Thursday, January 23, 2020

And Then...?


















Some people still think last Monday in Richmond was a success.
Others still think it was a failure.
Some few are probably nuanced enough to recognize aspects of both.

I think it was three days ago, and I'm pretty certain I no longer give a shit, or even a wet fart, for what anyone else thinks or says about it. It's history. Move on. Get over it.

What is starting to emerge, for parties on both sides (and hopefully, the good folks in Virginia) is the dawning realization that whatever it was, it wasn't enough to do anything, let alone everything, so everybody's asking "What's Next?"

For some of them, I humbly recommend the 74 posts I put together a couple of years ago, with the keywords : basic training.

Start here.Then here. Then here. Then here. And so on.
They were put up, on average, one or two or even three a day, from the end of April through early July of that year.

Someone with better google-fu on Blogger than I can probably post a link to the whole series using the keyword. However you do it, start at the beginning, and work forward from the earliest post.
UPDATE: Courtesy of G-Man:
Needful Things
Ground Rules
Course Syllabus
Basic References –
PT – Physical Training
Nutrition, Hydration, Electrolytes
First Aid – Intro and Overview
First Aid – Airway, Breathing, and CPR
Wounds – Stop The Bleeding, Protect the Wound
First Aid – Shock
First Aid – Bandaging
First Aid – Orthopedic Injuries and Splinting
First Aid – Burns
Hygiene and Rest
PT – Day Two
First Aid: Environmental Emergencies
First Aid: TCCC I : Care Under Fire
First Aid: TCCC II – Tactical Field Care
First Aid: TCCC III – Tactical Casualty Evacuation
First Aid: First Aid Kits – IFAK and Beyond
First Aid: IVs
First Aid: Medications
First Aid: Nuke-Chem-Bio
First Aid: Improvisation
First Aid: Prevention
Basic Training: Marksmanship – Preamble
Basic Training: PT
Basic Training – Rifle I
Basic Training – Pistol I
Basic Training – PT
Basic Training – Rifle II
Basic Training – Pistol II
Basic Training – PT
Basic Training – Rifle III
Basic Training – Pistol III
Basic Training – PT
Basic Training – Rifle IV
Basic Training – Pistol IV
Basic Training – PT
Basic Training – Rifle V
Basic Training – Shotgun
Basic Training – PT
Basic Training – Fieldcraft Intro
Basic Training – Fieldcraft: Gear and Levels
Basic Training – Gear (cont.)
Basic Training – Gear SOPs and Location Standardization
Basic Training – On The Move
Basic Training – Patrolling
Basic Training – Team Formations
Basic Training – Hand & Arm Signals
Basic Training – Danger Areas
Basic Training – Reaction To Contact/Ambush/ Break Contact
Basic Training – Camouflage, Concealment, and Cover
Basic Training – PT
Basic Training – Your Pace Count
Basic Training – Magnetism
Basic Training – Compass and Protractor Basics
Basic Training – Maps and Map Reading I
Basic Training – Maps and Map Reading II
Basic Training – Basic Celestial Navigation
Basic Training – GPS
Basic Training – PT
Basic Training – Patrol Base
Basic Training – Noise, Light, Litter Discipline
Basic Training – Sanitation
Basic Training – Challenge/Password
Basic Training – Fighting Positions
Basic Training – Range Cards
Basic Training – The Ambush
“But Aesop,…!” Basic training question
“But, But, But…” Part Deux
Basic Training – PT
Basic Training – Phonetic Alphabet

For those to whom the military, and its training regimen, are only known via Hollywood movies, they will provide a solid foundation for future study and application.

{Hint: If you're not going to do the application, spend your time instead with some hand lotion and a link to PornHub, because you'll gain more from the latter if you won't be bothered to get out of your Barcalounger. Just saying.}

For those who've got a handle on the baccalaureate degree, move up to the master's course of study, from even earlier: Military Organization For Dummies
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

The barest bones of an outline of the hardest part of anything worthwhile: making it work to accomplish your mission. 
If, however, you're well familiar with that course of instruction, and don't need the refresher, or all that militarism is just too butch for you, move along to some other ideas I've posted:

Common Sense Resistance

Read it, glean what you can use from it, and if something therein won't work, drop it, and move on with what does.

Which seems to be nearly exactly what this home-grown VA group is all about, as BoatGuy and I noted in earlier Comments, and as Concerned American front-paged at WRSA today.

{Hint: This ain't just for Virginians. Your state's on the menu too.)

And then go read other people's ideas, on any dozen blogs, and in books, but then, FFS, get together with anyone and everyone in your LOCAL area, and start making things happen. Whatever county you live in, you are the catalyst for your own modern-day Committee of Correspondence. Host it. Break bread and jaw about it. Share ideas amongst yourselves, talk with other groups, plan, organize, unite, and do something bigger, better, and more hardassed.













That doesn't mean burn everything down and start throwing bombs.
You're still not there. Yet.
Doing the things above will be a lot harder, and more effective, than any destructive spazz-gasm you could imagine.

How do you know a small group of committed individuals can change the world?
Because it's the only thing that ever has.

77 men on Lexington Green.
56 delegates in Philadelphia.
12 disciples.

There is magic in a small hard corps.
Ask Easy Company of the 506th if that formula works.

But the Lone Ranger is a fictional character.

So meet and greet. Go shooting together. Teach a class or three. Go on a hike. Make friends over the back fence, at the local hall, in a bowling league, or over at the Legion Post or Elk's Lodge. If there isn't a local group, make one from scratch.
If needs be, with just two people. Or even just one.

If you could pull 22,000 into Richmond on a cold holiday, there's no reason you can't pull 200 from every 2A sanctuary county in VA, right now. And that's just this week.

And once you get something  or anything going, go find the group the next county over, and keep in touch with them.
Lather, rinse, repeat for every contiguous county.

Boom.
You're now really a Committee Of Correspondence.
Which really f**ked up an awful big slice of King George III's tyrannical empire at one point.

The match you strike today can light a candle.
Tomorrow, it may light a torch.
And the day after that, a fuse.
Best get going on being ready for that day.



19 comments:

1chota said...

well spoken, amigo.

Anonymous said...

I'm a huge fan of Jack Donovan's book "The Way of Men". The short version is that men should form small groups of like minded whom you can depend on to have each others back. Those small groups can join other small groups which can join other groups and so on until you've amassed enough men to achieve victory over opposing groups of men.


After seeing the piss poor effort on Monday I'm no longer confident of the Right winning anything other than a pie eating contest.

Charles in VA said...

Point of Order...

Yes, you can form some sort of "group" or militia.

I give it five minutes before it's infiltrated by the FBI. Just ask the Hell's Angels how that works, or The Mongols, or The Pagans, etc. And those are semi-clandestine orgs. I'm sure Randy Weaver has a few thoughts on the subject as well.

The larger it is and the more public the recruiting efforts are, the greater the odds that sappers are inside the wire...and in greater numbers.

Call me paranoid, but the narcs, weasels, ferrets and snakes are everywhere.

You're correct that we can put the 20th behind us. That's where it belongs.

But, IF one of the arguments against it was the "Hoovering up" (pun intended) of recon intel by the Feebs, then it is doubly valid in this instance, is it not?

I'd like to point out that it is far from certain that even a plurality of these County Sheriffs in VA can actually be taken at their word. They NEED the support of the voters to keep their jobs, but that isn't where their pay checks come from...and let's not argue semantics on that point.

There's an old Pink Floyd lyric, "You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to, so that when they turn their backs on you, you'll get the chance to put the knife in".

Well, we all look like pincushions already. The truth of the matter is that we won't know whether we can trust them until SHTF and it will be too late for an education then.

So you trust in the "Good Will" of your fellow man if you want. As for me...

In God I Trust. ALL others are suspect.

Watch where you go and remember where you've been. That's the way I see it. I'm a simple man.

Charles in VA said...

One more thought...

"But the Lone Ranger is a fictional character."

That's a pretty condescending train of thought.

One man with skills, knowledge, kit and motivation is worth a platoon of pogues...and can accomplish much more than you seem to think.

Just ask any Vietnam era tunnel rat.

June J said...

Not just Virginians, people who care in every state. Start talking to your sheriffs, your county leaders, your neighbors, your church brothers and sisters.
The communists aren't stopping in Virginia.

T-Rav said...

@Charles in VA

Resolution 1-13 has already addressed the "pay check" concern (and it is a valid one) by advising that if the Northam regime does in fact attempt unlawful confiscations, all taxes be withheld from the state government and diverted to the county governments instead.

I'm sure that plank will be heavily debated; all I'd say about it for now is if you're gonna go that route, make sure everyone's in the loop. One guy refusing to send in his tax forms will get smacked down; thousands doing so, organized ahead of time, are a different matter.

Charles in VA said...

@T-Rav

I'd refer you back to my "weasels, ferrets and snakes" observation. They may all SAY they're going to not pay their taxes. Then you find yourself sitting alone in a cell wondering where all your "buddies" are. Or worse yet, you're black bagged to Gitmo or somewhere far worse under the NDAA or Patriot Act. The Feds AREN'T going to sit on the sidelines through all of the fun to come! That's a HUGE unknown variable to calculate.

To quote the Allman Brothers, "I been tied to the whippin' post" before.

Once you've made it to 60 you've learned a few hard lessons. If you're of even average intelligence and moderate luck, you remember them and modify your modus operandi accordingly.

Suffice it to say that those bitter lessons were taken to heart and I conduct my affairs with the wisdom they have given me. My "circle" is a dot. It has been for a long while and I'm good with that. I know I can trust the dot.

Put another way, Rights are an individual proposal. Each of us are responsible for protecting our own Rights. The manner in which I do that for myself is not open for discussion by committee.

If my actions also help defend someone else's Rights, then that is a happy side effect, but it is incidental to my main goal. Some would call that Nature's Law (or the law of the jungle). So be it. We're ALL headed for the law of the jungle sooner or later to my way of thinking. Better to get our heads wrapped around that sooner rather than later.

I can appreciate your way of thinking, but it doesn't work for me...yet. Maybe after a lot of people are lying dead in the streets and I've had opportunity to OBSERVE people's true motivations and principles (from a discreet distance) I might be more inclined to "join". That time isn't here yet.

Anonymous said...

Now they're looking at making political dissent illegal. Yes, you read that right. Kinda makes one wonder how we have an election debate then right? They go through with that then all bets are off...they will need to be removed by force.

G-man said...

Aesop,

I pulled all your 'Basic Training' tagged posts and tried posting all of the links here. However, it appears that ~70-someodd links in 3 separate comments ran afoul of your automated comment spam filter, so I dropped them all in a post over on my blog:

https://www.galaxieman.com/?p=4672

They're in chronological order of posting date, and include the prelim post you made before the one linked in today's post.

Charles in VA said...

@5:27PM

Yep. I saw that om Bongino's aggregator site. Say what you will about California, but this crap in Virginia is happening at a speed completely unprecedented in modern political history. It's a run away train on full throttle...which means it's heading for a derailment of epic proportions if all things remain equal.

They also want to change the Gubernatorial term from one to two terms AND give felons the vote.

It will be interesting to see if ANY of the House Dems have even the slightest political survival instincts. If not, then they may well end up worrying about their physical survival skills...which I imagine are non-existent.

Things are not looking good in The Old Dominion these days.

Retired cop said...

Aesop, not to change the subject (because I agree with you), but I hope you are following the fast developing information regarding this new Coronavirus (Wuhan virus).
The scariest part seems to me to be that the Chinese are releasing info constantly and admitting deaths and control failures.
Hoping you can put together a blog entry or two regarding this.

Keep up the good work!

Retired cop

John Wilder said...

Well said. Preparation, opportunity, relentlessness, and vision.

Charles in VA said...

@ Retired Cop

I'm seeing a LOT of chatter on this virus from all over the web.

https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/en/news-page/news-nation/coronavirus-in-china-20-million-quarantined-2-8-million-infected-112-000-dead

T-Rav said...

@Charles in VA

I could be wrong, but I doubt the Feds are going to stick anyone in Gitmo for not paying state taxes. The Virginia State Police will certainly try to get their hands on you, but that's what the militia is for.

And more broadly...I mean, the image of one guy holed up somewhere with his own private arsenal is appealing, for sure, but not very practical. One man can be isolated and neutralized without much disruption of the status quo. But if a county raises a whole militia? If the 90-odd sanctuary counties all raise militias? That can't be isolated.

I get what you're saying about the threat of being infiltrated by the three-letter agencies, but at some point, you have to trust people and work with them. Selectively, yes, and never on blind faith, but you still have to sometimes. If we're too scared of a potential comrade being a plant to take collective action, even against blatantly unconstitutional actions such as these, I'd say the Left has already won.

Charles in VA said...

@ T-Rav

The Feebs won't be worried about State taxes. They'll be labeling your entire group a domestic terrorist org. THAT'S where the black bagging comes in. You following me now? The Constitution is a chew toy to those rat B'tards. I KNOW.

Who said anything about "holing up"? You can't run ops holed up now, can you?

And finally, I'll state the obvious fact. EVERY time you make the decision to trust someone, you risk betrayal. EVERY TIME. The risk is not always the same odds every time, but the risk is NEVER zero. And when your life is literally on the line you have to ask yourself if that's a chance you're willing to take. I'd have to be very damned desperate, I can tell you that much.

Maybe it's time to consider the possibility that you mentioned in closing. Maybe the Left HAS already won. Not conceding the fact, if true, will not change reality, will it? And I have it on the very best of Authorities (The Holy Bible) that it IS coming. Is this it? I couldn't say, but it's looking more probable every day.

Appropriately, the question is still...WHAT THEN?

And I think the two possible answers are surrender, or kamikaze. Retreat is not really an option in my mind. Where would you run to that it wouldn't hunt you down eventually?

elysianfield said...

" thousands doing so, organized ahead of time, are a different matter."

Yeah, those air traffic controllers taught the government a lesson or two...."


Hang together, or hang separately...we still gonna hang.

carolinaTURTLE said...

Elysianfield? If that is your location, then perhaps you are speaking to us from beyond the grave? And then, air traffic controllers were not upset about confiscation of firearms in violation of the constitution of the united states, nor were they prepared to use deadly force in pursuit of their goals. I'm by far not the best student of history, but if i shall hang, the quote "give me liberty, or give me death" comes to mind...

Aesop said...

@elyssianfield,

Apples to pineapples.
PATCO was proof of why federal employee unions should be illegal.
When the People hire you to do a job, a strike is a betrayal of trust.
And, as it turned out, they weren't so indispensable after all.
Being stupid like that is a hard way to learn the truth, but it worked like a charm.

The People organizing to protect their natural law rights is nothing like that.
They have the absolute right to do that, and to take on all comers.

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

Stop me if you've heard this one...

elysianfield said...

"Elysianfield? If that is your location, then perhaps you are speaking to us from beyond the grave?"

Turtle,
...You think I got a shot at heaven? You flatter me.

Aesop,
True, they were not defending natural rights, but they planned ahead, were organized,prepared, and we saw what happened. The lesson is that the government can hire any number of armed enforcers. Kill several hundred thousand? Offer 80K a year and the waiting list for replacements would be Biblical in scope...Old Testament Biblical....

I have been immersed in the gun culture all my life. "Inner City" cop, Life Member NRA, Owned one of the largest gun stores in Oregon, collected NFA weapons (had well over 25 of them), Manufactured precision rifle barrels, designed and manufactured reloading equipment, been a long range varmint hunter for 40 years, and at one time had a respectable collection of military firearms.

The situation will boil down to force. The State is prepared to use it, the citizens posture...history shows that people who are generally well fed and safe in their homes rarely rise to arms.

...Could be wrong....