Commentary: Infantry(wo)men & The Misogynist Reviewer

There are a couple of parts to this blog post that I feel are related so I will contain it all here. 'Patriot Dawn: The Resistance Rises' has been doing very well and the majority of reviews have been '5 Star' and very positive. There have been a couple of reviews that really miss the point. This morning I woke up and was disgusted by a review I read - and this was not because of any criticism of the book, but because of what the guy was saying about women.

At the risk of drawing too much attention to the 2 star review titled 'Feminazi fantasy prepper utopia' I have a few things to say. I may get a little 'Mountain Guerrilla John Mosby' on you, but I will try and edit out the cussing after I write this post! I was so motivated by this review that I went on Amazon and left a comment on it. This is what I said:

"This review is disgusting. I felt compelled as the author to comment. It is entirely misogynistic. The reviewer even supports pedophilia and rape. I am appalled by this review and I have reported it. I hope it is removed. I would rather people like this did not read my books (comments about poor grammar & composition aside, in the ignorance of the reviewer of correct English!)

As a combat veteran I know where females have strengths and weaknesses in both military training and combat. I have expressed this accurately in the book with some of the women not 'making the grade' but others do and subsequently excel. Some of the female characters, who are strong American woman to be proud of, just as some of the male characters are, are based on people that I know or have known. The characters are realistic and the reviewer is a weak misogynistic woman-hater who I have no time for. Get off my Amazon page! A true American male is not threatened by a strong American woman, he would be proud of such.

In my outrage, I further looked into this guy's other reviews and it turns out that he broke a chair rated for 300lbs and complained about it, giving it a poor review. He most likely is a hugely fat useless misogynist who will likely die in a pile of his own pizza and Doritos. His comments about the relationship between the book's main character and his wife clearly point to a lack of healthy relationships with strong American women, or any women at all for that matter. I am disgusted."

I hope they actually take the review down. Now, I don't want people to get the wrong idea. I am no 'feminist' and I believe strongly in the family and what I would term healthy married relationships. My vision of a good American woman is a strong character while being loving and caring. I am thinking frontier old west stuff here, painting a picture of a man and wife raising a family and teamed up to work the land and bring up their children. The reviewers comment on the relationship in the book between the main character and his wife clearly shows his unhealthy view of married life, which he probably has never experienced, and shows a lack of understanding of how marriage partnerships work. With a strong husband and wife, the man does not 'rule' the woman, and that is not even getting into the reviewers implication of pedophilia and also the denigration of women in their thirties. 

I am a huge fan of strong confident women. I don't feel threatened by them. I would not want a wife who was not strong and competent, a partnership relationship where the couple support each other in their strengths and weaknesses. I also do believe in natural gender roles, where mothers are best at raising their children but fathers will be involved and help out as best they can. Do what you are good at. This reviewer just strikes me as some fat useless weakling stuck in a sofa in a basement somewhere, a typical coward/bully. In my mind, competent strong loving caring women should be cherished. And by strong and confident I don't mean brash and rude and whatnot. I mean well brought up, polite and caring etc.

This brings me on to the announcement that women will be allowed to be in combat. Well, women are already in combat, so lets assume we are just talking about infantry here. I used to have rabid views against females serving in the infantry, but these views have evolved and matured somewhat.

I will say right here before I go further that I am certain that the way the US Military implements this new policy will be badly. There are ways and means of doing things and I am sure that they will get all tangled up in 'equality' and end up lowering standards so that the effectiveness of the force over all suffers. So let's put that whole nightmare to the side and just discuss the basics of whether females should or could serve in the infantry.

I believe that this is all about standards and merit. I think that standards should be set for infantry soldiers and if females wish to challenge those standards, meet them and pass training, they could be allowed to serve in the infantry. There are females who are very good at this kind of thing. The mistake happens when you lower standards and just let all kinds in, who just don't get it but are there for the wrong reasons and the effectiveness of the force suffers.

I realize that there are a lot of ancillary issues that people will point to, some valid, others not (like females attracting bears LOL!) A lot of these issues can be taken care of by instilling the correct culture in an organization. The females should not be coddled, and they should be no tolerance of them using their 'wiles' to get advancement or other favors. Fraternization is always a problem. I was reading that the Israelis have experimented with women in combat and now they have an all female infantry unit. Perhaps they felt that was a better way to go, but given the experiences reported to me of living in the female 'bay' at basic training I can imagine it would be a living hell 'bitch-fest' for many of the females! That's just a reality that many females would attest to, if they set aside any notions of politics and agenda.

In my book 'Patriot Dawn: The Resistance Rises' I have some key strong female characters. They don't overwhelm or 'whip' the males who are also strong and competent. They bring their own strengths to the party. In the book I am writing about a Resistance movement but a lot of what they do is infantry/combat based. Under such circumstances, I describe a training process that weeds out both males and females who are not suited or capable and re-deploys them to other roles. I do have a much higher attrition rate among the females, but those that remain are fully competent and in the book they add value and operate on their own merit, not by being 'coddled'. I have based a couple of the characters around women that I have known, or compositions of such. These characters are not unrealistic and I certainly do not have a feminist agenda - nor am I a 'Feminazi' in the words of that reviewer.

Whether females should serve in combat is another question that comes down to personal opinion. I will attest to knowing women who have been very good operators, very good outdoors and both physically and mentally in a tactical environment. I have no doubt that as long as the culture of the unit was maintained in an appropriate manner, some females have the ability to serve in infantry units. This does not mean that all females should have the 'right' too do so, but just as males have to pass standards the females should be expected to pass those same standards, with no compromise entertained. If there is an insistence that females serve in infantry roles, then these are the standards that should be insisted upon.

As far as females operating as shooters post-collapse and and/or in a resistance to tyranny environment, same rules apply. With both your males and females you may have little choice anyway, and will probably not have the opportunity to be too picky, but your team should be held to a realistic standard. If you are creating tactical teams and you have some choice over who is in it and standards, set a standard and hold everyone too it. That is real equality: equality of opportunity, which differs from some 'entitlement' to do stuff just because you feel like it.

Comments are welcome and encouraged, as is debate. I have not removed a comment form my blog yet. However, I will remove comments that are simply misogynistic and, in my opinion, inappropriate or from the loony fringe.

Max

***Inserted comment: Since I wrote this, a discussion has begun. I welcome that. Benjamin, below in the comments, is the very reviewer from Amazon who followed my blog link over. That is fine, he can have his say, this is America after all, despite his comments about his writing being better than mine ;-)
What I need to remind you all of, to bring this back into perspective  is that his original review was largely directed at two incidents in the book involving sexual assault and rape (not graphically described, before you worry). One of them involves a captured then rescued female resistance fighter. The other involves the captured daughter of a militia member, held and used as a sex toy by a Regime Commissioner, and she is described in the book as 'barely pubescent, maybe around twelve years old'. On that basis, I am unsure how this has devolved into a discussion about age of consent and marriage/child bearing age, because that is not  what I responded to in the Amazon review. Supporting that is pedophilia, and not acceptable.***

****Further Note: Sadly, I have taken my first steps towards censorship by deleting a select few of the comments below. The reasons for this are as follows:
1. They were tangential to the discussion.
2. I found some of the comments offensive and disrespectful to women. I'm happy for contributors to discuss women in combat and the role of women etc, but not what I consider arguments to justify sexual assault, rape or under-age sex counter to the current laws and norms of our society.
3. This is not the place for a religious or God's Law discussion specifically about what rape is or is not. IMO, rape is non-consensual sex or sex with a minor, whether that accords with your understanding of Gods Law or not. As Arctic Pilgrim suggests, please take such discussions elsewhere.
4. I don't appreciate being described as brainwashed by 'FemiNazis'. I, and those I know who I consider right thinking Patriots, have a healthy respect for women and do not consider them inferior in our society. They may be different to men, but not inferior.
If you don't like it, discuss it elsewhere.
Max
****

Peeling: An Explanation

Peeling: This simple but highly effective technique is mainly used to move to the flank; elements or individuals are in line facing the enemy threat and will ‘peel out’ to either the left or right. This is a good technique for moving along a linear feature, such as a road or ditch, while producing maximum suppressive fire. It is better to 'peel' than to simply get up and go.

The reason I say that peeling is mainly used to move to the flank is because for moving forwards towards the enemy or moving backwards away from the enemy  generally the most appropriate method is to use simple fire and movement, otherwise known as bounding over-watch. It is up to you to take your team/formation and work through 'actions on' utilizing these methods to suit your particular formation/ team/ environment/ situation.

Peeling can also be used as a method of moving to the rear (i.e. if the unit was contacted from the front while in a file formation), but in that case because the team will be in line (single file or file) the firepower generated to the front is limited. However, it's very useful if for example there are enemy on both sides of the road/trail; the technique can be used from the file with individuals peeling from one end of the formation, down the center (‘down the tunnel’), to the other end, thus moving the formation out along the linear feature while generating maximum suppressive fire towards the enemy on both sides: this is known as a ‘center peel’.  

With the peel, when the formation needs to move right, individuals or elements will move from the left side, behind the formation, and peel back in on the right. The opposite for moving left. As each individual passes the next man, who will be providing suppressive fire, he shouts something along the lines of “Move!” or “Last man!” or kicks his foot etc., in order to ensure that the next man knows to move.

The technique is a flow of constant fire and movement. It can also be used, for example, as a way of moving to a flank out of an area of open ground to cover, when contacted by an enemy to the front. 

Don't confuse the use of techniques such as this with excessive expenditure of ammunition, which you may have seen on 'youtube' or similar. Peeling does not require massive firepower. The idea is to return fire to suppress the enemy to cover movement. You could do this with bolt action rifles if you had to, so long as you made your shots count. The basic principle is the same.

As an example, the center peel is an one of the drills that you can do for a 'contact front':

With the center peel method all the patrol members step to the left or right accordingly to create a file, or tunnel formation. This will only allow the front two riflemen to engage but it is useful for withdrawing along linear features or where fire is coming in from the front but also to the front and flanks on both sides.

The front people will return fire and then in sequence they will turn and run through the center of the tunnel, peeling back in at the other end. This allows the next front people to fire and the process will continue with the tunnel turning itself inside out all the way back to a suitable rally point. It is effectively a peeling technique with two lines.

The fire and movement method would be for the front team to return fire, with the two rearmost riflemen of that front team stepping out to the sides to allow them to fire: effectively ‘getting on line’. These two pairs would fight back utilizing fire and movement. The rear team would take up security positions and then begin to move back, utilizing bounding over-watch, to secure a rally point.

This video below contains a practical demonstration of some of these techniques, if you move to the second half past the vehicle drills you will see fire and movement and towards the end there is a peeling drill. In this case, it is in response to a "Contact Right" after the team 'gets on line' to face the threat to the right and then peel back to the vehicles. There is no center peel in this video.

In the video below, Navy SEALs demonstrate a center peel, with massive expenditure of ammunition  Clearly  they will need a fast resupply in order to continue. For a prepper or Resistance fighter, this sort of ammunition  expenditure is prohibitive  and also arguably gratuitous and lacking utility. What the SEALs are doing is trying to generate massive suppressive weight of fire in order to overwhelm the enemy and let their smaller team escape (break contact). That is all well and good, so long as the fire is accurate enough to actually suppress the enemy. There is a balance between weight of fire and accuracy. Draw your own conclusions!

This information is extracted in part from my manual 'Contact! A Tactical manual for Post Collapse Survival' and is also incorporated into the novel 'Patriot Dawn: The Resistance Rises'. Required reading for the difficult times we are facing!

Shared from Activist Post: Smart Guns

This is very worrying. It's the sort of thing that they could persuade people is a good idea 'for the children' and then they come for your guns. They turn off the chip so you can't use them!

Max Velocity Tactical on Facebook

HERE

Max on TV: Info Wars

Here it is.

Max on Radio: interview on the Alex Jones Show

Here is the link to the youtube.com version.

End of the West: The Big Picture (UK Commentary)

I got this commentary in from my Dad, in the UK. It makes interesting reading:

All the Western major powers are trying to devalue their currencies as quickly as they can. This makes them more "competitive" in terms of exports. It really does and perhaps not more vividly illustrated than in the car market. So, the UK Government is busily devaluing by pumping £375bn of paper/electronic money into the markets. This is estimated to have devalued the £ by some 25% (coincidentally, my imported Assam tea has gone up by 25% to £2 a quarter!). This also has the side-effect of making undesirable imports more expensive. This should deter people from buying imports. Not always..but that's another story. The US is also busily pumping QE. The $US is down 12% since the crash and down 31% since 2002. Of course, for the people who have "bought your debt" this is all bad news- the Chinese are not happy!. Their profits are being wiped out. But, as always, its the man in the middle who gets hurt. Prices go up, savings are worth less. Ultimately, there is the threat of the issue of a "new currency". That's a crisis. The New£, the New$. imagine, the Bank says that your $10 is now only worth one $new.

 

We all have to learn to "embrace poverty"! Ha, my little joke. But, politically, there's a grain of truth in my joke. We are not rich, we were never rich, we were "on debt" and devaluation/inflation is a long , politically soft option to get us back to reality.

 

On 31 Dec the US hit its legal debt ceiling of $16,400bn. The US Government will run out of cash Feb/Mar.

In the 80s US debt was c$900bn, in 1996 it was $10,000bn. Five years ago US debt was 70% of GDP and it is now 102% of GDP.

Emerging markets have debt levels of c30% but across the G7 its 124%.

 

It is alleged that the US is borrowing in order to pay its debts. If that's true then that's a cycle of despair!

 

In the UK, Cameron talks about "driving down the deficit". But, what he is not telling people is that while he nibbles away at the difference between expenditure and income (the deficit) he's borrowing great slabs of money to sustain a standard of living that we just cannot afford. If you see the attached pie chart it shows that this year they plan to borrow £91bn. This will probably be an under-estimate as last year it was £120bn. Last year we paid £48.6bn in interest so I cannot see that they will get away with "only" £46bn this year. Oh yes, that's more than the defence budget. Our national debt is already £1,065 bn as at Sep 12 and is being added to at about £100bn pa. Unless a stop is put to public sector expenditure then we too could soon be borrowing to pay our debts?

 

The UK needs to cut Government expenditure by c£100bn pa. Look at the attached pie. We need to cut "social protection" and "health". In a worse situation, Obama is going the other way!!

 

And, there's worse. In this parlous situation we are "exploding" the UK population to 77.7m by 2035 (when your children will be young adults). Just looking at England and Wales where the population will be c70m by 2035; the "ethnic minority" population will double to 20m. while the "white British" will gain about 5m to about 50m.

Next year, under EU  law, there will be unlimited access to the dirt-poor populations of Romania and Bulgaria. Madness!

 

It may be shallow, but its worth remarking that the Roman armies were not defeated. They fell apart when they were not paid. They sought work elsewhere! When Rome "fell" (Alaric 408?) it was because the grain supply was cut off and the "migrants" within the walls just opened the gates. There was no army. Armies run on money. The UK Army is shedding one in five soldiers. 20%. 

 

The crisis of the West;debt and population. Both can be solved but our politicians are in denial....they know they'll never be reelected...

 

 

New Blog: Preparedness is Fundamental

I got an email about this new blog: 'Preparedness is Fundamental'

Check it out, it looks like there is some good information there.

Here is the release info:

New Resource for “Hands-On” Preppers

Preppers are typically “hands-on” kind of people, and with that in mind, a new website; “Preparedness is Fundamental”, has just been launched that features articles and short how-to videos on prepping for anyone that doesn’t mind getting their hands dirty. One video shows you how you can secure as many perfectly good batteries as you want for free while another walks you through the easy construction of a super bright, rugged 12 Volt LED prepper light for around $6.00.

Other information includes how to build a solar generator, gardening, free prepper materials and discount codes, while upcoming videos and how-to articles deal with a serious homemade smoker for under ten bucks, LED security lighting, long term food storage, seed preservation and more.

To the first 50 visitors “Preparedness is Fundamental” is offering a free eBook; “How to Handle a Crisis” (a $4.99 value) which deals with all types of disasters, terrorism, CBRNE, medical crises and survival.

To visit, go to http://proficientprepping.wordpress.com/

VIDEO: Airborne Fest, Brit Style!

I found this and couldn't resist!

However, while keeping this comment cryptic, this will be a good visual for those reading Patriot Dawn! No spoilers please!

And then there is this one. Lots of good visuals in here, so long as you are patient and get past the Brigadier talking at the beginning of the video, in good old Brit 'bad guy British officer straight from the Revolutionary War style'!

Got PT for collapse/civil war? Think again...

More on Body Armor/Personal Load Carrying

I posted previously on body armor and gear:

HERE, HERE, HERE

Lots of Ammo. Lots of pouches. Heavy.

I've been giving it some more thought and reviewing my own tactical load carry set-up. You all know that I have a military and security contractor background. That has taught me, perhaps unhelpfully,  that a full set of body armor is good; a full rig of soft armor inserts and ballistic plates. It is heavy and gives you a permanent sweat soaked undershirt in any kind of warm weather.

However, as discussed previously, the threat in a collapse/civil war situation is different. Mainly, we are not facing IEDs etc. The main threat is from rifle rounds. Pistol rounds are a threat but in general a pistol is not accurate in most people's hands. The soft armor in your body armor will only stop handgun rounds and shrapnel.

Full body armor is also restrictive and heavy. Heavy is something you can't get away from when you are carrying ammo and all that you need to fight. But there are degrees of it.

It comes down to a risk assessment. Yes, you can get shot by a handgun and you can also be shot by a rifle in one of the many places where your plate does not protect you. There is no magic pill for this, firefights are dangerous. As an example for the thought process, look at armored vehicles:  they are designed on a balance of firepower, protection and mobility. You should adapt those principles to your set-up. If you reduce protection, you increase mobility. There is no point being protected if your physical fitness does not allow you to move about wearing your heavy full gear. You will soon be exhausted,  you will cut corners, you will get tired/lazy/complacent and you will expose yourself.

There are a couple of other considerations in a civilian environment. Firstly, you want a rig that is practical and that you will actually wear, even when it is hot, for extended periods of time as the collapse or civil war draws out.

It was also brought up that wearing a full set of body armor may make you feel less vulnerable than you are. This may be true, particularly when only the plate portion is giving you ballistic protection from rifle rounds. Wearing a full heavy rig was always for me a sort of comfort blanket, a coping mechanism  When you are going out everyday facing threats from IEDs and small arms fire, putting on the heavy gear was a sort of psychological comfort, you could sort of persuade yourself, like a ritual, that it would all be OK. Because otherwise, you wouldn't want to go out; and the other option was insanity!

So I am putting down here a recommendation for a way to rig your gear. Take it, or parts of it, or leave it. This is not about makes or brands of gear, just how to rig it up.

1) Battle Belt: This is your basic load. Get a tactical belt and one of those padded battle belts with the MOLLE attachments. Rig it up simply with perhaps three double AR-15 magazine pouches on the one side, and your handgun on the other. Have a triple handgun magazine pouch and also a rolled up dump pouch on the back. Keep pouches off your back so you can sit in a vehicle. You can put other items on, such as a knife or multi-tool or whatever. CAT tourniquet.  Just keep it light. This should be a comfortable battle belt that forms the lowest line of your gear, it can be worn at all times and with your rifle slung you have enough ammo to be going on with, plus your handgun as backup.

2) Plate Carrier: Just get a lightweight plate carrier. Simply have front and rear ballistic plates, no soft armor. The carrier should have enough real estate on the front to fit four double AR magazine pouches across the front.  Keep this rig light with perhaps just a few ancillary pouches/CAT tourniquet You can put an IFAK on this PC, or you can put it in a grab bag if it gets in the way (or put it on the battle belt). This plate carrier will give you the protection from rifle rounds that counts. It will also be relatively lightweight and allow freedom of movement  It won't be a complete chore to wear, and will allow you to sweat and lose heat where the plates are not. If you desire, you could also put side rifle plates on a  rig, if you had the right rig and wanted to. Put a camelbak on the back if you want. Just don't overload it! This rig will be lighter and make you feel less protected. Good! It is also low profile enough to be worn under a jacket or shirt if necessary, for a little bit of profile reduction.

The combination of a  battle belt and a plate carrier gives you the versatility to adapt your posture to the situation, ramping up and down your readiness against the perceived threat.

3) Grab Bag/Daypack: This can be in the form of a satchel type 'man bag' or a daypack. I prefer the daypack, it sits better on you and is better for any period of time dismounted  You can keep this daypack in your vehicle, on your back if you are patrolling, or sitting next to your stand-to position at your retreat. The type of thing that you will carry in the daypack is not limited to the following: ammo resupply, water, medical, food, ancillaries incl. weapon cleaning kit. Batteries, night vision or thermal if you have it. Spare clothing: socks, wet/cold/hot weather as appropriate. Pack for the situation and mission. But don't let it get excessive: its not your complete 'bug-out bag', it just contains some basic mission essentials.

Physical Fitness: you may note with some sarcasm that even though I say 'light', I am still talking about a rig with ballistic plates, 14 rifle magazines, handgun, three handgun magazines, and that is not to mention putting the 'go-bag' on. But it's relative  You could be carrying much more, and wearing much more restrictive full body armor. Bottom line, reality check, is that you need to have a basic level of fitness if you are contemplating taking part in a firefight. This is not about sitting on the front porch, swilling beer and taking the occasional pot shot. So yes, I mean 'light-er' than it could be, but you must train to a decent physical level where you can move around in this gear.

Of course, you don't need to have any ballistic protection at all. But I highly recommend it , if you can shell out the cash for a couple of ballistic plates to put in a PC. If you can only afford the PC outer cover right now you can rig it as a tactical vest and if you are still standing after that first firefight, there may be some freebie plates  lying around for the taking.

Using ballistic plates will significantly reduce the risks of a penetrating wound to the torso HERE, which will be beyond your basic lifesaving ability to do anything for. If you can get them, do.

Activist Post: Revolution or WWIII: The Petrodollar Scam

Excellent article on Activist Post

'The Blighted' by Archer Garrett

Archer Garrett had published his new book: 'The Blighted'

HERE is a link to details on his blog

The first chapter is also free on his blog.

It's Zombie fiction, so should be a good read Now that I have more time on my hands, I'm getting my Kindle copy for a good dose of Zombie action.

Patriot Dawn: follow up

Having published in paperback and on Kindle last week, it was a 'fire and forget' as I then went away on a three day training weekend with limited access on my phone to track how things were going. It is with great relief that I have seen some really positive feedback, and I am glad that readers are enjoying Patriot Dawn.

My next project is to firstly make any minor corrections that are fed back to me about Patriot Dawn, and secondly go and re-edit Rapid Fire in a similar way to how I re-edited and updated Contact.

Let's hope we can kick the can down the road a little longer, taking advantage of the time available to ready ourselves, equip and train, before we actually face a scenario similar to the one outlined in the book!

I know some will take exception to that, preferring to 'bring it on now' rather than face oncoming tyranny,  liberty's 'death by a thousand cuts'. I prefer a middle approach, where if it is going to happen, we all need a little more time to ready ourselves. Of course, like having kids, there never really is a right time to descend into a resistance campaign against a tyrannical government, you just have to get on with it with the assets available at the time!

Wouldn't it be nice if those who are pulling us towards a Regime similar to the one outlined in Patriot Dawn just woke up and remembered their Constitutional duty, thus avoiding all the potential unpleasantness ahead? Pigs might fly....

TL Davis wrote very well about the lack of a  requirement for Constitutional and thus natural rights to be explained or defended by interest groups. The natural rights/Constitution are simply there, it is what it is, and infringement is criminal.

MV

Mosby on Shotguns

Brother, you crack me up:

...If they’re a novice and refuse to get any training….point them towards a Kalashnikov, then beat them over the head with it until they decide to get some training....

Mountain Guerilla is not known for being shy and retiring. More common sense from him on shotguns.

MV

KINDLE Version AVAILABLE: Patriot Dawn

AVAILABLE on KINDLE HERE

See my previous post on the hard copy publication for more information HERE

 

AVAILABLE NOW! Patriot Dawn - The Resistance Rises



AVAILABLE NOW: 'Patriot Dawn - The Resistance Rises' by Max Velocity

I have published and the book is currently available on the CreateSpace estore HERE and also on Amazon.com HERE

The Kindle version is on AVAILABLE on Amazon.com HERE.

'Patriot Dawn' is my first novel and the writing was emotionally draining. I hope it achieves what it was intended to achieve. Like 'Contact!' and 'Rapid Fire!' the intent of the book is to get tactical information out there. As a novel, Patriot Dawn does this in a different way by telling a story and using that story as a vehicle for tactical descriptions and information, as part of the action.

Reviews, on blogs or Amazon.com, are appreciated. Only good ones of course ;-)

Updated Prologue below

MV

Patriot Dawn

The Resistance Rises

Prologue

The election on November 6 2012 had been the mortal blow to the ideal of America. The stakes could not have been higher or more straightforward: a choice between freedom or coercion, individualism or collectivism, modern civilization or uncivilized brutalism.

 America, those of her voting and abstaining majority, chose the latter option in each case. The forces of this late modern brutalism had been at work in America for a long time and had, of course, scored many victories. The progressive beast had slowly eaten away at America's educational establishment, the character of her people, and moral virtue, leaving little of the true American values behind. The sad thing was that the indoctrinated generations did not even realize what they had lost, while they tinkered over minor social issues.

With the election behind them, certain elements within the Administration continued their agenda to attain total control. Plans were put into motion.

The terrorist attack was carried out by jihadist fighters. They came in by chartered airliner, landing to disgorge several hundred terrorists into an assault on Washington D.C. This was not a hijacking, but a legally scheduled charter.

The flight plans of the terrorist controlled aircraft had called for a scheduled landing at Washington’s Dulles International Airport. However, that was considered too far away from DC, the Capitol and key targets such as the Pentagon. Reagan National was chosen instead.

The pilot of the aircraft was a US/Saudi joint citizen with impeccable English who had worked as a commercial pilot extensively in the US; he had plenty of experience landing at US airports, including Dulles and Reagan National.

As the pilot flew south towards DC, he put out a bogus Mayday call, citing engine power failure, and announced that he was going to have to put the plane down at Reagan National, thus diverting from the scheduled landing cleared for Dulles.

The control tower at Reagan declined, ordering him to continue to Dulles, but he simply told them that he was experiencing power failure and that they needed to clear the runway because he was coming in hard and fast. They obliged and scrambled the emergency services.

The Boeing 777 came in on the difficult river approach from the north, passing close to the Washington Mall; the pilot brought the plane in for a hard landing and began to taxi towards the terminal. He tried to ignore the instructions of the ground guide vehicles but soon had his way blocked by airport police vehicles who had been alerted by the tower. International flights were not cleared to land at Reagan National, and this was highly suspicious.

Still out on the taxi-way, the terrorists pulled the emergency release on the doors and activated the emergency exit slides. Somewhere around two hundred fighters began to pour out onto the tarmac, fueled by drugs and fanaticism and heavily armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, rocket propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices, including a number of suicide vests. They opened fire on the emergency crews and police and started to run towards the terminals.

Some split off from the main group and commandeered airport pickup trucks on the tarmac and headed out onto the pan to where the delayed passenger aircraft were waiting at the end of the runway to take off.

They drove along the taxi way, stopping only to fire volleys of RPGs into the aircraft, which were loaded with passengers and fuel. The planes began to burn and as the jet fuel ignited they began to explode. The resulting fire and explosions were apocalyptic and soon the taxi way was engulfed in a conflagration of flames and burning fuel.

Meanwhile, the main body smashed their way into the terminal buildings and began to kill as they fought their way through to the passenger drop off and taxi ranks at the front. The armed security did not stand a chance. The fighters began to commandeer vehicles, any one would do. Civilians were shot down and murdered out the front of the terminal buildings and teams of four fighters stole the vehicles and started to head out into traffic and towards the city.

There was mass panic in the terminals, but as the crowds tried to escape they were engaged by assault weapon fire and hundreds were murdered. Pipe bombs had been dropped in the terminal on timers and as the fighters began to move away in their stolen vehicles the bombs began to detonate.

Each group had a specific target and objective. They had studied transit maps, photos and satellite photos on Google Earth. They had objectives but they realized that not all of them would make those objectives – if so, the plan was simply to keep going for as long as possible, causing as much damage as they could before they were stopped.

A group of fifty did not even bother to look for cars; they ran towards the Pentagon, which was only about a mile away just across the I-395. The group simply formed a file on each side of the road, trotted up the airport access road, turning north along the Jefferson Davis Highway until they passed under the Interstate.

As they jogged along, they engaged any resistance with automatic fire, AKs carried at the hip. Passing under the I-395 underpass they fanned out into their assault teams and attacked the Pentagon. They used RPG rockets and breaching charges to blast their way in and began to fight their way through the corridors inside.

Meanwhile, the alert had gone out to the Washington DC Metro police, who responded rapidly and called for back-up. Within fifteen minutes they had a cordon up around the city. Although true that there were a large number of armed federal agents, working for numerous ‘alphabet’ agencies within DC, they were not really prepared for the sort of savage urban conflict that these jihadists brought, straight from the battlegrounds of the Middle East.

Local SWAT teams from the DC Metro area were first into the battle, reinforcing the uniformed police units caught in the ground, rapidly joined by the FBI Hostage Rescue Team from Quantico, Virginia, who came in by helicopter to join the fight.

By this time the jihadists had smashed the police roadblocks and fought their way across the bridges into the city. Those that found themselves in the open parklands around the capital did not fare so well, but others fought their way into the city and infested the urban environment.

Mass panic ensued and it took the callout of a US Marine battle group from Quantico and the addition of two available Navy SEAL teams from Norfolk to turn the tide of the fight and clear the jihadist fighters out from where they had gone to ground.

It took a week and the deaths of thousands of Americans before the terrorist threat was eliminated. 

The terrorist attackers were reported to have been recruited, abetted, directed and sponsored by Iran, although the details were unclear and it appeared that an investigation was not the top priority of the Administration.

How had the terrorists managed to charter this plane, which had apparently originated in Dubai on a one stop flight to the US, loading it with two hundred heavily armed fighters, without alerting any suspicion?

However, the focus following the attack was not international but domestic, and the priority was the ‘safety and security’ of the public by the accelerated implementation of the massive domestic surveillance and policing drive.

Fear was paramount and the masses were even more convinced that giving up their freedom and rights was in their best interests for their ‘safety and security’. Many internet bloggers and alternative media sites were describing the attack as a ‘False Flag’, abetted by the ‘Powers That Be’, but those crackpots were soon shut down by the Department of Homeland Security, in order to prevent further ‘panic mongering’.

The attack also provided the justification for war against Iran. However, that war was prosecuted by the Administration in the form of a primarily naval and air campaign that limited the involvement of ground troops.

This limitation allowed for the deployment of troops as convenient to the agenda of the Administration and the military-industrial complex, but ensured that sufficient active duty units remained available for domestic operations.

The attack on Iran was however the final straw that preceded the total meltdown of the Middle East.  

As part of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, measures were in place to allow Posse Comitatus laws to be ignored domestically. This was activated by executive order and active duty and reserve U.S. Army units were used to reinforce the National Guard in operations against domestic terrorists and sleeper cells.

The terrorist attack had precipitated the final mortal blow to liberty and the destruction of the United States of America as a Constitutional Republic. It was true that the erosion of liberty and the Bill of Rights had been going on for some time; the Constitution was viewed by many as a dead document, and the measures had already been put in place for the implementation of a state of emergency.

The attack had been a terrible thing, but at the same time it was so convenient to the agenda of the Administration. Everything since the attack had been the death rattle of liberty as the police surveillance state was fully imposed.

Due process and Habeus Corpus were suspended, and the NDAA allowed arrest and internment without probable cause or trial on the simple suspicion by the authorities that someone posed a terrorist threat; a system that was easily abused.

Everything in society was now centered on compliance and obedience to authority. Questioning of the orders of those in authority positions was not tolerated. America was no longer the land of the free, but anyone with a mind had seen that coming for a long time.

Anyone with ideas counter to the official line, or who argued or challenged authority, was labeled a ‘domestic terrorist’, arrested and interned in ‘corrective and reeducation facilities’.

Following the activation of the NDAA by Executive Order, a state of emergency was implemented. It was necessary, because another terrorist attack could happen at any time, and anyone could be a terrorist. There was a lot of talk about sleeper cells and many citizens were arrested and interned without trial. ‘Extremist terrorist’ organizations, including Patriot and conservative organizations such as the Tea Party, were outlawed.  

It wasn’t really clear to the general public exactly what happened next, given that they only got their information from the Administration via the heavily state directed mainstream media, and the internet was now under heavy lockdown. However, the economic dangers that had been looming and fueled by the continuous policy of ‘Quantitive Easing’, or money printing by the Federal Reserve, finally came home to roost.

The economy went over the cliff. There was much discussion that the actual precipitator of the plunge was the cabal of bankers who were the real power behind the Regime; they had pulled the financial plug, causing a massive run on the banks and hyperinflation, just like they had done in 1929 to cause the Great Depression. But who really knew, given the lockdown?

The effect was ultimately to cripple the economy, destroying the middle classes. What better way to turn the screws of citizen compliance when so many were now reliant on entitlement handouts?

The ‘progressive’ agenda of collective socialism was nearing its ultimate fulfillment; coerced redistribution of wealth, except now no-one was generating any wealth to feed the monster of the dependent welfare classes.

Statist authoritarian big central government was the order of the day, even though those policies spelled the death of the country. Many ‘progressives’ yearned for that, so that the ‘United Socialist States of America’ could rise from the ashes. 

The government of the United States of America was no longer an ‘Administration’; it was a totalitarian Regime. 

However, what the Regime had not predicted was that the Chinese, themselves suffering from the global financial collapse that ensued from this, then decided to take action.

For years China had infiltrated American cyber networks. They had perfected the cyber-attack and had penetrated into all aspects of American networks. They were able to ‘weaponize’ the cyber-attack, taking control of infrastructure such as power plants and programming them to fail while causing widespread outages and damage to power grid infrastructures.

 There was no longer any reason to need America anymore, now that there was no money to be made from the previously symbiotic relationship. China and Russia were best served by destroying America and the petrodollar, carving out their own spheres of influence in the new world order.

Three months after the terrorist attack and the beginning of the run on the banks, China simply took down the North American power grid.

It was not a permanent or total attack, but it did enough damage and would be time consuming to repair, given that most of the replacement equipment would have to be shipped in from abroad where it was manufactured, mostly in China. This resulted in massive infrastructure failure with essential commodities such as food and fuel unable to be distributed.

When the shortages hit the stores, combined with the inability of the Regime to distribute and honor electronic benefit checks to the entitlement classes, the effect was massive civil disorder and rioting, on a scale that the Regime could not fully control. The collapse was self-promulgating; it was not easy to fix once the dominos started falling.

The main rioting took place in the urban centers where the mass of entitlement dependents resided. The Regime was brutal in its crackdown on its ‘children’. Millions perished from a combination of lawless violence, the brutality of the Regime’s response, disease and starvation.

The Regime wrested control back in the main urban centers across the country. By executive order exception was written to Posse Comitatus, invoking the Insurrection Act, thus declaring Martial law. The Regime commenced to consolidate its power. Given the general food shortage, it aided the Regime that they controlled the food reserves, and according to the ‘dictate’ of the executive orders and the NDAA, Federal agencies such as FEMA and the DHS were able to commandeer private and commercial food reserves.

Many citizens ‘bugged out’ of the urban centers into the countryside to escape the violence, and thus out of the immediate control of the Regime, which precipitated another crisis of refugees and transit gridlock by those unprepared and bugging out to ‘nowhere’.

Out of the ashes of this disaster, the Regime was able to rise. Federal safe zones were created under martial law, along with FEMA camps where food rations were distributed. While the grid was being rebuilt, the FEMA offices and camps ran on emergency generators to support the registration and tracking process.

Outside of those zones were the contested areas where military operations were conducted to subdue the population. The Regime concentrated on controlling these main zones as well as mobility corridors connecting them.

Outside of the zones, the country was divided into sectors of martial law, each sector the responsibility of a military governor backed by a political commissioner from the Regime. The Department of Homeland Security was responsible for domestic military operations. National Guard and active duty units were allocated to the DHS as necessary.

FEMA also made use of the FEMA Homeland Corps. This was primarily a youth organization of armed paramilitaries, formed before the collapse, which was trained and indoctrinated by the Regime and given paramilitary police powers. They were not old enough to understand the real history of the United States beyond the propaganda taught in the school system and they had no familiarity with the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

They became inoculated against brutality and were used for the more flagrant breaches of liberty, such as house raids to confiscate weapons and food stores, where often whole families were killed. In their blue SWAT style overalls, these young thugs became known as the ‘blue shirts’.

The majority of the country’s armed forces remained under Regime control, with the exception of the ‘enlightened’ that were already awake to the reality. Why was this? The country was under attack, now under martial law. The soldiers were indoctrinated to obey orders; they were in the system, part of the machine. In the same way that the mass of the people were fed their news from the mainstream media, so was the military.

True, there were mass desertions when the collapse happened, with many army National Guardsmen staying home to look after their families. But by and large, the active duty units remained on their bases, loyal to the system. The chain of command never flinched: orders came down as usual, situation briefings were given, and before they knew it, the active duty army was deployed domestically under martial law, protecting the country from terrorism. Why would they think any differently?

In fact, the Regime did experience problems with many of the actual combat veterans among the ranks of the National Guard, active duty army, and even law enforcement. Some of them took their oaths seriously and refused to act illegally against citizens. These types were severely cracked down upon, those that had not deserted or escaped out of the zones.

Those deserting veterans that were captured or those who dissented, refusing to obey illegal orders, were often taken into mental institutions against their will, on the pretext of mental illness or PTSD, for ‘treatment’ that often involved severe drug therapy that left them mentally incapacitated, shadows of their former selves.

Others saw the writing on the wall and deserted, getting out and away from the zones, often taking weapons and equipment with them.

However, there was a flip side to the refusal to obey orders to fire on citizens: as good Americans, many of these veterans actually found it easy to fire on the entitlement ‘eaters’ that they came across in the worst of the inner city riots. In their eyes, these eaters were the antithesis of how America was intended. Once they had pulled the trigger though, there was no going back, and they were lost on the slippery slope.

A new constitution was written, termed the ‘Homeland Charter’. This new document rejected the original Constitution and declared all those supporting it to be domestic terrorists.

There was much deliberate obfuscation between sleeper cells allegedly related to the ‘Iranian’ terror attack on DC, and domestic ‘constitutionalist’ terrorists, who were often simply Patriots and preppers.

The old Constitution had led to the destruction of the country, according to the revisionist agenda of the ‘progressive’ Regime and the ‘doublethink’ mental illness that plagued America. Individual liberty was the enemy; the only salvation was in the collective. The agenda of the progressives was complete.

‘New Citizens’ had to swear an oath of allegiance to the Regime, to obey all laws and orders given to them by those in authority. They were fitted with subcutaneous RFID chips containing all personal information. Cash and firearms were outlawed and the chips allowed the GPS tracking of people. It was therefore easy to determine someone’s status simply by scanning their forearm, and if no chip was present they were an outlaw, to be arrested or shot on sight.

As part of this new direction, the flag was redesigned. Rather than the stripes, there was a red and white sunray effect radiating out from a central, slightly offset to the left, sun-like circle in blue and white. The lower part of the ‘O’ like circle had an effect similar to the radiating red and white stripes, but more horizontally across the bottom of the ‘O’: A shining symbol of the bright future of collective socialism. The new flag was supposed to signify ‘hope’ or some similar progressive garbage.

 The star spangled banner was relegated to the newly demonized ‘Patriots’ and subversives. Patriots, constitutionalists, libertarians and anyone who had prepared for the collapse were targets of the Regime, to be tracked down. Those who were not sworn to the new regime were either interned or executed if they were under direct Regime control.

The citizens of the new Regime lived hand to mouth on government handouts, working in State sponsored jobs and living in camps or state controlled housing, cowed but grateful that they were being kept safe from the outlaws and terrorists outside of the zones.

Many who had not been aware of the true danger of the creeping progressive agenda were rudely awakened after the collapse. ‘Normalcy bias’ was swept away and their eyes were opened to the true horror of where their great country had descended to.

The FEMA camps were no holiday camp: those who had elected or been forced into them found that due to a combination of corruption, incompetence and simple brutality, rations were meager and conditions basic. They were more like concentration camps, with oppressive rules enforced by sullen guards, quick to violence. Many in the camps were simply taken out and killed for being trouble makers, tossed into mass graves and left to rot in piles.

Many could not understand how the military could be used against citizens. With rioters, it was easy. For the innocent preppers and Patriots who were considered domestic terrorists, it was also easy: it was all a matter of information management. Regime strike teams under the DHS were simply briefed that a ‘target’ housed ‘domestic terrorists’ who were harboring food, weapons and even explosives.

The targets were hit hard in ‘no knock’ raids with unrestrictive rules of engagement, often resulting in everyone at the target being killed, including whole families in some cases. If the target was found to contain innocent preppers, it was no problem. It was not the first time, even before the collapse, that the wrong address was hit or ‘intelligence’ was found to be incorrect. Heavy handed SWAT ‘kill squad’ tactics were fine as long as ‘department procedures’ were followed.