13 Missiles... Chapter 19 - START HERE OR DIE A SLAVE
Chapter 19
Start Here or Die A Slave
“All the responsibility you abdicate will be taken up by tyrants.”
Jordan Peterson
Some of my more astute readers may have noticed the clickbait-ish nature of this chapter’s title. And yes, I’ll admit, it may fall under that category. I just figured, “Hey, all the smart kids are using clickbait to generate cash these days, I want to get in on the action too!”
However, if trends continue as they are in human behavior, this title may soon fall less into the clickbait category and more into the realm of universal truth. Let me illustrate my point…
Our story opens on a sunny summer day and features a young mother enjoying a picnic with her family. She’s relaxed, smiling, moving happily between her kids, the dog, and a nice lunch. After a while, she eventually plops down lazily on a blanket beside her spouse, enjoying a restful day off.
Suddenly her cell phone rings. Listening to the voice on the other end, the smile on her face disappears. After hearing the message, she puts her cellphone back inside her purse, takes a deep breath, and begins shouting orders. The relaxed, lazy person she was 30 seconds ago is gone.
“Everybody up! We’re outta here. Listen to me! Move! Move! Honey, you grab the food and the dog, I’ll get the kids. Load it up. We’ve gotta go. Now!”
“What’s up?” Her spouse asks, knowing already that his firefighter wife is likely being called in as backup to her team. “Housefire nearby. We gotta go, now!” She repeats in a stressed voice.
Her husband sighs, “Can’t the company handle one fire without you? We never get days off like this anymore. Geesh!”
Closing the car door after her daughter has scrambled in, she looks at her husband and says, “It’s our house, honey. The house on fire is ours.”
Her husband stops in his tracks as he processes the message, “Holy crap! Get over here now, Billy! Move it! Go! Go! Go!”
Arriving at their burning home at the same time as the fire trucks, her children witness a version of their mom they’ve never seen before; addressing the crew like a military
commander, barking out orders, “James, let’s get the caution tape up and keep those neighbors back! The fire hydrant’s to the right on the corner!
Kids, you stay behind that tape with your dad! DO NOT MOVE! Captain, direct that hose toward the garage; we’ve got an oxygen tank in there that needs isolated and removed ASAP. There are some gas cans in a storage container on the left, too! John, what about the cats, did you find our cats? Is there anyone in the house? Do we have some extra gear I can use? Bill, watch the water pressure. No, no, there’s no sprinkler system…”
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Prologue to our story; fortunately, the non-existent cats in our fictional tale were heroically rescued through a combination of CPR, AED shock treatment, and $10,000 in veterinary bills. No animals were harmed in the brief telling of this novelette…
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I use this story to illustrate the truth that there are two versions of every human being. There’s the easygoing, relaxed, all-things-are-normal version and there’s the take-charge, dynamic, mission-oriented version we are forced to become in order to address difficult situations.
If we can’t flip that switch at a moment’s notice, we’re going to be well-nigh useless in an emergency.
This is why I call this chapter, START HERE OR DIE A SLAVE.
You’ve been reading a ton of negative information in this book and you’re probably not quite sure what to do with it. It’s like the phone call the woman received. I’ve got some bad news for you. Now, what are you going to do with it?
When we’re faced with dire circumstances, our minds can fall into a primitive state. This is sometimes called the FIGHT, FLIGHT, or FREEZE modes.
In our story, the firefighter chose to FIGHT. She could have chosen FLIGHT by running to the car and madly driving in the opposite direction. Or she could have chosen to FREEZE by hanging up the phone and ignoring the information, continuing her day off as if everything in her life was still normal.
I have spoken to many people who have chosen to fly away from the dire issues facing us, or who freeze up by saying, “I don’t wanna think about it!” And so, they don’t.
The average person’s mindset operates according to what psychologists have termed “Normalcy Bias”. Even when presented with evidence that their situation has radically changed, it’s nearly impossible to imagine life being any different from what we’ve always experienced in the past.
And if you can’t get your mind around the fact that the world is changing at an incredible pace, why go through extraordinary measures to prepare for those changes? Why switch to that firefighter state of mind when I’m sitting here comfortably relaxing and enjoying myself?
THIS PICNIC IS GOING TO LAST FOREVER, DAMMIT!!!
In the next few chapters, I’m going to give you a lot of actionable suggestions on how to address these negative situations. But if your mind is going to remain in the “everything-is-always-going-to-be-normal” mode, my solutions are going to sound over-the-top and completely unnecessary.
This explains why so many millions of citizens in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and Communist China in the 1940’s and 50’s were so easily led to their deaths without so much as a whimper. They were in shock, unable to shake the normalcy bias that gripped their minds when their world was suddenly thrown into turmoil.
I say all this to give you one simple idea when reading the next few chapters; KEEP YOUR MIND OPEN IN ORDER TO RIGHTLY PROCESS INFORMATION IN A QUICKLY CHANGING WORLD.
I’ve written “13 Missiles” to show you that there is more than a good chance that disaster occurring on a large scale will challenge you shortly with very little being done by our leadership to prevent it. There are too many missiles flying at us to avoid dodging them all.
WAKE UP!
The picnic of “normalcy” is over. It’s time for action. Time to begin thinking in a manner you’re probably not used to nor comfortable with.
I’m not suggesting that you sell all your possessions and join a commune in Waco. What I am saying is that RIGHT NOW is the time to do your own research on this matter.
Begin training your mind to think differently, to imagine and prepare for future outcomes both positive and negative. Learn some new skills. You’re most likely bored as hell with your hyper-safe, no-risk, mediocre life anyway. Break out and begin a damn adventure! If you’re gonna go down, go down swinging!
Start up a network of people who can help in tough times. Eat better. Work out. Stop wasting money. Get out of debt. Sober up. Turn off the TV. Store a good supply of food, water, and emergency supplies, and obtain the means to protect those supplies from criminal elements.
Geez, I’m a real drill sergeant, aren’t I? It’s all for your own good though (which is what all drill sergeants say).
One of my favorite quotes regarding this issue comes from martial arts master, Bruce Lee, who rightly said “It’s better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.”
And I believe we are at war. It’s not LEFT vs. RIGHT as one would think, it’s the wolves looting everything in sight because they know this system’s doomed to crash.
They’re plundering the ship, leaving all of us peons below decks trying to salvage whatever’s left. The infighting their media outlets have got us all engaged in is diverting our attention from the fact that they’re stealing all the lifeboats.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re a person of peace. You don’t wanna hurt anybody. You’re a giver. A sharer of the little wealth you do have. Good for you! But here’s the news, YOU may not be at war with them, but they are fighting diligently against you and against your interests, all while planning to take away as many of your resources as they possibly can.
Your options are to 1) maintain the peace by completely surrendering to their grift or 2) getting off your ass and demanding a better deal for you and your family. They are obligated to give you nothing however, unless you’re willing and prepared to fight for it.
So, if we are at war, how does one become a warrior and begin the fight for your own interests?
Here’s what I’d advise; you must first gather information about the war, then create in yourself the intention to become a warrior, then follow through on your intention by putting yourself through training, and then (and most importantly), get off your ass and join the battle!
INFORMATION. INTENTION. TRAINING. BATTLE.
There are way too many armchair warriors out there, spending all their precious-little free-time watching the news, staring at YouTube videos, reading conspiracy articles on the internet, and hoarding a week’s worth of food; all while doing NOTHING to battle the forces causing this dire situation in the first place!
It’s time you get off the couch and get into the battle. I’ll show you how in the following chapters.
I realize some of you may till be dubious. The reason so many folks are having trouble grasping the new nature of our world today is because it hasn’t changed overnight. There’s been no formal declaration of war. The temperature’s been turned up gradually. It’s taken decades to get to the place we are now. It’s difficult to notice changes taking place over decades.
But to illustrate the fact that we’re in a new world requiring new thinking, let me give you a visual. One glance at this image will show you we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
The chart below shows the M1 money supply that’s been added to our economy over the years. It’s a graph representing the Federal Reserve’s money printing activities from 1960 to 2022.
Do you notice what happened around 2020? The Fed’s money printing took what’s called a “hockey stick” curve upward. Over 3 trillion dollars created from nothing with 6.5 trillion promised to fund projects in coming years.
Does this chart look like “business as usual” to you?
“At the start of 2020, there was just over $4 trillion in circulation. One year later, the number increased to $6.7 trillion dollars. Then the Fed went into overdrive. By October 2021, 10 months later, that number climbed to over $20 trillion dollars in circulation, which is now 80% of all the money we’ve ever printed in our history!”[1]
What this chart really represents is a picture of massive theft. The money created by the Fed isn’t “trickling down” to support you and me. This money is going straight to Wall Street, to Bezos, to Gates and Musk and the politicians they own. It’s being created to feed the military industrial complex and to pay off all the cronies and high-priced sycophants in DC and around the world.
I firmly believe our economy is headed for a 2008-like crash - multiplied by 2 or 3 times. There’s too much greed on Wall Street and too much apathy on Main Street for our system to sustain this level of graft. The many are literally being looted out of existence by the few. And you don’t think we’re at war?
In the last few years, “We, the People” are the very image of the firefighter who got the call that our house is burning but have decided to continue on with our picnic.
The great majority of people are just not comfortable moving into the emergency side of their personality. It’s easier to just passively take whatever life throws at us; doing only as we’re told by our trusted friends on the nightly news.
“Get on the train to the camp, buddy; everybody else is…”
Because of the nature of your average American cow and the nature of those currently in charge of said cows, I believe the near future will play out in a very negative way for you and me.
We’ll take a quick glance at how I see the future unfolding should nothing change, and what you can do to prepare yourself, should you be so inclined.
I’ll give you this warning. You’d best gird your loins before reading.
Are you ready?
You ain’t ready…
LIGHT AT THE END
Gates, Bezos, Musk, Buffett, Zuckerberg…
These familiar names stand astride the top of our great wealth inequality pyramid today.
As of November 2017, the three richest individuals in the U.S. hold as much wealth as the entire bottom half of the U.S. population. It looks like this:
3 = 180,000,000.
Has there ever been a time in history when so few men controlled so much of the power and resources of our nation while those left behind struggle for their next meal?
The answer is yes. Yes, there has been such a time. The names were different; the story was the same.
Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, J.P. Morgan, Carnegie, Getty…
The 1870’s through the early 1900’s was dubbed “The Gilded Age” by Mark Twain. The term “gilded” has to do with the look of gold but not the substance; a fake exterior which serves to cover the rot beneath.
That rot included the horrors of working conditions in the sweat shops that produced such massive wealth for these “Robber Barons”, men who bought political influence, ran monopolies that violently put competition out of business, and stomped out the rights of workers struggling to live day to day in slums and ramshackle tenements.
The Gilded Age inspired a wave of political change, from the first march on Washington to the rise of populist politics. Workers went on strike, formed unions, and violently fought for their futures; often paying with their lives to create a better world for their families.
President Theodore Roosevelt used The Sherman Act to break up monopolies and encourage fair business practices. He signed the Tilman Act, which stated, "All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law".
A new Progressive Political Party pushed for worker’s rights, for decent housing and sanitation reforms. They supported expanding voting rights for women to limit the ability of corporations to buy power through bribes and graft.
Investigative journalists, branded “Muckrakers” exposed the corruption of politicians and the terrible working conditions taking place in urban factories and meatpacking plants, stirring the population to action.
Those years saw a myriad of changes in the rules of economic life as well as new taxes and social spending that gave the great majority of Americans a better life.
Many today are calling our current economy a second Gilded Age. It seems we’ve forgotten the hard-won lessons of the past.
Will today’s melding of colossal corporations with unlimited government power bring our current form of civilization to an end?
That’s up to us. History shows that we can take power back from the Robber Barons and from a government grown fat off corporate kickbacks. We’ll achieve nothing from our couches, however.
Our past generations struggled and bled to create a better future for us, but behind the reforms they fought to create was a common recognition; a revulsion against the privileges of great wealth allied with great power.
The challenge now is to mobilize that kind of moral sentiment to create a new age of compassionate reform that addresses the value of all people, rich and poor alike.
Will we struggle to create a better future, or will we continue to watch Netflix and chill?
There is no fate but what we make…
[1] techstartups.com – “80% of all US dollars in existence were printed in the last 22 months” - Daniel Levi - DECEMBER 18, 2021