Revolt In The Synopticon

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Revolt in a normal human society is made easier by the fact that everyone knows who is in charge and the institutions they control. In a despotism, the name of the despot and his supporters is known. The institutions they control and their relative power is also well known. The same is true of a republic when it degrades into oligarchy. Picking sides comes naturally. In the synopticon, this is not so clear, because everyone is an agent of the system, a potential threat to anyone resisting the system.

That is the first thing a political dissident living within the modern liberal democracy must accept about their condition. Since everyone operates within a lattice work of interconnected data collection nodes, the sides are not clear. The people at the top, ostensibly running the system, rarely act directly. They often appear to be carried along by the system itself. Groups that form up to reform some aspect of the system are easily coopted by the system to defend the system from change.

This is the hardest thing to grasp about any human relations. Half the population will also seek to assign blame to an individual or group of individuals. They simply lack the capacity to understand how events, ideas, and the system in which they operate can come together within a society. They insist the problem is someone holding office or a group of people running an institution or party. While not entirely wrong, it is an antiquated view of the world that make resistance self-defeating.

The simplest way of thinking of this is the modern prison. The guards rely on cameras, listening devices and other detection systems. They also rely on snitches in the prison population to tip them off to trouble. Ideally, the prison system wants every prisoner distrusting every other prisoner. If they are unable and unwilling to cooperate, then they are just a collection of rebellious individuals. No matter how clever one may be, the rest are there to undermine the effort due to misplaced self-interest.

In a society in which everyone watches everyone, knowingly or otherwise, and inanimate objects like ATM’s and mobile phones can be turned into snitches for the system, the people are isolated individuals suspended in the system. The unaware are happily holding up their mobile devices, snitching for the system at every event, while the aware are doing the same, thinking they are fighting the man. This is why the most powerful people think they are the resistance, fighting populism.

This is the first rule of revolution within the synopticon. The war is not against people, but against the system itself. The people involved may be bad actors, but even the people who appear to be good actors, can be bad actors, because they fail to grasp that they are part of the system. This is something the cleverer inmates figure out about the prison system. In order to have any sense of freedom, they continually throw sand in the gears of the system and encourages others to do the same.

As a practical matter, this first means disconnecting as much as possible from the information grid. This is not easy, as it so much of it is convenient. That mobile device feels necessary, because it is convenient. Using Apple Pay or a credit card for all purchases is easy. It is also easy for the authorities to track you down if you show up at the wrong political event or hang around the wrong people. The people at the Capitol on January 6 are learning this lesson the hard way.

This is the first step for any political actor. Politics and the normal aspects of life must be separate spheres, physically and mentally. This means political events are mobile device free. Communication is through the densest channel possible. Reading texts is simple for the system. Reading e-mail is hard. Reading lips through CCTV cameras is impossible, despite what the movies claim. Never write when you can speak, never speak when you can nod. That is the way of dissent in the synopticon.

There is another lesson from the criminal world that applies here. The reformer in the synopticon is always policing his area for nodes of the system. In the criminal sphere, this means listening devices and snitches. The smart actor is always testing the people and environment for security risks. For reformers, this means imposing rules on others about their interaction with the system. It means developing codes of conduct to enforce discipline about communications and interaction with the system.

As a practical matter, this means political resistance starts with community. Entrance into the community requires increasing levels of commitment. At the periphery are people who always being evaluated to see if they can be an asset to the political community and perhaps one day join it. As they demonstrate their worth and commitment, they are required to make greater sacrifices for the whole in order to go deeper into the heart of the community.

In other words, organizing in the synopticon must operate within the blind spots of the system, which in the digital age means the analog space. While the system can detect and predict community formation, it needs the inputs through the compound eye of the system to form the data set. The invisible rules of a community operating face to face are outside the vision of the system. The most dangerous thing to the synopticon is small groups of people meeting in person to form bonds.

Finally, the reformer in the synopticon must embrace the Gerasimov Doctrine. This is the Russian approach to modern war and politics. The days of nations facing off across a field in a well-define set-piece battle are long gone. War and politics have converged in the information age. Those color revolutions sponsored by American intelligence are good examples of modern war. The appearance of “little green men” in Crimea during the American overthrow of the Ukrainian government is another.

Domestically, this means something like systemic sabotage. The more bad data fed into the system, the less valuable the information it creates. The less valuable the information to the people relying on it, the less likely they are to trust it. In the information age, war is an information war. Jamming the system with bogus data is one front on that war. Similarly, causing unnecessary responses from the system wastes resources that could be used elsewhere.

This is why leafletting, for example, is a powerful weapon. It is cheap for the one side, but expensive for the system. Police departments running around looking for the person behind a leafletting campaign is a drain on the system. It also erodes the trust between the people reliant on the system and the system itself. The same would be true of sit-ins and candlelight vigils outside the green zone in Washington. It would turn one weapon of the color revolution against the people wielding it.

Another example of how a multifront war against the compound eye of the synopticon is the short squeeze ushered in by retail investors. The people reliant on the system assumed the other side was operating from predictable motives. When it turned out to be otherwise, they had no rational response. Suddenly, the financial class has a new front in their war on the middle-class. Do this a dozen times and the system is a giant swatting at flies.

This is the essence of the Gerasimov Doctrine. War in the information age is multidimensional and, irregular and ad-hoc. It is not about locating the enemy and engaging him in battle. The enemy is all around in the form of the system. This is particularly true for the reformer. Revolt in the synopticon is about hacking that system so it becomes unpredictable and unreliable. This means jamming it with bad data, depriving it of useful data and overloading it at its weak points.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

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142 thoughts on “Revolt In The Synopticon”

  1. I’m catching up on backlog of Z-blog articles, and these recent posts about the synopticon have struck a chord with me. It seems you’ve hit on a very important line of analyzing the shape that the modern administrative state has taken, and more importantly how to take advantage of its weaknesses. Any recommendations for more reading about something like this?

  2. “The most dangerous thing to the synopticon is small groups of people meeting in person to form bonds” Indeed. Hence the lockdowns.

    Leafs – An important word of caution: Every digital printer made in the last couple of decades marks each page printed with a series of pixels which uniquely identifies the printer used. You can’t see it, but it’s there for use by the enemy. Use a blue light and scan the corners, and you’ll find a small series of pixels which identifies the printer. Once you know where it is, mark it out On Every Single Print with indelible ink.

  3. Pingback: DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » Revolt in the Synopticon

  5. “leafletting, for example, is a powerful weapon”

    Leafletting is a tricky subject that requires a bit of caution in the modern world. There have already been several incidents of people identified and ruined from doing this — mostly “it’s okay to be White” messages, which is somehow terrorism these days. I agree that it can be done, but not without some measure of sophistication.

    Here are some general tips:

    1. Modern printers add a unique identifier code to anything printed, allowing authorities to trace the source. I would suggest going to a thrift store and buying an old printer with cash, then waiting approximately 3 – 6 months before leafletting. This will prevent anyone from tracing the leafs back to you because any security footage of you purchasing the equipment will have been erased by that time and any code in the message will be useless. For additional security, wear a surgical mask when purchasing any products used, glasses too. This will foil most face recognition.

    Regardless, do NOT use public facilities (libraries) to print your leafs as they all have cameras and their printers are logged. They can easily trace back the letters to the library you printed them at and spot you on camera printing them. Your face will be released publicly.

    2. Use cheap, disposable gloves available from your grocery store when handling the leafs. Also, consider using a hair net if your hair is long, easily falls out, or uniquely identifies you (use of a hair dye). Exposure to UV light may also make it more difficult for DNA typing your leafs. You can also steal blank paper in small quantities from public locations where they are handled. As long as you are wearing gloves (convenient excuse with covid), this will partly mask your identity or provide plausible deniability if you are brought to trial. Again, wait some period of time, a few months, before doing anything.

    3. Scout areas in advance to make sure you won’t get caught. Plant anything in a way that does not bring attention to yourself: plant leafs where other leafs are planted, add them to locations where they won’t be discovered for a while, plant them in the early morning or in the dark.

    One suggestion might be to make small messages along strips and add them to books in old thrift shops that don’t have cameras or in large areas where it will take some time to be discovered, meaning you’ll be long gone by the time they are found.

    Another is to leave multiple messages, using one to obscure the other. For example, you can print two messages: 1. save the whales 2. [second message]. Staple the whales message loosely over the second, covering it. Eventually, the first will blow away or fall off, revealing the message underneath. By the time that happens, you’ll be long gone. If the second message is cryptic, such as a website address coupled with some bait (“visit this website for a coupon for free pizza”), your chances of alluding detection increase that much more: only a few people will bother going to the website, so there isn’t an immediate stir of attention; it could fly under the radar, allowing you to reach a few high-value targets without being caught.

    4. Do NOT leave any message that could be considered a threat to public safety. There are investigations and then there are investigations. You don’t want the latter as that will involve the FBI. As Hans Gruber once said, “they will find you.”

    5. Print, don’t write.

    6. Give yourself an out if discovered. You can do this by writing negative messages instead of positive ones. Example: write “It’s NOT okay to be white” instead of “It’s okay to be white”. With the latter, you can be tarred as a white supremacist. If you’re discovered planting the former, you’re a hero; no one is ever fired in this country for being too woke. And the two messages accomplish the same thing: scaring Whites into solidarity with one another because they feel under attack. Imagine a suburban White woman encountering a message saying her kids’ all-White private school should be integrated due to “white supremacy and the legacy of colonialism.” It’s no loss to you (and you’ll be lauded a hero if discovered), but she’ll get offended.

    7. Use a variety of messages. Don’t just spread phrases like “it’s okay to be white” but post links to innocuous websites and other such things. This will go unnoticed until a lot of people see it.

    8. Post leafs in high value locations. The example of the thrift bookstore is good because smart people, and people with money, visit these locations. Converting just a handful of these people with an innocuous strip of paper with a website’s address, for example, is much more valuable than getting hundreds of normies to see your message.

    9. Do not talk to anyone else about your activities. Do not use social media or discuss your activities electronically, even using text messaging services which promise encryption. Apple has an arrangement where they pretend not to notice that they’ve set up their system in a way that allows the feds unfettered access to your text messages without a warrant. Google does the same for their email.

    10. Do not carry your mobile phone with you when you plant leafs. This is critical.

    There are other suggestions, but you get the message.

  6. Back in the late 19th century, unions used “work to rule” strikes to stick it to their Taylorist managers. Do exactly what’s in your job description, nothing more. If a task is in your job description, go through the Policies and Procedures manual and do exactly that, nothing more, nothing less (I’m updating the terminology for the modern world, obviously). Just a few people doing that, and fighting the inevitable “I’m just doing my job!” conflicts it entails, can bring an entire organization to its knees. And you can’t be fired for not doing your job, because you’re *precisely* doing your job. How many globohomo corporations could be paralyzed if, just for a day, those of us with the misfortune to work for them took the Human Resources biddies completely seriously, and did everything they told us… and nothing more?

    • My late dad, a white collar, used to obtain for our neighbors and their family members line manufacturing jobs when they needed the revenue. So even as a little kid I learned a lot about how union members think. In my small town, when domestic washing machines were made in a mile-long factory bisected by a highway, the union employees used to let the product run off the tracks into great piles after the whistle sounded which, naturally, would need to be cleaned up using union time when the whistle was reblown. The managers quickly stopped their attempts to sneak a few tens of extra units by the contracted-for hour negotiated. I would point out the huge factory is today a brown field and ten-thousand employees are no more.

  7. The last two posts remind me of Ted Kaczyinski’s manifesto. Not to be insulting, he was actually. brilliant man. Sadly, he lashed out in the wrong way.

  8. If your focus is on politics, the not only do you not recognize the enemy, you believe that you can play by the rules that the enemy has devised to win the war.

    As always, Z man is elegant in prose that does not much more than nibble around the edges.

    • Actually, I was thinking specifically of you when I wrote, “Half the population will also seek to assign blame to an individual or group of individuals. They simply lack the capacity to understand how events, ideas, and the system in which they operate can come together within a society.”

  9. One practical idea to feed bad info to our enemies. When making a social media account, always use a normal name, one that a potential doxxer might think would belong to a real person. I know that Antifa types spent hours to find out who the “former teacher” Daniel Ross was on Quora, especially as he was negligent enough to give some personal data about himself, like his actual name being Rossi.

  11. Spoken words are good, but speaking in an unusual language is even better. Remember what was spoken in Lord of the Rings, besides English? Elvish! Elvish is a real language invented by Tolkien, who was a professor of languages at Oxford University. It’s largely based on ancient Norse languages, such as those in which Tolkien translated from Beowulf and similar writings. It’s not just a bunch of nonsense words, but is a real language… like Klingon. I loved the scene with Arwen at the river. In Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring, when Arwen defeats the Ringwraiths after crossing the river, the words she speaks in that scene translate into English: “Waters of the Misty Mountains, hear the word of power, rush, waters of Bruinen (Loudwater), against the Ringwraiths!” (Nîn o Chithaeglir lasto beth daer; rimmo nín Bruinen dan in Ulaer!) Let the Local Spy Monitor try decoding that one! By the time someone actually translated your speech-they’d be dead. Sign language is also useful when you need to communicate in a clandestine way.

    • This is an old technique and generally how many dialects developed. The example I readily recall is in Japan where people in a valley would intentionally change the word for some common item, like a bucket, and if someone came in who didn’t know the word they’d know right away that they were a stranger.

      This is really hard in the modern age though. This is especially true for white people since if we started calling a bucket something differently in the morning the whole world would know the word by the end of the day.

    • It’s largely based on ancient Norse languages, such as those in which Tolkien translated from Beowulf and similar writings.

      It’s based on Finnish, a non-Norse language, and quite rudimentary except for the grammar – not useful as a real language, I’m afraid.

      But your point is well taken. I suspect the reason mainland Europe is much less pozzed than Britain, America and Australia is the language barriers.

      There are, for instance, extremely few non-Danish Danish-speakers outside Denmark, no troll farms in Tel Aviv patrolling Danish social media, and it shows. Our home-bred regressives sometimes try to import poz programmata directly from America and it rarely goes well: Danish has only one word for “gender”, denoting both sex and gender, so they constructed the neologism “social gender” which instantly reveals the contradiction in terms.

  12. The diffusion of responsibility within the system is a problem. Heck, I suspect that it would only be necessary to remove and replace 10K key pieces from the board in order to turn this ship around. Incidentally, I am increasingly being pegged as imbalanced whilst I gape back asking why everyone has gone insane. I find myself sitting in meetings thinking someone here is crazy, hope it’s not me.

    • Part of this is perhaps women. If I speak with the ladies I work with individually they can be pretty level headed, but get a couple of them in a room and inevitably the predominate pathology comes out as the basis for the conformity of the discussion.

      • This is because 1-1 conversations with women are usually filled with deception. Women will be agreeable when alone with a man because otherwise they are in danger. What you are reporting is that women lie to you to placate you in 1-1 conversations but when other people are around they reveal their true feelings. I think you have a blind spot here.

  13. As a practical matter, this means political resistance starts with community.

    The Commies use “affinity groups”, political action groups consisting of people you know and trust personally, with informal networks between them. So when you see Antifa in the streets they are quite correctly not an organisation, they are dozens of organisations who individually decided to participate in that event.

    So the difference between a cell and an affinity group, is that the latter is not integrated into a larger hierarchy but coordinate by agreeing on ad hoc goals. Even if they manage to arrest an entire group, they can’t use it for further arrests since there are no control officers.

    Reading texts is simple for the system. Reading e-mail is hard. Reading lips through CCTV cameras is impossible, despite what the movies claim.

    Back in the day, legend had it that handwritten letters sent by fax was the safest form of electronic communication, I suppose the same is the case with handwriting in JPGs.

    • If your paranoia level is truly through the roof you can make use of a combination of old and new school skulduggery in the form of the one time pad – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad. The old paper pads used by KGB and German intelligence alike can easily be replaced with a thumb drive or cd. Software can take care of the system’s only real weakness which is that you absolutely must never reuse the same part of the key more than once. If you do it right using truly random, not pseudo-random keys, OTP messages are completely immune to all cryptanalysis systems including any future sooper-AI-quantum-mumbo-jumbo-enabled planet-brains. The resulting messages cannot be distinguished from noise. If all you’re sending is text a single thumb drive full of key data should last many lifetimes. Of course you do need to have at least one secure meeting in-person to exchange keys so this is not for Bidenists who want to stay safe in their basements.

  15. An urgent request to the computer guys and forgers: the vax FreedomPass (Healthpass) databases and documents.

    This deviltry needs to be as rekt as the Obamacare website was when it was rolled out. It needs to be unworkable, and we need fake histories, dbase files, magstrip or chip cards, printable docs, the works, stet.

    • The state of Wyoming seems happy to help folks get started.

      Their health department has an e-doc of the current card posted in the public domain.

  16. This is an important post, in that it starts people on our side thinking about ways to throw sand in the gears. That’s always the question I have – I disagree with whats going on in our society, but what can I do about it?

    I remember reading Edward Abbey’s Monkeywrench Gang when I worked out West several lifetimes ago. The guy who gave it to me was in fact an EarthFirst’er, though I didn’t know it at the time. Its a great story and a useful read for those on this side of the divide.

    • Whenever an individual asks “What can I do about it?” my thoughts are in fact that they can do far more than they think.

      Just talking to a (potentially) like-minded person is good enough. After all, networking is the most important thing – and this is done using words as well as deeds.

      Perhaps you can (or do) have children? If you do, then if possible you can homeschool. If they must be put into a public school you can make attempts to familiarize yourself with the curriculum and de-program them when they come home. Or make sure they have ‘sick days’ during Gender Studies class.

      You can identify areas where work will be plentiful and your skills useful. You can speak the truth, first to those closer and then to possible converts.

      Even in the most basic case, even if all you do it preach, at least it is something. It all starts with words. Then words form networks. Then networks build things. Quite frankly, just being alive and reading this blog makes you a tiny piece of sand in the gears of society.

      • “Don’t be a traitor” is a good start for anyone looking to get in on the dissident community. If people can make that leap, siding with their own people above others, it would make great progress.
        It’s interesting that the statsi are shipping off “insurrection dissidents” to await trial in D.C., the thinking being that people elsewhere might not even issue a grand jury warrant for the offenses, so maybe a smidge of progress, maybe.

    • The Commies wrote all the books on this kind of urban guerilla warfare. We need to learn from them.

  17. “Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink.”

    Martin Lomasney (1859 – 1933), Boston politician

    • I’ve heard it attributed to Louisiana’s infamous Huey Long. My favorite, also perhaps his is the old line about he could get re-elected as long as he wasn’t caught in bed with a live man or a dead woman. Hell, nowadays those would probably HELP you get elected in some States 🙂

  19. It used to be that we had “Blue Laws” and suchlike. The general perception of the Oligarchy was that we were filthy sinners prone to self destruction, so the system of control revolved around instilling a moral character and punishing those people who deviated from the moral minimal ideal. Drug addicts. Perverts. Prostitutes. Armed Robbers. Etc. As you discussed, things are more like a prison now, where we are all inmates. The system is oriented around running the facility from a managerial point of view. So, they aren’t actually interested in anyone in particular. Rather, whenever a higher level manager inquires about a status or situation, the lower level managers have to appear to be in control. As long as the paperwork checks out and the stats are within normal tolerances, nobody will look at the details all that closely. The appearance of orderly, well managed control is the main thing. If the system were obviously evil, being a dissident would make sense to everyone. Unfortunately, it’s not obviously evil. A nutritious lunch has to be served in the prison. The managers are mainly just focused on making that happen for everyone. We are in the weird situation where we want to destroy the prison but we still want our free lunch from the prison. So we are the bad guys.

    • Not quite. We are paying for the prison and its lunch program. So I plan to take out as much as possible, whether I need it or not.

  20. Sounds analogous to what happened during the Reagan admin re: Soviet Union. The US was highly dependent on sigint for estimates on the Soviet economy and capabilities—and the analysts consistently produced reports that overestimated economic/capability growth. One guy got Reagan’s ear and suggested it would be better to put more humint on the ground to actually observe what was going on. He approved and the reports that came back suggested a precipice of economic collapse. See all the same signs of over reliance in the US domestic sphere. Hence the freakout over social media channels independent from the FB/Twitter/Google troika, Take away that visibility or gum it up with noise and the synopticon is blind.

    • This is a topic that has been discussed in private venues regarding things like economic and the intelligence services. People forget that western economists wildly overestimated Soviet economics, even though the Lada existed. We knew, for example, that the Soviets had abandoned their domestic computer research in favor of piracy in the 1970’s. Yet, none of this registered with the smart people who were supposed to know these things.

      • One of the 80s era non-fictions about Soviet Union (forget title) had some hilarious stories: The Soviets did do some of their own manufacturing, but carbon-copy knockoffs of US microprocessors. In 60s or 70s the Russkies somehow had gotten hold of a genuine IBM mainframe. When it malfunctioned they had to disassemble it and ship it to a warehouse in Helsinki where it was reassembled and only then was the authorized IBM service called 🙂

      • True. Also true, much of that puffery was intentional to increase IC budgets. We have the surveillance state, in part, as a direct result today.

    • Would you happen to have a reference?

      I was studying international politics back when the Soviet Union fell ,and as Zman says, not one in a thousand kremlinologists saw it coming six months in advance, except for a few broken clocks. Political science should have died that day, but they quickly dumped that embarrassing fiasco down the memory hole – a cause for optimism, I daresay.

      In that perspective, Trump is our Gorbachev, the guy who tried to save the old system. President Biden is Yeltsin, a deeply corrupt mafioso with only a tenous grip on reality and beholden to foreign powers. If the analogy holds, the future is ten years of soup kitchens and disintegrating government structures followed by a nationalist strongman.

    • Seems my post got lost, so apologies if this is a duplicate:

      But I am sceptical about the Reagan-story. I was studying international politics at the time and as Zman says, not one in a thousand kremlinologists saw it coming, except for a few broken clocks. People only started to catch on a few months before the Soviet Union was dead as a dormouse – whatever a dormouse is.

      If the analogy holds, Trump is Gorbachev, a last Hail Mary-pass to save the old system, Biden is Yeltsin, a corrupt mafioso with only a tenuous grip on reality who putsches the government.

      Look forward to ten years of soup kitchens and political chaos, a ten year drop in life expectancy, followed by a nationalist strongman cleaning out the stables.

      • Interesting analogy and thought exercise (both times it posted).
        If it holds, the 10 yr. soup line projection followed by strong man, would likely be compressed by about half – especially if accompanied by a 10 yr. drop in life expectancy (death from natural causes, or otherwise). For that to occur – seems there would be corpses in the streets – which would usher in Mr. Strong Man more rapidly.

      • I hope Trump is Gorvachev, but think he is Kerensky. I mean, where’s the glasnost? And if there ever were a totalitarian state that needed it ..

        The intelligence community missed a lot about the USSR and distorted more to pad its budget and to justify otherwise indefensible things, to be clear.

  21. The dissident right needs to embrace the concept of taqiyya in opposition to the cult. Which is especially hard for white people, with their penchant for pathological honesty.

    • that would be great. Bribing yourself into political power while pretending to be woke ain’t that hard in this corrupt age, though realistically speaking it will never gonna happen at a massive scale. Pretty sure, a good deal of white democrats are racist asf, problem is they also they hate their own people.

      • Like I said, YT just can’t let go of his pathological honesty – it’s one of the reasons he’s always losing.

    • I do this every day. I’m actually very polite and get along well with everyone.

      It’s a little awkward though when I meet a real taqqiya-er – I know who they are and they know I know.

  22. A few weeks ago I was chatting with a friend who used to run informants in Northern Island during the latter phase of the ‘troubles’. He told me that ‘tradecraft’ is now going old school again as they can’t risk informants being compromised by IT. So it is going back to messages written in very small writing on cigarette paper, rolled around a pin, sealed and then inserted into a ‘straight’ cigarette. To then be handed on, opened read and destroyed.
    We should get some books on old school tradecraft before they get banned!

    • Saw this in a movie, I think it was Goodfellas, “Never write when you can talk; never talk when you can nod; never nod when you can wink”. Updated for today, never put anything in an email or text.

    • Leftists have been operating in hostile environments for decades. Learn from them.

      Counter-surveillance and InfoSec

      ON FOOT
      • When leaving the home or office see what and who is around you.
      • Maintain a security parameter around yourself when walking down the street. Look for suspicious behavior that indicates a threat or surveillance.
      • Change sides, direction, or route if you think you’re being followed.
      • Look behind you occasionally in a natural manner.
      • Walk facing traffic so you can see cars approaching you.
      • Window shopping allows you to use the window as a mirror.
      • If you’re being followed, go into a store and buy something. This gives you a chance to watch the follower.
      • It’s easier to spot tails when it’s not so crowded.
      • At home, place items in a special way to see if they’ve been moved.
      • Change your appearance by changing your shirt or jacket.
      • When leaving a public meeting, change directions often, checking for tails.

      PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
      • Before getting on a bus, see if any suspicious people get on. If so take the next bus.
      • Don’t sit by the window: makes it harder to escape.

      INFOSEC
      • Never allow someone else handle your phone.
      • Use anonymous mobile phones and change them often.
      • Remove the mobile battery when going to sensitive appointments. Don’t turn it off, remove the battery. Turning it off sends a signal to the tower.
      • Never use BlueTooth.
      • Never use public wireless.
      • Never discuss anything over the internet, phone, through the mail, or in your home or car that you don’t want state security to know. Take a walk instead. NEVER discuss ops in a closed room: even a restaurant or pub can be easily monitored.

      REFERENCES
      • Surveillance and Counter-surveillance For Human Rights Defenders
      https://archive.is/2i92X
      • An Activist’s Guide to Information Security
      https://archive.is/ns7lb

      • At home, place items in a special way to see if they’ve been moved.
        —
        Day 1: “Placed item in strategic manner so that I will be able to detect changes in my personal environment”

        Day 7: “Wait, when did I buy that? Has that always been there?”

  23. One concrete action that everyone can take is to stop avoiding jury duty. Not only that, but try to get on them. It’s the last way that everyone can exercise real power in the system.

  24. The system is highly dependent on analyzing and manipulating public opinion via social media. Twitter has never made a profit, yet somehow persists. Why? Because it’s a color revolution vector for the (((State Dept))), and thus valuable to TPTB.

    One of my favorite tactics during the 2016 election was to create Twitter accounts of various ethnicities which spouted the exact opposite of what the algorithm would expect. This would tie up their employees in Mumbai who do not understand the intricacies of US political/ethnic relationships, and make the system overall less valuable to the elite. A black can get away with murder. Exploit it my n’ers.

  25. Similar to the guys who did the Gamestop short squeeze, perhaps a run on Bank of America to punish them for turning credit card data over to the feds. I am not sure how this would be done but if every Trump supporter with a BoA account took their money out on the same day it would probably get their attention. It would shake the whole system.

      • B of A on their own initiative searched their database for credit card transactions in DC on Jan 6 and gave that information to the FBI to help the hunt for heretics.

        Note that they did that without even being asked to do so, let alone having the records subpoenaed.

        • But as Z-man mentioned, the credit card trail would not have been there had folks used cash. One needs to think these things through. However, I also assume any number of those folk in DC on the 6th, we’re not subversives, but Joe Normie types exercising their “imagined” civil rights. We have a lot of educating to do.

          • If they knew the stakes, that they were dissidents, they probably wouldn’t have shown up. “Use cash, leave phone at home (or at least put in “blocking case”), disable cell in car if it has it, tell no one that you’re going and tell know one that you’ve been”, etc. is a lot to remember for someone who thinks that they’re just going on a trip for a long weekend.

    • Being inside the “machine” can assure you (from direct observation) that more of this fuckery is afoot. But these firms hate spotlights–so if you are in a position to collect this intel, do so. It may come in handy at a later date.

  26. In the panopticon, we’re all the Vietcong now. And just like the Vietcong, we should focus on the countryside, first.

    Create small zones of de facto autonomous areas – unofficially – and stop the state machine’s ability to tyrannize.

    If enough of us do this, it all comes crashing down.

  27. The Road Back (cont)
    Harden your shell.
    Don’t let the absence of bullets fool you. A memetic war is raging and it aims to kill you nonetheless. There are real psyops in progress that bombard us every minute of every day with repetitive insidious messaging designed to sow doubt, despair, and defeatism among the sane. It works largely because it’s a one-way street of relentless attack with no tangible means of fighting back. But you can fight back. First, block as much of it as feasible. Second, routinely reaffirm to yourself that the memetic programming did not work & you didn’t succumb. Third, visualize the message purveyor and mentally imprint their image on your targets when at range practice. It will improve both your aim and your state of mind.

    • Given your comment history – this ZMan essay appeared to be right up your alley.
      We may, or may not need a bigger boat, but we’re definitley gonna’ need more sand.

    • Who the hell is down-voting this?
      I like to imagine my targets as b. Seltzer. Sometimes dry-fire at the newscast.

  28. As far as the reality of information and what we call warfare goes, I understand this latest Zpost, and its very insignful.

    But theres the techno/political/info system, and then there are the philosophies behind it. I just opened vdare and saw the article linked below. The first few sentences tell us exactly what the philosophy being run through the system is: an Indian immigrant has more say in our lives than we do!

    I’m assuming we are talking about destroying this philosophy USING or at least accepting, the current system used to perpetrate and uphold the current philosophy of anti-white/Christian/male etc….

    https://vdare.com/articles/biden-s-immigration-plans-crazy-but-jayapal-demands-more-swing-state-democrats-worried

  29. What is wrong with the system, Z? Be specific, show your work. Also recommend changes to correct it, that are fair and allow everyone the right to make a living and work toward health and happiness. Present that in a legally sound and enforceable format…because at some point, if you tear down the present system, that is exactly what you will have to do.

    If you tear down “the system” without addressing the perps, you will end up with the same people doing the same shit in a different pile, if you would allow me to mangle a metaphor.

    Tell ya what. Arrest the presidential crime families. Do a JFK on Biden or Kamala. String up Mitt Romney. Stretch the necks of the higher profile abusers. The rest of those cowards would either run like chickens or toe the line. Do that before they do it to us. They are already ginning themselves up for it. It’s time to accept that this won’t end well… so it has to end worse for the guys that started it.

    Sorry for the fedpoasting… but I heard that the governor of Florida just told Joe Biden to go fuck himself, and has threatened to call up state troops to make him do it if he gets stupid about it. That is the message those guys need to hear, and that is the way to deal with them.

    • Its a good point.

      There is this new techno system and the philosophies that are being run through it. Philosophies, like Whites are and have always been, the greatest evil ever dumped on the unhappy Earth (peace be upon Her). These philosophies are far more problematic than the system, although, Z has mentioned a law that would make publishing someone’s image (and I would add social media posts) illegal. This would be basically a law against detraction, or spreading true things that need not be spread.

      But only a change in the philosophy can get a changed system, no? I think Z is saying to accept things as they are, the system as it is, and use it to change the philosophies, or at least discredit the current dangerous ones currently in vogue.

    • Gerasimov Doctrine: Whack-a-Mole

      We don’t want the lights to go out, the shelves to go bare, the troops to show up.

      We do want to ignore the multitude of trash fires. I care as much about Entertainment Weekly, Inc. Magazine, or Politico’s breathless takes as I do the articles in Bows & Buttons (NY’s Garment District) or Sports Illustrated (am allergic to sports.)

      The intent of whack-a-mole isn’t to poison the water system, or to bring the Revolution.

      The intent is to tie up the compliance enforcement, so that the schmidt-stirrers and commissars are busy chasing their own tails.

      We can then ignore them because they’re ignoring us, gleefully busy with the truly important mission of denouncing each other due to lack of performance.

      (Kudos to Felix Krull for bringing this up yesterday, and for the Zman’s meta philosophy translating into actionable philosophy. Please do continue in this vein.)

      • PS- “…the governor of Florida just told Joe Biden to go fuck himself, and has threatened to call up state troops to make him do it if he gets stupid about it. That is the message those guys need to hear, and that is the way to deal with them.)

        You betcha, so kudos to Glenfilthie for that, as well.

        Dear Kommissar: I didn’t fill out your paperwork, reply to your demand, or show up at your request? Well, file me in the Deshawntavious drawer then, squirt. He ain’t gonna show up either.

    • Promoting a State governor who tells the Fed’s to drop dead *is* putting sand in the gears. Even if the Fed’s nationalize the State militia (National Guard) as is codified in law, the point is made wrt States Rights. Now as to catching the big fish, that has never happened. Why does one think trying to do so again with work?

      • The time has come to start calling bluffs, C. Put all that in front of your rank and file squaddies Pick a side, because there ain’t no middle ground left. You can take orders from a pan-gendered Jewish man in a dress, or stand with your family and community. A good percentage – possibly the majority of lefties – want you either enslaved or dead. They are taking everything out of the system, and not putting anything in. They’ve been doing it for decades and it can’t continue. That is the problem, IMHO, not the system. Over 50% of the population is undermining the system, and is benefitting and/or actively being paid to do so. The system has checks, balances, and clear delineation of powers to prevent that, and they are being ignored and short circuited. Look at the impeachment fiasco where they manufactured evidence – the guys responsible for that should be in the can BY LAW. And – not a peep out of the press. If you do not enforce the existing rules against this kind of behaviour, how do you propose to impose a new system on them?

        We need to actively identify our adversaries and move against them because that is exactly what they are doing to us – with great success, I might add. They are coming for your guns now. Be smart and courageous, fellas. This is going to accelerate and escalate very quickly, very soon.

        The first wave of targets should be the journalists and editors. They are exposed and easy pickings. The rest will tread much more carefully when they have to answer for the hate that they preach. That alone would scare the living hell out of the rest – and make them start thinking. Look at how they shrieked and wailed in terror over the Capitol building protest. These people are TRASH. They are not disciplined, they are dumb as a sack of potatos, and yet we let them scare us and intimidate us? We need to tear down a perfectly good system because of them?

        I don’t think so.

        • Upvoted for spirit, but probably “too soon”, if ever. It feels good to be feared, but too many normies will abandon ship, many even refuse to give protest to the murder of Ashli Babbit because she was “trespassing” (the sentence for trespassing apparently being instant murder).

          • I’m pretty sure the Appalachian Corridor could be turned into a no-go Zone fairly easily. Incidentally, the myth of the twentieth century guys did a recent and excellent podcast on the Turner Diaries. Please excuse me, I just watched a video about the transitioning of a 6 year old boy and I am feeling fed-posty.

  32. In “To Build a Castle,’ the 1970s Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky explained how he exploited the Soviet Constitution, which actually guaranteed freedom of speech, etc., although the regime routinely violated those guarantees. He would challenge every action against him, appealing to the highest court. In Stalin times, that would have been pointless, getting a quick bullet to the head. But after the Khrushchev thaw in the late 1950s, there was a relaxation of severity, and some opening to the West, if only to get technology, grain and credits. He used it. That’s why I recently appealed a dumb, revenue-raising traffic ticked as far as I could. It clogged the system, as Z said. The cop had to make an appearance in court, meaning he wasn’t harassing citizens for half a day. The system had to pay for the judge, bailif, courtroom, etc. I lost, but it as worth it. Waiting my turn and watching other victims, I also learned this: at least where I live, half the cops don’t show up for traffic tickets, meaning an automatic dismissal. Use it.

    • “The system had to pay for the judge, bailif, courtroom, etc. I lost, but it as worth it.”
      This is the mindset that more of us need to internalize. Its not necessarily about the short gains, of “winning” in an immediate competition. Like Z and yourself have pointed out, its about clogging the system, overburdening its resources. Its about the long-gains, the competition over time.

      I admit, this was the last obstacle for me to overcome. I was raised to be a humble, good Catholic boy. Don’t overburden anyone, go the extra mile, hard work is a value in itself so work work work! Always lend a helping hand, even to those who would stab you in the back etc.

      While this is stoic in itself, it needs to be reigned in with clear standards and sharp rationality. I dole out my effort, my work, my devotion in a much more limited and strict capacity now. If everyone else around you is an oblivious and selfish moron adding to the immorality and corruption which will eventually destroy you, you aren’t helping anyone by “working hard” and “making sacrifices” for them. Reserve that for the few– the peaceful, the wise and humble ones.

      • > I admit, this was the last obstacle for me to overcome. I was raised to be a humble, good Catholic boy. Don’t overburden anyone, go the extra mile, hard work is a value in itself so work work work! Always lend a helping hand, even to those who would stab you in the back etc.

        In this age, we must take to heart Jesus’ message of being as shrewd as serpents and simple as doves. the passage about pearls before swine comes to mind also.

          • Yes! I’ve heard that if 10% of those who got tickets fought them, the system would collapse. I don’t know the percentage, but the idea holds.

            I find that usually going to court to fight will get you some personal advantage as well as tieing up the system.

          • The Christ and his apostles were rebels, fighting a corrupt, unjust system.

            (Hint: Not Rome.)

      • I believe the difference is that we are supposed to help those who cannot provide for themselves, but if we help those who can, we are weakening their own soul. Here is my passage for this:

        “For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good. If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed.” -2 Thessalonians 3:10-15 ESV / 17

    • Hmm, there is also a lesson from the English “Reformation”, really a top-down schismatic overthrow of the 1000 year long catholic society in England.

      There was a woman who was harboring priests, but she would completely confound her accusers with weird answers, playful red-herrings in attempts to confound the new protestant authorities.

      She was eventually crushed beneath a big weighted door but she did a lot of damage to the credibility to the usurpers.. I’ll have to look up her name…

    • One thing I learned in a school board fight over math curricula many years ago is FOIA and sunshine laws are a great tool to gum up the system and torture bureaucrats. They will resist, but half the fun is lighting them up over and over about non-compliance or failure to fully comply with legal requests. Like most creepy crawlies, they hate sunlight.

    • More of these “real life” examples of sand in the gears are needed. Please folks, keep posting them.

      • Corporations can be burdened too. Chain retailers here originally honored going maskless if one stated they could not wear one for medical reasons. HIPAA laws prohibited them from demanding proof. They eventually demanded mass compliance by offering to “do your shopping for you.” If you’ve time and inclination (such as a retiree) show up and tell them you cannot wear a mask. When they offer that alternative, sit in your car and enjoy your favorite book, music, or podcast. When your products arrive purchase one or none of the items and refuse the rest for whatever “reasons” you decide.

        • that particular example isn’t sticking it to big corp. it is just making life difficult for a drone

          • You could use a similar tactic, though, one I’ve used with great success: “I have a disability.” That’s all you have to say. Even if they call the manager, just repeat “I have a disability.” No manager is going to have the guts to ask you “what disability?” but if they do, feel free to unleash your inner Karen — how DARE you imply I’m not disabled?!? (It’s even true, because “inability to put up with these people and their bullshit” is a serious handicap in this day and age). Then just go about your business. Threaten lawsuits if they ask you to leave — after all, you’re *disabled*. That kind of thing makes it back up the grapevine to Corporate HQ real damn quick, trust me.

          • The “drone” is being kept busy, with pay and benefits from the corporation. He loses nothing in the exercise. The company is out his costs for that time period and their operation slows. It isn’t rocket surgery.

          • @p man : no benefits for part time, double the workers load because they will be expected to put it back before they leave to minimize loss, worker wont get why your doing this they’ll just think poorly of you. not that any of this would pierce the smug satisfaction of sticking it to big corp..

      • Yes. I would love to see a very long list of what throwing sand in the gears looks like. I like what I have seen here but I suspect you can throw sand in the gears even in everyday conversations.

        I find myself doing as much as I can to limit my participation with companies / entities that support globalization. It isn’t just about not supporting them or depriving them of another set of eyes on whatever it is they are selling. I simply don’t want exposure to their poison any more. I am withdrawing from them. But I want to do more than that. This is why it helps to read what others are considering.

      • Most of us do not actually know how very much of society works **in specificity**. At the same time, each person, due to their job, education, or background, probably does have a lot of rather detailed knowledge of some narrow slice of how things work. It might be helpful to compile all that knowledge into a kind of Necronomicon of gear sanding lore that we can all benefit from.

        Having studied such a Holy Book every man can then imagine each of the System’s shiny new plans for some novel tyranny as it might look covered in shit, magic marker dicks, and burning tar, with a thick sulfurous smoke rising up as a pleasing offering to the Lord 🙂

    • How is this any different from what black people do when they fight the cops and refuse to be arrested and stuff though?

  33. Straight forward plan:

    1. Form your own high-trust groups.

    2. Throw sand in the gears of the overall system – a system that will degrade on its own due to a number of internal issues – to increase the cost of occupation.

    3. When the system starts to become unable to carry out various functions required for a society to run, step into the void.

    4. Eventually create semi-autonomous areas/societies.

    5. Full break away. Our own ethno-states.

    I suspect that I could see steps one, two and even some of three. The remaining steps – the good ones – will be past my time. Oh well, time to plant some trees.

    • Citizen,

      Good list. I am younger than you and I doubt I’ll be able to rest under those mighty oaks either. So be it, Deus Vult. I love Him for placing the strife before me.

      A suggestion to all for Plan Step 1. Formulate your groups in their infancy around a tertiary cause… a “cover” so to speak. Something dear to Our People and innocuous. Western Lit Reading Club, bird watching, general prepper association, Highland Games, Polish-American or Emerald Societies, Art Appreciation, etc.

      Have a core group within that group of the like-minded and potential allies. Nothing official, just a circle within a broader sphere.

  34. sabotaging the system is indeed a better idea than revolting against oligarchs cause oligarchs like to hide in the shadowsa and they need the system to implement their evil ideas.
    imo the best way to sabotage the corpo-state is through laziness, apathy and going off-the-grid, don’t how many are willing to do so. There’s also the possibility of forced labor if things get out of hand.

    • If you look at Resistance to the Nazis in WWII, many small acts of sabotage were committed by individuals. Most of them didn’t require weapons in the conventional sense. If you work on your own, only you can spill your plans.
      Our country is set up for a high trust society; there are lots of potential weaknesses if you look into it…

      • I had a cousin who got a nazi SS uniform and motorcycle “the best way” to get one 😉 if you know what I mean. Then he forged papers and rode around eastern europe freeing jewish prisoners wherever he could.

      • that’s not why nazis lost the war, but i get the point.
        usa stilll is a white society in the sense that if whites don’t fulfill their duties state crumbles.
        No state = no one to do oligarch bidding
        jews might be in charge of usa propaganda, but whites are the ones performing the behind the scenes activities.

        • Why does everything eventually devolve to some anonymous poster blaming “the Jews?” Stop already, the Jews aren’t the cause of this. Evil people are, a few amongst them who might be of Jewish extraction, but these are not truly Jews in the biblical sense. Repent, after all enemies of Gods people tent not to fare well long term, I think there is a book about this,

    • “Sabotaging the system is indeed a better idea than revolting against oligarchs . . . .”

      Also because the oligarchs have the US armed forces at their disposal, soon to be populated only with mentally ill transgenders and Third Worlders more than happy to put us in camps.

      • I think the army turning on whites will happen no matter what.
        when i talk about westerners putting up a fight, that’s me hoping whites are gonna take down the tribe with them when it all comes crumbling down.
        i’m 100% certain the west is gonna collapse(probably later rather than sooner, cause life is shit and it wants to drag out the white man’s humiliation) mostly because the stupid, cowardly, dumb people outnumber the ones who still have some dignity and guts left.

  35. A solid post, with some good ideas. It is very important going forward that more people become aware of the criminal mindset and have the will to use it in small – but effective ways. I support the notion of forming real life bonds fully, both by starting a family and spreading the good word. In my personal experience, there is a huge amount of resentment currently in many people – but they are still in ‘deer in the headlights mode’. No action do they take.

    This year I have convinced my parents to move away from their declining neighbourhood. I have began planning for the homeschooling of my son (when he comes of age – good to be prepared), although my wife will be undertaking the homeschooling herself as I work… an excellent division of labour if ever there were one. Furthermore, we have looked at removing ourselves from Londonistan, which should really be any able families first step. Reviewing the curricula of schools in my area has been ample evidence to present to friends of the dangers of public schools, too. I have had encouraging feedback.

    However, the preaching is one thing. Getting people to act on it is a slow and painful process. But I don’t want to give up. I do not want to despair, although sometimes it is hard not too. Everyday brings more information of publicly funded lunacy spreading through once decent institutions. Quite honestly, now that I have accepted the war against The System, I can bring my focus to bear on it. One must try at least. Keep preaching.

    Another thing to consider, and I suppose it was alluded to in this piece as well as your last: just as The System has weapons to torment the people, so to do the people have (most of) the same weapons to torment the system. The biggest first step is the real life organization, and this must come first. Presumably, such organization could come about either as a totally new grouping centered around a core ethos (an environment that was safe for families) or be built from the crumbling ruins of another organization. In any case, it all starts with a meeting of two or three. I am not sure how many UK based readers there are here, but it’d be an interesting thing to meet up in real life, that’s for sure.

      • And a hearty endorsement of home schooling. My home schooling my children has paid off dividends in their calm, manners, and ability to analyze and think. To me, there is no choice but to home school now. There will be financial sacrifices, but they will seem minimal when you behold the outcome. Find groups of the like-minded for the kids to socialize with. And turn off the idiot box. And no computers in the bedrooms – keep them where you can see the screens at all times.

      • There is no choice but to home school now. Heck, I felt as if there was no choice almost twenty years ago when I began home schooling, but the system is even more poisonous now. There will be material sacrifices, but when you behold the outcome of a well-mannered, calm young adult with the ability to think and analyze, ir will have been worth it.

    • Network effects are real, and the fact you are taking the plunge and getting the ball rolling means it is going to be easier for others to join you.
      For example, a professor I know homeschooled his kids twenty or so years ago when it was extremely rare, learned what works, and created a co-op that is now run by one of his daughters that helps educate upwards of fifty children a year.
      This works as both putting sands in the gear of the system by creating a viable alternative, and creating a community that isn’t resisting the system as much as actively ignoring it. When the system isn’t something to be resisted, but something just ignored in a person’s day to day life, you’re accelerating the collapse exponentially without a shot fired.

      • You’re correct. It also creates something that can easily be defended positively: “You want to tax my school into oblivion? You’re anti-education!”. Nobody can seriously entertain the fact that it is something evil, which would be the case if ‘shots had to be fired’. That said, it will not be easy. Not by a long shot.

        By way of curiosity, did the professor give the reasons for his decision to homeschool his kids?

        • He loved his children and wanted them to have the best. Most wholesome guy you will ever meet.

      • Home school is now mandatory. Heck, I thought there was no choice back when I started it almost twenty years ago, but public and private schools are even more poisonous now.

        There are material sacrifices, but they seem very slight when you behold that calm, well-mannered young adult who can effortlessly think and analyze. Just make sure to find a group of home schoolers to associate with to give your children other children like them to socialize with.

        I sent mine to a suburban public high school to ease them into the madness. They were already inoculated against the nuttiness and came out of it wiser and ready to deal with the world in its present form.

        • Sorry for all these different posts. I kept posting and they weren’t showing up, so I would try again a little differently.

        • sort of off topic but I remember people arguing back 15 or so years ago that teachers should be paid as much as doctors because someone has to teach the doctors. The actions of the teacher unions have made me think: now do you realize why? I mean Borzoi’s wife wrote an article (link below) about how nursing, long a female-heavy profession, has gotten bastardized. Someone should do the same about the public school system.

          https://theamericansun.com/2020/05/13/the-age-of-the-tiktok-nurse/

    • The final paragraph makes an awful lot of sense:
      “This is the essence of the Gerasimov Doctrine. War in the information age is multidimensional and, irregular and ad-hoc. It is not about locating the enemy and engaging him in battle. The enemy is all around in the form of the system. This is particularly true for the reformer. Revolt in the synopticon is about hacking that system so it becomes unpredictable and unreliable. This means jamming it with bad data, depriving it of useful data and overloading it at its weak points.”
      However, I would suggest that the current system/set up more resembles a panopticon than a synopticon…at both a physical and a metaphysical level.
      Or, at an even further downscale, a honeycomb of small panoptic cells with the watchtower nuclei being constituents of a national or local electronic web reporting to hubs which constitute a smaller web where the ultimate power brokers and their enforcement arms reside, i.e. governments.

    • Isn’t even meeting up awfully difficult in the U.K. these days? The mass psychosis surrounding the COVID-19 virus has been a perfect cover to prevent even the most rudimentary means of organization.

    • Yes, and while our current problems are serious, we would all do well to remember the big picture. St Ambrose, Doctor of the Church:

      Sweet is this present life, but it passes away; terrible, O Christ, is thy judgment, and it endures forever. Let us, therefore, cease to love what is unstable, and fix our thoughts on the fear of what is eternal; saying; Christ, have mercy upon us!

      From the Ambrosian liturgy, 5th century

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