Lumberjack Time

The best kind of work

I should have known that replacing the fuel line would not be the only thing wrong with the chainsaw I purchased. After thirty minutes of trying to start the damn thing I gave up and grabbed an ax. I was not going to let the daylight I had left pass by without getting something done.

Over the past few weeks, I had spotted fallen trees and limbs that needed to be cleaned up. The cabin that doubles as my writing studio will need fire wood for the winter months if I expect to use it at all. I used a chisel to sharpen the blade and went to work. the first handful of trees I chopped up were by the house and the logs needed to be hauled back to the cabin. After a few trips with the wagon I took the ax towards the back of the property with me and went to work back there. I was surprised what I accomplished in two hours. Some of the trees were so old and dry they split in one swing. The loud crack of the trunk snapping in two told me my work was done. The stack grew and as three o’clock came around I felt one of the blisters on my hand open and my oldest daughter ran up the trail to see me. I could have continued working but there were other things to do.

Not having the chainsaw set me back with what I wanted to have done. I will say that cutting the wood with my bare hands was a work out that I needed. I forgot what it felt like to exert such power and strength in quick burst. That evening my shoulders were sore, in a good way. I knew my hands would hurt after they cramped up a dozen times or so while swinging the ax. In 40-degree weather all I needed was a long sleeve shirt and an insolated vest. The sun was shining and I could tell this was going to be the last nice day I would get to enjoy. Winter has been showing its ugly head around here and soon there will be no desire to go outside. Around here there are two kinds of trees. Pines and birch make up the landscape with a few others that try to poke their heads around here and there but they are hard to notice and most of them appear to be dead. Pine trees with do that to their neighbors, the needles turning the soil acidic making it difficult for other breads to flourish. The birch trees are rich in Chaga, a fungus that is sought after in Russia and japan. Hippies and the bohemian crowd try to find it for its healing properties. The Indians referred to it as tinder fungus, using it to start fires instead of a hot beverage.

The thorny brush out by the cabin provides black berries for the quail that live here. I’m not sure what the deer are grazing on but they come for the pond, a local watering hole. The bats keep the mosquito population low enough that you barely see them. There is a balance here and to disrupt it could create huge changes. The hornets need a predator, bird houses will go up. The bats need to stay out of the house. Bat houses will be put in trees. I have to believe that there is a way to keep the balance and find some harmony on the land.

I watched a red-tailed hawk soaring in the sky today. It dove down into the tall grass; it wings changing directions at the last minute like an emergency parachute as its talons dug into the rabbit it had caught. The hawk rocked back and forth trying to keep its prey. A minute later it rose into the sky, rabbit in tow, and hovered above the ground until it released the hare to fall to its doom. Cars pass by oblivious to this. I watch as nature continues to do its thing regardless of what man has done. We paved roads, put up power lines, cut down trees to grow grass, build large boxes to live in and yet nature continues to do what it does best. To be a farmer here is to prosper from allowing nature to do its best in your favor.

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And I’m checking out….

Two stories today caught my eye and I was afraid to see where they were coming from. The one thing that had people scared and unwilling to openly say who they supported in the last election appears to be the same thing they are supporting now, cancel culture. Black Rifle Coffee company is under fire for not supporting Kyle Rittenhouse, the young man who shot three people, killing two during a riot. As a company, made up of many employees and owners, they decided not to speak for everyone and said Black Rifle Coffee company does not support Kyle Rittenhouse. As a company they did the right thing. Knowing how these guys operate and their philosophy on business and life it would not surprise me if they came out as individuals and said they supported Kyle. Why the right thinks they need to do it as one entity I don’t understand. After all, they are a private business and they can do whatever they want. Isn’t that what the right has pushed since Reagan was president?

The amount of backlash and cancel culture bullshit that has taken place in the last couple of days leaves me sad and disappointed in the childish behavior of the right. They are acting like the same SJWs they have gone after for the past nine months. Even worse I watched a video by Heavy Duty Country on YouTube where he criticized the owner of BRC for donating to Obama back in the day and Tulsi Gabbard in the last election. As a person completely opposed to the democratic party at this point in my life, I am not going to criticize someone for donating money to anyone. I voted for Obama the first time around. After four years of the same old shit I voted for Jill Stine because she was not allowed to participate in the debates and arrested for trying to enter. I voted for Hillary because I figured a Blowjob was the worse thing we could expect from another Clinton Presidency. After four years of leftist bullshit in the news and cancel culture running rampant, I figured I would try to make a change. I pumped money into the Andrew Yang campaign, finally seeing a man that I could support for a change. After he was screwed over by the DNC, I threw money towards Tulsi Gabbard in hopes that she might be the VP pick. Again, the best of the left was tossed aside for the same old bullshit.

When Joe Biden was announced as the Dems pick as candidate I was done. They had so may opportunities for good people to get into office. People that could make a difference and make the country a better place. Instead they picked old money from old policies and did not consider what their voters really wanted. In the end none of that mattered because it looks like there was some real manipulation the in the votes and they had to cheat in order to get their guy in.

After everything we have been through in the last year, for the right to turn on their own, the best they have to offer, and start acting like the same shitbags they have been bitching about for four years, how fucking dare you. For the cowboy dickhead in Texas (heavy duty country) to complain about a donation to Tulsi Gabbard, a two-tour veteran in Iraq and active national guard, who is he to complain about supporting her campaign. What the fuck has Heavy Duty Country done for the country? The first thing he did in his video was plug his merchandise before trying to destroy somebody else’s business.

The second story is the fall of FOX news. A channel so scared at the moment they are willing to throw their number one anchor under the bus to try to gain BLM points before Biden dies in office. There isn’t much to say here. Tucker had been one of the only people willing to tell the public what had been going on for the last year. When they betrayed him, they betrayed the American people. I don’t know who I would want Trump to buy after he is out of office, FOX news or CNN. Either way it’s a sweet victory and funny as hell when you look at it. The right is starting to turn into the left and it only goes to show that no matter what side you are on, when the mob comes your way people act like little bitches and do whatever the mob says. Black Rifle company will stay in business. The simple-minded acts of a few losers won’t change that. FOX news will change hands again and who knows what will become of it. The republican party and the right, they are starting their death chatter unless they find a pair of balls and quickly. The act of eating your own should be left to the left. let them destroy themselves over the years and watch from the sidelines as they fall apart. To follow their example is to start your own self destruction.

In the meantime, nobody is getting my money. I don’t care if you are left or right. I don’t care if you are against the endless wars or pro-life, I just don’t give a shit because everyone is acting like a bunch of shitheads these days. When the right starts to fall apart in some desperate act of control then you know to whole system has fallen apart. I gave money to the trump campaign towards the end not wanting to see BLM take over and ruin a night out with the wife while they paraded through town hollering their bullshit. I wanted law and order. I wanted a free America free from racism. I wanted an American where someone could build something and make their lives better and the lives of next generations better. What do I get, BRC must be cancelled for not supporting a guy on trial for two counts of murder. Are you kidding me? Should they donate to his defense fund as well? Are they acting as lawyers? What exactly has any of these people who are refusing to buy coffee donated to the cause? My guess, nothing. What will the right get from me from now on, nothing. I am checking out. I’ll cut wood and carry water and whatever is going on in your sad sack world of BS leave me out of it. I have better things to do than complain about coffee. Oh wait, my cupboard is almost empty, I should order a few bags.

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Being Elmer Fudd

This year, like previous years, I have failed to drag a deer home during hunting season. I thought things would change having bought my own land and seeing deer non-stop since the move. While I could come up with a list of excuses as to why this is the case there is one thing I have to admit, I am not good at this. I could go squirrel, quail, or turkey hunting and bring something home without question, and some would say these things are harder to do. I could say this is similar to fishing, I can catch blue gill, crappie, and sun fish until the sun goes down, but you won’t see me pulling a bass out of the water any time soon.

This year, like most years, not only have the deer eluded me but they have come to taunt me as well. A few years ago, I was fed up after a week of spending hours out I the woods with squirrel barking their insults at me and decided it was time to teach them a lesson. I went out with my shotgun bringing small game loads and filled my bag in an hour. I ran through the woods taking our every barking offender that dared to show their furry face. Walking back to the car I came over a hill to see two large does starring at me from thirty feet away. A clear and open side shot perfectly positioned and me without a slug in my shotgun. They looked at me for over a minute before turning away and running into the woods. In the end that bag of squirrels had the last laugh.

This year the mocking is even worse than before. On opening day, I went out to the spot I had decided on and brought one of my trusted Mosin-Nagant 7.62x54r bolt action rifles. This one had the smaller scope that was easier to use. The cold windy rain didn’t discourage me from marching out and claiming my prize. As I reached the back of the property, I set up next to an abandoned outhouse in the middle of a small field and waited a minute until a large doe walked out of the woods and looked at me. I raised my rifle and looked into the scope to see nothing but fog. Both sides of the scope were completely fogged over and sine it was mounted on the rear sight I couldn’t use iron sights to make the shot. On opening day, the deer got the better of me.

I set up a pop-up blind near that spot knowing that the deer move through that area. It’s not uncommon to see anywhere from two to seven deer moving through into the swampy woods behind the property. The first day I had the blind up a doe came out of the opposite end of the woods. A tree blocking my shot as its head looked around, then turning around to only give me the ass end before disappearing. The next morning, I opened the windows of he blind to see a set of tracks walking up to the blind and a pile of fresh doe scat sitting in front of it. At this point the score might be deer 3, Fudd 0.

Other odd things have happened since then. I went out to my car and found tracks and doe scat next to the drive and passenger side doors, no joke. Later in the morning when I go out to feed the chickens a doe and yearling will march through the small field behind our house in full view not giving me the time of day. It wasn’t long before I moved my pop-up blind again and realized I had to do something differently.

I spent an evening following the deer trails on the property and found four scrapes, a place where a buck marks a tree and clears the ground to pee on it. Its like a truck stop bathroom way of telling does, for a good time meet me here at this time. This buck was wanting to get some and I was willing to meet him at one of his spots. The next morning, I went out early, an hour before day break only to hear the snort and rustle of hoof prints as the buck ran off leaving me rejected and disappointed. Before heading back to the house, I unzipped my pants and left my own, for a good time call, on his clear patch of dirt next to the scraped-up trunk of a young tree. He has yet to call me.

For the last week and a half, I have heard the distance rings of shots across the land as my neighbors thin the herd and fill their freezers. At the local hardware store, I hear a young man talking about his brother getting two does in the first week and how his brother was disappointed about not getting a buck. The old man behind the counter says “how come? It only got antlers. They don’t taste any different.” My neighbor tells me today about our over neighbor bagging a big buck for the first time in a few years, likely my romantic rejection. Then he goes on to tell me that he usually bags three to four deer a year. Meanwhile, in Matt land, I can not bag one. There is always some detail I miss. I don’t go out early enough. I don’t stay out late enough. I brought the wrong gun for the weather. I put my blind in the wrong spot. I use a blind where I shouldn’t. Granted, I didn’t start hunting until I was 32. I didn’t start deer hunting until I was 34. After six years you would think I would have learned something. This is one sport/ hobby/ pastime that has a lot of trials and even more errors. I am worse that buckless Yooper in Escanaba in Da Moonlight. There are a few days left. I might be able to pull something off, but my hopes of filling the freezer or using any of my ammo for something other than target shooting are low. The deer mock me, they taunt me, and at this rate they know that my place is one of the safest in the area. Right now, they are going around telling their friends to go hang out at the fudge suckers house, while you’re at it crap next to his car. I’m guessing this is the deer equivalent to egging a house.

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The Collapse Experiment Redux

I sold my house today. The 1911 stucco Dutch three bedroom that I called my home for 15 years is now in the hands of a tiny Mexican woman who paid for it, in cash. I walked away with not much but something after paying the remainder of the mortgage and dropping the price more than 15k. I had the monthly payments paid up until January first and now I no longer have to worry about another house payment. A burden is lifted and my life of paying rent to a mortgage company for a house that I really didn’t own is over.

From the memories of that house are the beginnings of this blog. Years of gardening in the back yard. Learning how to compost just about anything. Canning, root cellaring, and cooking my first squirrel to include in the bundle. While trying to learn how to grow my own food I over did it with the backyard harvest, with the surplus going to co-workers because I ran out of canning jars to use. It wasn’t always good though. There was the purchase of my first shotgun after a police officer was killed a block from my house. There was the girl shot in front of my house walking home from school. The day a baseball size bag of crack cocaine was thrown into my back yard while a man was running from the police. There was the night three guys threatened to teach me whose neighborhood it was. Then the endless list of stabbings, break-ins, shots fired, meth lab explosions, hit and runs, graffiti, and crackheads knocking on the door at 3am asking for money.

Now I have no reason to ever go back to that neighborhood ever again. The house is no longer mine and is hopefully in the hands of someone who will appreciate it more that I have.

Considering the craziness that is 2020, the house that my wife and I bought this summer is more suitable for what we wanted to do. Our early 1900 Dutch houses were traded in for a 1926 barn house sitting on 15 acres in a town with a population of 250. Deer season is in full swing and if there is anything I learned in the last week its that these deer are not the tame, stupid and deaf variety that I hunted in southern Michigan, the type of dear that one could walk up on and they would stand in front of you dumbfounded as you pointed your shotgun. The deer in the north can hear you from half a mile away and you won’t see them the rest of the day. Snow plows are rare on the highway, as I learned today driving through a blizzard doing 35MPH. on a positive note, the hardware store had a new fuel line not only for my chainsaw but also my snow blower, both I bought second hand at estate sales before moving up here. The chainsaw I picked up for $40, a 1970s McCulloch pro master 610, and according to the YouTube videos I found on it I picked up a beast for a cheap price. The snow blower ended up being at a sale on day two which meant it was half off. The $70 of equipment I bought was fixed with $3.50 in parts from the hardware store.

The fifteen acres we own has room for small fields of corn and soy, a garden, fruit trees, and grape vines. Across the street is a no wake lake filled with trout and bass. Deer will be my biggest pest when it comes to the gardens, a fair trade from the crackheads who would break my fence and look over my tomato plants making sure it wasn’t weed they could steal. The chickens have been safe so far in their new coup and run that I built. If need be there is an outlet nearby I can plug a heater into. Freezing water has been an issue lately and I have yet to hear any good solutions that that problem. There is the pond that feeds the wildlife and plenty of firewood to be harvested from out woods. The birch trees are filled with Chaga Fungus. Outside the land is quiet. The rooster has learned how to push his voice beyond the backyard of a city lot and far into the dense woods of northern Michigan. On the way to work the other day I watched a group of sea gulls attacking a bald eagle over lake Mitchell. Signs on the side of the road warn of black bears for the next three miles. A sign going into town reminds drivers that horse and buggies are common in these parts. This is our new home. Neighbors wave from a distance. Piles of rocks sit randomly along the side of the road. Every yard has a deer stand. Here you can only be bored if you try. Here you get out of the land what you put in, if you aren’t willing to put in the time and effort you get back as much as you put in. in this place it isn’t the job that defines you its what you want to get out of it.

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Is BLM the new confederacy?

 

Lilith Sinclair, an Afro-indigenous non-binary organizer for BLM Portland stated, she is not just “organizing for the abolition of the militarized police state,” but also for the “abolition of the United States as we know it.” This doesn’t sound like the words of someone who wants to correct the things that are wrong with our current system but somebody who wants to create a new one with no idea what to do if they did.

It might not be fair to say that BLM is like the confederacy, after all the confederates joined their states together and said they were leaving to create their own country. BLM has no army, a poorly written statement of their goals, and no land to claim as their own except for what they try to steal as autonomous zones. Currently, protesters are working towards burning down the Federal Courthouse in Portland and the state along with local government is aiding them by telling the president that they do not want Federal officers in their state. This was taken one step further on July 21, 2020 when the attorney general of Oregon said that federal officers would be arrested if they tried to detain anyone during a protest. The federal government has the right to defend their property especially if it has been under siege for 53 days, at the time of writing this. It would appear that not only the media but the politicians of these cities and states are taking sides against the federal government.

When Confederate statues were being torn down, I kept hearing that these people were traitors and didn’t deserve to have a statue celebrating them. Recently in England, a statue of a BLM protester was erected to replace a statue of Edward Colston. Colston was torn off of its pedestal and thrown into the river only to be replaced with the image of a protester/ rioter who partook in the event and stood on the empty pedestal with her hand raised in the air. The image of a slave trader was replaced with the image of a rioter that helped destroy public property. One used his money to fund orphanages and the other pushes a communist agenda. Which one of these deserves to have a statue?

The word traitor is used for the confederates and while I don’t agree with their reasons for leaving the union. I will agree that they were still Americans just like the people rioting in the streets these days. Because they were Americans and the nation needed to heal those that had survived the war were taken back into the nation. Their families erected statues in the hopes they would not be written out of history and forgotten. There is something to be respected knowing that they stood up for what they believed in. its more than I can say for a lot of people these days. However you may think of these men, they have families that remember them. There were ideas and personalities that died with them, families destroyed when they didn’t come home and the problem of living with an enemy that you fought for four years when it was over.

There has always been more than one America. There was the north and the south. Now we have the east and west coast. The forgotten fly over region. Texas, I will leave that as its own culture. No matter how we look at our country we can not forget that we are all Americans. At the moment the left and the right are looking down the barrel of each other’s rifles wondering who will fire first. The right holds back while bricks and water bottles fly through the air. At the moment the left can’t win. The demands they have set forth don’t work in the democracy that we have and the majority of people don’t agree with what they believe. The left has dug its own grave and is screaming from the bottom how it was everyone else that put them there. As we sit back and watch the left continues to dig and I wonder how long it will be until someone offers a rope to get them out, or start throwing dirt into the hole.

I have hopes that one day the left snaps out of the bipolar episode it is having and decides to join society again. There current plan to cry, bitch, and complain their way into universal basic income is no way to move ahead and heal the country. They continue to talk about reparations while destroying everything around them and not caring about who has to clean it up. There will be a day when they realize their fit didn’t give them the outcome, they thought it would. People won’t forget the businesses that were destroyed, the people shot and killed, and the people cancelled and had their lives ruined. There will be a day of reckoning when they will ask for forgiveness and I don’t know if people will have it in their hearts to forgive them. For me, there will be no hugs to give. There hasn’t been any effort to correct the destruction I have witnessed. My city still looks like shit. A memorial to a cop who lost his life protecting the city had to be removed because of vandalism. Graffiti still covers my bank. Windows haven’t been replaced. Nobody has been arrested. The south had to rebuild, after all it did start the fight. As for the left they can start by cleaning up the mess they created. Scrub the spray paint off the buildings. Replace the windows you smashed. Help the business owner rebuild the structure you set on fire. Take back the items you stole. Paint over black lives matter that has covered our streets. if this is too much, find somewhere else to live. There is an idea that this is their country and only their country. Like in 2016 there is a forgotten group of people who are wait for their time to speak and their numbers are growing.

The difference between the Confederacy and BLM is knowing when you have lost. There was a period of forgiveness, Lincoln knew this. In order for the country to survive the north had to accept the south back into the nation. Everyone was an American but these days I have to wonder, with the talk of abolishing the government and everything labeled “white” how does one move past the inherent racism dividing the country? Is there a country after everything that has been said and done in the name of a toxic belief? How does a country move on from an attempted murder suicide like the one happening right now? Only time will tell.

 

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How Not to be White

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The National Museum of African American History and Culture compiled a list of everything that creates a great society, labeled it as white and said these are things we need to avoid. The first item on the list is rugged individualism. Self-reliance and being in control of your environment are not traits that people should strive for. I guess somebody should tell the Chinese special forces that, who are trained to survive on their own and live off the land. Now that I think of it every military teaches that. The people who live in Alaska have that life. Most third world countries have that life.

The nuclear family made the list. We should not be surprised this is on here since it is one of the things under attack from BLM. Having two parents that take care of their children is somehow frowned upon even though children raised in these environments are more likely to succeed in life, finish college, and have better relationships in their life. Who would want that for their kids?

The scientific method is white. George Washington Carver didn’t get the BLM memo. The ability to think rationally and come to truths using science is a white construct. I guess we should see what kind of jets, cell phones, and medical care BLM comes up with using magic.

History, in the sense that our country’s history is based on western Europe with an emphasis on British history. I would hope so, that is how the country was started. There was a trade that took place when we left the empire. We decided to think for ourselves and that included freeing slaves later.

The protestant work ethic, that philosophy that got us to where we are today, I guess that is something we need to get rid of. I took this to mean that the people who wrote this want something for nothing, but that isn’t possible because somebody has to put in the work to provide the things people need. Not to mention that Asians has a reputation for working harder than the people with the protestant work ethic.

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Respect authority, I guess this list is something that we should toss out since it was written by people who think they are the authority on this topic.

Future orientation, planning for the future is a bad thing. If this one is confusing how about the concept of time being a western construct? Making a schedule is a bad thing. Knowing when to plant crops is a purely white concept. Meeting people for business or pleasure at a predetermined time is a bad thing. Wearing a watch is a white thing, I guess those rappers will have to hand off those diamond and gold watches off to the next white guy they see.

Aesthetics, I have no idea how they came up with this section. Meat and potatoes, bland is best. This was on the list and I have to say this what is considered poor food in most cultures. Plus, potatoes didn’t exist in Europe until north America was discovered so its not even traditional western European food, but nice try. A woman’s beauty is based on blonde and thin, according to who? This completely discredits the taste of the individual. Men’s attractiveness is based on economic status power and intellect. This is true for most cultures. TLC even wrote a song called No Scrubs that expresses their distaste for guys that can’t get a job.

The concept of protecting property is only white. Having a house, car, or money that was earned is a white concept. Who knew?

Competition should be eliminated and participation trophies handed out for people who show up, or not, maybe showing up is too competitive?

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I’m going to skip to the final item on the list, be polite. Being rude must be the new normal these people are looking for. Its not one that I look forward to and something I don’t put up with. If you want to guarantee personal injury to yourself this is a good way to go about it. Try not being polite and see how far it gets you.

This document is a list of everything that makes a polite, functioning society where people can get along. What surprises me most about this is the fact that the organization of protest, using free speech a right available because of the Bill of Rights, and using technology like the internet (science bitch) uses all white concepts I would have to assume this makes the protest themselves a white construct. Congratulations, by the simple act of organizing a protest you participated in white Eurocentric culture.

 

 

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Brave BLM members raid dead woman’s Facebook page

 

Now that news is getting out about the murder of Jessica Doty Whitaker members of black lives matter have taken the brave step of going to her Facebook page and threatening the family with violence and death. There is not much more I can say about this other than asking the obvious question, where are the prosecuting attorneys to go after these human pieces of shit? Where is the police to track these assholes down? Why isn’t Facebook deleting the accounts of these useless people?

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Say her name, Jessica Whitaker

On July 5th 2020, Jessica Whitaker was enjoying a Date night with her fiancé when they walked past a group of Black Lives Matter protesters who tried to get her to say “Black Lives Matter.” Instead of repeating the phrase back to them she responded with “All Lives Matter.” An argument erupted and eventually things calmed down, or so they thought. The BLM group left the area but waited on top of a bridge for the couple, and when they walked under it a member of the group pulled out a gun and shot Jessica three times killing her in front of her fiancé. She left behind her three-year-old son. All of our civil rights are being threatened and suppressed by a terrorist group called Black Lives Matter and their ranks include everyone from out of work college dropout baristas to prosecuting attorneys. Hell, even Nancy Pelosi has joined the ranks kneeling in DC while senior citizens are dying from the corona virus.

This murder was an outright assassination of free speech. “If you don’t say what we tell you to say we will kill you.” That is the message we are to receive from this. The list on the communist take over check list is growing. Destroy history, censor the media, take away the guns, and kill anyone who doesn’t obey.

Mark and Patricia McCloskey had a search warrant issued on their house for the AR-15 Mark held while hundreds of violent protesters tore through an iron fence and threatened to kill him, his wife, their dog, and burn the house down. St. Louis is a state with Castle Doctrine that states they do not have to flee their property and they can use up to deadly force to defend themselves and others. The DA in the case doesn’t appear to understand this saying that she would find something to charge the couple with for defending their home. The AR-15 was taken by the police and the couple has yet to be charged with anything.

The story of Jessica Whitaker has not been reported through any major media outlets. The planned assassination of a white single mother in her 20s might create a bad image for BLM. This is what we are getting from our elected officials these days, the message they have been sending is bow down or lose your head. The McCloskeys are now defenseless against a group that did return to their home less than a week after the initial protest/ riot on their property. The second time around they had hired armed guards and watched as the mob refused to enter the property a second time. Now that they are un-armed, I would not be surprised if the mob came back again to try to finish the job.

The Minneapolis police department has seen over 150 resignations in the last month and the number of houses on the market is skyrocketing as people try to flee the city that will soon have no police. In Seattle the city council voted to cut the police budget in half causing over one thousand employees of the police department to lose their jobs. Not only is the chief of police a black woman but the minority of the police force is white cops. The majority of Seattle’s PD is people of color. The city council successfully made minorities unemployed in the argument of making minorities safer.

Not only is Seattle forcing the unemployment of minorities they are also segregating their white employees by forcing them to under whiteness training. These classes try to teach them how to undo their whiteness to eliminate racism in the workplace. In the class they are taught to not talk to much because if they do, they are oppressing those around them, but then are also told to not be silent because silence is violence. Be mindful of how many white people are in the room because you might make the minorities in the room feel uncomfortable. You may have to forfeit the guarantee physical safety in the workplace. And don’t forget, racism is not our fault but we are responsible. All of these actually points made during the anti-racism training session the city forced their white employees to undergo. As one of my former co-workers once said “if they are putting everyone of the same color in the same room, its not good.”

In Detroit, a police officer dodged two bullets Neo style while trying to arrest a suspect. While officers apprehended a suspect, a friend standing nearby pulled a pistol from his pocket and pointed it at an officer from a few feet away. Two quick rounds were fired and the officer charged the man while fellow officers returned fire killing the shooter. The officer who was shot at was not harmed. Hours after the shooting protest started and the police immediately released the body came footage from several officers and a dash cam. This did not convince protesters to stand down. Even when evidence is shown the mob does not care. This has been an ongoing issue with a group that refuses to have a conversation. When Michael Brown was shot by a police officer there was a statement from a so-called witness that Brown was on his knees with his hands in the air saying “hands up, don’t shoot.” This whole story ended up being a fabrication, the witness was hiding behind a car while Brown was hitting the police officer in the patrol car trying to take his gun from him. one story was proven the other was quickly debunked but BLM didn’t care and all we heard for a year was “hands up, don’t shoot” a mantra that lives to this day on the foundation of lies and villainy.

The stakes of the game have been risen and I am afraid that with the start of Blue Live Matter counter protest there will soon be blood in the streets. If these people are willing to wait out a person for refusing to say black lives matter and kill them in the streets what is to stop them from injuring or killing those who show up to undermine their message? BLM has become increasingly bold over the past two months, bringing riots along with their protest, taking over large sections of cities and threatening to burn everything down if they don’t get what they want. Now they are taking lives and the media won’t cover it. This isn’t one of the “accidental” shootings that we saw in CHAZ or the Wendy’s in Atlanta, this was something different. There was a change in their tactics and I hate to say it but we are likely now in the middle of a civil war. One that is divided by ideology more than race. There is a growing number of black people who are outspoken for their dislike over black lives matter. In New York City a fried chicken restaurant now has a sign posted that they only serve whites. When questioned about this policy the black owner said he was “tired of black folks trying to burn down his business and kill him.” He was “sick of it” and “from now on he was only serving whites.”

I don’t want to think it but I know it’s coming, there will be more Jessica Whitakers in the future and we have to remember that we could be next. I functioning democracy is crumbling around us and it is only a matter of time before we start seeing scary changes happening in our society. Granted the things we have seen, with how quick things are going, is scary unto itself. The revolution isn’t over yet and it’s just started. We have a long road ahead of us if this thing gets kicked into full gear. The violence and death that we have seen so far is only the beginning. If this movement continues to go unchecked, we will see major changes in all aspects of our lives in the near future. The quicker the changes the more violent the movement will be. We have to start remembering what has come before. When times become hard remember where it all started. Say her name, Jessica Whitaker.

 

 

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White Fragility: a book review

Are you tired of living the good life? Has everything been handed to you on a silver platter? When you are pulled over does the cop give you a ticket and send you on your way? If you have answered yes to any of these and have white skin then you have white privilege and you’re racist. You’re not racist you say, be careful, because denying you are racist is racist. Who says? Robin DiAngelo, an American academic in whiteness studies. Yes, they hand out degrees in made up shit and we wonder why the country is going to hell.

White Fragility is the current best-selling book that makes white America feel like they are the biggest pieces of shit on the planet if they are unable to think for themselves, and after seeing the crowds in the BLM protest across the country, critical thinking and self esteem are in short supply across the land. White Fragility works as a recruiting tool for a new religion of “Wokeness” that has sprung up and at this moment L. Ron Hubbard is wishing he had played the race card instead of sticking to science fiction and aliens. The joke of this book is that it flips the idea of original sin onto white people, using the label of skin color to easily point out those that are racist and those who are not. There was a time when slave owners used the bible to justify slavery saying that dark skinned people were the descendants of Cain. Now white skin is the label of racism, inherited at birth and cannot be washed away unless you spend a lifetime fighting against racism.

This new religion is also influenced by Joseph Heller and his book Catch 22. If you are white you are racist. If you don’t know that you are racist, well that’s okay because you have been indoctrinated into a racist system so you are still racist. If you know that you are not racist and deny it then you are still racist by the new definition determined by DiAngelo. If you admit you are racist, of course you are. You just said it and will stay guilty as charged. So, who isn’t racist? DiAngelo of course, the great white savior that black people have been waiting for.

While DiAngelo sets herself up to be the savior of all black people she spends a good portion of the book bashing herself for being racist or talks about herself while pretending not to. She says that some of the worst offenders of racism are progressive women who are fighting for equality, but that doesn’t include her. In DiAngelo’s world black people are unable to change the racist system set against them on their own and they need the help of white people to correct things for them. Its like the civil rights march of fifty years ago never happened.

Through out the book assumptions are made and studies are rarely referred to. One sentence in particular talks about the “countless studies” done on HR call backs from corporations and universities if the applicant has an African American name. The only study listed as a reference is the same one from the movie Freakanomics. When Robin tries to make her case for systematic racism and how white people are racist by nature she fails to provide any real proof instead choosing to use situations from her own life and assumptions to form her argument. She uses the phrase “I assume” too many times for a book that is trying to sell the idea that she is an expert in her made-up field.

Then there is the communist aspect of the book. There is a section in the first 20 pages where Robin argues that we know white people are racist because they never organized and stood up to the higher classes business owners/ wall street tycoons but were instead focused on the lowly poor black folks for their problems. In her mind the country would have proved we weren’t racist if we just had a communist revolution and over threw the people in power. But we are racist so we kept the system going and continued to oppress black people. That what she thinks. At this point the whole black lives matter movement refuses to acknowledge that the civil rights movement happened and whatever their current issue is will be fixed by undoing everything that happened before.

White Fragility is the woke bible in the sense that it stole most of its ideas from other religions, threw them into a book and said it was written by god. Of course, in this case the god is white but female and she is going to be the savior of people who didn’t ask for her help. Robin infested her book with Alcoholics Anonymous philosophy where someone who denies they are racist is of course racist, because a symptom of the disease is to deny that you have it. There is also the Catch 22 rule that is similar if you say you are not racist then you are racist. If you admit you are racist you are still racist even if you are not. Then there is the original sin aspect of the situation. If you are born white you are automatically racist and you will be your whole life even if you try to correct it. There is the door to door prophesizing that you see from Mormons but in this case it is taking to the streets and screaming black live matter at the top of your lungs and accosting anyone who does not agree with you because cracking skulls is a sure fire way to convert people. I remember the good old days when a catholic would screw somebody into submission to get them to go to church. Not here. To be in an interracial relationship is to fetishize the person of color and not think of them as a person. A person’s sexual preference is racist if it is anything other than the same race as them. To be black and dating a white person is to be taken advantage of, to be white and date a person of color is to oppress them. In the end Robin never settles what should be done about people of mixed race, instead automatically categorizes them as colored because they don’t fit neatly into a tiny box in her mind.

I wish White Fragility was a book that hit the shelves to a non-existent audience but currently it is a best seller. Considering the success of 50 shades of Grey I have high hopes that it will be filling the local Goodwill donation bins and end up in a land fill or as insolation in low income housing, because that would be more useful at this point. A best seller does not mean that a book says anything important or it has the ability to make the world a better place. In the end White Fragility is just a tool for mental masturbation in the SJW community and DiAngelo is the Hugh Hefner of BLM offering her victim porn to the masses while tokenizing black people for her own personal ability to make millions off of their misery. At 62 DiAngelo must have realized that a degree in Studies in Whiteness was only going to lead her to living off of social security and she would never be able to pay off those pesky student loans before she died. Like many people on the west coast she must have asked herself, “What if I started a cult?” and then White Fragility was born. The checks are in, the damage is done, can we please let this title join the ranks of 50 Shades of Grey where the author is forgotten, the public realizes how horrible it is and we move on from all of this bullshit to live a happy life again instead of being hit by a whip and trying to figure out why it still doesn’t feel as good as the book described.

Now that I think about it maybe 50 Shades of Grey is the perfect analogy for this book. The readership is primarily white women with low self esteem that will put themselves into harm’s way to fulfill a fantasy that will never come true. Holy shit, I bet some of my ex-girlfriends are diving right into this shit. Like Grey, White fragility had little or no research done while writing it and the biggest fans of the book are lonely white women who have nothing better to do in their lives than try to prove they are not as depressed and shitty as they know themselves to be. White Fragility is the anti-self-help book, dishing out bad advice to those who don’t know any better at the expense of a minority. Congratulations Robin you proved to the world who the biggest racist is, take a look in the mirror.

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Nothing is sacred

 

Even for those who made the ultimate sacrifice the mob continues on their march to erase history. On April 18, 2011, Eric Zapata, a 35-year-old member of Kalamazoo Public Safety was shot and killed responding to a call of shots fired on Hays Park Avenue. I will never forget that day as long as I live.

I had just finished an evening shift working in the ER and was walking home when police cars flew past me on Portage road. Lights and sirens blared, and I kept seeing different departments driving past. County, Township, city and State police were going to the same place. Standing at the end of my street I could see red and blue lights illuminating the entire length of the six-block street. For a moment I thought “they finally did it. They burned my house down.” That didn’t happen but there was a patrol car parked in the front. A large black officer was running to the vehicle and pulled a shotgun out, loading it there in the street. I stood there with the key in the door not sure what to do. The office saw me, racked the shotgun, and asked me if I needed any help? I said no but I was wondering what was going on. “officer down, suspect still on the loose.” I went into the house and make sure everything was still locked up. It wasn’t until the next morning I learned what had happened.

That night two brothers sat on the front porch of a house on Hays Park. One of the brothers had been released from prison and was out on probation. The brother who owned the house took some guns out and the two of them took turns shooting the weapons into the air. The first police officer that came onto the scene was shot at and returned fire from the car. The probation brother jumped off the porch and ran behind the house to get away. Zapata pulled up and saw the second brother fleeing the scene. He followed and was shot in the head as he came around the corner. The official story is that the suspect then turned the weapon onto himself.

The staff that worked in the ER that night had to go to mandatory counseling afterwards. When they received the call all they heard was “officer down, GSW.” Half of the nurses working were married to cops. They didn’t know which department, of which there are many. Even when Zapata was rolled in, they didn’t know who he was because his face was unrecognizable. Some nurses were glad to see the uniform didn’t match their husband but guilt set in later. Zapata was dead on arrival but those minutes leading up to EMS coming in felt like hours.

Later that week I bought my first firearm, a home defense shotgun. The first year I lived in my house Kalamazoo experienced the most fatal shootings it had seen in one summer. The first girl who was shot in my neighborhood was a high school student returning home from school with her friends. As she walked down the street a guy standing on the street corner spotted a car driving by that was from the northside neighborhood he pulled out a revolver and fired all six rounds at the car. None of the bullets hit the car but one of them hit the girl in the back half a block away in front of my house. I ran from the backyard to the street where I watched a guy and a girl pick the girl up and carry her to a house nearby.

Zapata was different. These people were killing cops now. They were not afraid to take out a person with a badge anymore. If they could kill cops what was to make them think twice about killing me?

Nine years later I look back and still recall the humidity in the air, the tarp covering the body of the second brother still lying in the alley at 10am the next day. The candles and plastic flowers the family left at the spot until the house was torn down a few years later. Zapata’s memorial is gone now, removed due to repeated vandalism. Things are worse now with BLM in the city. My bank is covered in graffiti. Windows are still boarded up. Nothing feels normal these days.

Less than a year before Zapata was killed the Kalamazoo City Commissioners stole a self-funded pension plan that public safety created in the 1980s. After 2009 the city was broke, and couldn’t pay for half the projects they started. Seeing a pool of money sitting there they took it while offering some officers an early retirement with the pension they paid for while the rest of them were given a city funded pension that would be a fraction of what they had put away. The city had robbed the police department and there was nobody for the cops to call. Less than a year later Zapata was killed and the same people who had stolen from the cops were now on a stage praising them for the work that they do and their dedication to the city. From what some of the wives told me afterwards there were a few cops that wanted to shoot them on the spot. Like their fallen brother they stayed professional and did their job to honor him. That’s what people don’t fully understand about Zapata, here was a guy that was screwed over by the city and he still went out and did his job. It’s also what BLM wants people to forget, the fact that most police officers who do their job everyday risk the chance of not coming home in order to help others. Zapata, being the man that he was, is a threat to a movement like BLM, a minority who wore the badge and died in the line of duty.

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A part of me can understand the desire to protect the memorial from the shitbags that were defacing and vandalizing it. The other part of me says we do not negotiate with terrorist and that anyone caught should be doing time in prison. By the time this year is over I fear that my city will be back to where it was at the turn of the century. Few businesses, graffiti and trash everywhere, and a lack of desire from the people to travel there for any reason. It took a decade of changed policies and new businesses to bring people back to downtown. I remember the early 90s and the outdoor walk mall that was once there. We had businesses like McDonald’s and a used bookstore that everyone went to. There was the museum and library that had a real mummy that people could see. Department stores and restaurants lined the mall. The State Theater showed big name bands that came into town. Then it all went away.

There was a decade of nothing. Nobody wanted to invest and you couldn’t park your car without returning to find a ticket. Things changed and from the looks of it we are going back to that lost decade of nothing. When we forget out history, we are destined to repeat it. I don’t want to see any more dead cops. I don’t want to live in a dead city either.

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