Tag: finance

Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

As all hell breaks loose across the United States of America (and we haven’t even gotten to the election yet), a resistance movement to the status quo seems to be increasingly violent, taking over a Minneapolis police precinct and an area in downtown Seattle. Protests continue to be peaceful in some areas but show little signs of letting up.

A lot of folks are pretty sure that a revolution is coming – and many people say it’s already here.

I got a great question in a group that I moderate: how do you prepare for a revolution?

As preppers, this is always our go-to response to trouble. We want to know what we can do, specifically, to meet the crisis head-on and keep our families safe.

How do you prepare for a revolution?

In this article, I want to speak specifically about the practical steps you need to take to be prepared for a revolution if things should come to that point across the country. This article is not about philosophy or right vs. wrong. It’s not about fighting for your “side” whatever side that might be. It’s about surviving. There are lots of links because I’m not reinventing the entire wheel here – that would be a book on its own. This is merely a guideline so you know where to focus your time, money, and attention.

I pondered the question for quite a while before answering because it isn’t really a situation I had given a lot of thought to before.

The answer is really not anything earth-shattering. In fact, many will probably find it underwhelming.

You prepare for a revolution by simply continuing to prep. Specifically, consider prepping for the following:

• Supply chain disruption and shortages of food
• Supply chain disruption and shortages of material goods
• Civil unrest
• Disruption of utilities
• Disruption of services

So for the most part, this is general prepping. The event causing all the disruptions may be different but the end result is the same. Let’s talk about each of these things.

Supply chain disruption and shortages of food

We’re already beginning to see disruptions of the food supply due to the COVID pandemic. Imports have been interrupted and distribution processes have utterly failed. As I wrote before, farmers are being forced to cull livestock and plow under produce because they have no way to get it to consumers.

In an uncertain future, these difficulties could continue or even become worse through strategic blockades.

Here are some things you can do:

• Now is the time to make sure you’re stocked up. This book can help.
• Localize your supply chain. Look for local farmers and purchase food in bulk.
• Learn how to preserve food. Here are guides for canning foods and dehydrating foods to make them shelf-stable.
• Learn how to acquire food with hunting, snaring, fishing, and foraging.

Become responsible for your own food supply. Stores may not be reliable sources.

Supply chain disruption and shortages of material goods

A shocking amount of our general supplies are imported. Here’s a list of things that come from China alone. Not only are imports disrupted but so is distribution in general. You may have noticed if you’ve been in any stores since things reopened that there are a lot of bare spots on the shelves and that you don’t have the same amount of choices as you did before the outbreak.

Things like bedding, clothing, footwear, tools, dishes, and hardware are sparse in many parts of the country. Here are a few steps you can take.

• Focus on repairing instead of replacing.
• If you do have to discard something, strip it of its useful parts. Sort out screws, fasteners, buttons, laces, etc., and store them for the time you need them.
• Buy sturdy clothing now: pick up winter jackets, shoes, jeans, and practical clothes. For children, you may want to purchase things a size or two up from what they’re currently wearing.
• Every time you go to the store, grab basic items like toilet paper, aluminum foil, ziplock bags, or other things you normally use.
• Look for reusable options for things you’d normally throw out after one use.
• Stock up on the tools you might need to repair, make, or mend things in the future.
• If there are things you’ve been planning to replace or update, do it now if it’s an essential item. You might not be able to do so later.

Take time now to get ready for a world that could be poorly stocked.

Civil unrest

We’ve published a lot of articles recently about surviving civil unrest, with the number one phrase you’ll read being “don’t be there.” In essence, a revolution is civil unrest with heavier firepower. You’ll still be avoiding angry crowds, hardening your home, and keeping your family together, just on an even more life-threatening scale. You’ll definitely want to check out this on-demand webinar where Selco discusses his experiences and gives advice about surviving riots and unrest.

That being said, much of the same advice applies. Here are resources that may help you get prepared for this.

• SELCO: Mob Mentality and the TRUTH About Protests
• Take this on-demand webinar with Selco
• RIOTS Are Coming to a City Near You: What You Need to Do RIGHT NOW
• How to Survive Riots and Civil Unrest
• Check out my book, Be Ready for Anything.
• SELCO: I’ve Seen Where This Leads. It Will Only Take ONE SPARK to Lead to Devastating Chaos
• 3 Reasons Why Prepared People Need Guns

We’re in relatively uncharted territory right now. It’s important to make your plans well before things erupt. Don’t be so tied to a place or a pile of things to the point that you’re willing to risk your life (or the lives of your families) to face a horde against whom you have no chance of survival. Be willing to be adaptable and resilient – your life could depend on it.

Know where you’re going to go if you have to bug out and how you’ll get there. (Here’s a PDF guide for bug-out plans.) And for goodness sake, stop thinking it’s shameful to bug out and don’t listen to anyone who tells you that it is. Your goal here is survival, not posthumous glory.

Disruption of services

Even with the current level of unrest and the recent pandemic, some areas have experienced the disruption of services we take for granted. Calling 911 in the event of an emergency and having someone show up, going to the emergency room and receiving prompt care, being able to have medical treatments that aren’t non-emergency but are still important, being able to call the fire department and have them come save your home – in the United States all of these things have been in question in at least some areas this year.

If civil unrest continues to grow at its current rate, you can expect these problems to worsen and widen to areas previously unaffected. Right now, there is more than one police precinct in the US that has been overrun by protesters. Fire trucks haven’t been able to get past mobs to deal with buildings that are aflame. People waited so long for urgent medical treatments that they died as hospitals were closed due to COVID.

What can we learn from this? We could find ourselves completely on our own and we should proceed as though we will be.

We need to be prepared to be our own first responders with regard to emergency medical care, low-level fires, and home security. I’m not saying you need to be ready to fight a five-alarm fire with a garden hose but at the very least, learn about the different types of fires, have fire extinguishers, and keep your fire-fighting equipment maintained in good working order. Know how to stop bleeding and perform CPR.

Disruption of utilities

Another possibility is the disruption of utilities like power, water, internet, and communications. This could occur organically as the side effect of a natural event like a storm or if it was caused by humans, due to government interference or guerilla sabotage.

Taking out the power is not an unusual action for governments to take when they’re trying to regain control of an area. It happened in Venezuela, although the government there blamed the United States and has been threatened in California as a move against businesses that didn’t follow the rules of the COVID shutdown.

In Egypt, during the Arab Spring riots, the government there took control of the internet, and just recently there was an alleged communication blackout in Washington, DC which turned out to be misinformation. The power grid was deliberately sabotaged in California at least once and the threat of sabotage against public water supplies is of constant concern to providers.

The question isn’t really “can it happen?” or “will it happen?” – it’s more a matter of when.

It’s pretty likely if things became incredibly heated that it would. Taking away these vital services and limiting the ability to communicate are both standard tactics. Think about hostage situations – negotiators often turn off the AC on a sweltering day and jam phone service.

To prepare for this kind of thing, you need, again, to go back to the basics you’re already putting in place.

• Learn how to handle a blackout here.
• Learn how to handle a water emergency here.
• Learn more about emergency communications here.

Obviously, you’ll also want to have ways to keep folks entertained and at least moderately content if the internet and power are down.

Remember OPSEC.

Another thing to consider in times of revolution and widespread tensions is OPSEC. Not so much the kind where you’re being very careful that nobody knows you’re a prepper (although that is always important) but more the kind where nobody really knows what your thoughts are on volatile matters.

Survivalist author Selco Begovic explains this further.

If we are talking about a “revolution” event, there is a saying about it that “what was down goes up” (and vice versa), and in addition to that things might get pretty radical. In essence, that means that you should pay extra attention to OPSEC.

It is always important of course, but in times like this, even when they are temporary, it is very easy to get labeled as an “enemy”, and to be an enemy in this violent and very emotional times is dangerous, simply because things might happen in a way without too much logic and very fast.

In the time it takes to prove yourself that you do not have anything to do with some event, or that you are not an enemy or threat it already can be too late.

Always have in mind that when times get turbulent and violent, some of your indiscretions or breaches of OPSEC before the event can simply label you as an enemy. And there may not be time for law and logic in those times.

Always be aware of what kind of information you are giving up about yourself with how you look, act, and what you say. Do not be paranoid but use common sense. Be careful, and follow OPSEC practice as much as you can.

So, now isn’t the time for your political bumper stickers and t-shirts. It’s not the time to publicly announce your support of causes that could one day make you “the enemy.” You may want to tone down your rhetoric on social media because the internet is forever and this stuff can come back and bite you in the rear end.

We’ve all heard about the so-called “cancel culture” in which a person can lose his or her livelihood for having an unpopular opinion. It’s pretty extreme now – it can affect your whole life. Imagine how incredibly dangerous it would be in a world ripped asunder by a violent revolution.

You’re really just going back to basics.

Remember when the pandemic was beginning and people were frantically asking what to do? In his usual succinct way, Selco said “get ahold of yourself and go back to basics.”

This is true of just about any situation you’ll ever find yourself in. Of course, there are a few factors that are unique to any scenario, but going back to basics is always your best option. Break down the different facets of the emergency and you’ll nearly always realize that preparations you’ve already made for other purposes will apply.

What with the election coming up, we could be in for an extremely bumpy year. As the saying goes, let’s hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

While most of the aviation industry has been decimated as a result of the pandemic and its ensuing stay-at-home orders, one airliner is making money hand over fist in an unexpected way: shipping pigs to China in 747 Jumbo Jets.

Volga-Dnepr Group has flown more than 3,000 breeding pigs to China from France this year, according to Bloomberg. They are flown almost 6,500 miles in wooden crates and are being used to restore livestock levels in China. From there, they are being used to address the country’s pork shortage.

The country’s swine shortages were exacerbated by the pandemic and China has imported almost 255,000 tons of pork from the U.S. in the first four months of 2020 alone. That number exceeds the 245,000 it imported in all of 2019. 

Volga-Dnepr Group also has been shipping masks, hazmat suits, medical equipment and street-disinfecting equipment to places like Russia and Germany. The company saw its sales skyrocket 32% to $630 million this year.

Alexey Isaykin, who holds a $700 million stake in the company, said: “Global aviation is going through its most challenging time ever, but for cargo carriers like us it’s a chance. Previously, more than half of all aviation cargoes were carried in the luggage compartments of passenger planes. With this supply vanishing from the market, demand for cargo airlines surged and prices more than doubled.”

While demand for air freight has dropped 28%, capacity has fallen by 42%. This could help the company tack on even more revenue, he says, predicting a $2 billion annual run rate. 

Shipments for the aerospace industry have fallen by about 33%, he says, but medical goods now make up more than half of global air freight. Online shopping firms like Amazon.com and Alibaba are also seeing outsized growth. Some of the demand may prove to be short-lived and freight rates are starting to decline slightly. Regardless, Isaykin expects volume and prices to remain above pre-virus levels. 

“The geography of our shipments is expanding, following the spread of coronavirus. We just started shipping Chinese medical goods to Africa and are getting first inquiries from Latin America. I think India will be next,” Isaykin said.

He concluded: “An interesting trend is gaining traction now — we call it the medieval period of the 21st century — when strategically important production facilities are being relocated to reduce dependence on China. I am expecting this trend to accelerate toward year-end.”

 

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, and mainstream media are falling all over themselves with censorship and spin jobs to get the narrative back under control as mass protests continue to sweep across America.

In 2017, representatives of Facebook, Twitter, and Google were instructed in a US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that it is their responsibility to “quell information rebellions” and adopt a “mission statement” expressing their commitment to “prevent the fomenting of discord.”

“Civil wars don’t start with gunshots, they start with words,” the representatives were told by cold warrior think tank denizen Clint Watts. “America’s war with itself has already begun. We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can quickly lead to violent confrontations and easily transform us into the Divided States of America.”

“Stopping the false information artillery barrage landing on social media users comes only when those outlets distributing bogus stories are silenced — silence the guns and the barrage will end,” Watts added.

Those words rattle around in the memory now as America burns with nationwide protests demanding an end to the police state, and as narrative control operations ramp up with frantic urgency.

Wikipedia formally censors The Grayzone as regime-change advocates monopolize editing@BenjaminNorton on how a cabal of editors got us listed as a “deprecated source” entirely on the basis of our political views and in violation of Wikipedia guidelines https://t.co/GlO7bvATgk

— The Grayzone (@TheGrayzoneNews) June 11, 2020

A group of right-wing Venezuelans have managed to blacklist @MintPressNews, @TheGrayzoneNews, @venanalysis and @telesurenglish, among others, from Wikipedia citations. https://t.co/Eayi4THyCg

— Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) June 12, 2020

The Grayzone reports that it has been blacklisted as a source on Wikipedia following a concerted campaign by a suspicious-looking group of editor accounts, many of whom appear to have ties to the right-wing opposition in Venezuela. Wikipedia, whose co-founder once told the US Senate that the online encyclopedia project “may be helpful to government operations and homeland security”, has added The Grayzone to a very short list of outlets that are never to be used under any circumstances, claiming on apparently no basis whatsoever that it publishes false information.

“In fact, in its more than four years of existence, including its first two years hosted at the website AlterNet (whose use is not forbidden on Wikipedia), The Grayzone has never had to issue a major correction or retract a story,” Grayzone’s Ben Norton says in its report on the matter. Norton documents how the Wikipedia editors are unable to cite any actual false information in any of the outlet’s publications in their arguments, leaving only their objection that Grayzone doesn’t parrot US government-approved narratives like The New York Times, Bellingcat, and Wikipedia’s other designated “reliable sources”.

Norton also notes how Wikipedia has designated the leak publication outlet WikiLeaks an unreliable source despite its nearly 14-year record of authentic publications. Wikipedia designates WikiLeaks as “generally unreliable,” making the utterly baseless claim that “there are concerns regarding whether the documents are genuine or tampered.”

“The internet encyclopedia has become a deeply undemocratic platform, dominated by Western state-backed actors and corporate public relations flacks, easily manipulated by powerful forces. And it is run by figures who often represent these same elite interests, or align with their regime-change politics,” Norton writes.

Norton’s breakdown of the ways Wikipedia is slanted to consistently favor pro-establishment narratives is comprehensive, and well worth reading in its entirety. This short Mintpress News article by Alan MacLeod on the way this same monopolistic editing dynamic has seen Mintpress, teleSur English, and Venezuela Analysis blacklisted from Wikipedia in the same way is also worth a look.

Wow. Twitter deleted 170,000 accounts for “spreading narratives favorable to the Communist Party of China”. To identify accounts, Twitter “worked with” @ASPI_org — a “think tank” funded by the US and Australian governments + numerous weapons manufacturers.https://t.co/8Ocy43yTaK

— Ajit Singh (@ajitxsingh) June 12, 2020

Facebook’s new double standard, a clear sign who calls the shots (US government). They added labels on Chinese and Russian funded media as “state-controlled” (which isn’t accurate) but no label on British & US funded media like BBC and Radio Free Europe. So fair. pic.twitter.com/gSYiU1LeFM

— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) June 11, 2020

This all comes out as we learn that Facebook is attaching warning labels to posts from outlets sponsored by governments which have not been absorbed into the US-centralized empire like RT and CGTN, but attaching no such label to outlets funded by imperial governments like BBC and Radio Free Europe. There is not any discernible difference in the degree of bias shown in state media from unabsorbed nations like Russia and China than there is in state media from the US and UK (or oligarchic media from the US and UK for that matter), but Facebook causes its 2.6 billion active users to look at one with suspicion but not the other.

This also comes out at the same time we learn that Twitter has deleted over 170,000 accounts for “spreading geopolitical narratives favorable to the Communist Party of China”. CNN reports (in an article which also cites the analysis of the scandal-ridden narrative manager Renee DiResta) that the accounts were determined to be “tied to the Chinese government” by “experts” who we learn later in the article are none other than the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a think tank geared explicitly toward fomenting anti-China sentiment in Australia.

“Former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr has slammed ASPI for pushing a ‘one-sided, pro-American view of the world’, while the former Australian ambassador to China Geoff Raby added that ASPI is ‘the architect of the China threat theory in Australia’,” journalist Ajit Singh noted on Twitter, adding, “Australian Senator Kim Carr has slammed ASPI for seeking to ‘promote a new cold war with China’ in collaboration with the US. In February, Carr highlighted that ASPI received $450,000 funding from the US State Department in 2019–20.”

This blatant imperialist narrative manipulation operation are the “experts” Twitter consulted in determining which accounts were “tied to the Chinese government” and therefore needed to be silenced. Twitter meanwhile continues to allow known fake accounts like the MEK propaganda operation “Heshmat Alavi” to continue inauthentically posing as real people, even when their propaganda is publicized by the President of the United States, because such accounts toe the imperialist line against empire-targeted governments. This pro-imperialism slant is standard for all Silicon Valley tech giants.

Donald Trump just quoted an account belonging to a fake persona made up by the MEK terrorist group (https://t.co/c3O0D4Wxtm) in a tweet. 2020 is amazing. https://t.co/KzLHUXLNhZ

— Ali Ahmadi (@AliAhmadi_Iran) April 22, 2020

America’s foreign adversaries have flooded social media with content meant to show division and discord in the wake of George Floyd’s death, according to U.S. government intelligence bulletin obtained by @ABC News. https://t.co/To79ais0dT

— ABC News (@ABC) June 11, 2020

This also comes out at the same time the mass media are warning us that Russia, China and Iran are “employing state media, proxy outlets, and social media accounts to amplify criticism of the United States related to the death of George Floyd and subsequent events.”

“As protesters hit the streets in cities across the country, America’s foreign adversaries have flooded social media with content meant to sow division and discord in the wake of George Floyd’s death, according to a U.S. government intelligence bulletin obtained by ABC News,” we are told by the Disney-owned ABC.

“These actors criticize the United States as hypocritical, corrupt, undemocratic, racist, guilty of human rights abuses and on the verge of collapsing,” the bulletin reads, which to anyone who’s been paying attention is obviously true. This is a news story about people from other countries saying true things about the United States of America.

“This is yet another indicator that Russia is using the combination of overt propaganda and covertly disseminated disinformation to sow discord across our populace, expand the cracks in our society, and undermine the credibility of the U.S. government,” former senior Department of Homeland Security official and current ABC News contributor John Cohen informs us.

Ahh, okay. Cool. Thank you for the information, former senior Department of Homeland Security official and current ABC News contributor John Cohen. Man it sure is a good thing America doesn’t have state media. Think about how bad the disinformation would be.

“Civil wars don’t start with gunshots, they start with words” social media companies will be first battlefield between Americans before spilling onto our streets. We must address #TechHearing #Senate https://t.co/XxsX9dtNYO pic.twitter.com/vnwpErlymi

— Clint Watts (@selectedwisdom) November 1, 2017

Social media outlets were told that they need to censor their platforms to “prevent the fomenting of discord,” but obviously they didn’t move quickly enough, because the discord has been well and truly fomented. And now they are in a mad scramble to prevent Americans from hearing what people in foreign nations have to say about that, still apparently laboring under the delusion that this is anything other than homegrown, purebred, cornfed, American-as-apple-pie discord.

The most distinctive feature of the last four years has been expanding consciousness. Expanding consciousness of media corruption, of DNC corruption, of government corruption, of the excessive amount of power wielded by the US presidency and the absurd esteem people used to have for that position, of the abuse of immigrants, of police militarization, of unhealed racial wounds, etc.

This is encouraging, because you can’t fix something you haven’t made conscious. This is true of our own unresolved psychological issues, and it’s true of our unresolved collective issues as well. The first step toward a healthy world is expanded consciousness.

This is why increasing government opacity, internet censorship, and the war on journalism are so dangerous. Corruption and abuse thrive in darkness, and corrupt abusers want to keep that darkness intact. They want to keep things as unconscious as possible.

It’s beginning to look like that cat’s out of the bag, though, and I would be very surprised if they ever manage to get that sucker back in there.

What an exciting time to be alive.

*  *  *

Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics onTwitter, checking out my podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, following me on Steemit, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my books Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.

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A Tulsa, Oklahoma police major says he’s “extremely concerned” that cops across America are on the verge of quitting amid global protests against law enforcement.

“Every department, every officer you talk to is looking to leave,” Maj. Travis Yates told Fox News‘ “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” adding that he is “extremely concerned” for the future of law enforcement.

Yates told Carlson that held felt morale among law enforcement officers “was really low” following the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown by then-Ferguson, Mo. police officer Darren Wilson.

“As everybody knows, President Obama’s administration found no evidence of wrongdoing in Ferguson even though the narrative is quite different …,” he said. “We were making a resurgence in recent years and this [George Floyd’s death and the aftermath] has been devastating. This has been Ferguson times 1,000. Every department, every officer you talk to is looking to leave.” -Fox News

Yates published a column last Friday on the website LawOfficer.com titled “America, We Are Leaving.”

In it, he recalls growing up in a law enforcement family – and characterized police as “Men and women of all races with the same mission, to make the community safer.“

27 years has passed and if you would have told me the condition of law enforcement today, I would have never believed you.

The mentally ill used to get treatment and now they just send cops. Kids used to be taught respect and now it’s cool to be disrespectful.

Supervisors used to back you when you were right but now they accuse you of being wrong in order to appease crazy people.

Parents used to get mad at their kids for getting arrested and now they get mad at us.

The media used to highlight the positive contribution our profession gave to society and now they either ignore it or twist the truth for controversy to line their own pockets. –Travis Yates

“I wouldn’t wish this job on my worst enemy,” wrote Yates. “I would never send anyone I cared about into the hell that this profession has become … I used to talk cops out of leaving the job. Now I’m encouraging them. It’s over, America. You finally did it You aren’t going to have to abolish the police, we won’t be around for it.”

Yates told Carlson that “officers are afraid to speak out, they are afraid to talk,” adding “You are only your next call away from being canceled or destroyed, and so officers feel very limited. I think citizens do, too, and we had just as many citizens comment on that article and send us emails.”

According to Yates, some officers feel stuck because they haven’t worked long enough to earn a pension.

“The officers with 15 years on can’t leave yet,” he said, adding “I’ve heard from hundreds of people that are discouraged. They love the job, they love the community, they love the people, but all this chaos is wearing them every single day.”

Last Tuesday, NYPD union boss Mike O’Meara railed against the MSM for ‘vilifying’ the police, saying “Stop treating us like animals and thugs and start treating us with some respect.“

Authored by Alex Munugia via Campus Reform,

Amid racial tensions in the United States, colleges and universities across the country have a new favorite metaphor: comparing the “virus of racism” to the novel virus that has upended the country. 

After George Floyd was killed while in Minneapolis police custody, the University of Michigan Engineering department called upon students to “help eradicate the virus of racism.”

“For over two months, we have been dealing with the coronavirus, a pandemic that has shaken the core of our institution and the world. It has been a lot to deal with; and has at times felt overwhelming. Yet during the past week, another virus reared its ugly head,” read the official university communication.

“This virus is called RACISM,” the statement adds.

“Racism has been in the fabric of the country since its inception. It is so tightly entwined in our socialization that it has been second nature in driving behavior,” the message continued.

“Systemic racism is very much like a virus. Much like the COVID-19 virus, racist attitudes spread very easily and are very damaging.”

In a recent message to students, interim president Marica White of Saint Rose College in Albany, New York, also compared the COVID-19 pandemic to the “virus of systemic racism” in America, stating “one is novel and invisible, the other is violent and imbedded [sic] in the culture and history of our nation.”

White went on to blame the impact COVID-19 has had on the African American community on “the imbedded inequity in our country,” mainly blaming what she believes are systemic injustices.

Dean Barbara Rimer at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill stated in an official June 1 university communication that “racism is a public health emergency” and that “like a virus, racism is insidious and can damage everything it infiltrates.” Rimer added that law enforcement violence is a “symptom of the racism that still marks too many facets of modern American society,” and called “racism” a “disease, a virus that has infected America for 400 years.”

In a similar communication, Chapman University dean Rev. Gail Stearns remarked to the university community about both the challenges of coronavirus and the “virus of racism that has haunted us for generations.” Her concerns about the coronavirus focused largely on the unequal distribution of its impact on individuals, noting that African American communities were hit harder because they “lack access to basic nutrition or healthcare or education.”

“I have come to believe that in the face of COVID-19, we are all experiencing grief. Almost every one of us is experiencing the stress of loss. But stress is not distributed equally in our society,” wrote Stearns, before she went on to refer to racism itself as a “virus” and urge the community to “ no longer collectively avoid the reparation of years of injustice.”

A 70-year old Seattle man who entered an Issaquah, Washington hospital two months ago is considered the longest-hospitalized COVID-19 patient in the US after he fought through the disease, against all expectations coming out healthy despite what were considered multiple near death moments. While Michael Flor’s survival story was celebrated by local and national media upon his recent discharge, and cheered by medical staff, a new kind of shock awaited. 

He was constantly attended to by nurses and doctors throughout the ordeal, at the end of which he was jokingly dubbed by staff “the miracle child”. He entered the hospital on March 4th, and had spent four weeks on a ventilator. 

But The Seattle Times details that his health nearly took another blow upon exiting the hospital and seeing the whopping bill of over one million dollars.

The report begins:

But he says his heart almost failed a second time when he got the bill from his health care odyssey the other day.

“I opened it and said ‘holy [bleep]!’“ Flor says.

The total tab for his bout with the coronavirus: $1.1 million. $1,122,501.04, to be exact. All in one bill that’s more like a book because it runs to 181 pages.

In all the nearly 200-page bill included 3,000 separate itemized charges, at a rate of about 50 per day, in what is likely a record for Seattle hospital system, Swedish.

It gives a sense of what many thousands of other medium to long-term infected patients may be facing upon discharge, at a moment confirmed COVID-19 cases has surpassed two million in the US, and as hospitalizations once again surge in some states. 

The example of Flor also underscores the outrageous, often contradictory and unnecessarily complicated, as well as opaque system of medical billing in America. Thankfully for him though, most of the massive bill is actually covered via insurance, including Medicare, but doesn’t mean that much of the whopping cost won’t be passed on to someone.

“Flor said he’s hyper-aware that somebody is paying his million-dollar bill —  taxpayers, other insurance customers and so on,” Seattle Times notes.

From the report, here’s a small taste of the mounting costs:

• Intensive care unit room per day: $9,736
• 42 days of intensive care room having to be “sealed” over virus contamination fears: a total of $408,912
• 29 days on a ventilator: $2,835 per day, totaling $82,215
• 2 days where a medical team implemented multiple emergency interventions: $100,000
• Total bill: $1,122,501.04

In the end Flor is of course happy to be alive but also feels “guilty” in seeing the huge extent of costly medical intervention and effort. 

“It was a million bucks to save my life, and of course I’d say that’s money well-spent,” he told Seattle Times. “But I also know I might be the only one saying that.”

Op-Ed by attorney and investigative journalist @Techno_Fog,

“Defund the police” is quite the rallying cry. It’s a policy statement in five syllables. The language is clear and meaning is impossible to miss. The next steps after defunding the police, however, do require explanation. To whom does a community turn for its security needs when a police force is defunded and therefore eliminated?

Once you understand that there is no good answer to this question, then you get why the media has designated itself as the spokesperson of the movement. It becomes clear why the media has so graciously explained to us, the dumb public, why defunding the police does not mean defunding the police. Take this explanation published in the Washington Post:

“Defunding the police means shrinking the scope of police responsibilities and shifting most of what government does to keep us safe to entities that are better equipped to meet that need. It means investing more in mental-health care and housing, and expanding the use of community mediation and violence interruption programs.”

Of course, the movement disagrees. The New York Times is running op-eds with the title “Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police” by an author whose stated goal is “to abolish prisons and police.”

And it was ⁦@TomCottonAR⁩’s Op-Ed that was considered *dangerous* to inner-city communities — Opinion | Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police – The New York Times https://t.co/BegO4nhWEQ

— James A. Gagliano (@JamesAGagliano) June 13, 2020

Or, look to the public humiliation of Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. Standing before a crowd of hundreds and beneath an angry woman on the microphone, Frey was straight-up asked, “Will you defund the Minneapolis police department?”

Frey answered, “I do not support the full abolition of the police.”

“I do not support the full abolition of the police,” Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis said when he was put on the spot at a rally on Saturday. With that, protesters yelled “Go home, Jacob, go home!” and “Shame! Shame!” https://t.co/573TsGf4fW pic.twitter.com/NJF4hTErYm

— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 7, 2020

And with that response he was summarily dismissed with the speaker’s cry of “Get the fuck out of here.” He exited through the crowd a defeated man as his constituents – and in all likelihood, his former supporters – flipped him off and cussed him out.

Remarkably, Frey’s inquisition did not include questions about his position on “shifting the scope of police responsibilities” or public funding of community social programs. Frey wasn’t asked these questions because that wasn’t the mob’s demand. There was no potential for nuance and no potential for disagreement. Cutting police funding by 50% would not have been enough. They wanted it all gone.

Meanwhile in Seattle, the city has lost city hall. Protesters have essentially taken over territory in the city and established the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone. There are stories that businesses and people passing through the area are being shaken down for cash. Per media reports, the protesters refuse to leave until their demands are met – including the demand that the Seattle police department be disbanded.

During the riots that tore apart communities across America, the media excused the mob’s behavior because they agreed with the mob’s anger. Now the media misrepresents the mob’s demands because the media agrees, to an extent, with the mob’s politics.

In principal, this is no different than what Orwell described in his criticism of political writing:

“[P]olitical language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness… People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements.”

Similarly, defunding the police becomes shifting police responsibilities. Riots become an uprising. AP guidance replaces looters with protesters who stole whatever was on the shelves.

The departure from objectivity (or at least the appearance of objectivity) is no longer just being defended on moral grounds. It is now claimed to be an existential necessity. The existential movements – global warming, Black Lives Matter, systemic racism – are now claimed to be objective truths, and so all reporting and all opinions on those topics must express one point of view. Objectivity has become that which advances the just social cause.

“Moral clarity” is, first and foremost, about objective facts. Nazis are bad – objective fact. Black lives matter – objective fact. Climate change is real – objective fact. President Trump is a liar – objective fact

— Wesley (@WesleyLowery) June 11, 2020

American view-from-nowhere, “objectivity”-obsessed, both-sides journalism is a failed experiment. We need to fundamentally reset the norms of our field. The old way must go. We need to rebuild our industry as one that operates from a place of moral clarity

— Wesley (@WesleyLowery) June 4, 2020

This puts into perspective the York Times writers’ revolt against the New York Times’ publication of Tom Cotton’s op-ed, which discussed President Trump’s option of deploying the troops to stop rioters from taking “innocent lives” and destroying “the livelihoods of law-abiding citizens.” Cotton’s measured argument was deemed to put black lives in danger. Again, it’s an existential issue.

Running this puts Black @NYTimes staff in danger. pic.twitter.com/u3btzGTJzi

— Caity Weaver (@caityweaver) June 3, 2020

It isn’t difficult to see against what – or whom – this media movement turns next. If climate change poses a fundamental threat to the earth, then dissention against the prevailing climate views must be stopped. If our institutions are systemically racist, then they’ll use all available options to defeat the instruments of oppression. And if you dare stray from the new “consensus”? Good luck.

As the protests have quieted down and America waits for Minnesota AG Keith Ellison to prosecute Derek Chauvin and the 3 other officers who presided over the murder of George Floyd, the aftermath on the Internet has been surprising and swift, as many popular figures who have pledged their support to ‘BLM’ and the principles of dismantling white supremacy via posting and vague workplace ‘diversity’ commitments are being called out by other for being “insufficiently woke”.

Though most Americans who either aren’t on twitter or don’t spend the majority of their free time there probably don’t know/don’t care about any of this, the movement has claimed victims in the latest iteration of ‘cancel culture’ run amok.

Buzzfeed News reports that Leandra Cohen, the founder and top editor at fashion website Man Repeller, has decided to “take a step back” after acknowledging that she “failed” in her mission to expand the diversity of Man Repeller.

What, exactly, triggered the backlash? Well, during the outset of the crisis, Man Repeller furloughed a popular black editor on its site (among other employees) as the economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak rippled across the media industry.

That employee has now joined a mob of others on twitter hurling accusations that Man Reppeller’s content only appeals to “white cis women”.

Is that accurate? We don’t think so. A cursory review of the site’s content finds many articles by minority writers, and the site seemingly never stops reiterating its commitment to the ideals of ‘woke’ culture.

But maybe that’s the problem. It’s an example of the ultimate paradox of wokeness: You’re ‘racist’ if you don’t agree 100% with the ideology, but once you bend the knee, you become a target in a movement fueled by deliberately ignoring anything that challenges its chosen narrative.

Leandra Cohen of popular fashion blog Man Repeller has announced plans to step back from the platform following widespread criticisms of the publication’s response to current Black Lives Matter protests, ignited by the death of George Floyd.

The founder shared on Instagram that she would stay “on the sidelines” in order to give her team the opportunity to show readers “what Man Repeller can be.”

The decision follows numerous attempts by the blog to weigh in on the current conversations around racism, social justice, and inclusivity.

In an initial post addressing the Man Repeller community, Cohen made clear that the platform would “not remain silent in the face of police brutality and white supremacy.”

One thing we don’t understand: If “trans women are women, period”, then wouldn’t Man Repeller be doing readers a disservice by carving out content specifically directed at the trans women? Then again, a quick google search reveals dozens of articles written by and written about trans people and their experiences on Man Repeller.

But however many articles Man Repeller writes as it strives to appease the woke leftist mob, we doubt it will be enough. Cohen is guilty of the same original sin as most of her staff: Being a white woman.

Institutions of higher learning across the nation are facing the biggest crisis of their existence after losing their whole spring and summer semesters to the coronavirus crisis and lockdowns, and now still with lingering questions over whether campuses will even open in the fall.

Colleges are stuck in financial limbo and survival at a moment that key staffing, faculty contracts, student recruiting, tuition and donor revenue-related decisions are in many cases still up in the air for next year, also as controversy erupts over refusal to refund student housing and campus activity fees. And now there’s a wave of class-action lawsuits, which includes at least 125 private and public universities named as defendants in some 175 pending lawsuits across the nation, led by angry students and their families seeking refunds amid campus closures and mandated sub-par online courses. 

But facing the very question of whether schools will even be able to keep their doors open, guess what the newest urgent driving concern is? 

Mandated diversity training among all faculty, staff, and students — including workshops on ‘White privilege’ wherein people are told they are racist by the mere fact of their existence is apparently tops the agenda.

That’s right, at a moment mounting debt woes brought on by campus closures is threatening the very existence of the 600 billion dollar higher education industry, schools are spending “extra” in order to bring ‘woke’ diversity specialists and workshops to their campuses for the upcoming semesters.

As a case in point, a professor from a college in the southern Appalachian mountain region penned the following in response to the trend, as related by The American Conservative’s Rod Dreher:

One proposal, made without irony, was to invite the community to campus to tell them how their whiteness makes them privileged and also racist. Mercifully, sanity reigned and the proposal foundered on the rocks of “we don’t think poor white people from Appalachia will be persuaded, and will likely resent being told their lives are somehow privileged.” But it won’t stop.

The professor relates how the community of faculty and students at a school in one of the historically most impoverished regions of the country was going to be made to attend a workshop informing them of how “privileged” they all are.

Reproduced below is the illuminating and alarming letter, revealing the lengths colleges are willing to go to satisfy the PC mob at a moment their very financial survival is at stake.

* * *

“I received this poignant letter from a reader, who signed it with their real name, and institutional affiliation,” introduced columnist Rod Dreher.

The hour is later than you think.

I teach at a small liberal arts college in the southern Appalachian mountains. We serve primarily poor black, white, and brown kids. 65% of them are first generation college students (like me) and hail from some of the worst poverty anywhere in the country. We are enrollment driven, funding is always an issue, but I think we make a difference.

Instead of figuring out how we are going to deal with a second wave of coronavirus, or how to replace international students who shore up enrollment while getting to play sports they love (and enriching a fairly cornbread corner of America) and may not come back after the pandemic, or the myriad other problems big and small that plague us, we are putting together a “social justice initiative” whose purpose as yet remains vague.

A general call went out to everyone. If you join, you’ll be expected to trumpet a hard-Left reading of woke ideology. If you refuse… well “silence is violence.” One proposal, made without irony, was to invite the community to campus to tell them how their whiteness makes them privileged and also racist. Mercifully, sanity reigned and the proposal foundered on the rocks of “we don’t think poor white people from Appalachia will be persuaded, and will likely resent being told their lives are somehow privileged.” But it won’t stop.

If you just want to teach, scratch out a living and make a difference, hoping the furies will forget about you: you are wrong. I took this job on purpose, praying to bring something of the liberal arts to my own people. And just be left alone, and yet… here we are.

Feel free to share my story, if you like, but please do keep my name off the web. I still have to figure out how to stay true to my beliefs and pay my mortgage.

It seems that a day has indeed come when the courage of men failed, and we have forsaken our friends and broke all bonds of fellowship. You know what comes next? “An hour of wolves and shattered shields…” It is here.

Already many families are opting out of sending their recent high school graduates off to college as a potential second wave COVID-19 crisis looms. Many students are no doubt thinking it’s a good time for a ‘gap year’. 

This is a trend likely to only grow, especially given the degree to which universities stop actually educating in Literature, History, Science, Business, Math, and the Classics – and instead focus on dubious and highly elastic concepts like “privilege” and “systemic racism”. 

Via AlMasdarNews.com,

The United States confirmed on Friday that it will discuss with the Iraqi government the status of its remaining military forces, stressing that it does not seek military bases or a permanent military presence in Iraq.

According to a joint statement of the first session of the strategic dialogue, Washington and Baghdad announced the continuation of the talks on the status of the remaining American forces in Iraq, where the two countries’ focus is towards developing a normal security relationship based on common interests. The governments of the two countries said in the statement that “in light of the significant progress made towards eliminating the threat from ISIS, the United States will continue in the coming months to reduce its forces in Iraq.”

The United States also confirmed that it is not seeking to establish permanent bases or a permanent military presence in Iraq, as agreed previously in the 2008 Strategic Framework Agreement, which states that security cooperation is based on mutual agreements.

The U.S. pointed out that they had already withdrawn half of their forces from Iraq since the start of the new year.

Reuters reports Friday:

Western military trainers are expected to remain in Iraq, but it is not clear how many. The United States has had around 5,000 troops stationed in the country, and coalition allies another 2,500.

An earlier newsflash by Iraq’s state news agency cited Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi as saying there would be a total withdrawal of troops. The article was later removed.

For its part, the government of Iraq is committed to protecting the military forces of the International Alliance, and the Iraqi facilities that host them in line with international law and relevant arrangements regarding the presence of those forces and in the form that will be agreed upon between the two countries.

It is noteworthy to mention that the Iraqi Council of Representatives had voted in January in an extraordinary session in the presence of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, on a decision obliging the government to work to end the request for assistance submitted to the international coalition led by Washington and end any presence of foreign forces on Iraqi soil.

This came against the background of the killing of the Iranian commander of the Quds Force, Major General Qassem Soleimani, and the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Units, Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, during a U.S. air raid near the Baghdad International Airport.