Last of the videos on the shooting range performing drills with Tactical Response. This was a two day Tactical Response Fighting Pistol training course. One of the best training organizations in the nation.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Are we "Alongside Night?"
"Alongside Night" is a book by J. Neil Schulman about a not-so-distant future that predicted (from the standpoint of 1979) the collapse of the United States government. A lot of people are talking about this book because of the predictions and ideas offered by the author.
I think it is far more useful to explore what Schulman could not have predicted. This is not a criticism in the slightest. To explore what he could not predict is a useful venture because it helps us realize how much worse things really are for the US, economically.
A few key things he did not predict was the importance of the IMF and the World Bank. They existed in 1979, but I believe their importance to the US strategic interests were missed by the author.
The IMF and the World Bank organizations have allowed the US government to effectively export its inflation over to third world nations. Failing to predict this is not an indictment of Schulman's other prediction. But it does serve to increase the time frame in ways he perhaps didn't expect.
The exact mechanism the IMF and the World Bank use to export inflation is simple. They allow the Federal Reserve to monetize foreign debt obligations. Do this in enough countries, and the aggregate volume of dollars is absorbed by them, which allows the US to benefit. As the dollar's use expands beyond the borders of the US, demand continues to rise. The net effect is to keep inflation at bay while it wrecks the economies of nations that accept the excess dollars. That is so sick, if you really sit down and think about it.
Without the IMF and the World Bank, it would have been more difficult for the US to enforce its hegemony across the world. This is another aspect to our future Schulman failed to predict. US hegemony is basically the idea that US interests trump the interest of other nations. It is backed by the US military and enforced by threats of war.
The role of US hegemony is a very simple concept too. It means that what the US says goes. If a country decides to buck the system, they get put in the corner (e.g. Cuba or North Korea). What does it mean to buck the system? Well, for one, it means not dealing in dollars. The primary way to get on the bad side of US foreign policy is to either A) not buy debt from the US or B) not accept US credit.
Hyperinflation was a key thematic element in Alongside Night. It was the reason people used "New Dollars" in the book. As a back-story, some time before the events in the book, there is a currency crisis that forces the government to issue a new currency, hence, New Dollars. The New Dollars are apparently blue instead of green.
There is also a stable currency in the book, issued by what is essentially the EU. Schulman's fictional version of the Euro is a gold backed currency, while in real life, the Euro is only partially backed by gold (for the time being).
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
At Shooting Range #2 of #3
More on the shooting range performing drills with Tactical Response. Every magazine of of mine had at least two training rounds(duds) in it. The purpose is to simulate a real world malfunction so you can train yourself to properly clear the weapon by, "Tap, Rack and Bang" as they call it.
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