be adequately armed.
As we highlighted last month, the DHS’ previous ammunition solicitation was awarded to Evian Group, an organization that was formed just five days before the announcement of the solicitation and appeared to be little more than a front organization since it didn’t have a genuine physical address, a website, or even a phone number.
While Americans are being browbeaten with rhetoric about the necessity to give up semi-automatic firearms in the name of preventing school shootings, the federal government is arming itself to the teeth with both ammunition and guns. Last September, the DHS purchased no less than 7,000 fully automatic assault rifles, labeling them “Personal Defense Weapons.”
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Monday, February 4, 2013
The Digital Disruption
The Digital Disruption
By ERIC SCHMIDT and JARED COHEN
The video is painful to watch. Amid screams of fear and pain, a Syrian girl at a school in Aleppo is forced to hold her classmate’s legs in the air. With a disconcertingly casual expression, their teacher hits the classmate’s feet repeatedly with a stick.
This video is at the center of a scandal in Syria. Although Facebook and YouTube are banned there, the video has gone viral and has gained over 4,000 fans on its page. After bloggers and the local news media took notice, the Syrian government investigated and recently announced the firing of the teachers involved.
Syrian activists have used connection technologies to encourage protest before. Last June, mobile phone users used blogs and social networking sites to coordinate a boycott of Syrian telecom providers over high prices.
However, the foot-beating incident is the first time activists have leveraged these technologies in a successful human-rights campaign. It illustrates that in repressive societies like Syria, where activists have to worry about getting caught, they increasingly operate Web sites rather than offices, gain followers rather than staff and use open-source platforms rather than relying on grants.
The technology that has allowed millions to share photos and information is fast becoming the latest tool in political activism.
The story is not always positive, of course, especially when the activists are unable to conceal their identity or, even worse, are infiltrated. Just weeks after the successful movement in Aleppo, the opposite happened in Damascus, where a 19-year old female Syrian blogger was arrested by authorities for “spying” — all too often the government label for dissent.
But the fact is that connection technologies will make the 21st century all about surprises. Indeed, new technologies and the desire for greater freedom are already changing politics in the most unlikely places. In 2008, Oscar Morales, an unemployed Colombian engineer, used popular social networking, video and Internet-based telephone services to orchestrate a massive demonstration against the FARC, Columbia’s Marxist insurgency.
In Iran last year, a small number of citizens used proxy and circumvention technologies to get information out of the country and onto YouTube, Twitter and other platforms. Although they only had a small role in organizing the protests in Iran, these tools were instrumental in seizing the world’s attention.
Inspiring as these stories are, connection technologies do not always empower citizens in positive ways. Connection technologies can benefit the human-rights activist and the terrorist alike. But whether these technologies will be used for good or ill is not the most important question. The most important question is how they will affect relationships between individuals and states. Not all governments will manage the turbulence of declining state authority the same way.
While much remains uncertain, it seems clear that those best suited to cope with this maelstrom will be free-market, democratic governments — and autocratic powerhouses such as China.
In the developing world, partially connected and still-connecting states will face a different set of opportunities and challenges. The stakes are high for states with weak central governments, underdeveloped economies and disproportionately young and unemployed populations. In these countries, connection technologies are breaking down the barriers of age, gender and socioeconomic status. While not removing the risks associated with activism, connection technologies are expanding the traditional realms of civil society, creating new spaces and new tools.
However, many governments in partially connected societies are wary. The sudden influx of connection technologies will threaten the status quo, leaving already fragile governments in potentially unstable positions. This is particularly true for those struggling to maintain political legitimacy. Anything that questions the status quo, the ruling party or the facade of stability poses a threat.
There are also the so-called failed states, which, while small in number, are globally significant. Chaotic and unable to act consistently, they are natural havens for criminal and terrorist networks that may have local grievances but harbor regional and global ambitions. Although connection technologies can be outlets for innovation in these countries, they also enable the exportation of criminal and terrorist behavior.
Around the globe, nonprofit groups and individual activists face new opportunities. Through technology, they will continue to shape government and corporate behavior by promoting freedom of expression and protecting citizens from threatening governments.
However, they will have to adjust to the new environment in which they operate. This means, among other things, they will have to ensure that efforts to expose wrongdoing do not strengthen governments apt to make nationalistic appeals; work behind the scenes when appropriate; and use technology in the private sector for their own ends.
Continuous innovation will pose difficult challenges for people and governments the world over. Even the best-informed and most active users of technology will find themselves caught in a blur of new devices and services. In an era when the power of the individual and the group grows daily, those governments that ride the technological wave will clearly be best positioned to assert their influence and bring others into their orbits. Those that do not will find themselves at odds with their citizens
By ERIC SCHMIDT and JARED COHEN
The video is painful to watch. Amid screams of fear and pain, a Syrian girl at a school in Aleppo is forced to hold her classmate’s legs in the air. With a disconcertingly casual expression, their teacher hits the classmate’s feet repeatedly with a stick.
This video is at the center of a scandal in Syria. Although Facebook and YouTube are banned there, the video has gone viral and has gained over 4,000 fans on its page. After bloggers and the local news media took notice, the Syrian government investigated and recently announced the firing of the teachers involved.
Syrian activists have used connection technologies to encourage protest before. Last June, mobile phone users used blogs and social networking sites to coordinate a boycott of Syrian telecom providers over high prices.
However, the foot-beating incident is the first time activists have leveraged these technologies in a successful human-rights campaign. It illustrates that in repressive societies like Syria, where activists have to worry about getting caught, they increasingly operate Web sites rather than offices, gain followers rather than staff and use open-source platforms rather than relying on grants.
The technology that has allowed millions to share photos and information is fast becoming the latest tool in political activism.
The story is not always positive, of course, especially when the activists are unable to conceal their identity or, even worse, are infiltrated. Just weeks after the successful movement in Aleppo, the opposite happened in Damascus, where a 19-year old female Syrian blogger was arrested by authorities for “spying” — all too often the government label for dissent.
But the fact is that connection technologies will make the 21st century all about surprises. Indeed, new technologies and the desire for greater freedom are already changing politics in the most unlikely places. In 2008, Oscar Morales, an unemployed Colombian engineer, used popular social networking, video and Internet-based telephone services to orchestrate a massive demonstration against the FARC, Columbia’s Marxist insurgency.
In Iran last year, a small number of citizens used proxy and circumvention technologies to get information out of the country and onto YouTube, Twitter and other platforms. Although they only had a small role in organizing the protests in Iran, these tools were instrumental in seizing the world’s attention.
Inspiring as these stories are, connection technologies do not always empower citizens in positive ways. Connection technologies can benefit the human-rights activist and the terrorist alike. But whether these technologies will be used for good or ill is not the most important question. The most important question is how they will affect relationships between individuals and states. Not all governments will manage the turbulence of declining state authority the same way.
While much remains uncertain, it seems clear that those best suited to cope with this maelstrom will be free-market, democratic governments — and autocratic powerhouses such as China.
In the developing world, partially connected and still-connecting states will face a different set of opportunities and challenges. The stakes are high for states with weak central governments, underdeveloped economies and disproportionately young and unemployed populations. In these countries, connection technologies are breaking down the barriers of age, gender and socioeconomic status. While not removing the risks associated with activism, connection technologies are expanding the traditional realms of civil society, creating new spaces and new tools.
However, many governments in partially connected societies are wary. The sudden influx of connection technologies will threaten the status quo, leaving already fragile governments in potentially unstable positions. This is particularly true for those struggling to maintain political legitimacy. Anything that questions the status quo, the ruling party or the facade of stability poses a threat.
There are also the so-called failed states, which, while small in number, are globally significant. Chaotic and unable to act consistently, they are natural havens for criminal and terrorist networks that may have local grievances but harbor regional and global ambitions. Although connection technologies can be outlets for innovation in these countries, they also enable the exportation of criminal and terrorist behavior.
Around the globe, nonprofit groups and individual activists face new opportunities. Through technology, they will continue to shape government and corporate behavior by promoting freedom of expression and protecting citizens from threatening governments.
However, they will have to adjust to the new environment in which they operate. This means, among other things, they will have to ensure that efforts to expose wrongdoing do not strengthen governments apt to make nationalistic appeals; work behind the scenes when appropriate; and use technology in the private sector for their own ends.
Continuous innovation will pose difficult challenges for people and governments the world over. Even the best-informed and most active users of technology will find themselves caught in a blur of new devices and services. In an era when the power of the individual and the group grows daily, those governments that ride the technological wave will clearly be best positioned to assert their influence and bring others into their orbits. Those that do not will find themselves at odds with their citizens
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Monday, January 28, 2013
The individual is not only best qualified to provide his own personal defense, he is the only one so qualified
Karl Marx summed up Communism as “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” This is a good, pithy saying, which, in practice, has succeeded in bringing, upon those under its sway, misery, poverty, rape, torture, slavery, and death.
‘In announcing his gun control proposals, President Obama said that he was not restricting Second Amendment rights, but allowing other constitutional rights to flourish.’
For the saying implies but does not name the effective agency of its supposed utopia. The agency is called “The State,” and the motto, fleshed out, for the benefit of the easily confused must read “The State will take from each according to his ability: the State will give to each according to his needs.” “Needs and abilities” are, of course, subjective. So the operative statement may be reduced to “the State shall take, the State shall give.”
All of us have had dealings with the State, and have found, to our chagrin, or, indeed, terror, that we were not dealing with well-meaning public servants or even with ideologues but with overworked, harried bureaucrats. These, as all bureaucrats, obtain and hold their jobs by complying with directions and suppressing the desire to employ initiative, compassion, or indeed, common sense. They are paid to follow orders.
Rule by bureaucrats and functionaries is an example of the first part of the Marxist equation: that the Government shall determine the individual’s abilities.
As rules by the Government are one-size-fits-all, any governmental determination of an individual’s abilities must be based on a bureaucratic assessment of the lowest possible denominator. The government, for example, has determined that black people (somehow) have fewer abilities than white people, and, so, must be given certain preferences. Anyone acquainted with both black and white people knows this assessment is not only absurd but monstrous. And yet it is the law.
President Obama, in his reelection campaign, referred frequently to the “needs” of himself and his opponent, alleging that each has more money than he “needs.”
But where in the Constitution is it written that the Government is in charge of determining “needs”? And note that the president did not say “I have more money than I need,” but “You and I have more than we need.” Who elected him to speak for another citizen?
It is not the constitutional prerogative of the Government to determine needs. One person may need (or want) more leisure, another more work; one more adventure, another more security, and so on. It is this diversity that makes a country, indeed a state, a city, a church, or a family, healthy. “One-size-fits-all,” and that size determined by the State has a name, and that name is “slavery.”
The Founding Fathers, far from being ideologues, were not even politicians. They were an assortment of businessmen, writers, teachers, planters; men, in short, who knew something of the world, which is to say, of Human Nature. Their struggle to draft a set of rules acceptable to each other was based on the assumption that we human beings, in the mass, are no damned good—that we are biddable, easily confused, and that we may easily be motivated by a Politician, which is to say, a huckster, mounting a soapbox and inflaming our passions.
The Constitution’s drafters did not require a wag to teach them that power corrupts: they had experienced it in the person of King George. The American secession was announced by reference to his abuses of power: “He has obstructed the administration of Justice … he has made Judges dependant on his will alone … He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws … He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass out people and to eat out their substance … imposed taxes upon us without our consent… [He has] fundamentally altered the forms of our government.”
Who threatens American society most: law-abiding citizens or criminals? (Matt Rourke/AP)
This is a chillingly familiar set of grievances; and its recrudescence was foreseen by the Founders. They realized that King George was not an individual case, but the inevitable outcome of unfettered power; that any person or group with the power to tax, to form laws, and to enforce them by arms will default to dictatorship, absent the constant unflagging scrutiny of the governed, and their severe untempered insistence upon compliance with law.
The Founders recognized that Government is quite literally a necessary evil, that there must be opposition, between its various branches, and between political parties, for these are the only ways to temper the individual’s greed for power and the electorates’ desires for peace by submission to coercion or blandishment.
Healthy government, as that based upon our Constitution, is strife. It awakens anxiety, passion, fervor, and, indeed, hatred and chicanery, both in pursuit of private gain and of public good. Those who promise to relieve us of the burden through their personal or ideological excellence, those who claim to hold the Magic Beans, are simply confidence men. Their emergence is inevitable, and our individual opposition to and rejection of them, as they emerge, must be blunt and sure; if they are arrogant, willful, duplicitous, or simply wrong, they must be replaced, else they will consolidate power, and use the treasury to buy votes, and deprive us of our liberties. It was to guard us against this inevitable decay of government that the Constitution was written. Its purpose was and is not to enthrone a Government superior to an imperfect and confused electorate, but to protect us from such a government.
Many are opposed to private ownership of firearms, and their opposition comes under several heads. Their specific objections are answerable retail, but a wholesale response is that the Second Amendment guarantees the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms. On a lower level of abstraction, there are more than 2 million instances a year of the armed citizen deterring or stopping armed criminals; a number four times that of all crimes involving firearms.
The Left loves a phantom statistic that a firearm in the hands of a citizen is X times more likely to cause accidental damage than to be used in the prevention of crime, but what is there about criminals that ensures that their gun use is accident-free? If, indeed, a firearm were more dangerous to its possessors than to potential aggressors, would it not make sense for the government to arm all criminals, and let them accidentally shoot themselves? Is this absurd? Yes, and yet the government, of course, is arming criminals.
Violence by firearms is most prevalent in big cities with the strictest gun laws. In Chicago and Washington, D.C., for example, it is only the criminals who have guns, the law-abiding populace having been disarmed, and so crime runs riot.
Cities of similar size in Texas, Florida, Arizona, and elsewhere, which leave the citizen the right to keep and bear arms, guaranteed in the Constitution, typically are much safer. More legal guns equal less crime. What criminal would be foolish enough to rob a gun store? But the government alleges that the citizen does not need this or that gun, number of guns, or amount of ammunition.
by
David Mamet | January 29, 2013 12:00 AM EST
Saturday, January 26, 2013
From Anonymous: Avenging Aaron Swartz
Citizens of the world,
Anonymous has observed for some time now the trajectory of justice in the United States with growing concern. We have marked the departure of this system from the noble ideals in which it was born and enshrined. We have seen the erosion of due process, the dilution of constitutional rights, the usurpation of the rightful authority of courts by the “discretion” of prosecutors. We have seen how the law is wielded less and less to uphold justice, and more and more to exercise control, authority and power in the interests of oppression or personal gain.
We have been watching, and waiting.
Two weeks ago today, a line was crossed. Two weeks ago today, Aaron Swartz was killed. Killed because he faced an impossible choice. Killed because he was forced into playing a game he could not win — a twisted and distorted perversion of justice — a game where the only winning move was not to play.
Anonymous immediately convened an emergency council to discuss our response to this tragedy. After much heavy-hearted discussion, the decision was upheld to engage the United States Department of Justice and its associated executive branches in a game of a similar nature, a game in which the only winning move is not to play.
Last year the Federal Bureau of Investigation revelled in porcine glee at its successful infiltration of certain elements of Anonymous. This infiltration was achieved through the use of the *same tactics which lead to Aaron Swartz’ death. It would not have been possible were it not for the power of federal prosecutors to thoroughly destroy the lives of any hacktivists they apprehend through the very real threat of highly disproportionate sentencing.
As a result of the FBI’s infiltration and entrapment tactics, several more of our brethren now face similar disproportionate persecution, the balance of their lives hanging on the severely skewed scales of a broken justice system.
We have felt within our hearts a burning rage in reaction to these events, but we have not allowed ourselves to be drawn into a foolish and premature response. We have bidden our time, operating in the shadows, adapting our tactics and honing our abilities. We have allowed the FBI and its masters in government — both the puppet and the shadow government that controls it — to believe they had struck a crippling blow to our infrastructure, that they had demoralized us, paralyzed us with paranoia and fear. We have held our tongue and waited.
With Aaron’s death we can wait no longer. The time has come to show the United States Department of Justice and its affiliates the true meaning of infiltration. The time has come to give this system a taste of its own medicine. The time has come for them to feel the helplessness and fear that comes with being forced into a game where the odds are stacked against them.
This website was chosen due to the symbolic nature of its purpose — the federal sentencing guidelines which enable prosecutors to cheat citizens of their constitutionally-guaranteed right to a fair trial, by a jury of their peers — the federal sentencing guidelines which are in clear violation of the 8th amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishments. This website was also chosen due to the nature of its visitors. It is far from the only government asset we control, and we have exercised such control for quite some time…
There has been a lot of fuss recently in the technological media regarding such operations as Red October, the widespread use of vulnerable browsers and the availability of zero-day exploits for these browsers and their plugins. None of this comes of course as any surprise to us, but it is perhaps good that those within the information security industry are making the extent of these threats more widely understood.
Still there is nothing quite as educational as a well-conducted demonstration…
Through this websites and various others that will remain unnamed, we have been conducting our own infiltration. We did not restrict ourselves like the FBI to one high-profile compromise. We are far more ambitious, and far more capable. Over the last two weeks we have wound down this operation, removed all traces of leakware from the compromised systems, and taken down the injection apparatus used to detect and exploit vulnerable machines.
We have enough fissile material for multiple warheads. Today we are launching the first of these. Operation Last Resort has begun…
Warhead – U S – D O J – L E A – 2013 . A E E 256 is primed and armed. It has been quietly distributed to numerous mirrors over the last few days and is available for download from this website now. We encourage all Anonymous to syndicate this file as widely as possible.
The contents are various and we won’t ruin the speculation by revealing them. Suffice it to say, everyone has secrets, and some things are not meant to be public. At a regular interval commencing today, we will choose one media outlet and supply them with heavily redacted partial contents of the file. Any media outlets wishing to be eligible for this program must include within their reporting a means of secure communications.
We have not taken this action lightly, nor without consideration of the possible consequences. Should we be forced to reveal the trigger-key to this warhead, we understand that there will be collateral damage. We appreciate that many who work within the justice system believe in those principles that it has lost, corrupted, or abandoned, that they do not bear the full responsibility for the damages caused by their occupation.
It is our hope that this warhead need never be detonated.
However, in order for there to be a peaceful resolution to this crisis, certain things need to happen. There must be reform of outdated and poorly-envisioned legislation, written to be so broadly applied as to make a felony crime out of violation of terms of service, creating in effect vast swathes of crimes, and allowing for selective punishment. There must be reform of mandatory minimum sentencing. There must be a return to proportionality of punishment with respect to actual harm caused, and consideration of motive and mens rea. The inalienable right to a presumption of innocence and the recourse to trial and possibility of exoneration must be returned to its sacred status, and not gambled away by pre-trial bargaining in the face of overwhelming sentences, unaffordable justice and disfavourable odds. Laws must be upheld unselectively, and not used as a weapon of government to make examples of those it deems threatening to its power.
For good reason the statue of lady justice is blindfolded. No more should her innocence be besmirked, her scales tipped, nor her swordhand guided. Furthermore there must be a solemn commitment to freedom of the internet, this last great common space of humanity, and to the common ownership of information to further the common good.
We make this statement do not expect to be negotiated with; we do not desire to be negotiated with. We understand that due to the actions we take we exclude ourselves from the system within which solutions are found. There are others who serve that purpose, people far more respectable than us, people whose voices emerge from the light, and not the shadows. These voices are already making clear the reforms that have been necessary for some time, and are outright required now.
It is these people that the justice system, the government, and law enforcement must engage with. Their voices are already ringing strong with a chorus of determined resolution. We demand only that this chorus is not ignored. We demand the government does not make the mistake of hoping that time will dampen its ringing, that they can ride out this wave of determination, that business as usual can continue after a sufficient period of lip-service and back-patting.
Not this time. This time there will be change, or there will be chaos…
Anonymous has observed for some time now the trajectory of justice in the United States with growing concern. We have marked the departure of this system from the noble ideals in which it was born and enshrined. We have seen the erosion of due process, the dilution of constitutional rights, the usurpation of the rightful authority of courts by the “discretion” of prosecutors. We have seen how the law is wielded less and less to uphold justice, and more and more to exercise control, authority and power in the interests of oppression or personal gain.
We have been watching, and waiting.
Two weeks ago today, a line was crossed. Two weeks ago today, Aaron Swartz was killed. Killed because he faced an impossible choice. Killed because he was forced into playing a game he could not win — a twisted and distorted perversion of justice — a game where the only winning move was not to play.
Anonymous immediately convened an emergency council to discuss our response to this tragedy. After much heavy-hearted discussion, the decision was upheld to engage the United States Department of Justice and its associated executive branches in a game of a similar nature, a game in which the only winning move is not to play.
Last year the Federal Bureau of Investigation revelled in porcine glee at its successful infiltration of certain elements of Anonymous. This infiltration was achieved through the use of the *same tactics which lead to Aaron Swartz’ death. It would not have been possible were it not for the power of federal prosecutors to thoroughly destroy the lives of any hacktivists they apprehend through the very real threat of highly disproportionate sentencing.
As a result of the FBI’s infiltration and entrapment tactics, several more of our brethren now face similar disproportionate persecution, the balance of their lives hanging on the severely skewed scales of a broken justice system.
We have felt within our hearts a burning rage in reaction to these events, but we have not allowed ourselves to be drawn into a foolish and premature response. We have bidden our time, operating in the shadows, adapting our tactics and honing our abilities. We have allowed the FBI and its masters in government — both the puppet and the shadow government that controls it — to believe they had struck a crippling blow to our infrastructure, that they had demoralized us, paralyzed us with paranoia and fear. We have held our tongue and waited.
With Aaron’s death we can wait no longer. The time has come to show the United States Department of Justice and its affiliates the true meaning of infiltration. The time has come to give this system a taste of its own medicine. The time has come for them to feel the helplessness and fear that comes with being forced into a game where the odds are stacked against them.
This website was chosen due to the symbolic nature of its purpose — the federal sentencing guidelines which enable prosecutors to cheat citizens of their constitutionally-guaranteed right to a fair trial, by a jury of their peers — the federal sentencing guidelines which are in clear violation of the 8th amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishments. This website was also chosen due to the nature of its visitors. It is far from the only government asset we control, and we have exercised such control for quite some time…
There has been a lot of fuss recently in the technological media regarding such operations as Red October, the widespread use of vulnerable browsers and the availability of zero-day exploits for these browsers and their plugins. None of this comes of course as any surprise to us, but it is perhaps good that those within the information security industry are making the extent of these threats more widely understood.
Still there is nothing quite as educational as a well-conducted demonstration…
Through this websites and various others that will remain unnamed, we have been conducting our own infiltration. We did not restrict ourselves like the FBI to one high-profile compromise. We are far more ambitious, and far more capable. Over the last two weeks we have wound down this operation, removed all traces of leakware from the compromised systems, and taken down the injection apparatus used to detect and exploit vulnerable machines.
We have enough fissile material for multiple warheads. Today we are launching the first of these. Operation Last Resort has begun…
Warhead – U S – D O J – L E A – 2013 . A E E 256 is primed and armed. It has been quietly distributed to numerous mirrors over the last few days and is available for download from this website now. We encourage all Anonymous to syndicate this file as widely as possible.
The contents are various and we won’t ruin the speculation by revealing them. Suffice it to say, everyone has secrets, and some things are not meant to be public. At a regular interval commencing today, we will choose one media outlet and supply them with heavily redacted partial contents of the file. Any media outlets wishing to be eligible for this program must include within their reporting a means of secure communications.
We have not taken this action lightly, nor without consideration of the possible consequences. Should we be forced to reveal the trigger-key to this warhead, we understand that there will be collateral damage. We appreciate that many who work within the justice system believe in those principles that it has lost, corrupted, or abandoned, that they do not bear the full responsibility for the damages caused by their occupation.
It is our hope that this warhead need never be detonated.
However, in order for there to be a peaceful resolution to this crisis, certain things need to happen. There must be reform of outdated and poorly-envisioned legislation, written to be so broadly applied as to make a felony crime out of violation of terms of service, creating in effect vast swathes of crimes, and allowing for selective punishment. There must be reform of mandatory minimum sentencing. There must be a return to proportionality of punishment with respect to actual harm caused, and consideration of motive and mens rea. The inalienable right to a presumption of innocence and the recourse to trial and possibility of exoneration must be returned to its sacred status, and not gambled away by pre-trial bargaining in the face of overwhelming sentences, unaffordable justice and disfavourable odds. Laws must be upheld unselectively, and not used as a weapon of government to make examples of those it deems threatening to its power.
For good reason the statue of lady justice is blindfolded. No more should her innocence be besmirked, her scales tipped, nor her swordhand guided. Furthermore there must be a solemn commitment to freedom of the internet, this last great common space of humanity, and to the common ownership of information to further the common good.
We make this statement do not expect to be negotiated with; we do not desire to be negotiated with. We understand that due to the actions we take we exclude ourselves from the system within which solutions are found. There are others who serve that purpose, people far more respectable than us, people whose voices emerge from the light, and not the shadows. These voices are already making clear the reforms that have been necessary for some time, and are outright required now.
It is these people that the justice system, the government, and law enforcement must engage with. Their voices are already ringing strong with a chorus of determined resolution. We demand only that this chorus is not ignored. We demand the government does not make the mistake of hoping that time will dampen its ringing, that they can ride out this wave of determination, that business as usual can continue after a sufficient period of lip-service and back-patting.
Not this time. This time there will be change, or there will be chaos…
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Personal Secession – The Way to Freedom
by Michael S. Rozeff
Certain people and groups in California want to ban male circumcision, and they are getting measures placed on local ballots for voting.
In Louisiana, there is some sort of law about the teaching of the creation of man in the public schools that has people who dislike that law all riled up and seeking repeal.
Women in Egypt are bitterly divided between those who favor sharia law for Egypt and those who favor secular law.
The State of Arizona has a law that legalizes medical marijuana. The Governor is suing the State of Arizona against this law because it conflicts with federal law.
President Bush "launched missiles and bombs at targets in Iraq" in March of 2003, an action of which 25 percent of Americans disapproved at the time. That figure rose to 53 percent within 8 months.
What do the above items have in common?
They all involve laws approved of by some and disapproved of by others. In all cases, there are winners and losers. The winners get their favorite laws passed. The losers have to obey.
In all cases, the losers have no choice.
You can’t smoke in a bar. You must use a bicycle helmet. You cannot use an incandescent light bulb. You cannot place phosphates in soap. You must use a front-loading washing machine. Your shower cannot pump at above a specified rate. Your toilet cannot go above a specified number of gallons. You must pay taxes for government programs. You must accept Federal Reserve Notes in payments. A bank must report cash transactions over a specified size. You cannot buy marijuana. You cannot simply buy a gun.
If circumcision is banned in San Francisco, those who want to circumcise their babies will have to go elsewhere. In Louisiana, the public schools, and maybe even private schools who can’t find an exemption on some grounds, will teach what the legislature tells them to teach. In Egypt, either sharia law will be in or it will be out, for everyone. In the individual states, either they will be allowed to pass medical marijuana laws or else the federal law will be the rule. Clinton, Bush, and Obama and the Congress will launch their missiles wherever they please even if large numbers of Americans disapprove, and they will extract the resources to do this in the form of taxes whether you like it or not.
These examples all involve voting and democracies, but the same division between winners and losers occurs in other forms of government such as monarchies and dictatorships.
They all have in common that there are always groups of people who want to impose their views on everyone. They all have in common that every such group aims to use government as the instrument to fulfill their ardent desires.
I feel sorry for the human race. The thinking and emotional makeup of most people are so impoverished that they cannot find a way to live without imposing their views on as many other people as they can. It is not enough for them to preach their views. They feel they have to pass a law or somehow use the government to make everyone else conform to their wishes.
I felt sadness when I read about the woman pushing for a circumcision law. It doesn’t matter what her reasons are. Everyone always comes up with reasons. Bush had his reasons. Obama has his reasons. The Louisiana legislators had their reasons. I’m not debating the reasons or the substance of any of these many debates. I’m not interested in choosing up sides.
I feel sad because the desire to pass a law and impose one’s own views on everyone else is, to my way of thinking, so stupid, so ignorant, so limited in vision, so immoral, so anti-human, so devoid of understanding, so unloving, so distorted, so anti-freedom, so anti-voluntaristic, so anti-individual, so unreasonable, so intolerant, and so against the person.
Government in its present condition is a factory that constantly manufactures new kinds of ropes, manacles, gags, and handcuffs with which it binds everyone. This is what most people accept.
I am amazed, totally amazed, that people do not see or admit the contradiction between the American rhetoric of freedom and what actually goes down, and between that rhetoric and their own attempts to vote in the candidates of their choice and impose their programs on everyone else!
Through the instrument of government, there are countless groups and political parties organized with the sole purpose of making slaves out of everyone. Is this not a self-evident truth? No, it is not, because every such group and party attempts to provide reasons why its program is a good thing. They would bitterly dispute my contention that their aim is to impose slavery on everyone.
One government for all cannot coexist with freedom. They are mutually exclusive.
Let those who wish to build missiles and shoot them into Tripoli do so at their own cost and risk and for themselves only. Let those who wish to form and pay for a military that trains every nation on earth how to interdict drugs do so at their own cost and risk and for themselves only. Let those who wish to form a legislature that enacts their version of religion do so at their own cost and risk and for themselves only. Let those who wish to pass a law that forbids drug use do so for themselves only. Let those who wish to pass a law that forbids circumcision do so for themselves only. Let those who wish to tax themselves and give the proceeds away to those in need do so for themselves only. Let those who wish to guarantee medical care for all those in their group do so at their own cost and risk and for themselves only.
If we actually want freedom and not slavery, we cannot have one government for all. Freedom and one government for all are inconsistent with one another. They contradict one another. To have one government and simultaneously to have freedom is an impossibility.
To arrive at greater freedom, one has to have the freedom to remove the manacles imposed by a government that presumes to be the government for all. One has to be able to opt out of government laws. One has to be able to secede personally from a government.
Personal secession manifests one’s personal freedom to choose a government (or no government) of one’s desires, by oneself or in association with other people.
For further reading on personal secession and secession by groups, one can use a search engine. After writing the above, I searched on secession movements. One site that came up was secession.net. Their statement of principles is well worth reading. They advocate something close to personal secession, namely, community-based secession. The difference between them is trivial.
For example, this site writes
PRIMACY OF THE RIGHT TO SECEDE
The primary political right of the individual and of political communities must be to secede from any larger political entity, whether they were born into it, were forced to join it, or voluntarily joined it. If one denies or relinquishes that right, one is little more than a slave--and no agreement to become a slave can be legally or morally binding.
Secession of individuals and communities does not have to mean war and violence. It should be a natural evolutionary feature of all political entities. Communities can form networks or confederations, since secession is accepted by both in principle. However, communities will not form "federations" which by definition do not allow secession. We will suggest practical and nonviolent means by which such separation can occur and the kinds of networks and confederations that could be created to replace oppressive nation states.
COMMUNITY-BASED SECESSION:
In the name of nationalism, religion, ideology, tradition or "the common good," the governments of the world suppress individual liberty and individuals' control of their own communities. Special interest- corporate- state- bureaucratic- military elites worldwide tax, regulate, bully, beat, prosecute, jail and execute citizens into submission. They discriminate against, rob, ethnically cleanse and genocide members of oppressed racial/ethnic/religious/regional groups. Without government control, these elites would have little real power over individuals and communities.
The concept of individual liberty is simple: individuals should be free to do whatever they please as long as they don't harm others by using force or fraud. This is the basic ethical tenet or "golden rule" of all religions, one corrupted by layers of theology and ritual and centuries of kowtowing to political authority. Individual consent–not some nationalist, racial, religious, tribal or, ideological construct or "social contract"–is the only legitimate basis of any social, economic and political organization. However, supporting the idea and value of individual liberty is not enough to obtain liberty. We must support institutional structures that make it impossible for public or private entities to crush individual liberty.
Contrast personal secession with the U.S. government’s notions of "security" and "democracy" and "welfare" for all of America. The U.S. vision is actually a highly limited vision that pretends to be a universal vision. Its thrust is to the common and general. It is certainly a monopolistic vision. Ultimately, it is a static and one-sided totalitarian vision. A totalitarian vision within the United States is continually being enacted and made real. It is not that of Orwell or Huxley although some of their elements are present. At present it is a suffocating and deadening vision in which political correctness holds sway and in which government makes countless rules that control many aspects of life, while allowing outlets in certain directions that vent the pressures. The government’s vision is of oneness, sameness, monotony, regularity, perfect safety and security, regimentation, and boredom. It crushes the personal and the individual.
The U.S. government is even making strenuous efforts to promote this vision in foreign governments.
Democracy is not freedom. It is the suppression of freedom. This takes different forms in different countries. In America, the current obsession is with security and safety in every aspect of life. The government intrudes everywhere with these as its rationales. This is the American totalitarianism.
Personal secession allows for multiple visions of life and living. It allows for dynamism, creativity, personal development along new lines, invention, discovery, and adventure. It allows for variation and newness. It allows for development along unexpected lines. It allows for mistakes and learning from mistakes, new and untried ventures, new ways, new customs, and new ideas. It allows for personal risk-taking. It emphasizes the personal and individual. It is pluralistic. It is voluntaristic.
Personal secession means freedom and all that freedom entails.
June 6, 2011
Michael S. Rozeff [send him mail] is a retired Professor of Finance living in East Amherst, New York. He is the author of the free e-book Essays on American Empire: Liberty vs. Dominationand the free e-book The U.S. Constitution and Money: Corruption and Decline.
Certain people and groups in California want to ban male circumcision, and they are getting measures placed on local ballots for voting.
In Louisiana, there is some sort of law about the teaching of the creation of man in the public schools that has people who dislike that law all riled up and seeking repeal.
Women in Egypt are bitterly divided between those who favor sharia law for Egypt and those who favor secular law.
The State of Arizona has a law that legalizes medical marijuana. The Governor is suing the State of Arizona against this law because it conflicts with federal law.
President Bush "launched missiles and bombs at targets in Iraq" in March of 2003, an action of which 25 percent of Americans disapproved at the time. That figure rose to 53 percent within 8 months.
What do the above items have in common?
They all involve laws approved of by some and disapproved of by others. In all cases, there are winners and losers. The winners get their favorite laws passed. The losers have to obey.
In all cases, the losers have no choice.
You can’t smoke in a bar. You must use a bicycle helmet. You cannot use an incandescent light bulb. You cannot place phosphates in soap. You must use a front-loading washing machine. Your shower cannot pump at above a specified rate. Your toilet cannot go above a specified number of gallons. You must pay taxes for government programs. You must accept Federal Reserve Notes in payments. A bank must report cash transactions over a specified size. You cannot buy marijuana. You cannot simply buy a gun.
If circumcision is banned in San Francisco, those who want to circumcise their babies will have to go elsewhere. In Louisiana, the public schools, and maybe even private schools who can’t find an exemption on some grounds, will teach what the legislature tells them to teach. In Egypt, either sharia law will be in or it will be out, for everyone. In the individual states, either they will be allowed to pass medical marijuana laws or else the federal law will be the rule. Clinton, Bush, and Obama and the Congress will launch their missiles wherever they please even if large numbers of Americans disapprove, and they will extract the resources to do this in the form of taxes whether you like it or not.
These examples all involve voting and democracies, but the same division between winners and losers occurs in other forms of government such as monarchies and dictatorships.
They all have in common that there are always groups of people who want to impose their views on everyone. They all have in common that every such group aims to use government as the instrument to fulfill their ardent desires.
I feel sorry for the human race. The thinking and emotional makeup of most people are so impoverished that they cannot find a way to live without imposing their views on as many other people as they can. It is not enough for them to preach their views. They feel they have to pass a law or somehow use the government to make everyone else conform to their wishes.
I felt sadness when I read about the woman pushing for a circumcision law. It doesn’t matter what her reasons are. Everyone always comes up with reasons. Bush had his reasons. Obama has his reasons. The Louisiana legislators had their reasons. I’m not debating the reasons or the substance of any of these many debates. I’m not interested in choosing up sides.
I feel sad because the desire to pass a law and impose one’s own views on everyone else is, to my way of thinking, so stupid, so ignorant, so limited in vision, so immoral, so anti-human, so devoid of understanding, so unloving, so distorted, so anti-freedom, so anti-voluntaristic, so anti-individual, so unreasonable, so intolerant, and so against the person.
Government in its present condition is a factory that constantly manufactures new kinds of ropes, manacles, gags, and handcuffs with which it binds everyone. This is what most people accept.
I am amazed, totally amazed, that people do not see or admit the contradiction between the American rhetoric of freedom and what actually goes down, and between that rhetoric and their own attempts to vote in the candidates of their choice and impose their programs on everyone else!
Through the instrument of government, there are countless groups and political parties organized with the sole purpose of making slaves out of everyone. Is this not a self-evident truth? No, it is not, because every such group and party attempts to provide reasons why its program is a good thing. They would bitterly dispute my contention that their aim is to impose slavery on everyone.
One government for all cannot coexist with freedom. They are mutually exclusive.
Let those who wish to build missiles and shoot them into Tripoli do so at their own cost and risk and for themselves only. Let those who wish to form and pay for a military that trains every nation on earth how to interdict drugs do so at their own cost and risk and for themselves only. Let those who wish to form a legislature that enacts their version of religion do so at their own cost and risk and for themselves only. Let those who wish to pass a law that forbids drug use do so for themselves only. Let those who wish to pass a law that forbids circumcision do so for themselves only. Let those who wish to tax themselves and give the proceeds away to those in need do so for themselves only. Let those who wish to guarantee medical care for all those in their group do so at their own cost and risk and for themselves only.
If we actually want freedom and not slavery, we cannot have one government for all. Freedom and one government for all are inconsistent with one another. They contradict one another. To have one government and simultaneously to have freedom is an impossibility.
To arrive at greater freedom, one has to have the freedom to remove the manacles imposed by a government that presumes to be the government for all. One has to be able to opt out of government laws. One has to be able to secede personally from a government.
Personal secession manifests one’s personal freedom to choose a government (or no government) of one’s desires, by oneself or in association with other people.
For further reading on personal secession and secession by groups, one can use a search engine. After writing the above, I searched on secession movements. One site that came up was secession.net. Their statement of principles is well worth reading. They advocate something close to personal secession, namely, community-based secession. The difference between them is trivial.
For example, this site writes
PRIMACY OF THE RIGHT TO SECEDE
The primary political right of the individual and of political communities must be to secede from any larger political entity, whether they were born into it, were forced to join it, or voluntarily joined it. If one denies or relinquishes that right, one is little more than a slave--and no agreement to become a slave can be legally or morally binding.
Secession of individuals and communities does not have to mean war and violence. It should be a natural evolutionary feature of all political entities. Communities can form networks or confederations, since secession is accepted by both in principle. However, communities will not form "federations" which by definition do not allow secession. We will suggest practical and nonviolent means by which such separation can occur and the kinds of networks and confederations that could be created to replace oppressive nation states.
COMMUNITY-BASED SECESSION:
In the name of nationalism, religion, ideology, tradition or "the common good," the governments of the world suppress individual liberty and individuals' control of their own communities. Special interest- corporate- state- bureaucratic- military elites worldwide tax, regulate, bully, beat, prosecute, jail and execute citizens into submission. They discriminate against, rob, ethnically cleanse and genocide members of oppressed racial/ethnic/religious/regional groups. Without government control, these elites would have little real power over individuals and communities.
The concept of individual liberty is simple: individuals should be free to do whatever they please as long as they don't harm others by using force or fraud. This is the basic ethical tenet or "golden rule" of all religions, one corrupted by layers of theology and ritual and centuries of kowtowing to political authority. Individual consent–not some nationalist, racial, religious, tribal or, ideological construct or "social contract"–is the only legitimate basis of any social, economic and political organization. However, supporting the idea and value of individual liberty is not enough to obtain liberty. We must support institutional structures that make it impossible for public or private entities to crush individual liberty.
Contrast personal secession with the U.S. government’s notions of "security" and "democracy" and "welfare" for all of America. The U.S. vision is actually a highly limited vision that pretends to be a universal vision. Its thrust is to the common and general. It is certainly a monopolistic vision. Ultimately, it is a static and one-sided totalitarian vision. A totalitarian vision within the United States is continually being enacted and made real. It is not that of Orwell or Huxley although some of their elements are present. At present it is a suffocating and deadening vision in which political correctness holds sway and in which government makes countless rules that control many aspects of life, while allowing outlets in certain directions that vent the pressures. The government’s vision is of oneness, sameness, monotony, regularity, perfect safety and security, regimentation, and boredom. It crushes the personal and the individual.
The U.S. government is even making strenuous efforts to promote this vision in foreign governments.
Democracy is not freedom. It is the suppression of freedom. This takes different forms in different countries. In America, the current obsession is with security and safety in every aspect of life. The government intrudes everywhere with these as its rationales. This is the American totalitarianism.
Personal secession allows for multiple visions of life and living. It allows for dynamism, creativity, personal development along new lines, invention, discovery, and adventure. It allows for variation and newness. It allows for development along unexpected lines. It allows for mistakes and learning from mistakes, new and untried ventures, new ways, new customs, and new ideas. It allows for personal risk-taking. It emphasizes the personal and individual. It is pluralistic. It is voluntaristic.
Personal secession means freedom and all that freedom entails.
June 6, 2011
Michael S. Rozeff [send him mail] is a retired Professor of Finance living in East Amherst, New York. He is the author of the free e-book Essays on American Empire: Liberty vs. Dominationand the free e-book The U.S. Constitution and Money: Corruption and Decline.
Individual Secession
By a Texan currently living abroad
Some years ago I listened with keen interest to a speech by a professor from Alabama speaking about how Americans had tried “State Secession” twice. It had worked once and it had failed once. While we all look forward to the time that we might go for “the best of three”, there remain some things that one can do as an individual. They fall in the category of Individual Secession. Individual Secession comes in many flavours and the applications are as diverse as the people who implement it.
For some, it begins with taking our children out of government indoctrination centers, and arranging for private or home school solutions. That is as much an act of secession as anything else, and has been resorted to by literally millions of parents at this point. Believe me, it concerns the Central Planners, when those fertile brains are removed from their dominion. (It’s always touching to see their “concern for the children.”)
Others have walked away from churches which teach false doctrines, or left social clubs and even jobs over issues they feel are inimical to their family or the entire country. In fact, it’s an American tradition to quit when you don’t like the way things are going – to just walk away. That’s why songs like, “Take This Job and Shove It”, resonate with the American working man. Indeed, “I was lookin’ for a job when I found this one,” was a theme long before it was a song.
In 1865, and for a decade following, Southerners emigrated from the South in such numbers that it constituted one of the great migrations of Western Civilization. Much has been written of the fact that the American West draws its independent nature from Southerners who had no intention of living with the boot of Yankee occupation squarely on their neck. Most of them fled west to Texas and beyond.
Tens of thousands, however, went to different countries. Not a few went to England and
Scotland. Many thousands went into Mexico. Between ten and twenty thousand went to the most famous settlement of Americana, leaving an interesting cultural impression upon the region, where ante bellum cotillions are still danced, and the most Southern accents you can imagine are still spoken by the older descendents. Most, however, returned to the US, and found their way west. The primitive conditions and foreign cultures were difficult on all, and the distance from families was not worth the price, especially when locals were not necessarily welcoming of these strange new immigrants.
Where did we all come from in the first place? There is not a single American or European (or Asian or African, for that matter), who does not descend from an immigrant at some point. We are a nation of immigrants, legality notwithstanding. And those who came, did so under conditions far more difficult than what we face today. They left family behind, without benefit of FaceBook or e-mail for daily communication. They went to a strange culture, often a strange language for a couple of major reasons – the chance to own their own land (private property) and/or the necessity to flee tyranny. (The two are often related.)
In the late 18th Century, Scottish and Irish immigrants found it so difficult to feed a family that they voted with their feet, by walking to the nearest port and booking passage to the colonies, principally to America, and later to Australia and New Zealand. The government became alarmed, shortly after the absentee landlords became alarmed, for the rents simply quit coming in. A royal commission was created to figure out what had happened to all the (formerly servile) farmers and shopkeepers.
As is so typical of governments, they immediately developed a conscience about the conditions in which those poor emigrants had to travel. (Wink, wink.)
In 1803, the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the Passenger Vessels Act. It was the first of many laws intended to regulate the transportation of immigrants and to protect emigrants on board ships from exploitation by transportation companies (such as exorbitant rates and consequent subjection to poor sanitary conditions). The Passenger Act required improved conditions relating to hygiene, food and comfort for passengers travelling to North America. However, this law was not always followed by transportation providers and the spread of infectious diseases such as typhus continued.
This act was established under humanitarian pretences, but the more practical and desired effect was to raise the cost of passage to prevent as many as possible from leaving. Landlords who feared the emigration of their population lobbied extensively for this piece of legislation, and where one could previously travel to Canada for £3–4, the price for the same passage was in some cases raised to £10 or more. The ability to move abroad was subsequently limited to a small class of people until it was repealed in 1826.
As one South Texan recently told me, when I asked him, what would your ancestors say, who came from Europe 150 years ago to claim this ranch and build a homeland for generations. His response was startling in its intensity. He said, “My family came here to escape government oppression and to find cheap land. I’ve had enough government meddling with my property and confiscatory taxation. I’ve found cheap land in another country. If my family lived here with me now, I guarantee you, they would be helping me pack!” He now owns a ranch in Argentina. (I asked him about the socialist government there, and he said, “It could be bad, if they were efficient, but they’re so incompetent that they practically don’t exist. I can live with it.”) Reminds me of Will Rogers’ famous quip, “I should think the last thing you want is all the government you pay for!”
Someone told me recently that 4,000 Americans a week arrive in Panama to make it their new home. Obviously, many are retirees, choosing to get better value for their dwindling dollars there than they can back home. But many of the people leaving the US these days are simply fed up, and no longer convinced that they can do a thing in the world to change things here, and willing to make the effort to start over for the sake of children and grandchildren.
All of that to say, “Things are at a head.” None of us are surprised that a crisis is coming – it’s the common core belief of a huge section of Americans today. And some are preparing creative ways to secede, right where they are. They are opting out of government systems, disappearing from the traditional and moving into alternative forms of buying and selling their goods and services. These things need a lot of discussion and development and debate. Whether it’s food production and cooperative buying, or alternative health programs, or herbal medicine, or contract labor, etc., there is a healthy underground economy out there that is (a) invisible, and (b) helping prop up the sick and dying economy.
If you decide to become an expatriate and leave the country, you’re in good company. Follow your own path, knowing you’re not the first, nor the last. (Chances are, you’ll be back.)
http://southernnationalcongress.org/truths/individual_secession.shtml
Some years ago I listened with keen interest to a speech by a professor from Alabama speaking about how Americans had tried “State Secession” twice. It had worked once and it had failed once. While we all look forward to the time that we might go for “the best of three”, there remain some things that one can do as an individual. They fall in the category of Individual Secession. Individual Secession comes in many flavours and the applications are as diverse as the people who implement it.
For some, it begins with taking our children out of government indoctrination centers, and arranging for private or home school solutions. That is as much an act of secession as anything else, and has been resorted to by literally millions of parents at this point. Believe me, it concerns the Central Planners, when those fertile brains are removed from their dominion. (It’s always touching to see their “concern for the children.”)
Others have walked away from churches which teach false doctrines, or left social clubs and even jobs over issues they feel are inimical to their family or the entire country. In fact, it’s an American tradition to quit when you don’t like the way things are going – to just walk away. That’s why songs like, “Take This Job and Shove It”, resonate with the American working man. Indeed, “I was lookin’ for a job when I found this one,” was a theme long before it was a song.
In 1865, and for a decade following, Southerners emigrated from the South in such numbers that it constituted one of the great migrations of Western Civilization. Much has been written of the fact that the American West draws its independent nature from Southerners who had no intention of living with the boot of Yankee occupation squarely on their neck. Most of them fled west to Texas and beyond.
Tens of thousands, however, went to different countries. Not a few went to England and
Scotland. Many thousands went into Mexico. Between ten and twenty thousand went to the most famous settlement of Americana, leaving an interesting cultural impression upon the region, where ante bellum cotillions are still danced, and the most Southern accents you can imagine are still spoken by the older descendents. Most, however, returned to the US, and found their way west. The primitive conditions and foreign cultures were difficult on all, and the distance from families was not worth the price, especially when locals were not necessarily welcoming of these strange new immigrants.Where did we all come from in the first place? There is not a single American or European (or Asian or African, for that matter), who does not descend from an immigrant at some point. We are a nation of immigrants, legality notwithstanding. And those who came, did so under conditions far more difficult than what we face today. They left family behind, without benefit of FaceBook or e-mail for daily communication. They went to a strange culture, often a strange language for a couple of major reasons – the chance to own their own land (private property) and/or the necessity to flee tyranny. (The two are often related.)
In the late 18th Century, Scottish and Irish immigrants found it so difficult to feed a family that they voted with their feet, by walking to the nearest port and booking passage to the colonies, principally to America, and later to Australia and New Zealand. The government became alarmed, shortly after the absentee landlords became alarmed, for the rents simply quit coming in. A royal commission was created to figure out what had happened to all the (formerly servile) farmers and shopkeepers.
As is so typical of governments, they immediately developed a conscience about the conditions in which those poor emigrants had to travel. (Wink, wink.)
In 1803, the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the Passenger Vessels Act. It was the first of many laws intended to regulate the transportation of immigrants and to protect emigrants on board ships from exploitation by transportation companies (such as exorbitant rates and consequent subjection to poor sanitary conditions). The Passenger Act required improved conditions relating to hygiene, food and comfort for passengers travelling to North America. However, this law was not always followed by transportation providers and the spread of infectious diseases such as typhus continued.This act was established under humanitarian pretences, but the more practical and desired effect was to raise the cost of passage to prevent as many as possible from leaving. Landlords who feared the emigration of their population lobbied extensively for this piece of legislation, and where one could previously travel to Canada for £3–4, the price for the same passage was in some cases raised to £10 or more. The ability to move abroad was subsequently limited to a small class of people until it was repealed in 1826.
As one South Texan recently told me, when I asked him, what would your ancestors say, who came from Europe 150 years ago to claim this ranch and build a homeland for generations. His response was startling in its intensity. He said, “My family came here to escape government oppression and to find cheap land. I’ve had enough government meddling with my property and confiscatory taxation. I’ve found cheap land in another country. If my family lived here with me now, I guarantee you, they would be helping me pack!” He now owns a ranch in Argentina. (I asked him about the socialist government there, and he said, “It could be bad, if they were efficient, but they’re so incompetent that they practically don’t exist. I can live with it.”) Reminds me of Will Rogers’ famous quip, “I should think the last thing you want is all the government you pay for!”
Someone told me recently that 4,000 Americans a week arrive in Panama to make it their new home. Obviously, many are retirees, choosing to get better value for their dwindling dollars there than they can back home. But many of the people leaving the US these days are simply fed up, and no longer convinced that they can do a thing in the world to change things here, and willing to make the effort to start over for the sake of children and grandchildren.
All of that to say, “Things are at a head.” None of us are surprised that a crisis is coming – it’s the common core belief of a huge section of Americans today. And some are preparing creative ways to secede, right where they are. They are opting out of government systems, disappearing from the traditional and moving into alternative forms of buying and selling their goods and services. These things need a lot of discussion and development and debate. Whether it’s food production and cooperative buying, or alternative health programs, or herbal medicine, or contract labor, etc., there is a healthy underground economy out there that is (a) invisible, and (b) helping prop up the sick and dying economy.
If you decide to become an expatriate and leave the country, you’re in good company. Follow your own path, knowing you’re not the first, nor the last. (Chances are, you’ll be back.)
http://southernnationalcongress.org/truths/individual_secession.shtml
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