Glen Tate - 299 Days - The Preparation

Not only were the racists wrong, they were part of the problem. The government benefitted by having everyone divided. It wasn’t a conspiracy; it was simple politics. Racists, of all colors, fit right into the agenda of dividing people. When the Mexicans were mad at the whites, and the whites were mad at the blacks, who hated the Asians, everyone became distracted by their racial grievances. The color of a person’s skin was so much easier to focus on rather than complex things like baseline budgeting or unfunded pension liabilities. It was much easier for one group to say to their people, “Hate those other people.” Politicians and fear mongers could use hate to motivate people to keep fighting each other. It wasn’t just white racists, of course. Mexican and black racists very effectively stirred up hate against whites. By fighting each other, people weren’t looking at the big picture. They were overlooking the out-of-control spending and taking the easy way out of everything. When things got hard, there were new government programs, and new cushy government jobs. People were taking the easy way out so much that they nearly quit being Americans. It was almost like the country decided it didn’t want to be America anymore.

Some portion of the population wanted America back. They wanted to work hard and keep most of what they earned. They wanted to be free and were willing to take the bumps in life that came from being free. They wanted to be self-reliant and live honorably. They were the Patriots.

Patriots all across the country were coming out of their shells.

Normally, they were a very quiet group of hard-working people who were busy raising families; however the Patriots realized their country was very close to disappearing. They woke up. Fast.

One of the things that woke them up was the fact that Mexico was starting up a full-scale civil war. The drug lords who had been effectively running the border areas of Mexico decided to take over the whole corrupt country. It was bloody. Thousands of killings; many of them beheadings. The drug gangs were extremely sophisticated armies. They were better armed than the Mexican Army (actually, the Mexican Army sold most of its arms to the drug lords so they had the same weaponry). The drug gangs were ruthless and had something the Mexican Army did not: sacks of money. By selling their product in the U.S., the drug gangs could raise billions of dollars, which buys a lot of friends, such as entire Mexican Army units that would defect.

The drug gang leaders were well read. They knew from Mao’s writings on guerilla warfare that they had to effectively administer the areas they took over. The Mexican government was a corrupt joke. It couldn’t keep the electricity and water running. The drug gangs did. They would behead anyone who got in their way. If they ordered that the people would have electricity and water, and heads would literally roll if that didn’t happen.

Taking care of basic government services like utilities didn’t mean the drug gangs were nice. They were vicious animals, pure evil. But, they were effective at governing and they had a lot of support from the population. Whether it was fear or genuine loyalty, it was still support. The gangs would provide the government services that a corrupt government could not.

The horrific violence sent a flood of refugees into the U.S. Many went right into California, which was essentially shut down with all the protests and crime waves. Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas were also hit hard by the human tidal wave coming into their states. Grant thought of “human tidal wave” as a cliché until he saw a satellite image on the news showing a literal wave of human beings flooding the U.S. border. They were hungry and needed shelter. They were human beings and had to be helped.

The U.S. Government and a few private organizations set up refugee centers in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. With so many Hispanics in the U.S., many Americans had a personal connection to the refugees and everyone was trying to help. There were still plenty of decent people in this country.

The images on TV were unbelievable. It reminded Grant of the Albanian refugees in the Balkan War of the 1990s — except it was here in America. Hundreds of thousands of Mexican women, children, and elderly were dying of thirst, starvation, exhaustion, and cholera. It made Katrina look like a mild rainstorm.

Of course, the government screwed it up. It could not act quickly enough. In Texas, FEMA spent time trying to get environmental approvals for shelters while children were dying. A particularly powerful photograph that became famous showed a middle-aged white man in a FEMA truck on a cell phone with a dead child lying on the ground near him. He was apparently on the phone with the EPA trying to get a waiver to locate the food, water, and medical supplies for that child and about two million more people.

People were outraged. How could the government, that supposedly was the solution to every problem, not have a plan for this? The Mexican drug wars had been going on strong for years; the fall of the Mexican government could not have been a surprise. Why didn’t the government have a plan for the inevitable wave of refugees? The U.S. was the richest nation in the world, but it didn’t have bottled water and tents for people? People paid almost half their money to the government in taxes, but FEMA didn’t have money for bottled water? Everyone saw, very graphically, that the government was absolutely incapable of taking care of them in a disaster. It was just like in Katrina, but on a much bigger scale. And, just like Katrina, the government’s response to this crisis woke up some people about their incompetence. The Mexican refugee crisis woke up even more people than Katrina did, however.

Hispanics were even more outraged. What they saw was a bunch of white people who weren’t helping a bunch of brown people. Hispanic groups charged the government with racism, which was preposterous. It wasn’t racism; it was incompetence. Now several million Hispanics in America were convinced that the U.S. Government and all Americans hated them and wanted them dead. Membership in anti-white Hispanic race groups like La Raza, which was Spanish for “the Race,” surged. This was exactly how racists of all colors used race and hatred for their political agendas.

Not all the refugees were children, women, and old people. Some were hardened criminals. Some of the Mexican gang members not fit for combat, like young boys and older men went up north with the waves of refugees. There was no better opportunity to transport gang members into the U.S. than by riding the human wave across the border. The criminals preyed on the refugees, raping women and children and stealing supplies. This was captured on TV, too. With the government incapable of doing anything about it.

Not only was the U.S. Government incapable of helping refugees, it was also incapable of protecting its own citizens from some very nasty people. Many of the gang members coming across the border linked up with their brethren who had just been released from the jails. They created “super gangs,” which were very large, well- armed, and highly sophisticated criminal enterprises. They were closer to a military unit than a traditional street gang.

In the span of a few days, most people in America realized that they were helpless if something like that happened in their area. But, after decades of thinking nothing bad could ever happen in America, most Americans still could not bring themselves to believe that it would happen to them. The refugee crisis and violence was still far away in California and Texas; not their neighborhoods.

Despite everything going on, many people still did not recognize how dependent and vulnerable they were. Instead, many of them became paralyzed by fear and did nothing. Very few Americans started preparing like they knew they should. They sat around their TVs stunned and helpless.