Greetings Friends,
Let's talk about
Beau of the Fifth Column….
A little
preface: While researching the
political scene in 2020, looking up politics, civil rights, BLM, gun violence,
and of course T**** and his crime syndicate that raped and plundered our democracy
for four years, I found a wide range of information on YouTube spanning the
whole array of issues from every point of view, far left, far right, and
everything in between. As I watched a police officer murder George Floyd, I
knew it would touch off violence all over the country, just as it had so many
times before, and I dreaded how the racist, soulless T**** administration would
react to even peaceful protestors after witnessing his acceptance of neo-Nazis
and Klan members earlier during his rule. Appalled at the stand the
conservative right (I'm being polite, I usually have less complimentary names
for the racist hate-mongers, which is also being polite.) represented on every
single issue, I leaned left. I tried to stay objective and fair, but early on
realized there was little if anything the GOP had to offer that I could defend
– most of their blatant, criminal behavior was completely unspeakable,
certainly un-American, much of it nothing short of insane.
But I digress. I
found solace in the sane voices of Elizabeth Warren, Former President Obama,
Joe Biden, AOC, Jake Tapper, Dan Rather, Sarah Kendzior, David Cay Johnston, Craig Unger, The View, Stephen King, and
entertainers like Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Randy Rainbow, Ron Perlman,
Robert Di Nero, Alyssa Milano, and many other voices of sanity who, though it
was impossible to extinguish the burning ache in the pit of my belly during
four years of hell, at least let me know that I was not the only American being
gaslit by the psychopaths in control.
Every time I pulled
up liberal politicians, journalists, or entertainers on YouTube, this icon of a heavily
bearded, baseball-hat-bedecked guy under the handle 'Beau of the Fifth Column' (@BeauOTF) kept popping up. I kept wondering why, with all the liberal-leaning
folks I was accessing on YouTube, this redneck-looking guy kept appearing in my
sidebar.
Finally, I thought
to myself, "Okay, maybe this dude is more middle of the road, or at least
has some intelligence," and in the spirit of objectivity I opened up one
of his videos.
Before I was a third
of the way through the video, I realized that as much as I consider myself
open-minded, I'd judged a book by its cover, and shame, shame on me.
Beau of the Fifth
Column, aka Justin King, from that very first video, has educated me,
clarified, exposed, and reported on current and historical events in a calm and
reasonable manner, and in five- to ten-minute videos (usually two per day) put
most of my high school Social Studies courses to shame.
I consider myself a
moderate liberal (there is only one issue I lean conservative on, which is
another blog).
Beau is a liberal,
describing himself as an adversarial journalist – which is accurate.
I learned a lot from
Beau over the past 18 months, but the most valuable lesson is that the way to
sift through all the propaganda and politics to unearth the truth: When you're
reading or watching news, absorb it as a human being – not as an American,
black person, white person, man, woman, male, female, gay person, Democrat,
Republican, rich person, poor person, liberal, conservative, professional
person, unemployed person, or religious person. Just as a human being
considering how the issue will impact neighbors, animals, and the earth. If it
breathes, it hurts – just like me. Treat every living being with compassion and
generosity, and respect the earth which sustains every living thing.
If you start
listening with that kind of mindfulness, with genuine concern about living
beings, and the earth, instead of just profit margins and political talking
points, you begin to understand how much nonsense we're force fed every single
day by the government and media that feeds off of it.
In the midst of a
decent community, struggling to thrive despite a corrupt, thieving, elitest
government, Beau is a voice of reason who leads the way through the myriad of
distractions slung in our faces every time we power up a communication device. He
reminds us with every broadcast that we have minds that need to be opened,
expanded, and are capable of critical thinking necessary to sift through the
lies, and hearts that beat strong leading us to embrace everyone in our
community – everyone – and share equally our bounties as well as our scarcities
– and when members of our government betray our trust, we have the power to work
in our communities and come up with solutions for ourselves. If we work together
in our neighborhoods, cities, counties, states – we can create our own changes
and build our own futures. We all should have each other's backs.
Beau reminds anyone viewing
his channel that just by listening – really listening – to people we find out
that there are no others – there is just us: people trying to raise our
children and maybe leave our little smidgen of the world in better shape than
we found it. That the ripple effect is real – your every action has an impact,
has consequence, not only for you, but for your family, neighbors, and planet.
Beau, with his every broadcast, reminds us of that. All people with open minds and hearts should be listening. More importantly, all people who've been misled and gaslit by propaganda and lies, whose hearts have hardened against their neighbors and who have forgotten what's really important in life should be listening. Because we all need reminders – Beau brings us a couple a day – every day – on his channels and website.
Links and
quotes:
Beau of the Fifth
Column (main YouTube channel)
The Roads with Beau
(Second YouTube channel)
https://justinking.org
www.facebook.com/beautfc (Facebook)
@BeauOTF (Twitter)
TheFifthColumnNews.com
(Journalism outlet)
PontiacTribune.com
GreedMedia.com
SleeperCells.US
Quotes that appear
on his web page:
"The capital of
the United States is the home to the best of the worst humanity has to offer. The
most corrupt, the most deceitful, the most tyrannical, the most greedy, and the
most evil rise through the ranks of the political machines and eventually find
themselves safely in bed participating in the incestuous orgy of corruption
occurring daily in Washington DC." – Justin King
"If you allow
the law to determine your morality, you are letting lawyers and politicians teach
you right from wrong." – Justin King.
