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Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Has America Become a Two-Caste Society?


 

Poor Man Survival

Self Reliance tools for independent minded people…


ISSN 2161-5543

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

 

 
 
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. > Soren Kierkegaard


Has America Become a Two-Caste Society?

>And no, I’m not referring to Hillary’s lame comment about Trump supporters but I have no doubt she sincerely believes what she said…

   Listening to the various broadcasts commemorating the horrific 9/11 events reminded me that I had left New York City only a few days before those airliners struck the Twin Towers.  I had been staying but a few blocks from the attack and sincerely counted my blessings and said a quick prayer for those who did not make it that fateful day.

It also reminded me how many freedoms we’ve given up in the name of freedom as a result of that fateful day due to the set of laws known as the “Patriot Act” which seemed to pass nearly overnight.  Ironically, those laws have turned our nation into the proverbial Big Brother* where privacy no longer exists.  Another irony which has not escaped most of us is that the bulk of the ‘bad guys’ who have been caught have been through the hands of average citizens or more often than not, have been set up by the FBI.

 

Still, terrorism is a never-ending battle fueled mostly by religious ideology…the most challenging scourge mankind has faced through the centuries.

 

America used to be famous for its melting pot image.  Refuges came from every corner of the globe seeking a better way of life.  They would assimilate into a new life, usually within a generation or two.  That does not seem to be taking place as readily today, especially among Middle Easterners whose customs are often seemingly in conflict, and especially in open conflict among women who wear burkhas making themselves openly different.

 

Further, morality today has changed considerably compared to when Ronald Reagan was President.  He led a healthy society, ours if fragmented and decaying.

 

Since 9/11 we’ve become so heavily regulated no one can keep up [not even the lawyers] and non-elected alphabet-soup agencies churn them out at mind-boggling speed and it is costing our society an estimated more than $2 trillion annually!  This is the number one reason why the United States is no longer the Middle Class job engine the world once envied…We live in a two-caste system now.  Americans no longer seem to agree on much of anything:  faith, morality, abortion, gun control, taxes, religion, immigration and more…

 

Personally, I don’t envy the job of the next President whether it be he or she.  Healing our divided nation will be a monumental task and unlike Obama [who in my opinion, blew it on many levels] I would focus my initial efforts on getting a sane economy back on tract again!

 

The following article by David French from the National Review goes into more detail – Enjoy!

 

Mourning in America

 

Reagan led a healthy society; ours is fragmented and decaying. I was 15 years old when Ronald Reagan won his reelection campaign, and after all these years I still remember his legendary “Morning in America” campaign ad. Looking back at it even in this cynical age, one can recapture the feeling. The music seems maudlin, the voice a little too grandfatherly, but the ad told a true story. America was back. It was back in a very specific way, however, one that in some ways now seems quaint. Yes, the ad speaks of jobs, inflation, and interest rates, but also of homes and marriages — boasting that on that very day 2,000 families would buy new homes and 6,500 men and women would get married. It was painting a picture of an American ideal — of the nuclear family, employed and hopeful, optimistic about the future.


Read more at:
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2016-09-12-0100/ronald-reagan-morning-america-legacy

 

 


Cyberdisaster: How the Government Compromised Our Security

 

>Our cybersecurity under Obama has been a disaster

 
A new report details how serious the OPM hack really was. Last year, John McCain told National Review that “the most disturbing briefing that I have ever received” had to do with cyberwar, adding: “We better start doing a helluva lot better job” addressing cybersecurity threats. Given the current presidential prospects, the chances of that are slim. Donald Trump has made noises about “cyber” (it’s “becoming so big”), but has not outlined any plan. Meanwhile, it’s become undeniably clear that Hillary Clinton’s effort to avoid transparency requirements as secretary of state by setting up a private e-mail server endangered national security, including human-intelligence assets abroad, and that, unable to find more-plausible-sounding excuses, Clinton has opted to plead incompetence: She recently explained that she never realized the “(C)” in certain e-mails she forwarded indicated classified material.



In March 2014, the Department of Homeland Security alerted OPM that its security had been breached and data stolen. Over the next two months, OPM monitored the hacker’s activity inside its system, developing with DHS a plan to expel him. So narrowly focused was OPM on its target that it did not notice that a separate hacker had gained access to the system in early May, posing as an employee of an OPM contractor. For almost a year, this second hacker operated at leisure in OPM’s system, stealing security-clearance background-investigation files, personnel records, and fingerprint data. The two attacks, which the Oversight committee says were almost certainly coordinated, constitute the worst cybersecurity breach in American history: “Attackers exfiltrated personnel files of 4.2 million former and current government employees and security-clearance background-investigation information on 21.5 million individuals,” dating back to the Reagan administration. That background-investigation information, the Standard Form 86 or SF-86, which is required of anyone applying for a security clearance, demands an extraordinary range of personal information, as James Comey explained to the Washington Times last year: “My SF-86 lists every place I’ve ever lived since I was 18, every foreign travel I’ve ever taken, all of my family, their addresses. So it’s not just my identity that’s affected. I’ve got siblings. I’ve got five kids. All of that is in there.” (Comey’s was among the data taken.) The hack has been described as “Cyber Pearl Harbor.” Joel Brenner, senior counsel at the National Security Agency, called the stolen information “crown jewels material . . . a gold mine for a foreign intelligence service.” John Schindler, a former analyst at the National Security Agency, has written: “Whoever now holds OPM’s records possesses something like the Holy Grail from a [counterintelligence] perspective

 

The report does not identify the source of the hacks — the consensus is that it was Chinese intelligence — instead focusing on OPM’s grievous incompetence. “The OPM Inspector General (IG) warned since at least 2005 that the information maintained by OPM was vulnerable to hackers,” the Committee writes. But a 2014 audit found that crucial aspects of OPM’s security infrastructure had not been updated since 2007. Meanwhile, OPM had generally declined to implement protections as basic as multi-factor authentication when logging into its network (a violation of Office of Management and Budget regulations). “Had OPM implemented basic, required security controls and more expeditiously deployed cutting-edge security tools when they first learned hackers were targeting such sensitive data,” the Committee writes, “they could have significantly delayed, potentially prevented, or significantly mitigated the theft.”

Read more at:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439869/opm-hack-house-oversight-committee-report

 

 


Yours for another revolution,

Bruce ‘the Poor Man’

 *NOTE:

The Bill of Rights has been eviscerated, sacrificed on the altar of “national security” with little more than a whimper from the American people. We have entered a post-constitutional America.

*The Patriot Act so broadly expands the definition of terrorist activity that the 1st Amendment right of civil disobedience or even contrarian speech can get people labeled as terrorists. Revealing that government has requested information from records in banks, physician’s offices and hospitals or even about searches for specific topics in the library can get people arrested.

Government can now monitor and even infiltrate activities and organizations engaged in previously-protected activities without even the suspicion of a crime. And government has cracked down on whistleblowers like never before. Exposing illegal government activity is now a crime, and the American people support it, with the majority calling for the arrest, imprisonment and even execution of people like Edward Snowden and Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning. This demonstrates the power of propaganda built around “national security” fearmongering.

We no longer have the right to not be spied upon. Government and police agents can now monitor our activities day and night by conducting secret searches and wiretaps without even showing probable cause. Our electronic communications are constantly monitored. Our personal and medical records can be seized by law enforcement under the most specious of reasons and people who are forced to turn over those records are forbidden from telling you about it.

The president now possesses “legal authority” to assassinate American citizens on a whim, a direct violation of 5th Amendment and due process. The “white paper” granting him that “legal authority” states that attacks will take place anywhere outside the United States and that an “informed, high-level” official of the U.S. government may determine that the targeted American has been “recently” involved in “activities” posing a threat of a violent attack.

Chillingly, the paper says no clear evidence that the person poses an imminent threat against the United States, its citizens or interests is necessary to justify the targeted assassination. Nor does it define “recently” or “activities.” It cites congressional authorization that gave President George W. Bush the basis to respond to 9/11 attacks.

You can be arrested and detained without formal charges and without the right to confront the witnesses or view the evidence being used against you. You can be prevented from traveling (placed on a no-fly list) for any reason or none at all, and not even know you are on the list or be told why you’re on it. Statists are now trying to use the no-fly list to deny people the ability to legally buy and own a gun – a direct violation of their 2nd Amendment rights and right to due process.

Innocuous and perfectly legitimate activities like buying long-term storage food and survival items, attending a pro-2nd Amendment rallies, being a military veteran, attending a Ron Paul speech, wearing stained clothing, having an unusual smell or carrying what someone deems a “large amount of cash” can get you searched, investigated, arrested and/or placed on a list of potential “terrorists.”

The freedom to travel without government harassment is gone. To board a plane you are exposed to long security lines and are forced to either endure what amounts to a sexual assault by government agents and/or submit to a bombardment of radiation waves in government scanners.

TSA agents are setting check points miles from the border and searching cars for no reason. Courts are granting police the authority to draw blood and take DNA samples from people against their will.

LEOs (legally entitled to oppress) have been gathering surplus military weapons and rolling stock and making it part of their arsenal. The ranks of LEOs are largely populated by veterans of the Middle East wars who apparently have brought their it’s-us-vs.-them mentality to American policing, making LEOs increasingly militarized and increasingly militant and violent toward American citizens.

So 15 years of war has brought us no closer to peace and has cost us our freedoms. After all, war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.

 

Additional Resources

The Anatomy of a Breakdown

The Prepper’s Blueprint: The Step-By-Step Guide To Help You Through Any Disaster

Prepper’s Home Defense: Security Strategies to Protect Your Family by Any Means Necessary

Contact! A Tactical Manual for Post Collapse Survival

 



Arm Up System-Defense Without Regulation
PM’s Guide to Home Defense

 

When it comes to college safety, most parents and grandparents don’t like to think about it — even though American students face an escalating wave of campus crime, including rapes and deadly attacks by active shooters.

There is no middle ground when it comes to protecting the lives of your children and grandchildren on college campuses. It’s all or nothing. You have either prepared them or you have not. In a life-or-death situation, your children can only survive or not.

Your children and grandchildren are at serious risk. Just look at the statistics: One-in-five students is sexually assaulted during college. In 90% of rape cases, the attacker is acquainted with the victim. And the average perpetrator has committed multiple sexual assaults.



It is a crazy world out there with plenty of violence and everyone knows you that under most circumstances, police usually arrive after the fact. Your rights to defend yourself are often under attack, even for non-lethal self-defense tools…Includes 2 books and 3 bonus CD ROMS

http://www.bonanza.com/listings/Guide-to-Home-Defense-Arm-Up-System-Defense-W-out-Regulation-Bonuses/370808566

 

{Note:  We also offer a Three Set CD-ROM-only version at a lesser price for those with limited budgets]

 

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