Living in Little Somalia
Industrial-grade fraud
On 9 December 1992, US Marines rolled up on a beach in Somalia, to blazing spotlights and CNN cameras rolling, launching a UN-sanctioned invasion of Mogadishu.
And thereby hangs our tale.
I really don’t understand why folks are so shocked by the graft and corruption in Minnesota’s welfare programs. Even in scale it hardly rises to “interesting,” when compared to the Big Picture.
If you begin with the premise that an organization can grant itself the power to steal your money at gunpoint, convince you it’s legitimate, and make any public accounting of those funds as opaque as possible, then we can only conclude that all governments everywhere and at all times are nothing more than criminal rackets. If that is the foundation, then anything that organization does is corrupt and depraved.
So the US, with the UN’s blessing, invaded Somalia on the premise that corruption was preventing “aid” from reaching the little people. This was essentially sending Al Capone to arrest Lucky Luciano.
After the US made a complete wreck of Somalia (it was only a partial wreck before), Uncle Sugar imported thousands of “refugees,” who for some unexplainable reason, settled in Maine, Minnesota and Ohio. Naturally, these folks formed a ghetto like all other immigrant groups who’ve come to the US (see New York City). They maintained their language and customs, elected their folks to city, county, state, and national office, and quickly learned that the US is a level of corruption that makes the rest of the world look like a two-bit street hustler.
The Somali story in Minnesota is a microcosm of the larger system. Dozens of phony NGOs are set up, piles of grants and “aid” are poured in, the money is distributed with everyone involved getting a taste. Substitute military contractors, large-scale public works, “educational” organizations — any government-supported collective — for NGOs, and it’s the same game. It’s been going on since Hammurabi licensed beer breweries.
Deep down inside, do we really believe that the billions and billions shovelled into the Ukraine actually went into the national economy? Are we sure all those weapons weren’t just sold on the black market, with the proceeds being divvied up among the grifters? How about the $45 billion worth of gear abandoned in Afghanistan? No profit sharing scheme there? If SpaceX can build a Super Heavy booster and Starship for $90 million (the largest, most powerful rocket ever), does it really cost $1.1 billion for a Patriot missile battery?
Governments are essentially legalized mobs. They stake out territories and specialize in certain “goods and services”. They set up cut-outs that look legitimate on the surface, but are just window dressing, having almost nothing to do with operations behind the scenes.
There is a relevant case study in the Houston Police Department. A number of years ago, they put out an internal directive defining “gangs” and how to spot them:
Gang-related tattoos, symbols or graffiti that match known identifiers linked to criminal street gangs.
Hand signs, colors or clothing worn consistently to show affiliation.
Associating with known gang members in documented gang crimes or being arrested with them for offences consistent with gang activity.
Frequenting documented gang areas (territory recognised by law enforcement).
Recruiting others, including online or via technology.
This essentially describes the police and law enforcement. The only significant difference is that government agencies claim legitimacy for themselves and exclude all others. Government is a protection racket:
Threat → Offer of Protection → Payment → Enforcement → Legitimacy (Real or Fake)
The Somalis were forcefully removed to the US because of a mess the US caused and/or exacerbated. The states of Minnesota, Ohio and Maine lobbied to take the “immigrants” as cheap (read slave) labor on behalf of corporate interests. The governments (state and federal) used the Somalis in a money laundering scheme. The Somalis were set up with cut-out corporations and billions of dollars were funnelled to them from the taxpayers. Those dollars were then filtered out to various NGOs and politicians as “donations” or other innocuous transfers. In keeping with a protection racket, the government (after getting caught) stepped up to “enforce” the law.
Create the problem, offer the solution, the guilty walk away rich. Classic Hegelian Dialectic. If taxpayers get too nosy or insistent, whip out the race card.
Maybe it’s just me, but this operation is so transparent as to be ridiculous, and perhaps that’s a defense mechanism. It’s so obvious that it can’t possibly be true. And the Somalis are just one tiny piece of the entire operation, which has (to date) stolen some $34 trillion from US taxpayers. All those borrowed dollars have nothing to do with offering the “legitimate” government services and payroll.
The Somali scandal might result in a few high-profile arrests and perp walks. It might even get a sitting member of CONgress defrocked and deported, but I doubt it. However, the politicians and corporations who benefitted from this scam will never be called out. They never are.
And business will go one as usual. Government will continue to scam taxpayers using an infinite number of variations on a theme, and taxpayers will continue to be shocked for about five news cycles before moving on to the next Big Thing.
There’s a reason I haven’t voted since 1992 — (coincidentally?) the year the US filmed its Somali “invasion”. I realized then that the entire thing was a mob operation and I wasn’t going to participate in my own captivity. It’s amazing to think that the seeds of a scandal in 2025, were planted in 1992, and no one saw it until now. I can only ascribe that to willful ignorance — if you refuse to acknowledge a problem exists, then you shirk the moral obligation to take action.
As Linda Ellerbee liked to say, “And so it goes.”
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Today’s cinematic fare is a bit on the nose, but relevant at so many levels: Wag the Dog (1997). Based on the novel American Hero by Larry Beinhart, this Barry Levinson flick throws some high-powered stars at the issue of government creating problems to justify its existence. When the film came out, I was working in broadcast news during Desert Storm, and I experienced the story happening in real life. I saw the film more as a documentary than a comedy. Worth revisiting.
Mocking the mayhem on the Far Side:
E-book: Paper Golem: Corporate Personhood & the Legal Fiction
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Simulacrum - "something having the mere appearance of another thing," hence "a specious imitation." From the old French 'simulacra'.
The dissemination of "Reality" has become informational, downloaded via electric signals. Choose wisely which signals to accept.
Mass formation is the scariest part of this. As Larken Rose put it, "I don't fear the dictator. I fear all the people who carry out their orders."(Paraphrased)
This is total mafia cult style + technology. A banker's paradise. All borrowers are servant to the lender. US is the guy who does most of the dirty work.
It's amazing to me that people don't realize representative democracy doesn't actually exist. It's like when men say, "We just found out we're pregnant." That's clearly never going to happen, but it sounds comforting, maybe. Reality is somewhat different. There is direct democracy of, by, and for the people, or there are bankers and their oligarchy making all the rules over the masses, while robbing them of all they have.