Events in Catalonia and Las Vegas leave people all across the West vulnerable to manipulation through fear to the next round of oppressive controls.

I can’t speak with the same authority on European events like Pepe Escobar can. He is a true General in the #informationwar. But I can say that this latest article of his is exactly what is needed at this time. With his usual rhetorical flourish he lays out the situation in Barcelona with razor-sharp precision.

The “institutional declaration” of overwhelming mediocrity nano-Franco Rajoy, right after the polls were closed, invited disbelief. The highlight was a mediocre take on Magritte: “Ceci n’est pas un referendum.” This referendum never took place. And it could never take place because “Spain is a mature and advanced democracy, friendly and
tolerant”. The day’s events proved it a lie.

Rajoy said “the great majority of Catalan people did not want to participate in the secessionist script”. Another lie. Even before the “non-existent” referendum, between 70% and 80% of Catalans said they wanted to vote, yes or no, after an informed debate about their future.

Crucially, Rajoy extolled the “unwavering support of the EU and the international community”. Of course; unelected EU “elites” in Brussels and the main European capitals are absolutely terrorized when EU citizens express themselves.

Yet the top nano-Franco lie was that “democracy prevailed because the constitution was respected”.

This is Mariano Rajoy’s Baghdad Bob Moment.

The EU’s support is obvious thanks to Madrid’s horrible fiscal position (100% debt to GDP anyone?) and Rajoy’s tenuous grip on control. Madrid’s government, despite the bromides of this being “an internal matter of Spain,” is being run by the EU. It’s been that when since Rajoy was put in power during the last round of sovereign debt bailouts and restructuring.

When things get to this point hiding behind “the law” is a coward’s defense of brutality. And it scares the crap out of me that the moronic NFL protests here in the States are creating a strong backlash in favor of “law and order.”

The MAGA crowd may be winning the culture war. If it recreates what we had pre-U.S. Civil War where Lincoln had the political capital in the North to declare martial law and then war on the South, then that’s the kind of battle I don’t want to win.

I spoke about how the Left is committing political and economic suicide in an earlier article on Steemit but that doesn’t mean I’m sanguine about the prospect of the net results in the long run.

Now the events in Las Vegas have them clamoring for more gun control. The fact that this useful idiot used a Bump Stock to slaughter those people is exactly the kind of argument they wanted to clamor for more gun control.

“This was a legal weapon. Don’t you see what your rigidness has caused!? This blood is on your hands!!!!”

The timing is perfect.

A brutal crackdown in Spain during a secession vote. Then a massacre in a public place in the U.S. at a peaceful gathering. The net takeaway for most people?

The world isn’t safe.

And when that is what we see all around us, our next step is to try and make sense of it. To find answers to ugly, gut-wrenching fear inside of us. And that means looking for ways to control the future. And it is the need to make sense of it, to organize it, find the motivations and root them out is what the Powers That Be are looking to exploit.

They are fomenting civil war. Pitting us against each other when they are the freaking problem to be solved. They see their power structures crumbling and this is one of the ways in which they will capitalize on tragedy to defend it.

And it is now that we have to be extra vigilant as to what they are trying to distract us from.

But, mostly, it is time to put aside petty political differences, climb off of our hobby horses and see things clearly. It’s what I hope for, but it’s certainly not what I’m planning for.

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