Monday, December 31, 2012

Editorial: Fiscal Cliff?

Editorial

As I am writing, the U.S. is headed towards the fiscal cliff. Some solutions to solve it without destroying the economy were previously posted here from www.teapartypatriots.org which mentioned 12 solutions (!) and here from www.hughhewitt.com, which also included the need for media management.

Barack Obama: Domestic Policy: Epic Fail

A very interesting post from  www.yaf.org about the domestic policy of the president. This follows this post about a possible collapse of American society. This follows this post about alternatives to raising taxes for the Fiscal Cliff!  This follows this post about a race hoax at U.T. Austin.  This follows this post about Emmit Till. In the meantime, you can read a very interesting book HERE.

Barack Obama: Domestic Policy: Epic Fail

28.5 weeks, on average, spent unemployed for each American…the highest since 1948


• 18.6 million young people, age 16-24, unemployed as of June 2010

• 3.2 million more people out of labor force since the passage of Obama’s Stimulus Bill

• 10% unemployment rate since Obama took office; 17% when including those who used to have full-time jobs and have since had to take on part-time work

• 13.1% unemployment rate for Hispanics (was only 4.9% in 2006)           Young America’s Foundation • National Headquarters • F.M. Kirby Freedom Center

110 Elden Street • Herndon, Virginia 20170 • 800-USA-1776 • www.yaf.org

www.yaf.org



America's National Debt: Growing With No End in Sight

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about America's national debt. This follows this post about the "Wise Men" of the New Testament. For a free magazine subscription or to get this book for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886-8632.




article by Mike Kelley





In the last few months and years the United States has racked up some impressive records, but none of them are good. Its debt is exploding at unprecedented rates. What's behind the problem, and where is it leading?







Source: iStockphotoAmerica's fixation with the slug-fest between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney and the looming presidential election obscures a huge but little-noticed milestone. Well before Election Day, the debt of the United States will surpass the U.S. economy's entire national output, or gross domestic product (GDP).



You read that right. America's national debt, at $15.79 trillion at mid-year, has surpassed the entire output of the sluggish U.S. economy. And it's still growing fast.



This has happened only once before in U.S. history. In the all-out effort to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II, the United States racked up a national debt that exceeded the nation's yearly output. But that debt was quickly repaid following the war, as millions of U.S. soldiers returned home and found jobs in an economy that quickly turned from a war footing to domestic consumption. With a booming economy, the debt stabilized and fell rapidly as a percentage of GDP until, by 1973, the debt had shrunk to 26 percent of GDP.



But that's not happening today. Instead, expenditures for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the national debt and other aspects of federal spending keep growing with no end in sight. An increasingly polarized Congress, embroiled in election-year politics, seems powerless to make the policy changes needed to stop the hemorrhage of red ink.



An unprecedented debt binge

Most Americans seem unaware of just how fast the debt has grown. In 1950, five years after the end of World War II, the national debt was only $260 billion. The debt grew to $5.7 trillion or about 40 percent of GDP by 2000, fueled by the Vietnam War in the 1970s, major defense spending increases in the 1980s and rising numbers of Americans retiring and drawing Social Security and Medicare.



Since 2000, however, the debt growth rate has exploded, the result of massive expenditures in response to the September 2001 terrorist attacks and huge deficit spending to stimulate the U.S. economy beginning in 2008. From fiscal 2003 through 2007, the debt grew by roughly $500 billion a year, but debt exploded beginning in fiscal 2008 as deficits ballooned, averaging almost $1.5 trillion from fiscal 2008 through 2011.



Consider this: The growth in the debt of nearly $6 trillion in the past four years roughly equals all the debt accumulated from the creation of the United States in 1776 to 2000!



In light of these facts, it's hard to believe that in 2001 the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecast a total elimination of the federal debt by 2006 and a $2.3 billion surplus by 2011!



Since fiscal 2010, the government has borrowed nearly 40 cents of every dollar it spends. A family spending at this reckless rate would soon go into bankruptcy, but Congress and the president skirt the impending crisis by merely issuing more debt and raising the debt ceiling.



More than a year has passed since Congress passed the Budget Control Act in an effort to get out ahead of the debt debacle. The mandated severe cuts in overall spending amounted to $1.7 trillion over the next decade, but this would barely make a dent in the $16 trillion debt. Congress, however, has returned to congressional deadlock over the debt crisis, and even the president's own fiscal reform plans show the debt continuing to rise for decades.



The fiscal crisis of last summer combined with the failure of Congress and the president to come to terms over the debt prompted Standard and Poor's, the major international credit rating agency, to downgrade the credit rating of the United States from AAA to AA+. It was the first downgrade since the AAA rating had been issued in 1917, and many observers predict the rating could fall to AA within two years if something isn't done to rein in the explosive growth of the U.S. debt.



Most of that debt is held by other nations, with China, at $1.15 trillion, the largest single holder. Many Chinese are nervous about the huge amount of debt owed them, and last year's downgrades have only added to their feelings that it might not be wise to continue investing in U.S. government securities.



Is this what Americans really want?

What has led to this state of affairs? As is most often the case, complex problems often have several causes. Most economists and observers, however, point to the growing welfare state status as the single largest factor contributing to the rapid growth of U.S. national debt.



Today, half of all American households open their mailboxes each month and pull out a check from a supposedly rich uncle—Uncle Sam. Retiring baby boomers and rapid increases in the elderly population have swelled recipients of Social Security and Medicare, while a recent spike in the U.S. poverty rate has boosted Medicaid expenditures.



Nearly 1 in 7 Americans receives food stamps. That program, begun in the 1960s to fight poverty in the eastern part of the United States and the country's inner cities, now feeds more than 47 million Americans, which is greater than the combined populations of Florida, Texas, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. The food stamp program has grown 70 percent just since 2007. Mean-while, 8.7 million Americans—more than the population of New York City—are receiving federal disability payments, a 17 percent increase in the last 3½ years.



Growth rates of the "Big Three" social programs—Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—are projected to continue to increase. Each year, more of the 76 million baby boomers retire and join the ranks of Social Security recipients. Americans of the "greatest generation" who are still living are in their upper 80s and older, when the need for medical services is the greatest. And a sluggish economy will keep joblessness and poverty high, ensuring that millions will continue to receive Medicaid health-care and unemployment benefits.



Most baby boomers enter retirement blithely confident that their check will arrive each month. But they fail to consider that $2.7 trillion of the nearly $16 trillion debt represents money borrowed from the Social Security Trust Fund to cover other government expenditures. That contributes to another problem that worries millions of baby boomers—various studies show the trust fund to be headed for insolvency as early as 2018.



Looming crisis in unfunded liabilities

America is learning the meaning of the term "unfunded liability" as it applies to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The Congressional Budget Office estimates current obligations under these three programs at about $45.8 trillion, with $7.7 trillion allotted to Social Security and the rest to Medicare and Medicaid.



Certainly federal policy makers are aware of the looming crisis. On June 17, 2008, CBO director Peter Orszag gave this assessment in his statement to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee: "Future growth in spending per beneficiary for Medicare and Medicaid—the federal government's major health care programs—will be the most important determinant of long-term trends in federal spending. Changing those programs in ways that reduce the growth of costs—which will be difficult, in part because of the complexity of health policy choices—is ultimately the nation's central long-term challenge in setting federal fiscal policy" ("The Long-Term Budget Outlook and Options for Slowing the Growth of Health Care Costs.")



A bland but true assessment of a major looming crisis.



If present trends continue, the end of this decade will see a federal budget in which the vast majority of federal tax revenue will be eaten up by interest on the debt and payouts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Little would be left for vital national defense and hundreds of other areas of the federal government.



All this debt portends slower U.S. economic growth. A recent study by economists Carmen Reinhart of the Peterson Institute for International Economics and Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University calculated that countries with public debt above 90 percent of GDP grow by an average of 1.3 percentage points per year slower than less indebted countries. The drag of debt will likely cause slower economic growth to an already sluggish economy, making it more difficult for the economy to "grow out" of serious fiscal problems.



In a decision that shocked millions of Americans, the U.S. Supreme Court in late June 2012 narrowly upheld the Obama Administration's health-care reform act. This legislation, whose centerpiece is the mandate that all Americans must have health insurance by 2014 or pay a penalty, will expand the power of government in the lives of Americans and impose a new "tax" that will only spur the growth of the national debt.



And already some states are balking at the hundreds of millions of dollars in increased spending that will be added to stretched state budgets to cover expansion of Medicaid costs called for in the president's health-care act.



Is this what Americans really want? A growing chorus of voices sees these facts and wonders how America can remain the world power it has been for much of the past century. They look abroad and notice the growing economic and political strength of China, India, Brazil, and other rapidly growing economic powerhouses. The 20th century was America's century, but the 21st century will see the United States eclipsed by some other power.



Change to national character

A number of observers of American life have noted a change to the country's national character in recent years. Many have commented on how millions of Americans increasingly look to government to solve all financial, medical and even emotional problems. Increasingly, Americans are happy to see government play an ever-larger role in daily life, and see no problem with the nation taking on increasing debt to meet real or perceived needs.



Of course, that debt must eventually be repaid. The nearly $16 trillion federal debt, which will surpass $20 trillion within five years at present growth rates, presents a huge burden to children and grandchildren not yet even born.



For generations, Americans have looked forward to working productively through their lives, then at death transferring most of that wealth to their children. It's a principle set forth in your Bible. Proverbs 13:22A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.



See All... says, "A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children."



Of course, you can't leave an inheritance unless you've accumulated something. But, sadly, more and more Americans today die penniless or even in debt, with nothing to show for a lifetime of work.



It's likely that America's national legacy of debt will lower living standards for future generations by reducing the stock of capital available for future investment, a concern being voiced by a growing legion of economists.



Economists such as MIT professor and Nobel Laureate Robert Solow are worried that saddling future generations with massive debt payments will reduce savings and investments needed to fund new factories and infrastructure investments. The result? Slower economic growth, fewer jobs and lower living standards for generations to come. Edward Mantell of Pace University in New York states it simply: "Instead of transferring our wealth to them, we are transferring their wealth to us."



But it seems that people are unable to see beyond their own immediate needs and wants, perfectly content to allow children and grandchildren to bear the costs of profligate spending today. Instead of leaving a national legacy of prosperity, we may well leave a legacy of higher taxes and reduced economic growth as they struggle to pay the interest on the massive national debt bill we have created.



Does your Bible say anything about debt?

Your Bible, believe it or not, has something to say about America's economic condition. It would be worth your time to study Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, known as the "blessings and curses" chapters.



One very critical verse, Deuteronomy 28:44He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail.



See All..., is especially revealing. Referring to foreigners, it says, "He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail." For about a quarter century after World War II, America was the world's greatest creditor nation. But the situation has completely reversed over the last 30 years as the United States has become the greatest debtor nation in human history.



We should ask ourselves: Does Deuteronomy 28:44He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail.



See All... seem to read exactly like America's situation today?



Notice also Proverbs 22:7The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.



See All...: "The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender." A popular current restatement of the Golden Rule is expressed as "he who has the gold makes the rules." As of mid-2010, some 52 percent of U.S. foreign debt was held by foreign nations or foreign citizens. Rival or hostile nations such as China, Iran, Russia, Venezuela and Libya own in aggregate more than $2 trillion of our debt, a fact unknown to the average American today.



Just as many Americans find it so easy to swipe a credit card, Washington finds it so easy to issue government notes and bonds to cover more government spending. It all seems so simple, so painless—at least until the bill becomes due. And just as breaking the credit card habit is so painful to many individuals, so is breaking a borrowing habit painful for a nation.



Today, we see the United States operating under a curse, a curse foretold in your own Bible.



As a nation, by collective choices over the past 50 years, the United States has created a debt unlike anything else in human history. Your Bible reveals that this massive debt is a major factor that will ultimately lead to the demise of America as a free nation.



But there truly is good news. A new economic world order is on its way—not that of the evil end-time system foretold in Scripture, but one beyond that in a new age that will soon dawn. It will be like nothing you have imagined. You can read about it in other articles in this issue. And although America's debt has grown so huge that it will likely cripple the nation's future, you can ensure your place in the exciting, prosperous world to come. We hope and pray you'll take the necessary steps in that direction!

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Abolish Family Chain Migration

A very interesting post from www.NumbersUSA.com about Family Chain Migration immigration reform. This follows this post about shrinking deportation numbers and 287(g) elimination.  This follows this post about how to Report Illegal Immigrants! For more about what is happening in the nation now click here and you can read a very interesting book HERE.

Abolish Family Chain Migration

https://www.numbersusa.com/sendfax?id=13935



Your 2 U.S. Senators

Street Address

City, State Zip



Dear Your 2 U.S. Senators,



I hope Congress will pass H.R. 692, the Nuclear Family Priority Act. Immigration is far too high for a jobs depression and something needs to change!



While ending chain migration would directly reduce overall immigration by around 1.2 million a decade, it would eventually and indirectly lead to an even larger decline in other categories. The creation of the chain migration categories has been the primary reason total authorized immigration has skyrocketed from 2.5 million per decade to 10 million.





There are 20 million Americans who can't find a full-time job and that number is growing by the day. Passing H.R. 692, the Nuclear Family Priority Act, would help these unemployed Americans and those Americans who may become unemployed in the coming months.



Sincerely,



First Name Last Name

Remember When a Pro-Life Democrat Actually Ran for President?

An interesting story from http://www.lifenews.com/ about a pro-life DEMOCRAT!!! This follows this post about the Michigan state legislators.  For more that you can do to get involved click HERE and you can also get a very interesting book HERE.

Remember When a Pro-Life Democrat Actually Ran for President?


by Michael New, Ph.D.
Washington, DC
LifeNews.com

Ellen McCormack’s 1976 presidential campaign offers today’s pro-lifers a valuable example of incrementalist strategy.



Ellen McCormack was one of the most well-known pro-life activists of the 1970s. She was a wife, a mother, a homemaker, and a two-time presidential candidate. Although her name might be unfamiliar to young pro-lifers, many pro-lifers of an older generation fondly recall her 1976 campaign for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. This campaign is nicely chronicled in Jane Gilroy’s new book A Shared Vision. Gilroy gives some well-deserved attention to the accomplishments of a pro-life pioneer. She also details a presidential campaign that, despite taking place 36 years ago, still contains important lessons for today’s pro-life activists.



Gilroy paints the early history of the pro-life movement in New York, where Ellen McCormack was born and raised. New York became a hotbed of pro-life activism in the late 1960s, when feminist groups including NOW and NARAL launched an organized effort to liberalize the state’s abortion laws. This motivated many well-intentioned, but politically inexperienced people to join the pro-life cause. A Shared Vision chronicles how these new pro-life activists lost their innocence very quickly.



Gilroy vividly describes how many of these newly minted pro-life activists felt they could persuade state legislators to oppose abortion by simply showing them pictures of unborn children in various stages of development. While some of these legislators privately expressed sympathy for the pro-life cause, they feared the feminist groups who at the time were better organized and more experienced. Indeed, in 1970 New York became one of only a few states to legalize abortion prior to the Roe v. Wade decision. Interestingly, many legislators who voted in favor of the bill to legalize abortion still thought they could win support from pro-life voters.



Over time, pro-lifers became much more savvy–thanks in no small part to Ellen McCormack’s efforts. As a founding member of New York’s Pro-Life Action Committee (PLAC), she pledged to withhold support from legislators who supported legal abortion and to recruit pro-life candidates to run against state legislators who were not supporting pro-life bills. These efforts paid some dividends. In 1972, both chambers of the New York state legislature voted to repeal New York’s liberal abortion law. Unfortunately, the ban was vetoed by Governor Nelson Rockefeller. Nonetheless, pro-lifers had nearly enough strength in the state legislature to override the veto.



The most fascinating part of the book details Ellen McCormack’s run for president. During the 1970s, many rank-and-file Democrats were pro-life. But going into the 1976 election cycle, no major Democratic presidential candidate expressed consistent opposition to abortion. Many leading Democrats, including Jimmy Carter, Sargent Shriver, Birch Bayh, Lloyd Bentsen, and Hubert Humphrey, typically offered vague or conflicting statements on the issue. Sometimes they would say on the record that they personally opposed abortion and disliked the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade. But no Democratic presidential candidate would commit to supporting a Human Life Amendment or any other legislative strategy to protect the unborn.



Still, a pro-life candidate running in the Democratic presidential primaries could raise the salience of abortion and force the other candidates to clarify their position on the issue. A pro-life presidential candidate could also highlight the unwillingness of many congressional Democrats to support a Human Life Amendment to the US Constitution. Finally, since television stations were legally required to sell airtime to candidates seeking federal office, a pro-life presidential candidate could run ads that would be seen by millions of viewers. Pro-life television ads had been used very effectively during a 1972 referendum campaign that would have legalized abortion in Michigan. Early polls showed citizens favoring the pro-abortion measure by a 57-37 margin. However, after the television ads were run statewide, the referendum was opposed by 61 percent of voters.



Starting in December 1974, the Pro-Life Action Committee began to seek a presidential candidate. They originally asked Nellie Gray. She declined because running the annual March for Life in Washington, DC, required her full attention. They then asked Ellen McCormack. McCormack was an attractive and articulate proponent of the pro-life cause. Moreover, as a founder of PLAC, she had plenty of experience volunteering in local campaigns. She also penned a newspaper column titled “Who Speaks for the Unborn Child?” and successfully organized the 1971 Women’s March for Life in New York City, which drew over 10,000 participants. McCormack at first declined the PLAC’s invitation to be the presidential candidate, but after considering the alternatives and talking it over with her husband, she agreed to run in the Democratic presidential primaries in 1976.



The mainstream media’s reaction to McCormack’s candidacy was telling. Volunteers raised over $5,000 from small donors for McCormack’s campaign in each of 20 different states–the equivalent of raising over $20,000 per state in today’s dollars. As such, Ellen McCormack became the first female presidential candidate to qualify for federal matching funds. Still, her campaign initially received little attention from mainstream media outlets–many of which incorrectly reported that no pro-life candidates were seeking the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.



The reaction of the Democratic Party’s leadership was even worse. The fact that McCormack’s campaign was using federal matching funds to run pro-life television commercials outraged many party leaders and the Federal Election Commission. They went so far as to change the election rules during the primary campaign with the specific intent of denying Ellen McCormack additional federal matching funds. Still, her pro-life commercials were seen by tens of millions of viewers that spring.



Gilroy thoroughly details McCormack’s performance in each primary state–describing how she often received more votes than other Democrats with more money and better name recognition. Gilroy shows that the presidential campaign of Senator Birch Bayh (D-IN) suffered when Bayh only fared slightly better than Ellen McCormack among Boston voters in the Massachusetts primary. Similarly, the candidacy of Pennsylvania Governor Milton Shapp was damaged when he finished behind McCormack in his home state of Pennsylvania. Gilroy also explains how McCormack’s campaign succeeded in raising the salience of the abortion issue and eventually received coverage from Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. Walter Cronkite even mentioned her candidacy while anchoring for CBS News Radio.



The book’s one shortcoming is that Gilroy fails to spend much time describing whether and how McCormack’s candidacy affected either the Democrats’ or the Republicans’ internal debates about sanctity-of-life issues. From the book, it is unclear whether McCormack’s campaign caused any of the leading contenders for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination to clarify or modify their position on abortion. Gilroy also does not report on any interactions between McCormack and the other Democratic presidential candidates at debates or candidate forums. What’s more, McCormack’s candidacy was likely hurt by the fact that many pro-lifers were eager to support Ronald Reagan’s primary challenge to Gerald Ford for the Republican presidential nomination. Gilroy makes no mention of this.



In the end, Ellen McCormack’s campaign exceeded expectations. She ran in 18 primaries and received over 200,000 votes, 1.4 percent of the total votes cast. Her success in the primaries earned her 3 pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention. At the convention, she received both a nominating speech and a seconding speech. When the results were tallied, she received 22 votes from the convention delegates. Her campaign educated many people about abortion and demonstrated that a sizeable contingent of Democrats was willing to support a single-issue pro-life candidate.



Gilroy’s account of McCormack and her campaign offers current pro-lifers important lessons. Pro-life circles have always seen a tension between incrementalists and absolutists. This tension was especially high during the 1970s and early 1980s. At that time, many pro-lifers felt that they only had a short time in which to change abortion policy. Some thought the increasing numbers of women who had abortions after Roe v. Wade would increase the number of individuals with personal reasons to support legal abortion. And during the 1970s, a number of opinion surveys consistently showed that support for legal abortion was growing and strongest among young people. As such, some simply thought incremental efforts would accomplish too little too late.




McCormack, however, preached patience. As one reads the book, one gets the strong impression that she believed the fight to end abortion would take a long time, and that long-term efforts would eventually bear fruit. She consistently encouraged her supporters to celebrate small victories. If a third-party pro-life candidate did not win, but convinced a pro-choice candidate to change his position on abortion, she considered that step a victory. Similarly, if a statewide pro-life candidate was unsuccessful, but thousands of viewers had the opportunity to see pro-life ads on television, that was also a success. She thought these small, incremental gains would be necessary to keep people motivated during what could be a long and sometimes thankless struggle.



Indeed, Ellen McCormack planted many seeds that continue to bear fruit. In its early years, the pro-life movement was short on resources and received precious little attention from the mainstream media. As such, articulate volunteers and single-issue candidates like McCormack had to keep voters and the general public informed. McCormack’s numerous campaigns–for president in 1976 and 1980, and for lieutenant governor of New York in 1978–raised the salience of sanctity-of-life issues and gave countless campaign workers and volunteers valuable experience. The pro-life movement unfortunately has devoted few resources to chronicling its own history. Thus by giving pro-life pioneer Ellen McCormack some overdue recognition, Gilroy has done her readers a fine service.



LifeNews.com Note: Dr. Michael New is a political science professor at the University of Michigan–Dearborn and holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University. He is a fellow at Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey. This first appeared in Public Discourse.

Friday, December 28, 2012

Who were the wise men ("Magi," New International Version) of Matthew 2:1?

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about the "Wise Men" of the New Testament. This follows this post about the parents that children need.  For a free magazine subscription or to get this book for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886-8632.

Who were the wise men ("Magi," New International Version) of Matthew 2:1?


Many people have heard of the Magi in association with the birth of Jesus Christ. But who were they, and why would they be interested in the King of the Jews?



Answer:



Matthew 2:1-2 [1] Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,

[2] Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.





See All... says, "Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.'"



Matthew uses two Greek expressions for areas east of Palestine. First, Matthew says the Magi are from "the East" (or "eastern parts"—Greek, ton anatolon ), or the distant East. Second, the Magi saw the star in "the East" (Greek, te anatole )—west of the Magi's home, but east from Palestine's viewpoint, in the near East.



It seems probable that they came from Parthia. Parthia was a great empire east of the Euphrates—biblically "the distant east." This empire conquered the lands east of the Euphrates area, had Babylon as its capital and included the areas of Persia, Bactria, etc. It ruled the whole area and was the empire of the East—the land of the Magi.



The Parthians rose to power around 250 B.C. in and around the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. That was the very land into which the house of Israel—not Judah—had been taken captive by the Assyrians (2 Kings 15:29In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglathpileser king of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abelbethmaachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria.



See All...; 17:23; 18:11; 1 Chronicles 5:26And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgathpilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, and brought them unto Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river Gozan, unto this day.



See All...).



The Parthian Empire and surrounding areas included exiles from the lost 10 tribes of Israel—many of whom remained in the land of their captivity until about A.D. 226. It seems that certain of the ancient Magi could claim Abraham as their father (see McClintock and Strong's Cyclopedia , article "Magi"). If so, they may have had a particular interest in the prophesied King of the Jews.



For more information, please read our booklet Jesus Christ: The Real Story .

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The Benghazi Report and the Diplomatic Security Funding Cycle

A very interesting post from www.Stratfor.com about the Benghazi Report. This follows this post about Shale deposits as a petroleum resource.  This follows this article about American energy independence and preventing money from going to hostile countries such as Iran . For more about what is happening in the nation now click here and read a very interesting book HERE.



The Benghazi Report and the Diplomatic Security Funding Cycle




Stratfor

By Scott Stewart

Vice President of Analysis



On Dec. 18, the U.S. State Department's Accountability Review Board released an unclassified version of its investigation into the Sept. 12 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the attack, so the report was widely anticipated by the public and by government officials alike.



Four senior State Department officials have been reassigned to other duties since the report's release. Among them were the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security; two of his deputy assistant secretaries, including the director of the Diplomatic Security Service, the department's most senior special agent; and the deputy assistant secretary responsible for Libya in the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.



The highly critical report and the subsequent personnel reassignments are not simply a low watermark for the State Department; rather, the events following the attack signify another phase in the diplomatic security funding cycle. The new phase will bring about a financial windfall for the State Department security budgets, but increased funding alone will not prevent future attacks from occurring. After all, plenty of attacks have occurred following similar State Department budgetary allocations in the past. Other important factors therefore must be addressed.



Predictable Inquiries

The cycle by which diplomatic security is funded begins as officials gradually cut spending on diplomatic security programs. Then, when major security failures inevitably beset those programs, resultant public outrage compels officials to create a panel to investigate those failures.



The first of these panels dates back to the mid-1980s, following attacks against U.S. facilities in Beirut and Kuwait and the systematic bugging of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. These security lapses led to the formation of the Secretary of State's Advisory Panel on Overseas Security, chaired by former Deputy CIA Director Adm. Bobby Inman. The law that passed in the wake of the Inman Commission came to be known as the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Antiterrorism Act of 1986, which requires that an accountability review board be convened following major security incidents.



There are a few subsequent examples of these panels. Former Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. William Crowe chaired an Accountability Review Board following the bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998. And after the Benghazi attacks, an Accountability Review Board was chaired by former U.S. Ambassador Thomas Pickering. The Dec. 18 report was the findings of the Pickering board.



Predictably, the review boards, including Pickering's, always conclude that inadequate funding and insufficient security personnel are partly to blame for the security breaches. In response to the reports, Congress appropriates more money to diplomatic security programs to remedy the problem. Over time, funds are cut, and the cycle begins anew.



Funding can be cut for several reasons. In times of financial austerity, Congress can more easily cut the relatively small foreign affairs budget than it can entitlement benefits budgets. Cuts to the overall State Department budget generally result in cuts for security programs.



Moreover, rivalries among the various State Department entities can affect spending cuts. The Diplomatic Security Service's budget falls under the main State Department budget, so senior diplomats, rather than Diplomatic Security Service agents, represent the agency's interests on Capitol Hill. Some within the security service do not believe that senior diplomats have their best interests at heart when making the case for their budgets -- at least until a tragedy occurs and Congressional hearings are held to air these problems. For their part, others in the department resent the Diplomatic Security Service for the large budgetary allocations it receives after a security failure.



More than a Matter of Funding

With Congress and the presumed next Secretary of State John Kerry now calling for increased spending on diplomatic security, the financial floodgates are about to reopen. But merely throwing money at the problems uncovered by the accountability review boards will not be enough to solve those problems. Were that the case, the billions of dollars allocated to diplomatic security in the wake of the Inman and Crowe commission reports would have sufficed.



Of course, money can be useful, but injecting large sums of it into the system can create problems if the money provided is too much for the bureaucracy to efficiently metabolize. Government managers tend to spend all the money allocated to them -- sometimes at the expense of efficiency -- under a "use it or lose it" mentality. Since there is no real incentive for them to perform under budget, managers in a variety of U.S. government departments spend massive amounts of money at the end of each fiscal year. The same is true of diplomatic security programs when they are flush with cash. But the inevitable reports of financial waste and mismanagement lead to calls for spending cuts in these programs.



If the U.S. government is ever going to break the cycle of funding cuts and security disasters, the Diplomatic Security Service will need to demonstrate wisdom and prudence in how it spends the funds allocated to them. It will also be necessary for Congress to provide funding in a consistent manner and with an initial appropriation that is not too big to be spent efficiently.



Beyond money management and a consistent level of funding, the State Department will also need to take a hard look at how it currently conducts diplomacy and how it can reduce the demands placed on the Diplomatic Security Service. This will require asking many difficult questions: Is it necessary to maintain large embassies to conduct diplomacy in the information age? Does the United States need to maintain thousands of employees in high-threat places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan at the expense of smaller missions, or can the critical work be done by hundreds or even dozens? Is a permanent U.S. presence even required in a place like Benghazi, or can the missions in such locations be accomplished by a combination of visiting diplomats, covert operatives and local employees?



At the very least, the State Department will need to review its policy of designating a facility as a "special mission" -- Benghazi was designated as such -- to exempt it from meeting established physical security standards. If the questions above are answered affirmatively, and if it is deemed necessary to keep a permanent presence in a place like Benghazi, then security standards need to be followed, especially when a facility is in place for several months. Temporary facilities with substandard security cannot be allowed to persist for months and years.



Host Countries

As they consider these issues, officials need to bear in mind that the real key to the security of diplomatic facilities is the protection provided by the host country's security forces as dictated by the Vienna Convention. If the host country will not or cannot protect foreign diplomats, then the physical security measures mandated by security standards can do little more than provide slight delay -- which is what they are designed to do. No physical security measures can stand up to a prolonged assault. If a militant group armed with heavy weaponry is permitted to attack a diplomatic facility for hours with no host government response -- as was the case in Benghazi -- the attack will cause considerable damage and likely cause fatalities despite the security measures in place.



The same is true of a large mob, which given enough time can damage and breach U.S. embassies that meet current department security standards. The U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, a state-of-the-art facility completed in 2009, was heavily damaged by a mob of pro-Gadhafi supporters in May 2011 and rendered unserviceable.



In another example, a large crowd caused extensive damage to the U.S. Embassy in Tunis and the adjacent American School just three days after the Benghazi attack. In that incident, Tunisian authorities responded and did not provide the attacking mob the opportunity to conduct a prolonged assault on the embassy. Though the mob caused millions of dollars worth of damage to the compound, it was unable to breach the main embassy office building. Without host country security support, there is little that can be done to assure the safety of U.S. diplomats, no matter what happens to security budgets.

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Read more: The Benghazi Report and the Diplomatic Security Funding Cycle
Stratfor

***BUMPED*** Thinking the Unthinkable: Libertarian Matt Bracken Speculates on How Things Might Fall Apart in the Cities, When the Federal Well Inevitably Runs Dry

A very interesting post from   http://nicholasstixuncensored.blogspot.com about a possible collapse of American society. This follows this post about alternatives to raising taxes for the Fiscal Cliff! This follows this post about the movie "DJANGO UNCHAINED" which was previously posted.  This follows this post about a race hoax at U.T. Austin.  This follows this post about Emmit Till. In the meantime, you can read a very interesting book HERE.

Thinking the Unthinkable: Libertarian Matt Bracken Speculates on How Things Might Fall Apart in the Cities, When the Federal Well Inevitably Runs Dry





Bracken’s CW2 Cube; click to view.




Posted by Nicholas Stix



Warning: The following essay runs 5,600 words. It is written in a very readable style, and I happen to think that every word is worth reading, but unless you’re a very rapid reader, this will take some time.




[Previously, at WEJB/NSU:


“Possibilities for How “the American Experiment” Will End; and



“A Reader Writes: ‘The Only Answer to the Destruction of our Republic is Revolution or Secession.’”]




 When the Music Stops  – How America’s Cities May Explode in Violence



By Matt Bracken


September 3, 2012


Western Rifle Shooters Association



In response to recent articles in mainstream military journals discussing the use of the U.S. Army to quell insurrections on American soil, I offer an alternate vision of the future. Instead of a small town in the South as the flash point, picture instead a score of U.S. cities in the thrall of riots greater than those experienced in Los Angeles in 1965 (Watts), multiple cities in 1968 (MLK assassination), and Los Angeles again in 1992 (Rodney King). New Yorkers can imagine the 1977 blackout looting or the 1991 Crown Heights disturbance. In fact, the proximate spark of the next round of major riots in America could be any from a long list cribbed from our history.







We have seen them all before, and we shall see them all again as history rhymes along regardless of the century or the generation of humankind nominally in control of events. But the next time we are visited by widespread, large-scale urban riots, a dangerous new escalation may be triggered by a new vulnerability: It’s estimated that the average American home has less than two weeks of food on hand. In poor minority areas, it may be much less. What if a cascading economic crisis, even a temporary one, leads to millions of EBT (electronic benefit transfer) cards flashing nothing but zeroes? Or if the government’s refusal to reimburse them causes supermarket chains to stop accepting them for payment? The government can order the supermarkets to honor the cards, but history’s verdict is clear: If suppliers are paid only with worthless scrip or blinking digits, the food will stop.



STEP ONE: FLASH MOB LOOTING




In my scenario, the initial riots begin spontaneously across affected urban areas, as SNAP (supplemental nutrition assistance program) and other government welfare recipients learn that their EBT cards no longer function. This sudden revelation will cause widespread anger, which will quickly lead to the flash-mob looting of local supermarkets and other businesses. The media will initially portray these “food riots” as at least partly justifiable. Sadly, millions of Americans have been made largely, or even entirely, dependent on government wealth transfer payments to put food on their tables.



A new social contract has been created, where bread and circuses buy a measure of peace in our minority-populated urban zones. In the era of ubiquitous big-screen cable television, the internet and smart phones, the circus part of the equation is never in doubt as long as the electricity flows. But the bread is highly problematic. Food must be delivered the old-fashioned way: physically. Any disruption in the normal functioning of the EBT system will lead to food riots with a speed that is astonishing. This will inevitably happen when our unsustainable, debt-fueled binge party finally stops, and the music is over. Now that the delivery of free or heavily subsidized food is perceived by tens of millions of Americans to be a basic human right, the cutoff of “their” food money will cause an immediate explosion of rage. When the hunger begins to bite, supermarkets, shops and restaurants will be looted, and initially the media will not condemn the looting. Unfortunately, this initial violence will only be the start of a dangerous escalation.







The ransacked supermarkets, convenience stores, ATMs and gas stations will not be restocked during this period due to the precarious security situation. A single truck loaded with food or gasoline would be perceived to be a Fort Knox on wheels and subject to immediate attack unless heavily protected by powerfully armed security forces, but such forces will not be available during this chaotic period. Under those conditions, resupply to the urban areas cannot and will not take place. The downward spiral of social and economic dysfunction will therefore both accelerate and spread from city to city. These delays, in turn, will lead to more riots with the constant underlying demand that hungry people be fed, one way or another.




Catch-22, anyone? When these demands do not bring the desired outcome, the participants will ratchet up the violence, hoping to force action by the feckless state and national governments.



The “food riots” will be a grass-roots movement of the moment born out of hunger and desperation. It will not be dependent upon leaders or an underlying organization, although they could certainly add to the sauce. Existing cell phone technology provides all the organization a flash mob needs. Most of the mobs will consist of minority urban youths, termed MUYs in the rest of this essay. Which minority doesn’t matter; each urban locale will come with its own unique multi-ethnic dynamic.

Some locales will divide upon religious or political lines, but they will not be the dominant factors contributing to conflict. In the American context, the divisions will primarily have an ethnic or racial context, largely because that makes it easy to sort out the sides at a safe distance. No need to check religious or political affiliation at a hundred yards when The Other is of a different color.




We Americans are all about doing things the easy way, so, sadly, visible racial and ethnic features will form the predominant lines of division.



Would that it were not so, but reality is reality, even when it’s is a bitch.



Especially then.



NEXT STEP: FLASH MOB RIOTS







In order to highlight their grievances and escalate their demands for an immediate resumption of government benefits, the MUY flash mobs will next move their activities to the borders of their ethnic enclaves. They will concentrate on major intersections and highway interchanges where non-MUY suburban commuters must make daily passage to and from what forms of employment still exist. People making a living will still be using those roads to get to where they earn their daily bread.







The results of these clashes will frequently resemble the intersection of Florence and Normandie during the Rodney King riots in 1992, where Reginald Denny was pulled out of his truck’s cab and beaten nearly to death with a cinder block. If you don’t remember it, watch it on Youtube. Then imagine that scene with the mob-making accelerant of texting and other social media technology added to stoke the fires. Instead of a few dozen thugs terrorizing the ambushed intersections, in minutes there will be hundreds.







Rioters will throw debris such as shopping carts and trash cans into the intersection, causing the more timid drivers to pause. The mobs will swarm the lines of trapped cars once they have stopped. Traffic will be forced into gridlock for blocks in all directions. Drivers and passengers of the wrong ethnic persuasions will be pulled from their vehicles to be beaten, robbed, and in some cases raped and/or killed. It will be hyper-violent and overtly racial mob behavior, on a massive and undeniable basis.







Some of those trapped in their cars will try to drive out of the area, inevitably knocking down MUY pedestrians and being trapped by even more outraged MUYs. The commuters will be dragged out of their cars and kicked or beaten to death. Other suburban commuters will try to shoot their way out of the lines of stopped cars, and they will meet the same grim fate once they run out of bullets and room to escape.







The mob will be armed with everything from knives, clubs and pistols to AK-47s. A bloodbath will result. These unlucky drivers and their passengers will suffer horribly, and some of their deaths will be captured on traffic web cameras. Later, these terrible scenes will be released or leaked by sympathetic government insiders and shown by the alternative media, which continue to expand as the traditional media become increasingly irrelevant.







Implausible, you insist?







This grim tableau is my analysis of age-old human behavior patterns, adding flash mobs and 2012 levels of racial anger to the old recipe. Early-teenage MUYs today are frequently playing “The Knockout Game” on full bellies, just for kicks, and proudly uploading the videos. They and their older peers can be expected to do far worse when hunger and the fear of starvation enter their physical, mental, and emotional equations. The blame for their hunger will be turned outward against the greater society, and will be vented at first hand against any non-MUY who falls into their grasp while they are in the thrall of mob hysteria. These episodes of mass psychology we will refer to as “flash mob riots”, “wilding”, or some other new name.











THE OFFICIAL POLICE RESPONSE TO FLASH MOB RIOTS







To gear up for even a single “Florence and Normandie on steroids” flash mob street riot, city police departments will require an hour or longer to stage their SWAT teams and riot squads in position to react. Ordinary patrol cars in small numbers will not venture anywhere near such roiling masses of hysterical rioters, not even to perform rescues. Those citizens trapped in their cars cannot expect timely assistance from local or state authorities.







Even in the first days of widespread riots, when the police forces are well rested, it might take several hours to mount a response sufficient to quell the disturbance and restore order to even one major street intersection riot. In the meantime, scores of innocent commuters will have been attacked, with many of them injured or killed and left at the scene. It will be a law enforcement nightmare to quell the disturbance, mop up lingering rioters, restore security, and bring medical attention to the living and get medical examiners to the dead. And each jurisdiction will face potentially dozens of such scenes, thanks to the ability for MUYs to cross-communicate at will using their wireless devices.







The far more difficult challenge for the police is that by the time they are suited in riot gear, armed and geared up to sweep the intersection, it will probably be empty of rioters. The police, with their major riot squad reaction times measured in hours, will be fighting flash mobs that materialize, cause mayhem, and evaporate in only fractions of hours. This rapid cycle time is a clear lesson taken from massive riots by immigrant French Muslim MUYs in their own religious enclaves and bordering areas.







The American flash mob riot will exist almost entirely inside the law enforcement OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) loop. In other words, the rioters will have a much quicker reaction time than the police. Until fairly recently, superior police communications meant that they could use their radio networks as a force multiplier. With their networking advantage and cohesive reactions both within a department and among cooperating local agencies, police could act as shepherds guiding or dispersing a wayward stampeding flock.







Today, the mob has the greater advantage, immediately spreading word of every police preparation by text and Tweet, even in advance of the police movement. Attempts by the authorities to stop the flash mobs by blocking and jamming wireless transmissions will have limited success.







It is at this point that the situation spirals out of control.







The enraged mobs in urban America will soon recognize that their spontaneous street riots cannot be stopped by the police, and then they will grow truly fearsome.







For the police, it will be a losing game of Whack-a-Mole, with riots breaking out and dispersing at a speed they cannot hope to match. The violence will spread to previously unaffected cities as an awareness of law enforcement impotence is spread by television and social media. After a few days, the police forces will be exhausted and demoralized. As the violence intensifies and spreads, and in the absence of any viable security arrangements, supermarkets and other stores will not be restocked, leaving the MUYs even more desperate and angry than before.







The increasing desperation born of worsening hunger will refuel the escalating spiral of violence.







Nor will violent conflict be only between the inhabitants of the urban areas and the suburbs. The international record of conflict in tri-ethnic cities is grim, making the old bi-racial dichotomy formerly seen in America seem stable by comparison. In tri-ethnic cities the perceived balance of power is constantly shifting, with each side in turn feeling outnumbered and outmuscled. Temporary truces, betrayals and new alliances follow in rapid succession, removing any lingering sense of social cohesion.







The former Yugoslavia, with its Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim divisions, comes starkly to mind. The Lebanese Civil War between the Christians, Sunnis, Shiites and Druze raged across Beirut (at one time known as “The Paris of the Middle East”) for fifteen brutal years. Once a city turns on itself and becomes a runaway engine of self-destruction, it can be difficult to impossible to switch off the process and return to normal pre-conflict life.







It’s not inconceivable that the United States could produce a dozen Sarajevos or Beiruts, primarily across racial instead of religious divides.







Vehicle traffic by non-minority suburban commuters through adjoining minority areas will virtually halt, wrecking what is left of the local economy. Businesses will not open because employees will not be able to travel to work safely.







Businesses in minority areas, needless to say, will be looted.







“Gentrified” enclaves of affluent suburbanites within or near the urban zones will suffer repeated attacks, until their inhabitants flee.







Radically disaffected minorities will hold critical infrastructure corridors through their areas hostage against the greater society. Highways, railroad tracks, pipe and power lines will all be under constant threat, or may be cut in planned or unplanned acts of raging against “the system.” As long as security in the urban areas cannot be restored, these corridors will be under threat. Even airports will not be immune. Many of them have been absorbed into urban areas, and aircraft will come under sporadic fire while taking off and landing.







In the absence of fresh targets of value blundering into their areas, and still out of food, MUYs will begin to forage beyond their desolated home neighborhoods and into suburban borderlands. “Safe” supermarkets and other stores will be robbed in brazen commando-like gang attacks. Carjackings and home invasions will proliferate madly. As I have discussed in my essay “The Civil War Two Cube,” so-called “transitional” and mixed-ethnic areas will suffer the worst violence. These neighborhoods will become utterly chaotic killing zones, with little or no help coming from the overstretched police, who will be trying to rest up for their next shift on riot squad duty, if they have not already deserted their posts to take care of their own families.











THE SUBURBAN ARMED VIGILANTE RESPONSE







In the absence of an effective official police response to the exploding levels of violence, suburbanites will first hastily form self-defense forces to guard their neighborhoods—especially ones located near ethnic borders. These ubiquitous neighborhood armed defense teams will often have a deep and talented bench from which to select members, and they will not lack for volunteers.







Since 9-11, hundreds of thousands of young men (and more than a few women) have acquired graduate-level educations in various aspects of urban warfare. In the Middle East these troops were frequently tasked with restoring order to urban areas exploding in internecine strife. Today these former military men and women understand better than anyone the life-or-death difference between being armed and organized versus unarmed and disorganized.







Hundreds of thousands if not millions of veterans currently own rifles strikingly similar to those they carried in the armed forces, lacking only the full-automatic selector switch. Their brothers, sisters, parents, friends, and neighbors who did not serve in the military are often just as familiar with the weapons, if not the tactics.







Today the AR-pattern rifle (the semi-automatic civilian version of the familiar full-auto-capable M-16 or M-4) is the most popular model of rifle in America, with millions sold in the past decade. Virtually all of them produced in the past decade have abandoned the old M-16′s signature “carrying handle” rear iron sight for a standardized sight mounting rail, meaning that virtually every AR sold today can be easily equipped with an efficient optical sight. Firing the high-velocity 5.56×45 mm cartridge and mounted with a four-power tactical sight, a typical AR rifle can shoot two-inch groups at one hundred yards when fired from a steady bench rest. That translates to shooting eight- to ten-inch groups at four hundred yards.







Four hundred yards is a long walk. Pace it off on a straight road, and observe how tiny somebody appears at that distance. Yet a typical AR rifle, like those currently owned by millions of American citizens, can hit a man-sized target at that range very easily, given a stable firing platform and a moderate level of shooting ability.







And there are a far greater number of scoped bolt-action hunting rifles in private hands in the United States. Keep this number in mind: based on deer stamps sold, approximately twenty million Americans venture into the woods every fall armed with such rifles, fully intending to shoot and kill a two-hundred-pound mammal. Millions of these scoped bolt-action deer rifles are quite capable of hitting a man-sized target at ranges out to and even beyond a thousand yards, or nearly three-fifths of a mile. In that context, the 500-yard effective range of the average semi-auto AR-pattern rifle is not at all remarkable.







So, we have millions of men and women with military training, owning rifles similar to the ones they used in combat operations overseas from Vietnam to Afghanistan. Many of these Soldiers and Marines have special operations training. They are former warriors with experience at conducting irregular warfare and counter-terrorism operations in dangerous urban environments. They are the opposite of unthinking robots: their greatest military talent is looking outside the box for new solutions. They always seek to “over-match” their enemies, using their own advantages as force multipliers while diminishing or concealing their weaknesses. These military veterans are also ready, willing and able to pass on their experience and training to interested students in their civilian circles.







Let’s return to our hypothetical Florence and Normandie intersection, but this time with hundreds of rioters per city block, instead of mere dozens. Among the mobs are thugs armed with pistols and perhaps even AK-47s equipped with standard iron sights, and except in rare cases, these rifles have never been “zeroed in” on a target range. In other words, past a medium distance of fifty to a hundred yards, these MUY shooters will have little idea where their fired bullets will strike—nor will they care. Typically, most of the rioters armed with a pistol, shotgun or an iron-sighted rifle could not hit a mailbox at a hundred yards unless by luck. Inside that distance, any non-MUY could be at immediate risk of brutal death at the hands of an enraged mob, but beyond that range, the mob will pose much less danger.







Taking this imbalance in effective ranges of the firearms most likely to be available to both sides, certain tactical responses are sure to arise, and ranking near the top will be the one described next.











THE SNIPER AMBUSH: THE NEW TACTIC OF CHOICE







The sniper ambush will predictably be used as a counter to rampaging mobs armed only with short- to medium-range weapons. This extremely deadly trick was developed by our war fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan, taking advantage of the significant effective range and firepower of our scoped 5.56mm rifles. Tactics such as the sniper ambush may not be seen early in the civil disorder, but they will surely arise after a steady progression of atrocities attributed to rampaging MUYs.







Street intersection flash mob riots will not be the only type of violence exploding during periods of civil disorder. As mentioned earlier, the number and ferocity of home invasions will skyrocket, and they will be very hard to defend against.



Neighborhood self-defense forces will be able to protect a group of homes if they are located on cul-de-sacs or in defensible subdivisions with limited entrances, turning them overnight into fortified gated communities. Individual homes and apartment buildings located in open grid-pattern neighborhoods with outside access from many directions will be much more difficult to defend, and the home invasions will continue.







Carjacking and other forms of armed robbery will proliferate to previously unimagined levels, leading to a total loss of confidence in the government’s ability to provide security across all social lines. Stray bullets striking pedestrians or penetrating houses will take a frightening toll, even in areas previously considered to be safe. The police will be exhausted by constant riot-squad duty, and will not even respond to reports of mere individual acts of violent criminality. They will simply be overwhelmed, and will be forced to triage their responses. The wealthy, powerful and politically well-connected will demand the lion’s share of remaining police resources, further diminishing the safety of average Americans.







In that context, neighborhood self-defense forces will form the nucleus of the armed vigilante direct action groups which will spring up next in the progression.







Suburban anger will continue to build against the MUYs, who are perceived to be the originators of the home invasions and gang-level armed looting raids.







Survivors of street ambushes, carjackings and home invasions will tell blood-curdling tales and show horrific scars.







The neighborhood defense teams will evolve into proactive suburban armed vigilante groups (SAVs) out of a desire to preemptively take the violence to their perceived enemies, instead of passively waiting for the next home invasion or carjacking. The SAV teams will consist of the more aggressive and gung-ho members of the self-defense forces, who met and compared notes. Often they will be young men with recent combat experience in the armed forces, who will apply their military training to the new situation. Major intersections and highway interchanges where ambush riots have previously occurred will be among the SAV targets. The SAV reaction times will be measured in minutes, compared to the hours required by major police department SWAT teams and riot squads.











A SAMPLE SNIPER AMBUSH SCENARIO







When word is received that a flash mob is forming at one of their pre-reconnoitered intersections or highway interchanges, the SAV team will assemble. Sometimes cooperating police will pass tactical intel to their civilian friends on the outside. Some clever individuals will have exploited their technical know-how and military experience to build real-time intel collection tools, such as private UAVs. Police will have access to urban security camera footage showing MUYs moving barricade materials into position—a normal prerequisite to a flash mob riot intended to stop traffic. Tip-offs to the vigilantes will be common, and where the networks are still functioning, citizens may still be able to access some video feeds. Sometimes, police will even join the SAV teams, incognito and off-duty, blurring the teams into so-called “death squads.”







The operation I will describe (and it’s only one of dozens that will be tried) uses two ordinary pickup trucks and eight fighters. Two riflemen are lying prone in the back of each truck, facing rearward, with removable canvas covers concealing their presence. Their semi-automatic, scoped rifles are supported at their front ends on bipods for very accurate shooting. A row of protective sandbags a foot high is between them and the raised tailgate.







In the cab are a driver and a spotter in the passenger seat who also serves as the vehicle’s 360-degree security. The two trucks don’t ever appear on the same stretch of road, but coordinate their movements using one-word brevity codes over small FRS walkie-talkie radios. Each truck has a series of predetermined elevated locations where the intersection in question will lie between 200 and 500 yards away. Each truck is totally nondescript and forgettable, the only detail perhaps being the non-MUY ethnicity of the suburbanite driver and spotter driving relatively near to a riot in progress.







By the time the two SAV pickup trucks arrive at their firing positions on different streets and oriented ninety degrees to one another, the flash mob riot is in full swing. A hundred or more of the rampaging youths are posturing and throwing debris into traffic in order to intimidate some cars into stopping. The riflemen in the backs of the pickups are waiting for this moment and know what to expect, trusting their spotters and drivers to give them a good firing lane. The spotters in each truck issue a code word on their radios when they are in final position. The tailgates are swung down, and the leader among the riflemen initiates the firing. All-around security is provided by the driver and spotter.







Lying prone and using their bipods for support, the shooters have five to ten degrees of pan or traverse across the entire intersection. Individual rioters are clearly visible in the shooters’ magnified optical scopes. Each of the four snipers has a plan to shoot from the outside of the mob toward the middle, driving participants into a panicked mass. The left-side shooters start on the left side and work to the middle, engaging targets with rapid fire, about one aimed shot per two seconds. Since the two trucks are set at ninety degrees to one another, very complete coverage will be obtained, even among and between the stopped vehicles.







The result is a turkey shoot. One magazine of thirty aimed shots per rifle is expended in under a minute, a coded cease-fire is called on the walkie-talkies, and the trucks drive away at the speed limit. The canvas covering the truck beds contains the shooters’ spent brass. If the trucks are attacked from medium or close range, the canvas can be thrown back and the two snipers with their semi-automatic rifles or carbines will add their firepower to that of the driver and spotter.







Back at the intersection, complete panic breaks out among the rioters as a great number of bullets have landed in human flesh. Over a score have been killed outright, and many more scream in pain for medical attention they will not receive in time. The sniper ambush stops the flash mob cold in its tracks as the uninjured flee in terror, leaving their erstwhile comrades back on the ground bleeding. The commuters trapped in their vehicles may have an opportunity to escape.







This type of sniper ambush and a hundred variations on the theme will finally accomplish what the police could not: put an end to mobs of violent rioters making the cities through-streets and highways impassible killing zones. Would-be rioters will soon understand it to be suicidal to cluster in easily visible groups and engage in mob violence, as the immediate response could come at any time in the form of aimed fire from hundreds of yards away. Even one rifleman with a scoped semi-auto can break up a medium-sized riot.







Many citizens will take to carrying rifles and carbines in their vehicles, along with their pistols, so that if their cars are trapped in an ambush they will have a chance to fight their way out. If their vehicle is stopped outside the immediate area of the flash mob, they will be able to direct accurate fire at the rioters from a few hundred yards away. Inside the fatal hundred-yard radius, unlucky suburbanite drivers and passengers pulled from their cars will still be brutally violated, but the occurrences of large mob-driven street ambushes will be much less frequent once long-range retaliation becomes a frequent expectation.











THE GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO VIGILANTISM







Where they will be unable to respond swiftly or effectively to the outbreaks of street riots by MUY flash mobs, the police and federal agents will respond vigorously to the deadly but smaller vigilante attacks. These sniper ambushes and other SAV attacks will be called acts of domestic terrorism and mass murder by government officials and the mainstream media. A nearly seamless web of urban and suburban street cameras will reveal some of the SAV teams by their vehicles, facial recognition programs, and other technical means. Some early arrests will be made, but the vigilantes will adapt to increasing law enforcement pressure against them by becoming cleverer about their camouflage, most often using stolen cars and false uniforms and masks during their direct-action missions. Observe Mexico today for ideas on how this type of dirty war is fought.







Eventually, the U.S. Army itself might be called upon to put out all the social firestorms in our cities, restore order and security, pacify the angry masses, feed the starving millions, get vital infrastructure operating again, and do it all at once in a dozen American Beiruts, Sarajevos and Mogadishus.







Good luck to them, I say.







A few hundred “Active IRA” tied down thousands of British troops in one corner of a small island for decades. The same ratios have served the Taliban well over the past decade while fighting against the combined might of NATO. Set aside for a moment the angry starving millions trapped in the urban areas, and the dire security issues arising thereof. Just to consider the official reaction to vigilantism separately, it’s unlikely that any conceivable combinations of local and state police, federal law enforcement, National Guard or active-duty Army actions could neutralize or eliminate tens of thousands of former special operations troops intent on providing their own form of security. Millions of Americans are already far better armed and trained than a few hundred IRA or Taliban ever were.



And the police and Army would not be operating from secure fire bases, their families living in total safety thousands of miles away in a secure rear area. In this scenario, there is no rear area, and every family member, anywhere, would be at perpetual risk of reprisal actions by any of the warring sides.







In this hyper-dangerous environment, new laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in vehicles would be ignored as the illegitimate diktat of dictatorship, just when the Second Amendment is needed more than ever. Police or military conducting searches for firearms at checkpoints would themselves become targets of vigilante snipers. Serving on anti-firearms duty would be seen as nothing but pure treason by millions of Americans who took the oath to defend the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. Politicians who did not act in the security interest of their local constituents as a result of political correctness or other reasons would also be targeted.







A festering race war with police and the military in the middle taking fire from both sides could last for many years, turning many American cities into a living hell. Remember history: when the British Army landed in Northern Ireland in 1969, they were greeted with flowers and applause from the Catholics. The Tommys were welcomed as peacekeepers who would protect them from Protestant violence. That soon changed. Likewise with our tragic misadventure in Lebanon back in 1982 and 1983. Well-intended referees often find themselves taking fire from all sides. It’s as predictable as tomorrow’s sunrise. Why would it be any different when the U.S. Army is sent to Los Angeles, Chicago or Philadelphia to break apart warring ethnic factions?







For a long time after these events, it will be impossible for the warring ethnic groups to live together or even to mingle peacefully. Too much rage and hatred will have been built up on all sides of our many American multi-ethnic fault lines. The new wounds will be raw and painful for many years to come, as they were in the South for long after the Civil War. The fracturing of the urban areas, divided by no-man’s-lands, will also hinder economic redevelopment for many years because the critical infrastructure corridors will remain insecure.







Eventually, high concrete “Peace Walls” like those in Belfast, Northern Ireland, will be installed where the different ethnic groups live in close proximity. That is, if recovery to sane and civilized norms of behavior are ever regained in our lifetimes and we don’t slide into a new Dark Age, a stern and permanent tyranny, warlordism, anarchy, or any other dire outcome.







Dark Ages can last for centuries, after sinking civilizations in a vicious, downward vortex. “When the music’s over, turn out the lights,” to quote Jim Morrison of The Doors. Sometimes the lights stay out for a long time. Sometimes civilization itself is lost. Millions of EBT cards flashing zeroes might be the signal event of a terrible transformation.







It is a frightening thing to crystallize the possible outbreak of mass starvation and racial warfare into words, so that the mind is forced to confront agonizingly painful scenarios. It is much easier to avert one’s eyes and mind from the ugliness with politically correct Kumbaya bromides. In this grim essay, I am describing a brutal situation of ethnic civil war not differing much from the worst scenes from recent history in Rwanda, South Africa, Mexico, Bosnia, Iraq, and many other places that have experienced varying types and degrees of societal collapse. We all deplore the conditions that might drive us toward such a hellish outcome, and we should work unceasingly to return America to the path of true brotherhood, peace and prosperity. Race hustlers of every stripe should be condemned.







Most of us wish we could turn back the calendar to Norman Rockwell’s America. But we cannot, for that America is water long over the dam and gone from our sight, if not from our memories. John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” If that is true, judging by current and even accelerating cultural shifts, we might already have passed the point of no return.







The prudent American will trim his sails accordingly.







Matt Bracken is the author of the Enemies Foreign And Domestic trilogy, along with his latest novel, Castigo Cay.