Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,
Most of my readers are well aware of my position on U.S. elections in general – they are an eternal farce meant to give false hope to the masses. They are designed to make the public feel as if we are participating in our own governance, when in reality, we are only ever allowed to choose from a list of candidates that the elites pre-select. This does not mean that all politicians are corrupted or controlled, but according to the evidence I have seen, the majority of government represents the desires of a select few, and not the majority of the citizenry.
There is absolutely no chance of retaking our current government by working within the system. To be blunt, the system is now structured to protect itself and nothing else. To think that it can be influenced through “elections” is an absurd notion.
For the past decade, though, I have seen a powerful shift in the public psyche towards a realization that our government is built upon a fraudulent paradigm; the false left versus the false right. I also understand that if I can see this shift, so can the numerous think tanks funded by the elites. The elites do not always try to obstruct changes in public awareness; this would be an unrealistic and fruitless effort. Instead, they often work to co-opt these changes and exploit them to the benefit of the establishment.
Consider, for instance, the aggressive takeover of the Tea Party movement by the neoconservative guard. I joined activist efforts in 2007 when the Tea Party was small but growing and organized primarily around the goal of auditing and/or shutting down the Federal Reserve. Many people are not even aware that the Tea Party was launched by Ron Paul among other libertarian voices.
As the movement began to grow exponentially, there were some attempts to stifle it. Accusations of “homegrown terrorism” were thrown around, not necessarily by Democrats, but by the Republican Party. When the strategy of demonization failed, the same Fox News supported neocons that called for our heads suddenly began hijacking our bandwagon. I’ll never forget the day I saw a supposed Tea Party event featuring main speakers like Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee; it was then that I knew there was no more Tea Party.
Of course, the elites were able to pirate the name (or the “brand”) and pirate some of the events, but they were never able to steal away the idea and the principles behind the movement. This seemed to confound the establishment. No matter what tactics they used, the movement, which I and many others have always called the “Liberty Movement,” just simply would not go away.
What the elites did not seem to grasp at that time was that the movement was not rooted in a single organization, or a single candidate, or even a group of “leaders.” Instead, the liberty movement was and still is rooted in a set of principles. Normal co-option tactics could not possibly work. They could take over the Tea Party, but true liberty activists could simply walk away and start another group or groups. We are adaptable, and because we do not have a traditional centralized leadership, we are difficult to pin down and control.
No matter what the elites have tried, they have not been able to lure liberty activists back to the neocon reservation. However, the establishment is not averse to trying new methods and new avenues of attack.
The first and most common strategy of co-option is to fool the target movement into adopting a leader or leaders that they think are friendly but who are actually working against them. As mentioned earlier, this was attempted with the Tea Party, but it failed. Liberty activists left the Tea Party and continued their efforts elsewhere. When simpler methods elude the establishment, they tend to add complexities.
For example, I have written extensively on a concerted effort by the Russian government controlled RT network and others to paint Eastern governments as “victims” of globalist aggression. As I have outlined and thoroughly evidenced, nations like Russia and China work hand-in-hand with globalist institutions like the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, the Bank of International Settlements and the United Nations. It is undeniable that the East is a part of the so-called “New World Order.” They are not opposed to it.
Despite the considerable evidence to the contrary, there is still a percentage of the liberty movement that clings to the notion that globalism is a construct of the West alone, and that the East is “fighting against it.” One purpose of this propaganda is, I believe, to continue the effort to co-opt the liberty movement. If the movement can be convinced to develop adoration for globalist puppets like Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping, then we can eventually be lured into negative actions under false pretenses. Fortunately, the false East/West paradigm is losing its edge and liberty activists mesmerized by it are coming to their senses once again. The only REAL paradigm worth our concern is the globalists versus the rest of us.
Many people will not understand why such measures on the part of the establishment would be necessary. The fact is, the liberty movement is the single-most vital activist movement in modern history. It is the core of a great awakening that is accelerating but still fragile.
This awakening, if left to grow, will result in the erasure of all false paradigms and the elites behind them. A problem that has plagued humanity for centuries, the problem of centralization and collectivism (community by force rather than by consent), could finally be dismantled.
Some will claim such statements amount to “delusions of grandeur,” but if that were true, the elites would not need to spend vast amounts of energy and capital trying to co-opt or demonize us. If we were not a threat, or if our claims were nonsensical “conspiracies” with no validity, then they would let us clamor about until we inevitably self destruct. Instead, they have well-funded organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center dedicated to endlessly misrepresenting who we are and what we believe in.
With the false East/West paradigm not achieving the desired effect, and the hack and slash tactics of the SPLC and the mainstream media doing little to deter the expansion of the movement, the elites have become more sophisticated.
Whenever you have a rebellion focused on the inherent ideals of freedom, totalitarian institutions struggle to intervene. The issue is, freedom is not only moral, but practical. Wherever true freedom exists, people are not only happier, but more productive and prosperous. It’s hard for a tyrant to fight a rebellion based on freedom because the idea is more powerful than any weapon or any form of treachery. No matter how advanced the tyranny is, and no matter how many rebels they imprison or kill, the idea of freedom endures.
The only way to destroy a rebellion like this, a rebellion like the liberty movement, is to make it about something other than freedom. The powers that be have to convince that movement to support policies that are destructive to their own ideals. If this can be done, then that rebellion has lost the advantage of principle – the only advantage that really matters.
So what does any of this have to do with the 2016 election?
As I have pointed out for many months, the election of 2016 is an obvious dividing point for our nation. This is how I was able to predict back in March that the final election would be Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton – the match-up made too much sense.
Clinton was always a given. No other Democratic candidate could possibly encompass the pure evil of the establishment guard more than her. And, the only candidate conservatives could revile more than Barack Obama is Hillary Clinton. Clinton is even despised by many on the political Left. This is a perfect scenario for the elites.
I have been trying to recall any election in the past century in which more negative and potentially damning information was released about a candidate. Clinton’s numerous lies on the Benghazi attacks are still fresh in the public consciousness. No one can deny, at the very least, that she had real-time confirmation as head of the State Department that the diplomatic station in Benghazi was under direct attack, and that under her watch no aid was ever sent though it was readily available. Despite her dismissals in congressional hearings, her own emails confirm that she was aware of the terrorist event, but told the American people a fabricated story about “protests” rather than a violent assault.
The motives behind Clinton allowing Ambassador Chris Stevens among others to be murdered in Benghazi have yet to be revealed. I suspect that the then-secret arms flow from Libya into Syria and the covert U.S. support of ISIS may have had something to do with it.
Through constant email hacks and leaks, Clinton has been proven over and over again to be either a liar or completely incompetent. Her misappropriation of taxpayer funds for her husband’s foundation, her mishandling of classified materials and the misuse of her position within government to dole out favors to her financial patrons is so egregious that if government actually followed the rule of law she would be imprisoned for the rest of her life.
In fact, Clinton’s only defense so far for her misdeeds has been to argue essentially that because of her health condition she is too incompetent to be blamed for her behavior.
Add to this her open pandering to insane cultural Marxist groups like third-wave feminists and Black Lives Matter and it would be hard to find a more cartoonish or cinematic monster. So, people will have to forgive me when I say that anyone who thinks the establishment is stupid enough to place all their eggs in the basket of the Clinton campaign is living in a fantasy world. Clearly, a Clinton presidency is not the end game for the elites.
Trump’s public persona is the exact antithesis to Clinton’s. Readers know that for months I have been predicting a Trump presidency. Those not familiar with my position can read my article “2016 Will End With Economic Instability And A Trump Presidency.”
To summarize, the elites need a patsy for the breakdown of the financial system they have engineered. That patsy will not be Trump per se, but conservatives in general. Whether Donald Trump is aware of this program or not, I do not know. I have no hard evidence indicating that Trump is anti-constitution; then again, I don’t have much evidence indicating he is pro-constitution. All I have at present to go by is his rhetoric, and rhetoric counts for nothing.
What I do know is that triggering a fiscal crisis under the watch of Trump and blaming conservatives is far more useful to the elites than triggering a crisis under Clinton and risk blame falling on international banking syndicates.
I can say with a high level of certainty that millions of conservatives in the U.S. will not tolerate a Clinton presidency. It’s just not going to happen. I give it a year or less before she begins implementing draconian measures above and beyond Obama’s efforts and Americans respond with physical rebellion. In this event, the U.S. will be torn apart by outright civil war.
Those who think this is an exaggeration should consider the fact that we have already been on the edge of widespread conflict with the federal government during the Bundy Ranch incident, and that was over property rights and government abuse of protesters. The average American is completely oblivious to how close we came to an open shooting war, not just in Nevada but across the country. Imagine how oblivious they will be to the reaction over a Clinton gun grab.
I do not think this is the plan, though.
Rather, the plan may be in part to lure the liberty movement, which is now more influential than ever before, back under the purview of the Republican umbrella. With Trump at the helm, there is an assumption among many liberty activists that the establishment has “stumbled” and lost control. Keep in mind that without Clinton as the opposing super-villain, this narrative does not work.
Only Clinton could frighten liberty activists enough to forgo their understanding of the false left/right paradigm and rejoin the Republican Party. Only Trump, with his brand of rhetoric, could convince them that perhaps the party has been shaken up and the neocon rats scattered. I’m just not buying it.
I believe Clinton is meant to lose. If this is the case and Trump is inaugurated in January of next year, the liberty movement needs to ask itself if Trump is truly an obstacle for the elites, or if he is an ally to the elites.
The Left is already salivating over the possibility that the Trump campaign will devour the liberty movement and turn it into something unrecognizable. Just take a gander at this editorial from Bloomberg called 'The Tea Party Meets Its Maker', which announces the death of the "Tea Party" at the hands of Trump (and yes, they are lumping all patriot groups under the label of the Tea Party "racists").
This article is an interesting window into the twisted mind of the collectivist Left. Set aside Bloomberg's acrid vitriol and biased ignorance of what we stand for; they already have a childish image in their minds of who we are and that's never going to change. Instead, look at how they can barely contain their poisonous glee over the idea that independent and decentralized liberty activists could be absorbed and assimilated through the rise of Trump. Clearly, they have always hated the fact that we have been impossible to co-opt to this point.
And hey, if they can't beat Trump in the election, then at least Trump's success will mean the destruction of those bastard constitutionalists with their practical world views and highly evidenced arguments. Screw those white guys.
This is not to say that a media rag like Bloomberg is privy to any plans to co-opt the liberty movement. They are knowingly dishonest, and they are globalist tools, but I think they mostly believe they are being dishonest in the name of elevating the Democratic party. They think Hillary is their hero, and that Trump is a villain, and the corporate oligarchs they work for are not even part of the election equation.
That said, their argument that Trump could bring down liberty activist groups is not without merit. People say that sometimes life imitates art. I say, sometimes mainstream journalism accidentally imitates life.
The greatest threat to our movement will be if we centralize and fall in line behind one man or one mainstream organization. In our fervor to defeat Hillary Clinton, who is admittedly a despicable person, will we find ourselves willingly blind to any trespasses by Trump? Imagine for a moment that the elites do indeed crash our financial system with Trump in office; will we still hold Trump accountable to the same constitutional standards as we would a president under non-crisis conditions?
Vote for whoever you wish, but realize that our responsibilities do not end once the election is over. If Trump as president responds to a crisis with martial law or other unconstitutional abuses, will we make excuses for him because we WANT to believe he is anti-establishment, or will we stand against him as we would Hillary Clinton?
Maybe these are presumptuous questions. Perhaps there will be no Trump presidency. Perhaps he does take office but there is no financial crash (though simple mathematics dictate otherwise). Perhaps Trump will magically invigorate our economic structure, the elites will walk away in solemn defeat and America will return to a golden age of prosperity. Yeah, we can all dream.
The bottom line is, far more important than the U.S. elections, far more important than a Clinton defeat or a Trump win, far more important even than economic crisis is the continued independence and vitality of the liberty movement. The temptation to sacrifice that independence for some activists will be overwhelming. It will seem far easier to hand over responsibility for the future of this nation to a more “official” entity. But in this sacrifice of responsibility lies the death of freedom. Again, the liberty movement is the most important movement in modern human history, and the only way it can be killed is if we help kill it. The only way it can be co-opted is if we allow it. The risk at this moment is greater than it has ever been.
Even if you disagree with the potential for every scenario I present here, all I ask is that you increase your vigilance at this time and whatever happens, don’t forgo your principles for the sake of what you think is a lesser evil.
via http://ift.tt/2cbAfd6 Tyler Durden