Protecting Yourself From a Predatory State

Jeff Berwick, Contributor
Activist Post

Hello from foggy, cold, Vancouver.

You’ve got to love the Internet and all manner of technology. I left glorious Acapulco at 1pm Central and arrived to freezing rain in Vancouver at 9:15pm Pacific. After being grilled by a young Asian man in a bulletproof vest about my intentions here in Kanada, and not being sent to the back room for a change (I’m getting better at answering those questions correctly) I then took a taxi downtown and immediately hit the bar to numb myself from the boredom. I walked in, and within five seconds one waitress said, “TDV”.

I thought I must have misheard so I smiled and kept walking.

“The Dollar Vigilante,” she then said.

I stopped and turned my head back. “Um, do I know you?” I asked.

“My husband and I just watched one of your videos from Acapulco,” she said, “What are you doing here?”

I looked out at the three feet of visibility and ice fog, “I have no idea.”

The truth is, however, I am here for the Vancouver Resource Investment conference. It starts on Sunday and I speak on Monday at 2pm with my presentation which TDV subscribers already got a sneak preview of in the January issue of TDV, “Stop Living in the Investment Past, Man”. I also, in just a few hours, will be speaking at a fundraiser for the Gold Anti-Trust Action committee (GATA) which you can hear about here.

Then, oddly enough, I ran into another person who had “heard of me”.

“You’re an anarchist, right?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied proudly.

“Did you hear there was an anarchist protest a few days ago here?” she asked.

“No,” I said . . . and was a bit confused. Most anarchists don’t “protest”. But, I gave her the benefit of the doubt, “What was it about?”

She then went on to tell me that a bunch of people in black masks were protesting and confronting the efforts to build an oil pipeline. She continued to tell me more about what was recounted here.

According to these people:

The capitalists don’t care what we think, they only care about the millions to be made from exploiting the land, water, and from our time spent working away from our families and loved ones. Continuing to dialog with these vultures helps to maintain the illusion they can be swayed with moral arguments. We encourage you to instead talk to one another about how to self organize and take action to stop them and protect what’s left. A diversity of tactics are needed; from social confrontation and attack to social outreach, popular education, fundraising, building on the land, cooking, cleaning, child care and so on…

I nearly gagged as I read that and heard her interpretation of it. To paraphrase:

People taking risks and investing money in order to bring a product to market that is in high demand by most people “don’t care”. They only care about the money to be made (correct). They are exploiting land, water and people’s time by paying them money! You can’t talk with them (because we are crazy) so we must use violence and confrontation and attack them. And, also, vaguely take charge of your own life and use social outreach (??), “popular education” (yes, that’s the best kind of education, the popular kind), raise funds (isn’t having or wanting funds bad?), building on the land (takes funds), “cooking, cleaning, child care and so on….”

That, I think is my most favorite sentence in this insane diatribe… “…cooking, cleaning, child care and so on…”. They must have been thinking, “Hmmm, I’m out of stupid ideas, why don’t I just mention things that people need to do daily.” They could have ended it with, “bathing, vacuuming, window tinting and so on…” and it would have made about as much sense.

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After the girl explained it all to me, I put my hands to her lips and made a “shhhh” sound. I then whispered to her, “Those aren’t anarchists. Those are communists. Big difference.”

She looked confused as I walked down Granville Street past some leather clad, heavily pierced people who were lighting a garbage can on fire. “F**k the rich, man” said one hoodlum with an anarchist logo emblazoned on his sweater.

I kept walking, shaking my head. As I did, one of the “anarchists” asked, “Got any change, man?”

I responded, “I thought you didn’t like money?” and walked into the night.

FORGET THE NORTHERN 2/3RDS OF NORTH AMERICA

I had only stopped over in Houston at the Bush crime family international airport for two hours and had spent two hours on the streets of Vankouver and had already reminded myself why it is a lost cause in the upper 2/3rd of North America.

In my two hours in Houston, CNN-sponsored televisions shouted at me constantly about the need to steal guns from morally correct people and only allow guns in the hands of criminals. Two people behind me on the airplane were parroting the views they here on TV and one said, “We need to ban guns or more tragedies will continue to happen in our public schools!” said one moron.

I cringed at the word, “we“, but turned to them and said, “You’ve just made an excellent case for banning public schools.”

They both looked at me like I was from outer space so I ordered another chardonnay and put on my Bose noise-and-stupidity-cancelling headphones until I reached Vankouver.

Once here there isn’t much talk about guns… because, of course, they are already banned. So, most people just talk about how bad capitalism is.

In only a few hours I remembered why I hate coming up here. In Mexico, politics is rarely discussed. And if it is, it is with a worthy disdain… and the conversation usually quite quickly goes to music, food, sex, life, dancing and happiness. A much more civilized state of affairs.

TDV GROUPS

That’s what makes TDV Groups so great. We have a network of freedom-loving individuals around the world who can help you visit and/or move to their area without most of the headaches of trying to figure it out all on your own.

We have TDV Groups around the world. Below are just a few of them (note the links only work for subscribers). If you’d like to start a TDV Group in your area, please contact James Guzman ([email protected]). For anyone wishing to start a new group in an area not already covered we will offer a free subscription to TDV.

Here are a few of the groups we already have:

Argentina

Cafayete – Floyd Wayne Shackelford

Brazil

Sao Paulo – John Meagher

Cambodia

Phnom Penh – Col McLaurin

Canada

Toronto – Redmond Weissenberger

Chile

Santiago – Ken Carpenter

Colombia

Medellin – Marco Bolivar

Costa Rica

San Jose – Sebastian Ortiz

Dominican Republic

Cabrera – Barry Soloman

Las Terrenas – Terry

Hawaii

Honolulu – Mike Zentz

Honduras

Roatan – Amy Murphy

Mexico

Acapulco – James Guzman

Merida – Richard Nichols

San Miguel – Jim Karger

Nicaragua

Cornito – Paul Scott

Phillippines

Ozamiz City – Peter Krueger

Thailand

Pattaya – Sonny Addison

Uruguay

Punta Del Este – Ronald Yoder

Don’t see your area on the list and are a devout TDVer and freedom-lover? Contact us today to start up a group where you live!

VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

I had the pleasure of speaking with James Turk of Goldmoney.com this week. The topics covered a wide array of issues from anarchism, gold, gold stocks, bitcoin and more. You can see it here:

As well, I was thrilled to hear that Stefan Molyneux will be attending the upcoming Global Escape Hatch conference in Belize in March. Stefan is one of the best thinkers and speakers on the planet and will only make the conference even better! I have been told there are not many spaces left in the limited amount of attendees so if you are looking to attend a life-changing conference on internationalization and freeing yourself from a number of the world’s top experts on the beach in a tropical paradise, here is your chance!

Stefan Molyneux and conference organizer, Bobby Casey, did an interesting video this week on “Protecting Yourself from the Predatory State” to whet your appetite:

OFF INTO THE FOG

That’s it for this week! I’m about to bundle up and head off into the fog over to the Granville Island hotel for the GATA fundraiser with Bill Murphy and crew. And then spend the next few days amongst some of the world’s best precious metals analysts including Doug Casey, Peter Schiff, David Morgan, John Embry, Louis James and Rick Rule, just to name a few. Our own Senior Analyst, Ed Bugos, will also be in attendance and meeting with dozens of companies trying to unearth a future 10-bagger for TDV Premium subscribers.

Until next time, stay warm and try to live free!