Dakota Beacon

"Philosophy should always know that indifference is a militant thing.  It batters down the walls of cities and murders the women and children amid the flames and the purloining of altar vessels.  When it goes away it leaves smoking ruins where lie citizens bayonetted through the throat.  It is not a children's pastime like mere highway robbery."  -- Stephen Crane

One of the reasons we have lost our country and our freedom is . . . well, I guess I have to say it:  YOU.  

Let me explain.  I have written twice in this magazine about the problems associated with the City of Grand Forks partnering with The Fu Feng Group, a China-based company directly associated with Xi Jinping’s geo-political economic assault on the nations of the West - his Belt and Road Initiative.  There is no point in attempting to make the case that this is “private enterprise”.  “Private” does not exist in China and it most certainly would not and could not in the state-sponsored Belt and Road Initiative.  

It is understandable that people with lives of their own might not have been following the machinations of Xi Jinping with respect to commerce, manufacturing and wholesale acquisition of farmland and other real estate in erstwhile-free countries like the United States.  For anyone who is interested, this program was initially known as “One Belt One Road”, which succinctly sums up its intent.  It is an echo of the romanticized old “Silk Road”, a trade route that in medieval times brought the riches of the East to the West for whatever was bartered in trade.  For the Chinese, who love magical-sounding names for brutish programs, it was just the thing.  Now, however, its “one world”, “my way or the highway” intent has been tailored to sound less threatening.  Now it’s just the “Belt and Road Initiative”.  The Belt is the land connection, the Road is the sea connection.  

So, while this project has focused on creating debt traps for emerging and developing nations in the Third World, it has been surreptitiously acquiring other assets as well - key ports, such as Greece’s Piraeus, vast agricultural lands (China has pursued a policy of forcing their own farmers off of the land and out of production - check this out for yourselves) and now it is focusing its laser beam on military base locations such as Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas, near our border, where they have bought 200 acres of a ranch next door.  That’s a lot of land, son - and the large plot near the Grand Forks Air Force Base.  

If the officials running Grand Forks think that this attention by The Fu Feng Group is flattering, they need to do some homework and find out who else is courted by the BRI.  It is not a compliment to be noticed by BRI.  If Grand Forks is not poor or “developing” enough or strategically located enough, geographically, what could be the draw?  It’s not because we are a glittering, exciting place for these people, it’s not because we are such achievers that they want to hitch their wagon to our star.  No.  The only thing that can possibly have distinguished Grand Forks in the eyes of Xi Jinping is the Grand Forks Air Force Base.  

I have been around long enough, personally, to remember when it was first established and the many times since when it has escaped base closings through the years - always with local people making the silly case to the federal government that we “need” it for our economy (as if the feds cared).  For better or worse, the base has survived and its mission has changed to one of intelligence gathering and processing.  It is a major facility for this within our federal network.  It is the Air Base, not the “great people of Grand Forks” which is bringing China to our door.

So, back to my argument that it is YOU, not some villain out there, that is costing us our country and our freedom.  Last week I sent an email to my whole mailing list.  Earlier, one of my correspondents had urged me to “fight it with all your might”.  So I thought, why not look at ways to do this?

My earlier experience with the City taught me something very important.  A highly placed employee of a government agency in North Dakota advised me once, about another project, that as an individual citizen I did not really have access to the “process” but if there were a group of citizens that was organized for the purpose it would have such access.  It would have a real voice.  Applying this principle to the present case, and it makes sense here, I wrote to everyone on my mailing list.  I asked them to respond if they were interested in this.  

Maybe there are reasons to support it that I don’t know.  I did watch one after another of the citizens who cared enough to show up at the City Council meeting last month go up to address the council.  They all had very good and sound reasons why they opposed this.  I watched the entire proceeding and there was not one person who came forward to support the idea of this project - a wet corn milling plant.  But their concerns fell on deaf ears.  After hearing a 100% objection by everyone in attendance, the council voted nearly anonymously (with one “nay”) in favor of going ahead.  This speaks volumes.  Obviously only an organized and concerted effort could slow this down or stop it.  There is just too much money waving above the heads of these officials for them to stop.

I said that if I received some indication of interest I would set about putting together an informational meeting - invite people who had knowledge of these projects, who had information relative to national security questions, who could tell us about the impact of such a plant on the community, etc.  I would try to get as much information for us to use as possible.  Who knows?  It might even have allayed our fears.  Knowledge is - or could be - a powerful asset.

I got one reply, and that was not a commitment to show up at such a meeting.   It was basically a commiseration, not a commitment.  I have said, and I do mean it, that if no one else cares about this I will not put up a fight with all my might alone.  I will fight as hard as I can with others, but no longer will I do this stuff alone.  I have finished that phase of my life.

So I put it to you - who do you think is responsible for our devolvement into a cheap dictatorship?  America was once the symbol of freedom, a beacon of strength, a society that was interested in human rights.  Now what are we?  I would say America is now a pauper among nations, debt-ridden, scandal-ridden, a social disaster in serious decline and now we must own up to the fact that our leaders have seen fit to establish bioweapons labs around the world with some of our worst enemies and some of the most corrupt governments on the planet.  Here I refer specifically to Ukraine and China, but there are plenty more.  And our leadership is taking sides with “New World Order '' dictatorships like Zelenskyy’s just in order to protect the corruption and the evil our country is fostering there.  Our own economy is going to hell and our freedom is nothing but a sweet memory left to the old folks.  Our kids don’t even know what it is.

The reason this has happened is not some evil force or villain or even bad luck.  It is happening and has been every day because people just like YOU have sat back and waited for others to put up a fight.  I will make an exception for those who have tried to demonstrate that they are thinking humans capable of rational action, but that is sadly not the majority of you.  Even the two correspondents referenced herein above have done way more than most of you have.  I know this will reach some who have done more than their fair share of fighting for freedom, but we can all see that a few soldiers, a few knights, are not enough.  

This is an existential battle we are in.  You have been lulled by your comfortable lives into believing that the war was won in 1776 and then again by your granddads in 1945.  Not true.  It is a fight that must be fought and won every single day you are alive.  If you are not up to that fight, don’t think someone else is.  

My offer is still open.  If you are interested in attending or participating in an informational meeting where citizens can ask questions and get answers from experts and people who have information to share with us, let me know.  If I don’t get messages of support and commitment I’m done.  I am surveying this in the latter part of my life - a life that has been devoted largely to fighting for freedom and people’s rights, mostly against the petty governments that have most to do with destroying them.  Others have a long life ahead of them.  Maybe your kids.  Maybe you.  I will not be very sympathetic to your cries later - if I hear them - about the mess our country is in.  If it is, it got there because of you and your failure to act, to think.  It is because you are too comfortable.  Comfort, it seems, can be taken away so easily, just like $2/gallon gas.  Think about it.  

Do you have any questions or concerns about the Fu Feng project?  Do you think it is a bad thing or a great and golden opportunity to work with China?  Your views would be heard either way.  

I have a few questions and I wrote some of them down in my email:

1) The obvious national security problem - it would be very near the Grand Forks Air Force Base, which is a key intelligence installation for the U.S.

2)  The environmental costs - the potential for pollution of our air and water

3)  The drain on our resources - the use of our water supply for this plant

4)  The unfair tax structure - local businesses and property owners; the city is planning to exempt this project - massive as it is - will not be subject to the taxes local businesses pay.

5)  The City of Grand Forks - in other words the people of Grand Forks - are expected to spend $100 million on infrastructure "investment" for this 

6)  The Chinese are theoretically going to put in over $300 million on their end, which will give them a lot of control over the city and people of Grand Forks

7)  Although "100s of jobs" are promised, the Belt and Road projects use only Chinese labor 

8)  We could easily become more than adversaries with China - we have seen what transpired with Russia and Ukraine.  We have allowed our country to become involved at the very least as advocates for Ukraine as a knee-jerk reaction - what will be the position of the US government, not to mention society, in the very likely event of Chinese aggression?  Will we find ourselves in an extremely awkward and possibly dangerous or at least disadvantageous position?

9)  Will we compromise the effectiveness of the air base for intelligence purposes?  Will an incoming administration decide to close the base if so compromised?  If so, would China care to remain in this facility?  If not, we could lose both the base and the plant.

10) Will this huge Chinese investment also bring in dangerous levels of 5G?  Do we want to create a health hazard with this?  We are learning that 5G is extremely dangerous to humans and plant life and undoubtedly to livestock.

11) There will likely be an increased strain on our local budgets for other things such as our school costs, hospitals, etc.

12) Should we be wondering whether the air base is the chief reason for locating this facility here?  We do not grow substantial corn crops in this region - a more likely processing site for a corn mill would be Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois or even southern Minnesota - not the plains of North Dakota

13) During the initial and most deadly stages of the recent Covid pandemic the hardest-hit areas were those in which Belt and Road projects were located - northern Italy, Iran, etc., as well as Wuhan itself, of course.  Would not such a large facility with "so many jobs" not make this a vector for the next disease invented in Wuhan's labs?  We are being told every day by credible sources - Fauci and Gates et al, that we are to expect another, far worse, pandemic is coming months/years.  Is it wise to become a bulls-eye for this?

14) We all know that China uses forced labor, that they are deeply involved in human trafficking, that they are horrific abusers of their own people, that they punish those who hold religious beliefs and those who express objection or disagreement with their policies - they are, in other words, thugs.  Do we, as a community, want to go into business with such an entity?  The representative of the China-controlled "private enterprise", Fu Feng, claims he "knows nothing" about slave labor, that "his" company does not use forced labor.  Whether "his" company does or not, we all know that the government that controls it does.  They also engage in live forced organ donations.  Evidence now shows that they use children in this heinous practice.  What kind of moral flexibility must we cultivate in order to make peace with this company and the government which controls it?  We all know, or should know, that there is no such thing as an independent "Belt and Road Initiative".  This is a CCP project.  It is a tool of the CCP government.  It is a form of economic warfare.  This has been as much as admitted by Xi Jinping.  Do we want to become a part of this enterprise?

15)  Our Constitution demands "equal protection" of our laws.  It makes no exception for North Dakota or for China's BRI.  This scheme does not provide equal protection - it violates our Constitution.  We cannot have one set of laws - such as tax laws - for one business and another for a different business.  It also provides that foreign policy is not to be engaged in by states or any level of government other than the federal government.  This is, in effect, a matter of foreign policy, and especially so in view of its proximity to the air base.

16)  Apparently, no other such companies either from friendly allies such as Japan or European nations or even American ones (Cargill of Minnesota has been mentioned) have been courted.  Why not?  Why only China?

Maybe you see your concerns here.  Maybe you have others.

It is interesting that people will go to a city council meeting but will not organize to be effective. 

Perhaps we are in the deadly grip of fear.  Too often innocent citizens gather to protest or ask for relief or just express concern or an opinion on a public matter only to be infiltrated with FBI operatives.  Someone will show up and produce a Nazi flag or emblem, someone will get up and say something designed to bring a backlash.  Too many people have been persecuted with threats to their peaceful lives, to their jobs, too many have been arrested on false charges, just as in Tsarist Russia.  We know that dozens of people remain jailed today without being charged.  At least two have died in prison for doing nothing but showing up at a rally in Washington.  Others have stood by, helpless, while the IRS or the FBI have seized their computers or cell phones on suspicion of disagreeing with someone.  If this is enough to stop us then we can say they have won.  Not “fair and square” but by their own rules.  If this is the case, and we are now too cowed to even meet together (and maybe we should be) then we have nothing left to talk about.  We are there.  We have finally reached the square on the game board when it’s over.  We are now in the Soviet Union of 1950.  Our Stalin is just a withered and bumbling old man who has lost his mind, but he fronts for the real powers.  America is over, in the rear view mirror.  We are history - a glorious history but a very short one.  Our day in the sun lasted no more than about 200 years, a nano-second in the annals of history.  I don’t know what to do if we have reached that point.  You tell me.

If we have not reached that stage of rigor mortis, then we must act before we do.  You know how to reach me.  The ball is in your court.