The Appalachian
VOL. 03, NO. 1
M es seng er
WWW.APPALACHIANMESSENGER.INFO
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Causes Less Than Yourself
By Robert Gore, Financial Editor
hen someone recruits you for a Cause
Greater Than Yourself, run, especially if it’s
a government doing the recruiting.
This time of year prompts tributes to Causes Greater
Than Yourself (CGTY). You’re to count your blessings
and rededicate yourself to one or more such causes.
Christianity may be on the wane, however, a panoply of
secular CGTY have sprung up to replace it and its good
works, purportedly filling voids in souls. What’s best not
to think about—if you wish to preserve your sanity—is
how much of your life you’re devoting to causes less
than yourself.
The widow of a dead soldier asks the questions, perhaps
as she glances at the flag that draped her husband’s coffin, folded into its triangle, displayed in its case on the
fireplace mantel. A veteran, broken in body, mind, and
spirit, living in an apartment through the thin walls of
which he can hear the neighboring couple when they
make either love or war, asks the questions as he drains
his coffee laced with whiskey. Was it worth it? Did they lose what they lost in a cause greater than themselves?
These are questions those who have lost nothing or have everything don’t ask, but torment those who have lost.
For some the answer is yes. The “righteous cause” rhetoric is out the window with the first combat or IED. What
remains, what’s real, are survival and your fellow soldiers. Military annals are full of the heroism of those who gave
some or all to save their brothers, heroism that transcends the official reasons for war. They were wounded or killed
for those they cared about, who cared about them and would have done the same. If they survived, they have that
comfort; if they didn’t, their loved ones do.
Military annals are also full of senseless wars waged for stupid and corrupt reasons. The US government has added
many such chapters in pursuit of a global order subservient to its commercial and political interests. These interests
have no connection to the actual defense of the United States. Politicians, the military and intelligence bureaucracies, contractors, and US allies, including freeloading welfare states and repressive regimes, reap the benefits. Those
doing the fighting bear the cost.
(Continued on page 2)
Treasons Great and Small
By T. L. Davis
T
reason is defined as giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Trump
has been accused of walking a line close to treason for complimenting Vladamir Putin for refusing to take the bait thrown out when
Barack Obama retaliated for fictional Russian hacking of the election.
That whole premise is flawed and rife with "fake news." But, there is
much more evidence in Turkey and Syria that the Obama Administration was funding and aiding ISIS fighters in Syria. The difference is
this: the United States is not at war with Russia, but it is at war with
ISIS. Obama's actions are a direct act of treason. Trump's, in this context, are the act of a patriot, by refusing to allow a lame duck president
from destroying the fragile relationship between two nuclear powers.
Treason is not limited to current conflicts and it is not limited
to wartime. Treason is more often committed in the back rooms of
Congress. What might sometimes be written off as ideological differences within the overall scheme of providing representation to a diverse nation, there are examples of literal treason against the entire
system of governance. This is what is being contemplated by Lindsey
Graham and John McCain, who seem to be willing to throw their elective futures to the winds in order to defend globalism.
In a year of radical political twists and turns resulting from the arrogance of globalists enforcing their agenda against the
resistance of the people of their nations, the whole concept of "Democrat vs Republican" dynamic must be thrown out. It
no longer accurately represents the political divisions in America. There are only globalists and nationalists. Donald
Trump's form of nationalism has struck a nerve with the people who have been deluged by illegal immigration and the
crime and violence that accompanies it. The people have been in revolt over the mass immigration of un-vetted Syrians
and other Middle Eastern nationalities passing themselves off as Syrian refugees. The people of America have watched as
hundreds of sexual assaults have been committed in Germany in the open square during last year's New Year's celebration
and do not want such atrocities to take place on American soil.
This year, 2017, must be the year that the people take back control of their government. There will never be a chance
such as this again in our lifetimes. But, this will require some heavy lifting. It will require keeping tabs on the actions of
Senators and Representatives alike, not the Democrats, but the Republicans. People like Lindsey Graham and John
McCain know how to barter their votes to arrive at a globalist outcome. I'm not sure what level of idiocy has infected
Arizona to send John McCain back to the Senate this year, but they did. That does not mean he cannot be recalled for actions he will be forced to take. Already Lindsey Graham and John McCain are trying to use their clout to derail the promised "wall" and while Trump might be able to fight this battle himself, it would be important for the people of Arizona to
be ready with a recall petition. It's time to start playing hardball with these traitors to the nation.
One might throw Paul Ryan into this cabal as well. Any resistance to building the wall, or the repeal of Obamacare must
be seen as deliberate sabotage of the will of the people. Republicans who seek to put up barriers to nationalism should
rightly be hounded out of office.
Recall petitions, primary alternatives to globalist Republicans and demands for investigations into the unconstitutional
actions of Republicans are all on the table. Remember, most of the incumbent Republicans were complicit in almost all of
Barack Obama's actions. The fact that they failed to do their jobs and ensure that Barack Obama acted constitutionally or
was indeed eligible to be president were among their traitorous actions in previous years. They need to be held accountable, or shown the door through the primary system.
January 6, 2017
Talk Politics For Ten Seconds And I’ll
Know Where You Get Your News
By Paul Rosenberg
W
hether the current furor over “fake news” fizzles
or ends in state censorship, there is a legitimate
issue beneath all the fear-mongering. Moreover, it’s a
problem that has been known for a long time. In daily
life, it shows up like this:
Have someone talk politics for just 10 seconds,
and I can tell you with 80 percent accuracy
where they get their news.
You’ve doubtless experienced the same thing. If certain
phrases come up, I know that this person watches
MSNCB and CNN, and that they read things like the
Huffington Post. If they speak another way, I’ll know
that they watch Fox News, listen to certain talk radio
shows and read things like NewsMax.
In other words, people who consume news have become
polarized, and badly so. This is a legitimate problem,
though I’m certainly not endorsing state censorship to fix
it… that’d be like cutting off your hand to fix hangnail.
Closed-Circuit Thinking
Years ago I wrote a little series of essays for myself
entitled Closed-Circuit Thinking, mostly as a way of clarifying my own thoughts. In it, I addressed the problems that
arise in groups of people that listen to no voices but their
own. As it turns out, I wasn’t the only person thinking
along these lines. There’s now a considerable body of
work of the subject, generally called Group Polarization.
Group polarization works this way: When a group of
people with the same opinion remains in a single
room, that opinion moves inevitably to the
extreme. Many tests have been done, with widelyvaried groups, and it happens every time.
The more outgoing people in any group will always
struggle to make their voices heard above the din. To be
regarded, of course, one must have something different
to say. And since everyone in the room already holds the
same opinion, the logical move is to take the opinion a
bit farther than it’s already gone. (Taking it away from
the extreme would make you appear unfaithful to
the group.)
As a result, people in self-contained groups get more
and more polarized, and ever-harsher toward any groups
they see as opponents.
Don’t Blame The Internet
The blame in this situation rests in us, not in any technical system. In other words, the fault, dear Brutus, lies
not in our stars, but in ourselves.
That said, the Internet gave this problem a place to
thrive. Pre-polarized websites, blogs, and social media
channels have proliferated; it’s now possible to enclose
yourself in your chosen ideology, feasting on us/them
opinions, highly-emotional public clashes, and the
demonization of opponents. And it is a problem.
“Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it”. Thomas Sowell
(Continued on page 3)
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VOL. 03, NO. 1
WWW.APPALACHIANMESSENGER.INFO
Causes Less Than Yourself
Threats Impel Decentralization
(Continued from page 1)
By Francis W. Porretto
To say that those who pay—idealistic, perhaps naively
so, often young and in the prime of their lives—are
serving causes greater than themselves is to make a
mockery of the concept. They are sacrificed to empire
building, hypocrisy, and corruption. They and their
loved ones can only conclude, with understandable bitterness, that their sacrifices were not worth it.
Nothing can exceed or match such sacrifice. Unfortunately, sacrificing good to evil is standard operating
procedure for governments. The mother lode for warfare
and everything else governments do is what they extract
from the productive. What producers pay is not comparable to losing life or limb in combat, and some of their
taxes go to the those doing the fighting or those who
previously fought. However, that’s only a small percentage of the government’s budget. For the rest of it, think
of the time and effort those taxes represent: trillions of
hours. For the productive, it’s a meaningful portion of
their lives, their irretrievable time. Is it worth it? Do
they lose for causes greater than themselves?
Only idiots irredeemably beyond useful would answer
those questions in the affirmative. Most taxes go into
someone else’s pocket, with a not insignificant diversion to Washington, the nation’s richest metropolitan
area. They fund programs that make problems worse—
like Obamacare—and all those senseless wars. They pay
salaries for regulators enforcing a Himalayan stack of
laws and regulations that make it difficult or impossible
for producers to produce. Despite the trillions the government extracts, it cannot make ends meet, so a chunk
of taxes goes towards interest on the ever-increasing
debt. Regardless of whether its citizens can fund themselves, the government always finds a way to fund itself.
Speaking of taxes going into someone else’s pocket, did
a single producer get a nice Thank You note or holiday
card this Christmas season? You’d think that a few of
the millions of beneficiaries of government’s coercive
redistribution might express some gratitude to those
from whence their bounty was extracted. It never happens. Many believe they are entitled to what they get,
that producers should be grateful for the opportunity to
devote themselves to a cause greater than themselves—
supporting the unproductive.
With religious fervor “social justice” CGTY are
pushed by adherents who mostly shun traditional religion: income equality, environmental preservation at all
costs, climate change, the rights of heretofore marginalized sexual and gender minorities, and open immigration. These CGTY are given halos like “holistic,
“dreamers” “pay it forward,” and “give back.” You’d be
hard pressed to pick up a popular periodical devoid of
the lingo. Corporate America, ever attuned to shifting
trends, features this goo in its advertising, press releases, and annual reports. Whole Foods and Tesla make
purchasing organic vegetables or electric cars CGTY.
Starbucks sells a water called Ethos—morally transcendent H20!
The idea is to turn all the right causes into CGTY. They
have a common leitmotif: elevate the collective, diminish the individual. It’s absurd to say: “Do it for a cause
greater than yourself, do it for yourself.” That’s why it’s
always: “Do it for fill in the blank collective.” Only a
few hardy individualists ever resist the crowd and its
causes, usually at great personal cost. For the rest, it’s
join now, and often, regret later.
It is my New Year’s wish that you freely choose the
causes you deem worthy of your time, energy, and
money, and spend not one second more than you’re
compelled to on causes less than yourself.
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January 6, 2016
T
he terrorist attack on the Berlin Christmas market
has revived, at least for the moment, Europeans’
consciousness of their insecurity – and at least as important, European public officials’ consciousness of
the rising tide of resentment their subjects feel toward
them. However, if there’s been significant motion
among those politicians toward genuinely greater security against the Islamic threat – and let’s not mince
words on the feast day of St. Stephen, the first recorded martyr to the Christian faith – I haven’t been
able to detect it. To this point, only a few dabs of cosmetic rhetoric have been applied to the scowling face
of private European sentiment.
Frankly, I don’t expect much more than that from
Europe’s political elite. The European ruling class is
like the American one, except more so:
Its members arrogate even more power and privilege to themselves;
They’re even more disdainful of the rights and prerogatives of private Europeans;
And they’re twice as unlikely ever to admit a mistake, much less to make amends for it.
So my prediction for the near-term future of Europe is that nothing substantive will change. There’ll be more
rhetoric about the problem. There’ll also be an enhanced degree of both self-exculpation and finger pointing to go
along with it. But with very few exceptions – Hungary appears to be one – the rulers of Europe’s nation-states will
not act to stem the Islamic invasion of their realm, much less to expel those who are already inside the gates.
The consequences that must follow will involve sharp reductions in Europeans’ willingness to participate in large
gatherings. Despite attempts to render them visibly more secure, the Christmas markets have already suffered a decrease in patronage. I would expect other public gatherings – e.g., sporting events, political rallies, and the use of
large shopping malls – to be similarly affected.
For once, Europe will be the trend leader, though in time America will surely follow.
Unless forcibly prevented from doing so, people respond to changes in their environments. The change introduced
by Eurocrat foolishness about the Islamic influx evoked the aforementioned reduction in European participation in
mass gatherings. That change will evoke further changes: to the ways Europeans work, play, and socialize.
We may confidently expect that technology will play a part. Of course, in one way it already has: the Internet has
changed the ways in which private persons worldwide communicate. We don’t send physical mail nearly as often as
we once did. Neither do we spend as much time on the telephone...even though ubiquitous cell phones and cheap
voice communication have been around for some time already. But more is surely coming.
Consider the business meeting. Meetings among persons normally widely separated in space are steadily trending
downward in favor of teleconferences that involve no travel. The advantages here are many, and businesses worldwide have been quick to exploit them. But until recently, there’s been little reason to replace meetings by persons
who normally work on the same campus (or in the same building) with teleconferences. I predict that the drive toward reducing the frequency and size of concentrations of persons that might attract a terrorist attack will be felt
there, quite soon.
The need to congregate for work of various kinds will be less tractable, though the problems are not insuperable.
Repetitive assembly-line jobs are steadily being taken over by robots; some of those that demand a human operator
can be performed by a teleoperator manipulating a group of waldoes. Now that fear has been added to persons’ disincentives to commuting, we may expect these developments to accelerate.
Capital costs and allocations will have their effects. Over the past few decades, people have become ever more expensive while inanimate capital of most sorts has become less so. Companies that contemplate expansion or largescale renovation will look ever more favorably on approaches that prefer the inanimate to the animate: more machines and fewer (but smarter and more versatile) workers. The political impact will be considerable, but then, much
of the increased cost of human workers can be blamed on political interference in the labor market.
It’s likely that I’ve only scratched the surface here.
The above developments will cut into the supply of terrorist targets over time. However, we cannot expect that terrorists, who have as much interest in perpetuating their influence as anyone, will retire peacefully from the field.
They, too, will change their ways.
A determined terrorist that can’t attack people with bullets or explosives will seek other ways of harming them.
He’ll explore biological methods: poisons, gases, and microorganisms. If he can, he’ll attack the food supply of his
intended victims. Populations that get their water from centralized sources will remain vulnerable to him. And of
course, we all get our air from a common source...at the present.
Other forms of terrorism will become more significant. The possibility of attacks on our digitally controlled infrastructure has recently loomed large. The more of our underpinnings are held together by a common medium such as
the Internet, the more havoc a clever cyber attack could conceivably wreak. Persons who’ve surrendered to the lure
of the Internet of Things already have reason to fear this.
Further decentralizations, or efforts toward them, will arise. Instead of a single Internet with billions of persons and
devices on it. I predict that multiple digital mass communication paths will emerge. Some will specialize in financial transactions. Some will specialize in automation and numerical control. Others will support person-to-person
communications or meetings. Where gateways from network to network are created, security will be the foremost
consideration, as such linkage points would themselves be tempting targets.
There will be peripheral consequences that no one will like. The costs of these developments will be significant; to
the extent that they involve governments, they’ll be extortionate. We’ll see each other in person much less often;
we’ll take less pleasure from our gatherings, especially those that involve hundreds or thousands. The capital retrenchments I foresee will displace workers, especially those with the lowest and least transferable skills. And regardless of political developments, we’ll all feel a little less free.
Not a pleasant outlook for the immediate future, is it? But this is the crop we’ve reaped by permitting the civilization of the First World to be penetrated by that of Islam. It should never have happened; indeed, it should never
have been allowed. You cannot treat the gentleman and the savage as equals without ugly consequences.
Perhaps as the rigors of advancing decentralization begin to chafe us and confine us ever more straitly, we’ll unlearn
the folly of multiculturalism on which all the more obviously destructive follies are founded. We can only hope it
will not be “a lesson too late for the learning.”
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
Benjamin Franklin
“The first time I see a jogger smiling, I'll consider it”. - Joan Rivers
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WWW.APPALACHIANMESSENGER.INFO
January 6, 2017
Talk Politics For Ten Seconds And I’ll
Know Where You Get Your News
(Continued from page 1)
But again, the problem is not so much that these
things exist, but that so many people reward them.
They want to be told how right they are. They want to
see their enemies dismembered. The job of the Washington Post, if we’re to be blunt about it, is to dismember the enemies of the ‘right-thinking left.’ It’s the job
of Rush Limbaugh to dismember the enemies of the
‘righteous right.’ (To Limbaugh’s credit, he admits it.)
The choice to limit ourselves to these sources, however,
is our own. We don’t have to consume ‘news’ 24/7, and
we can certainly pick among many sources.
The fact is that groups do evolve in this way.
They will polarize themselves, whether we like it or not.
It remains to us to acknowledge it, to transcend clannish
instincts and to walk away from self-congratulatory
cloisters.
In the end, contrary opinions are good for us. Excluding
them can be dangerous. We shouldn’t be looking for
pre-digested, comfortable answers.
I leave you with some words of wisdom from George
Carlin. Take them to heart and you’ll escape this
problem:
“No matter how you care to define it, I do
not identify with the local group. Planet, species, race, nation, state, religion, party, union, club, association, neighborhood, improvement committee; I have no interest in
any of it. I love and treasure individuals as I
meet them, I loathe and despise the groups
they identify with and belong to”.
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
Jan 9—The Well Armed Woman, Georgia Mountain Chapter, Blairsville, GA. 5:30 p.m. A
women’s group dedicated to educating, equipping and empowering women gun owners.
Meeting at G meeting room 226 Gainesville Hwy, Suite C, Blairsville, GA 30512. or more information
please contact Carrie Brekke at [email protected] for information.
Jan 10—DAV Monthly Meeting, Blairsville, GA, 7 pm – 8 pm. The Disabled American Veterans meet on
the 2nd Tuesday of every month at 7pm in the Veterans Center. Held at the Veterans Building, 78 Old
Blue Ridge Hwy. Blairsville. For information please contact Mike Ruback 954-249-2707.
Jan 10—Cherokee NC ARES Formal Meeting, Murphy, NC, 7 pm. Our regularly scheduled second
Tuesday meeting at the Robert Penland Senior Center, 69 Alpine Street in Murphy.
Jan 12—The Well Armed Woman, Murphy Chapter, Murphy, NC, 6 p.m. A women’s group dedicated to
educating, equipping & empowering women gun owners. Meeting at Christian Martial Arts Center, 56
Valley River Ave, downtown Murphy. Contact Carrie Brekke at [email protected]
for information.
Jan 14—Dr. William R. Forstchen Booksigning, Waynesville, NC. 11am-1pm. New York Times bestselling author, Dr. William Forstchen will be signing his newest work, “The Final Day”, the highly anticipated follow-up to the bestsellers “One Second After” and “One Year After”. Carolina Readiness Supply,
72 Montgomery Street, Waynesville. For more information please contact 828-456-5310.
EDITORIAL STAFF
Sam Culper—Intelligence Editor
David DeGerolamo—General Editor
NC Girl—Layout & General Editor
678105691
Robert Gore—Financial Editor
Peter White—General Editor
“He that lives upon hope will die fasting”. - Benjamin Franklin
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VOL. 03, NO. 1
WWW.APPALACHIANMESSENGER.INFO
January 6, 2017
Classes Announced To Prepare For Future Uncertainties
The Appalachian Homesteaders’ Network (“AHN”), an organization in Western NC and North Georgia, hosted a “Prepper Fair” on Alarka Road in October, to increase citizens’ awareness of issues raised by FEMA. The demand for more information has been so great that a local affiliate of AHN, the “Bryson City Canners”, is
hosting a series of programs to help people understand what they need to do to be prepared for the number of threats that we face to our way of life. The public is invited
and encouraged to attend.
All presentations are from 7:00 - 9:00 PM and will be held in the Community Room at the back of the Marianna Black Library in Bryson City - 33 Fryemont Road
which is the corner of Academy and Rector (south extension of Everett Street).
For now, the series includes:
January 10 - “Grave Threats to Our Way of Life That Few Are Discussing”
This presentation includes the two most important items citizens need to do prepare for any threat they face.
• January 24 - “Raising Critters - Chickens, Rabbits, Goats and Bees”
• February 7 - “Energy Sources and Uses - Now and in the Future”
• February 21 - “Food Preservation
•
Other presentation will be announced in the future. For further information, please e-mail AliceSmith [email protected].
Now, it's true I married my wife for her looks... but not the ones she's been giving me lately.
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