Interesting read from Anthony Turton (former military intelligence and analyst)
After a 24 hour orgy of violence, I sit alone in my whale watching room and reflect as I read the many messages that have been sent to me by an informal network. I pause to gather my thoughts before the new day dawns. What will that new sunrise bring?
We now sit with a stark reality that everyone has to deal with, so let me distil, at least for my own use, the essence of what our next faltering steps will be.
The firestorm of violence that engulfed us yesterday was no surprise. We have seen all the warning signs, and were even sent clear unambiguous messages of what was to hit us on Monday morning. Few took heed, and many even dispelled these messages as being the usual drivel from the EFF.
Well they weren’t. In fact the EFF was nowhere to be seen in the day of mayhem. But neither were any elected leaders, or the security forces they command. The Man in the Hat became invisible, just like his police force, who ran out of ammunition where they were present, and had to be resupplied by civilian networks.
Yes this is true. A private security contractor had to procure front line ammunition for the embattled police force, because they had run out early in the day. So let us unpack this single observation so we can learn from it.
We have a leadership vacuum in the country. People in leadership positions, like the Man in the Hat, are there only because of political connections, and not because they have the core skills to do the job. Same with the bloated civil service they command, with too many generals, all unable to plan for, and procure the stuff that’s really needed. Like ammunition.
That same leadership vacuum is present in our intelligence service. If I could collect credible information through my informal network, without any resources at my disposal, and then make reasonably accurate forecasts about what to expect, then why can’t they with their bloated staff compliment and billion Rand budget squandered on inappropriate procurement and self enrichment schemes?
Which brings me back to the core issue – supply chain management. The mayhem of the last 48 hours has wiped out our supply chain in KZN. Last week it was there, but today its gone. That complex web of transactions that moves goods across the landscape, like an army of ants on a single minded mission, each moving their package relentlessly throughout the colony of ants. Our network is now gone.
So as the day dawns I can reliably predict that we will rapidly start to encounter shortages of crucial goods like fuel for motor vehicles, food for hungry stomachs, medication for the sick, cash to grease the wheels of trade and spare parts to keep the machinery of commerce going.
ATMs are gone, so we will rapidly run out of cash. Grocery stores have been destroyed, so even if they can procure goods from the warehouses now burned to the ground, they will be unable to transact because the tills are gone and the point of payment card machines destroyed. The retail malls have been so destroyed that it will take months to rebuild them. More importantly, the Clicks and Diskem pharmacy chains that are the most efficient delivery vehicles for the national vaccine rollout, are simply no more.
I therefore predict an acute shortage of fuel, food and medication. These three things will hit almost everyone, and very soon.
This is my first prediction about which I have great confidence. Enough to make a public statement for which I will gladly be held accountable.
But what about the leadership issue? How might this unfold in the days to come?
What I witnessed over the last 48 hours tells us a lot, so let me distill the essence. In the beginning the mob was in control. Yes they were clearly in control as they marched relentlessly forward like an army ant formation advancing through the jungle. They devoured all before them and they were unstoppable. But importantly, they were controlled and focused. There was a clearly defined plan, so command and control is alive and well, but invisible. They knew when to hit designated targets. They knew where the police were absent. They knew where shopping mall security was most vulnerable. They were collectively acting as part of a plan.
Who are those central but invisible command and control people? Will our intelligence services possibly start to figure this out?
But the other thing that was clearly visible was the rapid way that civil society responded to the communal threat. Groups of citizens rapidly formed into militia, and mostly acted with restraint and to great effect. I don’t know the final numbers, but my gut feel is that more arrests were made by citizens acting in well-organized groups, than by the police.
I also note that some of the militia went beyond the act of arrest, and meted out instantaneous justice. Its unclear what the body count it, but certainly there were many. Some shot, some beaten and some even hacked to pieces by machete. I have seen credible video evidence across this entire range.
But the core lesson is that civil society responded by organizing themselves, rapidly and effectively. We will now see the dawn of a new era, where those civil groups become better organized than the government, which has clearly failed. In effect we had no government over the last 48 hours, because while this mayhem was playing out, Jesse Duarte gave a press briefing about an NEC meeting pretending to still be in control.
The Ruling Party has simply lost control. The civil service is so dysfunctional as to be a liability now easily bypassed by an increasingly confident and effective civil society.
Clearly attempts by government to disarm civilians will fail. Of this I am certain. Just as certain as I am about the emergence of self-organized militia centered on credible leadership and existing networks of security force personnel that have been sidelined by government purges.
This is the real New Dawn. Not the feeble message spewed out by the now embattled and increasingly illegitimate Ruling Party. Their days are numbered.
Will we now see the emergence of an invigorated Moderate Middle, united by core values but free of the shackles of past prejudice and racially defined bias?
Or will the rabble rise in a boiling froth of anger, purging the Ruling Elite with vengeance, just as past revolutions ultimately consumed themselves with relentless waves of counter revolution?
We live in profoundly uncertain times, but the vibrancy of civil society was clearly demonstrated yesterday, as loose molecules came together to form militia capable of clawing back control in the vacuum left by an incompetent Ruling Elite whose time is nearly over.
Anyone who thinks this can’t or won’t happen here is deluding himself. The only reason that this hasn’t happened in the U.S. so far is that unlike South Africa, Blacks are in the minority; but it means that where they are a significant proportion of the population, this will happen — think Minneapolis and Ferguson, times ten.
I see burned-out city centers, and rampant poverty and lawlessness therein. After that, I’d really rather not speculate.
They have been a mostly wasteful effort always and everybody suffers because of them.
When it becomes open season on the 3/5 let me know.
Otherwise, I’ll stay invisible here in my bolt hole.
Kim,
This is an excellent piece and my only disagreement with you is that this is ALREADY happening here. I fear for our country in ways that I could never have imagined even 10 years ago.
Trump was/is far from perfect. In so many ways, he could have done a better job with selecting and keeping a cabinet and advisors around him. And yes, his “tweets” were more of a distraction and source for ridicule than was necessary – but he was “Trump” and expecting him to be different was folly. Still, in spite of this, he got the job done and done well.
We are collectively in a very bad place now and it will get worse unless we take back Congress in 2022 and regain the White House in 2024 – this is absolutely essential. And it needs to be with someone who can take us beyond Trump…..
Adore your posts, thoughts, comments on Africa……many have no clue and don’t really care. Thank you.
Bonnettstrap
“Anyone who thinks this can’t or won’t happen here is deluding himself. The only reason that this hasn’t happened in the U.S. so far is that unlike South Africa, Blacks are in the minority; but it means that where they are a significant proportion of the population, this will happen — think Minneapolis and Ferguson, times ten.
I see burned-out city centers, and rampant poverty and lawlessness therein. After that, I’d really rather not speculate.”
Back when I worked in Downtown Brooklyn, NYFC, when I went out for lunch I was a decided minority, and I often thought that if BLM and company ever got the race war they want things would be sporty for me. Things are a bit different now. If the Chinkflu taught us anything, it’s that companies don’t NEED expensive real estate in city centers, that their people will be productive working remotely, and that they can save a fortune by ditching the shiny office building in Mid Town Manhattan. To the point where the commercial real estate market in NYFC has collapsed. So screw ’em, you want to burn down the city, you’re not doing any real damage because the productive people aren’t THERE anymore, you’re just setting your own shit on fire. Have fun this winter. Or next winter, when you’ve run out of things to burn to keep warm.
Mark D
From a BBC article on the current unpleasantness there, “How can it not be a state of emergency? How much cheaper can life get in South Africa?”
Based on Kim’s analysis and past history I’d say that there is no lower bound.
White lightning?
.
Toledo, Ohio.
A memorial mural dedicated to martyr george floyd was instantly incinerated during a thunderstorm yesterday.
God has a sense of humor – and justice.
During a thunderstorm . . . So, not only a flood to wash away the evil, it WAS the fire next time. All at the same time!
I am no Nostredamus, but my personal worry is next year. Over the last 75 years at least, this nation has been the target of the international commie movement. Read Yuri Bezmenov. So we have lost not all (a very important point btw) but a significant portion of the yoot, culture, education and corporations along with the govt for now.
While a dogged movement is investigating 2020 elections, beware ! If in fact we rest the Congress back I see massive national unrest. While we have behaved well overall (forget the BS about Jan 6) at the theft of Trumps election and Senate, the Left has no such constraints. I am absolutely sure they are planning right now for REAL insurrection if they have lost.
As has been said many times America is vast. It has a large population. But it is the few dozen large urban areas that will implode or explode. The minute after results are known their shock troops will attack. Americas engine of production will come to a halt. The second Civil War will be on. External agents (CCP) will pile on. Read the couple of books Clay Martin wrote last year. We are gonna be in deep doo doo. And not everyone has 50 acres of farmland in the backwoods. Millions will suffer with no hope of relief. And btw just like SA being rural don’t mean shit. When raiding gangs sweep across those areas there will be no one left.
We may pull our collective chestnuts out of the fire but it is gonna be a wild and ugly ride.
“I see burned-out city centers, and rampant poverty and lawlessness therein. After that, I’d really rather not speculate.”
So… Detroit? Portland? Minneapolis? Chicago? This is either the past, present, or future of every Blue metropolis. I just hope they don’t drag the red cities and states down with them. So long as they don’t, let them burn.
Though this is why I live in Texas. Should they try to take us with them, Texas can and will stand alone.
Same old story. Anywhere blacks are in charge, chaos, corruption, filth, misery and murderous tribalism erupt. I believe their behavior is genetic, given their almost universal poor impulse control, lack of even a short term future sense, over-emotional rather than rational, and a near universal lack of interest in schooling. They have no idea what real excellence is while they pat each other on the back about what a great job they’re doing in their enclaves.
We now have dense concentrations of unemployable, illiterate, innumerate blacks leading meaningless lives in decaying cities in the midst of a growing technological society. They are angry, blame whites for their troubles, and do not have a lot to lose from their viewpoint. The only way out for a select few is political power and the perks and graft that come with it. The rest will erupt in violence at the drop of a hat to grab some free stuff, which gets them through a few days, and then what?
I don’t believe we in USA can continue to live with ~80% of the black population, and the only long term solution is separation, which in fact, seems to be the trending desire of our black population -demanding separate graduations, separate dorms, separate TV networks, and having their own music, language, customs, dress, and names.
A prime example illustrating the problem and solution is the island of Hispaniola, with the continuing horror that is black Haiti, in spite of its decades of cash and humanitarian aid infusions, sharing the other end of the island with a livable mostly mixed race and white Dominican Republic. How is it that one functions and the other is a perpetual disaster?
I don’t think actually accomplishing separation is possible short of full blown war, in spite of all the Dem rhetoric about “helping”, because nobody will actually name the problem, even as it screams out loud right in front of them here and in Africa. Those in power here know full well what it is, but are afraid to name it, so they throw some more programs and money at it and pass that hot potato on to the next guy.
That potato is now a live grenade rolling around at our feet.
And yet the western MSM seems to be completely ignoring the chaos, I wonder why.
It exposes an inconvenient truth.
Imagine deposing an unjust government run by Europeans, just to become an unjust government run by Africans. Once again Africa wins. America is just a few steps away from the thin veneer of civilization from rubbing through.
No one is coming, its up to us…
If it gets to the point that I’m in the militia, I won’t be doing any arresting.
The “arrested” will be confined to the vast desert that exists for such purposes.
No need to drag the bodies that far.
It’s where I am.
As Raymond Chandler said in one of his Philip Marlow novels, [They won’t find them,] the Pacific Ocean’s too close.” Or maybe it was Dashiell Hammett and Sam Spade. Thanks to Hollywood and Humphrey Bogart, they are almost interchangeable.
I seem to remember something this here author wrote well over a decade ago. “Africa always wins” was what Kim wrote. I still remember that article and I cite it often when talking about Africa to anyone. Since that article I have been to Africa, but not South Africa, but Nigeria and seen it with my own eyes. Great article Kim. I miss you my friend.
Dave, send me an email so we can catch up.
Excellent post Kim. I would like to know what you think about the Dems that fled Texas (on a private jet) so they can take the ball and run away. Cowards.
Yeah, well, what else is new? Water is still wet, I suppose, and thins out the scotch something terrible, etc., etc.
I’d buy some extra to watch the major urban areas self-torch from a safe distance, but that shit has a habit of metastasizing all over the fucking place, so I think I’ll load magazines instead.
But, I wonder – “…There was a clearly defined plan, so command and control is alive and well, but invisible. They knew when to hit designated targets. They knew where the police were absent. They knew where shopping mall security was most vulnerable. They were collectively acting as part of a plan.”
Which is exactly what we witnessed with Antifa last summer, exactly what Michael Yon reported on, exactly what some of us with, uh, “some experience” in those matters easily deduced. Next time around, given the right atmosphere, our 13% will be employed as shock troops, maybe second-tier, right behind Antifa’s black-clad lily white architects of mayhem, maybe as their own effort, intended to overwhelm whatever resistance and attempts at order the authorities may conjure up; I have no doubt there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes cultivation going on right now just for that purpose.
Makke me wonder what, if anything, on our side (and by “our side” I do not mean, in any way, shape or form, “government”) is being done to gather accurate, useful and actionable intelligence.
Few days ago Ms. Wolfe again mentioned she’s been hearing “Is it time yet, Claire?” from more quarters. She decided it’s not, but some of us think it’s getting a great deal closer.
Timing will be an issue; it’s gospel that when one commits to E & E a day, or week or month, early is light years better than half an hour late, and half an hour may be a bit too long as it is. That said, it’s a tough call as to “when” but when that “when” occurs the correct answer will be “everyone in, all the way, nothing held back.”
So, while we’re waiting, letteth not moss grow under one’s feet, nor skills or assets atrophy.
The AntiFa leadership needs to be targeted, not the shock troops. Doesn’t have to be lethal, just putting them out of action for a time, giving the riots time to fizzle out.
FWIW, if they don’t act soon, the time will pass – riots always work better when the weather is relatively warm. And, you will NOT find them out on the streets in the Northern winter.
In the nearest city to me, Charlotte, the public group violence has just about stopped. Only the usual dumba$$e$ shooting each other and helpless bystanders. The dead numbers would be higher if they were any good at aiming.
Up here in the Great Basin of NV, we have the luxury of distance, not just to the two major population centers in this state, but between everything in between. Also, we are populated by people who I would characterize as “Jacksonians”:
I Prefer To Be Left Alone, but be prepared to suffer the consequences if you get me riled!
These are men and women who are independent, but who know that survival requires teamwork, whether in freezing winter, or sweltering summer.
If trouble comes a riding, it will be forced to dismount, and given the choice of leave or die.
I’m in contact daily with friends and family around SA. That most of the violence is in a couple of major cities is true. “militias” are mobilized. Cops have been out of ammo for the last 2.5 years. Will the “white middle class” be able to maintain a semblance of control ? NOPE.
Are we next? While no one can say for sure, I reckon it’s already started. Cities only. Us off the grid types will have to keep our eyes peeled, but tv is going to be downright entertaining. Talk about reality television!
Taxi drivers took a stand in PE yesterday. Rioters tried to start up and they formed a blockade with taxis and sent at them with clubs and so forth. My relative on the force said it was a consumate ass whipping on the looters. Taxi drivers need work and don’t appreciate everything being gone. No shoppers no riders.
Food in Durban is tough. My niece got 3 yams, 2 bags of nuts and 1.5 dozen eggs,,, for 500R (35$ today). Local guys guarding their condo complex running low on ammo.
Anything significant I’ll post.
In Chicago, during the “George Floyd protests”, there was no looting, vandalism, or arson in the most predominantly hispanic neighborhoods.
That was because the Latin Kings, the Mexican Vice Lords, and the Spanish Counts all turned out and said “Not on our turf, pendejos.”
This is not good, because one doesn’t want civil order to be dependent on the good will of organized criminals.
One hopes that the “vigilance committees” will draw on the people who respect the lives and property of others. But history shows that self-appointed “police” soon devolve to racketeers, feuding with each other and extorting those under their control.
When you describe it that way, there is a lot of similarity between the police bugging out and the Roman legions leaving Albion abruptly leaving a vacuum to be filled by local Legionnaires and opportunistic brigands and pirates. The feudal system where everyone from the lowest peasant up through the intermediate knights, earls and dukes up to the King of the region bears a strong resemblance to the protection granted by the crime families. This is most evident in the loan sharking business, where the ultimate debtor pays Six every week for the Five that is owed. His loan shark took money from the next level up at Thirteen for Twelve. The Feudal wealth flowed up in the same way, via taxes, with each level passing it up the pyramid to the top, where the King had the most. A pyramid scheme. Were the Chicago government of Lori Light Head to just crash never to be revived, it is the gangs, the brigands and the pirates of the day who would attempt to keep their neighborhoods sheltered, fed, watered and heated/cooled. Some areas might be hard enough to invade a la Switzerland’s original Cantons that the ordinary neighborhood and townspeople could retain their independence, but the whole mess would resemble the early feudal period.
Two thoughts I wanted to share, neither are original with me.
1. Next year, we will be seeing pictures of starving brown children on CNN, with an appeal to all hands to “do something”.
2. I lost the blog link, more’s the pity, but it described the author’s brief interaction with a vanload of city folks, out driving in the boonies. This was when there was a lot of talk about mostly peaceful protests extending outside city centers, and the blogger suspected BLM/Antifa, and when they came up his access road, he met them with threat of force. The money quote was “I will bury you where only the trees will know.”
Just sharing some thoughts.
Stay safe
Quoting EB@ElwoodBlues:
“Stealing flatscreen TVs and home appliances while burning down the electric grid is Peak Africa.”
Oh, I really shouldn’t laugh, but…