Despite overwhelming evidence of US troops being given orders to open fire on peaceful antiwar protesters at Kent State, not a single person has ever been held accountable.
The post 48 Years Ago Today, US Troops Massacred Students in Ohio, Covered It Up and Got Away With It appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
This article was originally published by Chris Martenson at PeakProsperity.com
Do you have the nagging sense that our empire is in decline?
If so, don’t be embarrassed by it. Historically speaking, we’re in very good company. Far larger and longer-lived empires than ours have come and gone over the millennia.
This was hit home for me on a recent trip. I scored a major “dad win” by taking my youngest daughter, Grace, to England for her 18th birthday (we live in Massachusetts, USA).
All on her own, Grace developed an abiding love of mythology at a very young age: Greek, Roman, Norse, Native American, Aztec…you name it. She’s read the Iliad four times, a different version each time, as each has the biases of the translator subtly woven throughout.
Naturally, her dream mini-vacation involved going to the British Museum where the Rosetta stone lies, along with Viking hoard treasures and every possible Roman, Greek and Egyptian artifact one could hope to see.
The British empire came of age at the perfect time to muscle in and “retrieve” the cultural treasures of many different countries. Such are the spoils of empire.
Who knows, perhaps one day we’ll see sliced off segments of the Palace of Westminster on display in Cairo’s main square. History ebbs and it flows. Back and forth. Victors and losers swapping places over and over again.
If the British Museum reveals anything it’s just that. The long sweep of human history shows us that the more things change, the more things stay the same.
The treasures on display at the British Museum also show us that every race and culture has revered beauty. The most intricate and delicate and objectively beautiful jewelry and adornments were worn by kings and queens, priestesses, nobles, and warlords alike.
Sutton Hoo
Consider the find of the Sutton Hoo burial mound. An eminently important and revered individual (possibly Raedwald) was buried sometime around the year 740, with an enormous ship 89 feet in length serving as his burial chamber.
Just imagine how many people it took to dig a hole in the ground that held the ship to its gunnels, and then bring forward enough earth to cover the whole affair in a gigantic mound of earth more than ten feet high in the middle. As a gardener, I can tell you that dirt is heavy stuff that really resists being moved by hand. Hundreds of people must have labored for a very long time to create this burial mound.
Whoever this person was, he was revered enough to be buried with an astonishing collection of wealth. And, perhaps more amazingly, none of it was looted.
Here’s the sword belt, made of an intricate lattice of pure gold and polished garnet:
Isn’t that a beautiful work of art?
Again, nobody came back and looted this afterwards. Maybe they killed the workers who built the gravesite, but surely folks still knew a very rich ruler had been buried in the area. And yet nobody looted the site. To me, it’s hard not to see that as a sign of how much the man buried there was respected by his kinsmen.
Here’s a close up of the dragons head from that sword belt:
If you’ve ever worked with garnet, you know just how devilishly hard it is (a 7.5 on a scale of 10) and how much work it must have taken to polish up even one of those tiny panels, let alone all of them, and into such careful shapes.
Similarly, these shoulder clasps meant to secure an article of clothing (like a cape or cloak) are also magnificent:
Again, the detail and workmanship are impressive. But what struck me most was how these works of art are so … beautiful. And from a time of early medieval history referred to ‘the dark ages’ and popularly described as a period of bleak survival.
If they were, somebody still had the resources to churn out works of extraordinary precision and beauty. That much is clear.
The rest of the artifacts are similarly extraordinary — especially the helmet, shields, and coinage. Just take a look at this purse lid:
Taken together, I see a culture where reverence mattered. Sutton Hoo’s buried leader was revered enough that his tomb was not looted afterwards, promptly or otherwise. The items buried display a reverence for his authority as well as for beauty.
These burial artifacts were by no means trivial items. Each one could have supported a family for many generations at a time when resources were scarce, only obtainable through the hard labor of many.
And yet they were left untouched. Who among today’s leaders would be honored enough as a leader that their tomb would not be looted for massive personal gain? Where can you see that our culture reveres beauty to the same degree, being willing to place so much collective effort into its creation?
The Taranto Scepter
Everywhere else in the British Museum were similar displays of honoring the feminine — the women and the goddesses of the world. Many of the Egyptian displays caught my eye, as did the Greek, but one piece stood out so much that I came back to it three times, so amazed was I by the beauty of it and the message I took from it.
It came from “The Tomb of the Taranto Priestess” and dated from 350 – 340 BC. Since kings did not rule Taranto during that period, it is believed to have been the property of a priestess.
First, her scepter is truly extraordinary:
The entire scepter is perhaps 18 inches in length and capped in extraordinary gold adornment. But what really caught my eye is the gold mesh you see running down the shaft (lost to history, thought to have been bone?). It consists of extremely fine gold wire wrapped in even finer gold wire, and is woven into a meshwork of little diamond shapes with tiny circles at their corners. Each of these circles contained a tiny gem or enameled treasure of some sort (most, again, lost to history).
Here’s a close up:
The gold wire used is finer than hair. This scepter speaks of power and delicacy in equal balance, one reinforcing the other. Only the lightest of touch could hold the scepter without breaking strands of gold that fine. That made me think of the woman who wielded it with such a delicate touch.
Again, this person was revered to such an extent that an object of such immense value and beauty was entombed with her, and not robbed at a later time by someone who knew what the tomb contained.
Power, honor, reverence, and beauty. All attributes that show up again and again all throughout history.
The entire British Museum is packed to the rafters with such expressions. I came away both elated to have gotten back in touch with these better expressions of humanity, but also saddened because I can’t locate their equivalent in today’s world.
One missing element from today? Reverence for the goddess, for the feminine. I cannot think of a single western homage paid to the feminine. No temples to the goddesses and no elevation of feminine attributes.
This is important to note, not because we wish to bash the masculine, but because anything out of balance requires rebalancing. In fact, re-elevating the feminine will actually bring honor and meaning back to the masculine.
Our world is caught up entirely in money, and power, and wars, and force. We revere power over rather than power within.
So the questions I’d like to leave you with are these.
Finally, are you ready for the massive changes that are coming?
Our Empire Of Debt
The British museum is a testament to the fact that empires have been rising and falling for thousands of years. The common elements of every empire include its own appreciation for works of extreme beauty and human craftsmanship, along with strict hierarchy. They all expressed a strong connection to the divine, however they felt it, each with their own mythologies and attendant religions to make sense of it all…and help cement the rulers place(s) at the top, of course.
Each empire had a mythology by which it self-organized and people bought into that belief system. Looking back they seem like such obvious mental traps it’s easy to scoff and wonder how people could have been so blinkered.
Here’s the thing about hierarchical societies in every era…in every single one there were always a very few haves and a whole lot of have nots. How were the masses kept in line? Why did the vast bulk of humanity in every empire live in relative poverty and misery, never lifting a finger in revolt except under very rare circumstances?
The connection to yourself is this; each society has a set of reasons in place that explain to the people on the lower levels why they belong there. In some prior cultures the explanation was that authority was invested the royal blood line. You either had it or you didn’t.
In other societies, the rulers were said to be closer to the gods, if not descended directly from them. To go against the rulers meant you were assaulting or dishonoring the very gods you prayed to and on which you utterly depended.
While the mythologies in place “explaining” the hierarchy differed, the results did not. They always resulted in a few at the top and an expanding pyramid of population and entitlement laid out below them.
The middle management in this story, those that had relative advantage were the necessary keepers of the systems in each culture and each system. They had more to lose than to gain through revolt and so they stayed true to the system through their entire lives.
The people on the very bottom, despite having a vast numerical advantage, had the limiting belief that they had no power. So revolts almost never happened. Systems of hierarchy persisted until the empire had run its course, almost always failing because it ran out of resources to maintain itself and its growing complexity.
The lessons of history are absolute; nothing lasts. Everything changes, especially who’s in charge.
So what are our explanations today that keep us all in line? What keeps us from revolt? To what do we bow our daily collective heads in fealty to?
The answer is Money.
What we call “money” today was a wicked genius invention that popped up right around the same moment in history when humans were working out other keen, life-altering inventions such as clocks, and printing presses.
“None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free.”
~ Goethe
A person in debt is a person controlled. But they think it was their own decision. Hence the Goethe quote above. A nation in debt is a nation controlled. The debt trap is especially insidious, and it relies on the illusion of free will combined with the full weight of ‘the law.’
By attaching a stated rate of interest to a loan, a person’s future output was yours if you were the holder of that note. What a stroke of pure (evil) genius! Set the rate high enough and the term long enough and you can get all of your money paid back plus another 100% of that amount or more, every bit of which was actually the future productive output (i.e. time) of the borrower.
Conjure up a promissory note out of thin air and then you get to skim the true productive output of that person, regardless of outcome. Whether they succeeded or failed in the endeavor, you still won. If they paid you back, the win was obvious. If they failed you often had collateral on the back end protecting your “investment.” No matter what, you won.
And even if that wasn’t the case? Well, you lost the amount of effort on your end that it took to draft up the note. In other words, nothing really.
I’ve yet to find this laid out in any museum even though the introduction of debt-based money was arguably the most course-altering invention of the past thousand years. It transformed millions of human slaves kept in check by threat of power and physical coercion (if not death) into billions of humans perfectly willing to hand over their labor to a very few elites at the top who did little to no work themselves.
Before this transformative invention money was always a very concrete thing – you either had a stash of silver or gold or you didn’t. Afterwards money became abstract. You could loan someone something you never had, written on a slip of paper, and the belief invested in that idea was sufficient to enslave that person until that debt was repaid. “Your” money might never be seen or handled by you at all, which is true for most people today. It exists as digits on a statement or computer screen. Yours, but utterly intangible. A powerful force, never actually seen or handled. In other words, a shared idea. A mythology imbued with tremendous power by a culture that served to enforce the current system of hierarchy.
There is a vast empire now spanning the globe but the mystery of it all is that it’s not based on or in any one country. It is an empire of debt. Those issuing the debt are harvesting the output of entire nations, no different in final effect than the Romans enforcing the practice of tithing from extant countries in AD 100.
We now live in a world of, by and for bankers, and other financial elites. Where once it was your royal lineage, or direct connection to the sun god Ra that assured your place at the top, today it’s your proximity to the temples of money.
But what happens when the economic pie is no longer expanding, yet the keepers of the system seem unable to turn off their own desires to grab more, more and yet more from that same pie?
That is where we find ourselves today. The economic oxygen is being sucked from the middle and lower classes and the social and political pressures are building.
Meanwhile more and more claims (currency and debts) are being piled on top of this stagnant economic pie thereby increasing the pressure on a creaking system. Someday that all gives way rather spectacularly and ends very badly. History says it ends with a lot of social anarchy and quite possibly another world war.
In Part 2: What History Tells Us Will Come Next, we provide a detailed analysis of how late-stage empires always collapse as the elites exhaust the resources of the masses. We are seeing clear signs of that today.
As we progress from here, the disparity between the haves and have-nots is only going to intensify, with debt (and our debt-based money system) being used as the primary weapon for controlling an increasingly dispossessed public.
Are you prepared?
Click here to read Part 2 of this report (free executive summary, enrollment required for full access)
Many users have been dropping Facebook, ceasing to use social media, or looking into the data that’s been collected about them. But if you think that what Facebook knows about you is scary, check out what Google knows about you.
Dylan Curran, an information technology consultant, took a look at just what Google knew about him. Even with his experience as a web developer, he was shocked. “I was really like: ‘Oh, my God. This is preposterous,"” Curran said. When he requested his data from Google, he found that it was constantly tracking his location in the background, including calculating how long it took to travel between different points, along with his hobbies, interests, possible weight, income, data on his apps, and records of files he had deleted. But that was just the tip of the iceberg.
Although Curran thinks what Google is doing is harmless and not at all malicious (we’ll agree to disagree there), he did say it’s a little unsettling that the tech giant knows so many things about him and he feels uncomfortable now that he knows how closely he’s being tracked.
“It’s wrong to trust any entity that big with so much information,” he said. “They’re just trying to make money,” and at some point, “someone is going to make a mistake.” But this information and revelation definitely struck a chord with some, and they aren’t happy about it. Curran’s original tweet now has 159,000 talking about it.
Want to freak yourself out? I"m gonna show just how much of your information the likes of Facebook and Google store about you without you even realising it
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
Google tracked every single place Curran had been, right down to how long he was there and the time he left.
2. This is every place I have been in the last twelve months in Ireland, going in so far as the time of day I was in the location and how long it took me to get to that location from my previous one pic.twitter.com/I1kB1vwntT
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
“All Google users are being tracked by default in terms of physically where [they’re] going and located,” Scott J. Shackelford, an associate business professor at Indiana University focusing on cybersecurity law and policy said, according to NBC News. “That is shocking to a lot of people.”
A spokesperson for Google wanted the public to know that everyone needs to be aware of their online privacy choices and review them regularly. “In order to make the privacy choices that are right for them, it’s essential that people can understand and control their Google data,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “Over the years, we’ve developed tools like My Account expressly for this purpose, and we’d encourage everyone to review it regularly.”
Google has made an array of privacy tools available through the My Account feature. It will allow users see their personal data and tracking history. It also allows people to turn off tracking mechanisms or delete individual pieces of data they want gone from the archives.
An ominous precedent has been set as a man was just found guilty of a hate crime for making a joke video of a dog doing a "Nazi Salute" and he now faces the possibility of being thrown in prison for it.
The post Man Found Guilty of a Hate Crime for A Joke Video Of His Dog Doing a ‘Hitler Salute’ appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
A Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates has offended a lot of Democrats with his powerful speech on guns that quickly went viral, raking in over 13 million Facebook views since Friday. Nick Freitas finally hit the nail on the head and told gun grabbers the truth, much to their discontent.
The speech laid out the unfortunate history of the left in America. Desiring government control over their lives and the lives of others from the beginning was always designed to harm people, not help them. According to the Daily Wire, Freitas happened to be the man who finally just cut to the chase with Democrats.
“For several days now, some Democrats in the Virginia House of Delegates have made public speeches comparing those of us who take our oath to the Constitution seriously, to include the 2nd Amendment, to Nazis and segregationists,” wrote the delegate on Facebook captioning his speech, which he dubbed as his “response” to such attacks.
“It’s really difficult to have an open and honest debate about this […] because members of this body are comparing members of [the Republican] side of the aisle to Nazis,” he said, adding that it was particularly offensive that GOP members were also compared to “segregationists.” Freitas continued saying, “It was not our party that supported slavery, that fought women’s suffrage, that rounded up tens of thousands of Asian Americans and put them in concentrations camps, that supported Jim Crow, that supported segregation, or supported mass resistance — that wasn’t our party, that was the Democrat Party,” he said. “I’d be really appreciative that every time you want to make a powerful point, you don’t project the sins, the atrocities, and the injustices the Democratic Party perpetrated on others onto us,” slammed the Republican.
He also noted the lame talking point that Republicans representatives are “paid off” by the National Rifle Association (NRA). “Why don’t you look at how much Planned Parenthood pays compared to the NRA?” he said. A true conversation, he said, “starts with a certain degree of mutual respect.” Democrats were incredibly triggered by the Republican’s remarks; so much so, that apparently the acknowledgment of the disturbing history of the Democratic Party made them uneasy to the point that they actually cried racism. As reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Delegate, Lamont Bagby said he viewed Freitas’ remarks as racial “dog-whistling.”
“We realize that we live in an ugly political moment. So while we were offended, we were not surprised,” said Bagby. “It should embarrass every member of this body that we have allowed such rhetoric to enter these chambers. Bringing up a very painful past to make a political point is disgusting and poisonous.”
Remember: it’s fine to suggest Republicans are choosing NRA money over saving children’s lives, or branding them as Nazis and segregationists for disagreeing with Democratic talking points, but it is unacceptable — a racial dog-whistle actually — to bring up historical truths about the Party of Slavery. –The Daily Wire
The Daily Sheeple touched on something very similar yesterday in response to leftists believing they are being bullied. The left is now accusing gun owners of bullying when someone corrects a gun grabbers nomenclature. For example, when the term “clip” is used instead of “magazine.”
The mainstream media is now claiming that it’s “bullying” to correct a gun control activist when they use the wrong nomenclature while discussing the guns they know almost nothing about. Apparently, being wrong is perfectly acceptable and it’s “mean” if you educate an indoctrinated fool.
But the problem is that all of those terms actually DO matter and they matter immensely when talking about which things should be and can be banned. That’s why gun owners correct those who use the terms wrong. And if you still believe that the “AR” in AR-15 stands for assault rifle, your opinion on gun laws is less than relevant.
This isn’t “bullying.” According to Google, bullying is defined as use superior strength or influence to intimidate (someone), typically to force him or her to do what one wants. No one is using superior strength or influence to intimidate anyone here. It’s nothing more than an attempt to educate the masses who have been indoctrinated with years of mainstream media bias against an inanimate object to the point that they know so little about something they hate so much.–The Daily Sheeple
When we are living at the height of leftist propaganda, it’s nice when one person can stand up and lay out the truth for everyone. Freitas’ comments were met with extreme anger from the left probably because he labeled them accurately and refused to fall victim to their attempts at brainwashing.
(Alt-Market) The high priests of academic and “official” history love a good villain for two reasons: First, because good official villains make the struggles and accomplishments of good official heroes even more awe-inspiring. And, second, because nothing teaches (or propagandizes) the masses more thoroughly than the social or political lessons inherent in the documented rise and fall of the world’s most despicable inhabitants. We get shivers of fear and excitement when we discuss the evils and the follies of ancient monsters like Nero, Attila the Hun, Caligula, etc, or more modern monsters, like Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, Goebbels, Mao, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and so on. We take solace in the idea that “we are nothing like them”, and our nation has “moved beyond” such animalistic behavior.
But even more fascinating popcorn-style history is found not in the destruction of tyrants, but the destruction of empires.
When an entire culture steps off the edge of the abyss into the realm of societal psychosis, the world often changes forever and in ways that, at least on the surface, seem to bring humanity a little closer together. The fall of Rome led to the eventual rise of a dominant Catholic theocracy and the rulership of royal blood lineage that lasted for centuries in Europe. The flames of World War I and the destabilization of the Kaiser’s Germany led to the formation of the League Of Nations; a first attempt at a global governing authority designed to “maintain world peace”. World War II and the fall of the Third Reich resulted in considerable horrors, which the establishment of the United Nations was supposedly meant to prevent from ever occurring again. The decline of the British Empire saw the implosion of cultural colonialism, and the rise of corporate colonialism, which centralized immense power into the hands of the banking class as the new official oligarchs of our modern era. The collapse of the Berlin Wall and the abandonment of the Soviet Union was lauded by then U.S. President George Bush as the beginnings of a “New World Order” – an ideological concept which heralds the final deterioration of the idea of economic and political sovereignty as a mainstay of human civilization.
When examining the approved version of historical conflict, one gets the overwhelming impression that the villains of our past, through their hubris, their greed, and their insanity, seem to inspire a sudden surge of unification as their ashes are cleared from the air. One might even come to believe that the “natural progression” of conflict is leading us towards a future in which the only solution is the dissolution of all boundaries and the adoption of a one world narrative. Wouldn’t it be glorious if the deaths of these malevolent tyrants and societies finally inspired the birth of a single human system in which no conflict is possible because we are all on the same side?
Perhaps it would be glorious, if you have adopted the childish notions of history common to the mainstream. For those who have not, the story, and the ultimate solutions to the ills of mankind, become a little more complicated…
America’s Villainous Mustache
Mainstream history tends to follow the motions of a play or film, in that archetypes and symbolic figures are consistently created in order to satisfy the natural flow of a particular fiction. The bad guy wears a mustache (not always, but it is strange and disturbing to see how often this archetype materializes in the mainstream world view. Just look at Hitler, Stalin, Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi, Bashar al-Assad, etc. We love mustached villains). His criminal successes make him imposing and frightening. He acts without conscience, or, he wrongly believes his terrible actions are justified in the name of the “greater good”. His inevitable mistakes make his final failure ironic and satisfying in the face of the iconic hero, who defeats the enemy while the citizenry stands back and watches in awe and wonder as helpless spectators.
The villain is indeed evil, and deserves to be dethroned, but the assumption many people make is that the other side is diametrically good. This is not always the case…
America is used to playing the role of the hero in the epic tale of modern Earth. Our nation began with an act of defiance and victory so unexpected and so poetic, it cemented our cultural identity as freedom fighters for centuries to come. Over time, our government, turning progressively corrupt, has exploited this cultural identity in order to lure Americans into committing atrocities in the name of our traditional sense of “heroism”. We have, in fact, become the very antagonists we thought we were fighting against (there’s the delicious irony needed to round out our fairytale).
Our government’s actions surrounding Syria, for instance, have made America appear not just bloodthirsty, but also ridiculous. The Obama Administration took us to the brink of World War III and left us there to stare out over the chasm. The slightest breeze could send us plummeting. All to generate military support for Al-Qaeda, the same organization designated by the establishment as our mortal enemy.
In the meantime, our economic system now survives solely on the whims of the Federal Reserve, a private central bank that answers to NO ONE, and writes fiscal policy without oversight. The government is not only seeking to trigger world war, it also wants to pay for that war with money we do not have, riding debts we cannot pay, to foreign creditors we will piss off in the process of unleashing our unfunded laser guided hell.
Never has the U.S. been slathered in so much absurdity all at once. Now, we wear the mustache…
Most of us in the Liberty Movement would agree that our country is being poisoned from within, and that our government for many decades has become an enemy of all free peoples. But there is a very important question that we seem to have overlooked:
If America has been written as the villain, then who is meant to be the hero?
Putin Is Not Your Buddy
Lets step back from the global stage for a moment and examine the situation from a different perspective. What if the U.S. is not just a product of corruption for corruption’s sake? What if our new identity as the next historical evil-doer is part of a greater script, and America’s fall from grace is meant to be used to foment the success of fantastic (but fake) protagonists in an engineered fight for a “better and more centralized world”?
How many of us in the Liberty Movement cheered the diplomatic and strategic prowess of Vladimir Putin, for example, in the days leading to Obama’s “red line” attack on Syria? We cheered because his position was correct, and his demeanor made our government look homicidal by comparison. We cheered his letter to TIME Magazine because we are tired of being the only people pointing out the vicious parasite our political body has become, and it was exciting to be vindicated by an outside source. We cheered his protection of Edward Snowden, a truly courageous whistle blower that exposed the terrifying Orwellian nature of the NSA. We watch video reports from Russia Today (RT) because they give a far more accurate accounting of the facts in the U.S. than all American media entities combined. It is easy for us to get caught up in the idea that since the West has become the bad guy, the East must now be the good guy.
The problem is, we are being played yet again.
Putin has long called for the end of the dollar’s world reserve status and the creation of a new “global structure” and a “global currency” revolving around the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights:
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/at-g20-kremlin-to-pitch-new-currency/375364.html
Is it just coincidence that Putin wants the same centralized global economy and global governance that the IMF and multiple banking elites have been calling for for years? The same elites who created the debt crisis and currency crisis we now face in America? Is it just coincidence that Eastern economic and political dominance over issues like Syria perfectly benefits the IMF plan for an financial shift to the BRICS nations and away from the U.S. greenback? The same plan promoted by many American financial moguls?
Russia is a model for despotic socialized society posing as “civilized society”, and yet, our government has made America so ugly that Russia looks noble by comparison. Putin is placed on the cover of TIME magazine everywhere in the world except the U.S., and the Washington Times responds by stating that such behavior is a sign of “America’s downward spiral in the global community”, as if we are about to be shunned from the world at large:
While RT produces fantastic journalistic pieces that are critical of American government, rarely if ever do they turn a discerning eye to Russia, and this is not just oversight.
Look carefully at the narrative that is being constructed here. Putin is NOT our buddy. He represents exactly what our own government now represents; globalism and naked centralized government aggression against the individual. However, as mainstream history is being written, the story will be told that it was nations like Russia and China, and organizations like the IMF, that tried to hold back the tide of catastrophe while America, the last empire, steamrolled into thick-skulled oblivion surfing on a shockwave of fiat money and brute military vanity.
The Washington Aristocracy Is Scum, But Don’t Let That Fool You…
Most people with an extensive Liberty Movement education are well aware that false paradigms are used in politics by establishment elites in order to control social discussion and to divide the population against each other. The Left/Right debate has been and always will be a farce, being that the leadership on both sides of the aisle have identical goals when it comes to the most important aspects of the American structure. The elites of the Democratic and Republican parties, regardless of rhetoric, will BOTH strive for greater government power, less individual liberty, the erasure of economic sovereignty and free markets, and a dependent and enslaved public. On these pursuits, they completely agree.
America is about to change for the worse, and the decision on when this is to happen was made a long time ago. The Washington aristocracy is blatantly guilty in the instigation of our current dilemma, and my theory is, they want you to know they are the culprit, as long as you continue believing they are the ONLY culprit. They want you to forget all about the IMF, the corporate elites, and Vladimir Putin’s involvement in the larger plan. They want you to cheer when international banks and what’s left of the G20 rescue us after years of fiscal disaster and institute centralized global economic governance. They want to be the only authors of this story, and what author doesn’t want to see himself placed in the role of the champion?
Just as there are false political paradigms, there are also false international paradigms. The Liberty Movement is the wild card; an unknown quantity. We aren’t fighting for one side or the other – we are fighting for particular principles and beliefs. The establishment’s best strategy is to co-opt our momentum by convincing us to focus on alternative opposition, or place our trust in fabricated advocates. No matter how epically monstrous our government becomes, and no matter how satisfying their ultimate demise will be, our battle does not end with them. It only begins with them.
The post Has America Been Set Up As History’s Ultimate Bumbling Villain? appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
Today is the anniversary of one of the most pivotal false flags in history as Hitler burned down Reichstag and blamed it on his political enemies so he could seize total control of the country.
The post 85 Years Ago, Hitler Carried Out a “False Flag” Showing How Gov’t Can Control With Lies and Fear appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
The deadliest school massacre ever to take place on US soil has been erased from history as it doesn"t fit the narrative of today"s school attacks—especially since it was carried out without a gun.
The post The Deadliest School Attack in the US Was Erased from History Because It Wasn’t Done With a Gun appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
Their End Goal for We the People: “I am the State…the State is all!”
(“Quarlo” from “The Outer Limits,” episode “Soldier”)
History does repeat itself; if not identically, then in identical circumstances and events in different nations. History also does not just “happen,” as there are powerful forces at work in every nation. False flags have been used throughout human history: politicians and oligarchs initiate them to follow a hidden agenda. Too often the masses become the “True Believer” of Eric Hoffer. Worked up into a patriotic frenzy, they charge into the fray…little understanding that the great war or the great crusade is orchestrated by smiling bankers and nabobs, securely “in the rear with the gear,” sending men out to die to attain their secret objectives.
In this vein, consider that the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) is not limited to American White Anglo-Saxon Protestants of the United States, but a “conglomerate” of independent nations with the ability to wage war, sustain it, and sell arms. Each independent nation has their own “MIC” but they freely exchange goods and services (what we call arms and “negotiated” conflicts). They march to their own beat but allow themselves to be “guided” by the politicians, the oligarchs (who may or may not actively own industries in the MIC), and the bankers.
The lessons learned by history with the Rothschilds banking family as an example shows how one group of bankers can leverage both sides in a war between two different nations and profit no matter what the outcome. Make no mistake: this has not changed, and if anything, it has become even more “specialized” with private contractors waging wars on behalf of governments…the business of war, sanctioned with the (un)holy “blessing” of a nation-state (or an “actor” or “partner” as they’re now ludicrously termed).
The current tensions in the Middle East at first appear to be random acts of probes and military maneuvers. The Syrian question is a big one. What is happening over there? Well, a continuation of Obama-era policies of supporting “freedom fighters” against the reign of Bashar al-Assad, the leader of Syria…that is what is happening. Recently, Russian contractors were killed in battles against U.S. supported “rebels.” The Russian contractors cannot serve Russia (it’s against their law for merc’s to do such), but nothing stopped them from being hired by Assad and Syria.
But “freedom fighters” are only termed that by the United States when an insurgency is desired to overthrow an existing government that is not in favor with the U.S…. a “heroic people’s revolution” in the never-ending quest to force nations into the “freedom” of American democracy.
The revolution is not complete until all the IMF paperwork has been signed, the nation is “brought into the fold” of NATO, a quacking, U.S.-installed puppet is in place as the “acknowledged leader,” the American oligarchy has its chance to rape the land of its resources, and Wal-Marts and McDonald’s are springing up all over the nation’s cities. THAT IS WHAT UKRAINE HAS BECOME, courtesy of the Kiev government: a U.S. installed regime that ousted the former President of Ukraine who was elected under Ukrainian constitutional law.
Nuland, McCain, Graham, Clinton, and Obama: “Five Guys Ukrainian Burgers.”
And let’s not forget Soros: initiator of Maidan, with half a dozen NGO’s that helped topple the government and install Yatsenuk (a buddy of Soros), and the destructive force backing every one of those five names. In return, they were going to give him all the mineral and natural resources rights to…. [drum roll!] …. those very provinces that are separatist…for the mere pittance of $50 million…although the resources are worth billions… imagine that.
If the existing hand-puppet government that is friendly to the U.S. is getting ready to topple? It is not a revolution. It is then termed a “criminal overthrow of the government by terrorists.”
All of it is interrelated, and all of it has its roots in the MICs of all parties involved. As referenced in the Iron Mountain report…basically a “blueprint” based on George Orwell’s “1984,” the basis for human society is the waging of warfare for purposes of industry, territorial expansion and change, and population reduction.
The current standoff in the Middle East and heightened tensions are only underlying tensions brought to the forefront. Israel has been bombing facilities and bases in Iran and Syria for decades, as well as assassinating prominent scientists and politicians via the Mossad. The Arab nations have not let up in their hatred nor ceased their sporadic attacks with a “brushfire war” arising every decade or so. The Arabs have the oil, strategic locations, and emerging markets with nations who are slowly pulling away from the Petrodollar. The Israelis have the lobbied support of the United States, the money markets and banking houses of the world tied up, and the support (if not reluctantly) of every predominantly-Christian nation based on the Judeo-Christian traditions and beliefs that set Israel apart from the rest of humanity.
Be aware that currently Ehud Barak (former prime minister and former member of the Mossad) has announced that charges are being sought against Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s current leader. The charges are for corruption, and Netanyahu (and his Likud party) are not stepping down.
What better way to distract attention from this mess than a nice war?
Roughly a dozen installations in Iran and Syria were hit by Israeli airstrikes last week, and an Israeli F-16 was shot down. The Iranians have stated that they’re not going to roll over. It was also announced they have ballistic missiles ready to launch into Israel that can carry a nuclear warhead. Much of this stinks of being potentially orchestrated by one or more countries. Even France weighed in…France, mind you, that wouldn’t allow us to fly F-111’s over its airspace to strike Libya (and Quaddafi) back in the 80’s…saying it would attack Syria if it could be proven that chemical weapons were used by Assad.
France is returning a favor. Everyone remembers Benghazi, but what precipitated it? Obama did. Using his Executive Authority, he subjected Libya to a naval bombardment…within the 30-day limit…and this to ensure that Libyan oil still flowed to France, its primary client. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on NBC News: “We came, we saw, he died.”
The same Hillary Clinton who resigned after Benghazi where a Consular Outpost of the United States was attacked, and an American Ambassador and his staff members were killed.
Now it’s time for France to return the favor by taking action in Syria…and this would “legitimize” things needed for us to make another attempt at running a natural gas pipeline through Qatar and knock the knees off Gazprom (and Russia) …further cementing U.S. hold on Ukraine. It would also place another “partner” in the sparring lineup against Russia (indirectly, by proxy). This would be France’s mistake, as Russia knows that protecting Assad’s interests in Syria (and its own interests) is vital to also protect Iran (Russia has billions invested there), to keep Crimea, and to hold off NATO advances in the Ukrainian separatist provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk.
The current joke among Ukrainians: “Why did the Kiev government attack the separatist provinces? Because Russian troops are there. Why did the Kiev government not attempt to retake Crimea? Because there are REALLY Russian Troops there!”
The last presidential administration was noted for its bellicose nature…when it had a nation outgunned and outclassed. Libya and Ukraine were prime examples. Syria had the backing of Russia, and Obama showed his pusillanimous nature as the “Commander-in-Chump” without the stones or the tactical knowledge to fight Putin.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has nuclear weapons. He knows that the second he relinquishes them he will meet with the same fate as Qaddafi of Libya, and Saddam Hussein of Iraq. He also has made some smart moves diplomatically, regarding opening relations more with South Korea…giving him the “appearance” of statesmanship.
His country serves a purpose: to provide a pretext for the shadow government and/or the U.S. government to go to war when suitable: a ready-made crisis and nationalistic cohesion by the taxpayers at the press of a button.
The underlying points toward a potential false flag being initiated via the hostilities between Israel, Iran, and Syria. At the bare minimum, it will generate increased troop deployments and increased military budget expenditures across the board. It may also divert attentions away from corruption charges in Israel, continuing ridiculous (and baseless…Democrat-created) accusations of Russian campaign meddling and the administration’s (alleged) campaign monies paid to a porn star. War is the perfect solution, because the average citizen has no recourse against the State…because the State answers to no one and not even itself.
Superficial, obvious “reasons” for war are the ones the public swallows, gulping down from the firehose supplied by the ceaseless litany of lies and drivel from the mainstream media. The true reasons can only be found by those willing to not swallow the “crafted narrative.” We must look for the underlying money trails and political agendas of those self-serving leaders…puppet masters who see false flags as tools with State-sponsorship that fulfill their own goals and plans…at the cost (as usual) of We the People.
Jeremiah Johnson is the Nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces (Airborne). Mr. Johnson is also a Gunsmith, a Certified Master Herbalist, a Montana Master Food Preserver, and a graduate of the U.S. Army’s SERE school (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape). He lives in a cabin in the mountains of Western Montana with his wife and three cats. You can follow Jeremiah’s regular writings at SHTFplan.com or contact him here.
This article may be republished or excerpted with proper attribution to the author and a link to www.SHTFplan.com.
Real, vital historical understanding requires someone to bring the facts “to life” through the animating power of proper interpretation.
—E. Wayne Ross, The Social Studies Curriculum (2006)
One has to go back, behind what appear to be the “facts” of history … to a discussion of the meaning of history.
—Cornelius Van Til, The Psychology of Religion (1961)
Why History Matters
Teaching and learning history once stood near the very heart of education. The study of history provided perspective, context and meaning for the rest of the curriculum. It was a road map to show students the origins and growth of Western civilization, or better, of Christendom. Only the study of theology provided the super-structure necessary to insure a cohesiveness that supports all learning. After all, theology itself has its roots in Holy Scripture, the inspired history of God’s covenant dealings with men. From Augustine to Newton, those who wrote histories in terms of God’s kingdom either began with or assumed the history and chronology taught in Scripture. This allowed Christian writers to move forward with a kind of metaphysical confidence and certainty when it came to telling all stories … great and small … that always assumed the present reality of Christ’s reign in history.
Since the Enlightenment, however, the concept of “social studies” has replaced history classes in almost every school in America. (Christian and Government) Social studies, in theory, are supposed to draw from the unbiased, objective work of social scientists working in sociology, economics, political science, anthropology and the like. Social studies, for the most part, is designed to prepare students for the fight against Christianity. In fact, many educators see social studies as a means of transmitting values and culture from one generation to the next. The goal is to create good citizens who are socially competent and politically correct. Other educators see social studies as a means of teaching students to question and critique the culture of their parents, their church and their forefathers. Here the goal borders on social revolution. But in either case, the values of the educators, like those they hope to inculcate in the students, come from what they call “empirical sciences” … not from Bible. These are usually urgent, pragmatic and utilitarian.
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Oddly enough, the use of social studies in the classroom to brainwash America’s youth toward a social revolution has been met with limited success. There are likely a number of reasons for this. For one thing, social studies is just plain boring. Charts and tables and random facts pulled out of historical context really don’t encourage learning or excite learners. For another, social studies classes attempt to impose empirical sciences on human psychology … at least in theory. Thus, it lacks any sense of transcendent purpose, direction or meaningful theme. The whys and wherefores are missing – leaving us with “so what?” reactions.
Now, don’t get me wrong, history can be boring, too. History classes and history books also can suffer from a lack of plot and purpose. Only if we tell stories from history for what they really are — in the context of God’s great story of creation, fall and redemption – does history make sense. In this case, God’s narrative of mystery, action and even romance becomes the truly challenging, exciting and meaningful communication it’s meant to be.
Here, then, are some aspects of storytelling that anyone teaching history needs to presuppose and actively confess as we tell God’s Story to the next generation.
Creation, Sovereignty and Providence
We must presuppose and teach the biblical doctrine of creation (creatio ex nihilo).
The Triune God of Scripture made the whole universe of time, space and matter by His sovereign word. Without this ontological starting point, there’s no framework for the Story. Rather, the divine Story Teller becomes completely immersed in the Story, and the Story itself becomes a complete illusion without significance or real development. We are left with pantheism or materialism (atomism). There is no history and no Story — only fluctuations in a semi-sentient monistic reality or in the chaos of meaningless energy particles in motion.
The doctrine of creation always leads us to God’s providence. So, it’s important that we presuppose and teach the sovereignty of God in all of history. God has decreed from eternity all the details of history. And by His providence He executes His eternal plan and personally causes all things to work together for His glory and for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom. God’s providence was at work when, for example, Washington and his army escaped from Long Island under the cover of fog. It was also at work when Washington’s doctors bled him to death. God works all things together for His people’s good. There is no chaos and no accidents, only eternal purpose. But God’s purposes are deeper than mortals can imagine.
Sin and Redemption
Now that we have the scaffolding of chronology, order and sequence, we can look at plot and theme. We must teach the reality of sin and the nature of divine redemption in Christ. Think about it: Every story rises out of some type of conflict. The nature of the conflict, then, determines the task of the hero and the nature of the resolution. Adam’s covenantal rebellion brought sin and death to the whole human race. Adam’s fall was ethical, not ontological. That is, he broke God’s covenant law. God’s salvation is therefore covenantal … it is judicial and Spiritual. It addresses both man’s legal guilt as well as his need for a new ethical nature (his need to love and serve God). Jesus died as an atoning sacrifice, rising again in the flesh to restore believers to obedience and covenant fellowship with God. Through Christ, God justifies and sanctifies His people so they can meaningfully participate in His program of evangelism, discipleship and stewardship. Salvation isn’t escape from history but the redirection of history toward the kingdom of God, the New Jerusalem (Isa. 60; Rev. 21—22).
We must, then, teach the Advent of Christ as the most important turning point in all of history. That means all ancient history was preparation for the coming of Jesus Christ. Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension marked the end of the Old Covenant age and made possible the coming and spread of God’s kingdom to all nations. All history since Christ’s advent must be understood in terms of Christ’s advancing kingdom and its final victory described in biblical prophecy. (See Ps. 2; 72; 110; Isa. 2; 60; Mic. 4; etc.)
But until the end, the conflict continues. So, we must speak of the ongoing conflict between Christ and Satan when we tell stories. History is a spiritual and cultural war between the Serpent and his seed and the Church and her seed (Gen. 3:15). Though Christ has in principle won the battle (Rev. 12), His people are still engaged in the “mopping up” operation. The conflict continues, and involves every area of thought and life. And so our studies of history must pursue this conflict … through wars, discoveries and revivals as well as times of cultural decline and rebirth. We must tell stories about art, music, science, mathematics and economics. All of man’s experience are defined by this great divide … this great Antithesis … but the final outcome is certain. Jesus wins in time and space.
The Kingdom of God
Now that we understand the nature of the conflict, it’s important to teach the central role of God’s covenant people in history. National Israel is not the center, and neither is Europe nor England. Neither is America. We must be very clear that God’s “holy nation” is His people … the Church, and that is where our main historical concern must primarily lie. We are tracking the City of God in its conflict with the City of Man. Man’s kingdoms, empires and republics come and go … and yet the kingdom of God endures.
We must measure the success of God’s kingdom and its representatives in terms of God’s Word. Christ’s kingdom advances through the preaching of His word. Sound doctrine and the preaching mission of the Church are key factors in the development of history. Because of this, the orthodoxy or doctrinal soundness of key figures within the Church matters greatly. Not everyone with a reputation for piety has, in fact, been a blessing to Christ’s Church. Specifically, we need to give a high place to the Apostles, the more orthodox Church Fathers, the first six ecumenical Councils, the pre-Reformers, the Reformers, the English and American Puritans, and the Presbyterian and Reformed theologians of the 19th Century. But we must also confess that even the most faithful of Christ’s servants have come short of His glory and often in very significant ways.
As we consider telling stories with the backdrop of Christ’s growing kingdom, we should especially emphasize the key role of the gospel in shaping Western civilization (Christendom). God’s grace is, by definition, discriminatory. He gives it to some and withholds it from others based wholly on His sovereign will. And, so far in history, God’s redemptive grace and the fruit of the gospel seem to have been most evident in Western culture than elsewhere. (Then, again, we generally define the West in terms of the influence of orthodox Christianity.) This westward spread of the gospel owes nothing to race or ethnicity or bloodline and gives us no reason to glory in the flesh or presume upon God where the future is concerned: History isn’t finished. But it would be gross ingratitude and blindness not to recognize what God has, in fact, done in our history. We must acknowledge cause and effect.
More generally, our teaching must link ideas to their consequences. We need to teach the connection between Christian doctrine and Western liberty and culture on the one hand, and the connection between humanism in all its forms and tyranny and cultural decay on the other. We need to emphasize the great intellectual, doctrinal and cultural movements in history, connecting root and fruit.
Eschatology
We must also remember that we may not be standing at the end of history. Since the Church hasn’t yet fulfilled the Great Commission, it makes it hard to believe that history will end any time soon. That means we may not be facing “the end” of all that God has been doing. Even in drawing “end times” time lines, it might be wise to extend them beyond our present time lest we give the wrong impression: that we absolutely know when the end will come. (Only the Father knows this after all) Who knows … maybe the best may be yet to come.
History, then, is the development and ripening of cultural fruit toward the great harvest. But there’s more. Earth’s history is a winnowing process. Christ’s kingdom grows and develops over time. We can’t expect the Church of the past to know everything we know today. We can’t return to the past … to Camelot, or the Reformation, or colonial America. Indeed, we shouldn’t want to do so. The New Jerusalem lies in the future. We learn from the past, but in doing so we shouldn’t try to repeat what doesn’t work. This is an age of differentiation and polarization … the tares becoming more obviously tares, the wheat more obviously wheat (epistemological self-consciousness). When harvest comes, when Jesus returns, everything will be black and white without exception.
A Practical Conclusion
Finally, we need to tell the Story of history as a real story, making use of all the enthusiasm, imagination, oratorical skill and preparation that story-telling actually demands. Story-telling can be hard work. It requires us to be well-read, to have our thoughts and facts in order, and to be genuinely passionate about our material. It’s imperative that we love and respect our audience. This perspective allows us to genuinely demonstrate a desire to inspire, educate and even entertain. After all, any stories we tell are woven into the fabric of the greatest story ever told — and all efforts of this nature deserves our best efforts.
History is philosophy teaching by examples. ~Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War
Human consciousness and the ability to understand that which really occurred in the past, is a skill that many people have little experience with mastering. Scholarship and researching the yesteryear relies upon analyzing accounts of others and is usually based on chronicles written centuries ago. Most of the original evidence used in writing the accounts may be lost, based upon oral myths or accurate translations of vanished languages. Even when the original sources are impeccable in their authenticity or go unquestioned in the ivory towers of academic scrutiny, the crucial question still remains, Was It So? Attempts to provide definitive proof, when it comes to explaining political events, relies more often on the art of understanding the connection among factions, based within the context of their intended agendas then smoking gun documents.
At the offset, the axiom that history is written by the victors, applies more to the popular culture than just to stories of military campaigns. Control of the perception of current events is the first stage for formulating the narrative, which will be accepted as the initial draft of history. The means upon which societies are manipulated have more to do with defining acceptable reports, using fictional circumstances and conclusions, then the butt of a rifle.
Yet, the distracted public mostly views history as recounts of war and power politics. The popularity of television channels like the History Channel, H2, AHC and the subjects that air nearly 24/7, provide a version of past events that go virtually unchallenged. At the least, this method for a primary overview is more accurate, when compared to the common core education being taught in government schools.
However, for the most definitive interpretation of the past, the Hollywood extravaganza defines the memory impressions in the movie epics. The ordinary man and woman are not well educated in the depth and range of the human saga. For every dedicated student of former eras, the multitude is content to get their outlook of a different age as well as their attitudes on current affairs from the scripted culture that serves the interests of the elites that rule.
The deceased broadcaster, Paul Harvey used a signature line, The Rest of the Story. Well, it is one thing to elaborate in detail on the background aspects of a particular incident, but seldom will you find in the mass media accounts that explain the true nature of the institutions and government entities, designed to impose penal governance over the expendable subjects of any country.
With the fulfillment from centuries of consolidation for global power and domination, popularly known as the New World Order, the forces for technological and debt money enslavement are achieving their nightmare for humanity. Coining the term, Nefarious Warrior Organism that more closely explains the NWO cabal, will not be found in the establishment annals.
The canard that condemns inquiry into the core elements of the systematic destruction for the planet uses the slur of “Conspiracy Theorist” as the ultimate jab to discredit. Naïve simpletons refuse to do any inquiry on their own, out of fear that they may be tainted with the stain of being cast into the pit of subversives. Pray tell, the essay, There Is No Conspiracy – Only Official Policy illustrates one example of how the MSM, especially The New York Times, serves the interests of ruling elites.
One need not adopt the speculations of Ancient Aliens presented on H2 to be lumped into the pit of social discontents. Just the notion of questioning the official narrative of the past carries a social risk in the corridors of the global economy.
Our emphasis in investigation of Forbidden History focuses upon the political accounts that make up a distorted viewpoint of the last several centuries. Western Civilization is under an existential attack, not predominantly by foreign cultures but from the betrayal of the primacy principles of our genuine heritage.
All moral and political values stem from the cardinal maxim of the sanctity of all life. As this undeniable dogma is being eliminated from the social order, the replacement of divinely created humans are being prepared to accept the Transhumanism Singularity.
The article, NWO Overman is the Eupraxsophy of Transhumanism concludes with a dare that most probably will turn off those who repel from intellectual inquiry into the past traditions which our world accepted for millenniums.
“The end of this age is rapidly approaching. What follows does not bode well for humanity under the reign of a Transhumanism world. Salvation for our created human beings from the evil transgressions of the Overman’s hubris requires our humbling before our Lord and Creator. Faith and belief is the alternative to malevolence and despair. Hope in providential intervention is intellectually founded and sound, when compared to the prospects of the DARPA superman. The Elijah Option challenges you. Whom do you serve?”
Searching to understand the Forbidden History of our age requires the internal fortitude to challenge establishment convention, while maintaining the accuracies of eternal truths. History is often referred to as His Story. The “his” represents the power to invent the chronicle and fabricate meaning of events.
Courage to face the evidence and corroborate alternative explanations to established accounts is not easy. The slings and arrows that target anyone who dares to dispute the ruling order is a given. Demonization of any contrary storyline that conflicts with the comfort of clichés and tales of self-serving accounts is the price one pays for seeking the truth.
Several quotations reveal the components that are valuable to maintain and the methods to achieve this quest.
Remember the portrayal of the Old Gringo in that movie version of Ambrose Bierce? Now read his timeless words.
“History: An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.” ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
This perspective is expanded by none other than the author of the renowned Hegelian dialectic.
“History… is, indeed, little more than the register of the ‘crimes, follies, and misfortunes’ of mankind. But what experience and history teach is this – that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.” ~Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of History, “Introduction,” 1807
When an American cynic and a philosopher known for German Idealism share a similar regret for the repeat of corrupt actions of rulers, a pattern for judicious distrust for mainstream stories, should be adopted.
So what approach does a prudent person undertake? Learning the skills of philosophical inquest is the suggestion of George E. Wilson.
“For me there is no greater subject than history. How a man can study it and not be forced to become a philosopher, I cannot tell.” ~George E. Wilson
Nevertheless, intellectual inquiry is not enough according to Shailer Mathews who advocated a progressive Social Gospel message.
“When a historian enters into metaphysics he has gone to a far country from whose bourne he will never return a historian.” ~Shailer Mathews, The Spiritual Interpretation of History
That far country that Mathews entered into viewed “the clash of civilizations was in reality a clash of different kinds of social experiences and mentalities and the religious ideas that supported them.”
Developing the bravery to address the elements of Forbidden History is essential to the growth of both temporal and spiritual awareness. Most people avoid such a journey. They never draw upon the courage to enter that metaphysical world, because they are too scared to buck the system or rescind their own denial morass.
Cognitive dissonance is just too comfortable for most to explore real historic investigation.
British historian George Macaulay Trevelyan offers the reasonable urging, that people pursue their own growth in intellectual authenticity. However, history shows that most will decline the invitation.
“History is the open Bible: we historians are not priests to expound it infallibly: our function is to teach people to read it and to reflect upon it for themselves.” ~George Macaulay Trevelyan
BREAKING ALL THE RULES agrees with our fellow Existentialist, Albert Camus. Rebellion is a reoccurring necessity for Camus. When Camus states: “Integrity has no need of rules”, we are given an insight that few can digest. Their own lack of honesty, principle and integrity allows them to accept the madness that dominates society.
“The entire history of mankind is, in any case, nothing but a prolonged fight to the death for the conquest of universal prestige and absolute power.” ~Albert Camus, The Rebel
This immutable reality is rejected by every media gatekeeper or establishment toady on the payroll of the criminals that rule the globe. Forbidden History will offend the timid and outrage the dishonest. Gauging the onslaughts on this publisher only goes to confirm our motto – “Many seek to become a Syndicated Columnist, while the few strive to be a Vindicated Publisher . . .” Forbidden History reveals that exoneration lies in the truth of real historic accounts. Do you have the courage to judge for yourself?
The post Courage To Face True History appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
We tend to think that stockpiling food and supplies for an emergency is a modern invention. But it’s not. It actually started thousands of years ago, with people stockpiling food for a snowy day. Those ancestors of ours knew something that most of us today have forgotten: the fact that winter comes every year and you can’t grow crops or hunt game very effectively when the freeze hits.
In fact, the earliest recorded instance of stockpiling is in Chapter 41 of Genesis, in the Bible. Joseph, a son of Abraham, correctly interpreted Pharaoh’s dream and instituted a system of stockpiling grain in preparation for the seven years of famine.
To the pioneers, stockpiling had to be a way of life. When Old Man Winter came to call, the only thing that would keep them alive was the food and fuel they had stored. If they were not ready, chances were that they wouldn’t make it through the winter.
Those who stockpile are returning back to the roots that our pioneering ancestors established, taking matters into their own hands.
So what sorts of things did the pioneers stockpile — and why did they stockpile them?
We can really break down the pioneer’s stockpiling into two categories — things that they bought and things that they raised, hunted, preserved or prepared themselves. The things from the store were precious to many of these people, as they didn’t have much cash money to spend. It was only when they sold a cash crop that they were actually able to pay off their account at the local general store and buy themselves a few new items.
Things the Pioneers Bought and Stockpiled
A trip to the general store was a big deal in those days and something that a pioneer might only do once a month, or less. It might be an all-day affair, which took time away from working the farm. Nevertheless, they had to make it to town once in a while for supplies, or they were stuck with living solely off the land.
1. Wheat flour and other grains
While many farmers raised grain, they usually didn’t eat their own. Their grain would be sold and then they’d turn around and buy flour and other ground grains from the general store. A few people would have their own hand-operated mills for grinding grains, but those were for grinding cornmeal, rather than flour.
Be Prepared! Store An ‘Emergency Seed Bank’ For A Crisis Garden
Going back in history, we find that grinding grain was a major part of a woman’s housework. In Medieval times, a woman might spend as many as six hours per day grinding grain so that she could make the bread of the day. Being able to buy ground wheat was one of the first true kitchen conveniences.
Bread was an important staple in the diet. It was a great source of carbohydrates, giving them the energy they needed to burn during the day. Of course, the breads they ate back then were very different than today’s, being much harder and heartier than our modern bread.
2. Baking soda
Artist: Jeremy Winborg
You couldn’t bake bread without baking soda, unless you happened to have yeast. Of course, many people made sourdough bread, always saving a bit of the dough to act as a starter for the next batch. But sourdough starter doesn’t work for biscuits, pies or bear sign (what they called donuts). So a stock of baking soda gave them much more variety in their diet.
3. Salt
Salt has always been highly valued. In fact, in the Roman Empire part of a soldier’s pay was given in salt. That became the root of the word “salary.” We need salt in our diets to survive, as well as to preserve meats. While some pioneers would harvest it themselves from salt licks, that only worked for those who had a natural salt lick on their property.
4. Sugar
While not an absolute necessity, sugar was an important item to stockpile. Not only is it used as part of the process of canning fruit, but even the toughest of cowboys and miners wanted a sweet treat every now and then.
5. Rice
Like grains, rice was an important staple for many people. But it wasn’t grown in many parts of the country, making it an item pioneers picked up at the general store.
6. Bacon
Bacon managed to become the default travel meat of choice in pioneering days. Cowboys would carry a chunk of bacon in their saddlebags, wagon trains carried it, and most families had a few slabs on hand. If you had bacon, you had meat to eat.
7. Coffee and tea
Who doesn’t like a good cup of coffee? Actually, coffee drinking in this country started with the Revolutionary War, in response to the Stamp Tax. Rather than pay the tax for British imported teas, many people switched over to coffee. Whereas before the revolution most people drank tea, after it the nation switched to coffee. By the time of the revolution, tea was mostly drunk only by the wealthy.
8. Dried beans
Just as it is for the average homesteader today, dried beans were a favorite staple for the pioneers. Chili con carne became a popular dish, starting in Texas and then moving north along the cow trails. Eventually, it was eaten all across the west.
Beans also could be eaten alone, or with tortillas. The Southwest culture had a strong Mexican influence, including the eating of refried beans as a staple. Many a meal was beans and biscuits or beans and bread. Even when they had meat, beans were often served on the side.
9. Dried and canned fruit
Since it kept well, dried fruit was another popular trail food, both for wagon trains and for drifting cowboys. It helped give variety to an otherwise dull diet, as well as providing them something sweet to eat.
Things the Pioneers Grew, Hunted, Preserved and Prepared
Many pioneers were involved in farming and ranching. Those who were grew as much of what they ate as they could. Since cash money was so rare, being able to hunt, gather or grow your own food was a real advantage. Even townspeople would have a garden patch behind their homes, growing their own vegetables and herbs.
10. Smoked meats
One of the signs that you’d “made it” was to have a smokehouse on your property. While the ability to smoke your own meats was incredibly useful, not everyone could afford the time or expense to build one. Those who could were usually well-established families who already had their homes and barns built. By then, they were producing enough that it was worthwhile to be able to smoke meats when it was time to slaughter a cow or pig.
11. Jerky
The pioneers learned how to make jerky from the Native Americans. While smoking was great, not everyone had a smokehouse. Plus, jerky lasts longer than smoked meats and is much more portable. Drifting cowboys and other travelers would often take jerky along just to ensure they had some meat to eat. A few strips of jerky and a couple of campfire biscuits made a pretty good lunch in the saddle.
12. Corn
Many pioneers grew their own corn, even if it was just enough for their family. They might grow wheat or some other grain for sale, but they’d put in a small patch of corn, as well. That corn was usually dried and kept for making cornmeal.
13. Vegetables
Most vegetables were harvested and kept in a root cellar, not canned. Canning required owning a goodly supply of canning jars, something that most people didn’t have. It wasn’t until later, when towns were well-established and trade was more regular, that canning jars became common in the west.
14. Feed for the animals
Anyone who had animals had to consider their needs. Whether horses, cows or chickens, they were a valuable part of the homestead and needed to eat. Just like the family would stockpile food to get themselves through the winter, they’d stack hay and other feed for their farm animals.
Most hay was cut from wild grass growing near the farm. It would be cut by hand with a scythe and stacked in towering haystacks for the winter months. Some farmers who had larger barns with lofts would stack the hay in the loft. But that required hay bales, which meant having the equipment for baling hay. So that only happened in well-established areas on well-established farms.
15. Firewood
The only heat that most homes had was from the fireplace or wood-burning stove. That created the need for a wood pile, which was started in the spring so the wood could dry through the hot summer. In some places, they would stack their wood to act as a defensive breastwork for the home, giving themselves a good firing position for any attacks from Native Americans.
What items would you add to our list of what the pioneers stockpiled? Share what you know in the section below:
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