My trip to Atlanta June 26-28, 2020 made me nervous for my family and for our nation. Later I learned that an 8-year-old had been murdered on July 4 within four miles of the hotel where my family stayed.
The little girl was riding in an SUV with her mother and another adult, who drove past an illegal BLM barricade and couldn’t make a U-turn fast enough to leave the parking lot before multiple people opened fire on the vehicle.
The Old Normal
I used to be a traveler. I took jobs that lasted about three months all over the United States. I drove to places I had never visited, all by myself, and lived in apartments set up by the companies that hired me.
I went to malls, museums, public parks, and anywhere else I wanted to go. I felt safe and comfortable just about anywhere. I didn’t have to pay attention to anyone’s race or political affiliation. That was America in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The New Nervous
My husband had a class to attend in Atlanta, and we took our daughter with us because we usually go places as a family whenever possible. We knew there had been rioting in Atlanta.
We were safe. Nothing happened. As a matter of fact, everyone was helpful and polite. It was like going to a funeral just after several family members have argued. You just want to to play it cool and not do anything that might restart the argument. It was uncomfortable.
The mask wearing added to the surreal ethos. Without a face, a person becomes inscrutable. I found myself watching eyebrows carefully.
I desperately want to go back to how it was six months ago. I long to see a whole face and be casually ignored by strangers rather than warily watched. I don’t like being a suspect just because I breathe. God forbid that I should get a little pollen up my nose and sneeze in public.
I want to stop calculating whether someone means me harm. Can we not just interact as people? Do I have to try to figure out whether my lack of melanin makes me a threat?
Situational Awareness is the New Normal
While my husband attended his class, my daughter and I went to Lennox Square Mall. I chose not to go to one of Atlanta’s many museums and other paid attractions because I felt the need to be able to leave quickly in case of trouble. I looked through the list of malls and found one that seemed upscale enough not to attract a rough crowd.
When we stopped at the food court to eat, I found a remote table that backed up to an unoccupied smoothie kiosk. While my daughter ate her cheeseburger, I scanned the building with my eyes about once a minute, taking in the four levels with their full length balconies.
I chose a spot on the lowest level where the policeman stationed on the third level could see everything I did and I could see him. I was both reassured by his presence and unnerved at the need for police presence in a mall. The tension in the air was palpable.
Later I learned that on March 8 a man was shot in an altercation over a parking space outside the Cheesecake Factory.
Not having heard that story, I had parked my car in the parking lot next to the Cheesecake Factory. I always remember the closest store so that I can find my car again when I leave.
We had stationed ourselves right at the center of the disquietude.
I needed to occupy myself for four hours until the class ended. Normally this is no problem because I enjoy wandering through shopping centers and finding used book stores hidden in strip malls.
We left the mall after two and a half hours because my nervous state was becoming more evident to my daughter. We went back to the College Park section of town where my husband was taking his class. This turned out to be four miles away from the Wendy’s that was burned by rioters.
The drug store and grocery store that we visited to pass our remaining time felt much safer. I could see all the exits and I knew I could be at my car very quickly.
The Cloward-Piven Strategy
So how, we are all wondering, did America get to such a place? How did our country become so frightened and divided?
In 1966 sociologist Frances Fox Piven and her husband, Richard Cloward, advocated disrupting society in order to force socialism on a capitalist nation.
Once they had collapsed the current system, they would replace it with their own socialist utopia, with everyone receiving a guaranteed income.
They advised getting as many people on welfare as possible to strain the limits of the system to the breaking point. Then they would ride in on a white horse and propose a new system that equalized everyone’s income and eliminated capitalism.
The first link above is to a conservative publication, cornwallalliance.org, explaining how that works. Here is a link to the New York Times, known for its leftist views.
Even they find Cloward and Piven’s tactics radical. United States Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York is mentioned as a disciple in both articles.
When I read the fourteen page document written by the couple at scribd.com, the phrase that jumped out at me was “the right to income must be guaranteed.”
RULES FOR RADICALS
Then there is the 1971 book, Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky. The link goes to openculture.com. He promulgated 13 rules to destroy your enemy.
Among the most devastating are number five, “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon,” and number thirteen, “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
It’s clear that Donald Trump is being subjected to this treatment with impeachment and minute criticism of his every word and movement.
Hillary Clinton wrote her colleg term paper on Alinsky’s rules and turned down a job offer from him. Barack Obama employed his methods as a community organizer.
This sort of warfare has been going on insidiously in the background since before I was born. More than fifty years after the original paper, the Cloward-Piven strategy is finally coming to full fruition.
Obeying the admonition of Obama staffer Rahm Emanuel that they should “never let a serious crisis go to waste,” the media wasted no time frightening us into submission when a novel coronavirus mysteriously appeared in Wuhan, China last year.
Now we are all wearing masks and staying six feet away from each other while businesses go bankrupt and individuals whose jobs are deemed “nonessential” have no income.
This gave the government an opportunity to ride to the rescue with stimulus checks for everyone. See how that works? Now welfare includes you and me. We received a guaranteed income.
Then came the death in Minneapolis of a suspect in police custody on Memorial Day. Though universally condemned, the behavior of the policemen involved became a reason to burn police stations, murder people who were not at the scene of the original crime, and even take portions of cities hostage.
The chaos swept past Minneapolis, through the United States, and to other parts of the world.
An Uncertain Future
We are on the edge of very big, very bad changes. Our Constitutional rights to assemble, to work, and even to show our faces are being denied. Socialism is being foisted upon us. Mob rule is in the streets.
The next move for the disruptors is to make voting a mail-in process so that we don’t infect each other. The problem is that voter fraud is much easier to accomplish with mail-in votes. It isn’t too difficult to steal a ballot from a mailbox or obtain a ballot for a resident of the local cemetery.
Don’t let organized disruption dictate your fate. Stay politically active. Befriend people who don’t look like you. Have honest conversations that get below the surface. Show a willingness to listen, but also to share your thoughts. Don’t be cowed into silence. You have the right to speak.
Take back your voice. Let the sun shine on your face. Please, I beg you, don’t let the greatest nation in the world be sucked into socialism. This may be your last opportunity. Let your Congress members know that voting this year needs to be in person.
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