General Mattis on Reading

Hello Patriots,

We normally try not to just dump links on the blog and prefer to offer commentary with it, but I’ll keep it brief so you can get to the meat of things. I’ve been trying to catch up on Mattis since his legend has been rising to that of Chuck Norris jokes in the military communities I cross now and again. Plus, as our upcoming SECDEF, the memes are coming fast and furious. Who is this man?

I’ll let you do your own research, but this email from him is certainly telling: http://www.strifeblog.org/2013/05/07/with-rifle-and-bibliography-general-mattis-on-professional-reading/.

….The problem with being too busy to read is that you learn by experience (or by your men’s
experience), i.e. the hard way. By reading, you learn through others’ experiences, generally a
better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of
incompetence are so final for young men.

Mattis goes into more depth. Make sure you read the whole thing.

Patriots – we hear this same thing in our community all the time – “I don’t have time to read/study.” John Lovell has an excellent video that digs into Mattis’ philosophy and the foolishness of not studying. If you’re not subscribed to his channel you’re missing out.

This week, go to the library and get a relevant non-fiction book, or grab one of the ones from your bookshelf that you haven’t gotten around to. Do it for the wellbeing of your family and friends. There’s a reason that EDUCATE is at the beginning of our tagline.

Do you have a must read book for the Patriot? Post it in the comments here or on Facebook.

EDUCATE. EMPOWER. RESIST.

The Myth of the National Three Percent Organization

A lot of people claim to be part of the Three Percent. A lot of people claim to know what the Three Percent stands for…but do they? There are quite a few myths out there about who we are and what we believe, and sadly, even some of the folks who claim to be in the Three Percent believe those myths. Truth is important; we’ll be dispelling one of the biggest myths today, and we’ll do it by going back to the source of the III% founder himself. Why is it important? Because of this: “there are apparently many people who have adopted the moniker of Three Percenter, for whatever reason, but who wouldn’t recognize these principles if they came up and bit them in the ass.”

Let’s get started.

The Three Percent is a National Organization: False.

All over social media, you can find groups claiming to be III%. They post the symbols, use the lingo (or try to), and talk about things like unity and their “national affiliation.” Some of these groups pattern themselves after the military, and wear self-assigned rank (usually an O-3 or above; no one wants to be the butterbar, apparently). They call themselves every variation of Three Percent you can think of, and many of them claim national legitimacy.

The following statement needs to be very clear:

There is no national Three Percent organization, and there was never intended to be one. In fact, the idea of a national Three Percent organization goes directly against what the III% was designed to be. The III% is a local concept, meaning that its entire purpose was to foster cooperation and small groups locally for the purpose of active resistance, defiance, and preparation. Your neighbors, your church, your family and friends. Mike Vanderboegh, the founder of the III%, wrote the following:

I deliberately formulated the Three Percent idea as a movement, an idea, a philosophy and a discipline BUT NOT AN ORGANIZATION. Attempts at large regional, state or national organizations, anything beyond local formations, are subject to infiltration, dysfunction, discredit and collapse. Anyone who tells you different is selling something.

There is a huge push, especially by groups on Facebook and other social media, to bring in as many people as possible. They want unity, they want a huge crowd of people. Some militia groups attach III% to their names, and call each other Colonel and Captain and Major and even General. They claim to be networking and ‘working intel,’ but all of this effort goes in direct opposition to what the entire point of the III% concept is–and ruins its potential and efficiency. The strength of the III% concept is its small-group, locally-focused resistance model.

By insisting on a pyramid, top-down, crowd leadership structure, folks claiming to be part of a III% national organization miss some very basic points that Mike outlined above. There’s a reason why the III% was designed NOT to be a national organization. Let’s take a closer look at why.

Infiltration

The bigger the group, the more vulnerable it is. There are many who may feel as though they need the comfort of a large group. Part of that comes from a need to share responsibility. People claim to want to fight, or resist, or claim to be ready to do “violent things,” but they want to make sure they have a crowd behind them. This is why you see so many people say things such as “How much longer are we going to stand for X?” What they’re actually saying is, “I want to go and do something but I don’t want to do it by myself, I want to follow someone else who is going to do it.” This is incredibly exploitable because all someone needs to do is hone in on that need. Those are the folks who can be manipulated, who can be talked into taking actions that are immoral—and also against the III% catechism and values. The sheer math of group dynamics means that the more people you have, the more chance you have of being compromised. It’s that simple.

This is one of the many reasons that the III% was set up as a local concept. Your group is not your four states’ worth of guys who get together every few weeks or months, put on some face paint, and run around in the woods with you. Your group is your family, your close friends who understand what’s going on and would show up at 3 am no questions asked if you needed it. A group of five people, who have known each other for years and know each other’s secrets and weaknesses and strengths, is a lot harder to infiltrate than a Facebook group of 250+ people who have never met but call each other “brother,” or even a real-life unit of 50 people who get together to shoot their rifles or go to rallies. Infiltration is happening all the time, all over the movement–and nowhere more obviously than in these huge groups who insist on needing a following.

If you are strong enough in your beliefs, you don’t need a crowd to stand for them with you. A III% member following the catechism, following the principles and values, will probably not be part of a large group because they understand that the III% was not ever designed to BE a large group, but a network of local groups and local resistance. As Mike wrote:

The Three Percent idea, being an idea, is internalized and finds expression in action when required without any top-down organization issuing orders.

Dysfunction

If there’s anything in the patriot movement, it’s dysfunction. Groups run by ego-driven individuals who insist on total obedience from their “troops,” people running around calling themselves “General” and complaining that someone took action without “proper protocol,” people spreading gossip and rumors while calling it “intel.” The level of drama in many patriot groups right now calling themselves III% is staggering. They use words like “opsec” as a catch-all phrase, throw around terms like “deploy,” and try very hard to copy the military in many of their endeavors, completely missing the point that the III% was never intended to be an organization at all, let alone one structured after the military.

Discredit

When a group chooses to deviate from a small group mentality, instead choosing to chase after numbers, they run the risk of their members eventually discrediting them and what they stand for. As has been written elsewhere, by bringing someone into your group and allowing them to be a part of your activities, you are saying that you identify with their belief system, and you are willing to let their actions help define your group culture. Unless every single member that you bring in shares your group culture and values, they will end up discrediting you. By default, this means you need to keep your groups small; this ensures that your group has a shared cultural value (much like John Mosby’s concept of tribalism) that will be enhanced and carried on by its members instead of morphed and changed or even discredited. If you say, “No, we aren’t defined by our members and they don’t all speak for us,” then why are they in your group? Just for the numbers? Would you allow a member of ISIS in your group? How about a neo-Nazi? Why not? Because they do not share your values.

In any large, top-down organization (which you seem determined to have out of whatever motive that can only be guessed at — failure to understand the nature of your enemy in a 4th Generation Warfare world; lack of imagination as to the probable negatives of such a move; misplaced enthusiasm at spreading an idea you apparently have failed to properly grasp; or, the simplest explanation, plain ego), personnel, my friend, is policy.

What does this mean to you? It means that your members are who YOU are, as a group. The loudmouth in your group who consistently says inflammatory things and derides others for not being ready to “rise up and fight” reflects on you and your group. The guy who insists on being a security risk because he’s “not doing anything illegal” reflects on you as a group. Whoever you take in must share your values. It’s not about being an echo chamber; you don’t all need to be Mormons or atheists or Presbyterians or Christians or home schoolers or whatever else. You do, however, need to be very clear on what your group goals are, and what you as a group believe or want to accomplish. Regardless of whatever else you believe, you MUST share the values and the catechism of the III% itself.

Collapse

The natural end result of large groups with infiltration, dysfunction, ego and problems, who operate outside the established framework of what the III% was designed to be and to do, is a collapse. This is why groups fail, over and over. Someone will rise to prominence as head of a group, will call themselves by some self-appointed rank and issue “orders,” and eventually the problems happen. Members ‘go rogue’ and do things to embarrass the greater group, seek more power or publicity, turn on their fellow members or leadership. Leaders themselves let the power go to their head, and find themselves acting like they are kings and tyrants themselves. Their groups implode, or split, and the various members form more groups, where they incorporate the same top-down model, the same poor vetting practices, the same refusal to study and understand the original concept of the III% and what it stands for. What happens to these new groups? The same things, over and over.

The Three Percent is a Local Concept

After 1500 words or so explaining what the III% is not, it’s time to explain what it is. We’re all familiar with the story of the colonists and their stand against the British. But while many who claim the title of III% know that story, they forget—or simply don’t know—that it is only a part of what the III% purpose is. The person best equipped to explain what the III% means is the person who designed the concept, who founded the very movement we claim to be a part of. In short, “Any stupid ass can call himself a Three Percenter, the proof is in the practice of principle.” It’s that simple. It’s not enough to claim the title. You must also live the life–a life of training, of self-discipline and discernment. A life spent forging relationships and networks that are close, solid, and trustworthy.

We have our enemy’s promises that they will negate any possibility of our using the standard methods of politics against them. They have won the “majority vote” decision. Fine. But if we are to avoid conflict, we must convince them of how little this actually buys them in the way of power. We do that by building up the armed citizenry, one three-man buddy team, one six-man fire team and one squad at a time. Don’t advertise. Friends and neighbors will do nicely. And remember, you’re doing this in case the deterrence doesn’t work. This is as real as it gets, folks. Act like it.

The III% has values and principles. Those who claim to be part of the Three Percent either must follow those values and principles, or they are not a Three Percenter. Those who commit actions that go against the catechism are not Three Percenters. Those who seek violence while claiming to be part of the Three Percent are not part of us. Those who set aside the small group, locally-focused concept of the III% in favor of vast bands of people only marginally held together by false ranks and fantasy are not Three Percenters. As Mike wrote:

These four principles — moral strength, physical readiness, no first use of force and no targeting of innocents — are the hallmarks of the Three Percent ideal. Anyone who cannot accept them as a self-imposed discipline in the fight to restore the Founders’ Republic should find something else to do and cease calling themselves a “Three Percenter.”

Anyone can wear the patch or claim the name. What matters, as always, are their actions.

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days

Many people don’t understand why we named this The Order of the White Rose. We encourage you to read the story of the original White Rose Resistance, and to understand who they were and what they stood for.

The 73rd anniversary of the execution of the original White Rose leadership is 22 February. In honor of our namesake, we post this movie about Sophie Scholl, one of the three brave resistance leaders who were beheaded by the Third Reich for daring to engage in free speech and talk of liberty and freedom. Take the time to watch it. We seek to honor their work and sacrifice, and we echo the last words of Hans Scholl, Sophie’s brother and co-defendant:

LONG LIVE FREEDOM!

https://youtu.be/nXtC08tWxqA

The One Thing You MUST Have in a Guerrilla War

In case you haven’t been paying attention, that’s what all of this is—a guerrilla war. If you want to win it, you need to start thinking like a guerrilla. It’s not popular or sexy, but there are things you need to fight a successful guerrilla war, and we’ll talk about the most critical one in this article. To save you some time, I’ll tell you up front that the one thing you MUST have is not any of the following:

– A Facebook account and memberships in all the popular “patriot” groups so you can get all the latest sweet memes and echo chamber goodness.
– Access to a “private” Zello chat with “leaders”
– The secret Wickr username of some patriot “bigwig”

The one thing you have to have if you expect to be successful in a guerrilla war is the support of the people. If you do not have that, you will fail. It’s that simple. I’ll go more in depth in future articles but for now we’ll just look at the basics.

The Concept

In the book Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam, John Nagl includes the following quote:

“When there are no economic and political foundations for the guerrilla movement, there will be no guerrilla movement. The bulk of any guerrilla movement joins out of belief in what it is doing; the hard core of leaders keeps going because of political beliefs…If the great mass of the population knows that they will be protected by a strong, just government, it has no reason to cooperate with the guerrillas, and the system of intelligence and supply that sustains all guerrilla movements breaks down. Without popular support the mopping up of the hard core die-hards is fairly easy.”

The Sixth Leaflet of the Original White Rose

Friends, here we are already: the final leaflet of the White Rose. Tragically, it was while distributing this leaflet that Sophie Scholl was spotted by a party member, leading to the rounding up and execution of the core group. While their mission was cut short, their impact lives on, and we of the Order intend to continue in their name.

Education and Integrity; two things which we intend to be defined by. We will be uncompromising in our principles of Individual Liberty and we will stand against the tyrant.

The complete leaflet is available here.

Fellow Fighters in the Resistance!

Shaken and broken, our people behold the loss of the men of Stalingrad. Three hundred and thirty thousand German men have been senselessly and irresponsibly driven to death and destruction by the inspired strategy of our World War I Private First Class. Fuhrer, we thank you!

The German people are in ferment. Will we continue to entrust the fate of our armies to a dilettante? Do we want to sacrifice the rest of German youth to the base ambitions of a Party clique? No, never! The day of reckoning has come – the reckoning of German youth with the most abominable tyrant our people have ever been forced to endure. In the name of German youth we demand restitution by Adolf Hitler’s state of our personal freedom, the most precious treasure we have, out of which he has swindled us in the most miserable way.

While it is clear that we have not reached this level of desperation, our root causes are the same – an apathetic, defeated people, and a leader with no experience who has only his own pride to satisfy. The authors say, “Private First Class,” the way we say, “Community Organizer!”

Our demands are also the same – we demand our personal freedom be returned to us! We know that this will not be; his lordship will be visiting Roseburg, OR tomorrow to demand the exact opposite, capitalizing on the blood of the innocent to advance his personal agenda.

We grew up in a state in which all free expression of opinion is unscrupulously suppressed. The Hitler Youth, the SA, the SS have tried to drug us, to revolutionise us, to regiment us in the most promising young years of our lives. “Philosophical training” is the name given to the despicable method by which our budding intellectual development is muffled in a fog of empty phrases. A system of selection of leaders at once unimaginably devilish and narrow-minded trains up its future party bigwigs in the “Castles of the Knightly Order” to become Godless, impudent, and conscienceless exploiters and executioners – blind, stupid hangers-on of the Fuhrer. We “Intellectual Workers” are the ones who should put obstacles in the path of this caste of overlords. Soldiers at the front are regimented like schoolboys by student leaders and trainees for the post of Gauleiter, and the lewd jokes of the Gauleiters insult the honour of the women students. German women students at the university in Munich have given a dignified reply to the besmirching of their honour, and German students have defended the women in the universities and have stood firm…. That is a beginning of the struggle for our free self-determination – without which intellectual and spiritual values cannot be created. We thank the brave comrades, both men and women, who have set us brilliant examples.

Sounds to me like a combination of the indoctrination found in many public schools, combined with what’s happening with the current invasion in Europe. European women are being degraded daily with the current invasion wave. If only Sophie was there to speak for them, today!

For us there is but one slogan: fight against the party! Get out of the party organisation, which are used to keep our mouths sealed and hold us in political bondage! Get out of the lecture rooms of the SS corporals and sergeants and the party bootlickers! We want genuine learning and real freedom of opinion. No threat can terrorise us, not even the shutting down of the institutions of higher learning. This is the struggle of each and every one of us for our future, our freedom, and our honour under a regime conscious of its moral responsibility.

Freedom and honour! For ten long years Hitler and his coadjutor have manhandled, squeezed, twisted, and debased these two splendid German words to the point of nausea, as only dilettantes can, casting the highest values of a nation before swine. They have sufficiently demonstrated in the ten years of destruction of all material and intellectual freedom, of all moral substance among the German people, what they understand by freedom and honour. The frightful bloodbath has opened the eyes of even the stupidest German – it is a slaughter which they arranged in the name of “freedom and honour of the German nation” throughout Europe, and which they daily start anew. The name of Germany is dishonoured for all time if German youth does not finally rise, take revenge, and atone, smash its tormentors, and set up a new Europe of the spirit. Students! The German people look to us. As in 1813 the people expected us to shake off the Napoleonic yoke, so in 1943 they look to us to break the National Socialist terror through the power of the spirit. Beresina and Stalingrad are burning in the East. The dead of Stalingrad implore us to take action. “Up, up, my people, let smoke and flame be our sign!”

Our people stand ready to rebel against the Nationals Socialist enslavement of Europe in a fervent new breakthrough of freedom and honour.

Freedom and Honor! There is nothing new under the sun. Today’s political class has corrupted so many words, changed their meanings to redefine America. Words like “Freedom,” “Patriot,” “Common Sense,” “Rights,” and “Religious Liberty.”

It may be too late to turn the tide, but we will do what is right.

Educate. Empower. Resist.

Long Live Freedom!