Just in case you thought ATF's 'Gunwalker' was the only false flag game running right now...

...noo, no no.  Rest assured, many such games are in play at any one time;  Master does not put all his, er, cojones in one basket.

Among the worst must be the specific propaganda exercise designed to shore up the public's lukewarm enthusiasm to wage the Establishment's currently-desired war.  It seems that too many decent people are just not convinced that "jihadist Muslims" are hiding behind every rock and bush in modern America, ready to strike at a moment's notice for no other reason than "they hate our freedom".

This cannot do.  One can hardly prosecute a proper war without the general public whipped into the appropriate frenzy over whoever it is we're supposed to be hatin' on (today).  And so, in the relentlessly unimaginative tradition of all governments, that which does not exist naturally will be supplied by fraud and deception.  (With your tax dollars:  fraud and deception on this scale don't come cheap!)

That is:  there is no crime, so they manufacture one.  There is no criminal, so they manufacture that too.  Anything in service of the objective, which is the one thing nobody is allowed to question.

This is precisely what Gunwalker is:  a false flag operation specifically designed to generate popular support for a political objective.

Meanwhile, not to be outdone, the FBI does its own part to make sure that we all know, know that the "jihadis" are around every streetcorner, presenting such a grave and immediate danger that we really should just pony up the cash and the rubberstamp and go kill us some more ragheads, or at the very least, terrorize our own selves by deputizing the Department of Fatherland Security (have we just started calling it that yet?) to go root 'em out of our own neighborhoods for us.  That this streetcorner threat just doesn't seem to be, you know, true, is no problem for the professional liars and racketeers of our government, and so these "jihadis" need to be invented.  There is a greater purpose to be served here, people!

Listen to the invaluable William Norman Grigg on precisely this point:

As U.S. District Judge Collee McMahon remarked during a March 24 post-conviction hearing, "The FBI did not infiltrate a plot. There was no plot." That is, there was no plot on the part of the railroaded defendants. That there was a plot on the part of the FBI and its pet provocateur is indisputable. This would appear to be a perfect specimen of the process of "radicalizing" Muslims, which His Holiness Peter King, Inquisitor General of the Homeland Security State, considers to be the most acute existing threat to life, limb, and virtue.

In fact, the infiltration of mosques by Federal terrorism "facilitators" is the dominant form of "radicalization" taking place today. Similar efforts on the part of authentic Muslim militants may well be underway, but the FBI has refined the relevant techniques into a science.

Most American Muslims who refuse to cooperate with the Feds aren't trying to conceal subversives from the authorities; they're trying to avoid contact with the FBI's ever-growing pool of provocateurs and informants. The frame-up of the "Newburgh 4" splendidly illustrates the wisdom behind the decision not to cooperate with the Homeland Security apparatus, which will exploit any opportunity to manufacture a "terrorism plot."

This is a tiny excerpt from a superlative article (typical of Grigg);  go, read it all.  The parallels to Gunwalker are striking, and obvious.

And yet somehow, the propagandists' strategy continues to appeal to too many otherwise astute and aware people.  There has lately been a depressingly tribal clamor, even among those otherwise well-dedicated to exposing the criminal advance of our own state against its people, that this is different--that somehow, because it's Islam, the usual rules somehow do not apply.  It's just different, you see--people "in the service of Islam" have been observed to do (ready for this?) ruthless things.  I have even read the phrase that we just need to "wipe Islam off the face of the earth", and several others that announce the same idea.

This is where I apparently get all "extreme" again.  If that is not the very essence of a "became what I beheld" moment,
what in the holy living fuck is?

And so, for anyone who cannot bring himself to believe that the "Muslim Menace" is just another highly manufactured, propagandized false flag, in just exactly the same tradition as every other baited entanglement both foreign and domestic (and we could be here all night just listing 'em, from Randy Weaver and Waco and certainly Gunwalker, to Gulf of Tonkin and FDR's overt jones to save his empire by killin' some Japs to...everything else), listen again to Grigg (the devout Christian Grigg, I might add, lest anyone accuse the man of Islamic favoritism):

In fact, in every recorded instance in which the persecution of Muslims was addressed, Cromitie maintained that he was willing to leave vengeance in God's hands, trusting that justice would be done on Judgment Day; it was Hussain, the Feds' well-compensated veteran provocateur, who consistently peddled a "warped" religious belief in criminal violence against the innocent.

Cromitie had already spent a dozen years behind bars by the time the Feds targeted him for their provocation op. His most recent stint came after he was arrested for selling cocaine to an undercover narcotics operative behind a school. The narc most likely chose that location because of federal sentence enhancements: For someone who makes a living enticing people into committing drug offenses, getting a repeat offender to sell drugs near a school is the equivalent of a Scrabble maven playing "z" on the triple letter score square.

Like everything else of consequence done in the name of counter-terrorism, the Newburgh 4 case was staged for the institutional benefit of the Homeland Security State and the individual career advancement of a handful of FBI agents, federal prosecutors, and one exceptionally squalid informant.

One very telling indication of the perverse priorities at work here is found in the fact that the FBI actually intervened to prevent the arrest of David Williams, Cromitie's co-defendant, on larceny charges so that they could bust him as part of their contrived terrorist plot.

What political profit would result from allowing local authorities to prosecute Williams on a charge involving an actual property crime? On the other hand, arresting him as part of a black Muslim terrorist cell -- now, there's a bust with a high Q rating. Or, to recur to the Scrabble analogy, that's like playing the "z" tile on the triple word score square at the intersection of two fifteen-letter words.

I just do not know how it can be better stated than that.

The mechanics of the State's murderous charades are the same, all the time, and Gunwalker and the "Muslim Menace" both serve just exactly the same purpose and master.  The minute, the very instant, that we allow "...but this is different" to enter our vocabulary seriously, we ensure that nothing different will ever actually happen.

See, there are people who would be just thrilled to go wipe a religion off the face of the earth "on our behalf".  And go rooting around your neighborhood finding incipient threats "on our behalf".  In order to do it well, there's just a few compromises they'll need us to make...

These outcomes neatly solve every problem they have, and it's all they ever wanted from you.

An ode to the nanny state.

Nothing I could say would improve this.  Bloody outstanding.

Hat tip to Mike Vanderboegh. 

Why, oh why can't we make 'Project Gunwalker' go away?

Look, I ain't got no love for the ATF.  None.  Zip.  Zero.  Nada.  Its very existence is repugnant to human beings everywhere.  But nonetheless I have to say that it's obvious that at least some in its employ do simply want to do their jobs the way everyone publicly describes the job.  In this respect, at least, some have a line they won't cross. 

And so listen closely to Darren Gil, who recently retired as ATF's top man in Mexico, primarily over 'Gunwalker' related considerations.  Specifically:  he says he was locked out from knowledge of the 'walking guns' project, which aside from all the other sinister things about that political stunt, certainly puts every ATF agent in Mexico at considerable risk, as Mexico itself finds out that ATF has been letting guns 'walk' across the border and find their way to the very people that all of these officious entities (and oh, but they are) are ostensibly trying to prevent getting hold of them.  It's not hard to see how those on the ground in Mexico might take umbrage to thus being hung out to dry.

Gil retired from ATF in December, in part over his objections to Fast and Furious and the way it was handled. He says he's speaking out because nobody else in charge has stepped up to explain that ATF agents in Mexico were never part of it. Yet they're now facing threats of prosecution from some Mexican politicians.

"The (Mexican) government's looking at (ATF agents) potentially bringing weapons into their country, which in many cases is an act of war." Gil says by not explaining that ATF agents in Mexico weren't part of Fast and Furious, ATF executives are putting the agents in danger. "They're leaving my guys out in Mexico alone, and they're not doing the right thing."

What's most striking about Gil's statements here, though, is his clear and candid testimony that knowledge of all this went up--way, way up--past the corrupt management of ATF itself and on into the Department of Justice (and by implication almost certainly State as well).

"Is the director aware of this," Gil asked the supervisor. Gil says his supervisor answered "Yes, the director's aware of it. Not only is the director aware of it, D.O.J.'s aware of it... Department of Justice was aware of it."

Gil goes on to say senior Justice official Lanny Breuer and several of his deputies visited Mexico amid the controversy last summer, and spoke to ATF staff generally about a big trafficking case that they claimed was "getting good results." Gil says Melson, ATF's Acting Director, also visited Mexico City. Gil's Deputy Attache and his Analyst questioned Melson about the case that surrounding all the weapons showing up in Mexico. "His response was 'it's a good case, it's still going on,'" recalls Gil, "and we'll close it down as soon as we possibly can."

This stuff is at the level of "either they didn't know due to incompetence, or they did know and are now covering it up";  the longer the stonewalling occurs now, the more egg on their frowning mugs.  (Couldn't happen to a more swell bunch of fellas, seriously.)

For this, Gil certainly gets the Brass Nads Award for the week, a distinction recently held by whistleblowing ATF agent John Dodson, who first went on camera regarding the 'Gunwalker' scandal.

It also deserves mention that, of all parties, CBS News has really stepped up to the plate and given 'Gunwalker' a voice.  I don't imagine that reporter Sharyl Attkisson is too popular inside the Beltway right about now;  once she got engaged in the story, she has pursued it, and is doing a much better job than anyone could have expected from a mainstream news source.

And let us never forget the efforts of Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea, without whom none of this would have seen the light of day.  Thank you, gentlemen.  The Establishment may yet be able to make this whole thing go away;  appealing to one segment of a corrupt system to effectively police another segment of the same corrupt system does not have a lot of hope for any more than whitewashy success.  But your dogged efforts still remind us that, despite all the threats and aggression that the Establishment can muster in its attempt to intimidate us all into quiet compliance ("nothing to see here, peasant"), there will always be some people willing to resist.

That message will get through--has already gotten through--to those who need to hear it most.

Stock up on popcorn;  with a little luck, we just might get to watch an intramural finger-pointing match.


___________________________
A brief recap of my own posts on 'Gunwalker':

• 'Project Gunwalker':  meet whistleblower John Dodson
• 'Project Gunwalker':  now with more steam!
• Codrea:  A journalist's guide to 'Project Gunwalker'
• Project Gunwalker:  progress?
• Heads up.

Hey, let's go beat people up in Libya now.

Well, I might have guessed Iran first, before Libya, but that was before those uppity Egyptians got that nasty idea that they could just make the dickheads go away simply by withdrawing consent.

Thousands of people destroyed pointlessly by imperial warmongering may no big deal, but hey man, that shit just can't fly--we need to nip that in the bud now, before it happens again.

And so, to reaffirm people's faith in the political process, we're gonna go gang up on...the guy we put in office originally, were perfectly happy with as a dictator until just a few weeks ago, and who just might get toppled by the rabble if we don't come in like Team America and save the motherfuckin' day, yeah.

So, let's go kick the shit out of Libya and show 'em that only governments can topple other governments.  Get everyone all whipped up before something serious happens!

(I got the disgusting but ultimately unsurprising news via William Grigg and Chris Floyd.)

Oooh, 'anarchy'. How terrifying.

Kurt Hofmann posted another great article at St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner recently, and I got caught up in a comment;  one of those "can't help it" moments, which I thought I'd record here, with a few links intact.

A commenter posted the following:

Who do these seemingly omnipresent bugwits think they are? These people continue to piss on the Constitution and individual rights every friggin' day. These people don't deserve to govern our nation.

Whereupon Kent McManigal, in his inimitably compact way, said:

No one ever "deserves" to "govern" anyone other than their own individual self. The fallacy that they do, if "enough" people vote for them, is what got us into this mess.

This appeared to irritate the poster (as Kent can sometimes do), who then came out with the standard playbook:

Well, I think that's what we refer to as ANARCHY. So your solution is to have no one govern the NATION? G. Washington didn't deserve to govern this NATION? Thomas Jefferson? You don't believe we could have better government with people who earn the right to become a leader and not by virtue of being a career politician? We will all govern ourselves. You're a true testament to individualism. Good luck with that whole national defense thing.

Well hell, I couldn't help myself, so I unloaded on the poor guy:

Respectfully (really):

Flippant catechisms aside, Mr. (and you do manage quite a few in a compact space), Kent is making a moral point.  Politics--and everything that goes with it--is what got us into this mess in the first place.  We only perpetuate the problems by continuing to participate in a thoroughly rigged game, and the worst part about it is that most of us have been trained--well--that we can question anything but the system itself.  That, we are told, is heresy.

I am not aware of any instance in history, anywhere, in which any people VOTED themselves out of a major social problem.  And even if someone, some day, were to show me an instance in which it did happen, it still wouldn't matter.  The problem is not that people don't vote "the right way".  The problem is that nobody questions the idea that "enough votes" is a morally defensible imperative to coerce or force others (ultimately at gunpoint;  let's not kid ourselves) who have not harmed anyone.  That is EXACTLY the logic of those who would forcibly disarm you or me because a procedurally significant number of procedurally significant people decided for you that was in your best interest.  And in fact that is the logic of all politics, from victim disarmament to traffic tickets.

Is that your logic too?  Really?

I'm ashamed to say that it used to be mine.  That may be what makes me as outspoken now as I am.

Look, if you want to carry on the best traditions of Jefferson, don't focus on the Constitution or even the BoR.  Jefferson was less trustful of government--ALL government--than that.  Go to the Declaration of Independence, instead.  Or, better yet, introduce yourself to lesser-known Americans like Lysander Spooner, who during *Reconstruction* noted that our Constitution had either explicitly "authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it."  Do you want to advance the argument that things have got better since?  When, exactly, are the good times supposed to kick in?

There is a different way of looking at the world than you have been taught.  You might want to give it an honest look, and see how it holds up.  As Christians like to say, "try Jesus.  If you don't like him, the devil will always take you back."  That is of course flippant too, but the point is perfectly valid.  If you give it an honest look and it's not for you, you can discard it with the knowledge that you understand it now.  But if you take a good look and find instead that the critical arrows you throw at it don't stick, well, maybe it's something you should think about further. 

My suggestion would be to start with Murray Rothbard's "The Anatomy of the State", and then to work your way through Butler Shaffer's collection "The Wizards of Ozymandias".  That will take a while, but is worth it.  It will certainly explain just how trite and empty the traditional knee-jerk criticisms of "anarchy" really are.  (If you have been a "gunnie" for a while, you may remember the memorable Mario Cuomo quote about gun owners: "hunters who drink beer, don't vote, and lie to their wives about where they were all weekend."  Remember that one?  That's about the level of sophistication implicit in the usual criticisms of anarchy as "unworkable" and "utopian".)

And whether you call it "anarchist", "voluntaryist", "nonarchist", "agorist", individualist anarchist", or even "radical libertarian", doesn't really matter.  Those are just labels.  They all agree that politics is nothing more than mob-rule, differing only in how the mob is constituted.  And they reject it as pointless aggression against others.

(Kent just says all this much more succinctly than I do.  :-)

Chances are this is rather more than he was prepared for, but I'm willing to be impressed.  We'll see.

'Project Gunwalker': meet whistleblower John Dodson

John Dodson takes today's Brass Nads Award, for his whistleblowing against the ATF.  As he said to CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson:

"I'm boots on the ground in Phoenix, telling you we've been doing it every day since I've been here," he said. "Here I am. Tell me I didn't do the things that I did. Tell me you didn't order me to do the things I did. Tell me it didn't happen. Now you have a name on it. You have a face to put with it. Here I am. Someone now, tell me it didn't happen."

Please, watch the videos.  Wow!

This is not trivial, folks.  ATF powers that be are not nice fellas, and never have been.  I may often point out that we'll not likely fix the problem that ATF represents by appealing to the same gang that created the problem in the first place (and I stand by that), but that does not diminish Dodson's courage in sticking his neck out for all to see, and calling foul. 

I'm still mostly amazed that this was aired on CBS News.  For a lot of years now I figured I'd never have occasion to say this, but say it I must:  props to CBS, and to investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, for throwin' a big ol' egg on the faces of the "federal gun cops".  Couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch.

And it really can't be said enough:  this story would not have seen the light of day were it not for the tireless efforts of David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh.  Gentlemen:  thank you for your flashlight work.

I guess we'll see what happens next.  Although it just got a lot harder, this whole thing could still just go away...

...er, "be disappeared".  I forget the modern parlance.

Hey, don't laugh. The people in question are absolutely capable of it.  Mark that well.

On being at peace with being an 'outlaw'.

I frequently struggle both with trying to describe and (let's face it) trying to actually live as closely as possible to my heart and core principle, in a world that so frequently seems hard-wired against every single aspect of it.

Others, though, have a gift for describing this conflict.  Joel at TUAK is one of them.  He gets every bit of this ball here, and it's just one observation among many.  (He might well consider himself an unlikely sage, but at some level that may in fact bolster the point.)

I'm happy to say I continue to learn from this man.  Even when I don't agree, I still learn something useful.