As someone who has spent countless hours in the Great Outdoors and served in the military conducting combat reconnaissance missions, I have come across my fair share of knives. Eventually, you start to learn that no two knives are created equal and begin to develop a taste for what features in a blade really matter at an individual level. Experience has taught me that tools the size of a knife can be easily stolen or disappear during a move. And any tool, despite being looked after with the utmost care, can malfunction or break over time. Along comes the Terävä Jääkäripuukko, an all-purpose hunting knife from Varusteleka that does not break the bank and does not disappoint!
If you are unfamiliar with the Finnish company Varusteleka, you are missing out on extraordinary gear from a company that takes exceptional pride in their products. Puukko’s are and have been a part of Finnish culture throughout much of history, and that historical context is the inspiration for the Varusteleka Jääkäripuukko’s creation. Jääkäri is Finnish for the German word Jaeger, which usually means “elite light infantry,” and Puukko simply means “knife.” Finland has a long tradition of collaborating with German’s regarding military disciplines, and early in their independence, a group of soldiers went to train with the Germans as Jaegers. To honor this tradition and the heritage of past warriors, Varusteleka named their puukko as Jääkäri, because it is tradition, that every Finnish soldier carry a puukko, which can be used as a tool or weapon. Just thinking about the illustrious history and cultural significance of the blade are enough to give one goosebumps and having a knife with such versatility is a feature that cannot be overlooked.
Utility is important to me because I am very much a minimalist. The gear I carry in the field, regardless of the situation, all have multiple functions. This is primarily to avoid being overloaded and to make it easier to find what I need as soon as I need it. The Varusteleka Jääkäripuukko has utility in droves and brushes off a serious beating with nary a scratch. When handling this knife in person for the first time, my initial thought was, “this blade means business!” The weight feels comfortable, not too heavy as to be cumbersome, and not too light to feel fragile, but an appropriate balance. Even the edge was impressively sharp right out of the box. There is a shorter version of the knife from Varusteleka depending on what your personal needs are, but going forward, I will only be discussing the longer design.
Dimensions and Appearance
One first notices the straight back design, making it perfect as a tool used for chopping, slicing and carving. The traditional puukko birch or bone handle has been replaced by Varusteleka with a durable rubber grip with an unobtrusive finger guard. This not only allows for non-slip handling in wet or gloved conditions, but it also reduces the need for additional conditioning maintenance that more sensitive materials require. A lanyard loop protrudes from the butt end of the handle, part of its full tang, and allowing for a multitude of applications. In face, the width of the blade is such that the lanyard loop could be reliably used to break glass, ice or even bone.
High carbon tool steel gives the blade edge strength to endure a wide variety of cutting tasks without being too brittle. This steel is surrounded and protected by a slightly softer steel, further enhancing the Varusteleka Jääkäripuukko’s rugged durability. One remarkable feature of the knife is the beveled spine, exposing an edge of the higher carbon steel in the core, allowing for striking ferro rods and building emergency fires in survival situations. Even the tough leather sheath is built with substantial sturdiness. A double fold at the top of the sheath can be fastened with a stud, and a hard-plastic inner liner prevents the blade from damaging the inside.
Specs
Metric
Imperial
Weight (w/o sheath)
190 g
6.70 oz
Total length
270 mm
10.6″
Blade length
140 mm
5.5″
Blade thickness
4.20 mm
0.17″
Edge angle
23°
Steel
80CrV2, 59 HRC
Varusteleka Ergonomics
There have been moments during my time in the military, or recreationally, when wearing gear was not the most comfortable. Such has not been the case with the Varusteleka Jääkäripuukko, and the blades wearability can be attributed to its hanging sheath. Loop it through your belt and the dangling sheath is low enough to be accessible even if you are wearing a jacket or other forms of gear such as a plate carrier or rucksack. Its flexibility allows the knife to be worn in a vehicle without getting in the way of a seat-belt or jabbing you while you’re sitting in a chair.
Having a rubber handle over the tang has another set of benefits. This modern twist by Varusteleka over a traditional wood or bone handle improves grip, even in the most slippery of conditions. In cold or wet conditions, you’ll feel like you have the grasp of a grizzly bear holding on to a salmon in an Alaskan river!
Utility
Probably the most stunning feature of the Varusteleka Jääkäripuukko was how well it performed as a tool. After admiring is physical attributes, I immediately tested it in the field. One of the functions a lot of survival knife users want to be able to execute reliably is batoning, which essentially means using a knife as an axe, striking an arm-length stick as a hammer to strike the spine of the blade, forcing it through wood. Often times this can lead to breaking the blade of inferior quality knife, leading to potential injuries. What better place to test it out than the frozen hardwood forests of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan?
My jaw almost hit the forest floor when I batoned a forearm thick branch from a fallen tree. The Varusteleka Jääkäripuukko cut through the wood like a shark cuts through an 80’s surfboard, and with only a handful of strikes, I had a cut and split piece of frozen timber. Next, I decided to see what its true capabilities were by carving this piece of wood into something useful. The blade was so sharp, it was able to carve a spoon, the most essential of camping necessities, in less than thirty minutes. After crafting an eating utensil and a bunch of wood shavings as a result, it was a prime opportunity to try test the beveled spines ability to strike a ferro rod for fire, and it sparked true each time.
Final Thoughts on the Varusteleka Jääkäripuukko
Typically, when the edge of an inferior blade is hammered through frozen wood and used as a carving tool, there is going to be blunting or warping of the metal. Such was not the case with the Varusteleka Jääkäripuukko. The blade showed no signs of damage and remained unwrapped by the blunt force of being hammered into a piece of frozen tree limb. High carbon steel requires a bit more attention when it comes to maintenance, but not much. Just a little oil to ward the metal from rusting and quick run over something to keep it sharp. But you would be hard pressed to find such a versatile knife, with this amount of strength and finesse, at such a low cost.
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A plate carrier, a modular handgun, and an AR-15 go hand in hand for more than one reason. First of all, they belong in the hands of military, law enforcement, and civilians. Second, each carries a sense of urgency and personal responsibility. Finally, each takes a shape of its own depending on how the owner chooses to set it up. While a plate carrier set up will inherently bear some subjectivity to the wearer, some rules should be followed as well. Here’s how to set up a plate carrier.
Know the Plate Carrier Rules
The fit of the body armor comes first, before pouches are incorporated. The process of continual refinement reflects both on individual users, and those developing new gear. In the past, plate carriers have gone through something of a pattern resembling orthodoxy-reform-new orthodoxy, where a certain setup was considered absolute and gospel, only to be eventually challenged replaced with a new trend. Many of these were highly directed by various military and police standard operating procedures, or SOP’s.
But in the last years, a much broader approach has become mainstream, with more focus on the end user’s performance and a little more room for experimentation. As a result, a short list of rules cannot be broken, but outside that small circle, guidelines, suggestions, and trends shift depending on use. Above all other rules, propper plate carrier fit reigns supreme.
A Level III, Level VI, or Special Threat Plate is designed to stop a specific set of projectiles. By protecting the heart and lungs, it gives the wearer a distinct, but limited advantage in a violent encounter. The body is made up of timers and switches, and the heart and lungs have the shortest timers if damaged, short of the brain and spine. The front plate, then, needs to ride roughly from the center notch of the collar bone and cover down to about the base of rib cage. The rear plate mirrors this, though typically rests a little higher, with the top edge sitting about even with the tops of the shoulder blades.
Above: First Spear Plate Bags with a Crye AVS Harness. Custom assembly. HSGI Tacos, and KAGWERKS Kit, Disco 32 Tactical PTT, to Kenwood Connector on a Baofeng UV5R.
A properly fit plate carrier keeps the plates secure when running, climbing, moving through buildings, and diving for cover, all while not inhibiting one’s range of motion too much. The shoulder straps should adjust to set height, and the cumberbund to prevent the plates from bouncing when running. Mags, pouches, and plates jostling and bouncing around rapidly wear out the bearer, and pose a risk of injury when climbing. While most of the weight will rest on the shoulders, a slightly tighter cummerbund reduces this pressure.
Propper Plate Carrier Loadout
As a principle, loaded pouches should ride as close to the body as possible. This may sound like a pithy maxim, but it goes unheeded far too often, at the wearer’s expense. The emphasis on minimalism has gone a long way since earlier days, but can be mistaken for trimming the wrong gear. Those buying their own kit have the opportunity afforded by years of development to choose between a variety of equipment manufacturers, mixing and matching where they see fit.
The four categories of gear worn divide into ammunition, medical supplies, admin, and the ever ambiguous mission-specific equipment. Though lighter gear of the same capability will almost always be preferred, so long as it performs the same or better, this imperative often pits the good against the great.
Ammunition
The 3-wide, single layer mag “shingle” reigns as as the clear de rigueur of our time, with a mag sometimes referred to as the “speed mag” mounted to the cumberbund on the non-dominant arm side. In the last ten years, the trend has pushed some magazines typically carried on the Plate Carrier to the Belt, with many opting to reload off the belt first as habit. As magazines are expended, fresh mags are shifted first to the speed pouch, so that in the event of an emergency reload, the shooter can go straight to their fastest mag.
Above: Belt: Ronin Tactics Senshi Belt, with G-Code Scorpion Caddies, Blue Force Gear Micro Trauma Kit, Unknown Drop Pouch.
Magazines worn on the front of the carrier should only “double-up” in very rare, specific circumstances. It’s nearly impossible to translate how badly more gear directly turns into an inability to effectively lay prone behind low cover.
Medical
Often personal medical gear gets stowed on the belt, or according to unit SOP’s. If able to choose for yourself where a personal first aid kit will integrate, pick a location accessible by both hands in the event one receives disabling injuries. Outside of the kit, tourniquets should be distributed across the body where they can again be accessed by both hands.
Individual application will vary, but generally speaking at least one tourniquet should be attached to the plate carrier, even when worn in conjunction with a duty belt. This serves as insurance in the event the belt is lost, or one does not have time to put it on. Recently various forms of “danglers” have sought ot accomplish this, while others opt to use a breakable rubber band or shock chord.
Admin
Before chest-mounted cellphones were a thing, the top section of a plate carrier was typically kept slick or an admin pouch with maps, pens, and spare batteries and other miscellaneous items were often placed just above the magazines for easy access. Lately, gear like KAGWERKS or Juggernaut cases have dominated this space, offering users a video-game-like access to information with programs like ATAK.
Above: Toor Knives Vandal, fits on Kit and as a Belt Knife.
Even when using a chest-mounted computer, it is recommended to have a dedicated admin pouch if one is not designated on a uniform. The U.S. Army’s attempt at putting pen holders on their sleeves might have looked like a good choice, but more often than not, “in the field” those pens were broken before use. Dedicating a specific admin pouch on a plate carrier takes one step out of putting on one’s gear, saving time and making it easier to keep stocked up.
Radios have always presented a difficult decision to the bearer. If carried on the front, they could be accessed easier, at the cost of real estate. If carried on the back, a radio would be out of the way but often forcing the wearer to depend on a teammate to access it if a battery needed to be changed out or a frequency was lost. The black magic element of radios is their propensity to attract Murphy’s Law.
Either way, the most common location to integrate a push-to-talk or PTT, which connects a radio to a communications capable headset, has long been the front non-dominant side of a plate carrier, to allow access while keeping a finger on the trigger of a firearm. Attempts have been made to drop it onto to cumberbund, but this has mixed opinions. If carrying two radios, one does not want to have to think about which PTT they are activating while in the middle of a tense situation.
The back of the plate carrier draws the ire of many a zealous minimalist, as it follows the same rule of motorcycle saddlebags and backpacks: if there is free space, something will end up filling it, quickly adding both weight and bulk. A survivalist plate carrier setup, those preparing for a longer operation, or when carrying larger gear, it is possible to opt for a full backpack instead, worn over the plate carrier. If this is the case, once again, less is more. If not carried in the pack, a water bladder can be attached to the back, so long as it is protected by some sort of sleeve or pouch.
Mission Specific Gear
Those in the military or law enforcement should be able to look to their leadership for guidance with mission-specific gear. Allowing for ingenuity should be encouraged, but limited to training scenarios and vetted for some time before potentially seeing combat.
With a plate carrier load-out, the little things have a big impact, such as finding out where gear pinches, or moves. As each piece is added, the bearer should test it for movement and jostle by donning the plate carrier. Like a backpack, heavy equipment stored further from the body only exhausts precious energy, and potentially gives away one’s position by banging against walls, cars, and other objects.
Keeping a small amount of shock or bungee chord on hand can take the extra play out some things that move, and if a thing can fall out on it’s own, expect it to when needed most. Dampen the noise of metal buckles with electrical tape, Ranger Bands, and elastic sleeves. Trim loose ends, and make sure nothing dangles off the belt or back of a carrier. It will inevitably snag, risking injury, exposure, or destroying equipment in the middle of a high-speed airsoft match.
Final Thoughts
Building a plate carrier is a highly personal process, and requires a fair bit of humility to acknowledge just one is doing so. The difficulty with this kind of equipment is much like a permit to carry: we should truly hope that we never have to use it, and a responsible owner will be honest about their capabilities. A weighted vest helps greatly for improving fitness, and things like the Tactical Games have brought a new opportunity landscape to popular firearm competitions. Accessible by all, and physically demanding, Tactical Games Skirmishes make excellent gut checks to ego, and help trim the dead weight off a plate carrier.
Two extremes stand out in regards to plate carrier setup: the hyper orthodox who demands compliance to a rigid SOP without explaining it to his men, and the rogue experimenter who sticks out by challenging the norm, often with no specific problem to solve. Millions of hours of experience from the last near 20 years of war slowly trickle into gear companies, and the change is often slow, tempered by the reality that we’re dealing with serious life-saving equipment.
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The deaths and severe injuries from the COVID-19 vaccine are continuing to stack up. Here’s a question: how likely is it that the ruling class blames these deaths on COVID-21?
With the constant news of new “mutations” of the coronavirus designed to panic the already fearful masses into getting a vaccine that’s been horrifically damaging people and even killing them, we’d say this is likely. I hope I’m wrong, but not enough of the public has figured this out yet.
All of these agendas (the elitists own everything, they will take everything from you, you will be their slave permanently, unable to ever escape again, eugenics, and permission to do anything from those who desire ultimate control over everyone) are coalescing. Wake up now, or you won’t be able to. The ultimate goal is to take all of your property under the guise of you being unable to pay. What do you really think the lockdowns were for? Certainly not for a virus that statically, no one is dying from.
Jeff Berwick from The Dollar Vigilante shared some information sent to him from Curtis Stone, the Urban Farmer, and it lays out a timeline for Canadians, that’s already been 100% accurate. If this continues, we will see the mainstream media begin to refer to COVID-19 “mutations” as COVID-21.
“They wanna control the world,” Berwick says accurately. More importantly, they want complete control over every human being and they want it done before people figure out it is only their belief that someone has the right to rule over them that allows this to happen. All you have to do is stop believing in anyone”s authority over you. That’s step one, and a lot of us are finally there. But, since there aren’t enough, Berwick shows Canada’s planned timeline for a COVID-21 mutation as an excuse to eliminate all private property. Begin watching at 12:20 for an in-depth look at Canadian’s future.
It’s past time for humanity to realize they don’t need to be ruled They don’t need to be obedient slaves to a ruling class that doesn’t care if they live or die. It’s time to wake up to the realization that we don’t need slavery aka government. They need us to comply or they cannot rule. It is time to evolve and take a stance against all slavery, even that which was voted for. Wake up. Everyone’s future, including yours, depends upon it.
Have you ever heard of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation? What about Cede and Company? If those names are foreign to you, then you don’t really understand how the core of our financial system really works.
A lot of people are blaming Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev and the heads of other major trading platforms for the stock trading restrictions that we witnessed last week, but it was actually the DTCC that suddenly jacked up deposit requirements ten-fold. Robinhood and other trading platforms were put in a vise-like grip, and they had no choice but to act. Someone needs to investigate how these decisions were made at the DTCC, and if laws were broken those that were responsible for the decisions need to go to prison.
We are being told that retail traders needed to be brought under control “for their own good”, but it was the reckless short selling of the big hedge funds that actually set the stage of last week’s chaos.
Why doesn’t anyone ever talk about restricting their exceedingly foolish trading strategies?
Thanks to relentless buying by “the Reddit Army”, several major hedge funds got absolutely slaughtered last week, and that group included Melvin Capital…
Melvin Capital, a premier Wall Street hedge fund entangled in the frenzy over GameStop (GME), lost 53% in January, a source familiar with the matter told CNN Business.
Melvin, a major short-seller of GameStop, bet that the company’s shares would drop. But, on January 11, GameStop announced new board members who could help it with digital sales. That set off a fury on Reddit, namely subreddit WallStreetBets, which catapulted GameStop’s stock more than 1,600%.
Of course, the small fish are not supposed to beat up the big fish like that, and the billionaires at the big hedge funds undoubtedly reached out to their powerful friends for help.
There had been speculation that the big hedge funds leaned on Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev and the heads of other large trading platforms directly, but the truth is more complicated.
It turns out that the pressure on Robinhood and other major trading platforms came from the clearinghouse level. The following comes from a piece in USA Today that was authored by Vlad Tenev himself…
In a matter of days, our clearinghouse-mandated deposit requirements related to stocks increased ten-fold. These deposits are the collateral we post to ensure our access to clearinghouse services on behalf of our customers. They are what led us to put temporary buying restrictions in place on a small number of securities that the clearinghouses had raised their deposit requirements on. As we noted in a blog on Friday, it was not because we wanted to stop people from buying these or any stocks — we built Robinhood to provide access to investing for all. And it certainly wasn’t because we were trying to help hedge funds.
Tenev didn’t mention it by name, but the company that clears almost all of Robinhood’s trades is the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation. If you are not familiar with the DTCC, here is some basic info from Wikipedia…
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) is an American post-trade financial services company providing clearing and settlement services to the financial markets. It performs the exchange of securities on behalf of buyers and sellers and functions as a central securities depository by providing central custody of securities.
DTCC was established in 1999 as a holding company to combine The Depository Trust Company (DTC) and National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC). User-owned and directed, it automates, centralizes, standardizes, and streamlines processes in the capital markets.[3] Through its subsidiaries, DTCC provides clearance, settlement, and information services for equities, corporate and municipal bonds, unit investment trusts, government and mortgage-backed securities, money market instruments, and over-the-counter derivatives. It also manages transactions between mutual funds and insurance carriers and their respective investors.
In 2011, DTCC settled the vast majority of securities transactions in the United States and close to $1.7 quadrillion[4][5][6] in value worldwide, making it by far the highest financial value processor in the world.[6] DTCC operates facilities in the New York metropolitan area, and at multiple locations in and outside the United States.
Theoretically, the DTCC is supposed to be a neutral participant in the markets.
But as we saw last week, that is definitely not the case.
So why should we allow a “for-profit monopoly” to have so much power over our financial system? The following comes from a piece that was just authored by Omid Malekan…
The brilliance of this excuse is that it only proves the skeptics and conspiracy-theory believers right. DTCC is a for-profit monopoly that sits at the heart of America’s financial system. It is controlled by the biggest Wall Street institutions and responsible for all public equity settlement. A subsidiary of it literally owns every single share of publicly traded stock in America. Yes, you read that correctly. You don’t actually own your shares of Apple or Microsoft, they do. You are only allowed to enjoy the financial benefits of being an investor because your corporate overlords let you. Why? Because the government wants it that way (the fact that financial firms like DTCC always donate a lot of money to politicians has nothing to do with it.)
Of course, the DTCC is not actually the top of the pyramid.
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, the National Securities Clearing Corporation, and the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation are all managed “under the umbrella” of a shadowy entity known as Cede and Company…
This small New York based financial institution has a dozen directors and no more than a half dozen employees but holds, according to some reports, some 34 trillion dollars in assets.
A complex system of interlocking bodies, such as The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, the National Securities Clearing Corporation and the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation oversee all stock trading in the US. They all come under the umbrella of Cede.
And, on paper at least, own all the stocks traded.
One or more decision-makers at these shadowy entities decided to put an extraordinary amount of pressure on Robinhood and other trading platforms.
We need to find out exactly who was involved in making the decisions, and if something illegal took place the decision-makers need to be held accountable.
For now, Robinhood and other trading platforms will continue to restrict trading in certain stocks as we begin a new week…
Robinhood will continue to limit trading on Monday in short-squeeze names like GameStop that have experienced explosive rallies and unprecedented volatility over the past week.
Customers can only buy one share of GameStop’s stock and five options contracts. However, the millennial-favored stock trading app did cut down its list of restricted stocks from as many as 50 on Friday to eight starting Monday.
Our financial system is far more vulnerable than most people realize, and it is just a matter of time before the house of cards comes tumbling down.
Anyone that still thinks that we have a “free market” after what we witnessed last week is simply being delusional.
Very powerful forces look out for the interests of the ultra-wealthy and the game has been carefully designed for them to win.
***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***
About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com. In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe. I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream, and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial, or health decisions. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook, Twitter, and Parler, and anyway that you can share these articles with others is a great help. During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.
We are moving fast down that slippery slope to an authoritarian society in which the only opinions, ideas, and speech expressed are the ones permitted by the government and its corporate cohorts.
In the wake of the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol, “domestic terrorism” has become the new poster child for expanding the government’s powers at the expense of civil liberties.
Of course, “domestic terrorist” is just the latest bull’s eye phrase, to be used interchangeably with “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist,” to describe anyone who might fall somewhere on a very broad spectrum of viewpoints that could be considered “dangerous.”
Watch and see: we are all about to become enemies of the state.
If this is a test of Joe Biden’s worthiness to head up the American police state, he seems ready.
As part of his inaugural address, President Biden pledged to confront and defeat “a rise of political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism.” Biden has also asked the Director of National Intelligence to work with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security in carrying out a “comprehensive threat assessment” of domestic terrorism. And then to keep the parallels going, there is the proposed Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2021, introduced after the Jan. 6 riots, which aims to equip the government with “the tools to identify, monitor and thwart” those who could become radicalized to violence.
Don’t blink or you’ll miss the sleight of hand.
This is the tricky part of the Deep State’s con game that keeps you focused on the shell game in front of you while your wallet is being picked clean by ruffians in your midst.
It follows the same pattern as every other convenient “crisis” used by the government as an excuse to expand its powers at the citizenry’s expense and at the expense of our freedoms.
As investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald warns:
“The last two weeks have ushered in a wave of new domestic police powers and rhetoric in the name of fighting ‘terrorism’ that are carbon copies of many of the worst excesses of the first War on Terror that began nearly twenty years ago. This New War on Terror—one that is domestic in name from the start and carries the explicit purpose of fighting ‘extremists’ and ‘domestic terrorists’ among American citizens on U.S. soil—presents the whole slew of historically familiar dangers when governments, exploiting media-generated fear and dangers, arm themselves with the power to control information, debate, opinion, activism and protests.”
Greenwald is referring to the USA Patriot Act, passed almost 20 years ago, which paved the way for the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption, and abuse.
Free speech, the right to protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and transparency in government, privacy, press, sovereignty, assembly, bodily integrity, representative government: all of these and more have become casualties in the government’s war on the American people, a war that has grown more pronounced since Sept. 11, 2001.
Some members of Congress get it.
In a letter opposing the expansion of national security powers, a handful of congressional representatives urged their colleagues not to repeat the mistakes of the past:
“While many may find comfort in increased national security powers in the wake of this attack, we must emphasize that we have been here before and we have seen where that road leads. Our history is littered with examples of initiatives sold as being necessary to fight extremism that quickly devolve into tools used for the mass violation of the human and civil rights of the American people… To expand the government’s national security powers once again at the expense of the human and civil rights of the American people would only serve to further undermine our democracy, not protect it.”
Cue the Emergency State, the government’s Machiavellian version of crisis management that justifies all manner of government tyranny in the so-called name of national security.
So you see, the issue is not whether Donald Trump or Roger Stone, or MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell deserve to be banned from Twitter, even if they’re believed to be spouting misinformation, hateful ideas, or fomenting discontent.
This unilateral power to muzzle free speech represents a far greater danger than any so-called right- or left-wing extremist might pose.
The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render almost every American an extremist in word, deed, thought, or by association.
Yet where many go wrong is in assuming that you have to be doing something illegal or challenging the government’s authority in order to be flagged as a suspicious character, labeled an enemy of the state, and locked up like a dangerous criminal.
Eventually, all you will really need to do is use certain trigger words, surf the internet, communicate using a cell phone, drive a car, stay at a hotel, purchase materials at a hardware store, take flying or boating lessons, appear suspicious, question government authority, or generally live in the United States.
The groundwork has already been laid.
The trap is set.
All that is needed is the right bait.
With the help of automated eyes and ears, a growing arsenal of high-tech software, hardware, and techniques, government propaganda urging Americans to turn into spies and snitches, as well as social media and behavior sensing software, government agents have been busily spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports aimed at snaring potential enemies of the state.
It’s the American police state’s take on the dystopian terrors foreshadowed by George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, and Phillip K. Dick all rolled up into one oppressive pre-crime and pre-thought crime package.
What’s more, the technocrats who run the surveillance state don’t even have to break a sweat while monitoring what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, how much you spend, whom you support, and with whom you communicate. Computers by way of AI (artificial intelligence) now do the tedious work of trolling social media, the internet, text messages, and phone calls for potentially anti-government remarks, all of which is carefully recorded, documented, and stored to be used against you someday at a time and place of the government’s choosing.
In other words, the burden of proof is reversed: you are guilty before you are given any chance to prove you are innocent.
Dig beneath the surface of this kind of surveillance/police state, however, and you will find that the real purpose of pre-crime is not safety but control.
Red flag gun laws merely push us that much closer towards a suspect society where everyone is potentially guilty of some crime or another and must be preemptively rendered harmless.
This is the same government that has a growing list—shared with fusion centers and law enforcement agencies—of ideologies, behaviors, affiliations, and other characteristics that could flag someone as suspicious and result in their being labeled potential enemies of the state.
For instance, if you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you could be at the top of the government’s terrorism watch list.
In other words, if you dare to subscribe to any views that are contrary to the government’s, you may well be suspected of being a domestic terrorist and treated accordingly.
Again, where many Americans go wrong is in naively assuming that you have to be doing something illegal or harmful in order to be flagged and targeted for some form of intervention or detention.
In fact, U.S. police agencies have been working to identify and manage potential extremist “threats,” violent or otherwise, before they can become actual threats for some time now.
In much the same way that the USA Patriot Act was used as a front to advance the surveillance state, allowing the government to establish a far-reaching domestic spying program that turned every American citizen into a criminal suspect, the government’s anti-extremism program renders otherwise lawful, nonviolent activities as potentially extremist.
Be warned: once you get on such a government watch list—whether it’s a terrorist watch list, a mental health watch list, a dissident watch list, or a red flag gun watch list—there’s no clear-cut way to get off, whether or not you should actually be on there.
You will be tracked wherever you go.
You will be flagged as a potential threat and dealt with accordingly.
This is pre-crime on an ideological scale and it’s been a long time coming.
The government has been building its pre-crime, surveillance network in concert with fusion centers (of which there are 78 nationwide, with partners in the corporate sector and globally), data collection agencies, behavioral scientists, corporations, social media, and community organizers and by relying on cutting-edge technology for surveillance, facial recognition, predictive policing, biometrics, and behavioral epigenetics (in which life experiences alter one’s genetic makeup).
If you’re not scared yet, you should be.
Connect the dots.
Start with the powers amassed by the government under the USA Patriot Act, note the government’s ever-broadening definition of what it considers to be an “extremist,” then add in the government’s detention powers under NDAA, the National Security Agency’s far-reaching surveillance networks, and fusion centers that collect and share surveillance data between local, state and federal police agencies.
To that, add tens of thousands of armed, surveillance drones and balloons that are beginning to blanket American skies, facial recognition technology that will identify and track you wherever you go, and whatever you do. And then to complete the picture, toss in the real-time crime centers being deployed in cities across the country, which will be attempting to “predict” crimes and identify so-called criminals before they happen based on widespread surveillance, complex mathematical algorithms, and prognostication programs.
Hopefully, you’re starting to understand how easy we’ve made it for the government to identify, label, target, defuse and detain anyone it views as a potential threat for a variety of reasons that run the gamut from mental illness to having a military background to challenging its authority to just being on the government’s list of persona non grata.
There’s always a price to pay for standing up to the powers-that-be.
Do people really not see through this facade at this point? Dr. Anthony Fauci recently told the American public to wear two face masks, because one just isn’t effective enough at preventing the COVID-19 scamdemic. Now he’s saying there’s actually no evidence two masks are better than one or that masks even work at all.
“There are many people who feel, ‘You know, if you really want to have an extra little bit of protection, maybe I should put two masks on.’ There’s nothing wrong with that, but there’s no data that indicates that that is going to make a difference. And that’s the reason why the CDC has not changed the recommendations.”
This whole scam will get more ridiculous as people continue to suspend their own critical thinking and allow others to rule over them. We’ve got a limited amount of time for the still slumbering masses to figure out that government is slavery and they are taking orders from their masters with no push back is not going to give more freedom.
Multi-masking has become increasingly prevalent in recent weeks as politicians and other mask advocates have put on additional layers to seek added protection or send a safety-prowess message. One of the ruling class’s propaganda outlets The New York Times evendeclared last week that “Two masks are the new masks” and praised the likes of Pete Buttigieg and his husband for double-masking at President Joe Biden’s January 20 inauguration.
Remember, these tyrants don’t care about the truth, they care about your enslavement. Wake up. Government is slavery and we have a short path until this is permanent and no escape possible. These people admit they lie and if you want slavery in all forms abolished forever, you are a target of the manipulation.
In December, for example, Fauci admitted to lying about herd-immunity targets to manipulate public opinion about Covid-19 vaccines. He said last March that there was no need for the general public to wear masks to prevent the spread of the virus, then called in October for a national mask mandate. So on the subject of masks alone, he’s gone from zero to one to two to one. –RT
In this day and age of misinformation, disinformation, lies, propaganda, and a totalitarian enslavement push for the whole of humanity, use your own discernment. We have to start figuring out how to leave and take down this system of control and replace it with nothing, or we will succumb to it.
The solutions are there. The first step is knowing no one has the right to rule you and you are under no obligation to be anyone’s slave.
Prepare for the mainstream media’s onslaught and push for the vaccine propaganda. The United Kingdom’s new COVID-19 variant has mutated yet again, say the medical tyrants.
Tests on some samples show a mutation, called E484K, already seen in the South Africa and Brazil variants that are of concern, according to a report by the BBC. Although this change may reduce vaccine effectiveness, the current ones in use should still work, say “experts.” Although this is an obvious ploy to gin up the fear and convince people to roll up their sleeves and take this vaccine, many are concerned.
As I pondered yesterday, what will they (the ruling class) blame the vaccine deaths on:
There has been a plan to introduce the COVID-21 strain as a more deadly and virulent mutation of COVID-19 in order to further enslave humanity. We all need to keep an eye on what they are doing and under what pretexts. This doesn’t feel like it’ll end without at least some kind of oppressive reaction the “order followers” will attempt to force on the public.
It’s not unexpected that variants are appearing or that they will continue to change – all viruses mutate as they make new copies of themselves to spread and thrive.
Dr. Julian Tang, a virus expert at the University of Leicester, described the finding as “a worrying development, though not entirely unexpected”. –BBC
There is no more “totalitarian tiptoe.” Those pushing humanity’s enslavement know exactly what they are doing. Tang said it was important that people follow the lockdown rules and get cases of coronavirus down to prevent opportunities for the virus to mutate further. So obey your master, and listen to those who claim the right to own you. “Otherwise not only can the virus continue to spread, it can also evolve.”
It’s important to keep an eye on what mainstream media is pushing. There’s always a reason it always comes back to controlling you through some kind of propaganda designed to get you to give up your basic human rights in exchange for nonexistent security.
Stay alert and aware. It’s hard to say how much longer we’ll be bombarded with the news reports of “mutant strains” until we are either under lockdown again involuntarily, or people willingly kneel to their masters and submit to their enslavement. One way or another, those who think they own us will push this as far as they can. It’s now up to us.
Does anyone else get the feeling the Joe Biden’s first term is Barack Obama’s third term? All of the players appear to be the same as it’s reported that Biden is eyeing “never let a good crisis go to waste” Rahm Emanuel for an ambassadorship in this new administration.
Biden is considering former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel for a high-profile ambassadorship, potentially to China, three people with knowledge of the discussions said according to a report by NBC News. Becoming the United States’ ambassador to Japan is another option that Biden administration officials have discussed with Emanuel, one of the people with knowledge of the discussions said.
Emanuel has been neck-deep in scandals and corruption since day one as a politician, not that all other politicians aren’t at least somewhat corrupt. But Emanuel is terrible at hiding what an actual psychopath he is, famously saying “never let a good crisis go to waste” about taking basic human rights away from people.
Emanuel, who became White House chief of staff when Barack Obama took office as president, has a reputation as a sharp-tongued political street fighter. He is a tyrant who seeks power over others and isn’t ashamed to admit he wants to be the master. If you still think this is a “free country” I suggest you wake up sooner rather than later. Before much longer, we won’t be able to do anything about this totalitarian enslavement of the human race by the ruling class.
Biden is considering Emanuel for a key diplomatic position as administration officials look to fill dozens of vacancies in capitals across the world, with decisions expected in coming weeks. A tyrant for every position.
Another person familiar with the discussions said Emanuel’s name had also been floated internally for U.S. ambassador to Israel. But, this person said, the idea was deemed unworkable because of Emanuel’s notoriously rocky relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, dating to his time as Obama’s chief of staff.
*Wake up! They (the media, the government, and the corporations) are all in this together against us! No one is coming to save us. It is time to save ourselves.
You would think that a plucky group of Internet rebels standing up to a bunch of notorious hedge funds and short-sellers would be a story that even the mainstream media should be able to get right, but apparently, that is not the case.
As you will see below, the corporate-controlled media is attempting to convince all of us that the hedge funds and the short sellers are actually “the good guys” and that the “Reddit army” that is taking them on is a bunch of dangerous insurrectionists that are a threat to the entire system. Of course, I suppose that it shouldn’t be a surprise that the corporate-controlled media is standing up for the establishment, because the establishment showers them with millions of advertising dollars. But it really has been disgusting to watch them totally sell out like this. If you listen to the mainstream media long enough, you would be tempted to believe that we now live in a “Bizarro World” in which everything that was once evil is now good and everything that was once good is now evil.
Just within the past few days, the New York Times has called the “Reddit army” a “rebellion”, Investing Daily has referred to it as an “insurrection”, and NBC News has used the word “insurgency” to describe it.
But the first prize actually goes to the Washington Post. They had the gall to run a story entitled “The good guys in the GameStop story? It’s the hedge funds and short-sellers”…
The Gamestop speculators are not merely in a frenzy about one stock. Their goal is to destroy the traders who link stock prices to fair value. To suggest a political analogy, they are not just blindly devoted to their candidate; they deny the legitimacy of the opposition party. They are not just acting within the system; they want to overthrow the system. It’s as though — just imagine — a rabble gripped by conspiracy theories were to attack the rules of democracy itself. The name “Gamestop” is apt.
Are you kidding me?
What is next? Is the Post going to come out with a story about how Luke Skywalker was evil because he wanted to overthrow the established order that Darth Vader and the Emperor had instituted across the galaxy?
The official slogan of the Washington Post is “Democracy Dies In Darkness”, and that is quite ironic because they have totally gone over to the dark side. In the same article that I just quoted above, the Post laughably asserted that “a market without short sellers” would be like “a political system without investigative journalists”…
What about short sellers? These are specialists who research stocks that might go down, sometimes because bosses are illegally covering up bad news about their companies. When short sellers identify a case of fraud or similar, they borrow and sell the stock, hoping to buy it back at a lower price later. Again, there is nothing evil about this. To the contrary, it’s a way of keeping prices honest. A market without short sellers is like a political system without investigative journalists.
Yes, let us take a moment of silence right now to acknowledge all of the wonderful contributions that short-sellers have made to our society.
It really has been amazing to watch the lengths that some in the mainstream media will go to in an attempt to demonize the retail traders that have banded together to go after the short-sellers. On CNN’s website, Chris Cillizza did his best to try to turn the “woke mob” against the Reddit traders by linking them with Trump. The following comes from his article entitled “How Trumpism explains the GameStop stock surge”…
The point is that there is no real point beyond showing up the pros — proving to them that they aren’t as smart as they think they are and that they don’t have the ability to control everything.
Which, again, has its roots in Trumpism. The entire notion of Trump’s candidacy and presidency was to stick it to the elites. And then, well, uh, there wasn’t really a plan beyond that. The screwjob was the point.
Others have gone even farther. To me, it was extremely offensive when former SEC Commissioner Laura Unger compared the short squeeze on Wall Street to the rioting at the U.S. Capitol.
Of course, whenever something happens that the establishment really doesn’t like, it is just a matter of time before they start blaming Russia.
The other night, Jimmy Kimmel suggested that “maybe even some Russian disrupters” were at least partially responsible for the chaos on Wall Street, and MarketWatch actually published an article entitled “The GameStop saga is a road map for the Kremlin and other enemies of America”.
Ever since the 2016 election, Russia has become the ultimate boogeyman.
If something major goes wrong, Russia has to be blamed for it somehow.
President Trump at least attempted to keep our relations with Russia fairly stable while he was in office, but now that he is gone I have a feeling that U.S. relations with Russia are going to completely fall apart.
But that is a topic for another article.
Getting back to the topic at hand, the short-sellers only have themselves to blame for what happened. The number of GameStop shares that had been sold short was greater than the number of GameStop shares that actually existed, and that was a golden invitation for anyone that wanted to attempt a massive short squeeze.
If it wasn’t the Reddit army, it was probably going to be someone else.
What a year this has been already.
On the first Wednesday of 2021, there was a massive riot at the U.S. Capitol.
On the second Wednesday of 2021, President Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives.
On the third Wednesday of 2021, Joe Biden was inaugurated.
On the fourth Wednesday of 2021, the GameStop short squeeze made headlines all over the globe.
And everywhere you look, our system is being greatly shaken.
Most Americans are sick and tired of the corruption and injustice that they see all around them, and they know that our “leaders” aren’t going to do anything about it.
People are increasingly taking matters into their own hands, and the Reddit army is thrilled that the hedge funds and the short sellers can finally feel their fury.
But fury is not going to fix our system.
At this point, nothing will.
***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***
About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com. In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe. I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream, and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial, or health decisions. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook, Twitter, and Parler, and anyway that you can share these articles with others is a great help. During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.
The future of total police surveillance just got a whole lot bleaker, thanks to researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). IISc researchers have figured out a way to turn a vast network of CCTV cameras into one massive surveillance network, which can target a specific vehicle or person.
As VentureBeatreported, police can use Anveshak’s artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to track an individual’s movements by using multiple surveillance cameras from various sources.
Anveshak, the Hindi word for “investigator” gives law enforcement the ability to overlap the camera feeds from a thousand CCTV cameras to track an individual person[s].
Anveshak has the big-picture ability to know the locations and overlap points of 1,000 camera feeds, as well as possible paths an object (such as a stolen car) or person could take through those feeds, critical details in limiting what would otherwise be an unfathomably large quantity of video data coming from multiple cameras.
The Anveshak platform will let police use CCTV cameras to track or “spotlight” a person through blindspots.
The system creates a spotlight on the tracked subject, dynamically adjusting the size of that spotlight based on known gaps in camera coverage; for example, four cameras might be monitored for the subject’s arrival in situations of ambiguity, decreasing to only two cameras where their coverage is better and the subject’s route more obvious.
The IISc’s attempt at explaining how law enforcement can use it to track missing people is really just a veiled attempt at showing governments how police could use the Anveshak platform to ID and track people of interest.
The spotlight algorithm narrows the search space for analyzing video feeds if the missing person is found within a camera’s field of view. It gradually expands the set of video feeds analyzed when the person falls in a blindspot between cameras. This intelligence helps reduce the computation required for analyzing videos from thousands of cameras while not sacrificing accuracy.
The “spotlight” AI algorithm is unlike anything we have seen before.
Anveshak will allow law enforcement to use a vast network of public and private surveillance cameras to track an individual persons movement’s between blindspots.
The IISc calls Anveshak “a software platform for smart video tracking”.
Researchers at the IISc have developed a novel software platform from which apps and algorithms can intelligently track and analyze video feeds from cameras spread across cities. Such analysis is not only useful for tracking missing persons or objects, but also for “smart city” initiatives such as automated traffic control.
Don’t be fooled by IISc’s claims that law enforcement will only use Anveshak to track stolen cars or missing persons.
As history has shown, police have used smart AI to identify and track people of interest like Occupy Wall St. and Black Lives Matter protesters.
As The Vergerevealed law enforcement used police video teams to ID peaceful protesters more than 400 times.
NYPD police camera teams were deployed to hundreds of Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street protests from 2011–2013 and 2016. Originally acquired through a Freedom of Information Law request by New York attorney David Thompson of Stecklow & Thompson, the records are job reports from the NYPD’s Technical Assistance Response Unit (TARU) that document over 400 instances in which the unit’s video team attended, and sometimes filmed, demonstrations.
The New York Timesrevealed how police Fusion Centers used CCTV surveillance and police videos to ID and track peaceful protesters.
Peter Swire, a law and ethics professor at Georgia Tech who recently served on President Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, said that as the government concentrated on fighting terrorism, guidelines that had restricted the monitoring of political activity were relaxed. As a result, he said, even minor offenses like trespassing can be enough to trigger surveillance of political groups.
Both The Verge and the New York Times did a great job of revealing what happens when police are given access to public surveillance devices, like facial recognition and CCTV cameras.
Anveshak does for police surveillance what digital electronics (4K) did for old tube-style televisions. It totally changed the way people view things.
In a recently published paper, the researchers show how Anveshak can be used to track an object (like a stolen car) across a 1,000-camera network. A key feature of the platform is that it allows a tracking model or algorithm to focus only on feeds from certain cameras along an expected route, and tune out other feeds. It can also automatically increase or decrease the search radius or “spotlight” based on the object’s last known position.
The quality of police surveillance cameras can be likened to 4K television’s clarity. Just like 4K changed the way we come to view TVs with its amazing quality, Anveshak will change the way police view the public’s privacy forever.
A network of a hundred, five hundred, or a thousand Anveshak-connected surveillance cameras means that once a person enters a business like a Walmart, Rite Aid, Home Depot, or a Lowe’s; they can be ID’d and tracked in real-time with no lapses (blindspot) in coverage. The same can be said for public transportation with their DHS-funded public surveillance cameras being installed in buses, trains, and public platforms throughout the country.
Anveshak gives law enforcement the ability to “spotlight” anyone, for any reason, no matter where they are. Anveshak’s platform will transform police surveillance as we know it, soon Big Brother’s gaze will be omnipresent.