Let me qualify this post and question by saying this is something I have wanted to ask and write about for quite a while. I often ask this question to people I meet in general life discussion, and I am very interested to hear every response. Today is a great day to ask this…
Think back… So, you are living your life, doing what you and everyone familiar to you are doing in the ordinary and regular way of living your specific life.
Perhaps you paid some attention to the political comings and goings of things, perhaps not.
Perhaps like most comfortably invisible people you were just putting one foot in front of the other, and generally doing the day-to-day things that most would consider ordinary.
Then one day, for some unknown and likely not that consequential reason, something caught your attention. Something piqued your curiosity; perhaps you noticed something you wouldn’t ordinarily have noticed. Perhaps you heard something, or saw something, or were just in a situational space where something itched your brain as you looked at something, heard something or noticed something that just didn’t quite fit or sit right.
Perhaps that little something, or big something, caused you to look just a little bit closer at the story, event or moment with a little more curiosity than before. Perhaps you dug into that specific moment with a little more than a side-eye glance, and you noticed something. After looking at it a little closer, you realized that construct was not at all what it appeared to be on the surface.
From that moment forward, for the first time, you really started to question the ‘thing’ that was in front of you, and from that moment forward, you woke up to recognize that things around you, things you perhaps didn’t pay attention to before, were not what you thought they were. It was from this moment when you really started to pay attention and your political awakening began.
Question: When was that moment for you?
I am always amazed at the replies I get in real life to this question of when the individual awakening began.
For some it was at an early age, for others much later in life. For some it was recently, and for others it was a long time ago. However, for everyone there was that moment when it started, and it is completely unique to the individual.
So, on this day, Sunday February 19, 2023, a generally innocuous day in the grand scheme of things, I pose this question to everyone.
Yes, even all the CTH lurkers who read here and never join the conversation. The comment section is open for all replies with the general rules of on-line decorum still standing. Us old schoolers still use the early internet standards of on-line discussion, and CTH requests polite and civil conversation that enlightens, expands thinking and uplifts the audience.
I am genuinely curious and will be reading every reply because it’s really cool to see what that “moment” was for each person. I’m pretty sure the entire CTH community will also enjoy reading the unique replies to the question.
We all travel a different path. We all come from different, likely comfortably invisible, life experiences. And we all merge into this big melting pot of curious people who are looking deeply at the issues we face. Regardless of how each of us arrived here, the larger dynamic is that we likely share a common curiosity for the reality of our situation. It’s a safe bet to say that almost everyone reading this is in the top-tier of “high information” consumers.
My question is not what arrived you at The Conservative Treehouse, but rather what the moment was when you began looking around and realizing that things just didn’t seem to add up. That’s the origin of the journey. That’s the moment I am inquiring about.
Perhaps it’s a weird way of looking at CTH, but our fellowship is always what has been the most important aspect to this little corner of the internet. It’s not the content of the Treehouse, but the conversation on the porch that matters. You, the readers, friends, people who assemble here, are the important element. Not me and not the site admins.
That’s genuinely the way I have always looked at our fellowship, and that’s also the reason for every detail I put into keeping this little corner of the internet standing.
So, with that in mind, what was that moment in your life when you realized the social, political and/or media narrative, was not at all what it was presented to be?
Love to all,
~ Sundance
I’ve always questioned the narrative.
All through the 80s, we lived a good life. I married my wife in ’79… she was a commercial loan officer for a major bank in downtown LA, and I worked as middle management for a government contractor with the DOJ. West Hollywood, at the time, was a very safe place for a young married couple to live… except for AIDS… but there really wasn’t a political aspect to the virus yet, so we went about our daily lives relatively unaware of anything much beyond our immediate surroundings. We were, after all, newlyweds.
George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson, both moderate Republicans, were governors during those years, so there was very little state-driven political activism going on… it was pretty much business as usual. Suzy’s dad had been a career postal employee, and I came from a strong military family, so we were both OK with the most visible aspects of the federal government. Reagan and Bush Sr. were presidents then, both of whom we voted for, but not passionately.
We were conservatives, in hindsight, but weren’t actually aware of it… if you know what I mean.
We started our own business in ’82, moved out of the city to a ski resort in the mountains above Los Angeles, all of which served to remove us even one step further from political worry. Like I said… life was good.
Then, in 1992, the earthquake hit. We lived at epicenter. We lost our home, a small rental property that we had purchased, and the business. But we had our lives, and an insurance settlement that afforded us the ability to escape here to the mountains of central Arizona where we’ve been ever since.
Maybe it was coincidence, or more likely just having gone through an event as traumatic and life-changing as an earthquake, but whatever it was had awakened us… we were no longer distracted from the things happening in the world around us. Things like Ross Perot.
That was it… he hit the media at exactly the time that we started paying attention to it. He captured our imaginations… something different… NOT business as usual. And when he lost to Bill Clinton, we only became more interested, more aware that there were forces in our central government powerful enough to actually direct events… to influence the outcome of virtually anything within their sphere of influence… like the failed attempt to remove Clinton from office.
And as they say on the roller derby circuit, it was all downhill from there.
Yep, Ross Perot. I was early 20’s. For a year or two nothing made sense, it didn’t reconcile. Then it all made sense.
Especially last 7 to 8 years.
Wow I’m the first one here looks like?
I was born in the late 80’s. For me, it was 9/11. I almost signed up for the USMC over that. But the Patriot Act rubbed me wrong, and I began to realize just how much liberty we were trading for the promise of security. That led me to the … curious… circumstances surrounding 9/11. It didn’t add up. I’m not saying I know the whole truth about it now but that was the beginning for me.
I was very angry for the first half of Obummers years. But during his 2nd term I consciously shifted toward a “happy warrior” mentality. And I discovered CTH via Maha Rushie when he gave Sundance credit for spotting the Big Clubs splitter strategy.
Much love to everyone here. You’re doing Gods work Sundance. The truth is indomitable and it shall prevail.
Yes sir. Same for me.
9/11 was the day.
When John Roberts legalized sodomy and gave us Obamacare. Don’t get me wrong. I am not homo-phobic. Each must pursue their own dreams to happiness. However, I know that it has led to the slippery slope of depravity including transgenderism and child mutilation. This anti God radicalism won’t stop as they attempt to subdue the church. Don’t be deceived, they’re after Christianity and the moral authority of the Bible. We have the promise of Matthew 16: 17-19. The gates of hell will not prevail against the Jesus church. (And healthcare requirement is unconstitutional & not the same as a tax)
1 event led to my curiousity another had me hooked on gaining knowledge
1.911(my twin sons coach who was their friends dad was on flight 11)
2.my oldest enslisted in the Army (see #1)
I read Liberty and Tyrany
and knew then is was all a Mirage
As a child, my mother was already telling me that the evening news reports on TV were biased, partly from being slanted, and partly from what was NOT being covered … back when the Viet Nam War was going on. So I grew up not trusting the news media. My father was similarly instrumental regarding newspapers, describing how when there were two sides of a story, the side of the story that benefited one group would get printed, the other side ignored.
2008 financial meltdown
Also Obummer takeover of healthcare
Precisely when I saw it too. Started about February 2008. Yanked my $’s out of the market cause it didn’t add up. Then watched (in horror) as Hank Paulson begged Pelosi, on his knee’s, for a bank bail out.
Then came Barry. I saw him for what he was before he was ever elected.
That may have been 2007
I grew up in a conservative family (Rush baby!) and had to defend myself a lot in high school for having conservative views. This was in the very early 2000s, so the Bush years and post-9/11 world. I realized around 15-16 that almost all our teachers were on a mission to evangelize the liberal cause to us. If we were to be smart, we’ll-educated, freethinking, clever people, we had to be liberal. I didn’t like that at all.
I was on the school newspaper staff; at a summer camp one year, the dean of a very prestigious journalism school got up in front of a bunch of us high school kids and told us that it was the media’s job not to disseminate information but to tell the public how to feel about that info. Between that and my teacher telling me to manipulate or invent quotes for stories to support his worldview, I realized just how deeply manipulative the press actually is.
However, I didn’t realize how F-ed the Republican Party and GOP Inc was until 2015. Sure, I hated Obama and what he did to the military (got a front row seat to that in 2012 on active duty). Yes, I hated McCain and Romney and all that crap.
But the exact moment I became aware of the scam was in the fall of 2015, when the National Review ran an editorial declaring that us military vets were honor-bound to support endless illegal immigration.
That was the thing that got me questioning. I grew up in a border state. There is NOTHING about illegal immigration that does not bring net misery to the world. It’s modern day slavery, in a lot of ways.
I’d thought Trump’s campaign was some sort of joke before that. I finally watched one of his speeches; it was the one where he bowed out of the debate and held his own event on the fly. For the first time, I saw somebody let veterans have the stage and talk about our struggles without getting in front of it or trying to propose some kind of BS happy political solution. Then I watched Trump be relentlessly attacked.
That woke me up and got me questioning. And it’s one of those things that once you see it, you can’t un-see it.
While I was basically born to Conservative parents, like you, at first I thought Trump’s first campaign was either a joke or maybe some kind of marketing campaign. I mean I liked his show “The Apprentice” but wondered how I could take him seriously and what he really stood for.
What changed my mind and earned my support was when a bunch of protestors stopped Trump from speaking one day, I think it might have been Chicago. I watched a video of the protestors screaming obscenities, shutting down highways, blocking doorways, not allowing someone to exercise his free speech, and looking like they might turn violent at any time … since they were definitely bad guys, and they were opposed to Trump … that made Trump a good guy.
good reminder of that Chicago thing… I can’t even remember exactly what happened except for was that the one where the protester got beat up on the stairs? Good times. 🙂
Never forget that Ted Cruz said that it was Trump’s fault that these riots happened. He said that Trump’s words upset these people so much that they had no choice but to beat up Trump supporters.
SAME. Busted!
The UniParty really shot themselves in the foot with how they went after Trump. I’d wager a lot of people started seeing things in a different light during the 2015/2016 campaign. It was insane.
Trump wrote and talked about FAIR Trade & China stealing our manufacturing ability long before he ran for President. I was hoping for him to run instead of Romney!
I remember a group of chicken sh–t illegals chasing a single white woman into a doorway of a business where she ran for help (and the cowards inside locked her out) and how they viciously pelted her with eggs and water bottles.
Oh, by the way, that was in Orange County, which used to be a safe place.
9/11. When I realized that explosives were used to bring the towers down and that the deep state would murder its own citizens to advance an agenda. From that point and incurring the wrath of covert administrative rendition, it was clear to me what was going to happen forward in a declining free state. Then DJT came along and they all shit their pants and it was glorious!
MacArthur and Patton attacked 20,000 WW1 veterans on the National Mall, in 1932, with bayonets and tear gas . I don’t put anything past the overlords.
Bonus Army.
The falling of the Tower 7 was odd, and a concern, but I have never seen conclusive proof of who did it. It gets speculative from there. I need ironclad proof, that would stand in a court of law. Never saw that.
<—- Rigging ang blasting was part of my resume.
When I saw the first tower fall, I knew…..I was blown away, with what I saw.
The lies that followed, were jaw dropping. 100 per cent BS.
I was lying in bed. Age twelvish (early 80s). My dad came home from the airport. The airport was a private airport, one of the first “condominium” airports. He sat at my bedside and told me one of his friends thought i didn’t respect him (his friend, not my dad). The idea was so preposterous to me that two things happened:
1. I realized reality existed outside my mind, and I would need to do better to grasp it.
2. A man I once respected lost respect.
Something similar happened to me, but different, when I was about 17 years old. I was put in a situation by my parents and my teachers (a private Christian school) wherein I was accused of doing something I had not done. They wanted me to publicly apologize. I kept telling them I did no such thing and never would. They didn’t listen or believe me. Fortunately, it was a very small thing. They said I said something about a teacher that hurt her feelings, and I didn’t say it. Nothing I said convinced them. I eventually apologized for something I didn’t do. Why didn’t my parents believe me? Why didn’t my teachers? I lost a lot of respect for both in that moment. A small thing, but an awakening of sorts.
This is the true spot where you learn to trust your instincts about the character of others. Your parents should have observed and noted your idealism by then (nobody lacking idealism fights so strongly on principle). Because of that and your long push back, refusing on principle… I would have had to give you the benefit of the doubt and assumed you were telling the truth (about being innocent).
Of course, a lot depends on the world view your parents hold.
Stand strong on principle. They often are very expensive, but the ones most valued by you are worth it.
I was a college-indoctrinated leftist idiot. My oldest brother was a big fan of Rush Limbaugh and I just laughed when my brother suggested I listen to Rush. One day, while driving a lonely stretch of highway in Texas in the mid 1990s, the only radio station I could get was the one with Rush Limbaugh’s show. So I listened. I found myself agreeing with everything he said. It was at that moment I started paying more attention.
Rush reinforced my beliefs and understanding of our constitution and how unique and precious it is
You and Andrew Breitbart! I have long thought that his “Righteous Indignation” was the best “post-mortem” on the 2016 election of DJT, and it doesn’t mention Trump once! Years after Trump was in office, leftists MSMs started asking, Can we finally ask how Trump got elected? My response: Read AB’s “Righteous Indignation,” pal. It’s all there.
Cold Anger!
For me, probably around 1981.. a friend brought over 2112 and I read the liner notes, ‘with acknowledgement to the genius of Ayn Rand,’ which of course led to me reading The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. I recall enjoying the theme of individualism, but even though the heroes won and the philosophy was ‘proved,’ I would sometimes think that some of her portrayals of the villains was a bit much. Yes, I was wrong.
Then in the mid to late 90s and smoking bans… If the government can pierce the veil of private property, this is not going to end well.
Then with the election of Obama and voters’ obvious ignoring of Rush warning that ‘if you think racism is going to go away, think again, it is only going to get worse,’ as well as Hannity and Beck warning about Revs Wright and Felcher, and Cloward Piven and every other thing Beck drew out on his chalkboard.
Through all these years and events, I have always been a pessimist, certain that no matter what measures I take to ensure my own financial security, the government IS going to find a way to wreck the economy and culture to the point that there is nothing you can do to protect yourself from its grasp.
Then we arrived at Trump and listening to especially Bongino outline the lies involved with Russia Russia and yet it didn’t matter, no one went to jail..there is something ugly happening. Then 2020, which led to the inevitable conclusion that we are all being played…the CIA took out JFK, Gulf of Tonkin, Nixon abandons gold convertibility, inflation, 1989 crash, 911 inside job, subprime no one goes to jail indeed the banks get bailed out and a trillion dollars a year is added to the baseline budget, afghanistan was clearly a money laundering operation, use lots of missiles and other hardware that has to be replaced, the US military can’t defeat a bunch of sub species goat humpers….which reminds me, the southern border…and Rush saying ‘ok let them in but they can’t vote for 25 years,’ but that was never going to happen….Ann Coulter, Adios America….now 5 million more sub species parasite pouring in through every nook and cranny and when one of them gets drilled by a farmer the farmer goes to jail…….
The only hope now is for patriots to hail Larry and Emil for their reminder to law enforcement that its not much fun when the rabbit’s got the gun.
Ditto!
Smoking was a door that should never of been opened. (said this so much i lost my voice)
Broke back mountain let the devil into everything.
hind sight is 20/20 but some of us have 20/20 foresight and ring all the bells and whistles to no avail..
I feel like that has been my entire life, I was born in 1963 so i’ve seen a lot , said a lot and have fought a lot. been called a “conspiracy nut” a lot.
I forgot about listening to Jason Lewis on KSTP in Minneapolis up here in western canada, especially in winter when the signal came in as clear as any local station, this was right around the time of Drudge reporting about Lewinsky….. one of Jason’s themes was and still is ‘they want everyone living in a Soviet style highrise next to a light rail station.’
One of the bumper ads for Jason’s show was “it’s time for an intelligent conversation, Jason Lewis talks and you listen,’ lol
Rush was good on the environmentalist whackos, but Jason was just as good and would often spend the entire 3 hr show on the topic. He had David Pimental on as a guest numerous time to talk about the idiocy of ethanol, wind turbines, solar farms, etc, and he had particular alarm and scorn for urban growth boundaries (wendel cox, demographia), smart meters, the federal highway trust fund that diverted money from roads to bike paths, and pointing out that the bridge had barely collapsed and bodies were still in the water and James Oberstar was holding a press conference that wailed about the lack of investment in infrastructure….
So Jason went Galt, left his show in mid broadcast. I also went Galt….I work 6 months a year at a $32 hr job, shovel everything into my kitchen cupboard after Trudeau froze bank accounts and then I go on unemployment for 6 months, which dramatically reduces my net income tax contribution to a country I am starting to abhor. All my stuff is paid for, it is just me and my cat, Kitty!!!!, a bit of fishing in the winter and target shooting in the summer.
And given the direction of thing, I hope Putin starts lobbing nukes at Ottawa and DC, because it is going to be better to be six feet under than to live in the upcoming police state.
Jason Lewis was great. He moved to Charlotte for a few years, we listened to him everyday.
I have a lot a lot of his podcasts saved and would have a lot more if my Clickfree backup drive hadn’t crashed.
In 03 I went to visit a friend of mine in Minneapolis. I had been a pen pal (email pal) with Jason for a few years by then and phoned to the station to see if we could have a coffee. I left a message on his answering machine and that evening, 15 minutes after the show ended, the phone rang, my friend picked up and said “its for you”….lol
Jason invited me down to the station for the next afternoon and I got the opportunity to visit for an hr or so. I am pretty sure it was the day John Ritter and Johnny Cash passed away.
I understand your Canadian Supreme Court just approved Trudeau’s use of the Emergency Powers to shut down all dissent and confiscate your funds; all Trudeau has to do is declare it and shut down all opposition to his policies. You now live in a dictatorship and we are already close behind.
No. The Canadian Supreme Court is not involved. There was an inquiry led by one Federal justice as required under the Emergencies Act itself. The inquiry and its findings are a joke, because the basis for invoking the Emergencies Act was itself a joke. If there had been a real national emergency, there would have been a sense of gravitas to the proceedings, but there was none of that.
A lawyer that worked for the liberals, of course…..
One man’s lies.
A bought and paid for one.
In the end, it was only an enquiry, not a certification of those actions, by anything resembling a court.
Agreed.
We’ve been teetering on the edge for years.
Check out Viva Frei/Robert Barnes (Live) on Rumble – Viva is a Canadian lawyer, now living in Florida (doesn’t know for how long) – He’s a good guy and gives much insight into Trudeau/Canada.
I now realize that there is a cabal which promotes war because they make big money on BOTH sides
Hopefully you have watched the documentary on Rumble, ‘rich man’s trick.’ It starts out by noting that Ford built vehicles for both sides.
I watched an interview with a guy who was on base in Afghanistan (I think he was a contractor, not a combat soldier); he told about how he would watch convoys of Humvees leave in the morning and late in the day only a few would return. He found it odd because he hadn’t heard on the radio anything about combat or IEDs…. So he asked another guy on base where were all the Humvees going?
The guy replied that ‘that is the point of us being here, to destroy stuff that has to be replaced and paid for, it is a money laundering mission.’
Reminds me of that old Credence Clearwater song “Run Through The Jungle”.
never thought i’d see a 2112 reference on this website.
here’s to the genius of neil
“I believed what I was told, I thought it was a good life, I thought I was happy. Then I found something that changed it all…”
-Anonymous, 2112
I was a New Zealnder living in Germany…I was never interested in politics. I decided to watch one of Donald Trump’s speech’s live because lots of things were being said. I watched and thought if I was an American I would vote for him. Then I watched the MSM lie about what he had said… and I thought f*** y** d**** c****…
After returning from the first gulf war and getting out of the Army I came accross Rush Limbaugh on the radio and he really made so much sense. I started paying attention to what was going on in the country. I started learning about our history and our founding. I got involved in some political campaigns, etc. Unfortunately it took me over 20 years to realize the most of the people i was supporting and campaigning for and telling people to vote for (Republicans) were as corrupt as the democrats. Time after time the people I helped get elected ended up doing NOTHING but they did end up getting rich. I did not truly WAKE UP until I saw what they did to Trump. Both parties. The last couple years I have really been at a cross roads. I always felt that if we just got Republicans elected we could fix this country but after realizing how corrupt 99% of all politicians are it really is a kick in the face. I try to think positive but I really do not have much hope for our country ever returning to the founding. And that is something that really hurts because I took an oath to protect and defend the Consitution. I worked for 24 years in the Department of “Justice” after I got out of the Army and I watched it turn more and more political and more and more people get appointed or promoted that cared nothing about the Constitution. I mourn for our country. I worry about my kids and hopefully grandkids and how bad it will become for them. Our politicians have sold out this country. I love Trump but his first 4 years showed that one man can not fight the deep state that is so entrenched in every single agency. There is no 4th branch anymore. The media is totally corrupt. The Universities and education system is totally corrupt. I pray every day that God will somehow fix this great experiment called the United States of America but maybe he does not feel we deserve it.
Agree… imho the two areas that have been corrupted are the press and public education
and our churches i am loathe to add
Yes. Catholic schools firing teachers for refusing to call kids by other genders and not hiding it from their parents
Speaking as a protestant, we have the original “religious Left” that is far worse.
I believe there is a special place in H3ll reserved for the worst torments for the protestant “religious left”.
Yes it is distressing to realize we have almost no patriots left in our government, anywhere. We are being sold out for money.
After the 2018 mid-terms when I realized Paul Ryan and McConnell sold us out by allowing over 30 early retirements and resignations giving control of the House to Nancy Pelosi and Democrats, I changed my registration to Unaffiliated and swear that the only thing I hate more than a f***** g Republican is a G***d D***m Democrat.
I started to find it hard to reconcile what our government pro ported to be vis-a-vis the Bill of Rights and the Constitution with the Kelo vs City of New London Judgement, Sandy Berger destroying Archive documents, Chief Roberts’ changing the meaning of words, Hillary not being arrested for destroying government property, The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 that set the stage for the Housing crash, bank bailouts, Q.E.x, Brennen destroying travel records, Mittens taking a dive…not necessarily in that order, and how the media and uni-party became so obvious once President Trump came down the escalator.
With every passing year it has got worse.
We are at a real crossroads.
On the day of the Supremes saying Obamacare is Constitutional, I was on hold calling in to the Jason Lewis show and ahead of me was Michelle Bachman (fun fact, her and Jason are both from Waterloo Iowa), who was apoplectic that Roberts interpreting what Congress meant vs reading the actual Bill meant that the Supremes had just ruled on a law that didn’t exist, or at the very least a law that was not before them.
And leave it to Ann Coulter to have predicted it all.
https://anncoulter.com/2005/07/20/souter-in-roberts-clothing/
It’s been one of these gradual things. The more you notice, the more you learn, and then the more you notice.
It started last century, with suddenly realizing that the Republicans I kept voting for never did anything about illegal immigration, even when they were in power. For some time, I actually thought they’d get to it, but just hadn’t had time. Silly me.
George W. Bush is where it began.. I knew news was fake even earlier but I was pissed and couldn’t wait to get rid of him.
Barrack Hussein Obama is where it really bloomed and I got really active (against).. i was scared of what i suspected/believed /knew about Obama and pissed that i wasn’t going to get relief after GWB that i had prayed for , for years.
Trump is where i really got fired up and worked my fingers to the bone to get that man elected (twice) (excited doesn’t even describe how i felt when he won)
fJB-Biden is where I realized i wasn’t as awake as i thought i was ,everything has become so clear and I have real hope that we will finally get the change we deserve because we’ve all reached a level of awareness of the evil among us now that i feel confident now saying i’m not alone in saying – we’re collectively at the “burn it all down” stage of reality together. A place we needed to be at the same time and space in order to have the power to give ourselves the “fundamental transformation” we deserve and not the one obama dreamed up with his fake father.
100% agree with you.
Yes. Burn it all down. The sooner the better, so we have time to rebuild for our children and grandchildren.
After the Patriot Act and the waterboarding, I knew something was wrong but I never suspected the depth and breadth of the corruption and criminality. As time went on, I realized the rot was deeper than I ever could have imagined in my wildest dreams. It was at that point I began to lose hope that we could ever be the country we once were. That night they stopped counting votes, I knew that our rights as citizens had been taken away. Voting would no longer matter. After the impeachments and phony dossiers, I knew that I could never again trust any governmental entity. When Biden was installed, like you would install a dishwasher, it became more and more obvious as each day and each outrage occurred.
The open border, the Afghanistan surrender, the violent crime explosion, the Fentanyl crisis, the death jabs, the masks, the lock downs, the Ukraine war, the Nordstream 2 pipeline, the Palestine disaster, and on and on. I realized that there was no illegal or corrupt act that was beneath our government to commit. We now live in a lawless dictatorship and it will only continue to get worse.
I am a bit less optimistic than you, but that is a good list!
Here in Canada, Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act, arrested Pastors, seized bank accounts, cleared out the truckers from Ottawa streets without ever meeting them to hear their concerns…. the actual House vote on the Emergencies Act was never held because of an impassioned speech by a Conservative senator, which meant the Senate would not vote to pass it, so Trudeau repealed it.
Then an inquiry was held and the judge heard that the government acted too quickly, that there were already laws on the books that would have addressed the government’s concerns and actions, essentially that what Trudeau did had less to do with peace order and good government than it did with tyranny. And the other day the Judge said it was ok what the government did and that he wasn’t just saying that because is is a life long Liberal Party hack.
This country is beyond f***ed.
https://rumble.com/v29zv70-the-death-of-canada.html
Michael, I am like you. Live in Ontario, absolutely devastated to read the outcome of the EA inquiry. Many do not realize what this will mean. The freezing of bank accounts on a whim was just condoned, so too was the erasure of good people for wrong think. Many also do not realize that all border blockades were clear before JT invoked the EA. I am so sad I can barely stand it. This is not the country I grew up in, or believe in. Short of a complete collapse, what will solve so many layers of corruption? I am scared for my kids. I thank God every day I found Viva.
There is no precedent set by an inquiry held by a federal judge. The freezing of bank accounts on a whim has not been condoned. There would have been no invoking of the EA if millions and millions of Canadians were not complacent and compliant sheep who don masks and inject experimental drugs into their bodies on the diktats of government bureaucrats, and had pushed back against the tyranny long before the truckers ever descended upon Ottawa.
a sad characteristic of Canadians is to have as their life’s ambition living long enough to get some of that free health care they’ve heard about and voted for their entire lives.
Most Canadians are idiots who are scared of guns despite never actually having seen one.
I observe quite the opposite.
Maybe the city dwellers are afraid of guns, and such, but where I live, in Northern Ontario, they are a part of life and necessity.
Perhaps it is the media that portrays such things, that get you believing that.
Outside of the GTA, you wont find many that are afraid of them, or consider them evil.
We outnumber the libtards, they are just the loudest. The bought media amplifies the BS.
They stole our election too, you know it.
9/11.
The Clinton cover ups? The hanging chads and the paper chase into the Supreme Court. The best tech in the world’s richest nation… totally cringeworthy -the world was not impressed. Prestige took a hit and then another huge hit on 9/11.
With buffoon presidents and corrupt presidents (Biden is resuming the HRC script), the only interruption to the plan was President non-globalist Trump. And the plan was division. Dividing The People from their trust in their own governments -State and Federal. If the globalists had then stood up after a catastrophe of some kind and offered a new start with NWO… “…afterall, the last 3 decades of US politics have been so bad…”
…but Trump killed that plan. Its over for Globalism. Trump woke ppl up. “The Truth is a beautiful weapon.”
It was the spring of 1968, during the Viet Nam fiasco. Been paying attention ever since.
I was 14. It was the early ’70s. I’d read about Smedley Butler. I’d heard about the Gulf of Tonkin lies, though those involved had not yet written the books confessing them. Drugs were all the rage, and I studied them in the school library. DARE was in full bloom, and was telling we kids that LSD causes genetic damage, but I had already read that (federally funded) study, and the dozen or so other studies that had tried and failed to replicated it (one of which succeeded in proving that caffiene *does* cause genetic damage, but failed to show such for LSD) I was being lied to, and the liars hadn’t even done their homework. I had no idea how far down the rabit hole went, but I knew a 14 year old was in no position to defend himself from it, and I needed to hide. I intentionally scored poorly on SAT tests. I memorized my student body numbers, and learned to read upside down. That seems like so long ago now.
When the Vietnam War was raging and I had just entered university in 1970.
For me it was when I trundled off to Iraq in March 2003, no WMD or threat and from my travails and observations no possibility thereof, clearly lies from our PM Blair and your President Bush, then the American component started claiming Iraqi resources. Therefore I reasonably concluded the lies we had been told and battles fought where just the violent component of daylight robbery of Iraq and if possible Iran I guess. 2007 found myself in Afghanistan doing the same thing again. Bidens BS election victory/Covid, Woke and Net Zero were the icing on the cake of a world gone mad.
” the lies we had been told and battles fought where just the violent component of daylight robbery of Ira”
same with how the Soviet Union was parceled out to various oligarchs not the least of which was Soros.
It’s a combo for me. A lot of it started with CTH. Then I started reading Jeff Carlson and Lee Smith combined with what DJT was saying. The puzzle pieces were all a perfect match. 🎯
I just got on with my life until they started interfering in it.
Right??? If they would just leave us alone!
I credit Uncle Eddie and my dad – circa 1956-60. Their political discussions and general disgust with politicians. Teach your kids early, please.
Dad favored the poll tax and told the complainers, ‘if you don’t vote, don’t complain’.
Republicans (conservatives) in Texas pre-Nixon were very rare. When reading the newspaper back then, I always turned to the editorial page. I wanted the opinion of others – to fathom their logic and hone mine.
I don’t fish, hunt or do sports. My life is work and politics. I so want a better world for all of us; not a manipulated sheep-like people farmed/over similar to the cows that my wife and I ranch-over.
Endless thanks to Rush and Sundance.
I voted Nixon, 1968, at 21, in TEXAS.
2016. I was a low ranking officer in the navy, living and working on the medical side near DC. I was routinely being tasked to set my medical duties to support the injured aside to complete annual training modules of all kinds of things — human trafficking, conflicts of interest, cyber security, etc. Hillary was being investigated for literally having a homemade computer server with a personal email address that was physically housed in her home while serving as the Secretary of State. A trifecta of violations of fundamental principles of cyber security. I didn’t even have a security clearance, yet I knew if I committed a violation half as bad as that I would quite literally be court martialed. I expected an indictment, and I had been told and read time and again that James Comey was a man of impeccable integrity… And then he let her off — over the 4th of July weekend no less — because she didn’t show intent. Every one of those training modules made it explicitly clear that intention doesn’t matter — a legitimate cyber security violation is prosecutable regardless of intent — but somehow the rules were different for Hillary. That was the beginning of my suspicion about what was the true reality. The nail in the coffin was the Russia-gate debacle when I understood that not a single journalist bothered to wonder why a billionaire with an ego the size of Texas, who had made his fortune on his own hard work in commercial real estate and had most recently worked in reality TV of all things, had the capacity and foresight to leverage the Russian government in precisely the right manner to generate precidsey enough votes to win an American presidential election. That started me down the path of listening to Bongino to understand the truth of the Russia hoax and reading CTH to help make sense of what was really going on.
I can’t remember exactly what led me to Bongino, but it was shortly after Episode 628. The more I listened to him, the more I thought that he was qualified to take Rush’s spot whenever that spot became available.
For me it was daddy Bush, with the ‘vision’ comment and tax policies. Then Perot came along and blew up my understanding of economic policy.
I had a second awakening with Trump and MAGA as explained on this blog. Unfortunately, 99% of republicans don’t understand MAGA. A lot of dummies think Trump is a conservative, OMG.
Then another awakening with the whole unipolar and multipolar world concept and learning about the evil the US has been perpetrating on the world. I mean, we killed 1M civilians in the middle east for gawds sake. Now we blew up the Nordstream pipelines!
I have to say that I am very disappointed in republican media and what a shite job they have been doing for 35 years. Without sundance I would still be ignorant.
That poor job by conservative media is intentional as far as I’m concerned. You can say this, but not that, or you lose money.
I remember Ross Perot in the debates warning about that giant sucking sound of our jobs going to Mexico because of NAFTA. He was correct, but even more went to China and India, to the point we really don’t make anything here anymore. I remember my father telling me how important it was for a country to be self-sufficient. We need a vibrant steel industry. We need to make our own weapons. Guns, steel and butter.
When candidate DJT walked down the elevator. Much later for me though but the saying goes “it’s never too late”. That was my awakening.
Yes, same time…2015, at age 61…Trump came down that elevator and spoke to ME with common sense and peeked my interest in this man I had never paid any attention to…
I always bought the media line that DJT was a bombastic buffoon. Then I listened to him, really listened, and realized he wasn’t a buffoon. Bombastic, yes, but not a buffoon.
It was then I realized I had to stop using mainstream media as a source of information. I had to seek alternative information, like CTH. When I realized places like CTH were often correct in their predictions while MSM was wildly wrong, I finally found information sources I could trust.
vaguely aware of Trump for years as my kids watched his show; but when I heard his youngest son being interviewed and how eloquently and intelligently Eric Trump spoke, I knew that Donald Trump could not be the dope they tried to portray!
I knew absolutely nothing about Trump.
I didn’t like the name-calling in the primaries–until I saw his self-deprecatory humor, and the reason for the names in this video
(half of “conservative?” twitter seems to have forgotten)
Early March of 2020, when I realized that the Covid scare was a colossal psyop. I have always thought that politicians and governments worked through deception and distraction, but the level of brazen mendacity and willingness to cause tremendous economic and psychological damage to achieve the simple political goal of derailing President Trump’s 2020 reelection bid was when my eyes where fully opened to the fact America has devolved into a secret surveillance/security state that I previously thought could only develop in Soviet Russia or in Mao’s China.
the first thing I heard about covid was that ‘computer models suggest’ …..
you mean the same computer models that have been warning about climate doom in the next ten years for the past forty years?
In fact, all of the limitations on liberty that sprung up for covid were supposed to have been the result of climate change alarmism except after too many chicken little’s, people began to ignore climate change as a thing because not a single one of the alarmists claims had come true.
Covid provided the sort of emergency that climate change never did nor could, and so the collectivists quickly realized that this was their chance to impose the sort of top down authoritarianism they had been dreaming about since the 92 Rio Conference.
In 2016 when now deceased Senator John McCain was the one that “inadvertently “ was given the Steele Dossier and reported he then delivered it to the FBI.
That made no sense and as McCain and Paul Ryan were obviously blocking the Obamacare repeal which should have been simple the light bulb 💡 went on!
I could not believe it was possible to get President Trump elected because I knew elections were tampered with but, when he did was so happy and initially shocked at the Republicans opposition to President Trump.
Within the first year I really understood why DC was referred to as a swamp, I actually thought legislatures legislated.
When President Trump tweeted Obama and crew were spying on him I had no doubt it was true, but the extent and putting all the Russia crap in context took until late 2016.
I had a jaded view of politicians, but by late 2016 was appalled what our government’s role and self serving goals were.
In 2016 several Republican players actions made no sense so I paid close attention but, In retrospect made excuses for them because I did not want acknowledge what I knew.
Ever since I despise the majority of them and their sell out roles and of course the entrenched swamp brokers that tell them what, when and where. 😞
Wow
13/14 years old. Reading the Bible. And watching the world. That would be in the 60’s. Think about it, war president assassinated his brother killed running for president hippy’s drugged up riots beginning of this commie mess we have now and the deep states beginning its big take over.
Watching it play out to its final conclusion. Great many people are going to be hugely surprised by its ending! The ending I believe will have one component ( no politics and no laws ) will exist. When human sin is eliminated, what need is there for politics.
“No laws” was a sucker punch to me, but you’re right, that’s their goal.
Illegals coming in non stop, defunding the police, minimizing criminal conviction standards in order to justify early release, In many instances violent offenders and the insidious outrageous comments or headlines by MSM regarding Law and Order.
The message : make Law and Order sound judgmental, racist and unfair (the poor disenfranchised have no choice but to steal and loot).
Casual criticisms of the Constitution has become common. Teetering on how antiquated and silly it is!
A country without Law and Order, well we already got a taste of that in the summer of 2015 with all the Soros and Co. sponsored looting, pillaging and chaos.
Tearing down our monuments, CRT school curriculums, and renaming everything from Pro teams to schools: our faces are being rubbed in it now!
I did not realize how much I loved this country until I started to see the destruction of at first the inside, and now the outside, with the blatant disregard of so much the majority (I believe) cherished.
Sundance you have been methodically explaining the inner workings of the swamp and supported it all with facts the Who, What, Where and Why!
Thank you !
I have had favorite Professors, teachers, mentors and Supervisors but, you have taught me more then all of them combined!
Many of the above 👆 are beyond special, but with this knowledge I have been given wisdom and the ability to realistically prepare as much as possible.
“Politics is war by other means”.
I attended college in the 90’s, and my English 101 teacher decided to provide a “critical thinking” course, with a 3-5 page paper on each of several topics. During class, we’d examine topics such as the ABC news show “20/20.” But rather than discuss the news topic, we’d examine ways that viewers could be persuaded: camera angle tricks, omitted questions, logical fallacies, etc. This was prior to digital videos, so all the content was created by him and presented on VHS tapes. Later in the course, one of the required reading books was Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death” (still very relevant today, on similar topics).
It took many years before I realized how truly corrupt all the systems around us are, probably well into Obama’s first term. I’m not sure why it took so long – perhaps when I was younger, I didn’t see as much necessity in becoming informed and involved in the world. However, I can definitely look back at that English course as a pivotal moment when I realized that there were much larger forces shaping narratives in our government and media.
I just searched for that professor for the first time in ~25 years. Maybe not surprising, he never became a permanent faculty member. He only worked at the college I attended for a couple years after I graduated, and I don’t see any evidence he stayed in higher education. If this is accurate, it’s a tragedy, considering the value that he brought to myself and fellow students during the time we were in college.
For general context I’m 37 years old.
The real political turning point for me – when I started to dig deeper, ask questions, and peek behind the curtain – was on the road to the 2016 election.
I watched all the debates leading up to the primary and watched the political world squirm at the prospect of President Donald Trump. I had voted for Ted Cruz (Christian card), but was intrigued by the unconventional ways of Trump. He said what we all felt. Everything he did – both good or [seemingly] foolish gained him momentum. I started to see the Establishment was against him: both the Republicans and the Democrats. His only allies were common people.
Once he was elected the Left exposed their true selves, and the GOP started the game of out-pretending one another. The weeping and gnashing of teeth was evident on “unbiased” public radio. For half the nation there was a complete loss of sanity and an inability to reason.
This was the beginning for me. Deeper treks down the rabbit hole were the plandemic and the stolen 2020 election. Now I’m a full-blown science denying, bigoted, conspiracy theorist.
Once you take the red pill, you can’t go back.
Keep the faith, until Christ’s return my friends.
“Now I’m a full-blown science denying bigoted conspiracy theorist.”
Some people can’t even tell how many genders there are so…who are the real science deniers? 😂
For me it was the JFK assassination. I am almost 65 years old and old enough to remember the day JFK was assassinated (I was a 5 year old sitting in kindergarten when I found out). As I grew older in my late teens and early twenties I became fascinated with the subject and read every book on the JFK assassination that I could get my hands on and that is where my distrust in government AND media started! That is when I learned that most of what the media tells us is lies and that very dark forces control the government.
Of course over the years this lesson learned has been reinforced over and over by many events such as the Iraq War, 911, and most recently the pandemic.
Kindergarten here, too….right before dismissal, we had the overhead announcement…And get this…The principal led us in a short prayer.
Was older than kindergarten and we also had a prayer before dismissal.
Was in high school. Returned to homeroom notified over public address system.
I was in the living room television was on. I watched as Ruby killed Oswald on television, at that time it was all live no delay.
Ditto on that. I watched Ruby kill Oswald live and thought that too much a coincidence.
I was 4 & a day or so after Dad had the TV on watching the “news”. I saw the Zapruder (sp?) film play that evening and when I saw JFK’s brains blown out going to the trunk of the limo I new from hunting with Dad that he had been hit from the front. I looked at Dad and said as such & he sadly shook his head “yes.
That was an eye opener for me but way too young to process it.
( I’ll contribute my response here in a little while.)
After the DemoKratZ party, and their fake news Media, including John Kerry called out, our troops in Iraq !!
After he voted for it, instgated it, and then “f” it all up !!
I was always fairly switched onto Aus politics from 15 or 16. (40 years) my views have changed but I always knew what was going on. US politics, I think the moment he came down the golden elevator was it for sure.
I started listening to Rush in the mid 1990’s. He first opened my eyes to the political corruption and I started paying closer attention, to politics as a whole. It wasn’t until Obama won his second term when no other president had ever been re-elected with the economy tanking, continued wars, out of control spending, losing the House in the midterms, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, etc.. I started suspecting the elections were rigged and that Romney deliberately sabotaged his own campaign. It just didn’t feel right. From that moment on, I became a “conspiracy theorist”, whose suspicions were always proven right over time.
Yah, Romney had it in the bag, until he surrendered to Candy Crowley in the debate.
I think Romney probably won. Look at this fraud… so much like 2020
https://beforeitsnews.com/election-2012/2012/11/its-official-obama-voter-fraud-reason-for-reelectiongrowing-totalitarian-government-2447306.html
And that’s not counting machine voting, which Democrats had been crying about since 2000…and still did until Nov 2020, why’d they get quiet then?
Jimmy Carter. That was when I realized it was all propaganda. He was presented as a Christian evangelical. I, a good conservative Republican, swallowed it. To my everlasting regret. But it opened my eyes to the fact that it was all a show to get the chosen person in office for a purpose. And I’ve watched it all unfold ever since. As Sundance repeatedly says, once you see the marionette strings, you can’t unsee it. Every passing year since that presidential debacle, my eyes have opened wider and wider and wider and branched out from that single focus to encompass it all from political, entertainment, governmental, sports, judicial, religious leaders, finance, political correctness, social mores, science, education and on and on. There isn’t anything that can be said or done now that I do not at a basic level understand the game plan behind it. I haven’t watched TV since the ’70’s. I think that alone has saved my sanity because it is the single biggest propaganda tool ever created for the masses. And they’ve certainly moved on from there.
I remember how my hardcore Republican dad voted for Democrat Carter because he was a “christian.” ugh
Jimmy Carter made a big show of being a Humble guy. Especially of carrying his own suitcases across the White House lawn to the Marine Force One helicopter.
But in later years his honor guard said with disgust that those suitcases were always empty and he only carried them to show the cameras. His real luggage would be preloaded onto the helicopter by the Marines.
Nothing about any of these people surprises me any more. They are all consummate liars, corrupt and evil to their very bone marrow. They are an all consuming cancer that will only end at the end of a gallows.
Yep. That was me. We were good little lemmings. Fortunately, I woke up before hitting the cliff.
“Jimmy Carter. That was when I realized it was all propaganda. He was presented as a Christian evangelical.”
Yes. During the 1976 campaign I got hold of some campaign posters from organizations representing some of the most depraved and reprobate members of society supporting this “Christian Evangelical”. Why would they support him?
Sometimes you can discern about people by their friends/supporters.
I do that with people like ‘DeSanctimonious’ and the other ‘conservative’ pretenders.
I look at the money trail, supporters and the associated riff raff now. It takes less than a minute to figure it out once your eyes are opened.
I hope I don’t bore you with this fairly lengthy response, but I penned this a few days ago to friends and it answers your question for me, and I hope there is something here of broader value to other Treepers. I’m traveling, and sent this along to my pals to keep in touch.
Tomorrow is an anniversary that I’ll never forget. 54 years ago (ulp!), Valentine’s Day 1969, I entered the Air Force. Ironically, I did so to find a way to avoid getting shot up in the rice paddies of this part of the world. Even though air bases were relatively tame parts of Viet Nam, there was nothing about going there that appealed to me. Indeed, Asia in general, and Southeast Asia in particular, held no charm for me.
A year later on February 3, 1970 I was off to a 3 year tour in England, and there was nothing that could have made me happier. Like everything else in life, those 3 years were a mixed bag, but they had an enormous impact on the rest of my life.
As life’s ironies play with us all, here I am enjoying a beautiful, warm February night in a tropical land I had no interest in in another part of my life. My pal Bob, who has enjoyed two trips here, is one of the enduring benefits of our time in England. We often chuckle about the ironies of then and now.
Another friend from those days in England I lost touch with the day he left was Albert W. Wathall. Nonetheless I often think of him. He grew up on the mean streets of Richmond, California, and made the most of the opportunities his Air Force career afforded him. I’ll never forget the faraway look he’d get in his eyes when he reminisced about his previous assignment.
Before England, he was stationed in Thailand, up north at a place known to GIs as “NKP”. The need for the abbreviation is obvious since Nakhom Phanom does not easily roll of the tongue of the native English speaker. Al loved Thailand. As I’ve come to agree with him all these years later, I’ve often wondered if he experienced what I’ve noticed about Thais: they don’t give a fig about race. They freely notice the obvious differences, and call westerners “farang”, but there is no inherent hostility in the term. Generally speaking, there is no attitude here.
That is easy to say and easy to hear, but unless you experience what it’s like to be free of the divisive garbage that clogs all our American heads, you have no idea what a pleasure it is to be free of it. I still catch myself, having to check my conditioned trash response when I encounter a particularly dark Thai, and inevitably find with relief that the problem is in my head and has nothing to do with people here. It’s simple: you smile at them, they smile at you. What a glorious way to live!
Al and I arrived in England at the same time. It was 1970 in every sense and racial tensions at the base were at their peak. I just have to wonder if, in our conversations, Al wasn’t thinking back to Thailand and wistfully wishing to escape back to a place where that nonsense did not exist.
I got to know Al and several other guys I never would have otherwise known by one of the most fortunate accidents of my life. I arrived in England with another guy who outranked me. As our lives worked out, he became my best buddy, but at the time of our arrival I was the lowest form of AF life. As such, I was assigned one of the two available beds in our barracks. My new home was referred to as “n*gger bay.” It was one of four wings in the, crowded, superannuated WWII building we called home.
Before long I settled in. The brothers and I shared an interest in jazz music, so we were able to relate to one another reasonably easily. We got to know each other well enough to trust each other, if not becoming besties. It was my first experience with black people up close and personal, and it didn’t take long to figure out they were just guys.
None of us knew it at the time, but the racial tensions were about to evaporate.
My “roommate” if such a thing is possible in an open bay barracks, free of all rooms, was a notorious character who was at odds with the system. There were rumors aplenty about him, but he just seemed like another guy to me. Eventually though, he went AWOL and the system disposed of him. Life went on.
One of the things that led to the change in racial attitudes had to do with the fact that we were all there for 3 years and generally rotated in and out within about 6 months of each other. As a result, what I experienced in those first few months tended to generalize as we all got to know each other as humans rather than strange ‘others’. We also realized we had a common problem: command.
There was a definite cracker culture among the career NCOs and officers. Eventually we learned that what happened to my roomie was a special case of a general practice. They would identify a black guy and target him for special attention, provoking and prodding him until he did something they could “burn” him for. After seeing the pattern a couple of times we caught on.
We also realized that the characters behind this nonsense were not particularly bright. For example, one of my neighbors in n*gger bay, Moses, was a sawed off bundle of attitude. He would grudgingly acknowledge white boys, but only after whitey first offered a greeting. Otherwise you didn’t exist. Again, after getting to know him, he became more tolerant of me, but his attitude was known far and wide.
Moses had sorted things out so the Air Force worked for him, not the other way around. The normal expectations of development in his career field, aircraft painter, held no interest for him. However, the social life afforded by black-infatuated English women was more in line with his ambitions.
Incorrigible in his career development, Moses soon became the special interest of the squadron commander. The CO was a god-like figure endowed with awesome powers that were certain to impress a lowly career two-striper. Well, maybe your average two striper, but not Moses. Before long in their relationship, Moses could reduce the almighty commander to a squalling toddler with little more than a look. In one noteworthy encounter the CO left the paint shop in a shambles of kicked over trash cans and toppled file cabinets as Moses sent him off in a fit of uncontrolled rage.
Eventually we realized these clowns were as easy to manipulate as they were a potential danger to all of us. We learned how to respond in ways that protected us while exploiting the weakness of the system. For example, simply following the dictates of the technical orders that theoretically governed how we did our various jobs maintaining the aircraft slowed the work down sufficiently to ground aircraft and keep them there.
When a particularly pleasant and popular guy found himself targeted by the cracker crew, our outrage expressed itself sufficiently to change everything. Bye bye racial tension!
Years later, I read that Affirmative Action was an invention of the Nixon Administration when they realized that after the civil rights upheavals of the ‘60s, the races were beginning to heal the divide. This did not sit well with the master manipulator in the White House, and the reverse racism of Affirmative Action was his solution.
While I don’t know if tales of our adventures in England made it all the way to the White House, I do know that the biggest shock those of us who left there and returned home was the intensity of the racial animosity that we assumed the world had long ago left behind.
That’s when I woke up.
I’m no expert on the matter, but I think Nixon’s advocacy of affirmative action was of a piece with his creation of the EPA, OSHA, and closing the gold window. Nixon was an infamously insecure person who thought of himself as an outsider and he craved nothing more that to be accepted by the cool kids so he gave them everything they wanted.
Yah, look at LBJ.
– Civil Rights
– Vietnam
– Great Society / War in poverty BS, soaked trillions out of us
– 1965 Immigration Act, major part of blame for problems with immigration today; Coolidge had it right with Immigration Act of 1924!
And then Nixon.
– Took USA off Gold standard
– Opened the door to China
– Watergate fiasco albeit setup and executed by Intelligence Community
– EPA
– OSHA
All crap…
Kissinger
It was Trump that did it for me. Not him specifically, but his just being there really drew out the flies. They really showed their hands. Both sides, both hands. I’ve never been on either side, and voting since the first Bush, I’ve always voted what I thought was the lesser of two evils. I wasn’t necessarily asleep to it, but wow! Watching it play out was enlightening. So in following the Russia hoax, I came across TCTH. Sundance, you are amazing, and a true Patriot. We are blessed to have you. My first post, and my unwavering gratitude. Thank you, sir.
I guess for me it was when Reagan was shot. I was just a kid then but I remember it very well. I hadn’t really thought about politicians being worthy of such ire that they’d be shot even though the Kennedy assassination was a recurring event shown throughout my childhood; that just seemed old-fashioned because the footage was always so grainy.
I took a brief interest in politics back then but the distraction of high school soon took precedence. I had read enough by that point that I learned to look beyond the narrative and always seek out actual facts (or at least as close as I could find to them…)
My first words when I saw the planes flying into the Twin Towers were, “Bush did it so he could have a war like his Daddy.” I knew then that it was greater than that, but I still believe my statement summed it up well. Politicians are just the ones who sign papers and make all the crimes “official” but they have no real authority.
I supported Ron Paul in 2008 and read extensively during that period which broadened my knowledge and made me more cynical. The way Dr. Paul was lied about and and insulted while McCain was propped up despite him being a sleazy idiot was very telling. I actually voted for Obama in 2008 because I couldn’t vote for Ron and wouldn’t vote for McCain, and I naively thought that Obama would make an effort to Be A Good Leader because he’d feel some sort of responsibility to other black folks – like, since he was the first black President, he’d feel obligated to perform well and act honorably, but he’s just another sell-out who’s in it for himself.
In 2012 I didn’t vote at all. At that point, I had realized there was no difference between the two parties and nobody would be allowed to ascend to any political position without being vetted by the UniParty.
Then Trump came along and got me involved again. I knew voting machines were rigged and that mail-in votes were fraudulent – it’s been obvious for many years, but so many of us voted for Trump that we overwhelmed their efforts to rig the election.
I was disappointed in Trump for many reasons, but he did much more good than bad. I’d vote for him again. I think his primary mistake was thinking that he could somehow unify the entrenched functionaries in both parties and get things done, but he probably knows better now. If he makes it to the White House again he should go scorched Earth and fire a lot of people on both supposed “sides.”
I wish I could say that I have hope for our country, but I really don’t. The corruption is too deep and their dedication to their plans for global technocratic feudalism is firmly set. I don’t think they can succeed, but they’ll do a lot of damage while trying to implement their goals; they’ve already damaged so much and destroy more each day. I actually think that’s what they get off on; not power or money, but disruption, destruction, and death – the money and power are just the means they require to wreak their havoc and protect themselves.
What disappoints me most is how many just go along with it. Watching the talking heads perpetuate such obvious falsities even though the looks on their faces tells us all we need to know about how much they believe their own stories. Is everybody a sell-out? Are we really that pitiful?
I’m not exactly doing much myself because I’m just a poverty-stricken artist watching my culture be degraded and infected with trash while anyone with skills with a positive message is kicked to the curb and mocked (especially if, like me, they’re a straight White male.)
Part of me wants to see it all implode, but another part of me is saddened by the amount of suffering that’ll occur in the coming years. I’d prefer to just stop everything – moratorium on all political activities and expenditures except those that keep illegals out and ship them back. We have to get back to square one, take a moment, reveal the criminality “officially” because we all see it, audit everything, then restructure our Nation sensibly and honorably in ways that’ll uplift our youth and strengthen our families.
I don’t see that happening though – they’re taking us right off the cliff and they seem to be enjoying themselves while they do it. The fact that such people have achieved their positions and are controlling our resources (of all types) is shocking to me, but we let it happen… and here we are….
“I actually think that’s what they get off on; not power or money, but disruption, destruction, and death – the money and power are just the means they require to wreak their havoc and protect themselves.”
Ellsworth Toohey
Did Ellsworth say something like that as well?
(I’d imagine many of us have similar thoughts – it’s as though there are demons among us and we’ve allowed them to take over…)
Toohey didn’t say anything like that, but his entire MO was destruction for its own sake. He could not bear to live in a world in which Howard Roark existed. Roark had to be destroyed in order for Toohey’s mediocrity to exist, feeding into the even more mediocrity of second handers.
Toohey knew himself to be a fraud, which was why he asked Roark, “why don’t you tell me what you think of me?” He needed validation not only from his acolytes but from his most dangerous nemesis (much like the goons who were trying to torture Galt needed his help in fixing the machine they were using to try to kill him).
Roark refused to grant it, dismissing him with a simple, “but I don’t think of you.”
Ah! A Fountainhead reference – I haven’t read that book in 40 years… I had forgotten some of the characters names. I remember liking the book though. I never really cared much for Ayn Rand’s female characters but I do enjoy her writing. Anthem is probably my favorite of her books, with Fountainhead the second in line.
Anyway – I may have to read Fountainhead again – it strengthened my resolve all those years ago and it may do so again…
Donald Trump laughed.
See also: Satan.
I hear you fellow artist. Was imaging Clownworld before we started living in it.
I was a garden variety liberal from a family of garden variety liberals. Grew up in the progressive strata of wealthy east Dallas / Lakewood / lower Greenville if you know the area — it’s a pocket of upscale Texas liberalism not unlike Austin. I never really questioned anything. I was very hip to things, or so I thought. Watched the news since I was a toddler and was reading Time Magazine cover to cover by 6. Very curious about things and interested, but limited in perspective.
I’ve lived in D.C. since summer 1996, and had a kind of Zelig-like connection to people in power. I know a lot of the movers and shakers socially. I’ve been in the oval office twice. My boss at my first job was William Rogers, and an original set of the Pentagon Papers was kept in a file cabinet righr outside my first office. I am not personally connected to “power”, but I am very close to it. Adjacent to it. I’ve met a lot of the players. Sandra Day O’Connor used to frequent the same corner store I did. Etc. I met James Carville on the street walking his dog the day after I moved to town. He was extremely nice and talked to me for a half hour. A lot of these people are very nice on a personal level. I had a beer with John Kerry and Willie Brown once. Just the three of us.
Four pivotal experiences changed me and made me what I am politically today.
(1) The 2000 election. I lived right by the vice presidential mansion in D.C. at the time, and I found all the daily protests by liberals during the Florida recount to be very unseemly. I don’t know what those people were watching/reading. The election was very close but at no time was there a count that showed Al Gore in the lead. I came to realize i was against THAT.
(2) 9/11. For obvious reasons it forced a realignment in my thinking. Although after 21 years I view it all differently than I did then. I was very pro war and bought all the narrative and became a silent backer of GW Bush. I thought my (then) fellow Democrats were way too soft and quick to make apologies for radical Islam. Now I see that they made some decent points.
(3) A student activist group called LINK when I was in law school at American University. I found them very annoying, and when I served on the Student Bar Association I personally observed that they were corrupt. Basically stealing student activity fee money. I knew I was not on their side.
(4) What cemented it all was a stint working for the Institute For Justice in D.C. I worked on the Kelo case as well as the Zelman school choice case and some prelim work for what became Heller. It was a very intellectual environment and I was welcomed there and listened to. Unfortunately the money sucked. I ran the grass roots arm of their eminent domain group that more or less pioneered the opposition to takings for private use. I hung our socially with people like the Koch Brothers, we had a quarterly dinner. My unofficial job was to keep Abigail Thernstrom entertained. She liked me for some reason. My job also put me in the center of the “making of the sausage” with the major national media. I know how stories and narratives are shaped. I used to shape them. Also I know the nuts and bolts of grass roots activism and can tell what’s real and what’s astroturf. I’ve been through training by the top top most experts on how to communicate through the media, and appeared on radio and TV many times. It’s a learned art.
That’s about it. I’m more conservative than libertarian at this point. Trump is my homie. Sorry for the treatise! I’m still in the DC area but now I’m just a spectator to it all. I believe my well rounded body of lived experience have made me a good observer of what’s going on beneath the surface of the official narrative.
As a hilarious postscript / aside, I used to run in the same social circle as Jamie Raskin. He was my constitutional law professor, and my best friend was very close friends with Raskin’s brother. I went on MANY somewhat debauched drinking / partying excursions at which Jamie Raskin was present, although his participation was lessened because he had a newborn baby to take care of (i.e. the son who committed suicide a while back). On a personal level Raskin is nice, outgoing and fun. He is brilliant and was a GREAT professor, universally loved by the students. Do not underestimate him, he knows the constitution as few others do. Which makes him especially dangerous in a political sense.
All that nonstop lying makes him look like a fool.
So little in Congress relates to Constitution that Raskin and AOC aren’t really different, in hearings anyway.
J6 committee never spoke a truth that I could see.
Interesting posts ..
That’s easy. It was 9/11. I was in the middle of it, 3 blocks from WTC. Prior to that I didn’t have much interest in politics. There some things in the 90s that piqued my interest a bit, TWA flight 800 was very early. I had no internet access in those days. I went down that rabbit hole much later on. I had interest in the JFK assassination but I can’t really say I had a come to Jesus moment until 9/11.
It started with 9/11 and grew like an octopus in different directions. It took a long time to put the pieces together. Now I’m miles ahead of people in my world, with nothing to do with the information I’ve gleaned. Yay! What did I win?
Indeed – what did we win in learning the depth of the sea of lies?
We win the Truth
August 16, 2006. The day George Allen spoke the word “macaca.” It was in Tyson’s Corner, VA and Mr. Allen was making his run for President in 2008. His political star was on the rise and he needed to be got out of the way for Mr. Obamamama.
Leaving aside whether George Allen was a Make America Great republican or a member of the Big Club, “macaca” means nothing in Algonquin or Mexican. Mr. Allen was pilloried by the MSM, specifically Chris Matthews, for uttering a racial epithet.
“Macaca” was used by Mr. Allen as a nonsequiter to describe a democrat troll who had been following his campaign for a couple of weeks interrupting Mr. Allen’s speeches and making a general pest of himself.
What pulled the curtain back for me was that no republican (not even George Allen, or his campaign) fought back against the media. That was the day when I stopped donating to the republican party and started looking at individual candidates. That was the day I discovered the republican party abandoned me standing out in the cold. The RNC only wanted my money.
I was born and raised in Alaska. I went to college off and on from 2000-2010 as I was raising children and working also. Some liberal classes were required and I took social work. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was the socialism bent. Only later did I understand that. I was always independent; ingrained from my folks. I wasn’t really into politics until Obama. I was feeling really uncomfortable with where Obama was leading us and started looking at who was running next. I have always liked President Trump, from the early days in New York so I started listening to what he was saying. He hit on everything I wanted for our country. I was a supporter from that moment, still am. I found this site early on before election 2016.
I was a force on Facebook and Twitter for that election but was sidelined by both before 2020.
One thing that has particularly bothered me over the years was how the professionalism of our congress has eroded, I put that squarely on Pelosi’s shoulders. And I don’t believe it’s ever coming back.
In 2008, the Democrats shut off the lights and CSpan stopped broadcasting the Republicans talking about drilling for oil and gas prices. I thought that it was childish of the Dems to do that. Then, DontGo movement and the Tea Party. Thanks be to Rush too. First, an infrequent listener, but after the Seattle dot com bust, I chose to be self employed. I worked from home listening every day. I sure miss him.
In October 1969 I was at the counter at Mel’s Burgers in San Francisco and watching a large crowd of anti-war protesters passing by on their way to Golden Gate Park. Geary Blvd was full of people slowly walking by with placards, flags and such. Almost an hour went by and they were still coming by. A stranger from the crowd came into Mel’s and struck up a conversation with me about the protest. I joined them and ended up at Golden Gate Park with about a 100,000 peace loving anti war fellow Americans. From that point and continuing to this day I was awake to what was going on. After many years of marches you will still find me in the streets weekly, protesting mandates and masks and a large “Support MAGA” sign. USMC 1959-1963
It was gradual but Clinton announcing that he sold our tech to China on national TV and him closing bases (Dad and Stepdad were Marines). My mother loathed Clinton and she told me a lot, most of which I ignored but I couldn’t un-hear it. Then 9/11. Then the Patriot Act and the influx of Muslims (why bring the people over who flew our planes into our buildings?). The real kick in the pants was the 2008 election. There were lots of little things all along but they finally added up to UH-OH!! I am still relatively ignorant but far less than I was before the 2008 election.
Great question Sundance. I really began to question the poetical system’s legitimacy when Obama and his gang of Dems managed to force Obamacare down the throats of Americans against the collective will of Republicans and most Americans. I switched from life long Democrat to Republican party formally and I have never trusted apparent political system since. Since my joining Tree House my political education has really taken off for the better. Thanks Sundance and team-though hate what I have learned.
911. I was in 7th grade and I remember thinking something isn’t right. The way the towers fell. Straight down. Then buildings near by fell. Then us saying that Iraq had weapons of Mass destruction but no proof. We took down another country. It all rubbed me the wrong way. From then on I paid attention. When Obama was running for president he came out of no where. Literally no where. So I started researching him and he announced he was running right after getting in his position. Not even like 3 months in maybe? It never ended after that. Deep diving all the time. I found you over 7 years ago.