[ET] "From a very early age—kindergarten—we were taught that our parents are just biological parents. The real parents is 'the Party,' and Chairman Mao. And so, if there's a conflict between choosing your own parents or the Party, you should always, always choose the Party. And that's basically what the Red Guards did."
In this episode I sit down with Xi Van Fleet, who grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution. She’s the author of the new book, "Mao’s America: A Survivor’s Warning."
"Communism is about abolition of private property. But I would say, more important than that, is the abolition of independent thinking. It's really, really about control of peoples' minds. And also, it's about dividing people. They don't want to rule over a united population," says Ms. Van Fleet.
We discuss her childhood under Mao's regime, and what it was like to be subjected to brainwashing, re-education, and struggle sessions. We also examine woke indoctrination today, and how ideologues are adopting Mao's methods of re-writing history and destroying the nuclear family.
"Here, especially today in schools, you are supposed to go to 'trusted adults,' not your parents. And so, they do not say 'Party,' but it is very similar. They want to cut the ties between parents and children. Why? That's how you control the children," says Ms. Van Fleet.
You can watch Jan's original interview with Xi Van Fleet, "’I Want to Wake People Up’—Xi Van Fleet, Survivor of Mao’s Cultural Revolution," HERE.
[Bee] SAN ANTONIO, TX — Following a closed-door meeting to discuss the issue and take an official vote, residents of the state of Texas announced their plan to continue pretending Whataburger is good.
"We're sticking with it, for better or worse," said native Texan Terry Funk. "In our secret meeting, we all came clean and admitted that Whataburger has no business being mentioned in the same conversation as In-N-Out, Five Guys, Shake Shack, or Freddy's, but as Texans, we all have to circle the wagons and put on a united front. We've decided to live or die singing the praises of Whataburger. Probably die, though, because it's really not that good."
Long promoted by Texans as a top-flight burger joint, Whataburger has been exposed during its recent expansion into other areas of the country. Despite the mixed reviews, proud Texans plan to remain loyal to the brand. "It's so good," said Dick Murdoch as he struggled to smile after taking a bite of a double Whataburger. "I mean…yeah, it's basically just like McDonald's or Burger King or Hardee's or Jack in the Box or Wendy's or any other fast food burger…but…but it's totally good, OK?"
Though a recent study confirmed a vast majority of people would prefer to use Whataburger patties as coasters rather than food, Texans vowed to show their trademark resilience to pretend the restaurant belongs among the burger elites.
At publishing time, Texans were preparing to hold another important meeting to address whether or not they had any legal or moral standing to keep referring to the perennially mediocre Dallas Cowboys as "America's Team."
[Garden & Gun] South Carolinians have long loved to wind up the Blue Ridge foothills toward Asheville in the fall for leaf peeping, apple picking, and farmers’ markets. The interstate (barring construction) makes for the quickest jaunt, but road trippers in the know take the scenic route: Asheville Highway. The mostly two-lane stretch of Highway 176 runs from Spartanburg County north over the border through Hendersonville before connecting back to I-26 south of Asheville.
#1
Besoeker.
Having owned land in Hayesville & Murphy, NC, until it became overloaded with Half-Backs. There is a lot to be said about the plain natural beauty of Tusquittee Creek road/Tuni Gap/NOC area also.
Plus Mt. Pisgah and the Pisgah Inn restaurant is must do (Spring to End of Oct) due to weather/ICE.
The hard truth is that the world contains bad people who must be crushed through ruthless violence, which shocks and horrifies modern sensibilities. But it is reality nonetheless. When people want to kill you, you are at a decision point. You can either let them kill you or stop them. But stopping them often involves aesthetically displeasing actions, such as blowing them into little bits with bombs or shoving a bayonet into their guts and watching them die in agony. And it necessarily means inflicting death and damage on the noncombatant camp followers around them. That’s why they say war is hell. And that’s why starting one is probably not a good idea. But when someone else starts one, you have to choose them or you. Someone’s going to die badly, and you know, I propose it is those other guys.
You know, I really liked it because I'm tired of all this moral superiority shit. "Laws of war" (invented by Euro-Elois), "Gazan Civilians". I don't want to feel morally superior to Hamas members. I want to piss on their corpses.
#2
I would add that it's good for the overall civilizational ... oomph... to have a target to... y'know... take it out on. Step on. Crush. Keeps the people focused. Guns oiled. Boots pressed and clothes polished, whatever.
And because evil always rears its stupid head time to time, you never really run out of targets. For centuries we've all had a big sitting duck. Islam. And we haven't done jack about it. It's why I think GawD is choosing to let us be stomped on by subhumans and shitheads. We're just not good keepers of the earth. Take it from them! Every inch. Every cubic cm of air, every thing. Take the right to live here away from islamite scum!
[ZERO] Retired US Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler said it first and said it best: "War is a racket. It always has been..."
But what often goes unsaid is his next sentences:
"It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."
And indeed, every year, the world’s most powerful countries spend billions of dollars on so-called 'defense'.
But where does this money actually flow?
To gain insight, Visual Capitalist's Marcu Lu and Bhabna Banerjee ranked the world’s top 25 defense companies by 2022 revenues, using data from Defense News.
Note that their graphic shows each company’s revenues from defense, and not total revenues. This is because many companies such as Boeing also generate revenue from non-defense related industries and sectors.
#1
people.defensenews.com Top 100 Defense Companies
The company I retired from was in the top 100.
The company was bought last year by a larger company and now is top 50 in defense revenue.
Size matters.
#2
I'm afraid on some levels, the presence of a robust military industrial complex is like insurance. You hate paying for it until you have a claim...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/30/2023 6:23 Comments ||
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#3
Notice how we harnessed American production starting in around 1940 and with urgency after December 1941. We demobilized and shifted rather well back to domestic production in 1946. It was the decision to become the world's policeman in 1948 that created a permanent MIC and the destruction of the balance of governing that allowed the old republic to exist.
[American Greatness] Over the past week, it should have become incredibly obvious to registered Republicans that the elected GOP and the party itself no longer represents its constituency.
It began with more than 20 members of the party voting against Representative Jim Jordan for Speaker of the House. Jordan, who has been popular with the base and one of the most vocal members of Congress over the past seven years, should have been a shoo-in if the party pays attention to its base, but they simply don’t care.
The second thing of note that happened was Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell simply rolling over for the Biden proposal to send another $106 billion dollars to our current "forever wars" and "other projects." Broken down, the $106 billion would mean $61.4 billion for Ukraine, $14.3 billion for Israel, and $30.1 billion for other projects like "border security," whatever that might mean to an administration with a wide-open southern border.
There was no push back, no negotiation — fiscal conservatism be damned — Sen. McConnell just said yes to $106 billion, over $75 billion of which is for other countries — keep in mind, there was discussion when in 2018, Trump only requested $18 billion over 10 years to complete our southern border wall.
Thirdly, there was war hawk and frequent strongly written letter author, Senator Lindsey Graham who led a bipartisan delegation to Tel Aviv, Israel for a photo op amidst the ongoing war. When questioned by the conservative news outlet, NewsMax, Graham showed a bit more of his true colors.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
10/30/2023 8:40 Comments ||
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#3
Anytime an organization comes along and wants you to join, the main questions are 'what do you get vs what do I get' and 'can I leave?'
Posted by: ed in texas ||
10/30/2023 9:06 Comments ||
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#4
1994 / Gingrich was the last time the Pubs resembled something like a genuine opposition party. The Beltway might as well be called the Borg home world. After a 'Pub's first term, most are assimilated into the collective.
#7
My first vote was for Gerald Ford and since then I have only voted (R) ...though there was that vote for the Libertarian Party because Oklahoma had a "No Third Party" poison pill clause cooked up by the the Democrats and Republicans.
Anyway, as a young'un I kept seeing the Rainbow Coalition™ on the Evening News during the Great Democrat Purge after the McGovern debacle. Now politics is something of a Zero Sum Game™ and if the Coalition consists of Academic Liberals, Coastal Elites, Welfare Rent Seekers and "No Whites Need Apply" groups then where is there any cash for a white male Okie? So at least, as Raj put it, I am reasonably sure that the (R)'s may not help me but at least they are not out to pick my pocket 24/7/365.
[Alt-Market] Not long ago at the height of fear over the global pandemic the US underwent a change that many people argued would never happen. For years I have heard people say that authoritarian controls in America are "tinfoil hat conspiracy theory" and doom mongering — All the prepping, all the talk of community organizing, all the guns and the gear and the training were for nothing. Then...the covid agenda hit like a freight train.
Our constitutional rights were no longer set in stone, but mere guidelines that government officials could bend or break in the name of "public health safety." Laws no longer had to be passed through a series of checks and balances; mandates could be implemented as if they were laws without public oversight and enforced unilaterally.
There was talk (primarily among Democrats) of severe punishments for people who refused the pointless covid vaccines. They wanted vaccine passports, they wanted prison time for those that spoke publicly against the vax, they wanted people’s jobs taken away, they wanted their children taken away, and there were even plans to build covid detention centers to segregate and lock up "vax deniers."
It boggles the mind, but this was serious debate within the US and it was all triggered in the span of a year. Nearly half the country was willing to abandon the Bill of Rights over a virus with a survival rate of 99.8%. The conspiracy theorists were right all along; our freedoms rest on a razor’s edge and preparing to survive and fight for those freedoms is perfectly rational.
Luckily, the covid agenda failed. The mandates were ultimately blocked by red states and in many rural areas they were barely enforced at all. Biden’s vaccine passport attempt was stopped cold by the Supreme Court, but I have long believed that the Supreme Court made this decision exactly because of the level of public resistance. They knew if they pressed the issue, civil war was on the table.
Medical authoritarianism collapsed because conservatives and independents were not onboard and they could not be shamed into compliance. But what happens when there is a crisis that DOES scare conservatives? What happens when the political right perceives a true threat? Does freedom then become untenable?
#1
Some sort of domestic crisis or devastating event will be necessary to set the constitution and State's Rights aside in order that the transformation to begin. The 'greater good' must prevail.
#3
Wider War Will Bring Inevitable Attempts At Martial Law In America
Nonsense. The Bureaucracy rules perfectly well without involving the military.
In fact, from the super-incompetent way WOT was conducted - the Bureaucracy has a complete control of the military.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Leonid Savin
[REGNUM] On October 26, Qatari authorities sentenced eight Indian citizens to death on charges of spying for Israel. The media reported that the accused were former Indian career officers and worked for a private company, Al Dahra Global Technologies and Consultancy Services. They were detained by Qatari security back in August 2022, but the announcement of the verdict coincided with the escalation in the Gaza Strip. This led to the assumption that the verdict was imposed due to India's pro-Israel position.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/30/2023 7:48 Comments ||
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#4
Because muslims beheaded and murdered and killed and raped and pillaged and force converted and murdered and killed and raped and beheaded the Indians for centuries.
The Sikh have a tradition that grew from this cultural exchange: The Kirpan. A long sword to protect themselves from forced conversions to Islam.
[American Thinker] As the war rages on, Gaza is getting destroyed, people are getting killed on both sides, and a resolution of the conflict seems as elusive as ever. On the contrary, the war is escalating and spreading to other theaters.
Israel is facing two challenging issues: the safe return of the hostages and the eradication of Hamas. Thus far, those issues seemed to be at odds with each other.
According to the reports, the IDF is evaluating two distinct options. The first option involved a full-scale assault on Gaza by infantry and Special Forces supported by tanks, heavy artillery, and aerial bombardment aimed at destroying Hamas positions, the infrastructure, and a wide network of tunnels with deep-penetrating bombs.
The problem with this approach is that the tunnels in Gaza are fairly sophisticated. They boast an impressive level of engineering, constructed from reinforced concrete, divided into separate self-contained sections by steel doors, and reaching depths up to 100 feet. The tunnels are also equipped with modern ventilation systems powered by generators. They were built under buildings, hospitals, schools, and other civilian projects.
To complicate the matter, many sections following intense bombardments now lie buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings. The rubble provides an additional layer of protection against concrete-buster ammunition. Even if the IDF successfully destroys the tunnels, and it is a big if, there is a fairly high possibility that the hostages will be lost.
#2
Nah, just fill each and every entrance and then pump H2S down the vent shafts to destroy their nice modern ventilation system. You don't have to find them all, plus it'll block passage through those areas.
#3
How about using ground penetrating radar; use these guys: Underground Locating Services | No Hidden Fees https://usilocateaz.com Get the Most Accurate GPR Scanning Technology. Contact Us Today to Learn More!
Locate the tunnels and then bore shafts and fill tunnels with whatever noxious or poisonous gas you can imagine.
#5
Tunnel combat is a vicious problem for both the invading and defending force.
I'm sure the IDF has a variety of tools that will be used.
Posted by: lord garth ||
10/30/2023 11:40 Comments ||
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#6
Some gases are heavier than air and will displace oxygen underground. CO2 is an example. Run a hose from the tail pipes of five or six military vehicles into the tunnel is another solution. That is assuming they have not bunkered tactical bananas.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
10/30/2023 12:44 Comments ||
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#7
^ tactical bananas.
I did not see that one coming. LOL
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/30/2023 12:55 Comments ||
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#8
Do what the egpytians did in sinai and use a backhoe to dig a trench from the sea to the tunnel head and flood it.
#14
Pacific 1943-45. You know if you spend your time looking for all the entrances you find all the exits, and you can seal them. What enfolds it is just like mining accidents.
Or if you don't care about Greta, just pump in oil and set it ablaze. It'll consume oxygen.
[JohnKassNews] We’re hearing a lot of talk these days about the rules of war. All of it is aimed at Israel. No one is calling on Hamas to follow those rules.
There’s a simple reason for that.
No one — no one — thinks Hamas will do anything other than what it always does. And what it did on Oct. 7. The music concert massacre. The murders of civilians from babies in cradles to grandmothers. The rapes. The mutilation and burning of bodies. The beheadings. The hostage-taking of civilians, including 20 children, one of them in a wheelchair. The use of Palestinians as human shields.
No one expects Hamas to obey civilization’s standard for conducting warfare. No one even thinks of calling on Hamas to do so.
But it’s a different case with the Jewish state. Israel is getting a lot of, what’s the right word — advice, guidance, cautions, veiled warnings? — whatever the word, Israel is hearing from various corners about its conduct of the war against Hamas.
Make sure to avoid civilian casualties.
Don’t do anything that would be "disproportionate."
Don’t let "rage" affect your decisions, as President Biden put it in talking about the need to adhere to the rules of civilized warfare.
Delay the ground invasion of Gaza in hopes of getting more hostages out now that four have been released, say some European nations and the U.S. government.
Others, such as the Democrat squad in the U.S. House of Representatives, aka the congressional antisemitic caucus, demand a cease-fire.
All this is coming from people who bear no responsibility for protecting the citizens of Israel.
I mean, who else is going to step up to make Hamas pay for the terrible war crimes, the pogrom of Oct. 7?
Will the International Court of Justice based at The Hague issue an indictment and send a posse of steely lawmen into the Gaza Strip to arrest the Hamas war criminals and bring them to justice?
Dream on.
Will the United Nations assemble an army, equip it and dispatch it to Gaza City to wage the unbelievably complex and dangerous mission of urban warfare necessary to bring retribution to these terrorists?
There’s a reason the UN is called the Useless Nations. Even worse, the UN secretary general tried to justify the Hamas savagery of Oct. 7
Will the European Union call up soldiers from its member nations to rout Hamas out of the Gaza Strip?
Hell, European countries can’t even handle backing the Ukraine war on their own without the spine-enforcing support of the United States.
And what about all the Arab nations that are so, so concerned about the fate of the innocent Palestinians in Gaza? Will they tell the Israelis to stand aside while their armies invade Gaza to protect civilians and capture the Hamas terrorists?
A fantasy beyond the imagination of any sane human being. This is true even though Hamas is funded, armed and advised by Shia Iran, the committed enemy of the Sunni Arab world.
No, Israel knows — as it has tragically learned time and again — that only it will step up to protect Jews, only it will fight to save Jewish lives, only it will endure the terrors of war to combat a wretched bestial organization that in its charter is dedicated to genocide and mass murder of Jews.
While Israel has assimilated the lessons of history, incredibly too many in the world have not — even after the horrors of the Holocaust.
Worse, as we have seen, in some of our most esteemed institutions like Harvard, UPenn, Columbia and other elite universities ruled by extreme left thought, in some Muslim immigrant communities resistant to Western ideas of civilized warfare and even in the halls of Congress, the cancer of antisemitism is alive and well — and metastasizing.
No one but Israel is going to fight and bleed to protect Jews.
To his credit, Biden has committed America to providing military assistance to Israel and he has dispatched U.S. naval forces to Mideast waters with the goal of preventing Iran and other bad actors from widening the genocidal war against Israel.
Some have seen weakness on Biden’s part because the leaders of Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority canceled a summit with him during his recent visit to the region. I understand that argument.
But it masks a greater, more serious, more depressing truth. These Arab leaders have never even started preparing their populations for a real, lasting peace with Israel. Now they tremble in fear that anger in their streets from people fed lies for decades about Israel will threaten their rule.
That fear was intensified to the point of canceling the summit after Hamas falsely accused Israel of bombing a Gaza hospital. It should have been no surprise that intelligence and evidence quickly revealed it was an errant Islamic Jihad missile that fell into the hospital parking lot.
The news media should be engaging in serious soul searching after so many of our prestigious newspaper, broadcast and cable news outlets accepted uncritically and published/broadcast an accusation against Israel from an organization whose fundamental, essential, core belief is that the only good Jew is a dead Jew.
That’s the neighborhood that Israel must live in.
The Jewish state needs no sanctimonious advice, smug guidance or veiled warnings about how to defend its people.
And what does proportionality actually mean in war?
Hamas fired thousands of unguided missiles into Israel with the obvious intention of killing Israeli civilians. Would it be proportionate for Israel to fire the same number of unguided missiles into Gaza?
Would it be proportionate for Israeli troops to rape Palestinian women? To target babies for murder? Mutilate and burn bodies? Capture civilians as hostages?
That would be doing exactly the same thing as Hamas did. Isn’t that the very definition of a proportional response? Do exactly the same thing and in the same numbers as Hamas did?
Tit for tat, proportionality.
All real moral systems are based on reciprocity. Fake ones are based on (spiritual kin selection)
Posted by: Grom the Reflective ||
10/30/2023 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11126 views]
Top|| File under: Hamas
#1
As was said so many times here "They're not against war - they're on the other side.".
#3
There was a pro-Israel demonstration in Munich yesterday (we went). A show of noble decency. Right in front of the Feldherrenhalle on Odeonsplatz. Flags of Israel exactly where Hitler's coup failed a hundred years ago.
A Munich girl who was going to study in Beersheba (Munich's partner city) told the silent crowd how she was greeted by a letter from the university which listed all the teachers and students she would never get to know.
Because Hamas had killed them.
And she had a message for the "Genocide-in-Gaza"-crowd that demonstrated a day before.
"We also weep for your children when they die while being used as human shields by Hamas. Why don't you weep for our children when they are killed, tortured, decapitated and burnt by Hamas?"
Hanukkah is coming up. Light will triumph over darkness.
Am Yisrael Chai!
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/30/2023 8:10 Comments ||
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#4
It seems like the head of Shani Louk, the 22yo Israeli-German girl paraded through the streets of Gaza, has been found and identified by DNA analysis.
Only the head. How do you call the mob that cheered and spat on her body.
Oh yes. "Innocent civilians".
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/30/2023 9:26 Comments ||
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#5
"Shani's cousin Ruthi told Ynet, "Yesterday, we received an official notice from the IDF and ZAKA, with a written letter in which it said that a bone from the base of the skull had been found, which had DNA identical to Shani's."
"The doctors have declared that a person cannot live without this bone, and so they have concluded that she is dead. They spoke with two additional experts who confirmed this, as well as with a rabbi."
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/30/2023 9:29 Comments ||
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. The worst thing is usually not be the last thing. by Dmitry Taratorin
Fears of the technological singularity.
[REGNUM] More and more experts are asking absolutely seriously the question: is the world heading towards a third world war? Or maybe he has already arrived? True, others object to them: they say, oh well, this is an exaggeration, haven’t similar situations ever developed since the Second World War? And somehow they resolved it every time.
But the latter ignore the most important question: why do they actually happen - world wars? As we were all taught in school - because of “irresolvable contradictions.” But because of which ones, it depends on the interpretation. Some will say economic, others imperialist. Some are ideological.
Continued on Page 49
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[ET] "From a very early age—kindergarten—we were taught that our parents are just biological parents. The real parents is 'the Party,' and Chairman Mao. And so, if there's a conflict between choosing your own parents or the Party, you should always, always choose the Party. And that's basically what the Red Guards did."
[Bee] SAN ANTONIO, TX — Following a closed-door meeting to discuss the issue and take an official vote, residents of the state of Texas announced their plan to continue pretending Whataburger is good.
