By Stewart Rhodes of Oath Keepers
and Brandon Smith of the Alternative Market Project

To put it simply, America is nearing a checkmate scenario. Like the final torrid maneuvers of a rigged chess match, we have been pressed, manipulated, and attacked into the last remaining corner of the “grand global chessboard” left to us; centralized control of all social and economic power into the hands of an unworthy elite. If we continue playing the game by their rules, we will lose. There is no doubt. There have been many solutions presented to us in the past to combat this development, but nearly all of them function within the constraints of Federal politics. Working within the system has earned us no quarter, and frankly, no results. Our only recourse (and, frankly, the best recourse all along) is to STOP relying on the rules of their game, and to walk away from the chess board completely.

Globalization is essentially just another word for centralization, and the key to centralizing any system is to remove all options until the masses are completely and utterly dependent upon a single dominant paradigm. Globalists have deceived many Americans into believing that centralization is a “natural” process – that their game is indeed the only one in town. The widespread acceptance of the fiat monetary system is a perfect example of the average person’s unfortunate lack of economic flexibility. Only recently, in the face of dollar devaluation and complete financial collapse have many finally begun to question the legitimacy of a single brittle and corrupt economic structure. American politics are no different.

The elites have conned us into thinking that the only possible “solution” to where we are is federal elections, which only vote in new puppets for the puppet masters to manipulate in an illusory shell game. We have been tricked into thinking we are free because we come together from time to time to select our rulers.

But of course, this country was not founded as a democracy, but as a Constitutional Republic, and in such a Republic as ours, liberty is not just about “kicking the bums out” every few years only to vote a new set of bums into Congress, as the globalists would have us think. Federal elections are just one small part of it. The Founders intended us to be active, sovereign citizens, in strong communities and strong, sovereign states, and that is about far, far more than merely voting.

But because the globalists – with the aid of complicit domestic counterparts – have been able to capture our education system, our media, our political system, and our legal system, they have succeeded in dumbing us down and duping us into thinking that all other mechanisms for constraining power have been removed from the table. In fact, we have been convinced that all of the other fundamental institutions of our republic– aside from voting – are illegitimate, or even criminal.

The Founders gave us a dual sovereignty republic. That means states are as much sovereign within their sphere as the national government is within its sphere, with a national government of limited, enumerated, and divided powers. As our Tenth Amendment makes clear, “[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

In Federalist 45, James Madison (widely considered the ‘father of the Constitution”) promised the American people that:

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.

Clearly the design of the Founders’ has been turned on its head. With the aid of complicit judges – which Thomas Jefferson called a “corps of sappers and miners” – who willfully misinterpret the Commerce Clause to grant Congress the power to regulate literally anything, we now have a ruling class who will admit of no restraints on national power with a national government of nearly unlimited de facto powers, grown like a metastasizing cancer far beyond the bounds of anything foreseen by even the most skeptical of Anti-Federalists from the Founding era. All actual, physical and structural powers of any real meaning – legislative, military, legal, law enforcement, and economic – are consolidated in the hands of the federal government. On top of this, they have grafted a hydra-like overlay of international law and international unelected agencies and untouchable international “officials” that are also being imposed up us by means of treaties, executive partnerships (such as the supposedly now defunct Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, now being revitalized by the Obama Administration) and other constitutionally dubious mechanisms.

While we are distracted with elections, they are planning the destruction of the dollar, the collapse of our economy, the final destruction of our sovereignty, and the total absorption of our entire system into the vapid body of an unaccountable global government.

This is why we must stop playing by their “rules,” must get off of their artificial chess board, and instead play by the rules of our Constitution. This means taking power into our own hands as individuals, communities, counties, and states.

To do this, Neithercorp Press, the Alternative Market Project, and Oath Keepers are working together to focus on concrete solutions that can be applied by the average American in their day-to-day lives, in both the private and public spheres. In the limited time we have left, we urge Americans to focus on the following four key strategies (arranged in order of priority of needs):

1. Food and fuel independence and security – and other essential infrastructure (general preparedness) – as individuals, within local veterans organization chapters, neighborhood mutual aid societies, churches, co-ops, farmers markets, and at the town, county and state levels). In the aftermath of an economic collapse, food is the hardest necessity to improvise, and food scarcity is a serious achiles heel, exploited by oppressive regimes throughout history. To get started on food storage and independence, follow the advice on providentliving.org (you don’t need to be LDS to learn from their experience in food storage and preparedness, or to use their canneries). Likewise, we will need fuel, emergency medical, and resilient communication that can function in a grid-down crisis, devoid of internet communication (or with the internet shut down intentionally by means of a kill-switch).

2. Physical security and Independence – again as individuals, neighborhoods, towns, counties and states, to include forming neighborhood watches, mutual aid associations, a volunteer sheriff’s posse (staffed by volunteers under direct command of the sheriff), and county militias established by county ordinances but staffed by self-supplied and self-funded volunteers (as is done in volunteer fire departments all over this nation), and ultimately, a true state militia capable of “repelling invasions” (using the research and model bills of Dr. Edwin Vieira). Americans have plenty of guns, but not enough organization. See operationsleepinggiant.org for details.

3. Economic security and independence – as individuals and communities, including barter networks, use of silver and gold as real money, the development of valuable trade skills, and sound money bills at the county and state levels (as Utah just passed into law). The localization of community commerce is the only sure way to counter globalization. The more independent and insulated cities and states are from the corrupt and dysfunctional mainstream economy, the more safe and secure they will find themselves when that economy implodes. We must have an alternative to the fiat money system in place to preempt such an event. See alt-market.com for details.

4. State sovereignty and nullification of unconstitutional federal laws and actions. Veterans must support only sheriffs, state legislators and governors who have the guts and integrity to keep their oaths. To vote for an oath breaker, is to become an oath breaker. We must defend the powers reserved to the states and to the people by supporting state sovereignty resolutions and nullification of unconstitutional laws. See tenthamendmentcenter.com. And eventually we must kick the bums out, as GOOOH recommends. See goooh.com.

We will soon be publishing an upcoming series of articles that will provide in-depth details on each of the above four key pillars of action. While we should not turn our backs on the tactics of educating the public, supporting constitutional legislation, voting for honest and principled representatives, or nullifying unconstitutional laws (we should certainly make full use of the soap box, the ballot box, and the jury box) it is now time to dedicate ourselves to much more. The very future of our country, our liberties, and the prosperity of the next generation depends upon this.

For the Republic,

Stewart Rhodes
Brandon Smith