Craig “Pasta” Jardula talks with the people of Maui in the wake of the Lahaina Fire. They share their stories about the night of the fire, their opinions on the Government’s response, and their journey moving forward. Craig also explores the community aid camps where Locals are directly helping Locals, providing basic necessities to thousands of people impacted by the fire.
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“But these weren’t the kind of monsters that had tentacles and rotting skin, the kind a seven-year-old might be able to wrap his mind around—they were monsters with human faces, in crisp uniforms, marching in lockstep, so banal you don’t recognize them for what they are until it’s too late.” ― Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Enough already.
Enough with the distractions. Enough with the partisan jousting.
Enough with the sniping and name-calling and mud-slinging that do nothing to make this country safer or freer or more just.
We have let the government’s evil-doing, its abuses, power grabs, brutality, meanness, inhumanity, immorality, greed, corruption, debauchery and tyranny go on for too long.
We have seen this convergence before in Hitler’s Germany, in Stalin’s Russia, in Mussolini’s Italy, and in Mao’s China: the rise of strongmen and demagogues, the ascendency of profit-driven politics over deep-seated principles, the warring nationalism that seeks to divide and conquer, the callous disregard for basic human rights and dignity, and the silence of people who should know better.
Yet no matter how many times the world has been down this road before, we can’t seem to avoid repeating the deadly mistakes of the past.
This is not just playing out on a national and international scale. It is wreaking havoc at the most immediate level, as well, creating rifts and polarities within families and friends, neighborhoods and communities that keep the populace warring among themselves and incapable of presenting a united front in the face of the government’s goose-stepping despotism.
We labor today under the weight of countless tyrannies, large and small, disguised as “the better good,” marketed as benevolence, enforced with armed police, and carried out by an elite class of government officials who are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions.
For too long now, the American people have rationalized turning a blind eye to all manner of government wrongdoing—asset forfeiture schemes, corruption, surveillance, endless wars, SWAT team raids, militarized police, profit-driven private prisons, and so on—because they were the so-called lesser of two evils.
Yet the unavoidable truth is that the government—through its acts of power grabs, brutality, meanness, inhumanity, immorality, greed, corruption, debauchery and tyranny—has become almost indistinguishable from the evil it claims to be fighting, whether that evil takes the form of terrorism, torture, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, murder, violence, theft, pornography, scientific experimentations or some other diabolical means of inflicting pain, suffering and servitude on humanity.
At its core, this is not a debate about politics, or constitutionalism, or even tyranny disguised as law-and-order. This is a condemnation of the monsters with human faces who walk among us.
Many of them work for the U.S. government.
This is the premise of John Carpenter’s film They Live, which was released thirty-five years ago and remains unnervingly, chillingly appropriate for our modern age.
Best known for his horror film Halloween, which assumes that there is a form of evil so dark that it can’t be killed, Carpenter’s larger body of work is infused with a strong anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, laconic bent that speaks to the filmmaker’s concerns about the unraveling of our society, particularly our government.
Time and again, Carpenter portrays the government working against its own citizens, a populace out of touch with reality, technology run amok, and a future more horrific than any horror film.
In Escape from New York, Carpenter presents fascism as the future of America.
In The Thing, a remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic of the same name, Carpenter presupposes that increasingly we are all becoming dehumanized.
In Christine, the film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel about a demon-possessed car, technology exhibits a will and consciousness of its own and goes on a murderous rampage.
In In the Mouth of Madness, Carpenter notes that evil grows when people lose “the ability to know the difference between reality and fantasy.”
And then there is Carpenter’s They Live, in which two migrant workers discover that the world is not as it seems. In fact, the population is actually being controlled and exploited by aliens working in partnership with an oligarchic elite. All the while, the populace—blissfully unaware of the real agenda at work in their lives—has been lulled into complacency, indoctrinated into compliance, bombarded with media distractions, and hypnotized by subliminal messages beamed out of television and various electronic devices, billboards and the like.
It is only when homeless drifter John Nada (played to the hilt by the late Roddy Piper) discovers a pair of doctored sunglasses—Hoffman lenses—that Nada sees what lies beneath the elite’s fabricated reality: control and bondage.
When viewed through the lens of truth, the elite, who appear human until stripped of their disguises, are shown to be monsters who have enslaved the citizenry in order to prey on them.
Likewise, billboards blare out hidden, authoritative messages: a bikini-clad woman in one ad is actually ordering viewers to “MARRY AND REPRODUCE.” Magazine racks scream “CONSUME” and “OBEY.” A wad of dollar bills in a vendor’s hand proclaims, “THIS IS YOUR GOD.”
When viewed through Nada’s Hoffman lenses, some of the other hidden messages being drummed into the people’s subconscious include: NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT, CONFORM, SUBMIT, STAY ASLEEP, BUY, WATCH TV, NO IMAGINATION, and DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY.
This indoctrination campaign engineered by the elite in They Live is painfully familiar to anyone who has studied the decline of American culture.
A citizenry that does not think for themselves, obeys without question, is submissive, does not challenge authority, does not think outside the box, and is content to sit back and be entertained is a citizenry that can be easily controlled.
In this way, the subtle message of They Live provides an apt analogy of our own distorted vision of life in the American police state, what philosopher Slavoj Žižek refers to as dictatorship in democracy, “the invisible order which sustains your apparent freedom.”
Tune out the government’s attempts to distract, divert and befuddle us and tune into what’s really going on in this country, and you’ll run headlong into an unmistakable, unpalatable truth: what we are dealing with today is an authoritarian beast that has outgrown its chains and will not be restrained.
We’re being fed a series of carefully contrived fictions that bear no resemblance to reality.
Despite the fact that we are 17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack; 11,000 times more likely to die from an airplane accident than from a terrorist plot involving an airplane; 1,048 times more likely to die from a car accident than a terrorist attack, and 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist , we have handed over control of our lives to government officials who treat us as a means to an end—the source of money and power.
As the Bearded Man in They Live warns, “They are dismantling the sleeping middle class. More and more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for slavery.”
We have bought into the illusion and refused to grasp the truth.
From the moment we are born until we die, we are indoctrinated into believing that those who rule us do it for our own good. The truth is far different.
The powers-that-be want us to feel threatened by forces beyond our control (terrorists, pandemics, mass shootings, etc.).
They want us afraid and dependent on the government and its militarized armies for our safety and well-being.
They want us distrustful of each other, divided by our prejudices, and at each other’s throats.
We are little more than expendable resources to be used, abused and discarded.
In fact, a study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens. Instead, the study found that the government is ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover, the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups.
In other words, we are being ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism—a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people are seen as mere subjects to be controlled.
Rest assured that when and if fascism finally takes hold in America, the basic forms of government will remain: Fascism will appear to be friendly. The legislators will be in session. There will be elections, and the news media will continue to cover the entertainment and political trivia. Consent of the governed, however, will no longer apply. Actual control will have finally passed to the oligarchic elite controlling the government behind the scenes.
Sound familiar?
Clearly, we are now ruled by an oligarchic elite of governmental and corporate interests.
We have moved into “corporatism” (favored by Benito Mussolini), which is a halfway point on the road to full-blown fascism.
Corporatism is where the few moneyed interests—not elected by the citizenry—rule over the many. In this way, it is not a democracy or a republican form of government, which is what the American government was established to be. It is a top-down form of government and one which has a terrifying history typified by the developments that occurred in totalitarian regimes of the past: police states where everyone is watched and spied on, rounded up for minor infractions by government agents, placed under police control, and placed in detention (a.k.a. concentration) camps.
For the final hammer of fascism to fall, it will require the most crucial ingredient: the majority of the people will have to agree that it’s not only expedient but necessary.
But why would a people agree to such an oppressive regime?
Fear is the method most often used by politicians to increase the power of government. And, as most social commentators recognize, an atmosphere of fear permeates modern America: fear of terrorism, fear of the police, fear of our neighbors and so on.
The propaganda of fear has been used quite effectively by those who want to gain control, and it is transforming the populace into fearful, compliant, pacified zombies content to march in lockstep with the government’s dictates.
This brings me back to They Live, in which the real zombies are not the aliens calling the shots but the populace who are content to remain controlled.
When all is said and done, the world of They Live is not so different from our own. As one of the characters points out, “The poor and the underclass are growing. Racial justice and human rights are nonexistent. They have created a repressive society, and we are their unwitting accomplices. Their intention to rule rests with the annihilation of consciousness. We have been lulled into a trance. They have made us indifferent to ourselves, to others. We are focused only on our own gain.”
We, too, are focused only on our own pleasures, prejudices and gains. Our poor and underclasses are also growing. Injustice is growing. Inequality is growing. A concern for human rights is nearly nonexistent. We too have been lulled into a trance, indifferent to others.
Oblivious to what lies ahead, we’ve been manipulated into believing that if we continue to consume, obey, and have faith, things will work out. But that’s never been true of emerging regimes. And by the time we feel the hammer coming down upon us, it will be too late.
So where does that leave us?
The characters who populate Carpenter’s films provide some insight.
Underneath their machismo, they still believe in the ideals of liberty and equal opportunity. Their beliefs place them in constant opposition with the law and the establishment, but they are nonetheless freedom fighters.
When, for example, John Nada destroys the alien hypno-transmitter in They Live, he delivers a wake-up call for freedom. As Nada memorably declares, “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I’m all out of bubblegum.”
In other words: we need to get active and take a stand for what’s really important.
Stop allowing yourselves to be easily distracted by pointless political spectacles and pay attention to what’s really going on in the country.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the real battle for control of this nation is taking place on roadsides, in police cars, on witness stands, over phone lines, in government offices, in corporate offices, in public school hallways and classrooms, in parks and city council meetings, and in towns and cities across this country.
All the trappings of the American police state are now in plain sight.
Wake up, America.
If they live (the tyrants, the oppressors, the invaders, the overlords), it is only because “we the people” sleep.
“The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining supercapitalism and Communism under the same tent, all under their control. Do I mean a conspiracy? Yes, I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, incredibly evil in intent.”
~ Rep. Larry P. MacDonald(Note: Lawrence McDonald was killed (likely murdered) on Korean Air Lines 007, 1983, a few months after making this statement.)
To begin, I will preface my remarks by saying that this is an attempt to explain in simple terms, very complicated financial and economic crimes being used against Americans, and also against the entire world population, in order to create and sustain total control over humanity. This is meant to manifest itself in the concept of one world governance, the ‘Great Reset,’ or the New World Order. This may seem a bold statement; it is not, but once you understand that everything that has happened over many decades is linked, especially since the plotted and premeditated false flag event called ‘9/11,’ you should be able to recognize the massive number of obvious connections that are incredibly evil.
It has recently become more prevalent by mostly alternative news sites and bloggers, to put forth the notion that many are waking up, and that the people are winning the battle for freedom. In my opinion, this is just not so, and in fact is misleading, as false hope is the driving force of this thinking. It is evident that more are claiming to be against government tyranny, but absolutely nothing has been done to reduce or eliminate the power of the State at any level to date. In addition, the nefarious efforts of the State and its controllers continue to expand, and the drive toward more draconian policies is never-ending. In the current environment, it is not known what the reaction by the masses might be considering the vast and imminent array of so-called ’emergencies’ that are certain to arise as this controlling cabal seeks to advance its agendas, but if the past is any indication, compliance should be expected.
The takeover framework of these ruling psychopaths is based always on the prototype of problem-reaction-solution, of which all are fake premeditated events and false emergencies; conspiracies in fact, meant to instill fear, hatred, or confusion, so that the State can pretend to come to the rescue of its hapless slave-class. This strategy has worked most every time it has been tried to date, and the herd continues to simply go along, regardless of the erroneous rhetoric being spewed that this populace is winning. It is not, and so long as the State continues and succeeds in its push to remake and transform society, whether psychologically, financially, or economically, the power of the ruling class and its governing system, will advance its wealth transfers, its monetary monopoly, and its depopulation efforts.
Psychological manipulation and control is necessary in order for the State thugs to accomplish their mission of world takeover, but financial and economic control is mandatory. This brings us to the real question; who owns and controls this world? It is certainly the big banking cartels, including all central banks, the large corporate magnates, the government protected NGO foundations, and of course, the entire global asset industry, which by 2020 controlled well over $100 trillion dollars. But who owns and controls all of these entities? Who has controlling interest in everything on earth? That is Blackrock and The Vanguard Group, and as I explained a year ago:
“There are a few thousand institutional investment firms that own every large bank, every large corporation, every large investment firm, every ‘news’ outlet, every large communication company, every large pharmaceutical company, every large transportation company; in other words, most every large company on earth is owned by these institutional investors. In turn, the small institutional investment firms are owned by larger institutional investment firms, and the larger investment firms, are owned by even larger investment firms. The two institutional investment companies that are the major owners and controllers of all the others in the world are Vanguard Holdings and Blackrock, and Vanguard is the largest shareholder (owner) of Blackrock. What this means is that Vanguard and Blackrock own and control this planet.”
The current CEO of Vanguard is Tim Buckley, and of course, the head and founder of the powerful Blackrock institution is Larry Fink. It should be noted that Fink and Blackrock have attained a position of extreme and almost infinite power over finance and economics, and according to many are now the fourth branch of government. The connections of Fink are incredibly telling of the power wielded by Blackrock. Blackrock effectively has control of the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury, as well as banks around the world. It should be noted that Fink was appointed to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Board on August 22, 2019, the onset of the fraudulent ‘covid pandemic,’ which was set up, solidified, and begun, the same month that Fink took his seat on the board of the WEF. To gain a full picture of Fink and Blackrock’s history through today, watch this superb documentary by James Corbett; “How Blackrock Conquered the World.” In it, Corbett explains with full reference in video and text, how the entire ‘covid’ hoax was staged, and was first and foremost a financial takeover coup led by Blackrock. This connection of dots and people is of vital importance.
As I mentioned earlier, this is a very simplistic view of events, but it is necessary to tie a few things together in order that all can be seen to be completely connected; which would indicate a vast conspiracy that has been propagated over a long period of time. All so-called ’emergencies’ since the fraudulent 9/11 inside job, have much in common, and why would they not, as the main agenda of world governing domination was always the goal sought. Consider just three events, but there are many, many more, over that time.
The buildings that came down on 9/11 were turned into powder, an impossibility with fire caused by jet fuel. Consider that cars far away from any fire were burned to nothing, with melted metal, aluminum, windshield glass; all as if by spontaneous combustion. But the same thing happened in the Paradise, California fires in 2018, with many similarities, including the incredible damage to automobiles not even in the path of fires that had to be well above any heat level of a wildfire. The same also just occurred this past month in Lahaina, Hawaii. How could this be? It could not, unless similar or exact methods of destruction were plotted beforehand, and carried out by criminal State (military) means. And this is happening around the world as well, all falsely explained away by the complicit and controlled mainstream media.
One very telling aspect of all these bogus ’emergencies,’ from 9/11 to Maui, is that Wall Street and the financial firms, the institutional asset firms, central banks, defense contractors, and military-controlled tech companies, and of course this includes Blackrock, tended to gain huge profits, capture (steal through land grabs) more property, government contracts, and massive bailout money, while walking away from disaster far richer and more powerful than ever before possible. This happened with 9/11, the 2008 finance and housing collapse, the fake ‘covid’ plot, and now with the ultimate weapon against humanity, the completely illegitimate ‘climate change’ agenda; and this agenda placed Blackrock at the top of the heap worldwide, of this criminal fraud.
Each and every emergency brings about a bigger and more powerful State, more restrictions, more regulation, more mandates, more lockdowns, less travel, and more surveillance and censorship. This is all by design, and never coincidental or accidental, as all is a deliberate plot against humanity. Regardless of political considerations or parties, this assault against us all is ongoing, and forever expanding. Every incident, every manipulation, every ’emergency,’ has been planned far in advance, and the world takeover is now closer at hand.
While the state continues to build its new world order, the general population is consumed by one after another false flag event, claimed ’emergency,’ or new ‘threat,’ as stated by the ruling class bent on taking over the world. While the masses are at each other’s throats, the state continues its drive toward total domination. What this indicates is that the people are complicit in their own slavery due to their inability to see the big picture, while concentrating on every distraction thrown at them by this evil ruling force.
What is being ignored is that this world has already been taken over and is being fully controlled by the very few, and the fighting of one against another is continuing to aid in this takeover plot. By concentrating on each and every tyrannical distraction, the people have left themselves open to dictatorial management, and in the process have lost all ability to stop the totalitarian usurpation of their lives and property at the hands of the financial cabal bent on world rule.
By treating each indiscretion as independent of the real agenda being sought, nothing is being done to stop the state in its efforts to fully control all people on earth. By participating in the political and ‘voting’ process; a process designed and implemented for the single purpose of control, by concentrating on the political side shows, by attempting to use corrupt government courts to gain redress from tyrannical maneuvers, by accepting the ruling system as legitimate, by allowing the Federal Reserve and all banks the ability to monitor and control assets through complete digitization, the lowly people are digging their own graves.
It may already be too late to continue this asinine exercise in futility, as the ruling class few are in control of the systems that will allow them to complete their takeover plot. The only answer to this evil attempt to destroy us in favor of the few most powerful, is to negate all government, to negate and abolish the federal reserve system, to disallow any and all control by the banking cartels, to stop any and all efforts to monopolize the economic and monetary system’s efforts to create and implement any central bank digital currencies, and to not accept any new feigned emergency concerning health, fake ‘climate change,’ war threats, unnatural events, or any other intentional criminal acts meant to cause undue fear among the seemingly helpless proletariat.
The people are not winning; they are losing, but this deadly assault on humanity can still be reversed if even a small majority stand up and take responsibility for their own lives and freedom. If the current trend continues, if the bulk of this population persists in hiding from the truth, if most expect others to save them, all will be lost, but if any true actionable awakening by large numbers becomes evident, the state will fold. This will never happen with any election, and no politician can change the course we are on, as depending on any master participating in this evil governing system, is the epitome of failure, and can only lead to eternal enslavement.
“The one thing man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by a World Government, a New World Order.”
“Whoever lays his hand on me to govern me is a usurper and tyrant, and I declare him my enemy.”
~ Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
We are in the midst of a heinous crime in what is falsely referred to as the ‘American’ State of Hawaii, so vile and evil, that it should sicken all who have any remote possibility of exhibiting mental acquaintance with truth, compassion, or empathy. The State’s attack on the people of Maui was in my studied opinion, premeditated, brutal, murderous beyond explanation, and targeted to achieve a preconceived agenda which was the total destruction of Lahaina by extreme property devastation and mass death of much of the local population. This was necessary in the mind of the State in order to steal the land and rebuild based on the World Economic Forum and U.N. plan for captured cities, as evidenced by the evil piece of garbage governor, Josh Green, who immediately claimed he wanted to acquire by theft the purposely destroyed land and property for the State, while smoldering embers still burned, and bodies had not been found.
Today, I went to the ten top mainstream news sites searching all news stories, and did not find a single story about the Lahaina fires, except one showing the slimy Biden sleeping while at a meeting with Maui victims; this after offering these victims $700 per family after they had lost everything, including many of their family members. In other words, this story has been purposely scrubbed from view, not different than what happened after the intentional chemical fire devastated East Palestine, Ohio, and left that town and many others with deadly pollutants. A tall black fence was actually built around the town of Lahaina, at taxpayer cost of course, and a no fly zone order was given to hide the gruesome murder scene from any view and scrutiny.
What is insanely troubling about the reporting concerning this horrific crime in Maui by all mainstream outlets, and even many alternative sites, is that most continue to call this a ‘wild fire,’ while the evidence of such nonsense does not exist. The anomalies and reactions to this so-called ‘natural’ event, are staggering beyond recognition, and reek of the stench of total corruption at the highest levels. This was a land grab of epoch proportion, but it was much worse than that, as high death counts were pursued by the State thugs, as they locked the residents of Lahaina inside the rings of deadly fire likely caused by directed energy and microwave attacks; creating fires that were strategically targeted, with heat that was in some cases double that of any wild fire. This was clearly evident given the melting of aluminum and steel, and also the melting of automobile windshields which requires heat at or above 2,500 degrees. Cars were melted where no evidence of a fire was even present, and the scene looked eerily similar, almost exact, as to what happened in New York on September 11, 2001. This is not coincidental, it is apparent, and telling of a pre-planned slaughter and mass destruction.
The fires in Maui that were said to have been caused ‘naturally,’ a brazen lie, were almost identical to the fires in Paradise, California as well; fires that were targeted, burning homes to white ash without burning trees or plastic, and in areas desired by the State criminals for rebuilding so-called “smart cities.” In Lahaina, homes of the very rich were magically spared, as were certain state buildings, grand hotels, and other areas of State favor. But the homes and families of the local residents were attacked head on, with absolutely no regard for the lives or property of these innocent people. The ‘crime’ supposedly committed, as seen by the State, was not bowing down, and giving up their homes and lives voluntarily, so a direct false flag action of slaughter and murder was created to complete the State’s agenda of land theft. To hell with the people and their property was the private battle cry of these State politicians and their murderous enforcers called police.
No sirens were turned on even though there were 80 active sirens on Maui. All water was turned off so fires could not be fought. Wi-fi was turned off, as was most all electric power. Roads out were closed, and police roadblocks were manned to forcibly keep all the residents inside the fire perimeter, causing purposeful mass death. Schools were shut down, so that children were home alone when these intentional fires raged through Lahaina, and many burned to death without help from any State service. The real numbers of deaths are still being hidden as far as I can tell. In addition. before and after the fire, speculators were attempting to buy these properties, and while bodies were still unfound, the government announced its intentions to buy up this land. None of these are coincidences, but the State and its complicit media would have you believe that all of these, and many, many, more impossibilities are all coincidental. How could anyone with two brain cells to rub together, buy into the propagandized narratives being presented by the evil State?
I fully realize, especially considering the nearly complete lack of any ability to think critically by the masses, that what I am presenting here will be ignored by a very large swath of the population. The long-term dumbing down of individuals, and the now digitally-manipulated population, has embraced indifference to such an extent, as to have escaped all reality. In fact, common sense, logic, and reason appear to be nearly non-existent generally speaking. It is much easier for the collective herd to believe the State narratives than to do the work necessary to ferret out fact and truth. Unfortunately, the ruling class understands this weak and apathetic trait that seems to have captured the very large percentage of dead men walking among us. How much more obvious corruption, lies, and murder at the hands of the State will have to take place before any majority comes to terms with the reality that this world is ending in favor of mass slavery and depopulation? Will the flock ever fight back?
The forced annexation of Hawaii, the staged Pearl Harbor attack, the world wars, Operation Northwoods, MK Ultra, the Cuban missile crisis, the JFK assassination, Operation Gladio, U.S. aggressive invasion after invasion, Desert Storm, 9/11, the Patriot Act, the War of Terror, the fake ‘covid pandemic,’ bogus ‘climate change, intentional chemical spills, and weather geo-engineering; these just a few of the major false flag events, and government terror operations that have taken place. Now there are deliberately set fires in Canada, all over the U.S., Hawaii, Australia, Turkey, Greece, China, and many other areas, and the sheep continue to hide their proverbial heads in the sand.
Everything happening is planned, and being done intentionally in order to achieve a particular agenda. This has been outlined, discussed openly, warned about, written about in policy journals at the WEF, WHO, U.N., and most everywhere else I might add. The big picture has been discussed for decades, and the agenda being sought is a one-world governing order, where the ‘elite’ rule all, and the rest of us are slaves of the State. This agenda is as clear as day, so why cannot the lowly collective herd see that the way to achieve this evil goal is for the State to destroy the current system in favor of a system that will allow the control of everyone? Each planned event, whether fire, weather, war, geo-engineering, bio-weapon production and use, fake ‘viruses,’ and every so-called emergency, are staged only to create fear and panic through economic devastation, property theft, (land grabs) monetary and transaction digitization, mass surveillance, and total censorship.
Will the blind ever see, will the deaf ever hear, will the dumb ever speak, or will the bulk of this dependent and lazy population, simply sit back locked inside their cell phones and ‘social media’ absurdity, waiting for the end of times?
No one should forget or ignore what happened, and is happening in Maui. Your neighborhood could be next, and what chance will you have given the advanced weapon systems being used against us by the military industrial complex, and its controllers? The government controls nothing, as all politicians and their enforcers are fully controlled themselves, and act on orders from the real ruling class. Denounce them, abandon them and eliminate them, so that the real rulers will have no cover!
“I have certain rules I live by. My first rule: I don’t believe anything the government tells me. Nothing. Zero.”
If you listen to conventional economists, everything’s rosy: thanks to the expansion of alt-energy like wind and solar, energy is getting cheaper, batteries will power the new global economy, we’re getting smarter — just look at the rising number of advanced college degrees, wages are finally growing, inflation is trending down, household balance sheets and corporate profits are strong, debt loads are not an issue yet and GDP is rising.
All this happy news is backed by statistics, of course, but there’s one little problem: all the conventional cheerleaders are living in a bubble of like-minded elites who are insulated from the neofeudal realities of life in the real world.
Outside the bubble of wealthy, protected elites that generate the statistics and the “news,” the global economy is completely, totally neofeudal–and so is the American economy. What does neofeudal mean? It refers to a two-tiered socio-economic system in which an aristocracy owns the vast majority of the wealth and collects the lion’s share of the income, and uses this financial dominance to buy political and narrative dominance.
In a neofeudal arrangement, the machinery of governance protects and enforces elite dominance. Cartels and monopolies have free rein to price-fix and exploit, tax revenues flow freely to cartels, elite organizations such as family trusts get tax breaks, and so on.
In other words, “the market” is rigged and the government maintains the status quo.
Toiling away to enrich the aristocratic owners of capital are the serfs and peasants, who own a tiny shred of income-producing capital. Their primary assets–the family home and vehicles–are actually income streams for the wealthy who collect the mortgage and auto-loan interest paid by the serfs.
The core dynamic in neofeudalism is the already-wealthy increase their share of the wealth, and everyone else sees their meager share diminish. As the charts below show, the vast majority of financial gains generated by the US economy flow to the top 0.1% of households. The top 1%’s share has risen by 40% while the bottom 50%’s share of the wealth has slipped to 3%–essentially signal noise.
Social mobility is limited to the occasional serf clawing their way into the technocrat class, the top 5% who slavishly serve the interests of the financial aristocracy. This class lives in a self-contained, protected bubble: an echo chamber of privilege, residential enclaves, jetting around the world, and so on: everything’s great because we’re doing great.
Life is good in the bubble because there’s no homeless encampment a block away, there’s plenty of money coming in and our wealth–401Ks, inherited bonds and rental property, university pensions, corporate stock options, and so on–increases smartly, year after year and decade after decade.
That all this wealth expansion is the result of unprecedented central bank intervention is left unsaid. As noted above, the role of the state and central bank is to maintain the status quo of the already-wealthy increasing their share of the national wealth and income, and loading more (very profitable) debt on the serfs. (See student loan debt chart below.)
Outside the technocrats’ privileged bubble, wages’ share of the economy have been stripmined by the aristocracy for 45 years. Oh dear; could this be why I’m having such trouble finding low-wage reliable “help”?
While wages inch up, costs of shelter, utilities, debt, vehicles, public transport, childcare and other essentials soar. Please glance at the chart of wages and rents below. This is neofeudalism in a nutshell. Wages have flatlined (or fallen when measured in purchasing power) while rent has steadily increased, eating away at the serfs’ disposable income.
Inside the technocrat class bubble, everything’s wunnerful. AI will boost profits (all of which flow to the aristocracy, so that’s wunnerful), energy’s getting cheaper and more abundant, and so on.
Oh, wait. Alt-energy only looks cheap because all the full lifetime costs have been ignored (i.e. externalized), and these modest additions to our vast hydrocarbon consumption aren’t actually replacing hydrocarbons, they’re simply adding more energy for us to consume.
In other words, conventional economists and the other technocrats maintain their privileged bubble by clinging to a delusionally disconnected-from-the-real-world mindset. There’s always a slew of academic papers or think-tank / corporate reports to bolster the inside-the-bubble confidence that everything’s great, because generating positive narratives that leave the neofeudal structure untouched in the primary industry of the technocrat class.
If you want to understand the neofeudal reality, study these charts. There are no rebuttals, there are only sputtering obfuscations: b-b-but the mission to Mars! Taylor Swift raked in a billion bucks! OnlyFans pulled in $5 billion! Stocks are rallying! Everything’s great!
Sure–if your dose of Delusional is high enough. Then you can go back to complaining about air travel delays, finding someone to repair your pool pump and bragging about how well your investments are doing.
“Western civilization is a loaded gun pointed at the head of this planet.”
~ Terence McKenna
The word civilization from Latin is civis, which means citizen, and civitas, which means city-state. It is seen as ‘enlightened culture’ instead of barbarism. A more modern take on the Latin root of this word would be a society which has developed a writing system, government, production of surplus food, division of labor, and ‘urbanization.’ The two trouble spots here are the false belief in the necessity of government and of urbanization. Both indicate collectivism instead of the individual and independent rule, in what should properly be a voluntary society. Regardless, a so-called ‘civil society’ today is what would be thought of as a mature, progressive, and non-barbarous state of ‘superiority.’ The ancient Greeks clarified this as far back as the fifth century BCE, and felt themselves above others who were not as worthy in their minds. As time passed, a citizen was not just a resident of a particular area, but in reality, became the property of the State, or more accurately, a lifetime indentured servant.
A common truth that should be recognized, is that in order to be a citizen in the modern world, one must be considered of secondary importance to the State or nation, and therefore a pawn or slave of that State or nation. After all, initially, ‘citizenship’ is decided simply by state of birth, or by parent’s state of birth. Each individual has no say in their original and usually lifetime citizenship, and this classification, as in herd animals, is a label decided by the ruling political class. This is not any indication of freedom, as should be quite obvious, but is a pronouncement of inferiority to rule, which negates from birth the individual in favor of the State. There is no need to get further into the particulars of this type of human ownership in this discussion, but sufficed to say, how can one be considered to be free when born a slave?
The subject here is the fate of what is considered Western Civilization, and why it is doomed to not only failure, but complete collapse as a political and ruling force. In fairness, all civilizations eventually fail, and in my opinion, this is mainly due to the false belief that a system of top-down rule, restrictive laws, and completely concentrated co-existence, is necessary for sustained survival. While the division of labor is extremely useful in many if not most aspects of modern life, total concentration of populations is not mandatory for civilization to survive and prosper. But it is the desired outcome by those who rule, (consider ‘smart cities’) because it allows for easier control over the masses of common people, who always far outnumber the ruling class, and are therefore considered a continuous threat to their power.
The ‘West’ has claimed to be the most superior, most benevolent, most enlightened, and most powerful group of nation-states for centuries, but it is coming apart at the seams so quickly that its influence and grip on the rest of the world could end in short order. But is that the designed plan, or is it due to outrageous arrogance, criminal excess at every level of existence, devastation of the monetary and economic systems, widespread brutal aggression, or all the above?
Western civilization is certainly on the brink of extinction, and the sought after replacement is that of a technocratic world governing system run by the very few. It seems the further man supposedly advances, the more backward is his pretend progress. Certainly, and positively in the U.S, intelligence levels and the ability to think critically have all but disappeared; this in a time when western society is ‘claimed’ to be the most ‘educated.’ In fact, the exact opposite is the case, as schooling in this country has caused mass ignorance and stupidity over generations, all by design. In order to control the people, the West decided long ago to purposely dumb down the common population, and indoctrinate them to such an extent, as to make impotent the idea of individual legitimate thought, and any ability to question authority. This tactic by the State was successful in its mission, but also successful in creating its own demise. This is quite the irony, but then that is the way of the madness of humanity.
Consider our current reality for a moment, and then consider the outcome of this political experiment. This nation, although never totally free, was one of wonder for a good portion of its history. 170 years ago, nearly 100% literacy was common, classical education was brilliant, and children were intelligent, driven, responsible, and grown up by the time they were in their mid-teens or before. Most all were entrepreneurs and understood moral principles, self-responsibility, and the importance of family. They based their lives on logic and reason, and due to these attitudes, were incredibly valuable to the building of independent, honest, virtuous, and vital societies. If one is to compare that to today’s population, an awakening should immediately occur.
Currently, this country is in the midst of a complete and total mental breakdown of the masses, in that they are not, generally speaking, responsible for themselves, and are dependent on an evil and heinous government. The intellectual capabilities of the general population have descended into the realm of effective illiteracy of the majority, regardless of age. Hate is the new norm accepted by the proletariat, sexual perversion is in full view of all, and promoted by the State. Theft, looting, property destruction, and violence at every turn, are openly ignored, while being sanctioned by government and its complicit mouthpieces in the rotten media. Constant war is tolerated, the murdering military is lauded as heroes, while truthtellers are shamed, threatened, and ostracized, and in some cases eliminated. ‘Reverse’ racism is rampant and applauded, while society has become married to victimization as a way of life. Self-esteem, confidence, responsible behavior, empathy, and the drive to succeed have disappeared from view. Total government control, destruction of wealth of all but the super-rich, blanket surveillance, lockdowns, ludicrous and immoral mandates, mass bio-weapon tyranny, tremendous property theft, and purposeful murder of innocents is routine, and mostly ignored. Entire towns and cities are being intentionally destroyed, thousands burned to death with microwave or directed energy weapons, or by other atrocious means, while those affected clamor for more government assistance, instead of eliminating the criminal and murderous State that is at the heart of all this barbarous madness.
The governing systems of Western societies have no intention, and never have, to free or protect the people, as the only goal sought by these evil ruling monsters, is power and control of all by brute force, lies, propaganda, and murder. Western civilization will be purposely relegated to the dustbin of history; the result being the swift and merciless destruction of life and all societal cohesion. Without mass dissent and non-compliance, bogus ‘climate change,’ currency destruction, digitization of all aspects of life, concentration of populations, famine, property theft, war, and transhumanism, will lead to even more perverse behavior, idiocy, and mass indifference of the majority.
This will signal the end of an era, and the beginning of a permanent hell on earth. This was caused by the masses of collective hordes ignoring their responsibility to themselves, in favor of the expectation of total dependence instead of individual excellence. No one can hide from reality forever, as it will eventually catch up and swallow you whole.
The State cannot rule successfully unless the people voluntarily allow it, and choose to surrender to obedience and a life of slavery. Only people who will accept and be convinced of truth, and have the courage to act on that truth, can be of use to freedom. All others, those who do not want to know the truth, those who continue to cling to the State’s false narratives, and who seek a master, should be absolutely avoided, as they will never help or improve themselves, and therefore will be of no value to those who seek real freedom.
“Violence is not necessary to destroy a civilization. Each civilization dies from indifference toward the unique values which created it.”
~ Nicolas Gomez Davila, 1913-1994, Columbian writer
Today, we are witnessing the nudging (manipulation) of the population to accept a ‘new normal’ based on a climate emergency narrative, restrictions on movement and travel, programmable digital money, ‘pandemic preparedness’ courtesy of the World Health Organization’s tyrannical pandemic treaty, unaccountable AI and synthetic ‘food’.
Whether it involves a ‘food transition’, an ‘energy transition’, 15-minute cities or some other benign-sounding term, all this is to be determined by a supranational ‘stakeholder’ elite with ordinary people sidelined in the process. An undemocratic agenda designed to place restrictions on individual liberty, marking a dramatic shift towards authoritarianism.
In the 1980s, to help legitimise the deregulation-privatisation neoliberal globalisation agenda, government and media instigated an ideological onslaught, driving home the primacy of ‘free enterprise’, individual rights and responsibility and emphasising a shift away from the role of the state, trade unions and the collective in society.
We are currently seeing another ideological shift: individual rights and freedoms are said to undermine the wider needs of society and the planet – in a stark turnaround – personal freedom is now said to pose a threat to national security, public health or the climate.
As in the 1980s, this messaging is being driven by an economic impulse. This time, the collapsing neoliberal project.
The Bank of England’s chief economist, Huw Pill, says that people should ‘accept’ being poorer. This is similar to the response of Rob Kapito, co-founder of the world’s biggest asset management firm, BlackRock. In 2022, the unimaginably rich and entitled Kapito said that a “very entitled” generation of (ordinary working) people who have never had to sacrifice would soon have to face shortages for the first time in their lives.
While business as usual prevails in Kapito’s world of privilege and that of major arms, energy, pharmaceuticals and food companies, whose megarich owners continue to rake in massive profits, Kapito and Pill tell ordinary people to get used to poverty and the ‘new normal’ as if we are ‘all in it together’ – billionaires and working class alike. They conveniently use COVID and the situation in Ukraine as cover for the collapsing neoliberalism.
But this is part of the hegemonic agenda that seeks to ensure that the establishment’s world view is the accepted cultural norm. And anyone who challenges this world view – whether it involves, for instance, questioning climate alarmism, the ‘new normal’, the nature of the economic crisis, the mainstream COVID narrative or the official stance on Ukraine and Russia – is regarded as a spreader of misinformation and the ‘enemy within’.
Although the term ‘enemy within’ was popularised by Margaret Thatcher during the miners’ strike in 1984-85 to describe the striking miners, it is a notion with which that Britain’s rulers have regarded protest movements and uprisings down the centuries. From the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381 to the Levellers and Diggers in the 17th century, it is a concept associated with anyone or any group that challenges the existing social order and the interests of the ruling class.
John Ball, a radical priest, addressed the Peasants’ Revolt rebels with the following words:
Good friends, matters cannot go well in England until all things be held in common; when there shall be neither vassals nor lords; when the lords shall be no more masters than ourselves.”
The revolt was suppressed. John Ball was captured and hung, drawn and quartered. Part of the blood-soaked history of the British ruling class.
Later on, the 17th-century Diggers movement wanted to create small, egalitarian rural communities and farm on common land that had been privatised by enclosures.
The 1975 song ‘The world Turned Upside Down’ by Leon Rosselson commemorates the Diggers. His lyrics describe the aims and plight of the movement. In Rosselson’s words, the Diggers were dispossessed via theft and murder but reclaimed what was theirs only to be violently put down.
Little surprise then that, in the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher used the state machinery to defeat the country’s most powerful and trade union and the shock troops of the labour movement, the National Union of Mineworkers – ‘the enemy within’. She needed to do this to open the gates for capital to profit from the subsequent deindustrialisation of much of the UK and the dismantling of large parts of the welfare state.
And the result?
A hollowed-out, debt-bloated economy, the destruction of the social fabric of entire communities and the great financial Ponzi scheme – the ‘miracle’ of deregulated finance – that now teeters on the brink of collapse, leading the likes of Kapito and Pill to tell the public to get ready to become poor.
And now, in 2023, the latest version of the ‘enemy within’ disseminates ‘misinformation’ – anything that challenges the official state-corporate narrative. So, this time, one goal is to have a fully controlled (censored) internet.
For instance, US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) recently awarded Accrete a contract for Argus to detect disinformation threats from social media. Argus is AI software that analyses social media data to predict emergent narratives and generate intelligence reports at a speed and scale to help neutralise viral disinformation threats.
In a recent press release, Prashant Bhuyan, founder and CEO of Accrete, boasts:
Social media is widely recognised as an unregulated environment where adversaries routinely exploit reasoning vulnerabilities and manipulate behaviour through the intentional spread of disinformation. USSOCOM is at the tip of the spear in recognising the critical need to identify and analytically predict social media narratives at an embryonic stage before those narratives evolve and gain traction. Accrete is proud to support USSOCOM’s mission.”
This is about predicting wrong think on social media. But control over the internet is just part of a wider programme of establishment domination, surveillance and dealing with protest and dissent.
The authors of the article ask us to consider some of the ways the US government is weaponizing its surveillance technologies to flag citizens as a threat to national security, whether or not they have done anything wrong – from flagging citizens as a danger based on their feelings, phone and movements to their spending activities, social media activities, political views and correspondence.
The elite has determined that the existential threat is you. The article ‘Costs of War: Peterloo’, written by UK Veterans for Peace member Aly Renwick, details the history of the brutal suppression of protesters by Britain’s rulers. He also strips away any notion that some may have of a benign, present-day ruling elite with democratic leanings. The leopard has not changed its spots.
As we saw during COVID, the thinking is that hard-won rights must be curtailed, freedom of association is reckless, free thinking is dangerous, dissent is to be stamped on, impartial science is a threat and free speech is deadly. Government is ‘the truth’, Fauci (or some similar figure) is ‘the science’ and censorship is for your own good.
The economic crisis is making many people poorer, so they must be controlled, monitored and subjugated.
The transitions mentioned at the start of this article along with the surveillance agenda (together known as the ‘Great Reset’) are being accelerated at this time of economic crisis when countless millions across the West are being impoverished. The collapsing financial system is resulting in an interrelated global debt, inflation and ‘austerity’ crisis and the biggest transfer of wealth to the rich in history.
As a result, the powers that be fear that the masses might once again pick up their pitchforks and revolt. They are adamant that the peasants must know their place.
But the flame of protest and dissent from centuries past still inspires and burns bright. So, with that in mind, let’s finish with Leon Rosselson’s lyrics in reference to the Diggers movement (Billy Bragg’s version of the song can be found on YouTube):
In sixteen forty-nine To St. George’s Hill A ragged band they called the Diggers Came to show the people’s will They defied the landlords They defied the laws They were the dispossessed reclaiming what was theirs
We come in peace they said To dig and sow We come to work the lands in common And to make the waste grounds grow This earth divided We will makе whole So it will be A common treasury for all
Thе sin of property We do disdain No man has any right to buy and sell The earth for private gain By theft and murder They took the land Now everywhere the walls Spring up at their command
They make the laws To chain us well The clergy dazzle us with heaven Or they damn us into hell We will not worship The God they serve The God of greed who feed the rich While poor man starve
We work we eat together We need no swords We will not bow to masters Or pay rent to the lords We are free men Though we are poor You Diggers all stand up for glory Stand up now
From the men of property The orders came They sent the hired men and troopers To wipe out the Diggers’ claim Tear down their cottages Destroy their corn They were dispersed Only the vision lingers on
You poor take courage You rich take care The earth was made a common treasury For everyone to share All things in common All people one We come in peace The order came to cut them down We come in peace The order came to cut them down
“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” — President Harry S. Truman
Ever since Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his groundbreaking “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on Aug. 28, 1963, the Deep State has been hard at work turning King’s dream into a living nightmare.
The end result of the government’s efforts over the past 60 years is a country where nothing ever really changes, and everyone lives in fear.
Race wars are still being stoked by both the Right and the Left; the military-industrial complex is still waging profit-driven wars at taxpayer expense; the oligarchy is still calling the shots in the seats of government power; and the government is still weaponizing surveillance in order to muzzle anti-government sentiment, harass activists, and terrorize Americans into compliance.
This last point is particularly disturbing.
Starting in the 1950s, the government relied on COINTELPRO, its domestic intelligence program, to neutralize domestic political dissidents. Those targeted by the FBI under COINTELPRO for its intimidation, surveillance and smear campaigns included: Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, the Black Panther Party, John Lennon, Billie Holiday, Emma Goldman, Aretha Franklin, Charlie Chaplin, Ernest Hemingway, Felix Frankfurter, and hundreds more.
In more recent decades, the powers-that-be have expanded their reach to target anyone who opposes the police state, regardless of their political leanings.
Consider just a small sampling of the ways in which the government is weaponizing its 360 degree surveillance technologies to flag you as a threat to national security, whether or not you’ve done anything wrong.
Flagging you as a danger based on your phone and movements. Cell phones have become de facto snitches, offering up a steady stream of digital location data on users’ movements and travels. For instance, the FBI was able to use geofence data to identify more than 5,000 mobile devices (and their owners) in a 4-acre area around the Capitol on January 6. This latest surveillance tactic could land you in jail for being in the “wrong place and time.” Police are also using cell-site simulators to carry out mass surveillance of protests without the need for a warrant. Moreover, federal agents can now employ a number of hacking methods in order to gain access to your computer activities and “see” whatever you’re seeing on your monitor. Malicious hacking software can also be used to remotely activate cameras and microphones, offering another means of glimpsing into the personal business of a target.
Flagging you as a danger based on your behavior. Rapid advances in behavioral surveillance are not only making it possible for individuals to be monitored and tracked based on their patterns of movement or behavior, including gait recognition (the way one walks), but have given rise to whole industries that revolve around predicting one’s behavior based on data and surveillance patterns and are also shaping the behaviors of whole populations. One smart “anti-riot” surveillance system purports to predict mass riots and unauthorized public events by using artificial intelligence to analyze social media, news sources, surveillance video feeds and public transportation data.
Flagging you as a danger based on your spending and consumer activities. With every smartphone we buy, every GPS device we install, every Twitter, Facebook, and Google account we open, every frequent buyer card we use for purchases—whether at the grocer’s, the yogurt shop, the airlines or the department store—and every credit and debit card we use to pay for our transactions, we’re helping Corporate America build a dossier for its government counterparts on who we know, what we think, how we spend our money, and how we spend our time. Consumer surveillance, by which your activities and data in the physical and online realms are tracked and shared with advertisers, has become a $300 billion industry that routinely harvests your data for profit. Corporations such as Target have not only been tracking and assessing the behavior of their customers, particularly their purchasing patterns, for years, but the retailer has also funded major surveillance in cities across the country and developed behavioral surveillance algorithms that can determine whether someone’s mannerisms might fit the profile of a thief.
Flagging you as a danger based on your social media activities. Every move you make, especially on social media, is monitored, mined for data, crunched, and tabulated in order to form a picture of who you are, what makes you tick, and how best to control you when and if it becomes necessary to bring you in line. As The Interceptreported, the FBI, CIA, NSA and other government agencies are increasingly investing in and relying on corporate surveillance technologies that can mine constitutionally protected speech on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in order to identify potential extremists and predict who might engage in future acts of anti-government behavior. This obsession with social media as a form of surveillance will have some frightening consequences in coming years. As Helen A.S. Popkin, writing for NBC News, observed, “We may very well face a future where algorithms bust people en masse for referencing illegal ‘Game of Thrones’ downloads… the new software has the potential to roll, Terminator-style, targeting every social media user with a shameful confession or questionable sense of humor.”
Flagging you as a danger based on your social network. Not content to merely spy on individuals through their online activity, government agencies are now using surveillance technology to track one’s social network, the people you might connect with by phone, text message, email or through social message, in order to ferret out possible criminals. An FBI document obtained by Rolling Stone speaks to the ease with which agents are able to access address book data from Facebook’s WhatsApp and Apple’s iMessage services from the accounts of targeted individuals and individuals not under investigation who might have a targeted individual within their network. What this creates is a “guilt by association” society in which we are all as guilty as the most culpable person in our address book.
Flagging you as a danger based on your car. License plate readers are mass surveillance tools that can photograph over 1,800 license tag numbers per minute, take a picture of every passing license tag number and store the tag number and the date, time, and location of the picture in a searchable database, then share the data with law enforcement, fusion centers and private companies to track the movements of persons in their cars. With tens of thousands of these license plate readers now in operation throughout the country, affixed to overpasses, cop cars and throughout business sectors and residential neighborhoods, it allows police to track vehicles and run the plates through law enforcement databases for abducted children, stolen cars, missing people and wanted fugitives. Of course, the technology is not infallible: there have been numerous incidents in which police have mistakenly relied on license plate data to capture out suspects only to end up detaining innocent people at gunpoint.
Flagging you as a danger based on your political views. The Church Committee, the Senate task force charged with investigating COINTELPRO abuses in 1975, concluded that the government had carried out “secret surveillance of citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, even when those beliefs posed no threat of violence or illegal acts on behalf of a hostile foreign power.” The report continued: “Groups and individuals have been harassed and disrupted because of their political views and their lifestyles… Intelligence agencies have served the political and personal objectives of presidents and other high officials.” Nothing has changed since then.
Flagging you as a danger based on your correspondence. Just about every branch of the government—from the Postal Service to the Treasury Department and every agency in between—now has its own surveillance sector, authorized to spy on the American people. For instance, the U.S. Postal Service, which has been photographing the exterior of every piece of paper mail for the past 20 years, is also spying on Americans’ texts, emails and social media posts. Headed up by the Postal Service’s law enforcement division, the Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP) is reportedly using facial recognition technology, combined with fake online identities, to ferret out potential troublemakers with “inflammatory” posts. The agency claims the online surveillance, which falls outside its conventional job scope of processing and delivering paper mail, is necessary to help postal workers avoid “potentially volatile situations.”
Now the government wants us to believe that we have nothing to fear from these mass spying programs as long as we’ve done nothing wrong.
Don’t believe it.
As Matthew Feeney warns in the New York Times, “In the past, Communists, civil rights leaders, feminists, Quakers, folk singers, war protesters and others have been on the receiving end of law enforcement surveillance. No one knows who the next target will be.”
The government’s definition of a “bad” guy is extraordinarily broad, and it results in the warrantless surveillance of innocent, law-abiding Americans on a staggering scale.
Moreover, there is a repressive, suppressive effect to surveillance that not only acts as a potentially small deterrent on crime but serves to monitor and chill lawful First Amendment activity, and that is the whole point.
Weaponized surveillance is re-engineering a society structured around the aesthetic of fear.
They definitely do not want us to engage in First Amendment activities that challenge the government’s power, reveal the government’s corruption, expose the government’s lies, and encourage the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices.
And they certainly do not want us to remember that we have rights, let alone attempting to exercise those rights peaceably and lawfully, whether it’s protesting police brutality and racism, challenging COVID-19 mandates, questioning election outcomes, or listening to alternate viewpoints—even conspiratorial ones—in order to form our own opinions about the true nature of government.
After the Crash 