The Bracken Anthology (5 page)

WRSA: It takes one to write one?

MB: (Laughs) It sure helps, I think. At least it gives me an edge in one area of my writing. But the famous name-brand authors do sell a boatload of books and make a ton of money, and I greatly admire that aspect of their success and strive to emulate it by writing fast and clever stuff. But grounded in some reality. What I write can happen. I don’t write comic books lacking pictures as many of them do. Maybe I should. They do sell a lot of copies. But it just wouldn’t interest me to write them. God help me, but I can only write what interests me, what has meaning to me, come hell or high water. And if I ever needed to trim my sails to politically-correct winds in order to sell books I wouldn’t write at all, at least not for publication.

WRSA: What is Castigo Cay? Where is it?

MB: It’s an imagined island in the Bahamas. Don’t look for it, it’s not there.

WRSA: Can people read any sample chapters online?

MB: The first hundred or so pages of all of my novels are free for the reading on my website. The latest addition is the opening sequences of Castigo Cay.

WRSA: When will people be able to read the entire book?

MB: Probably in May or June of 2011.

WRSA: I look forward to it.

MB: It’s like nothing out there, I promise.

WRSA: You could say that about all of your novels.

MB: Thank you.

#6

May 2011

Just A Working Man With His Tools

(covert rifle carrier)

I was out for a routine morning run on trash day last week, and snagged this empty plastic toolbox off a pile of rubbish set to be collected. At one time it carried a “saws-all” type electric tool. It’s very rugged yet light, with good hinges and clasps. This particular plastic case is 24 inches long, and it can contain a 31″ overall carbine, broken into upper and lower and nested. Plus a few magazines.

As a novelist, I have free rein to imagine every type of tactical scenario or trick. Sometimes I put them into my books, sometimes I keep them to myself, and sometimes I decide to share them. I didn’t set out to make the compact carbine carrier, it was found trash put to a new use. I already had the foam sheeting and the other parts. All I needed to buy was some contact cement.

The hardest part of the job was cutting out the stiff plastic dividers molded into the sides of the case to hold the old saws-all in place. The muzzle sticks about 1/4 of an inch out the side of the case. It just missed being a clean, perfect fit by that much. If you like the idea, you need to play around with assorted cases and various weapons. Old tool cases are readily available at thrift stores and pawn shops for a nominal cost.

You can’t tell from the picture and I wanted to spare you too much boring “how I made it” detail, but there is one sheet of one-inch foam below the gun parts, covered with a piece of denim scrap. Two sheets of foam on the top lid, with just that L shaped cutout in the nearer sheet of foam. That’s where the overlapped grip and the white light on the forward rail make a high point. Then I cover the weapon with another sheet of denim before closing up the case. Without even trying, it also holds 3 magazines - you can see 2 of them.

I can toss this rig anywhere and it won’t get a second look. Ditto for carrying it between vehicle and wherever without attracting attention with an obvious “assault bag” complete with velcro-flapped magazine holders.

Just a working man with his tools.

#7

August 2011

Review of Joseph P. Martino’s “Resistance to Tyranny”

Resistance to Tyranny begins with a chapter entitled “Why Armed Resistance?” Martino explains that international warfare was not the 20th Century’s greatest killer, but rather that official government tyranny holds that position of dishonor by a very wide margin. He then explores the link between gun control and state genocide, going through the historical cases of Turkey, the Soviet Union, Germany, China and other countries. Then, brick by brick, Martino builds the case for the morality of armed resistance to tyranny, postulating a “just insurgency doctrine” similar to the more familiar “just war” doctrine.

In the first five chapters Martino studies past rebellions and insurgencies from the American Revolution to the present day, to draw out and explore their timeless lessons. He also examines the government reactions to these insurgencies, starting with the crushing of dissent via state propaganda and the creation of enemy classes, use of economic leverage, deliberately nurturing crime waves for the purpose of installing police-state controls, through the full spectrum of violent repression by a gangster state. Martino’s analysis is consistently well thought out, lucid and downright fascinating in this overview of the eternal struggle between the forces of repression and freedom.

It would not be possible to examine the remaining contents of the book in any meaningful detail in a short review. In the interest of brevity, here is a partial listing of the remaining chapter titles, to give you an idea of the ground that is covered:

- Overt and Covert Resistance,

- Personal Weapons,

- Personal Equipment,

- Survival Skills,

- Camouflage and Concealment,

- Boobytraps,

- Weapons Caching,

- Logistics,

- Training,

- Secure Base Camps,

- Safe Houses,

- Communications,

- Encryption and Codes,

- Ambushes,

- Sniping,

- Sabotage,

- Raids,

- Strategic Intelligence,

- Tactical Intelligence, and

- Counterintelligence.

The information is current; for example, taking into account the use of UAV for covert population surveillance, internet data-mining, and other evolving technological frontiers.

This book is meant to be a primer, and not a collection of nuts-and-bolts tips to be employed in the field. For example, the chapter on boobytraps does not include details on how to build them, but rather lays out the general types of devices and the principles of their employment, as well as their pros and cons. For those who wish to study the subject matter in greater depth, at the end of each chapter there is a bibliography.

If Resistance to Tyranny is a primer for successful insurgency, then the entire reading list included would constitute a post-graduate education. The content that was mastered and then synthesized by Martino in order to produce this work is staggering. For that effort alone he deserves our hearty salute.

Here is just one of the hundreds of titles cited in the book, in this case with Martino’s comments following: “U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (U.S. Army Field Manual No. 3-24), University of Chicago Press. Undoubtedly the finest manual ever written on the subject. It will almost certainly be used by tyrannical governments faced with freedom-oriented resistance forces, as well as by democratic governments faced with communist or fascist insurgencies. Resistance forces should study it carefully, to prepare for government counter-operations.
(Also available as a download at http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24.pdf )
.”

That is just one of the countless nuggets and gems contained in Resistance to Tyranny.

Martino’s examination of likely government counterinsurgency tactics could be particularly helpful to those who may be at personal risk during a future time of official state repression. If cruel history is a guide, today’s patriotic and freedom-oriented opinion leaders will likely be considered tomorrow’s potential dissident leaders by a state gradually turned tyrant. Punishment for resisting tyranny may range from the loss of employment all the way to the gulags or worse.

Martino points out that the period while a nascent insurgency is attempting to emerge is particularly dangerous. He even cites historical examples of the establishment of bogus resistance organizations created for the covert purpose of identifying enemies of the state through false-flag recruitment. This is certainly something to consider in the internet era, with anonymous government-sponsored provocateurs busily typing away.

‘Keyboard commandos’, indeed.

If you believe in your heart that your homeland could never be dragged down into a dictatorship, Resistance to Tyranny will be of no interest to you.

But perhaps you are not so sanguine about your country’s future, and you observe your government in action with growing trepidation. If you would rather shape your own future and influence events in the ongoing struggle for human freedom, and not merely allow yourself to be buffeted by the storm winds of possible coming strife, you should not only read this book but study it. If and when the conditions are met for a “just insurgency,” books like this may be banned and will certainly not be as easily obtainable as they are today, during freedom’s long eclipse. (Of special note to those who prefer reading on electronic tablets: e-books may disappear into the ether with the same alacrity with which they appeared on your screen. Consider what is truly saved, and what is not. You might consider purchasing a dead-trees copy of this and similar titles.)

Resistance to Tyranny is an up-to-date study of insurgency methods, tactics and strategies. I recommend it most highly. If you believe that at this juncture it is critical to be a student of civil conflict throughout history, you should give Joseph Martino’s outstanding contribution to the cause of freedom a place of honor on your patriot’s bookshelf. While always hoping, of course, that the information it contains is never needed … except to entertain your unceasingly inquisitive mind on all matters of the gloriously messy and commonly unjust human condition.

#8

February 29, 2012

Gangster Government and Sakharov's Immunity

**1**

For over a year now, the Department of Justice has been stone-walling the House committees investigating Operation Fast And Furious, wherein thousands of semi-automatic rifles ("assault rifles" in the liberal lexicon) were deliberately allowed to "walk" into Mexico, straight into the hands of drug cartel killers. One of those weapons was used to murder Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry a dozen miles inside of U.S. territory.

The actual killer is believed to be an FBI "informant." In other words, a cartel assassin in his own right, but also a valuable "asset" in the FBI's consideration. The FBI and DOJ have been shielding this killer, while obstructing the delivery of justice to the Brian Terry family. On the other side of the border, ICE Agent Jaime Zapata was also murdered with a "gun-walked" weapon, along with over three-hundred innocent Mexican citizens as of this date.

And where is the elite Mainstream Media in its coverage of this festering scandal of such epic proportions? Over the past year they have dedicated scant minutes to the scandal, and then, usually to parrot the Obama administration's lies and obfuscations. Just during one recent week, the elite media spent countless hours covering the death and funeral of a beloved celebrity drug addict, compared to the few minutes they have spent covering Operation Fast And Furious during all of the last year.

Under Operation Fast And Furious, and related DOJ-ATF gun-walking schemes in at least five states, there was no plan or means to track the weapons after their sale. Licensed gun dealers were coerced by the BATFE into making repeated bulk sales, even when they expressed grave concern about the persons buying the weapons, including known felons. Federal cash was provided to the straw purchasers when they did not have their own money.

As conceived and carried out, the intended purpose of Operation Fast and Furious was to rack up a bloody body count in Mexico, in order to discredit the Right to Keep and Bear Arms as spelled out in the Second Amendment of the Constitution. The murdered Mexicans were intended to buttress the false claim that ninety percent of the weapons recovered in Mexico after gangland shootings came from American gun dealers.

In short, the Obama administration conducted a program of mass murder for political purposes. Or, as President Obama put it to Sarah Brady, he was still pursuing a gun control agenda, but "under the radar." It is hard to conceive of a federal "law enforcement operation" [sic] more evil from top to bottom than Operation Fast And Furious.

* * 2 * *

By comparison, consider the Watergate scandal, which at the time was generally called "a third-rate burglary." I was a teenage construction worker the summer of 1973 when the Senate Hearings took place. Out on the construction sites, you could hear radios playing the hearings all through the day. The radio and television networks suspended normal programming in that pre-cable era to bombard America with gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Watergate hearings.

We all know the result of that non-stop media focus: President Nixon soon resigned in disgrace to avoid impeachment, and U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell was sent to prison. And all over a bungled political burglary, where nobody was killed or even hurt.

But imagine for a moment if President Nixon's men, when called before the committees investigating the Watergate scandal, had provided less than twenty percent of subpoenaed documents after a full year of ignoring requests and congressional pleadings. Then further imagine that among the twenty percent of the documents that were provided to Congress, hundreds of pages were "fully redacted," or completely blacked out. Black paper, by the ream.