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Italian Army May Interfere Against Violent Protests(0)
Monti raised alert levels on Sunday at some sensitive sites across Italy to handle the recent violence that has hit the country. Interior Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri also said on Sunday that she was considering bringing in the army to defend certain locations. “There have been several attacks on the offices of Equitalia (the agency handling tax collections) in recent weeks. I want to remind people that attacking Equitalia is the equivalent of attacking the State,” she said. “The army could be used to guard buildings which could be the target of violent protest. The danger of an escalation exists. It’s a situation which demands drastic action,” she added. On Saturday, two Molotov cocktails were thrown at the offices of Equitalia in Livorno, Tuscany, and severely damaged the front of the building after they blew off. Moreover, a letter bomb, which did not blast, was sent to the organization’s offices in Rome on Friday. CONTINUED at Press TV. |
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Fully Armed U.S. Troops Patrol Minnesota Neighborhood(0) Guard members previously hunted insurgents in Iraq. A photo showing fully armed U.S. National Guard troops patrolling a quiet residential street in Crookston, Minnesota has gone viral, once again underscoring concerns that Americans are being conditioned to accept the gradual imposition of martial law. Although the photo is undated, Guard troops from the local Crookston Armory routinely take part in off-base exercises which train the local population to accept the sight of armed soldiers patrolling their neighborhoods as normal. One such exercise in February 2011dubbed “Urban Operations Training” involved military Humvees and 27 armed soldiers conducting a drill around the Bridge Street area of Crookston. According to “Maggie,” the woman who took the photograph, when she started taking pictures of the troops one of them told her, “Just training Ma’am. Joining up with another patrol at the rally point.” When Maggie asked why they were training on the streets of a quiet residential area, a younger soldier responded, “To be honest ma’am, I don’t know.” Members of the same Guard unit shown on the photograph – Minnesota National Guard, Unit 2-136 CAB / B Company – have been deployed to Iraq where their duties would potentially have included rounding up alleged insurgents and taking them to prison camps, a frightening prospect given that the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act allows for American citizens to be similarly kidnapped and detained without trial. CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson. |
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Pentagon Plans for Telepathic Troops Within 5 YearsComments Off The U.S. Army is dedicating millions of research dollars into discovering building helmets to allow soldiers to telepathically communicate with one another on the battlefield. The technology, which seems like something out of a science fiction novel, would use electrodes to pick up code words that soldiers were thinking. Those codewords would then be transmitted back to a computer where the soldier’s position and message- telling, for instance, that it is safe to progress towards a target- which would be transmitted to their peers in the field. Rumors that army intelligence was determined to use mind control technology to their advantage have been milling around for decades, and have been shrouded in a mix of truth and fiction. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was established in 1958 and was dedicated to expanding the Department of Defense’ technology usage, some of which included state-of-the-art, and top secret, research into the mind. Delving more into the fiction side of things was the book, and later George Clooney movie, called The Men Who Stare At Goats which depicts the use of New Age concepts, like mind control, used during interrogation exercises in the last three decades. Now, new details are emerging about the very real $4million research project being conducted across the country on the Pentagon’s dime. Based largely out of University of California-Irvine, in conjunction with labs in Philadelphia and Maryland, scientists are trying to improve so-called ‘synthetic telepathy’ so that it could be used in a battlefield. At this point, they have set their sights on 2017 as the year when their plan may turn into silent action. So far, 45 per cent of the commands that are transmitted from one volunteer to another- like ‘call in helicopter’ or ‘enemy ahead’- are correct. That statistic is expected to improve. According to a soldier quoted in Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper, many of those people who will be the ones utilizing the technology are on board. These days we learn warfare through video games and shoot with plastic weapons,’ the unnamed soldier said. ‘One week it’s science fiction- the next it’s on the front line. If it means I don’t have to listen to my sergeant’s voice one more day, then bring it on.’ Others, including civil rights activists, take the opposite view, bringing up concerns about a possible infringement on civil liberties if the technology were to be misused. For the time being, the research is being focused on learning and applying the short military-based codewords, and not individuals private thoughts and deep secrets. CONTINUED at The Daily Mail. |
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Iran Training an Army of Female Ninjas?Comments Off
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Public Order Training: British Army exercise to put down insurrectionComments Off On Saturday, The Telegraph carried an article explaining how hundreds of soldiers from the third battalion of the Parachute Regiment are learning how to put down insurrection. So-called “public order training” will be critical during Britain’s upcoming version of panem et circenses – the 2012 Olympics – as the Greatest Depression deepens. The Telegraph points out that the brutal tactics used by the British Army in Northern Ireland “have been lost” following the 2007 decision to pull back from Ulster. British troops were sent to Derry in 1969 not to keep the peace, but to put down an insurrection after Irish police invaded Catholic areas of the city and imposed a curfew, sealed off Lower Falls, and began shooting unarmed civilians. The violence culminated in Bloody Sunday on January 30, 1972, when 26 unarmed civil-rights protesters and bystanders were shot by soldiers. Now the “Troubles” have reached Britain, thanks to the global engineered economic implosion currently underway. According to The Telegraph, during the British Army “training package” held in Kent, soldiers were taught how to use body-length riot shields, protect themselves from missiles and how to identify and arrest “ring leaders’ using specially trained “snatch squads.” The Greater Manchester Police used “snatch squads” during the 2011 riots. The tactic was pioneered during the anti-globalist demonstrations in Seattle (in this photograph, we see cops snatching a dangerous photographer). During the G20 in Pittsburgh, the military worked with cops and used“snatch and grab” units to kidnap activists. The tactic was also used in Toronto during the G20. Another police tactic pioneered at anti-globalist demonstrations is kettling – cops penning protesters into a small area in order to restrain them. Violent police behavior during the 2009 London G20 resulted in the death of Ian Tomlinson, a newspaper seller who had nothing to do with the demonstration. The tactic was used in New York against Occupy Wall Street protesters. The NYPD kettled several dangerous female protesters and pepper sprayed them. “Learning how to deal with public order situations is a new skill for on a challenging and extremely realistic course,” noted Major Richard Todd, an officer commanding the training. “Many of the drills are no different to what the Roman Army used to do, with highly disciplined soldiers advancing forward under the protection of shields.” The Roman Army specialized in putting down slave revolts and insurrections in England, Gaul, Germania, Judaea and other hot spots around the empire. Specialized troops will be required in Britain and elsewhere across Europe – and eventually here in the United States – as the Greatest Depression picks up speed. At the globalist G20 confab in Cannes last year, British PM David Cameron urged countries plagued by an engineered sovereign debt crisis to forge ahead with deficit reduction plans and austerity measures. In November, the United Nations’ International Labour Organization issued a grim forecast of the social effects of the continuing economic crisis. It said anger could erupt on the streets of Europe and other continents in response, as it has in Greece. In 2010, as the economic implosion began in earnest, the IMF warned about the inevitability of a “social explosion.” In 2008, trends forecaster Gerald Celente predicted that by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches. Source: Prison Planet. Written by Kurt Nimmo. |
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The Mitt Romney Problem, Part I: Smaller Government(1)
Introduction: I don’t hate Mitt Romney but I am certainly not a fan, which should be obvious at this point. I do hate the goddamned media for giving him an unfair advantage over the other candidates but truthfully, that isn’t his fault. Romney isn’t the absolute worst presidential choice out there, which many of my colleagues and readers may disagree with vehemently, but he is still a progressive statist bastard that is hellbent on controlling the lives of all of us in an effort to keep the giant wheel of the establishment machine rolling. I have been nasty to the guy many times in my countless diatribes about the 2012 election but my distaste and malcontent has been for a very good reason. Point being, I know that Romney can’t save this country and I feel that this is painstakingly obvious even though I find myself completely befuddled over the fanfare and support that this guy gets, not just form the media – their support is understandable, but from the conservative voting public who are all pretty much in unison behind this guy’s idea of smaller government, less taxes and squashing the budding police state. This guy will not solve any of those problems. In fact, he will only magnify them and dig our giant pit of legislative bullshit deeper and deeper. Hell, the pit is practically bottomless at this point but electing Mitt Romney will only solidify that fact even further. I’m certainly not saying that Obama is a better choice out of the two. Realistically, I don’t think there is much difference between one or the other. This is a prime example of there being just one big government party with two wings: one that wears blue shirts with donkeys on them and one that wears red shirts with elephants on them. The worst part about this is that most “conservatives” are following Romney, as well as Gingrich and Santorum, believing in the hypocritical rhetoric that they’ve got a small government guy on their side who will fight for them. Realistically, those who support these guys are ignorant in economics and foreign policy. It is incredibly unfortunate but as Ron Paul said in a recent debate, “Conservatives have lost their way.” Now I can’t completely cover every negative thing on Romney’s record, as there is a lot, but I am going to talk about a few points. In the end, it is really your decision as to where you want to put your vote but you really need to think this through and ask yourself where you want to be in four years. Do you want to be climbing out of the hole or do you want to be yelling at the guys that are still digging and digging? The first thing worth getting into is definitely the issue of Mitt claiming that he’ll work towards making government smaller. Mitt Romney, who has preached for this over the course of all these debates, has a really shitty record of practicing what he’s been preaching. In reality, Mitt has been feeding into the desires of the voter base and has been stringing them along with his version of the popular rhetoric of the day. The sad thing is that many of the people who support this douchenugget are taking all this bullshit at face value and not looking at reality. Truthfully, maybe Romney actually believes his empty words and his supporters might not be adept enough to see through the Orwellian doublespeak. Let me rundown his track record of big government bullshit by ripping the fucking band-aid off: exposing the man’s economic sores. I could write a whole damn article about the monstrosity that is Romneycare but I won’t bore you or myself with the details that have already been recycled a million times and beaten into the ground with Thor’s hammer by every critic for several years now. I’m over the Romneycare issue personally. I don’t like it, I think it’s shit, it was the blueprint for what became Obamacare but it was done at the state level, not the federal level and most Bay Staters still approve of it, so that is their economic cross to bear. One thing that many Romney supporters don’t know or just choose to ignore is the fact that he significantly raised taxes in Massachusetts while he was governor. While preaching fiscal conservatism and pimping himself out as friendly to business, Governor Romney increased the tax bill on businesses by $300 million! He and his cronies also approved hundreds of millions of dollars worth of higher fees and fines on businesses in just four years! Many business owners were incredibly dissatisfied with Romney as governor. Essentially, corporate taxes under Romney almost doubled in just his one term. I guess the tax hikes were necessary though, as Romney drastically increased spending in Massachusetts. In 2006, Ol’ Mittens increased spending in just that year by 7.6 percent. In 2007, he increased spending again, this time all the way up to 10.2 percent. During just his four years in office, he increased state spending by a total of 20.7 percent! That’s a lot of debt thrown on the taxpayer but at least those hefty tax hikes on corporations absorbed some of the burden. Maybe this tax burden accounts for the fact that Mitt Romney managed the 47th ranked state, out of 50, in the realm of job creation. That brings me to my next point. Romney has been touting his job creation success while working at Bain Capital. He proudly boasts about creating corporations like Staples, Sports Authority and Steel Dynamics, all of which have created hundreds of thousands of jobs. However, as governor, unemployment was a real problem in Massachusetts. Sure, he did great in the private sector and as Romney himself has said, “Jobs are created in the private sector.” However, all of his job creation skills didn’t translate to success when he reached office. So what makes the public think that this job magician’s magic wand will suddenly work this time? Yes he is a self-professed business master but he couldn’t tap into that while running Massachusetts so essentially his trial run at it was a failure. On the issue of Romney’s job creation woes, Boston Herald business reporter Bret Arends wrote:
The question no one ever seems to ask Governor Romney is how many jobs were destroyed in an effort to build his monstrous corporations. Now I am not attacking him for building giant successful businesses, as that is the nature of the beast – good or bad. I am just trying to point out how skewed these sorts of statistical claims are because if you created say 300,000 jobs but your new businesses eliminated the jobs of say 250,000 people whose businesses you closed down through competition, well then you’ve only really created 50,000 jobs. This is a simple ballpark example but it should show you how some statistical claims can be made when you only tell one side of the story. Hell, government has been using these sorts of statistical tactics for years when releasing inaccurate numbers to sway public opinion for a candidate, a bill or whatever else they have needed public approval on. Another issue that shows how non-small government this ass clown is, is the TARP bailouts. Mittens hates when people bring the subject up and has gone as far as lying and completely denying that he ever supported it but there is tons and tons of evidence that says otherwise. In fact, Romney was incredibly passionate about poorly run banks getting a massive taxpayer funded bonus for sucking at business. On CNN, a few years back during the bailouts, Romney said:
Sounds like small government to me! So why would he be so pro-big bank? Well, let’s look at his top campaign contributors from a recent list. His top contributor is Goldman Sachs who gave $354,700. Next up is Credit Suisse Group at $195,250 and Morgan Stanley at $185,800. Every other contributor in the six figures is also in the banking industry. You’ve got HIG Capital, Barclays, Kirkland & Ellis, Bank of America, PricewaterhouseCoopers, EMC Corp. & JPMorgan Chase. His top ten contributors are all fucking banks! Occupying Wall Street should start on Mitt’s front lawn! This shows a sharp contrast from Ron Paul whose top three campaign contributors are the Air Force, the Army and the Navy. Paul’s biggest contributor is also a lot less than six figures. So who really understands the plight of the average person? Romney is so far up on the Wall Street crony capitalist ladder than he can’t remember how to get down – not that he wants to. People that call Barack Obama the Wall Street president haven’t seen anything yet. On campaign contributions from the big banks, Obama has made significantly less than Romney. Goldman Sachs gave Obama $49,124, Morgan Stanley coughed up $28,225, Bank of America gave $46,699, JPMorgan Chase came in at $38,038 and Citigroup was at $36,887. You do the math but it is obvious who the bailed out banking industry supports. Another thing worth noting is that Romney has gotten more money from lobbyists than all other Republican candidates combined. I guess you need all that special interest money to work towards smaller government. Damn it! That Mitt Romney doublethink is taking over my brain! The fact of the matter is, love it or hate it, Mitt Romney has a proven track record of being nothing less than one of the heads on the big government hydra. He is an economic nightmare but because people take him at his word and don’t look at his record, he can continue to dupe the masses into thinking that he’s on their side. Mitt Romney will say anything to get elected. Continued in Part II: Foreign Entanglements.. |
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Army Considering Reprimanding Soldier Who Appeared with Ron PaulComments Off Fresh figures once again show Paul received more military donations than all other candidates combined. The US Army said Wednesday that it is considering disciplining Reserve Corporal Jesse Thorsen, the soldier who spoke out against a militaristic foreign policy at Ron Paul’s post-Iowa caucuses rally. After being cut short during a CNN interview Thorsen, who has served two tours in Afghanistan and was due to head back for a third, was invited on to the stage by Paul himself to address Paul’s cheering supporters. “If there’s any man out there that’s had a vision out there, it’s definitely [Ron Paul],” Thorsen said. “His foreign policy is by far, hands down better than any other candidate’s out there, and I’m sure you all know that. We don’t need to be picking fights overseas and I think everybody else knows that, too.” Apparently someone within the military infrastructure did not take kindly to Thorsen’s remarks, and set about attempting to punish the 10-year veteran for his words. Detractors are now going to great lengths to point out that because Thorsen was in uniform, he was technically in breach of military protocol when he praised Paul’s foreign policy positions. Department of Defense Directive 1344.10 permits troops to attend political activities so long as they are not in uniform. “It’s not in keeping with the spirit of the letter of the DoD directive,” Army spokesman George Wright said in a statement, without directly addressing the issue of Thorsen’s appearance. “The soldier that spoke tonight on behalf of Ron Paul is gonna be in a bit of trouble,” wrote Paul Rieckhoff, founder of the veterans’ advocacy organization Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “Politics in uniform is a big no-go. And Paul and his campaign should know better. Troops are bound by the (Uniform Code of Military Justice).” Rieckhoff added. The Department of Defense policy states that active duty troops wearing a uniform are expected to avoid activities that “imply official sponsorship, approval, or endorsement” of political figures. CONTINUED at Infowars. Written by Steve Watson. Video at link. |
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Pakistan Army Believes NATO Attack PlannedComments Off A senior Pakistani military officer said a NATO air strike killing 24 Pakistani troops on the Afghan border last month was pre-planned and warned of more attacks, comments likely to fuel tension with the United States. Major General Ashfaq Nadeem, director general of military operations, was also quoted by newspapers on Friday as saying that Pakistan, a strategic U.S. ally, would deploy an air defence system along the border to prevent such attacks. Nadeem made the remarks to a Senate committee on defence on Thursday. Senator Tariq Azim, who attended the briefing, confirmed to Reuters that Nadeem had made the comments. The Daily Times said Nadeem described the attack as a plot. Another newspaper quoted him as saying it was a “pre-planned conspiracy” against Pakistan. “We can expect more attacks from our supposed allies,” the Express Tribune quoted Nadeem as saying at the senate briefing. U.S. and Pakistani officials have offered differing initial accounts of what happened. Pakistan said the attack was unprovoked, with officials calling it an act of blatant aggression — an accusation the United States has rejected. Two U.S. officials told Reuters that preliminary information from the ongoing investigation indicated Pakistani officials at a border coordination centre had cleared the air strike, unaware they had troops in the area. Nadeem ruled out the possibility that NATO forces may have thought they were firing on militants, who often move across the porous frontier and attack Western troops. One newspaper reported that he told the Senate committee that militants do not leave themselves exposed on mountain tops, like the ones where the Pakistani border posts were located. Senator Azim also quoted Nadeem as saying that NATO helicopters singled out one army major as he was crossing from one border post to another after losing communications, and this also led the military to conclude the attack was planned. Pakistan responded to the attack by suspending supply routes to NATO forces in Afghanistan. Idle drivers of trucks carrying fuel and other supplies to the neighbouring country fear being attacked by Pakistani Taliban militants who oppose cooperation with NATO. Militants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at such trucks in the southwestern city of Quetta in Baluchistan province on Thursday night, setting fire to 29 vehicles, police officials said. Washington, which sees Pakistan as critical to its efforts to stabilise Afghanistan ahead of a combat troop pullout in 2014, has tried to sooth fury over the NATO incident. President Barack Obama called Pakistan’s president to offer condolences over the strike that provoked a crisis in relations between the two countries. He stopped short of a formal apology. Pakistan boycotted an international conference in Germany on the future of Afghanistan because of the NATO attack. U.S.-Pakistani ties were already frayed after the secret U.S. raid in May that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. (Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher) Source: Swiss Info via Reuters. |
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Iran: We’ll fire 150,000 missiles at Israel if attacked(2) *Taken from yNet. Iranian Defense Minister General Ahmad Vahidi said Israel would be attacked with 150,000 missiles if it launches any military action against the Islamic Republic, the Iran Independent News Service reported Sunday. Speaking before 50,000 army volunteers in Bushehr, the minister said “Iran is not Iraq or Afghanistan, if the Americans make the mistake and attack Iran, we will show them how to fight,” adding “Israel has to be punished for what it has done to the Muslims in Palestine and Lebanon.” However, according to Iranian news outlets Vahidi did not specify if the missiles would be fired from Iran or other locations. |
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The IRS: A Standing ArmyComments Off
What we now know as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) began as an act by President Lincoln and Congress in 1862. It created the position of the commissioner of Internal Revenue and enacted an income tax to pay for the expenses of the Civil War (Revenue Act of 1862). Initial rates were around 3% for incomes exceeding $800, which allowed for the majority of the working populace to be exempt. However, by 1864, rates had risen to 5% for low-income families, and up to 10% for anyone making $10,000 or more. By the end of the war, more than 10% of Union families were paying some sort of federal income tax. In 1872, Congress allowed the temporary wartime tax to expire and federal income taxes didn’t become an issue again until 1894. The case of Pollock v. Farmer’s Loan & Trust Co. was a five-to-four landmark decision by the Supreme Court that the Income Tax Act of 1894 was unconstitutional on the grounds that it was a direct tax. Under the Constitution at that time, direct taxes must be apportioned among the states based on population. Since the act allowed for Congress to distribute the funds without apportionment, it was deemed unconstitutional. Early in the 20th century, there was a populist movement for tax reform that climaxed on February 3, 1913 with the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution:
This is one of the worst blemishes on the United States Constitution. It holds no regard for individual liberty and exists only to further the existence of the State, by whatever means necessary. It fundamentally changed the entire nation, nullifying a very important part of the Constitution. Forty-two states ratified the amendment. I can happily say that Florida didn’t even consider the issue. The first Form 1040 appeared that same year after Congress levied a 1% tax on net incomes above $6,000, and a 6%-10% progressive tax on incomes exceeding $500,000. However, five years later, the top bracket was being taxed up to 77% in order to finance our efforts in WWI. Percentages dropped sharply during the 1920’s, and remained low until the Great Depression. In less than a century, what was basically a tax revolution seems commonplace to most Americans. Filing an annual income tax return has become an accepted must do. And you should file for a return, not because the IRS will get you, but because that money belongs to you anyway. The problem is that it shouldn’t have been taken from you in the first place. I have a buddy who lives in Brooklyn, New York. He paid $2700 total in NY State and NYC income taxes for the fiscal year 2010. He only got $135 on his return. If he were investing $2700 into private stocks and received the same sort of return, I can bet he would fire his broker, withdraw his assets, and invest elsewhere. The problem, though, is that you can’t fire the federal government, and you can’t opt out of paying taxes, either. The money Congress appropriates each year for its budget is your money. For too long they’ve been making mal-investments resulting in bad returns. The Chicago Climate Exchange is a good example of this. It was supposed to be a $10 trillion a year industry. Now it’s bankrupt. In the 1950’s the BIR changed its name to the “Internal Revenue Service” to emphasize the “service aspect of their work”, even though its essential function remained the same. This is propaganda at its finest. One of my heroes, Karl Hess, practically had his life ruined by the Internal Revenue Service in the 1960’s. He was the principle speechwriter for Barry Goldwater in the ’64 presidential election. Goldwater lost to Lyndon B. Johnson by a landslide. Shortly thereafter, Johnson had the IRS audit Hess. They charged him with tax resistance, confiscated nearly all of his property, and placed a 100% lien on all of his future earnings. You call that “service”? When Hess questioned an IRS collector about a certain deduction that didn’t seem right, the agent told him, “it doesn’t matter if it’s right, what matters is the law.” Feeling that the IRS would have a good sense of what is right and what is law, Hess sent them a copy of the Declaration of Independence with a letter attached telling them he would never pay taxes again. The IRS responded by revoking his ability to use American money. When he told them that he wouldn’t be able to feed himself if he couldn’t use money, they replied, “That’s not our problem.” Hess became a heavy-duty welder, using only cash and bartering for food and supplies. He went on to become a prominent practitioner of “appropriate technology” and has been a major influence on libertarian thought over the last fifty years. He died in 1994…an anarchist. If 10 million Americans had joined Hess in his anti-tax crusade, it would have transformed, perhaps even abolished the way we handle taxes in this country. I suggest we do exactly that. Abolish the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS is the single-most authoritarian institution in the country. In 1998, under Clinton’s watch, the Taxpayer Bill of Rights III was passed. It’s hardly a step toward more liberty, though. This law shifts the “burden of proof” from the taxpayer to the IRS. This means the IRS can legally seize assets and enforce liens without obtaining judgment in court. It allows for those in power to silence their political enemies by physical coercion. THIS IS TYRANNY. Economist Murray Rothbard defines a State as two things: a) an entity that acquires its revenue from the general population by physical coercion, and b) an entity who has a monopoly on the provisions for defense and protection. We are at a critical point in history. Our children and grandchildren will ask us, decades from now, where we were and what we did. Will we be the silent observers? Or will we lead a charge for independence? Will we be able to tell them stories of how we actually dismantled the system, and that we did it without throwing bricks or turning over police vehicles, that we killed the beast from within, using its weaknesses against it, that the revolution was not a lie? |
About UsWe’re definitely not progressives or neo-conservatives. Chances are, you will not like us if you are either of those. “I put the bastards of this world on notice that I do not have their best interests at heart. I will try and speak for my reader. That is my promise, and it will be a voice of ink and rage.” - Paul Kemp
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