From the February 2009 Idaho Observer:
Divided is conquered. That nugget of truth is the foundation of political strategies that intend tyranny. Logically, you can say with absolute certainty that those who use political power to divide rather than unite their people are doing so for the sole purpose of weakening their ability to defend themselves against tyranny. The center four pages of The February, 2009 edition of The IO are intended to support our contention that political power is being used to divide, impoverish and weaken us. Under these circumstances Americans have little choice but to reinvent a historically-proven and universally-lawful mechanism to stop tyranny dead in its tracks. With the new administration focusing its phony fiat resources inward, we can expect that political mechanisms intended to harm us will be intensifying. If we are to survive the traitors and their fools who have been "harvesting" us for short-term political gain en route to our national demise, then it is time to meet our neighbors. If/when the trucks stop running and the lights go out, we will find that the racial, ethnic, cultural, social and religious divisions that have been politically created to divide and weaken us will suddenly seem insignificant when we are all reduced to equals in search of food, water and shelter. United we stand.
Lessons for Americans:
The Great Flood of ‘93 and Hurricane Katrina
Both the severe flooding of several Midwest states in 1993 and the 2005 Hurricane Katrina were catastrophic. Few disasters in U.S. history match the devastation when hundreds of levees along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers failed between May and September, 1993, killing 50 people and causing more than $15 billion in damage. Katrina in August, 2005, is touted as the most devastating hurricane in U.S. history, killing an estimated 1,000 people and causing at least $75 billion in damage.
Dan Thompson, who now lives in Idaho, experienced the ’93 Midwest flood and believes what he learned then was a lesson that prepared him to understand what motivates Americans to respond selflessly during emergencies.
"My family and I happened to be living temporarily with some friends near Valley City, ND, when the floods began. We naturally volunteered to help the save the community. I noticed people from all walks of life working well together as equals during this emergency when, under everyday circumstances, their differences would have divided them. There were National Guard personnel working with the people (not ordering them around) and coordinating the efforts of prisoners, men women and children. What stood out was how blacks and whites, rich and poor, white collar and blue collar, natives and immigrants, were working side by side with one another as if it came naturally," Thompson explained.
We have since learned that people throughout the flood-ravaged states (Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin) worked together in much the same way, overcoming their differences to save communities.
"The entire experience had a profound effect on me and I began to wonder how many of these people were Catholics, Protestants and of other faiths, or how many were rich or poor or how many were Republicans or Atheists," Thompson recalled.
Particularly vivid in Thompson’s mind is the memory of a man paying no attention to the fact that his business suit was covered with mud and an Indian man wearing a turban working alongside typically-dressed Midwesterners. "Not once did I overhear anyone say, ‘I can’t work with that guy he’s black, or he’s a criminal or she’s a Protestant or an Atheist.’ As our country’s troubles deepen, I am constantly reminded of how people came together during the floods and say to myself, ‘If only we, as Americans, could put aside our differences like the Midwest folks did in 1993 and work together in preparation for the perilous times ahead; what marvelous things we could accomplish.’"
The lessons of Katrina
To understand how important it is for Americans to set aside their differences to prepare for coming storms (be they natural or man made) we need only look back as far back as 2005 and the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security were so incompetent (or discompassionate) that civilians attempting to help those in need of food and water were blocked from getting it to them and thousands of mostly poor and predominantly black people were at the mercy of federal agencies incapable of filling water trucks or organizing soup kitchens.
The federal government was not just unsympathetic to poor blacks. Property owners in and around New Orleans were not allowed to organize to save, or to protect their homes; they were treated like criminals and their weapons were confiscated.
The federal bungling of Katrina’s response continues to this day as reconstruction is hopelessly mired in corrupt politics, graft and webs of red tape.
"This information is necessary to more fully understand what we are up against and how we, as Americans, should prepare for future emergencies and how we should behave when they arrive. The government does not want us to think or provide for ourselves and each other, but it cannot be counted on to provide for us either," Thompson observed.
Thompson then asked a series of questions that are extremely probative of our current political climate. "Is this the purpose of Homeland Security—to encourage our compliance by denying us the essentials of life during emergencies? Is it not strange that law enforcement personnel, who have sworn to protect law-abiding citizens, now are being equipped and trained to use brutal and deadly force against them even if they have committed no crimes? And what about the military increasingly being used domestically as police in direct violation of the Constitution?"
This is not the American way. This is the way of totalitarianism and tyranny; the American people must defend themselves against such lawlessness lest their children wake up as slaves on the continent their parents allowed to become a plantation.