You’ve Been Betrayed: “It’s Time To Refuse To Put Up With This Any Longer”

by | Oct 15, 2017 | Headline News | 77 comments

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    This article was originally published by Chris Martenson at PeakProsperity.com

    betrayal-3

    Betrayal!
    By Chris Martenson

    Let me apologize in advance for what may be an upsetting piece of writing for some of you. If you’re in a state of shock or exhaustion from recent events, perhaps you should skip this one.

    I don’t offer this analysis in order to further distress anyone — but until you understand what is happening and how that influences your psychological state, you’ll remain the emotional equivalent of a rag doll shaken to-and-fro by events.

    Such understanding may not bring you to a place of calm acceptance. But it will set you free.

    Betrayal

    The recent acts of violence in the US, especially the horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas, are not arising out of a vacuum. Nor are the Brexit vote, the election of Trump, or the recent Catalonian vote for secession, random unconnected acts.

    These — and future similarly disruptive events sure to come — are all arising out of the fact that we all have been betrayed.

    For the purposes of this article, let’s define betrayal as:

    the sense of being harmed by the intentional actions of a trusted person or institution. The emotional impacts of betrayal may include shock, a sense of loss, grief, damaged self-esteem, humiliation, self-doubt, shame, and anger.

    We’re betrayed every time our trust is violated, in small ways or large. An example of a small betrayal might be hiding a frivolous purchase from your partner when you’ve both agreed to stick to a shared budget. A larger betrayal would be infidelity.

    But betrayals aren’t limited to relationships between individuals. They can be perpetrated across groups, even nations. Like the enormous betrayal of trust committed when the US sent its military into Iraq on the basis of falsified ‘intelligence’.

    No matter the perpetrator, size and scope of a betrayal, the parties involved are only able to heal the damage done if there’s an open and honest dialog where the betrayer admits to their violations and atones openly and honestly. As discussed in much more detail in our excellent podcast with an experienced cognitive therapist, the betrayer must fully atone for their actions, face all consequences, and openly answer every question posed to them by the aggrieved.

    If none of that happens, then then the animosity festers and is never ‘gotten over.’ Time does not heal that wound. It only offers a swampy breeding ground for a swarm of resentments.

    In other words, if you find yourself increasingly distressed or angry (as I am) about the rampant violations of public trust in today’s world, it’s because you’re paying attention. It means you’re not crazy; you’re normal.

    Betrayal Of The Public Trust

    In the US, politicians deservedly enjoy a very low approval rating. Their words so rarely match their actions that it’s a too rare delight to find someone of character and conscience in DC.

    Instead, we regularly see dirt bags like this:

    This congressman is why people hate politics

    Oct 4, 2017

    Washington (CNN)

    Pennsylvania Rep. Tim Murphy has had one hell of a last month.

    In early September, the Republican House member admitted to an extramarital affair with a “personal friend”following the unsealing of divorce records that showed he had been involved in a relationship with Shannon Edwards, a forensic psychologist.

    It got much, much worse on Tuesday when the Post-Gazette reported on a text message exchange between Edwards and Murphy in which she alleges he urged her to have an abortion.

    Murphy’s personal foibles are not the point here. What is the point is that he is someone who has been an outspoken critic of abortion rights in his public life even while apparently being much more willing to consider it when it impacts him personally.

    Murphy was a co-sponsor of legislation –passed in the House on Tuesday night– that would make it illegal for women to abort a baby after the 20-week mark.

    He has a perfect 100% score with National Right to Life, having voted with the organization on five key pieces of legislation, including the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortions Act.” As my former Washington Post colleague Aaron Blake expertly documents, Murphy was also touting his anti-abortion stance even as he was reportedly urging his mistress to seek an abortion.

    (Source)

    A sordid tale indeed. The essence of which is a powerful politician saying one thing but doing another. He loudly espoused strong family values and a staunch right-to-life voting record — all while conducting an extra-marital affair and pressuring his mistress to get an abortion.

    For the constituents who believed in this man, his deeds offer a profound betrayal.

    Tim Murphy represents the credo that the politicians in The Swamp live by: Do as we say, not as we do.

    There are so many examples of prominent politicians and religious leaders saying one thing but doing nearly the exact opposite that one hardly knows how to begin listing them all.

    Heck, even “America’s Dad”, Bill Cosby, has turned out to be a serial rapist.

    All these betrayals have led to a rule I now live by: The more someone proclaims a strong moral position, the more I suspect them of secretly doing the opposite.

    It’s time to refuse to put up with this any longer.

    Institutionally Betrayed

    But the scope of our victimization goes far beyond that conducted by individuals. The very institutions, both public and private, that we rely on are often fleecing us more than serving us.

    The betrayals of the Catholic Church in covering up thousands of sexual assaults and tens of thousands of child victims are absolutely devastating.

    Pharmaceutical companies quietly fund opposition to medical marijuana ballot initiatives because the data shows that the use of safe and effective marijuana seriously cuts into the extremely profitable sales of highly addictive and deadly opiates.

    Car insurance companies rob their most loyal customers by slowly ratcheting up premiums in a scheme called “price optimization” in the industry. (This happened to me because I had not taken the time to shop around recently. I was horrified when I did. I wasn’t as badly screwed as some customers who paying up to 800% more than they should, but it still hurt.)

    Of course hospitals with their captive hostage billing rackets are among the worst of the worst. So are private for-profit prisons, indecipherable 48-page phone bills, and Monsanto ghost writing “research” to obscure the probable cancer causing nature of Round Up while certain EPA staffers looked the other way.

    In short, it’s difficult to have any sort of optimism about any large US corporations at this point. All of them are busy betraying us in ways large and small, every day, ranging from being evasive about the degree to which they snoop into our private affairs, to the ways in which they limit our access to the free flow of information by altering the results of popular online search algorithms.

    In such an environment of pervasive betrayal, it’s difficult to maintain any sense of trust.

    It turns out the best strategy is to trust nobody. Especially not a corporation with a large enough staff to segment their actions into enough ‘silos of deniability’, where no one person feels directly culpable for placing profits over people. “Hey Bill, as an exercise, why don’t you run an analysis that shows how many customers we might lose if we steadily increase their insurance rates, and then I’ll run it by legal and accounting…”

    It’s time to refuse to put up with this any longer.

    Sovereign Betrayal

    The behavior of nations is no better on this front.

    For example, in response to the highly-democratic Catalan referendum for independence, the EU bureaucracy has been busy betraying any commitments it had to protecting and advancing democracy. The EU Commission First Vice President said this:

    STRASBOURG —The Spanish government’s “proportionate use of force” in Catalonia was necessary to uphold the rule of law, the European Commission declared on Wednesday.

    As the European Parliament opened a debate on the Catalonia crisis, Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans sided unequivocally with the Madrid government.

    “None of us want to see violence in our societies,” Timmermans went on. “However it is a duty for any government to uphold the law, and this sometimes does require the proportionate use of force.”

    (Source)

    “Proportionate use of force?”

    Wow. That’s an amazing perversion of language. Most of you have seen the pictures of peaceful people being ruthlessly clubbed by Spanish police — simply because they exercised their right to vote. Here’s a graphic videoof a woman’s fingers being methodically and cruelly broken as she lay on her back barely resisting (only watch it if you have a strong stomach).

    Police broke my fingers one by one and touched my breasts

    A woman dragged out of a polling station in Barcelona by police broke down in tears today as she claimed they had broken her fingers ‘one by one’ and sexually assaulted her while they laughed.

    Marta Torrecillas was filmed being violently removed from a school in the city’s upmarket Eixample area as Catalonia voted for independence yesterday.

    The clip, captured at Paul Claris School, showed her being manhandled as she tried to walk past officers in full body armour on a day when footage of police brutality sparked outrage around the world.

    Her dress was forced up around her thighs – leaving her exposed and humiliated – as she was dragged down towards the exit.She later claimed officers had touched her breasts and broken her fingers ‘deliberately, one by one’.

    (Source)

    Her crime? Thinking she had the right to peacefully cast a vote. For that she was brutally assaulted, as were hundreds of other people. To which the EU VP merely said “it is a duty of any government to uphold the law.”

    Remember, it was the EU that voted to sanction and then bomb Libya because of concerns that Qaddafi was persecuting civilians (despite virtually no evidence this was the case) .

    When your own government protects other people (as a pretext for violent regime change) but persecutes you, it is nothing short of a massive betrayal. Remember, anger, resentment, and humiliation are extremely difficult to ‘get over.’

    It’s time to refuse to put up with this any longer.

    Betrayal By The Elites

    Here in October 2017, the stock and bond markets are in melt-up mode. This is a gigantic theft — a deliberate transfer of wealth to those who already hold financial assets. The 1% is getting richer and richer while everybody without an already-significant pile of financial assets to their name languishes.

    The central banks know exactly what they are doing and why. Stoking a massive boom in financial assets is benefiting their member banks, the ruling classes, the industry titans who fete them at swanky events like Davos, and the rich members of Congress.

    Of course, this unfair wealth transfer is a massive betrayal of everybody who needs to save their hard-earned income for the future.

    The central banks have vastly reduced the purchasing power of newly-earned money, making assets twice (or more) as expensive as they were just five years ago.  Anyone looking to buy a home, invest in a stock, or purchase a car, clearly can see this.

    That’s inflation in every sense of the word. Inflation destroys wealth; it doesn’t grow it.

    Here are a few simple questions to frame things.

    • Would you rather receive 2% on a ten-year bond or 6%?
    • Would you rather get 1 share of a given stock or 2 for the same amount of money?
    • Would you rather get a dividend yield of 1.5% or 3%?

    Obviously, you’d rather get more than less in every case. You’d take two instead of one for the same money whenever you could.

    But the Federal Reserve has decided, using deeply flawed reasoning and no historical perspective, that simply jamming up the value of financial assets for those who already hold them is the best course of action.

    Are you one of those who needs to save up for retirement? Tough luck. The Fed has decided you’re the loser in this story. You’ve been betrayed.

    It’s time to refuse to put up with this any longer.

    Generational Betrayal

    One of the very worst forms of betrayal is that levied against an entire generation.

    Today, we’re saddling young people with poor job prospects, high student debts, impossibly expensive housing stock, and a crumbling national infrastructure. All while asking them to shoulder the costs of the older generations underfunded entitlement and pension programs.

    The statement to young people is clear: “We don’t care about you. We only care about us.”

    It’s reprehensible. But that’s what massive betrayals are.

    To just focus on housing in the US (and let’s be clear, housing is just as bad a situation in London, Stockholm, and a hundred other cities across the globe), the Federal Reserve has made higher home prices a specific policy goal. Its truly idiotic theory was that higher home prices make people feel richer, and that such people will borrow against the equity in their homes to spend more.

    The reason this is idiotic is that a house that costs twice as much isn’t twice as valuable. As the market price goes up, the square footage and amenities remain exactly the same. The only real difference is that your property taxes and insurance costs have climbed, too. So in actuality,  it’s an even larger money drain than before.

    Because assets generate cash flow and liabilities consume cash flow, it’s best to think of your primary residence as a liability and not an asset. But few people do that during a housing bubble like the one we’re in now. Just remember that all gains are speculative — they only matter if you’re able to sell the house and invest the profits elsewhere. Otherwise, your “gains” can easily evaporate with the next market downturn.

    The charts below show the astronomical prices homebuyer are faced with today. Here’s the national price index, which has propelled above it’s previous bubble high (remember: the bubble the triggered the Great Financial Crisis?):

    betrayal-1

    (Source)

    The view from a regional level often looks even more grim. Here’s what homebuyers in Dallas are experiencing:

    betrayal-2

    Ouch!

    Sorry next generation, the boomers driving the Federal Reserve’s policy have decided that you are expendable pawns. To protect their advantage, the older generation has decided to eat its young.

    In other words, you’ve been betrayed.

    It’s time to refuse to put up with this any longer.

    In Part 2: Fighting Back — A Call To Action, we detail the agency that we as individuals have in this story, to throw off the shackles of our victimhood and secure a prosperous future as protected as possible from the clutches of the betrayers. 

    The betrayals will only come more fast and furious from here. This is expected. Dying systems with failing narratives are always messy and become increasingly desperate in their actions.

    Start taking steps to seize your future freedom now.

    Click here to read the report (free executive summary, enrollment required for full access)

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      77 Comments

      1. “We now think of this vast area of devastated slave societies that stretches from Maryland to Brazil as being a part of the “Third World.” It should be more properly seen as one vast social experiment in Black Republicanism inflicted on the region by moralizing White outsiders in Europe and North America.

        Far from being part of the “Third World,” the Caribbean used be the richest region in the Americas and Saint-Domingue was the richest colony in the world – France traded the entirety of Canada to get back little Guadeloupe and Martinique after the Seven Years War.”

        • BADGES are REDCOATS.

          they are the “following orders” type just as before.

          The ELites hide behind their Army.

          remember the “this is an illegal assembly” whenever people protest?

          Civil Asset Forfeiture?

          Stingray and other spying?

          Different 2nd amendment rules?

          • Get out of all debt. Live within your means. Buy your property in full with cash and get off their costly and unreliable grid. Stop feeding the beast and enjoy your freedoms. Carry dauly and pop a cap in whoevers ass if they get in your way or try to harm you.

      2. The storage tanks for gasoline at the gas stations are underground.

        After the hurricane went through they all got flooded out and there was no availability of gasoline.

        All the cars ran dry and sat on the streets. You couldn’t go anywhere regardless of whether you had gas cause the roads were blocked.

        If you had gas cans where would you put them? Put them outside they will be stolen. Put them inside the fumes will build up in the tropical heat.

        How will you bug out without a vehicle? What if your vehicle runs out of gas or you reach an impasse halfway to the BOL? Is your BOL close enough to hike to? Is there cover and concealment in your BOL route?

        What if floodwater gets in your oil gallery? What if the floods swamp your vehicle, fuel runs out of your vehicle and the battery sparks and you got a fire?

        How can you store fuel safely at your house?

        If you have enough fuel to cook with for months on end then are you storing it safely?

        Do you have a fire blanket and extinguisher in date?

        • what if a meteor hits and wipes out all your preps?
          You can’t foresee, plan and be ready for absolutely every possible or impossible disaster. At a minimum, just make sure you have what your family needs to get by. If you have the resources, then add to that the ability to reach out and help your neighbors. Beyond that, be a functional part of your community and be available when needed. that is being a Prepper..not tin hats and mega stocks of bullets..jeez..

          • REPOST:

            Sadly just another nail in the coffin of humanity as we know it. It is death by 1000 cuts. No one will ever be accountable for the thousands of attacks on the people because the people are too ignorant to see it for what it is. You have only seen a tiny bit of what happens to you if you stand up to the masters. They have total control over virtually every aspect of your life. They can and will manufacture whatever false flag event they desire to keep the sheep in the corral. They can shut off your currency, food, medical, employment, and anything else you rely on with ease. All with a patsy to point to. They don’t need agents to take you out they will just drone you. You may get a few of them but in reality you have virtually NO CHANCE and the masses will cheer them on. Humanity is far too addicted to govt. shit to ever rock the boat as it would mean the end of them. The web of deciet and control is so huge it would kill off 90% of people if it were destroyed. Don’t look to vote your way out of it or fight your way out, it is here to stay and the 90% will make sure of it. Like I always say.. Humanity is too stupid and irresponsible to be free, they never have been nor ever will be. They join up and fight to the death to defend the masters will under the guise of patritism (nothing is further from the truth). Just bend over and kiss your asses goodbye and take a few monsters with you..

            • OK “Genious”- are YOU going to be the one that fires the “2nd” shot heard round the world? Didn’t think so.

              • No I will most likely be taken out just like the rest of you. One difference…. they won’t have any fun doing it I guarantee. Are you firing the first shot?

                • I would love to!

        • What has this to do with betrayal?

          • Betrayal, get used to it (if you aren’t already).

      3. We old people didn’t create the Washington D.C. mess that threatens social security, our world reserve currency crisis, the fiscal solvency of our nation, or the inflation that has led to insane home prices. This article looks like many class (age) warfare arguments presented by the Democrats. The damn POLITICIANS ceded control of our currency to the Federal Reserve, which is neither Federal nor a Reserve. The stupid POLITICIANS borrowed (stole) and gave away (provided checks to many that did not originally qualify) social security to the point that it is no longer solvent. It’s easy to blame other citizens (old people) but the real culprits have been irresponsible and corrupt POLITICIANS.

        • I also resent my social security account being called an entitlement . Ive had that taken from me for nearly 50 years . as for pensions , I’ve never worked for the government so I dont have one

          • HEAR HEAR!!
            the notion put forth by the politicians the there is a “lockbox” where your fica payments are stored until you need them, infuriates me. the truth is my payments paid for the eligible seniors in that time. When my time comes, then those who pay in will be supporting me. simple.
            Unless there are enough people paying in to support those who collect, then the system cannot remain solvent. simple.
            So Why do the politicians continue to assist others in opting out of making their payments?
            Well, does anyone remember the “Cloward and Piven strategy”?
            That is exactly how these folks are playing us.

        • “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people, but the silence over that by the good people.” – MLK. We old people ARE just as responsible because we allowed the politicians to become corrupt.

        • the ceiling for contribution needs to be changed to include ALL INCOME. I am taxed over 12% on my entire income as it is below $127k. why do the “rich” get another tax break cause they make more $$$. tax all income equally, fair is fair, right. if the “rich” only contributed the 6% employee contribution, no strain on business, and limit payouts to $50k a year, I think the problem would be solved. the elected scum refuse to acknowledge my demands, and I write them all, with anything but the best political beat around the bush bullshit. they have lied, cheated, scammed and it seems like the bubble is getting ready to pop as some are finally seeing the truth.

        • crainrigger: agree, congress is also bribed by big corp. to vote for leftist agendas which is why voting is utterly useless. The prez no matter who is in, is manipulated to play a role or ends up like JFK. Genius: agree, most Americans dumb as bricks, shallow self indulgent (nihilistic) want to be entertained 24/7, even retirees are unable to grasp the problem, I find few over time who can relate. Look whats happened to Europe w. invaders. I remain a social recluse post retirement eight years. Am sick of trying to inform, gave up on it for those over 35 younger ones I may spend some time dropping simple sentences, giving out websites. It’s all going down the abyss, disasters big time since the solar eclipse Many believe those fires were set by a radical group.Then Vegas.

      4. Unless wealthy and diversified, many need to explore selling everything they own that is not essential, or does not make them $ or save them $. They need to do it while they still can get good prices for their stuff, before everybody begins to in a panic and then nobody can sell anything when all are trying to.

        They need to also downsize their overhead on their own proactive scheduled plan, not when forced into corner later with few remaining options and $. Instead of selling that RV to make a few more payments on a house they’ll eventually lose anyways, they need to think about moving into it sooner and start pocketing those mortgage payments.

        Most won’t seriously consider any of the above, will spend their last $ trying to maintain their lifestyle status quo, and will later regret they’d failed to get ahead of that inevitable downward spiral.

        • Shane: We are selling house after twenty years living in it, renting in a med. size city, this way we are mobile and can leave if necessary. Have been downsizing for sometime, selling, donating stuff that is not needed or considered clutter. I have a friend who decided to also knowing the country is unstable and the left trying to get rid of Trump, etc.

          • Trump is a major part of the problem; mentally imbalanced, congenital liar, crude, crass, cowardly and insecure. Also a Russian operative.

      5. “However it is a duty for any government to uphold the law, and this sometimes does require the proportionate use of force.” – EU official Timmerman. Or wait? Maybe that was Hitler?

        And the generational theft issue? Jefferson wrote about this. Look at all those socialist profs retiring at age 55, after a live full of sabbaticals, summers off, 20 contact hours max a week, ad nauseam. I look at a LOT of my leftist friends and family, all retired, or working part time with some make-work govt job, living on MASSIVE pensions, etc. It is THEFT. One family member, a regular teacher in elementary school, retired at 56 while making $110k per YEAR 0working 9 months a year+sick days+PD days+Christmas and ever other cotton-pickin’ holiday invented, and now gets $7k a month to sit on her derriere for maybe up to a half century. This money has to come from somewhere!

        Sadly, they have they the idiot young leftists voting for their own chains and impoverishment. This follows them getting blacks to vote for being taken back to the plantation with an even WORSE master than Simon Legree ever was. Such is the power of dumbing down the population, co-opting the media, entertainment, and turning the church into some leftwing propaganda organ.

        • It’s the same for public school teachers also. If they teach summer school or any extra time outside the normal school year, they are paid extra. I have a sister that retired almost ten years ago from teaching in elementary school. Did I mention she is two years younger than me? Plenty of money for trips and all the retired good life with her hubby.

          I must work until at least age 70 and hope my 401k grows enough by then. A big difference between us is I’ve mostly been a single parent. My sister and her husband have no offspring. Rewarding as children can be, they are expensive to have.

        • What are you all crying about? Are you crying because someone else is getting money the government stole from you or are you crying because you are not getting money the government stole from someone else?

          All governments are terrorists. They use force and threats to get what they want. Like any other terrorists if you go along with them they are nice guys if you don’t then . . . if don’t know that you are stupid.

          There are two kinds of laws natural and manmade. The manmade laws are either just or unjust, Just laws protect people and their property from criminals. Unjust laws destroy just laws and allow the criminals in government to rob, murder or kidnap people who don’t obey. Governments write unjust laws and say it is legal for them to do what is criminal for everyone else.

          In case you don’t know justice is: getting or giving what has been earned by one’s own action. Unjust is the opposite.

      6. Another pair of examples, massive payments via Medicare for the aged and too to the poorest who receive virtually free care. Ensuring that those least likely to contribute back into the pot in the former group survive longer to reap benefits far beyond what they contributed to in the first place; and in the latter group, to also make darned certain that those most likely to lead lives of want, ignorance and living on the public dole continue while making sure that the voting bloc of persons guaranteed to check off on any and all issues or for those running for office increase the same system of handouts. Meanwhile, those who actually have the pride to work for a living do without adequate care or cannot afford it, are daily castigated or labeled the most vile appellations possible, are steadily decreasing in political voice (or are harassed into guilt, giving up, expected tolerance for being raped by the system…)and ridiculed for standing for principles that give the very freedoms and society that allows for the other groups not willing to seek employment or self-betterment.

      7. Excellent rundown on the ripoffs as basic policy that predatory capitalism has become. That the government sides with this approach spells doom for the majority of citizens presently and looking forward in the near future. Car insurance prices really make me angry. The car insurance offers on the net to lower your cost are a joke, advertising to lower your cost with offers like $29 dollars a month, then giving all your info to get double that price offers. The excuse that Florida and California have the highest auto insurance costs, these ripoffs used to award customers who insured for years with them reductions in cost. I wanted to cancel Progressive because of the ever upward gouging, I called and wanted the coming cost in a months time for renewal. They could not give me a number because of the hurricane they said. Make them progressively higher no doubt. Across the board price hikes for greater profits is the game. I bet I could move to the middle of the desert and still be gouged big time. Add in the other gougers and saving anything becomes impossible. They want it all.

        • Small town in Montana,1400 people, 2 blocks commute to work..15 mph speed the whole way. Maybe go to town once a month..50 miles each way..50 bucks a month for liability on a 21 yr old Honda. No tickets no accidents in 20+years.

          it should be 5 bucks maybe..But last I heard the gov’t can’t force us to buy a product..(ocare) but force car insurance? No fault here, so I should be able to not insure myself if I choose.

          And never use automatic payments for car insurance. They are always changing the price..and if you only put enough money in the bank to cover it and its different, you get overdrafted. I just pay 6 months up front now.

        • aljamo

          “predatory capitalism”

          Those two words individually have meaning but when put together the sum of the parts exceed’s the whole. Capitalism, bless it as it’s the force that allows the cream of ideas to rise and become reality can also sour and inflict vast sickness unless refrigerated (regulated). Those that expound the former while ignoring the realities if the latter are blinded by ideology at the expense of pragmatism. The unregulated capitalist is the best recruiting agent the communists ever had.

          • Kevin2, that’s the best explanation of our system I’ve seen in a while. You nailed it.

      8. Chris;
        Great article. I only have one rebutal.
        The entitlements are way overboard because Govmnt. keeps the borders open to illegals,
        and throwing pallets of money to foreign nations….enemy nations who betray us.Yes.. my social security is a ponzi scheme, but I didn’t make the rules. I try to live by them. We can’t change the rules in the middle of the game….that is cheating. Yes, I feel entitled to what I get in SS, because when our idiot gov. spends $200 for a toilet seat, $150 for a hammer, and sends
        Billions on a pallet to our enemies, pays wefare to illegals, and give them every benefit I had to work 40 years to achieve. And…as a tax paying 7th generation American Citizen, only to realize that I can no longer afford “benefits” because my taxes are more than my income.
        Quit electing lawyers and elect honest people who know how to balance a check book! Yes, we have all been betrayed….for at least….the last 60 years, and then some.

        • Kay123, agreed. It burns me to no end that ‘minorities’ can get anything they want, including the foreigners, and white people get totally ignored. Except for the disability program, white people can’t get a damned thing but we’re still expect to fund it with our tax money.

      9. “You’ve Been Betrayed”

        Welcome to the party Chris Martenson !

        The people of the usa have been betrayed ever since Reagan and the debt skyrocketed and they have been betrayed 15 years before that with the kennedy immigration act.

        elected officials knew beforehand or at least within 5 years that changing the ethnic makeup of the country would change how it voted, but did nothing.
        and you can’t get a mortgage if you have a debt of greater than 43% because the bank is not certain you can afford it, but there is no such effort to ever maintain a debt to income level by the govt.

        the “citizens” of the usa have been played for suckers by it’s govt.

        • The betrayal began in 1913, with Woodrow Wilson signing the Federal Reserve Act, The Balfour Agreement, and a number of other closet deals that would come back to haunt us all. But, he had been told not to sign those deals, because of what they would do, and who would really benefit, but he did it anyway.

          At the end of his life, Wilson made a pathetic attempt of an apology, saying he did’nt realize the damage he had done. Woodrow Wilson opened the gate for the take-down of the United States. Not only did he give the central bankers free reign, he opened the door for the communists.

          The America you knew is gone, not coming back.

      10. The boiled frog is almost done. Time for action was in 1929. But the “greatest generation” just enjoyed the rape and starvation caused by govtards and bankers. Now only nuclear Armageddon can save this country

      11. Time to buy gold and land! Gold to pay the real estate taxes on the land, which should be farmed.

      12. Chris Martenson….another shuck and jiver, looking to capitalize on the misfortunes of others.

        “Enroll now to continue reading…or sign in with your enrolled account.”

        Yeah. Lemme get right on that, Martenson. So how much does the f–king enrollment cost?
        And how much do I need to sock away into my enrollment account before I get my brochure, detailing your plan for saving the planet?
        There’s a massive betrayal going on all right. Enrolling in whatever Martenson is selling isn’t going to help anyone.
        Americans better figure out real soon, if they want their freedom, they’re going to have to bleed and die for it.
        Nobody is going to hand it them on a platter.
        They’re going to have to take it.
        Plain and simple.
        And I didn’t even have to sign up for an enrollment account to figure that out.

      13. Lena, yes we’ve been betrayed but it goes back even further. Start with 1913 the creation of the Federal Reserve and the IRS, income tax, WW1, the international bankers crashing our economy with the Great Depression, FDR and his New Deal aka creation of the welfare state, WW2, Korean War, birth of the civil rights movement, Vietnam War, both Kennedys killed, 1965 immigration law, LBJ and the Great Society aka expansion of the welfare state to minorities. All of that preceded Reagan. We’re headed toward civil war 2 and only a miracle can prevent that.

        • You are right and I am wrong, it does back much further.

          Wilson and FDR really cemented the usa would not last, Ted Kennedy’s immigration act and the unsustainable debt are just some of the final nails(along with obamacare).

          My mistake.

        • sound familiar?—–“……Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

          • Its time, whatever it takes

        • You forgot 1971 money taken off gold standard. Fiat money. And it goes even further back, all the way to Adam and Eve and the snake. Then even further than that with the satanic angels rebellion against God himself and old battles fought by them and the angels of God for good. who know how back the fight between good and bad has been raging? But how it ends is incredible and documented in the bible.

          • Kate, you’re right. I did forget those items. My apologies and I stand corrected.

      14. Lena, it’s OK. You always make some good posts. I was just adding some information that I wasn’t sure if you were aware of it.

      15. This cock sucking Gov’t has screwed the vast majority of us up and down and left and right – it is so wrong and so corrupt and disgusting.

      16. This is nothing new to anyone awake and paying attention

        • Nail,
          That is the problem, no one pays attention.
          The one thing nobody pays attention to is
          the artificial inflation rate the Government
          fosters. That is what this article somewhat
          refers to. Democrats and GOPe love inflation.
          I hate it. With advances in technology most
          all goods should be cheaper, but they are not.
          Food should be cheaper but it isn’t.
          They are testing a completely autonomous farm
          that produces food without any human intervention
          and it works!
          Humans on the farm are only needed for Black Swan events
          and equipment maintenance.

          Government policy is to cause, but
          control inflation. Stuff that should be getting
          cheaper isn’t getting cheaper.
          We need to pay attention, what we purchase, what
          and who we vote for, and the future of our
          grand kids.

      17. What I like about this loser Martenson is how he goes on and on about what is so wrong about everything, then offers a solution if you just pay him, first.

        I am sure that the rich, who have plenty of our stolen money to throw around, know everything there is about what Chris Martenson thinks we should do to fix things.

        What a joke. Snake Oil salesmanship at its finest.

        • Straight to the point, and oh so correct

        • Blame-e, Martenson makes Michael Snyder look good…..NOT!

      18. Excellent article. In San Diego, there are roughly 10K homeless at this time. It is scary to think how many there will be in five or ten years. I really feel for the young people who will have to pick up all this debt, on the pitiful incomes they will be making, and the staggering prices of rents, insurance and medical costs, let alone college costs.

        As still teens when we got married, we were able to buy a brand-new three bedroom house in San Diego for $300 down, and P.I.T.I was only $10 more a month than we were paying in rent. Husband was in a building trade apprenticeship, and until we had babies, I worked at the phone company for about $4 or $5 an hour. I was able to be a stay at home mom after that. We are in our late 70’s now, and have been able to live on our savings, but if/when the bottom falls out, we may have to join those homeless down town, where hepatitis A is an epidemic.

        Many thousands of immigrants have been brought in here, and they are given all sorts of benefits, but if you were born an American, and are young, you are out of luck.

        • Old lady, agreed, but let me add if you were born American regardless of your age you’re out of luck. Especially if you’re white.

      19. Congress members get big pharma drugs delivered by the car full regularly including what’s prescribed to people losing their mental faculties. One of the perks for ignoring their constituents concerns. Call me up in dreamland.

      20. Straight to the point, and oh so correct

      21. Corner a rat and see what happens? The Sampson option?

      22. This story is not even the tip of the iceberg. There’s more than just their grotesque hypocrisy, officialdom actually despises the very citizens who vote for them, they lie to the people continuously, and they earnestly believe all of the public is stupid; they have been bought and paid for. Many live dirty and sordid private lives, but are able to get away with it (regardless of the party they belong to) because most of people in officialdom including many bureaucrats have tawdry and hypocritical lives with many skeletons in their closet; there is an agreement on silence among them. The facts in this article only show they love the wealth, power, and status they accumulate from the office more than honesty, self respect, and personal dignity. Most of them are horrible people, just dreadful.
        Officialdom, gov’t, and TPTB see us as nothing more managed resources to be used as they want, mostly for their benefit. The private corporate powers see us as nothing more than consumer. There is a symbiotic relationship of gov’t and the mega corporations against the people. I keep telling people over and over, don’t vote, live your lives as independent of gov’t as much as you can, don’t buy anything you absolutely don’t need, keep your money. Associate with like-minded people.

        • Never again, they can blow me

      23. You’ve been betrayed? Tell me something I didn’t know. Ounce again Rev. 2:9 3:9 John 8:44. We should be used to it by now. Who are they? O I know some nice ones. Untill you know them better?

        • Who are they? Pillars of society. So respectable.

      24. WT! I don’t join anything! So no one followed the links?

      25. Let’s not forget the perpetual state of war the elites have used to rob us as well. Trillions of OUR wealth thrown to the military industrial complex . We have been at “war” in Afghanistan for 16YEARS. BEFORE THAT IRAQBEFORE THAT VIETNAM AND BEFORE THAT KOREA. Now a new Korean War in the offing. The wealth and treasure siphoned from us to perpetuate these wars are staggering. The blatant betrayal of our Veterans(the ones who survived) is a black stain onour government that can never be erased or forgiven. The VA system with its indifferent shameful treatment of soldiers is perhaps the biggest betrayal of all. I am becoming old, my biggest regret is when the civil war comes I will probably be gone or to old to participate in it. If that day of reckoning ever does come I hope the ones who pacipitated this evil upon us are made to pay with their lives and their evil souls.

      26. this is a great piece about Chris Martenson and I found it over and Boston magazine you know His website make him six figures a yr that’s just one of his many web website websites websites.
        The End is Near Inc.
        Chris Martenson thinks you should turn your house into a bunker, raise some chickens, and stockpile gold in case the economy really implodes. he quit corporate america to live this life, and now thousands of internet followers are buying the message—literally.

        By Pagan Kennedy | Boston Magazine | July 2010
        7111
        Photograph by David Yellen
        PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID YELLEN

        Editor’s Note: Our profile of Chris Martenson from the July issue has generated an unprecedented number of responses. And while we normally take a hands-off approach to reader comments here at Boston, we’ve noticed a few misconceptions amid the feedback that we feel compelled to address, especially as it pertains to the story’s author, Pagan Kennedy. Contrary to what some commenters seem to believe, Kennedy was not responsible for the article’s headlines or the photo illustration that opened the story. Such elements of the story are determined by a team of editors and designers after a writer has completed his or her work. That said, we always welcome feedback, and we encourage readers to share their thoughts on this or any other story we publish.

        That September morning, Chris Martenson happened to be 800 miles from home, in a conference room in Michigan chatting with Big Pharma executives. One moment, he felt perfectly safe in this corporate nest of laptops and coffee cups. And then he heard someone gasp. Or maybe several people gasped. He and his colleagues crowded around a computer monitor. On the screen, a black cloud of jet fuel blotted out Manhattan.

        When Martenson tried to call his wife in New England, the circuits were overloaded and he couldn’t get through. He remembers holding the useless phone and wishing he could tell her to stockpile food and cash. Why, he thought, hadn’t they prepared for something like this?

        Back in Connecticut, Becca Martenson was way ahead of him. When she heard about the terrorist attack, she rushed to the supermarket. “I remember filling up my grocery cart and wondering why nobody else was doing it. I remember thinking, Am I crazy? Am I the only one?”

        Nine years later, as the Martensons tell me this story, Becca says, “That was an early indicator of how we think about things. That was before we’d even started talking about any of this.” By “this” she means how they live now, in Montague, 90 miles west of Boston. Their three-bedroom house has a well and a wood stove; they’ve outfitted it with solar panels and planted an apple orchard. Barred Rock hens bob around in a backyard coop. Somewhere nearby, they’ve stashed their savings, in gold. If America’s economy plummets, they plan to be ready, as their large and growing Internet community well knows.

        Several years ago, Martenson put his worldview into PowerPoint form, called it “The End of Money,” and started showing it to friends in their living rooms. His audiences multiplied quickly once he transformed the slide show into a video tutorial called Crash Course and used it to launch his website, chrismartenson.com. Crash Course isn’t the kind of thing that typically goes viral, but more than 1.5 million people have watched it, apparently as captivated by the message as by the messenger. Martenson, 47, has taken various strains of national pessimism in his own direction, delivering sack-and-ash-cloth predictions about the economy and oil shortages with the polish of a corporate executive and the can-do spirit of a life coach. He encourages followers to trust what they can touch: gold, stores of grain, barrels for conserving rainwater. Neighbors aren’t just the people who live nearby – they’re also potential allies who can save your life. Chickens produce edible dividends.

        His viewers emerge covered in sweat, reborn. Tens of thousands read his blog and participate in the forums on his site. A core group of volunteers, the “Martenson Brigade,” is devoted to spreading the preparedness doctrine to the mainstream by getting their leader booked on shows like Oprah.

        Online, Martenson, who has a Ph.D. in neurotoxicology from Duke and an M.B.A. from Cornell, greets the world in a suit jacket and an open-necked shirt, and

        with the words, “I’m a trained research scientist, and a former Fortune 300 VP. Most importantly, though, I’m a concerned citizen.” There, he at first seems to be just another brainiac, one who illustrates his theories with audio-visual aids of doom. At home in Montague, the man behind the movement dresses not very differently, in khakis and a button-down shirt, like an executive on a long vacation – only this vacation involves mulch, apple saplings, and home-schooling his three children. With his soft face and rimless glasses, he’s the last guy you’d expect to be prepared for a Mad Max future.

        It’s a strange moment in America when the insiders – the very men who rule the world – are building bunkers. Martenson is aware of the paradox. “These are wealthy people who seemingly are in complete control of their lives and destiny,” he says. “But they feel they’re on the outside now.”

        In their old life, the Martensons lived in a 4,000-square-foot house on the waterfront in Mystic, Connecticut. The kids roamed through sea puddles and inhaled wild wind. Chris and Becca chose Mystic because they loved its gleaming inlets, and because they could afford it.

        But in 2003, with the country going to war with Iraq, Martenson felt queasy. His lavish neighborhood – where automatic sprinklers dripped diamonds onto lawns – began to seem like a movie set. At cocktail parties, everyone buzzed about buying condos in Florida. And yet the U.S. had entered a war that would cost billions, even trillions, of dollars. On weekends, Martenson spent hours spelunking through websites as he studied monetary policy and the Federal Reserve. He started to feel as if he could peer through the facades of McMansions to the ugly lurking mortgages. He scrawled “Read this” on economic papers and left them on Becca’s pillow.

        “Chris was really angry,” she says. “He was ranting a lot.” She had no time to read about the Fed. “I was changing diapers and nursing babies. I was full of young children.” But finally, she plowed through the literature and soon felt that she, too, had X-ray vision.

        “I was looking at the wealth around us, starting to understand what that wealth was made of,” she says. “I started thinking, How much do those wealthy neighbors have as debt?”

        This is what Chris Martenson calls their “heavy” period. He compares his state of mind back then to that of a man who had just survived a heart attack. “This is not a dress rehearsal,” he told himself. If they were to live more simply, he realized, he would have to quit his job as vice president of the life sciences division of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a Fortune 500 R&D company headquartered outside Washington, DC (the position paid $250,000 a year, but required him to spend half his week in airports and hotels).

        He’d have to transform all his possessions – the house and the Grady-White Gulfstream 232 boat and the stock portfolio – into a substance he could hold in his hand and deploy in an emergency. “I still remember the first time I bought gold in 2003, and I remember feeling I was doing something wrong,” he says. “Our broker didn’t understand. People sniggered. It turned out to be the best investment of a decade.”

        Martenson bought into gold when it was down, at $300 an ounce: At that point, brokers called such buyers “gold bugs,” clients who warned about the end times and dug holes in their yard. As I write this, gold sits at $1,200 an ounce.

        Yet Martenson found it was lonely to be so out of step. He and Becca longed for fellowship. That’s when he came up with his PowerPoint opus and began showing it in friends’ living rooms, to business groups, and at conferences. “My job was to read the crowd and say, ‘Honey, you’re ranting about the Federal Reserve,’” Becca says.

        Martenson overwhelmed his audiences. “The End of Money” talk involved 10 hours of PowerPoint slides and “was such a brain burner,” she remembers. “Everything we were saying was heretical. It was the middle of the housing boom, and the stock market was doing great.”

        People came because they knew something was wrong with the economy and wanted to understand monetary policy. Some not only didn’t get Martenson’s ideas, but were also incensed by them. After one Rotary Club lecture, Martenson fled to his car to avoid an enraged Realtor.

        Yet his fan base grew, and in 2005 Martenson quit his SAIC job to live the life he preached. “We were imagining…an economic Katrina, something that could sweep through and decapitate the banking system,” he says. To survive, he’d have to swaddle his family in farmland, with hens and fruit trees they could see out the window. “When you imagine the violent breakdown, our best preparation is to get our neighborhood as resilient as possible,” Becca says.

        They searched Google for a crash-proof New England town. First they tried Bernardston, about 100 miles northwest of Boston; the town turned out to be full of older folks who kept to themselves. After a year, they rolled their chicken coop onto a trailer and moved to Montague, population 8,500; it’s the kind of place where grandmothers drive tractors, plumbers have Ph.D.s, and the local café teems with Internet entrepreneurs. They rented their house as they waited for the real estate market to collapse; and when it did, they bought.

        As it turned out, they’d settled just a few streets away from an expert in Internet branding.

        In 2007, Alejandro Levins sat in a Greenfield auditorium with about 80 other people, electrified. Levins is the quintessential Cambridge guy, the son of a feminist poet and a Harvard ecologist, reared among manifestos on pacifism. He enjoyed the kind of anticapitalist childhood that breeds the best entrepreneurs.In the 1990s he cofounded SF Interactive in San Francisco, one of the first marketing agencies to specialize in the Internet. Now he lived in Montague and worked as a strategic-marketing consultant.

        For years, Levins had worried about petroleum shortages, but he’d always pushed aside the fears. Now, under the spell of Martenson’s lecture, he felt a powerful mix of emotions as he considered the prospect of fuel emergencies. “I was scared,” he remembers. Yet at the same time, he sensed the makings of a new American brand, a household name. “It’s the biggest business opportunity in human history,” he remembers thinking as he listened to Martenson talk.

        The way Levins saw it, Martenson had managed to bind together the worldviews of both blue and red states, making the environment and the economy seem like yin and yang, two sides of the same crisis. Instead of arguing about what the government should do or how big it should be, he had imagined a future in which the government was in shambles, useless. By removing government from the picture – and by encouraging people to think about putting on their own oxygen masks first – Martenson had suggested a kind of libertarianism that didn’t seem to be political.

        In the days after the lecture, Levins found himself waking up at night, buzzing with ideas about how Martenson could hone his message. “I’m sensitive to how people learn – that’s what brand is,” he says. “I was looking at his brand and thinking it could be a lot friendlier, a lot more about hope.” By the time the two men met, Levins had devised a flow chart showing the business potential of Martenson’s worldview: Martenson could market himself as a one-man think tank and rent himself out to local governments and financial institutions. Together, Levins and Martenson began the huge job of creating video Web tutorials.

        The following summer, the market started to jitter, and gas prices shot up to more than $4 a gallon. Levins was struggling with his own crisis; his mother, who was seriously ill, needed him. Every other week, he shuttled to Cambridge, driving Route 2 in a haze of worry. He agonized about his mother’s condition and also about the crash that Martenson had convinced him might happen. One day, Levins stepped into a Stop & Shop and found an empty shelf where there should have been rice. He took a photo. Soon, he was storing gasoline in 5-gallon tanks in his backyard, as well as buckets of food. He invested his parents’ money in silver and gold.

        Martenson, meanwhile, began burning through savings as he transformed his lecture for video. In October 2008, just as the market dropped, he posted the 20th, and final, chapter of Crash Course. Viewers flooded the site. Volunteers began translating the videos into Spanish and French. Bandwidth costs spiked. Martenson had made the “reckless” business decision to put the course out for free, but started selling DVDs for 87 cents each. People ordered them by the hundreds.

        The DVD sets now range from $24.99 to $169.99, and Martenson charges $500 an hour for private consultations. By “enrolling” on his website ($30 for a one-month membership; $300 for a year), followers get premium content, including podcasts, newsletters, access to member forums, and the vow of zero advertising. The website now earns enough to support the Martenson family and to employ a part-time staff of four.

        Yet Martenson seems driven solely by an urgent desire to share his ideas. His core message is still available at no charge. Anyone can go online and watch him advise Americans to hunker down and safeguard ourselves and our neighbors. “I deeply care that you get this material,” he tells his viewers.

        And somehow he makes his fans feel like it’s perfectly normal to amass a year’s supply of beans. As one follower puts it: “Chris has this very calming and positive way of telling you the end is near.”

        Martenson’s average client is a type-A male who has watched Crash Course and fears losing his savings in a blink. “They want to know what they can buy” to fix the problem, he says. He tells clients they’ll have to transform their psyches as well as their stock portfolios. In workshops and retreats, he guides them through the “six stages of awareness,” from denial to acceptance. His website now draws, on average, 100,000 unique visitors per month, more than 4,000 of them from Boston.

        One recent Crash Course convert, George Hults, works in the control room at the Pilgrim Nuclear Station in Plymouth. Last August, a general unease sent him roving around the Internet, where he discovered Martenson. Hults should have felt protected from economic Armageddon: When you’re the guy who stops nuclear meltdowns, you can be sure of a steady paycheck. Yet once he immersed himself in Martensonia, he began to worry. Hults would walk into a supermarket and marvel at the rotisserie chickens, trying to imagine how much oil it took to make that piece of food so absurdly convenient. “I don’t see products anymore,” he says. “I see oil.” Studying his own house, Hults thought, “What if oil goes away? Do I have backup systems?” He is now in the process of installing a solar hot-water heater, a gas fireplace, and a wood stove. He has started to grow vegetables.

        It’s not just Martenson and his followers who have embraced the worst-case scenario. Many New Englanders practically vibrate with pessimism and a sudden fascination with eschatology. The Vermont environmentalist and author Bill McKibben has given the planet a new name, Eaarth, to suggest that the climate has changed so profoundly, human beings will have to adapt in order to survive. A revolutionary wing of the Britain-based Transition Towns environmental movement seeks to establish neighborhoods that can withstand hard times ahead; here in Massachusetts, more than 20 groups have sprung up to create

        “post-petroleum” communities. The participants tend to be foodies, recyclers, beekeepers, and composters gripped with a sense that we have to kick the oil addiction soon, or perish.

        A similar sense of urgency has taken hold among well-off boomers who live in SUV country. People in Facebook groups like “Suburban Survivalism” are discussing personal freedom, firearms, primitive wilderness skills. Forget Waco: The word “survivalist” now describes your aunt and uncle in Hingham who’ve just bought a 50-pound bag of millet and are nagging you to turn your IRA into silver coins.

        Even the Martensons’ three kids – Erica, 16; Simon, 12; and Grace, 10 – are converts. Martenson tells me about the time the children received some bank stock as a gift from a family member. When the first dividend checks came in the mail, Martenson explained that each now owned a stake in a bank.

        “What if the bank goes bankrupt?” Erica said. Simon said, “I don’t want paper, I want silver.” Grace said, “I want silver, too.” The kids all switched their investments to precious metals.

        When I ask Martenson about the location of his own stash, he says that it’s in a bank deposit box. It’s clearly a faux pas to ask a man where he keeps his gold.

        Yet he doesn’t mind talking about his faith in the commodity. Gold has been traded for 6,000 years, he says, and “if certain things happen, it becomes much more valuable.” In a global monetary crisis, “the dollar will break or the euro will break. In those scenarios, I don’t know how to preserve wealth except to be out of the game.” Gold could be swapped for useful things, he says.

        Other Americans apparently feel the same way, because the gold market has been soaring, so much so that financier George Soros (who himself has been buying gold) has predicted that it could become the next bubble. Yet you won’t find many, or possibly any, economists who agree that it’s a safe haven, a kind of “battery for wealth,” as the Martensons believe. Gold is simply a commodity that, like anything else, can become wildly overvalued, says Wellesley College economics professor Eric Hilt, who dismisses Martenson’s fears of hyperinflation and scoffs at the idea of stockpiling precious metals: “The current financial crisis, along with the measures taken to bring it under control, have spawned conspiracy theories along with predictions of economic cataclysm.”

        There is also the environmental and human cost of a bullion market: cratered mountainsides, poisoned rivers, and crippled miners in places like Ghana and Chile. According to one watchdog group, the amount of gold in a single wedding ring creates 20 tons of mine waste.

        The next time I stop by the Martensons’ house, a storm has just hit Montague and the electricity is out, a turn of events that almost seems made to order. I find Martenson on his couch, extension cords snaking from his laptop: He’s running on a trickle of power from the solar panels out back. (A few days later, he will blog about what the outage taught him; he sees the blackout as a rehearsal for a much bigger crisis.)

        He has promised to take me on a shooting expedition today, so soon we’re in his faded old Nissan Maxima, cruising through the dappled sunlight of a country road and chatting about firearms. Martenson says that at home he keeps his guns locked away, because of his children and because Massachusetts law requires it. Which means the guns are basically useless when it comes to home protection. “For me guns are sporting,” he says, “not defense.”

        We crunch onto a gravel road and bump along to his gun club, weeds slapping the side of the car. He parks in a sandy wasteland and we walk to one of the firing-range shelters, which smells of gunpowder and creosote.

        As a kid, I learned to shoot BB guns and .22 rifles, but this semiautomatic Glock I’m about to handle feels entirely different. It’s made of plastic, with a smooth and almost oily skin. The blackest thing around, it seems to suck up all the light. Martenson takes me again and again through the protocols of gun safety. As he sees it, with enough preparation, even a semiautomatic weapon can be domesticated.

        Some of his followers may be less concerned with this line of domestication. Many hours later, when I’m in front of my home computer, I can still feel the Glock in my hand and the unnerving power of its kick. Now I want to see what Martenson’s brethren say about firearms. On his website, I click through various forums and a “definitive firearms” thread, which contains more than 2,000 comments, plus instructions for building a home arsenal. “I dread the day that I might need to defend my family and friends with a gun. But, I realize that is a very real possibility,” a member writes in one forum. Another comments that once enough people get desperate, “it might be too late to avoid some blood in the streets.”

        Of course this is where the messenger stands to lose control of the message, to unintentionally feed and even validate the fringe. The true power of Martenson’s worldview will be measured by what the masses do with it.

      27. Coming to the realization of the amount of traitors in our country. I think a good gun lube should be prioritized. Seems WD-40 specialist. Is super good anti corrosion, And easy to find. Spray every 3 mags? 100 rounds? Dry lube rounds? Some say recoil spring life is 2000 rounds? Barrel life 10,000 ? Wondering if copper wash on steel jackets rubes off before end of barrel? Lube barrels often? High pressure moly lube? Copperized anti seize. ? Best high temp.bore lube?

      28. Also the over 3 trillion poured down the NASA blackhole, and for what? Can’t even produce an actual picture of the globe Earth.

      29. The clear question is why Obama allowed this situation to escalate much, much higher when he is not a baby boomer?

        Possible answers:

        Benefits Liberals
        Benefits Minorities
        Promotes Easy Solution Accommodation
        Does not promote middle class
        ___________

        George W was no better with his approach to the country and his illegal war with Iraq.

        Dave

      30. LET IT BE KNOWN.

        DEPLORABLE BRAVE HEART IS THE REASON:

        And other idiots like him.

        I am still lurking and reading the site because of Mac’s impressiveness on increasing the fear bar.

        This is not a post to say that I am back. I am not back. I am here to confirm what anonymous posted on Braveheart’s comments. Anon stated that DBH is the reason why I decided to stop posting on the site. The truth is this. He was the one who made me realize that its time to leave permanently. Braveheart talks a lot and I have been reading his post calling bullshit on the victim, that gun expert that was shot in the hip with .223, and DBH called bullshit saying that no one can run with a shot in the hip. I have news for people who don’t talk to soldiers. I happen to know many of them that were shot, some in the back, chest, and abdomen, hip and other areas that told me that when you get shot, that if its not a spinal cord injury, your adrenal glands purge, and you panic about dying and you always run, and try to get out of the area as fast as you can. So You Mr DBH that called bullshit on that guy who was shot, is full of it. Then I ask, did anyone not notice the vegas victims who were hit, running out with blood all over them? Now one made out eh. You DBH have shit for brains. Your are nothing but hot air, and you seem to constantly comment a lot, everything that gets posted, you jump on here acting like your some kind of expert, you are a total joke of a prepper. Your not in top physical condition, and you know it. Good luck surviving when SHTF strikes. You have a -3% chance of survival just like the rest of us. I have admitted that my survival is questionable when the real event commences, yet I am on here getting attacked when in fact I am not acting like any type of expert and the smart people on here know that I am being honest.

        Its stupid people like you DBH, who make the comments that you do, and then attack me and call BS on me is the real reason for me leaving this site. You are not the main reason, but you are certainly one the main reasons. Entertainment. I am not in the entertainment business. I am not taking sides with anyone but I have to agree with the trolls this time. You have a big fat mouth that is always stinking up the atmosphere with all hat Butt air, and I have see it for what it. And I will no be responding to this thread. I am not back and I will not be posting again, this response is to let other put the idiot DBH’S Ass in his place. You DBH, ain’t no friend of mine. The knife is literally in my back. Everybody is going to find out coming up here soon why I keep warning about the environment. You all are about to see the real end result of this FACT OF LIFE BETWEEN THIS MONTH OF OCTOBER 2017-2025.

        HCKS.

        OBSERVATION IS REALITY

        • Hicks no one really gives a rats ass what you think and do. You come off as a total nut job. Why don’t you leave? Why not shut up about shutting up? And I also know no one gives a rats ass what I think and do but I simply don’t care.

        • Actually, I was kind of hoping I was the reason you left for awhile. Fucking dick. Thanks for deflating my self worth.

          While DBH is annoying with all his BOL talk, I would much rather read what he says than some mentally ill psychopath like yourself. OBSERVATION IS REALITY- like you said! OUR observation is that you are delusional and need help. As a transplant to the Houston area from a 3rd world liberal shit hole- I am ashamed of you being a Texan- if in fact you ARE a Texan.

          Would you PLEASE just leave already instead of “threatening” to leave or some such nonsense. You are a fucking spaz on steroids grade A LUNATIC that makes less sense than a single grain of sand.

          You have not given us ONE shred of evidence about all of the crazy ass shit you spew here. Not ONE. Fuck you and your supposed “tattoo girlfriend and scientist friends” along with all of your stark mad ravings.

          • DMONIC, OK, I finally agree with everyone about HCKS. Actually I had my own suspicions about HCKS for a long time but kept quiet about it. I never accepted most of what he was saying. But when he started trashing a couple of posters I respect I snapped and finally called BS on him. I also don’t care what he does. Everyone is free to look at me any way they want. I’ve had friends and enemies ever since I was a kid. That’s just part of life. So you’re annoyed with some of my posts? Well, sorry about that but I’m continuing to call things like I see them. I don’t expect to earn any respect from any of my attackers if/when I agree with them on something. If they’re still against me, well so be it. I know how to live with that. But for the ones who have always show respect toward me I show respect right back to them in return. It’s the way I was raised. But I’m finally on the same page with everyone about HCKS.

            • Hey, post whatever you want, just don’t be a nutjob like HICKS. My only beef is it seems you throw your “BOL” out there quite alot. But whatever. The rest of what you post is all good. So its all good!

              • DMONIC, OK, I guess I do post about the BOL too much. I’ll cut back on that. You’ve made some good posts yourself in the past. I couldn’t live with myself if I became like HCKS. NOBODY has to worry about that happening. Take care.

        • HCKS, OH BOO HOO HOO! Cry me a f#$%ing river, you f#$%ing fruitcake! So you wanna take me on? You got a long way to drive if you want a piece of my ass. It’s time for mommy to give you your meds and put you back in bed. Goodbye and good riddance, dildo!

      31. Over 3 trillion poured down the NASA blackhole since its inception that is known yet that has not bought an actual picture of globe Earth. All of the satellites in orbit or are they?

      32. How can I be Betrayed? I never expected anything else. The only thing you can do is try to insulate your means of living & lifestyle from outside influence. Try and learn to Know How to be as Self Reliant as possible. Get out of the citys avoid crowds. Don’t worry about what others think and do.

      33. The current research in medicine and nutrition will result in a much longer lifespan with a large population of older people who are healthier but still aged. The increased lifespan from that of the 1930’s will be dwarfed by the size of this one.

        At the same time, more jobs will be taken over by artificial intelligence. Too many retired people for the number of people working. Hostility to the old will skyrocket.

        Shit happens as in SHTF so events can change this. If events don’t change this SSA and Medicare will not be able to handle this. It is coming faster than people realize it.

      34. “Kill’em all. let GOD sort them out”.

        No truer statement.

        • DMONIC, there’s something else we agree on.

          • HAHA! Indeed!

            They have blocked this website at my work now for some reason. Says its considered a “suspicious site”. Dunno what Mac did recently, but it caught my works web filters. thedailysheeple and infowars works- so that’s REALLY strange!

      35. DMONIC, your company blocked this site? CENSORSHIP! Try on a tablet or smartphone, shouldn’t be a problem.

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