Shot Heard 'Round The Block

US: After you.
EU: Oh, no.  I couldn't.
US: I insist.
EU: Pleas, after you.
US: Oh, nonono, that won't do.
EU: Let's go together!
US: OK.
**CRUNCH**

The Battle of Brooklyn Bridge got underway over the weekend, with the owners of the bridge trying to cross, and the bankster henchmen, I mean NYPD stopping them.

My dad always said that when the revolution gets under way, you'd better have the cops on your side.  I don't think he envisioned JP Morgan blatantly paying a $4.6 million bribe, I mean making donations NYPD.

One ray of hope were the military types who are showing up to help out with Occupy Wall Street.  Of course, they are harder to bribe and their bennies are being ripped off by the very organizations being protested.

The unions are showing up, as well.  But, according to Drudge, they're chanting "Re-elect Obama!" Which can only mean one thing: there are political operatives and agitators infiltrating the ranks, most likely as agents provacateur, and certainly to steal the limelight from real people demanding something be done to curb the bandits in 3-piece suits.

The protests are spreading, to Boston, to LA, to Seattle.  Folks are finally targeting the real criminals, but it remains to be seen what the outcome will be.  I put NOTHING beyond the banksters to cover their Blessed Assurances.

Meanwhile, the EU corpse has already begun to rot, even though it's still in the midst of St. Vitus' Dance.  Folks are beginning to realize that there will be no resurrection from the grave.  Germany has already begun to rake in its marbles to go home.  France is pretending like anyone still listens to them.  The PIIGS are desperately trying to find a move out of checkmate.  And all Britain cares about is whether Kate is preggers or not.

In Asia today, the markets were whipped bloody, with Hang Seng getting hung snug.  Jakarta is senseless and bleeding.  The only one who escapes was Seoul, because they were on holiday.  But they've already been hit so hard that there's not much left to take.

Globally, everyone is holding their breath, both from the stink and from the anticipation.  Who will be the first to shoot.  You know it's inevitable.  These things always end in a bloody mess.  Anyone who isn't making contingency plans for that eventuality had better wean themselves off the Xanax bars.  Short of an alien attack or the Second Coming, there's no other way out of this mess.  Wherever you are now, that's probably where you'll be when the real nasty starts.

You can rest assured that if JP Morgan is willing to bribe the entire NYPD to get their way, then there are no holds barred here, folks.  Lines are being drawn and one should put serious though to which side of it one stands on.  In this next go-round, there won't be any neutrals or third-parties.  There will only be closer and farther away.  Sooner or later, every heart and every mind will be involved.

Most of us don't remember WWII.  Unlike most Gen Xers, my parents were Depression Era/WWII.  My grandfather was a SeaBee in WWI.  So where most of my contemporaries had parent of the Korean War variety, my second-hand education stretches back just a bit further.  And it's not a pretty picture.

My dad got his first pair of new shoes at 12 years old.  His toys, as a youth, were things that he and his friends made from found items.  One was called a 'nigger shooter.'  It was a pistol-shaped piece of wood with a clothes pin attached and a handful of cut-up inner tube.  Another didn't have a name that I remember, but it also used a clothes pin, a broken knife blade, and would launch a strike-ahywhere kitchen match a fair distance while striking it at the same time.

Dad served his time on the home front as a general's aide de camp, but his best friend and one of his brothers served under Patton.  Another brother was in the Pacific.  The third was in the second wave at Normandy.  All survived.  Between them and my grandfather, I got an earful about the gloom in those days.

What's coming makes all that look like spring training, and we don't have half the skills and inventiveness they did.  How many people do you know, including yourself, still save jelly jars for glassware?  How many know how to can fruits and vegetables?  Who can sew, or even has the tools to do it?  Anyone out there with a root cellar?  Does anyone out there know what an ice box is, or how to churn butter, or even where to get fresh whole milk to churn?  Do you know how to make farm cheese?  Can you hunt and field dress an animal?

If you answered no to most or all of these questions, you're in deep shit.

How about some other skills?  Can you navigate by the sun and stars?  Which side of a tree does moss grow on (in the northern hemispere)?  Which mushrooms are edible?  What medicinal plants grow in your area?

Believe it or not, I learned all of this stuff, mostly from my dad and his brothers.  The navigating I learned myself.  When I first arrived in Indonesia, I started studying the local flora.  I know that if I get dengue fever, I need to chew guava leaf, that sort of thing.

Yes, I'm strange, but I may get a bit further down the road than some.

What does all this have to do with protests in Brooklyn, you ask?  Well, that's the opening salvo.  It's the 'shot heard round the block.'  It will escalate, more than likely at the hands of the PTB, but folks will answer.  It always starts like this.  While you have a minute, go read up on Lexington and Concord.  See if you don't detect a few parallels.  Soon we'll have the Blockade of Charleston.  The only real question is "when".  My guess is it's close enough now that you can open the office betting pool.  Closest to the actual date wins 1,000 rounds of ammo.

Poppyboy and Dad used to go on about the coming revolution.  They would fill my head with signs and portends of the coming storm.  They would tell me which things had always worked throughout history, and which didn't.  In a way, Fate has prepared me for this time, if for no other reason than to be able to sit here and tell you, "Watch out!"

Perhaps not.  But that's beside the point.

The point is that IT has begun.  There is no escaping that conclusion.  You should be preparing your heart and mind and your household for the eventuality.  Wishful thinking and willful blindness can not and will not change the course of history.

If there is one ray of hope, it is that the PTB are genuinely afraid.  It is getting out of their control, and they eat control for breakfast.  Like any cornered beast, they will fight with a ferocity that I think most folks are ill-prepared to face.  Clif High at HalfPastHuman.com calls it the 'normalcy bias.'  Folks will deny their own senses until they are run over by the train at the end of the tunnel.

If you did not grow up in the Age of Political Correctness and were not taught that being male is wrong, then you probably played army when you were a strapling.  Remember how you used to strain your senses to catch any sign of someone approaching?  That's where you should be right now.

For God's sake, turn off the TeeVee.  You can't think clearly when someone is telling you what to think.  You must READ all your news.  Reading involves a lot of filters and engaged cognitive function.  It won't take long before you can start reading through the words.  Don't wait.  Start today.

Everything you know is about to change.  You can either stell yourself for it or let it smear you into the pavement.  Your choice.