Tonto National Forest has gone the way of greed and arrogance. It not only raised its fees, which I admit were low, but they compounded that by terminating acceptance of the National Forests own senior/golden access cards! Combined it's an increase over last year of nearly 270% for the folks like me. For a month it is a jump from $90 a camp site last year to $240!!!... A little steep from where I come from.
Really it's the continuation of the attempt a few years ago by the vendors operating the majority of Forest service campgrounds (because the forest service is too busy NOT logging or mining) to eliminate the cards. I warned then when everyone celebrated the defeat of that attempt that they'd do this... Nobody listened then, I expect few are now...
The consequence of the ruckus raised over that fight a few years ago is that rather than eliminating the passes and their 50% discount... the vendors have all pretty much just doubled the fees.
Of course as a consequence of that, usage falls off steeply, so the vendors also open late in the spring and lock up, public land, early in the fall when there's not enough "traffic" to pay the profit they demand...
Everyone is all riled about the Bundy's fighting the BLM and Forest Service and their abusive management actions... and calling them and all the other ranchers greedy... while the BLM and the Forest Service continue to take actions which push the common man off the land... raising fees. Reducing services. Closing roads.
... Giving the land to private campground management companies at a fraction of proper and market "rental" rates: the campground management companies pay an avg. "rent" of around 4-5% of revenue... the store we had/have in Colorado the "Rent" is around 15-18% of revenue. But the ranchers, who are the ones who did ALL the water development which allows the deer and other critters to even exist there as well, are the bad guys...
and nobody says a damn thing.
Just one demonstration of the callous disregard of a government and it's bureaucrats gone deaf.
Between that and the people I blundered into here I'm pulling out a day early...
Two fellas, that I suppose could be classically labeled "liberals" regaled me with all that's wrong with Corporations and "Rich" people... Now, this is all done standing in front of the $500,000+ motorhome one of them was "camping" in...
"The corporations and those "Rich" people need to pay their proper share of taxes that they've been avoiding..." says one...
"Corporations Never pay tax" I observed. "The people who buy their products Pay The Taxes." they looked at me like this old cowboy was speaking greek...
Then I had an epiphany of sorts.
"uhhhhhhh... Wait! ... What???" says I. His Motorhome (like I said, a rig easily north of $500,000) was standing there with Montana plates on it, as was his Toad...
"Didn't you just tell me when I asked what part of Montana you're from, that you aren't from Montana? That you registered your outfit up there..." wait for it... "TO AVOID THE TAXES???"
The fool just stared at me... buuuuut he did get kinda testy when I asked if he could spell Hypocrite... Yeah... I admit it... My diplomacy, more and more__SUCKS.
Behave and think in ways that I don't approve of. I cannot defend my own Freedom unless I defend yours, and that means defending Your Right to hold attitudes and values I personally find offensive. That includes Racism, Sexism, political beliefs... whatever...
... But... I draw the line when your arrogance, stupidity and bald faced hypocrisy attempts to physically impose your nonsense on me and mine. Keep it just words and your "hands" to yourself and we'll have no issues.
I vow... I feel just like that gopher at chucky cheese must. What do they call it? Whack-a-mole? Every time I stick my head up to look around__WHAP! WHAP! WHAP!
I have come to see that the gnawing of loneliness is superior to__far too many People... or at least it's less nauseating.
I think more and more of the Values held by Crazy Horse...
Sooooo... I'm taking my grumpy, broken, intolerant butt down the road a day early to search out some "healing" somewhere's else!
-Brian
A broken down Ol' Cowboy goin' RV Boondocking ...
...and Yondering, to the beat of a different Biker Cowboy Drummer
Showing posts with label In Defense of Liberty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label In Defense of Liberty. Show all posts
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Sunday, December 20, 2015
Just Me, My Horses and a Bat Shit Crazy Dog...
I've no sliver of an idea what's gonna happen come the spring or what the hell I'm a gonna be doing, so I just keep working here... I just keep on working like spring is some far off time that will never come.
For now... these are my reasons for being...
When every time you step outside they call to you... when they watch every time you are moving around... when they follow you around inside a pen... it touches a rider's soul. Those who know not the soul of a horse can't have any idea what I'm talking about... But those that do live with the spirit of a horse touching their own understand that "Thing" that cannot be put into words.
Lately the work has been going such that I'm sore and weary at the end of day...
The round pen got finished up a few days ago... at least to where it's functional. The ponies were greatly pleased to be able to move around some. They'd been cooped up for too long in their constricted pens...
The pens got moved as soon as the round pen got done. With the ponies being able to move around so much more with the big pen available I figured them to get along better. When I moved their pens I hooked them back together which allowed a bigger pen for Cora... I'd separated the pens so they wouldn't fight through the panels.
I also managed to apply some tweak to the panel CJ had busted up a few weeks back. Got it to where I could actually use it again, which stretches his pen back out a bit... so they've got bigger night pens and with the Round Pen in action they've got work to do each day which TOTALLY changes the atmosphere between my ears! __ and theirs.
The old saying that; There's Nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse is absolute Truth!
That carries over into a lot of other places... You get a lot more done when your vision isn't so dark...
One thing was, that NW corner of the patio I'm currently still working at was discovered to be a mite low... So, I added another course of stones wove in together... The fill to level that up went in today.
Then... the local range cows tore down my hay pen a couple of weeks back. Forced me to load the hay back into the trailer in the dark of night. I was NOT a pleasant cowboy... and it disrupted my "working space" in the back of the trailer... due to the fact that there was more hay so No Room for my work tables.
So... on a sliver thin budget I managed to squeeze out a few wood posts to set deeper and stiffer. Hopefully it'll make a pen good enough to hold those dang cows out... put it over by the new pens location by the round pen as well.
With the hay able to be took out of the trailer again... I got to work at sunset tonight re-establishing my work space in the back of my Lakota LQ...
This time, I did things a lil' different... using the Braiding stand as my writing desk, leaves the bigger table open to allow me to do some leather work and maybe turn out a leather book/journal/album or two...
Sitting there just now in the dark of morning with that lil' heater roastin' me.
Picked up my second try with a Mr. Heater just the other day. The first try ended in a mite of excitement when it kinda literally blew up. Flame was goin' ever'where.
Fairly exciting when it's parked three feet from you!
So now, with this heater I don't hardly run the main furnace at all. I blanket up at night and leave it turned almost off. The batteries in this rig aren't up to the task. They die before the night is done if I leave it turned up.
Come the morning I fire up Mr. Heater... and only start the generator to crank up my Mr. Coffee...
A Bigger Battery bank and a solar system are on the list... but... that's gonna be a bit.
Just had a thought... Why is it always Mr.? How come we can't warm up with a HOT LADY heater? or take a sip from a Sizzling Suzie coffee maker? How come it's always got to be this damned polite MR baloney?
Well, for now, this lil' Mr. Heater has cut my generator run time by 75%. Made no sense to burn propane AND gasoline to keep warm.
A routine around here in the morning is to wander out into the desert with my Mexican Dump truck... and gather rock for the two main projects on my radar.
Those two being that patio that is creeping along, and, some sort of a combination leather studio/writing shed...
I feel like that pile of stone should be a lot bigger. The way my legs were quiverin' pushin' that dumper across the desert filled up with rock the half dozen times it took for that pile...
... it SHOULD be bigger!
... If I can manage it... I've got and idea for maybe a small... as in really small__size of my current living quarters small__ stone cabin. Maybe even a small bathhouse?
Lots of ideas... the problem is... There is Always a problem hangin' somewhere around me; It cranks on me, it really really does, that these damned rats I've been battling can dig their homes out where ever they please. The Hawks flyin' around can build their nests where ever they choose and lord help you if you molest THEM!
The coyotes and cougars bunk where they want... and hunt when they want. The javelina come and go. The quail, the deer... ALL of them without requiring the permission of any others of their kind.
Only MAN requires those around him to PAY for permission to breathe and be alive on this earth.
ONLY MAN requires another man to seek permission to build himself a shelter.
ONLY MAN believes he owns and controls the earth. ONLY MAN.
All the rest just go on about the business of life...
You know what? That's me... I'm just one of those critters.
I don't seek the permissions of human soh-sigh-uh-tee... Humanity has proven that it doesn't deserve the respect I give a rat... I go about my life seeking only a couple of things Gus said;
Just me, my horses and a bat shit crazy dog... Free on the Earth.
- Brian
For now... these are my reasons for being...
 |
| *Cody Jack and Cora* |
When every time you step outside they call to you... when they watch every time you are moving around... when they follow you around inside a pen... it touches a rider's soul. Those who know not the soul of a horse can't have any idea what I'm talking about... But those that do live with the spirit of a horse touching their own understand that "Thing" that cannot be put into words.
Lately the work has been going such that I'm sore and weary at the end of day...
 |
| *Finished Round Pen and relocated the corrals/pens* |
The round pen got finished up a few days ago... at least to where it's functional. The ponies were greatly pleased to be able to move around some. They'd been cooped up for too long in their constricted pens...
The pens got moved as soon as the round pen got done. With the ponies being able to move around so much more with the big pen available I figured them to get along better. When I moved their pens I hooked them back together which allowed a bigger pen for Cora... I'd separated the pens so they wouldn't fight through the panels.
I also managed to apply some tweak to the panel CJ had busted up a few weeks back. Got it to where I could actually use it again, which stretches his pen back out a bit... so they've got bigger night pens and with the Round Pen in action they've got work to do each day which TOTALLY changes the atmosphere between my ears! __ and theirs.
The old saying that; There's Nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse is absolute Truth!
That carries over into a lot of other places... You get a lot more done when your vision isn't so dark...
One thing was, that NW corner of the patio I'm currently still working at was discovered to be a mite low... So, I added another course of stones wove in together... The fill to level that up went in today.
Then... the local range cows tore down my hay pen a couple of weeks back. Forced me to load the hay back into the trailer in the dark of night. I was NOT a pleasant cowboy... and it disrupted my "working space" in the back of the trailer... due to the fact that there was more hay so No Room for my work tables.
So... on a sliver thin budget I managed to squeeze out a few wood posts to set deeper and stiffer. Hopefully it'll make a pen good enough to hold those dang cows out... put it over by the new pens location by the round pen as well.
 |
| *New 'temporary' hay pen started* |
This time, I did things a lil' different... using the Braiding stand as my writing desk, leaves the bigger table open to allow me to do some leather work and maybe turn out a leather book/journal/album or two...
 |
| *Mr. Heater__It Works!* |
Sitting there just now in the dark of morning with that lil' heater roastin' me.
Picked up my second try with a Mr. Heater just the other day. The first try ended in a mite of excitement when it kinda literally blew up. Flame was goin' ever'where.
Fairly exciting when it's parked three feet from you!
So now, with this heater I don't hardly run the main furnace at all. I blanket up at night and leave it turned almost off. The batteries in this rig aren't up to the task. They die before the night is done if I leave it turned up.
Come the morning I fire up Mr. Heater... and only start the generator to crank up my Mr. Coffee...
A Bigger Battery bank and a solar system are on the list... but... that's gonna be a bit.
Just had a thought... Why is it always Mr.? How come we can't warm up with a HOT LADY heater? or take a sip from a Sizzling Suzie coffee maker? How come it's always got to be this damned polite MR baloney?
Well, for now, this lil' Mr. Heater has cut my generator run time by 75%. Made no sense to burn propane AND gasoline to keep warm.
A routine around here in the morning is to wander out into the desert with my Mexican Dump truck... and gather rock for the two main projects on my radar.
I feel like that pile of stone should be a lot bigger. The way my legs were quiverin' pushin' that dumper across the desert filled up with rock the half dozen times it took for that pile...
... it SHOULD be bigger!
... If I can manage it... I've got and idea for maybe a small... as in really small__size of my current living quarters small__ stone cabin. Maybe even a small bathhouse?
Lots of ideas... the problem is... There is Always a problem hangin' somewhere around me; It cranks on me, it really really does, that these damned rats I've been battling can dig their homes out where ever they please. The Hawks flyin' around can build their nests where ever they choose and lord help you if you molest THEM!
The coyotes and cougars bunk where they want... and hunt when they want. The javelina come and go. The quail, the deer... ALL of them without requiring the permission of any others of their kind.
Only MAN requires those around him to PAY for permission to breathe and be alive on this earth.
ONLY MAN requires another man to seek permission to build himself a shelter.
ONLY MAN believes he owns and controls the earth. ONLY MAN.
All the rest just go on about the business of life...
You know what? That's me... I'm just one of those critters.
I don't seek the permissions of human soh-sigh-uh-tee... Humanity has proven that it doesn't deserve the respect I give a rat... I go about my life seeking only a couple of things Gus said;
"There's nuthin' better than riding a fine horse into new country."
and
"My God you just don't get it!__ It ain't dyin' I'm talkin' about... It's LIVIN!"
Just me, my horses and a bat shit crazy dog... Free on the Earth.
- Brian
Thursday, February 26, 2015
The King Just Don't Never Quit...
Like a few before me, I saw the fallacy of the story I've been sold my whole life... and stepped off that "treadmill" some little while ago...
The thing is... sometimes when you're pulling weeds... you get carried away and yank up some of the good flowers in the process. It may take some time... but eventually you come to realize that they're missing... they leave a void inside that gnaws at you.
So... Haven't moved so much this winter. Been pondering that a lot. Where I've been and where I'm goin'.
Came to a decision a while back. I'd recognized that the discomfortable feeling I had was the missing of something that is truly a part of me... Horses, and my leather... and I wanted those things back.
So... the first thing to do was put the bike up for sale... well that worked not at all. Been for sale for more than two months... and not a call... not a looker... not one... never before experienced such a difficulty selling anything... well... except for one dang house...
Then, you'd think Arizona would be a likely spot for such a simple camp... lots of room... right? Well... you'd think wrong. It seems that Arizona has changed a lot in the last thirty years.
The biggest issue is... even if you find a likely spot... a piece of dirt that you believe you could afford... and a nice spot to carve out a decent little camp out on the back side of beyond...
...In a lot of the counties of Arizona there's now a fine that has to be paid... apparently for being alive. Yup, before you can even pay the hundreds of dollars for even the first permit to put in a septic system you have to pay their fine that only gives you permission to apply for any other permits.
Interesting isn't it?
You get tired of having the kings men come by and prod you along because you dared stop on the kings land for too long. And mostly the issue is if you're parked on open ground, nobody is making a profit off of you (Open ground being defined as that land that Nobody Owns) so they kick you down the road hoping you get tripped into being profitable to the King.
Now, to deal with that you start to reconsider buying a piece of dirt so you can shut your engine off for as long as you please without being hassled by some bureaucrat that thinks soh-sigh-uh-tee (The King) owns every bit of the earth and everyone in it.
... Only to find that there's even higher "Fines" to be paid... to simply exist on your own land. Hell, they Fine you now, $3200 just for being. Yup... Thirty two hundred bucks. I call it a fine... they call it an "Impact Fee" or a "Road improvement Fee"... that you have to pay up front before you can do anything. You get Nada for it. It disappears into another government black hole... and only then can you apply for and pay the hundreds of dollars for the permission of the king to put in a septic system... or even a well... nothing happens until the fine is paid.
A few hundred miles south of here they've another name for it... and ever'body here is aghast that such things go on there... Yup, the "Law" in Mexico... in one form or another collects its Mordida before you can do anything...
You call it Impact Fee... I call it Mordida... the reality is the same... Politicians, Bureaucrats, "Law"... be they American, Mexican, Syrian... all of 'em... are filth that pollute the air we breathe.
New day... same old coyote crap...
... The storm came and went. Left some snow up on the high peaks and deep soft mud in the bottom... I get a new windshield today to replace the too badly cracked to continue glass... annnnnd pick up a propane bottle from being revalved... and then I'll move camp again... gotta stay ahead of the kings men...
... I continue hunting for a buyer for my bike... and a place where a poor boy can set up a decent camp... where I can live with my horses again... and carve some leather... and live without the kings thugs.
Brian
The thing is... sometimes when you're pulling weeds... you get carried away and yank up some of the good flowers in the process. It may take some time... but eventually you come to realize that they're missing... they leave a void inside that gnaws at you.
So... Haven't moved so much this winter. Been pondering that a lot. Where I've been and where I'm goin'.
Came to a decision a while back. I'd recognized that the discomfortable feeling I had was the missing of something that is truly a part of me... Horses, and my leather... and I wanted those things back.
So... the first thing to do was put the bike up for sale... well that worked not at all. Been for sale for more than two months... and not a call... not a looker... not one... never before experienced such a difficulty selling anything... well... except for one dang house...
Then, you'd think Arizona would be a likely spot for such a simple camp... lots of room... right? Well... you'd think wrong. It seems that Arizona has changed a lot in the last thirty years.
The biggest issue is... even if you find a likely spot... a piece of dirt that you believe you could afford... and a nice spot to carve out a decent little camp out on the back side of beyond...
...In a lot of the counties of Arizona there's now a fine that has to be paid... apparently for being alive. Yup, before you can even pay the hundreds of dollars for even the first permit to put in a septic system you have to pay their fine that only gives you permission to apply for any other permits.
Interesting isn't it?
You get tired of having the kings men come by and prod you along because you dared stop on the kings land for too long. And mostly the issue is if you're parked on open ground, nobody is making a profit off of you (Open ground being defined as that land that Nobody Owns) so they kick you down the road hoping you get tripped into being profitable to the King.
Now, to deal with that you start to reconsider buying a piece of dirt so you can shut your engine off for as long as you please without being hassled by some bureaucrat that thinks soh-sigh-uh-tee (The King) owns every bit of the earth and everyone in it.
... Only to find that there's even higher "Fines" to be paid... to simply exist on your own land. Hell, they Fine you now, $3200 just for being. Yup... Thirty two hundred bucks. I call it a fine... they call it an "Impact Fee" or a "Road improvement Fee"... that you have to pay up front before you can do anything. You get Nada for it. It disappears into another government black hole... and only then can you apply for and pay the hundreds of dollars for the permission of the king to put in a septic system... or even a well... nothing happens until the fine is paid.
A few hundred miles south of here they've another name for it... and ever'body here is aghast that such things go on there... Yup, the "Law" in Mexico... in one form or another collects its Mordida before you can do anything...
You call it Impact Fee... I call it Mordida... the reality is the same... Politicians, Bureaucrats, "Law"... be they American, Mexican, Syrian... all of 'em... are filth that pollute the air we breathe.
New day... same old coyote crap...
... The storm came and went. Left some snow up on the high peaks and deep soft mud in the bottom... I get a new windshield today to replace the too badly cracked to continue glass... annnnnd pick up a propane bottle from being revalved... and then I'll move camp again... gotta stay ahead of the kings men...
... I continue hunting for a buyer for my bike... and a place where a poor boy can set up a decent camp... where I can live with my horses again... and carve some leather... and live without the kings thugs.
Brian
Sunday, September 7, 2014
A long sit in a funk of confusion playing an assigned "Role" held in place by guilt trips and... Insanity
It's been a while since I stirred the pot. Some might think I do it for that purpose, just to provoke people. I swear... Keep reading... I Vow... there IS a way forward and a light at the end of the tunnel.
The truth is, it's what I need to do for myself; to keep the proper perspective clear in my vision... to blow away the smoky haze the system uses to hone its ability to manipulate the ignorant masses for its benefit.
Its hope is that if you lose your vision in the fog it creates... it will be easier for "it" (the system) to say... "There. There is what you were seeking. That's the direction you were trying to go"... and then, pointing off into the haze, mislead you into the trap of Its agenda.
I look around the world so many years after the latest promised "Change" and the only change I see is ever greater division. Always remember... division benefits ONLY the powers that be. It prohibits the formation of any force strong enough to challenge it.
It is fed by ever greater governmental incompetence painted over with the cover of slick words and hollow something-for-nothing promises... all in an environment of economic stress, racism, nationalism, twisted religious fervor and statistics so twisted, falsified and misinterpreted, that no sense can be be gained from them and no trust placed on them.
The battering comes from countless directions with such rapidity that anyone listening and trying to make some sense of things is quickly beaten into submission by sheer exhaustion from the volume of the endless cacophony.
The economy is failing, the food is poisoned, the air is toxic, the frequencies of your cell phone cause brain cancer, the terrorists are coming, the mexicans are coming, Hillary is COMING!!!
Chicken little raises the volume claiming "the sky is falling", "The poles are melting"... "I need More taxes, More regulations... MORE POWER to Save you from this Crisis!!!"... ALL amidst a contradicting flood of statistics that show the earth cooling for the past two decades and record ice growth the past two years.
To anyone who backs off far enough to take in the "Big Picture"... all the noise and confusion follow an ever clearer pattern. Any time ANYONE coalesces into a "group" of clear thinking, pragmatic people bent on actually accomplishing anything good... they are demonized and vilified unceasingly; Until the lies told about them, so easily disproved, become the accepted truth.
Why? Because anyone coalescing into a group with any significant power... Threatens the "Status Quo" of the powers that be... and THAT will simply not be tolerated. The powers that be run too deep. Their powers to propagandize and punish resistance are too great.
The ability or even the willingness of the people (most often Sheeple) to see the truth and reality of the "Man behind the curtain"... is virtually non-existant. The people want to believe the Lie... because the truth requires them to conquer their fears and commit to a horrendous amount of work.
So.. following their avoidance of that fear and work... their reasoning leads them to enlist in absolute insanity.
Around the world people seem determined to repeat the holocausts of the "War to End All Wars"... and the conflagration of the "Greatest Generation"... The more recent Holocausts of Korea, Vietnam, Ruanda, Bosnia-Herzogovina, Iraq, Afganistan, the list goes on, have failed to keep the lessons of history in clear view.
Gaza, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Iraq are all in flames. Much of Africa is on fire. The virtual civil war in Mexico has been bounced off the front pages. Repeated and accelerating terrorist bombings, compounded by economic distress in China fostered by the economic stress of the rest of the world... is forcing the age old solution of Tyrants. Find a "Threat" Outside of the country... and so you see ever greater "conflict" with China...
Putin is on the march invading sovereign nations with little more than a slap on the wrist. Crimea, Ukraine... others cower in fear . Sure, they were once held by force of arms within the old Soviet Union. But... why do so few understand that you can not impose "Freedom" and "Protection" on Other people by shelling their cities and families into rubble and horror?
Why can no one see that what YOU think is just that... what YOU think.
You Can Not... Impose your beliefs and desires for life on ANYONE... and then speak the words... "I live in pursuit of Freedom"..."I'm here to protect you"... and then blow their world into oblivion. You make a LIE out of the word; FREEDOM.
But then, those that do such things are not and never were proponents of Freedom. They are tyrants hiding their quest for power and subjugation behind the most beautiful thing in Human Existence.
So... what has all this human stupidity got to do with me?
The world is not going to change. If you stand up and try... if you stand up and try to take the power away from those who rule and manipulate you... as soon as you gain their attention... they will crush you...IF... if you play THEIR game, on THEIR field, by THEIR rules.
ah.. there lays the funk and confusion... What can you do?
Ha!... your confusion can nearly be cleared up with one lil' meme... if... you back off, slow down, breathe slow... and THINK about it...
and maybe... the words and ideas of a couple of others...
Don't try to change the world. Change yourself... but only allow that change to be; Moving quietly away from what you are TOLD to be... and be who you are when you look into your soul.
Don't poke the badger... just stop playing on its field. Turn your back on the phony, Hegelian, politics that promise much and deliver little...
Do... pursue your passions and your creativities... reach for the things that feed your soul and put joy in your life. They counter balance the garbage the system tries to demoralize you with. Turn off the "system".
Do... Turn away from the never ending droning of Media that only works to use sorrow and crisis to herd you to the place they want you to be, so they can suck the profit and power out of you. Focus and Use the media to provide you with only those things that benefit you. Only those things that Uplift your spirit... Turn away from that negative, spirit crushing noise I enumerated above...
Do... collect what you need and shun the rest.
Do leave behind those that belittle your dreams and obstruct your efforts. Hang tightly to those who say; Go For it! I've got your back... and then jealously guard theirs.
When you're feeling most beat down... know that your fatigue is deliberately induced as a tool to control you... and from where it comes... know where it comes from so you can turn it off! You are being played with propaganda... go out and use the words of those men in the memes to help hold your focus... while you Create Your Own "Music" to drown out that negative noise...
I leave for the Beet Harvest in a bit over a week... It is the first step in a return to Me. The first step in going back to "not giving a shit what anybody thinks"... except for my own thoughts about "Me"...
The first step in abandoning "dogma" and "other people's thinking"...
My presence and participation on FB will see a sharp decline. My conversations regarding politics, religion, race, nationalism et. al. will nearly vanish. Only those things with direct impact on me, and my efforts at escape and evasion of the dogmatic coercion of soh-sigh-uh-tee will be shared.
I am going "Home"... Maybe my stumbling steps will help somebody else find an easier trail.
Yeah... a long winded sermonizing. But this IS me... so what's new? ;)
Brian
The truth is, it's what I need to do for myself; to keep the proper perspective clear in my vision... to blow away the smoky haze the system uses to hone its ability to manipulate the ignorant masses for its benefit.
Its hope is that if you lose your vision in the fog it creates... it will be easier for "it" (the system) to say... "There. There is what you were seeking. That's the direction you were trying to go"... and then, pointing off into the haze, mislead you into the trap of Its agenda.
I look around the world so many years after the latest promised "Change" and the only change I see is ever greater division. Always remember... division benefits ONLY the powers that be. It prohibits the formation of any force strong enough to challenge it.
It is fed by ever greater governmental incompetence painted over with the cover of slick words and hollow something-for-nothing promises... all in an environment of economic stress, racism, nationalism, twisted religious fervor and statistics so twisted, falsified and misinterpreted, that no sense can be be gained from them and no trust placed on them.
The battering comes from countless directions with such rapidity that anyone listening and trying to make some sense of things is quickly beaten into submission by sheer exhaustion from the volume of the endless cacophony.
The economy is failing, the food is poisoned, the air is toxic, the frequencies of your cell phone cause brain cancer, the terrorists are coming, the mexicans are coming, Hillary is COMING!!!
Chicken little raises the volume claiming "the sky is falling", "The poles are melting"... "I need More taxes, More regulations... MORE POWER to Save you from this Crisis!!!"... ALL amidst a contradicting flood of statistics that show the earth cooling for the past two decades and record ice growth the past two years.
To anyone who backs off far enough to take in the "Big Picture"... all the noise and confusion follow an ever clearer pattern. Any time ANYONE coalesces into a "group" of clear thinking, pragmatic people bent on actually accomplishing anything good... they are demonized and vilified unceasingly; Until the lies told about them, so easily disproved, become the accepted truth.
Why? Because anyone coalescing into a group with any significant power... Threatens the "Status Quo" of the powers that be... and THAT will simply not be tolerated. The powers that be run too deep. Their powers to propagandize and punish resistance are too great.
The ability or even the willingness of the people (most often Sheeple) to see the truth and reality of the "Man behind the curtain"... is virtually non-existant. The people want to believe the Lie... because the truth requires them to conquer their fears and commit to a horrendous amount of work.
So.. following their avoidance of that fear and work... their reasoning leads them to enlist in absolute insanity.
Around the world people seem determined to repeat the holocausts of the "War to End All Wars"... and the conflagration of the "Greatest Generation"... The more recent Holocausts of Korea, Vietnam, Ruanda, Bosnia-Herzogovina, Iraq, Afganistan, the list goes on, have failed to keep the lessons of history in clear view.
Gaza, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Iraq are all in flames. Much of Africa is on fire. The virtual civil war in Mexico has been bounced off the front pages. Repeated and accelerating terrorist bombings, compounded by economic distress in China fostered by the economic stress of the rest of the world... is forcing the age old solution of Tyrants. Find a "Threat" Outside of the country... and so you see ever greater "conflict" with China...
Putin is on the march invading sovereign nations with little more than a slap on the wrist. Crimea, Ukraine... others cower in fear . Sure, they were once held by force of arms within the old Soviet Union. But... why do so few understand that you can not impose "Freedom" and "Protection" on Other people by shelling their cities and families into rubble and horror?
Why can no one see that what YOU think is just that... what YOU think.
You Can Not... Impose your beliefs and desires for life on ANYONE... and then speak the words... "I live in pursuit of Freedom"..."I'm here to protect you"... and then blow their world into oblivion. You make a LIE out of the word; FREEDOM.
But then, those that do such things are not and never were proponents of Freedom. They are tyrants hiding their quest for power and subjugation behind the most beautiful thing in Human Existence.
So... what has all this human stupidity got to do with me?
The world is not going to change. If you stand up and try... if you stand up and try to take the power away from those who rule and manipulate you... as soon as you gain their attention... they will crush you...IF... if you play THEIR game, on THEIR field, by THEIR rules.
ah.. there lays the funk and confusion... What can you do?
Ha!... your confusion can nearly be cleared up with one lil' meme... if... you back off, slow down, breathe slow... and THINK about it...
and maybe... the words and ideas of a couple of others...
Don't try to change the world. Change yourself... but only allow that change to be; Moving quietly away from what you are TOLD to be... and be who you are when you look into your soul.
Don't poke the badger... just stop playing on its field. Turn your back on the phony, Hegelian, politics that promise much and deliver little...
Do... pursue your passions and your creativities... reach for the things that feed your soul and put joy in your life. They counter balance the garbage the system tries to demoralize you with. Turn off the "system".
Do... Turn away from the never ending droning of Media that only works to use sorrow and crisis to herd you to the place they want you to be, so they can suck the profit and power out of you. Focus and Use the media to provide you with only those things that benefit you. Only those things that Uplift your spirit... Turn away from that negative, spirit crushing noise I enumerated above...
Do... collect what you need and shun the rest.
Do leave behind those that belittle your dreams and obstruct your efforts. Hang tightly to those who say; Go For it! I've got your back... and then jealously guard theirs.
When you're feeling most beat down... know that your fatigue is deliberately induced as a tool to control you... and from where it comes... know where it comes from so you can turn it off! You are being played with propaganda... go out and use the words of those men in the memes to help hold your focus... while you Create Your Own "Music" to drown out that negative noise...
I leave for the Beet Harvest in a bit over a week... It is the first step in a return to Me. The first step in going back to "not giving a shit what anybody thinks"... except for my own thoughts about "Me"...
The first step in abandoning "dogma" and "other people's thinking"...
My presence and participation on FB will see a sharp decline. My conversations regarding politics, religion, race, nationalism et. al. will nearly vanish. Only those things with direct impact on me, and my efforts at escape and evasion of the dogmatic coercion of soh-sigh-uh-tee will be shared.
I am going "Home"... Maybe my stumbling steps will help somebody else find an easier trail.
Yeah... a long winded sermonizing. But this IS me... so what's new? ;)
Brian
Thursday, April 17, 2014
A Bit of Truth About Cliven Bundy et. al.
This isn't about cattle or who owns the land. It's not even about Cliven Bundy.
It's about one man acting in ways that says YOU and the "American People" and their corrupt government are losing their power to control one man and his family.
"Free" society doesn't like such disobedience.
The truth is the American experiment is dying... just as surely as the prospect of Freedom is dying in those soviet republics now being reconquered by Putin... with the world drawing line after meaningless line...
That carries the echoes of Chamberlain and Hitler... "Peace in our Time"...
Now we bring that same sort of arrogance home to a small corner of Nevada... and one man standing against corruption, malfeasance and a political order that sees people as cattle... and NOT the free people they like to fantasize themselves as being.
Sure, you can run about and spout your ideas... as long as you stand within the "Free Speech area"... move out of that and you are tased and beaten... You are only permitted to speak your mind in approved ways. Step out of those approved ways and your ideas won't be questioned or debated...
YOU will be personally demonized. YOU will be shouted down and YOU will be crushed under the weight of obedient Sheeple. Your ideas will be buried under the volume of the personal assault... and THAT is the intention.
Let a man like Bundy stand up against your corrupt and cannibalistic masters in D.C. ... and the good little serfs who complain day after day of the actions of those same corrupt parasites will be the FIRST to line up and shout what a vile and selfish person he is... because he's not "Paying his fair share"... Paying to who? Them?
And those saying he was damaging the land? Endangering a freaking tortoise? What do those hypocrites and liars do? They tear out the water tanks and the water lines put in by that "damaging rancher" that made that land even habitable for wildlife...
You know what Jim Bridger and those mountain men found throughout much of the west? NOTHING. That's right. A very great part of Nevada, Utah, Arizona... all across the west was uninhabitable by deer, coyotes, birds... just about anything... because there was NO WATER...
But there is water you say? There are stock ponds and wells...
Who put in that water? The forest service? The BLM? ANY Federal agency? No. It was THE RANCHER. and not with their Fees. They did the work directly (above and beyond the "Fees"). The fees just flow back to D.C. to pay for Congressmen's pensions.
...and then all the people reviling the actions of men like Bundy scream that he's not paying his fair share... because the federal mordida hasn't been paid.
The ranchers did the work. They drilled the wells, dug the ponds and tanks. Ran thousands of miles of water lines so their cattle could utilize the land...
... and WHO or WHAT benefited? The Wildlife that could now ALSO utilize that land... and YOU who had the lowest cost of food of any "developed" society on earth... due to the improvements sweated, bled and PAID FOR by the Ranchers and Farmers who put them in On Their Nickle.
It was the Ranchers... not the sierra club, wilderness society or friends of the earth. It was the Ranchers who have spent their lives nurturing the land with their sweat, their blood and their hearts.
Now, in reward for generations of hard work nurturing and improving the land while running against the federal wind... they are run off it at gunpoint.
You always hear the fabricated claims of overgrazing...and how they do it for generations... except for a tiny, little, ignored fact of physics... Ranchers who overgraze - Don't last. It's a mathematical equation. The land is an unmerciful mistress. If you don't live with it in sustainable ways... She will crush you. The only way a Rancher can remain in business, is to nurture the land with care and wisdom... but care and wisdom is a foreign idea to government.
Government is Only concerned with power and the obedience of the ruled.
When the metal meets the meat... there are only 3% who are going to stand with the likes of Bundy. The rest, the Sheeple, are going to sit quiet (when they aren't bleating obediently to their masters; "There's one! There's one! Get him!) and wait to see which way they are to be herded.
Baaaa Baaaa Baaaaa...
You wonder how the Germans did what they did to as many? You are watching it!
Don't like my language and my ideas... Tough.
Brian
It's about one man acting in ways that says YOU and the "American People" and their corrupt government are losing their power to control one man and his family.
"Free" society doesn't like such disobedience.
The truth is the American experiment is dying... just as surely as the prospect of Freedom is dying in those soviet republics now being reconquered by Putin... with the world drawing line after meaningless line...
That carries the echoes of Chamberlain and Hitler... "Peace in our Time"...
Now we bring that same sort of arrogance home to a small corner of Nevada... and one man standing against corruption, malfeasance and a political order that sees people as cattle... and NOT the free people they like to fantasize themselves as being.
Sure, you can run about and spout your ideas... as long as you stand within the "Free Speech area"... move out of that and you are tased and beaten... You are only permitted to speak your mind in approved ways. Step out of those approved ways and your ideas won't be questioned or debated...
YOU will be personally demonized. YOU will be shouted down and YOU will be crushed under the weight of obedient Sheeple. Your ideas will be buried under the volume of the personal assault... and THAT is the intention.
Let a man like Bundy stand up against your corrupt and cannibalistic masters in D.C. ... and the good little serfs who complain day after day of the actions of those same corrupt parasites will be the FIRST to line up and shout what a vile and selfish person he is... because he's not "Paying his fair share"... Paying to who? Them?
And those saying he was damaging the land? Endangering a freaking tortoise? What do those hypocrites and liars do? They tear out the water tanks and the water lines put in by that "damaging rancher" that made that land even habitable for wildlife...
You know what Jim Bridger and those mountain men found throughout much of the west? NOTHING. That's right. A very great part of Nevada, Utah, Arizona... all across the west was uninhabitable by deer, coyotes, birds... just about anything... because there was NO WATER...
But there is water you say? There are stock ponds and wells...
Who put in that water? The forest service? The BLM? ANY Federal agency? No. It was THE RANCHER. and not with their Fees. They did the work directly (above and beyond the "Fees"). The fees just flow back to D.C. to pay for Congressmen's pensions.
...and then all the people reviling the actions of men like Bundy scream that he's not paying his fair share... because the federal mordida hasn't been paid.
The ranchers did the work. They drilled the wells, dug the ponds and tanks. Ran thousands of miles of water lines so their cattle could utilize the land...
... and WHO or WHAT benefited? The Wildlife that could now ALSO utilize that land... and YOU who had the lowest cost of food of any "developed" society on earth... due to the improvements sweated, bled and PAID FOR by the Ranchers and Farmers who put them in On Their Nickle.
It was the Ranchers... not the sierra club, wilderness society or friends of the earth. It was the Ranchers who have spent their lives nurturing the land with their sweat, their blood and their hearts.
Now, in reward for generations of hard work nurturing and improving the land while running against the federal wind... they are run off it at gunpoint.
You always hear the fabricated claims of overgrazing...and how they do it for generations... except for a tiny, little, ignored fact of physics... Ranchers who overgraze - Don't last. It's a mathematical equation. The land is an unmerciful mistress. If you don't live with it in sustainable ways... She will crush you. The only way a Rancher can remain in business, is to nurture the land with care and wisdom... but care and wisdom is a foreign idea to government.
Government is Only concerned with power and the obedience of the ruled.
When the metal meets the meat... there are only 3% who are going to stand with the likes of Bundy. The rest, the Sheeple, are going to sit quiet (when they aren't bleating obediently to their masters; "There's one! There's one! Get him!) and wait to see which way they are to be herded.
Baaaa Baaaa Baaaaa...
You wonder how the Germans did what they did to as many? You are watching it!
Don't like my language and my ideas... Tough.
Brian
Friday, November 22, 2013
Even on the Prescott National Forest...the Stupidity Follows... IED's? Seriously?
From a camp under a gathering storm I walk...
The clouds gather over my head... and they gather thousands of miles away in the minds of men who scheme over ways to attain my submission and control what is not theirs...
Unlike that brewing in the capitals of man, the storm in my sight is one of beauty and clean power. It feeds the land and refreshes the spirit.
The emptiness of the desert around me is deceptive. For those paying attention, it is filled with life.
How do I know this? ... I simply take a walk down the road from camp, the view above filling my eyes...
Up ahead of me... in the road... Lays an object...
What could that be? Just litter? Someone's trash carelessly discarded? I've already burned a small pile of trash left behind by unthinking "others". People can be such pigs...
Yes, it is trash. At least it is NOW. A more accurate description would be to call it unexploded Ordnance.
That... is the remains of what they call, in Iraq or Afghanistan, an IED...
This particular, crude, soda can version could be commonly referred to as an Ammonium Nitrate "Bomb"... found laying in the middle of a road, where it was detonated, on the Prescott National Forest.
The people that tell me; "It ain't that bad" ... see a world that is different than the one I walk through. "You're such a downer Brian"... They don't hear the rumble of heavy guns in the distance... they claim it's only Thunder...
I can only shake my head and wonder; Do they truly not see? Or are they deliberately closing their eyes, hoping what they DO see is not real and if they ignore it hard enough, it will pass them by?
If you fix the leaky roof seven times... using the same technique and materials... and the leak continues without letup... isn't it time to try something different?
I've heard Matt Damon say some things before that at first blush, set my teeth on edge... but... if I set my "conditioned" thoughts aside... and simply weigh each word...
I wonder if Matt isn't truly on to something
Or at least... The man he quoted... but then... Thoreau wrote pretty much the same... a hundred years before that... didn't he? Matt quotes a speech made by a man... way back in 1970... how much has changed since then? for the better? for the worse?...
ah well... I soak in the desert in this early winter storm... My effort to communicate largely fails. So all I've left is to try to get deeper... try to stay out from under the trees falling in the wind...
Out where the trees are thin
Brian
The clouds gather over my head... and they gather thousands of miles away in the minds of men who scheme over ways to attain my submission and control what is not theirs...
Unlike that brewing in the capitals of man, the storm in my sight is one of beauty and clean power. It feeds the land and refreshes the spirit.
The emptiness of the desert around me is deceptive. For those paying attention, it is filled with life.
Life that you might not want to "live" with... but, if left alone... leaves you alone... and you can simply admire the beauty of its creation.
But even here, in the natural freedom that is so available to all; Where life can be lived according to the rules of take what you need and leave the rest... Where the beauty is mostly unsullied by the "improvements" of geniuses... you can not escape the spreading pollution and quest for power.
...They that can only think; "How can I impose my power and values on others." Those that scheme; "How can ~ I ~ be the baddest Mother in the Valley"... Still come...
Up ahead of me... in the road... Lays an object...
What could that be? Just litter? Someone's trash carelessly discarded? I've already burned a small pile of trash left behind by unthinking "others". People can be such pigs...
Yes, it is trash. At least it is NOW. A more accurate description would be to call it unexploded Ordnance.
That... is the remains of what they call, in Iraq or Afghanistan, an IED...
This particular, crude, soda can version could be commonly referred to as an Ammonium Nitrate "Bomb"... found laying in the middle of a road, where it was detonated, on the Prescott National Forest.
The people that tell me; "It ain't that bad" ... see a world that is different than the one I walk through. "You're such a downer Brian"... They don't hear the rumble of heavy guns in the distance... they claim it's only Thunder...
I can only shake my head and wonder; Do they truly not see? Or are they deliberately closing their eyes, hoping what they DO see is not real and if they ignore it hard enough, it will pass them by?
If you fix the leaky roof seven times... using the same technique and materials... and the leak continues without letup... isn't it time to try something different?
I've heard Matt Damon say some things before that at first blush, set my teeth on edge... but... if I set my "conditioned" thoughts aside... and simply weigh each word...
I wonder if Matt isn't truly on to something
Or at least... The man he quoted... but then... Thoreau wrote pretty much the same... a hundred years before that... didn't he? Matt quotes a speech made by a man... way back in 1970... how much has changed since then? for the better? for the worse?...
ah well... I soak in the desert in this early winter storm... My effort to communicate largely fails. So all I've left is to try to get deeper... try to stay out from under the trees falling in the wind...
Out where the trees are thin
Brian
Sunday, November 10, 2013
He Screams His Battle Cry
Many won't like this... but there is another "inconvenient truth"...
For the Flag? For some imagined tradition?
There are stories told about Veterans and Warriors. These stories are largely untrue.
It is said; They fight for mom and apple pie, to preserve "Our Way of Life". He fights for the Flag, for national honor. It is said that a true warrior fights in defense of the meek and the helpless. That he dies for the oppressed.
Country, Duty, Honor...
The true warrior they say, fights for those who cannot fight for themselves.
Though such claims paint a pretty picture, these things carry little of a warrior's motivation. They are spoken to make those who send their sons and daughters to fight... feel better. They are mostly fable. They are the political deceptions used by those who largely never stood in harms way, to manipulate the honor of a youthful and naive warrior into the service of some political agenda.
What has been said of the Warrior, is an un-truth, spoken by those who are not warriors. However, there ~ IS ~ a fundamental, and for me a more beautiful and inspiring truth.
The true Warrior is one who, gazing about at those cowering around him in fear, pleading for mercy, knows without words... that to be so is repugnant to him.
He rises and with sword held high he strides out in front of the Beast.
With eyes flashing and an indescribable rage burning within... In Defiance of the terror, knowing it means his end... He Screams His Battle Cry.
Know this. He truly fights, not for those cowering behind him. Those lucky souls merely receive the benefits of his Courage.
The Warrior fights for his Own Dignity.
~Brian
For the Flag? For some imagined tradition?
There are stories told about Veterans and Warriors. These stories are largely untrue.
It is said; They fight for mom and apple pie, to preserve "Our Way of Life". He fights for the Flag, for national honor. It is said that a true warrior fights in defense of the meek and the helpless. That he dies for the oppressed.
Country, Duty, Honor...
The true warrior they say, fights for those who cannot fight for themselves.
Though such claims paint a pretty picture, these things carry little of a warrior's motivation. They are spoken to make those who send their sons and daughters to fight... feel better. They are mostly fable. They are the political deceptions used by those who largely never stood in harms way, to manipulate the honor of a youthful and naive warrior into the service of some political agenda.
What has been said of the Warrior, is an un-truth, spoken by those who are not warriors. However, there ~ IS ~ a fundamental, and for me a more beautiful and inspiring truth.
The true Warrior is one who, gazing about at those cowering around him in fear, pleading for mercy, knows without words... that to be so is repugnant to him.
He rises and with sword held high he strides out in front of the Beast.
With eyes flashing and an indescribable rage burning within... In Defiance of the terror, knowing it means his end... He Screams His Battle Cry.
BRING IT! I AM STANDING RIGHT HERE!
Know this. He truly fights, not for those cowering behind him. Those lucky souls merely receive the benefits of his Courage.
The True Warrior fights for himself.
He fights to refuse the Beast an uncontested victory.
He fights because existing in meek and peaceful slavery is abhorrent to his very soul.
The Warrior fights for his Own Dignity.
~Brian
Monday, November 4, 2013
Even Along the Mogollon... I Can Find the Boot...
Knock Knock Knock! "Hello! Fish and Game!"
I look out the window and there stands a fella with one hand pounding on the wall of my rig... the other caressing a pistol butt...
Does a knock on the door from a man with a gun set your teeth on edge too? In a society ruled by the force of law... the law being whatever somebody else decides, in their infinite wisdom, is what you'll do... and having zero to do with what is right, wrong or reasonable... Freedom is a sad facade.
Camped a few hundred yards from a stock tank... the young guy with his bullet proof vest, big gun and an easy smile claimed we were "bothering" the wildlife and preventing them from getting to the water... and we'd have to move on...
I remember those delicate creatures, so fearful of people... bringing their twin fawns three hundred yards inside the ranch fence to chew the flowers out of the pots on our porch steps, while a 180 pound Great Pyranees barked at them from the end of his chain, six feet away.
But, me parked quietly in the trees the same distance from a stock tank... is the great tribulation that will end wildlife in Arizona as we know it.
I guess nobody told these neighbors they were supposed to be traumatized by my presence...
Or the Falcons living on the sky scrapers back east...
I wonder; Will the contamination of human thinking inculcated by Walt Disney and his ilk ever be overcome? or must man plummet into the abyss of his own stupidity first?
We live in a society and a world where Freedom is a curious, obsolete, anachronism... and those promoting it are dangerous and must be marginalized... demonized even...
I expect I'll watch that conflagration from some high spot out on the desert... watching the smoke in the distance... and just shaking my head... history marches on, repeating itself for all those who refuse to learn from it...
So for now, I moved on to another week of work here in Avondale. The NASCAR partiers start moving into their PIR camps in a short while and starting Thursday we'll start hauling their butts on the trams. Till then I've got a few days to work some leather, and scribble some words.
On the Arizona Desert
Brian
I look out the window and there stands a fella with one hand pounding on the wall of my rig... the other caressing a pistol butt...
Does a knock on the door from a man with a gun set your teeth on edge too? In a society ruled by the force of law... the law being whatever somebody else decides, in their infinite wisdom, is what you'll do... and having zero to do with what is right, wrong or reasonable... Freedom is a sad facade.
Camped a few hundred yards from a stock tank... the young guy with his bullet proof vest, big gun and an easy smile claimed we were "bothering" the wildlife and preventing them from getting to the water... and we'd have to move on...
I remember those delicate creatures, so fearful of people... bringing their twin fawns three hundred yards inside the ranch fence to chew the flowers out of the pots on our porch steps, while a 180 pound Great Pyranees barked at them from the end of his chain, six feet away.
But, me parked quietly in the trees the same distance from a stock tank... is the great tribulation that will end wildlife in Arizona as we know it.
I guess nobody told these neighbors they were supposed to be traumatized by my presence...
Or the Falcons living on the sky scrapers back east...
I wonder; Will the contamination of human thinking inculcated by Walt Disney and his ilk ever be overcome? or must man plummet into the abyss of his own stupidity first?
We live in a society and a world where Freedom is a curious, obsolete, anachronism... and those promoting it are dangerous and must be marginalized... demonized even...
I expect I'll watch that conflagration from some high spot out on the desert... watching the smoke in the distance... and just shaking my head... history marches on, repeating itself for all those who refuse to learn from it...
So for now, I moved on to another week of work here in Avondale. The NASCAR partiers start moving into their PIR camps in a short while and starting Thursday we'll start hauling their butts on the trams. Till then I've got a few days to work some leather, and scribble some words.
On the Arizona Desert
Brian
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling!
Been too long since the last rant... and this'un is a lil' disjointed... 12 hour days in a cacophony of noise has my kaleidoscope buzzing!
Hmmmmmmm... It's curious.
The vaunted Federal Gov't came grinding to a halt amid the calls of looming disaster and agony from the highest office in the land... Oh... that's right, he's not especially known for pragmatic statements of reality... Mostly just hysteria and fear mongering.
I got up the next morning expecting to hear sirens and see the smoke of the conflagration of the world around me... all from the absence of that institution...
Buuuut... Hmmmmm... the cars in Montana are still rolling, along with the Beet trucks. The stores still opened their doors at the appointed time, and the time clock still clocked. People continue to go on about their daily chores, and ~ SHOCK!!! ~ They're doing it without Federal assistance!!! A-Freaking-Mazing!!!
Could it Be? Could the Truth and Reality BE... that the Feds need us... but we DON'T NEED THEM???
Personally, though it'd cost me my Army disability pension... I'd kinda like to give it a years trial. No U.S. Federal Government for the next year... see how well it works. The 20% or so increase in take home pay (from lack of Federal Extortion) would be kinda nice. ;) More than make up for the loss of my disability... I'm game...
... of course, somebody needs to go back to D.C. and cut off the paychecks to the Congress and Senate... since those despicable verminous, Demothugs and Republiduds... passed a law to make sure that THEY continue to get THEIR paychecks...buuut then, with no Feds, there's no IRS... so no income to pay the useless suckers! :)
... same kind of deal when they exempted THEMSELVES from the Obamination of Obamacare... You know, the THING that was supposed to save ever'body a whole pile of hard earned cash... and has resulted in the reduction of services AND a two digit increase in Insurance premiums every year since passage? The thing that was So BAD, we couldn't expect THE CONGRESS to endure it!
I'd bet the rest of the world would sure be happy to see the Feds back on a leash... Just think of all the Wars that WON'T get started... The numbers of Drones that WON"T come Screaming out of a clear blue sky at people we Suspect of wrongdoing...
Yup... the world would be a lot more peaceful place... with the Military/Industrial complex Eisenhower warned about fifty years or so ago... Back On A Chain.
No new war in Syria... no new war in Iran. All of which I don't understand... didn't mr. Obama... decry all the wars before him? and say there'd be a change? ... Oh... guess he just meant; "I'll change the wars to a new location..."
Yup... shut the sucker down... and LEAVE it shut down.
It's Time To Sink or Swim Girls
Brian
Hmmmmmmm... It's curious.
The vaunted Federal Gov't came grinding to a halt amid the calls of looming disaster and agony from the highest office in the land... Oh... that's right, he's not especially known for pragmatic statements of reality... Mostly just hysteria and fear mongering.
I got up the next morning expecting to hear sirens and see the smoke of the conflagration of the world around me... all from the absence of that institution...
Buuuut... Hmmmmm... the cars in Montana are still rolling, along with the Beet trucks. The stores still opened their doors at the appointed time, and the time clock still clocked. People continue to go on about their daily chores, and ~ SHOCK!!! ~ They're doing it without Federal assistance!!! A-Freaking-Mazing!!!
Could it Be? Could the Truth and Reality BE... that the Feds need us... but we DON'T NEED THEM???
Personally, though it'd cost me my Army disability pension... I'd kinda like to give it a years trial. No U.S. Federal Government for the next year... see how well it works. The 20% or so increase in take home pay (from lack of Federal Extortion) would be kinda nice. ;) More than make up for the loss of my disability... I'm game...
... of course, somebody needs to go back to D.C. and cut off the paychecks to the Congress and Senate... since those despicable verminous, Demothugs and Republiduds... passed a law to make sure that THEY continue to get THEIR paychecks...buuut then, with no Feds, there's no IRS... so no income to pay the useless suckers! :)
... same kind of deal when they exempted THEMSELVES from the Obamination of Obamacare... You know, the THING that was supposed to save ever'body a whole pile of hard earned cash... and has resulted in the reduction of services AND a two digit increase in Insurance premiums every year since passage? The thing that was So BAD, we couldn't expect THE CONGRESS to endure it!
I'd bet the rest of the world would sure be happy to see the Feds back on a leash... Just think of all the Wars that WON'T get started... The numbers of Drones that WON"T come Screaming out of a clear blue sky at people we Suspect of wrongdoing...
Yup... the world would be a lot more peaceful place... with the Military/Industrial complex Eisenhower warned about fifty years or so ago... Back On A Chain.
No new war in Syria... no new war in Iran. All of which I don't understand... didn't mr. Obama... decry all the wars before him? and say there'd be a change? ... Oh... guess he just meant; "I'll change the wars to a new location..."
Yup... shut the sucker down... and LEAVE it shut down.
It's Time To Sink or Swim Girls
Brian
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
A Montana 9/11
Things have been a flyin' round here for a few days...
Sunday morning this fella stopped by for a visit and roosted straight up above our roof. I hadn't grasped the significance of it at the moment. Just thought what a beautiful creature he is.
Now, it seems a bit appropriate on this day... for his feathers to be a little bit ruffled doesn't it?
On this day, as American Bikers demonstrate their loyalty to the Nation in Washington I can only say to those who revile us; If you Don't want to feel the bite of the Eagle's Talons... Don't preach his destruction...
We will never forget.
For with beauty and serenity and treasure such as this...
...That Eagle will never surrender to bigotry, hatred and pseudo-religious stupidities... He will always soar high above us, reaching for truth, justice, courage and integrity.
He will always aspire to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves.
... those are the Ideals of the Eagle.
Later, below our camp we watched the Osprey...
It struck me how fitting it is that they are both fishermen...
The world is a place of insanity it seems. But, if you stop and look around you see the truth. Good people working hard and doing good things to overcome the stupidity of the pseudo-leadership that humanity has been cursed with since the beginning of time.
Those men and women put the politically co-opted religions aside; they reach down and with true Faith, take the hand of the one who has fallen and lift him up; be he black, white, yellow, red, brown, female, sick, broken, poor, rich, spirit broken or faithless... They DO the right thing.
That is the power of this land. Not our weapons, our constitution or the phony talking heads that populate and contaminate the propaganda media and government. Our Power is, and always has been... the people in the street. People inculcated with a Lust for Freedom.
People grown with a Heritage of reaching for the impossible.
People who accept their faults but Never stop striving to be better.
Those that speak of the demise of the Eagle should take care. Don't watch the useless and irrelevant baboons that populate world government and world leadearship.
Watch the American People. THEY are the True Eagle.
The power in this world is and always has been the man toiling with true Faith and reverence, to care for his family. He hasn't time for your games. He has work to do. As long as he retains hope that he can do his job and care for his children he will stay at that task. If however you and your sorry excuse for "Causes" threaten the safety and welfare of that family; IF you damage his hope for a better future for his children and grandchildren... IF you attempt to impose your twisted philosophies on he and his...
... Beware the wrath of the Eagle.
Toiling Under the Montana Sky
Brian
Sunday morning this fella stopped by for a visit and roosted straight up above our roof. I hadn't grasped the significance of it at the moment. Just thought what a beautiful creature he is.
Now, it seems a bit appropriate on this day... for his feathers to be a little bit ruffled doesn't it?
On this day, as American Bikers demonstrate their loyalty to the Nation in Washington I can only say to those who revile us; If you Don't want to feel the bite of the Eagle's Talons... Don't preach his destruction...
We will never forget.
For with beauty and serenity and treasure such as this...
...That Eagle will never surrender to bigotry, hatred and pseudo-religious stupidities... He will always soar high above us, reaching for truth, justice, courage and integrity.
He will always aspire to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves.
... those are the Ideals of the Eagle.
Later, below our camp we watched the Osprey...
It struck me how fitting it is that they are both fishermen...
The world is a place of insanity it seems. But, if you stop and look around you see the truth. Good people working hard and doing good things to overcome the stupidity of the pseudo-leadership that humanity has been cursed with since the beginning of time.
Those men and women put the politically co-opted religions aside; they reach down and with true Faith, take the hand of the one who has fallen and lift him up; be he black, white, yellow, red, brown, female, sick, broken, poor, rich, spirit broken or faithless... They DO the right thing.
That is the power of this land. Not our weapons, our constitution or the phony talking heads that populate and contaminate the propaganda media and government. Our Power is, and always has been... the people in the street. People inculcated with a Lust for Freedom.
People grown with a Heritage of reaching for the impossible.
People who accept their faults but Never stop striving to be better.
Those that speak of the demise of the Eagle should take care. Don't watch the useless and irrelevant baboons that populate world government and world leadearship.
Watch the American People. THEY are the True Eagle.
The power in this world is and always has been the man toiling with true Faith and reverence, to care for his family. He hasn't time for your games. He has work to do. As long as he retains hope that he can do his job and care for his children he will stay at that task. If however you and your sorry excuse for "Causes" threaten the safety and welfare of that family; IF you damage his hope for a better future for his children and grandchildren... IF you attempt to impose your twisted philosophies on he and his...
... Beware the wrath of the Eagle.
Toiling Under the Montana Sky
Brian
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Opening Day of Fishing Season on the California Lakes
We were a bit confused. We've been seeing fishermen dippin' their lines in just about every pothole and drainage ditch in California for the past month and more. But they've been talkin' for days that this weekend is the "Opening Day" of fishing season.
Heidi finally asked a gal at the Forest Service Visitor center up to Mammoth Lakes; "what's the deal".
I guess it's that those more southern waters are year round but these more Northern Lakes and streams are seasonal.
Well the quiet empty lake ain't so empty any more. There must have been two hundred boats, maybe more plyin' the waters of Lake Crowley in search of trout and whatever else is hiding in these waters yesterday morning.
You couldn't quite Walk across the lake on the boats as one guy boasted... but if you were a good jumper you might could have made it with dry feet. ;)
Dale rode up from Lone Pine and joined us here a few days ago... he's the drifting biker living on his Honda Nighthawk. You think ya'll ain't got enough to live on the road? He's free in the wind on less than $1000 bucks a month... I'm leavin' him a bit of privacy by keepin' his bearded visage un-published. ;)
Sure, he's living pretty austere, but he's figured a way to live that fits him and he had the cajones to reach out and grab it.
In the late morning yesterday he joined us for a partial circuit of the lake in the truck to get a different perspective of things 'round here. The "road" is one lane... if sage nearly scrapin' the doors is indeed a full lane. Here and there you have to slide off the side crunching the brush to let somebody goin' the other way pass by.
They started sneakin' in all around the lake late Thursday. There was even some skyrocket fireworks takin' off from the northern shore! :) By Saturday morning the passions of fishing season were on full display.
There's boats from lil' skiffs to one I saw that might look more likely in the bay at San Diego. There's folks on every accessible beach... and some even on the beaches that can really only be arrived at from the water...
From the other side of the lake you get a nice perspective of this camp we're set up in now as well... It maybe gives a clearer idea of the space a drifting boondocker can enjoy between the Mississippi and Big Sur...
That's our camp, just right of center below that "notch" in the high mountains... from a lil' bit different angle...
... One of the Fish Camps appears below us and you can see our camp... right above, and a touch left of where the snow capped peaks are shining off the lake... still can't see it? :) It does kind of start to makin' a guy feel a lil' bit insignificant to see how small he is in the whole scheme of things.
They had a fishing tournament running last weekend down at Lake Isabella, while we were down at Tuttle Campground in Lone Pine... This weekend the tournament schedule came up here. How'd you like to be one of the people draggin' a fish tagged to net you $10,000 buckeroos if you haul it out of the water! :)
I have to say it... in spite of the "Rap" that California gets 'cause of the politics of a "few" folks down to L.A. and San Diego... the people of eastern and northern California are a tee total different sort. They are no relation to the "Stereotype". Their voices just get drownded out by the weight of the population in the big towns.
The people we've met along the Eastern Sierras and in past trips through the north section of the state from Sacramento north are more akin to Wyoming and Montana natives than the picture that comes to mind when somebody says "California".
It's live and let live and mind your own affairs for the most part... and the country itself is some of the most gorgeous a fella could ever wish for.
That's maybe the best part of traveling into places you've not been in a while, or never been at all. It doesn't take goin' to foreign lands either. Right here at home in the U.S. or even Canada... Prejudices you may have picked up generally can't survive travel. Your eyes get opened by the realities of the world you wander through.
You'll discover that the "News" you hear on the propaganda box is material best applied to your garden to provide plenty of proper fertilizer. Yup... if it's a talking head on the tube... or a politiking Statesman WANNABE... what they're spouting at you is 'bout 1% truth (so they can point at it for credibility) and 99% unadulterated Bull Feces.
The best people to listen to are the handymen in Lone Pine, the carpenters outside of Missoula, the rancher near Sheridan, the fisherman on a boat from Anacortes, the trucker at a rest stop east of Wilcox... The PEOPLE that live each and every day just trying to live their lives...
That's the very BEST part of this life I am now blessed with. I can see what FREEDOM looks like, un-tarnished by the stench of never ending loads of bull feces from wannabe's and their enslaved followers.
~ Pack Your Bags
~ Wander
~ Shake the Dust of Prejudice Off Your Boots
Brian
Heidi finally asked a gal at the Forest Service Visitor center up to Mammoth Lakes; "what's the deal".
I guess it's that those more southern waters are year round but these more Northern Lakes and streams are seasonal.
Well the quiet empty lake ain't so empty any more. There must have been two hundred boats, maybe more plyin' the waters of Lake Crowley in search of trout and whatever else is hiding in these waters yesterday morning.
You couldn't quite Walk across the lake on the boats as one guy boasted... but if you were a good jumper you might could have made it with dry feet. ;)
Dale rode up from Lone Pine and joined us here a few days ago... he's the drifting biker living on his Honda Nighthawk. You think ya'll ain't got enough to live on the road? He's free in the wind on less than $1000 bucks a month... I'm leavin' him a bit of privacy by keepin' his bearded visage un-published. ;)
Sure, he's living pretty austere, but he's figured a way to live that fits him and he had the cajones to reach out and grab it.
In the late morning yesterday he joined us for a partial circuit of the lake in the truck to get a different perspective of things 'round here. The "road" is one lane... if sage nearly scrapin' the doors is indeed a full lane. Here and there you have to slide off the side crunching the brush to let somebody goin' the other way pass by.
 |
| *Lake Crowley, California and the Sierras* |
They started sneakin' in all around the lake late Thursday. There was even some skyrocket fireworks takin' off from the northern shore! :) By Saturday morning the passions of fishing season were on full display.
There's boats from lil' skiffs to one I saw that might look more likely in the bay at San Diego. There's folks on every accessible beach... and some even on the beaches that can really only be arrived at from the water...
From the other side of the lake you get a nice perspective of this camp we're set up in now as well... It maybe gives a clearer idea of the space a drifting boondocker can enjoy between the Mississippi and Big Sur...
That's our camp, just right of center below that "notch" in the high mountains... from a lil' bit different angle...
... One of the Fish Camps appears below us and you can see our camp... right above, and a touch left of where the snow capped peaks are shining off the lake... still can't see it? :) It does kind of start to makin' a guy feel a lil' bit insignificant to see how small he is in the whole scheme of things.
They had a fishing tournament running last weekend down at Lake Isabella, while we were down at Tuttle Campground in Lone Pine... This weekend the tournament schedule came up here. How'd you like to be one of the people draggin' a fish tagged to net you $10,000 buckeroos if you haul it out of the water! :)
I have to say it... in spite of the "Rap" that California gets 'cause of the politics of a "few" folks down to L.A. and San Diego... the people of eastern and northern California are a tee total different sort. They are no relation to the "Stereotype". Their voices just get drownded out by the weight of the population in the big towns.
The people we've met along the Eastern Sierras and in past trips through the north section of the state from Sacramento north are more akin to Wyoming and Montana natives than the picture that comes to mind when somebody says "California".
It's live and let live and mind your own affairs for the most part... and the country itself is some of the most gorgeous a fella could ever wish for.
 |
| *Road down to the Lake Crowley Dam in California* |
That's maybe the best part of traveling into places you've not been in a while, or never been at all. It doesn't take goin' to foreign lands either. Right here at home in the U.S. or even Canada... Prejudices you may have picked up generally can't survive travel. Your eyes get opened by the realities of the world you wander through.
You'll discover that the "News" you hear on the propaganda box is material best applied to your garden to provide plenty of proper fertilizer. Yup... if it's a talking head on the tube... or a politiking Statesman WANNABE... what they're spouting at you is 'bout 1% truth (so they can point at it for credibility) and 99% unadulterated Bull Feces.
The best people to listen to are the handymen in Lone Pine, the carpenters outside of Missoula, the rancher near Sheridan, the fisherman on a boat from Anacortes, the trucker at a rest stop east of Wilcox... The PEOPLE that live each and every day just trying to live their lives...
That's the very BEST part of this life I am now blessed with. I can see what FREEDOM looks like, un-tarnished by the stench of never ending loads of bull feces from wannabe's and their enslaved followers.
~ Pack Your Bags
~ Wander
~ Shake the Dust of Prejudice Off Your Boots
Brian
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
71 Years Ago... Attacked From Without... America Was Betrayed... From Within.
Some will be offended by this post... and by my anger. That I can not help. Through the years our Heritage has been to Claim ourselves to be "The Guiding Light of Freedom". For that reason...
~ I hold America to a Higher Standard ~
In the desert of California is a place. An empty piece of dirt... Where Oaths were betrayed and hearts were broken.
Like most others, I had let it go and did not educate my self. It was another time. It wasn't my responsibility. It wasn't relevant... I was a blind fool.
In 1942, Roosevelt, the 4th Army and a sizable part of the vaunted "Greatest Generation" Betrayed America ... at a Place called Manzanar.
Let me tell you about Hero's. They are all flawed. All of them... Give them the Honor they are due... but... don't hold them up as infallible saints; They are men. Listen to them... but learn and see the Truth for yourself.
Many of the men of that Greatest Generation did do great and honorable things... My step father was a decorated and courageous bearer of the Purple Heart. But he too was flawed.
There were others however whose faults ran deeper than mere human weakness. They stained the memory and heritage of the True Heroes with deliberate DIS-Honor. What is worse, average Americans SAW it happening, and let it. They didn't stop it. That is our greatest Shame.
The cowardly, despicable, and immoral actions of those days Must NEVER be forgotten. They must Never be repeated.
Imagine this happens to you; Your family is given a week to dispose of or put into storage, all of your possessions. Your stores, your shops, your homes are boarded up. Your job and your livelihood are gone. Most of your possessions end up forfeit.
You are ordered to assemble at a location to be "Processed" and "relocated". Your family is tagged with a number and herded onto buses by men with Bayoneted Rifles. Your world has devolved to just your family and what you could carry.
The buses drive out into the California Desert. When you arrive and disembark the first thing you see are the eight gun towers outside the Barbed wire fence. Their guns point inward. They are not there to protect you... but to ensure your imprisonment.
Your family, you, your wife or your husband and your four children are assigned an "apartment". A 20'x25' room in a board and tar paper shack. Latrines are many yards away across the desert sand... whether it be 100 degrees... or ten.
If you are a couple without children you are assigned to a 20'x25' identical room, in a board and tar paper shack... with Three Other Couples. No dividers. No separation. No privacy.
**Only signs remain today of the ugliness inflicted on American citizens... and a few reconstructions... to show the cruelty and hardship.**
If you resisted? There are eight gun towers and many Military Police to deal with that... it happened... and men died.
It can't happen here you say? This is America!
This is NOT the fantasy of some right wing lunatics rant. This DID Happen.
This is WHAT WAS DONE TO AMERICAN CITIZENS. In the Name of Defending FREEDOM.
This, IS our History.
~~~~
110,000 American Citizens (some legal residents for Decades, yet prohibited by racist law from obtaining citizenship) were rounded up, given a number and herded onto buses and trains to be transported to American Concentration Camps...
 |
| *The Numbered Tags... and Family Stories of the Numbered* |
American FAMILIES Imprisoned not for a violation of morality or law...
Imprisoned Not because of any blasphemy, sedition or act...
IMPRISONED, their Liberty TAKEN. NO accusation, NO trial, NO Conviction...
Their Freedom gone, due only... To Being Born.
The first of the camps to be constructed... was Manzanar.
In all, ten American Concentration camps were erected.
~ Manzanar War Relocation Center ~
It reminds me of other signs I've seen...
| *Auschwitz* |
~ The American Concentration Camps ~
California
Manzanar and Tule Lake
Idaho
Minidoka
Wyoming
Heart Mountain
Utah
Topaz
Colorado
Granada
Arizona
Poston and Gila
Arkansas
Rohwer and Jerome
I choke and have difficulty speaking, tears run down my face at the thought. What soldier could tolerate this despicable insult? What soldier could abide the betrayal of the very same Liberty he was watching his friends die to preserve? What soldier forgot the oath he took - and held a bayonet to American Citizens?
In 1944 in ever greater perversion, the willingness of people; both those standing in front of and those held BEHIND barbed wire and Gun Towers, to accept the unacceptable was tested. The threads of credibility and honor were twisted to their breaking point, when attempt was made to Draft those incarcerated for their imagined disloyalty, and DEMAND that they serve in the Military to DEFEND THEIR LIBERTY.
Innocent men, imprisoned without cause... were ordered to serve to Defend their Liberty!
Refusal was taken as proof of their disloyalty. The sick arrogance of that stuns me. How can you demand that a man, illegally imprisoned with his family, defend his Non-Existing Liberty, while his family remains imprisoned behind barbed wire, threatened by American Guns?
I Honor those who refused.
 |
| *Drafted... While their Families knew THIS* |
 |
| *A Judge or Two possessed Honor* |
A few resisted this final insult and were convicted. They received, in 1947, Pardons. How great is the insult to be Pardoned for a crime you did not even conceive of committing? Pardons for their being convicted of Defending The Constitution they were being drafted to defend are to me the final insult in this cowardly saga.
What perversion of language and morality can justify this sin against our heritage?
What payment to its victims can ever wash away the memory of the pain, the anguish and the betrayal of what was done in the name of Defending Liberty.
The ghosts of the betrayed call out for remembrance. "Never Again!"
I walked through this sad place and choked on the sadness that echoes across the land carried by the desert breeze. I vow, I could feel and hear and taste the sorrow and hopelessness that must have been a crushing burden to those incarcerated here. It broke my heart.
Their ghosts cry out for us to pay heed and stop it from coming... Yet it does come Again! The bitter lessons and failures of our past scream out at the betrayals of the present; "LOOK! Can you not SEE?". Betrayals born of unconquered fear. Betrayals born of Cowardice.
Have American Citizens been taken from the street? Carried to Guantanamo and held for years? Held without even specified accusation? without indictment? without trial? without DUE PROCESS? The answer is YES.
In their unbridled cowardice are states passing laws authorizing the seizure of "property" without due process? A clear violation of the 4th and 14th amendments? The answer is YES.
Have Americans been specifically targeted for assassination by Drone? Without the DUE PROCESS REQUIRED by the 4th and 14th Amendments to the Very FOUNDATION of our Law and our Society? The answer is YES... one of the murdered, a 14 year old boy.
Can you honestly try and convince me that one, lone, Orphaned, 14 year old boy, lost in Africa could truly be of any viable threat to the survival of a Nation of 330 million? So dire a threat that he must be secretly assassinated by missile? Are we truly that Weak and cowardly?
It comes again because we deliberately close our eyes in cowardice and look the other way. "It's not me. It's none of my business. The authorities know what they are doing. I have to trust them."
It was never said more eloquently;
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.
~ Martin Niemöller
THAT deliberate, cowardly ignorance is how the names of Dachau, Treblinka, Sobi Bor, Munchausen, and others have come to represent the depravity of mankind.
The residents surrounding those man made pits of hell knew what was happening there. Ignorance was an impossibility. They turned away and let it happen. They were conditioned to acquiesce to "Authority".
The difference between The American Concentration Camps and those of The Germans can only be measured by the degree of cruelty. The motivation was and remains the same; The stupidity and cowardice of racism and intolerance.
When you listen to the current "Authorities" or others spout their propaganda against this or that fringe group or minority, measure it against the lying propaganda that deprived American Citizens of their rights and property in 1942... That brutalized their children with gun towers and barbed wire.
That threatened their very lives if they resisted strongly enough. More than one WAS shot.
It happened before then... it has happened since... it will happen again... BECAUSE WE ALLOW IT TO.
If we don't raise up our voices and our Lives against it we are shown to be cowards... Our Liberty becomes only a Facade, and we are unworthy of the Reality of it.
They say; History Repeats Itself
|
| Gun Towers ~ Coming to a town near you? |
The lessons of Manzanar can be applied to the foolish and cowardly choices and decisions that have been made and tolerated since and as a consequence of 9/ll.
The lessons of Manzanar can be applied to the hysteria and racism that are the consequence of the battle and debate over illegal immigration.
The lessons of Manzanar can be applied to the hysteria and fear that is all wrapped up in the debate and vitriol over the issue of Gay Rights.
How many Americans are different than the residents who lived around Dachau? or Treblinka? or the others? How many would rise up if Mexican Americans were preciptitously ordered to "Assemble" for "relocation"? Manzanar IS relevant today!
How many would stand in defense if "Gay" citizens were ordered separated from our society in some way?
You're not Mexican right? You're not gay! None of your business! The authorities know what they're doing. They "Promised" to do the right thing right?
How many promises have you ever known any elected gov't official to keep? Let's not even start with the unelected bureaucrats that are the true rulers!
Manzanar was a betrayal of everything this country claims to be. It was a heart breaking horror 71 years ago that insulted the sacrifice of millions of soldiers who thought they were fighting, and dying for Freedom...
Its Memory is Brilliantly Relevant and applicable Today.
It takes courage and integrity to live in True Freedom and Liberty.
It takes more than waving a flag and pounding your chests on Memorial day and the Fourth of July.
It takes the guts to risk all for Honor and Dignity.
It takes the willingness to risk life itself, rather than betray a promise or an oath.
If we lack that willingness, we have already surrendered what we claim to hold dear.
If you willfully ignore the lessons taught to us by the proud, courageous and noble American citizens incarcerated in those despicable camps; If you ignore the voices of those Americans who in disbelief and with shattered hope; absorbed their abuse and betrayal with dignity and Honor... You condemn other Americans to the same sorrow... and America... to the ultimate destruction of that which set her apart.
To stand in the center of this camp... where 10,000 souls were held behind barbed wire... and imagine what it would be like to look up and see those glorious mountains... so close you could almost touch them... and know it would mean my life if I tried... It breaks an old soldiers heart :'(
 |
| *Our Wall of Shame ~ The Names of the Betrayed Americans* |
 |
| *The ghostly foundation of a Mess Hall... can you hear their voices?* |
 |
| *Ignore History... and it WILL repeat itself* |
Please... don't be blinded by propaganda, racism and stupidity. Open your eyes to possibility and Hope. Do not turn away in shame and embarrassment from History. Hold it close and learn from it.
Travel here. Learn the truth for yourselves. Honor their Sacrifice and Suffering.
Use the Lessons of History to prevent the repetition of such a Betrayal of our Heritage.
~ Brian
**Editorial Note***
Grateful to a sharp eyed reader I returned to correct an omission that slipped past me.
Many members of those I've been calling the Betrayed People enlisted or were drafted and assigned to the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. It has widely been heralded as the most highly decorated unit of the United States Army. It also took by significant proportion the highest level of casualties for a unit of its size.
The point is, in defiance of the misery heaped upon their families, in spite of the fact that their families were held behind wire... the men of this Courageous Unit went, they fought and they died... for the Freedom of which they and their families were deprived. THEY were truly the point of the spear of the Greatest Generation. They upheld the heritage and traditions, with sheer guts and integrity, that others dishonored. They carry into the future the Honor, Respect and Pride they earned.
They are men I consider exemplary American Citizens.
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