Ninety-nine red balloons
Floating in the summer sky
Panic bells, it's red alert!
There's something here from somewhere else!
The war machine springs to life
Opens up one eager eye
Focusing it on the sky
When ninety-nine red balloons go by
German Band: Nena, “99 Luftballoons”
By now most people in America know that China launched a “red” balloon and successfully navigated it across America and over some of our most sensitive installations. I am a Montanan living just south of Great Falls and the ballistic missile fields that are overseen from that location. To say the least, I was concerned, and many fellow Montanans watched the news or the skies waiting for an explosion. Either our Department of Defense would defend our airspace and shoot it down in a blaze of glory, or maybe there was something explosive on the balloon that would also be triggered. Neither happened, but I was reminded of growing up in Belgrade, Montana in the 70s and 80s, ducking under my desk in school wondering even then how thin walls and a classroom desk would save us from something like a nuclear blast.
The American people are rightfully upset that this single balloon crossed our country unhindered. We knew where it was from, China even admitted to it and called it a weather balloon. They were right that it was taking the temperature of a nation. We looked to the sky and knew there was something here from somewhere else, it was spying on us, and our administration simply watched. Thank you to Larry Mayer of Billings, Montana for taking a picture of the balloon, if he had not we may never have known.
Angered and alarmed, Americans turned out in large numbers on television, radio, and podcasts to call out the administration for its lack of action against a threat to our nation. I was one of those Americans. It is time to admit though that the balloons that have us looking to the sky are worth noting, but spy balloons come across our shores every day and we are not upset enough. We better get there, or we will find ourselves homeless on the land our forefathers built. These “balloons” look different but are equally and maybe more dangerous.
1. Exchange Students – Chinese students attended colleges and universities across the country. Keeping an eye on them and spreading propaganda are an estimated 80 collegiate-level and 500 high school-level Confucius Institutes. Controlled by the Chinese Education Administration they are there to influence Americans and report on Chinese student activities.
2. Congressional Girlfriends – Eric Swalwell is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Chinese influence at all levels of government.
3. Land and Business Ownership – throw a rock and you are likely to find land or a business owned by the Chinese. From several businesses in West Yellowstone, Montana to land purchases in multiple states like Arkansas and Mississippi, the Chinese either publicly own a lot of America or own it through proxies.
4. Social Media/TikTok and Tech – our technology is infected with the cancers of spyware, malware, and many other means of collecting personal data. TikTok is banned in a number of state governments across the nation now, but America’s desire for followers, clicks, and likes is an addiction the Chinese are happy to feed.
5. Trade Manipulation – it is no mystery that the Chinese have used our desire for things against us. We buy what they make, they take our money and buy up as much of the world as they can. Free Trade should be free, instead, it has come at the price of selling our independence overseas.
6. Intellectual Property Theft – anything we can make the Chinese can copy and make cheaper. From movies to microchips, airplanes to asthma medication, it is copied and sold. In my younger days, I bought a lightweight jacket in South Korea and was asked which logo I wanted embroidered on it. This is what China does on a global scale. They steal our intellectual property.
7. University Grants – money comes with strings attached. When China is the source of money going to American colleges and universities we should expect there to be many strings. Professors and teachers who dare teach the U.S. Constitution accurately do not last long.
8. Immigration/Invasion – China considers itself at war with America and has for a long time. The open Southern land border, the open and seemingly unguarded skies to the north, and barely controlled waters around America are the invasion routes. No Trojan Horse required China, just walk, float, or sail on in.
9. Globalist Organizational Control – the United Nations, World Economic Forum, and many other global organizations have Chinese Communist Party members in key positions. They do not do this for philanthropic reasons.
The lyrics of the 99 Red Balloons song fit America over the last two weeks, we focused on the sky, except the war machine did not spring to life. It stayed in the basement instead. If we as a nation keep allowing all the other “trial balloons” to cross our shores we may live out another part of the song:
Ninety-nine dreams I have had
In every one, a red balloon
It's all over and I'm standin' pretty
In this dust that was a city
If I could find a souvenir
Just to prove the world was here
If we do not start thinking like the Chinese and ask ourselves why they are doing the things they are, we will be looking for souvenirs of America in the “ashes” of what we once called home.
