Category Archives: police state

Follow the trail of facts, hints, and allegations—connect the dots

Posted on by
Reply

images

By Edward Curtin

Source: Intrepid Report

“There were incidents and accidents/there were hints and allegations.”—Paul Simon

Children love to trace, to connect the dots, to make connections, but often the connections they make frighten adults who try to ignore their points or offer some ridiculous circumlocutions. Maybe we adults are much like children in our desires to make connections, but the thought of it frightens us.

Suppose we could for a while calm those fears and concentrate long enough to trace through the dim glimmerings of a faded pattern a clarifying story that would jolt us into an awareness that could change our lives and society. I offer here an arc of history that you may consider tedious. Try patience. I could yell, I could scream, I could try all the classical argumentation and logic that comes “naturally” to me. I could be a wise guy, amuse you, try to provoke you, curse, sing a song, stomp my feet—even write post-modern gibberish. As Andre Vltchek says, it’s hard—I’m putting it nicely—to get through, to have an impact that counts. We desperately want to believe in a world where we really are children and BIG Daddy (apologies to Burl Ives) has told the truth. Obviously I have reached some stern conclusions, but I think the conclusions follow from the facts. See what you think.

  • 1957, Massachusetts Senator John Kennedy delivers a Senate speech in support of the Algerian liberation movement, in support of African liberation generally, and against colonial imperialism. The speech causes an international uproar, and Kennedy is harshly attacked by Eisenhower, Nixon, John Foster Dulles, and even liberals such as Adlai Stevenson. He is praised in the third world.
  • 1959, George H. W. Bush moves his oil company—Zapata Offshore—to Houston, Texas. One of Zapata’s drilling rigs, Scorpion, having been moved from the Gulf of Mexico the previous year, is now operating 54 miles north of Cuba
  • 1960. On March 17, President Eisenhower approves the Bay of Pigs project.
  • 1961. On January 17, in anticipation of Kennedy’s inauguration in three days, the Belgian government in complicity with the CIA assassinates Congolese nationalist leader Patrice Lumumba. On February 13, a devastated Kennedy receives a belated phone call informing him of Lumumba’s murder.
  • 1961, April. More than a week before the CIA led Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba—code-named the Zapata Operation—the CIA discovers that the Soviets have learned the date of the invasion and informed Castro. Knowing the invasion is doomed in advance, the CIA Director Allen Dulles doesn’t tell Kennedy. When the invasion fails, the CIA blames JFK who angrily says he wants “to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.” Kennedy fires Dulles.
  • 1962. On June 13, Lee Harvey Oswald, ex-Marine and alleged traitor, returns from the Soviet Union with a loan from the State Department that also arranges for him, together with his Russian wife, to be met at the dock in Hoboken, New Jersey by Spas T. Raikin, an official of an anti-communist organization with extensive intelligence connections. Oswald soon moves to Dallas, Texas where, at the behest of the CIA, he is chaperoned around by CIA asset and George H. W. Bush’s old friend, George de Mohrenschildt.
  • 1963, June 10. JFK delivers his famous American University address calling for an end to “a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war.”
  • 1963. On October 11, Kennedy issues National Security Action Memorandum 263 calling for the withdrawal of 1,000 American troops from Vietnam by the end of 1963 and all of them by the end of 1965.
  • 1963, November 2. At the last minute JFK cancels his trip to Chicago to attend the Army-Air Force football game when it is learned that a four-man rifle team has plotted to assassinate him. The four are never charged or named, but an alienated ex-Marine scapegoat with CIA connections, Thomas Arthur Vallee, is arrested on a pretext. Vallee works in a building overlooking a dog-leg turn where JFK’s car was to pass.
  • 1963, November 22. JFK is shot in Dallas on a dog-leg turn at 12:30 P.M. and dies at 1 P.M. At 1:38 P.M. Walter Cronkite makes the first public announcement of the president’s death. At 1:45 P.M. George H. W. Bush, who is in Tyler, Texas an hour and a half southeast of Dallas, telephones Houston FBI agent Graham W. Kitchel to inform him that he’s heard gossip that a Houston man, James Parrot, has been talking about killing Kennedy when he comes to Houston (JFK had been in Houston the day before). Parrot is questioned and deemed harmless. Bush tells the FBI agent that he’ll be going to Dallas in the evening, though he fails to mention that he was there the night before. At 1:50 PM the Dallas police arrest Lee Harvey Oswald in the Texas theatre and charge him with the murder of Dallas police Officer J.D. Tippett. A few minutes after Oswald’s arrest and his exit out the front door to waiting police cars, a second Oswald is arrested in the theatre and surreptitiously taken out the back door. Later in the day Oswald is charged with also killing President Kennedy from behind from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository. But the fatal shot to Kennedy’s head comes from the left front.
  • 1963. Two days later, Ruby kills Oswald, who claimed he was a patsy, in the Dallas police building. That same afternoon LBJ tells Henry Cabot Lodge that “I am not going to lose Vietnam.”
  • 1963, November 29. LBJ announces the formation of the Warren Commission whose key member is Allen Dulles, the former CIA Director fired by Kennedy.
  • 1963. On December 24, Johnson tells the Joint Chiefs of Staff: “Just get me elected, and then you can have your war.”
  • 1964, August. The fraudulent Tonkin Gulf Incidents and Tonkin Gulf Resolution. Johnson orders the bombing of North Vietnam. The Vietnam War starts in earnest.
  • 1964 ,September. The Warren Commission findings are made public. Oswald is declared the lone assassin with the magic bullet explanation being the key.
  • 1967. Martin Luther King delivers his Riverside Church speech—“A Time to Break Silence”—denouncing the Vietnam War and calling for opposition to it, while linking it to social and economic oppression at home.
  • 1968, April 4. Martin Luther King is assassinated in Memphis. The authorities blame it on James Earl Ray, a petty criminal loner.
  • 1968. On June 6 in Los Angeles, Senator Robert Kennedy. On the cusp of becoming the Democratic nominee for president, is assassinated. The accused lone assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, was standing in front and to the left of RFK. The autopsy shows Kennedy was killed by a bullet from behind and below that entered his head behind his right ear. Sirhan is subsequently convicted as the lone crazed gunman, despite many witnesses seeing a girl, in a polka dot dress, with a male companion, running down the back stairs of the hotel, shouting. “We shot him! We shot him! We shot Senator Kennedy.”
  • 1972, June 17. Five CIA employees and veterans of the Bay of Pigs operation are arrested inside the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee. Together with H. Howard Hunt (CIA) and G. Gordon Liddy, they are later indicted. The burglars are caught by a security guard who notices that these skilled undercover operatives have taped locks open from the outside so that the tape is showing.
  • The Watergate story is primarily reported by reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who work at the Washington Post under Editor Ben Bradlee. Woodward had earlier served in Naval Intelligence, as had Bradlee, while Bradlee and the Washington Post have deep ties to the CIA and intelligence communities.
  • 1974, August 9. Nixon is forced to resign. He is the second president in eleven years to be removed from office. Gerald Ford, a former member of the Warren Commission assumes the presidency. Dick Cheney is named White House Chief of staff and Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense.
  • 1976, January 30. Having been nominated by Ford, George H. W. Bush assumes the directorship of the CIA, despite critics arguing that he has no intelligence experience. He serves in that capacity for 365 days.
  • 1976. George de Mohrenschildt, Oswald’s CIA chaperone and George H. W. Bush’s old friend, writes a letter to CIA Director Bush begging for help “we are being followed everywhere. . . .”
  • 1977, March 27. George de Mohrenschildt, about to be questioned by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, allegedly commits suicide in Florida.
  • 1979, November 4. Fifty-two Americans are taken hostage in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
  • 1980. Ronald Reagan is elected president and George H. W. Bush, vice-president. It is later alleged that Bush, CIA officer Robert Gates, and CIA Director William Casey met secretly with Iranian officials in Paris before the election and made a secret deal to insure Reagan/Bush an election victory by not releasing the hostages before the vote. The hostages were subsequently released a few minutes after Reagan and Bush were sworn in on January 20, 1981.
  • 1985-88. The Iran-Contra scandal plays out as it is discovered that the Reagan administration was secretly selling arms to Iran in exchange for hostages and using the proceeds to illegally arm the anti-Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua in violation of the Boland amendment. Oliver North becomes the public face of the secret machinations while Reagan and Bush plead ignorance. Many are indicted, while Bush, when running for president in 1988, claims he was “out of the loop.”
  • 1988, July 16. In the midst of the presidential campaign pitting Bush against Dukakis, the Nation magazine publishes an article by Joseph McBride, “The Man Who Wasn’t There, ‘George Bush,’ CIA Operative.” The article centers around a newly discovered memo from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, dated November 29, 1963, concerning the JFK assassination and an oral briefing the bureau had given on November 23 regarding the assassination to “Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency.” A Bush spokesman denies it was candidate Bush.
  • 1988, July 3. The USS Vincennes shoots down in Iranian airspace civilian Iran Flight 655 killing 299, including 66 children. Vice President Bush says, “ I will never apologize for the U.S. I don’t care what the facts are . . . I’m not an apologize-for-America kind of guy.”
  • 1988. George H. W. Bush is elected president.
  • 1990-91. President Bush attacks Iraq, called the Gulf War, public and congressional support for which is given a huge boost on the testimony of a nurse who claims she witnessed Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait City hospital grabbing babies out of incubators and throwing them on the floor to die. It is later discovered that the “nurse” in question was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States and that she hadn’t lived in Kuwait at the time. Her story had been hatched by the Hill and Knowlton public relations firm and was a lie—a successful lie.
  • 1991, May 19. A few weeks after filming had begun on Oliver Stone’s movie, JFK, the Washington Post’s national security reporter George Lardner, Jr., writes a scathing review of the film based on a stolen copy of the first draft of the screenplay.
  • 1991, December 20. Stone’s film, JFK, is released.
  • 1991,0n December 24, President Bush grants pardons to six former members of the Reagan/Bush administration facing prosecution in the Iran-Contra scandal.
  • 1993-2000. President Bill Clinton bombs Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Sudan . . . killing untold numbers of people, while maintaining economic sanctions on Iraq.
  • 1996, May 12. On CBS’s Sixty Minutes, Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albrecht says that the deaths of over 500,000 Iraqi children as a result of the sanctions are worth it.
  • 1997. The Project for the New American Century, a neoconservative enterprise, three of whose signatories are Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Jeb Bush, is launched. Among other things, they call for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Ten signees of the statement of principles go on to serve in the George W. Bush administration.
  • 1999. On April 26, CIA headquarters was named the George Bush Center for Intelligence in honor of former president George H.W. Bush who served as CIA Director for 357 days.
  • 1999. A jury in Memphis, Tennessee returns a verdict in a civil trial brought by Martin Luther King’s family concluding that King was killed, not by James Earl Ray, but by a conspiracy involving agencies of the U. S. government and the Memphis police.
  • 2000, September. The Project for the New American Century releases a position paper, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” stating that the United States will not be able to enforce its will on Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Afghanistan and maintain a Pax Americana “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.” The paper introduces a new word to refer to the United States of America—“the homeland.”
  • 2000, November. George W. Bush is elected president after a disputed ballot count and the intervention of the Supreme Court. Dick Cheney becomes vice-president and Donald Rumsfeld is named secretary of defense.
  • 2001, May 1. George W. Bush gives a major foreign policy speech at the National Defense University and says that the U.S.A. must be willing to “rethink the unthinkable,” giving public notice that the U. S. planned to withdraw from the ABM treaty. He warns against “weapons of mass destruction” and “weapons of terror” in the hands of rogue actors. The speech closely follows the reasoning of the PNAC paper of the previous year in urging an aggressive foreign policy. Cheney and Rumsfeld are in the audience.
  • 2001, June 22-23. Exercise Dark Winter takes place at Andrews Air Force base. The scenario involves anonymous threatening letters sent to mainstream media. The letters threaten more letters to come with anthrax. Judith Miller, author of Germs, and a notoriously deceptive Iraq war hawk for The New York Times, participates, playing Judith Miller of the New York Times.
  • 2001, September 11. The terrorist attacks in NYC and Washington, D.C. occur. The media immediately starts referring to them as another Pearl Harbor, a new Pearl Harbor. CBS News reports that before going to bed at night George W. Bush wrote in his diary, “The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today.” The site of the Twin Towers is first referred to as “ground zero,” a nuclear war term, by Mark Walsh, identified as a freelancer for Fox News by the Fox News interviewer on the street of lower Manhattan. Presciently anticipating the official explanation for the buildings collapse, Walsh adds that the towers obviously collapsed “mostly due to structural failure since the fires were too intense.”
  • 2001, September 12. The New York Times headlines a story: “Personal Accounts of a Morning Rush that Became the Unthinkable.” Another headline under the byline of future editor Bill Keller, Iraq war hawk, reads, “America’s Emergency Line: 9/11.” The endless emergency and war on terror begin. Henceforth, for the first time in American history, a very important day is referred to by numbers, not by name—an emergency phone number.
  • 2001, September 22. Tom Ridge is named director of the newly created Homeland Security and becomes in charge of politically motivated terror alerts.
  • 2001 September-October. Real and fake anthrax attacks occur. A sham investigation follows with the FBI eventually accusing government scientist Bruce Ivins on little to no evidence, resulting in Ivins alleged suicide.
  • 2001. Throughout the first three weeks of October the major media use the word “unthinkable” repetitively, echoing its association with nuclear war, just as the World Trade Center site is similarly referred to as “ground zero,” another nuclear term. A phony “anthrax” letter containing a harmless white powder, postmarked in St. Petersburg, Florida. On September 20, is sent to Tom Brokaw of NBC. The letter, not made public until October 22, after the media’s repeated use of the word “unthinkable,” begins: “The Unthinkabel” Sample Of How It Will Look. Judith Miller of the New York Times receives an anthrax threat letter also sent from St. Petersburg.
  • 2001, October 7. The U.S.A attacks Afghanistan.
  • 2001 October 27. The Patriot Act is passed.
  • 2001, December 4. George W. Bush says when he was outside the classroom in Florida on September 11, he “had seen this plane fly into the first building. There was a TV set on. . . .” Problem: No one saw the first plane hit the North Tower since it wasn’t televised live. Much later a tape someone had made was shown on television.
  • 2002, October 2. At the Cincinnati Museum Center President Bush gives a speech linking Saddam Hussein to the September 11 attacks and says that “we cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking gun—that that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.” He urges the disarming of Iraq.
  • 2002-10. Regular color-coded terrorist alerts.
  • 2003, February. Secretary of State Colin Powell gives false testimony at the U.N., asserting that Iraq possesses chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction and must be confronted.
  • 2003, March. The U. S. attacks Iraq based on lies.
  • 2003-8. Bush wages war on Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Homeland “security” leads to indefinite detention, black sites, torture, spying on Americans, the loss of constitutional rights, etc.
  • 2007, February 10. Barack Obama, having been a U.S. Senator for 2 years, 1 month, announces he is running for president.
  • 2008, September. An international financial meltdown occurs. The government claims it was unforeseen. The Bush administration bails out the big banks and financial institutions.
  • 2008, November. A seriously inexperienced Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, comes out of nowhere to be elected president on a populist platform of “hope” and “change.” He receives more backing from Wall Street than his Republican rival. Liberals and progressives go wild for joy. Hope and change is proclaimed.
  • 2009. Lawrence Summers, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, takes up his position as head of Obama’s economic team. Timothy Geithner, former head of the New York Federal Reserve, whose father, Peter Geithner, oversaw the Ford Foundation’s programs in Indonesia developed by Obama’s mother, becomes secretary of the Treasury. And Robert Gates, former CIA Director and George W. Bush’s Secretary of Defense continues in that position for Obama.
  • 2009, March. Obama meets with the CEOs of fifteen big banks and tells them that “my administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks. . . . I’m not out there to go after you. I’m protecting you.”
  • 2009. Obama intensifies the war on Afghanistan.
  • 2009, October 9. Obama is given the Nobel Peace Prize.
  • 2009, December. Obama sends 30,000 more American troops to Afghanistan, saying this “will bring this war to a successful conclusion.”
  • 2010. Obama vows to carry forward the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans.
  • 2010 and ongoing. Obama chooses his drone war kill list every Tuesday; says the killing of American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki “is an easy one.”
  • 2011. Obama and partners attack Libya and brutally kill Muammar Gaddafi. Libya descends into chaos.
  • 2009 and ongoing. Obama attacks Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, etc. Does nothing to stop the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians. Supports and arms terrorists in Syria and other countries. Engineers a coup d’etat in Ukraine and supports neo-Nazi forces attacking eastern Ukraine. Encircles Russia with NATO troops and military exercises. Starts a new Cold War. Maintains military commissions and indefinite detention. Prosecutes more whistleblowers than all previous American presidents combined, but does not prosecute any banksters or torturers. Charges Edward Snowden, Thomas Drake, Jeffrey Sterling, Chelsea Manning, John Kiriakou, et al of violating the 1917 Espionage Act. Acquiesces in the military coup against the democratically elected leader of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi and his subsequent imprisonment. Spies on Americans and other countries. Maintains a national state of emergency and the Patriot Act with minor adjustments. Prosecutes “the war on terror” initiated by George W. Bush. Rules over a technological, computerized war of killing all over the globe and a technological, computerized spying apparatus here at home. And does all this and more with a smile.

It should be clear from this small portion of events over the years that there is a connecting link, that there is a bloody thread running through them connecting key players and the obvious ongoing presence of a secret structure that recruits its team to maintain this oppressive system. To see it should be gutsy child’s play. It is not an issue of either/or; we can’t explain how we have come to this terrifying situation of rule by a murderous, militarized national security apparatus serving the wealthy elites by concentrating on either individuals or structures. People such as Barack Obama, the Bushes, et al don’t emerge from thin air (though in Obama’s case it seems that way, and some have speculated on his CIA links). These people grow out of a system that has cultivated and nurtured them. They become spokesmen for the secretive and powerful monied forces some call the Deep State. (The scholar Peter Dale Scott sees a hidden link between the JFK assassination, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and 9/11.) Spokesmen, yes, but executive spokesmen; they are not innocent victims; they are free executioners. People and ongoing structures are intertwined. Individuals count, but so do structures. We are now living within a structure of non-stop and almost total propaganda that individuals, with the help of alternative structures of communication such as alternative media, can penetrate and understand, but only if they are willing to trudge through history that will allow for context and the connecting of dots. In the end, it takes desire and work. Many individuals concluding alike can lead to change. Connect and be outraged.

The psychiatrist Allen Wheelis once wrote a brilliant little book, called How People Change. His “childish” conclusion was that they change because they want to. Simple but true.

Edward Curtin is a sociologist and writer who teaches at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and has published widely.

#ACAB: Why the Institution of Policing Makes All Cops Bastards

Posted on by
5

police-state-founders-warning

By PM Beers

Source: AntiMedia

All cops are bastards because all cops, if ordered to, will enforce laws that oppress poor people.

Many people would like to believe that there are good cops and bad cops. I’m going to explain why this is simply not true. When we are children, we are ingrained with the belief that police officers are good people who want to help us. Children are taught that if they need help, they should ask a police officer. These early beliefs are so deeply ingrained that it is very hard to shake them off. For me, it took over two years to finally understand the concept of ACAB—all cops really ARE bastards, even if they believe themselves to be good people.

When you learn the history of policing, you will better understand the need to dismantle the inherently racist institution. When we were new to the anti-police brutality movement, we all thought there were good cops and bad cops. As with most binary thinking, this is incorrect. All cops are indeed bastards as they blindly enforce laws which were written to oppress poor people, such as laws against feeding the homeless. The primary role of the first police departments was to catch runaway slaves. Racism is ingrained in policing. Racism is the root cause of police brutality.

There are no good cops. Laws and ethics are not the same thing. Laws don’t prevent crime from happening—people having their needs met does. One cannot be a good person and enforce unjust laws.

Someone once asked me, “But how is the statement ‘ALL cops are bastards’ any different from ‘ALL priests are pedophiles,’ or ‘All women are lousy drivers?’“ Another friend replied,  “Nobody is born a cop. Joining that institution is a choice. It’s more akin to saying ‘all KKK are bastards.” Priests are not required to molest children, but cops are required to follow orders which oppress poor people and target people of color.

Every cop must obey orders without question. They are required to enforce unethical laws or risk losing a job that provides them with a comfortable income if they refuse. In the rare occasion that a cop does blow the whistle on an injustice, the thin blue line is immediately invoked and the seemingly well-intentioned cops are ostracized by their peers, almost always neutralizing their intentions.

Some cops think they are actually good people. Of course, they have to think they are good to rationalize what they are doing since in our society, one’s occupation is one’s identity.

We all know that many cops have done horrible things. They have abused their power, murdered people, and attempted to cover up those murders with lies. I’m not going to talk about those obvious injustices that we are already so aware of. I’m going to talk about more subtle ways that cops do unethical things under the color of law. The job of the police is not to protect people but to protect corporate assets.

When a person becomes a police officer, their job is to enforce the laws. Not all laws are good. Police are unthinking, unquestioning robots protecting a corrupt, unjust state. They simply do as they are told without question. The institution of policing is inherently corrupt because they enforce laws which have nothing to do with ethics and everything to do with serving corporate interests.

If your job requires you to do unethical things and you continue to do that job for a paycheck, you have sold out and can no longer consider yourself an ethical person.  Every cop has sold their soul for a middle class income. Their price is low.

But wait…what about that one cop who bought groceries for a mom who stole food for her kids?

Yes, that cop did a good thing. That doesn’t erase the unethical things the cop does or would do if given the order. I like to call these types of news stories #copaganda because they are often played by mainstream media to try to get us to think that cops are good people, when in reality, the news stations want to appease police departments so that they can keep access to information for their news stories. TV news folks do unethical things for money, as well, and that’s a whole other rant for another day. If cops did these kinds of things on a daily basis, they wouldn’t be newsworthy. Cops are not as lovely as the TV would have us think they are.

When protests are held, police say they are there to make sure no one gets hurt. Yet on most occasions, they are the ones hurting protesters with batons, “less lethal” bullets, and tear gas.  Sometimes, undercover cops are placed into crowds and are sometimes suspected by protesters of being the ones agitating the police. They use actions, such as throwing bottles, in order to give the police an excuse to become violent with the protesters.

Police have to enforce other unjust laws, like the criminalization of the medical use a cannabis. Smoking cannabis harms no one and is a victimless crime. Is it even a crime at all? Filling up jails with pot smokers only has negative consequences on society, as taxpayers are burdened and people prosecuted for drug offenses often have a difficult time finding employment after being released from prison. Children also suffer under the burden of having one less parent to care for them. This lack of need fulfillment leads to more crime as children mature.

Further, according to the LAPD, all cars are now under investigation. License plate scanners mounted on police cars and on light poles track drivers all over Los Angeles. The ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are currently suing the LAPD to find out how the technology is being used.  There is no probable cause to collect such data, making this practice a violation of our civil rights.

Police enforce unjust laws that harass and criminalize people who have no home. Sleep is a primary human need like air, food, and water. Is it ethically permissible to wake someone up at six AM because the only place they can afford to sleep is the sidewalk? Would a good cop do that?

In the summer of 2012, I participated in a sleepful protest in downtown Los Angeles in support of rights for people who didn’t have homes. Every morning, Officer Massey would come honk his horn to wake us up at 6 AM.  He was baffled at why I would scream at him every morning. He thought he was a good cop. He had no clue that waking up unhoused people at 6 AM is an unethical thing to do. In his mind, he was just doing his job—just following orders. Officer Massey tried his best to be polite, but what he was doing was still wrong. Is he going to quit his job?  What other job is he even qualified to do that can  still provide him such a comfortable middle-class income?  He is not going to quit his job. Instead, he will rationalize in his mind that he is a good cop. He never once kicked an unhoused person, so isn’t he lovely?

The police are an inherently violent institution where force is used to extort money from poor people and property is stolen. The racism and bias against the oppressed and poor is pervasive. The entire institution is so corrupt and violent that participating in it makes one corrupt and violent by silent consent. It is impossible to be a good person and participate in violence and oppression.

For example, a person unable to pay $150 for a car registration will have that car stolen from them with the assistance of the police. The car will then be held for ransom. If the person who was too poor to pay the $150 can’t pay the ransom, then the car, which has a value of thousands of dollars, will be sold and the state will profit off of the backs of the poor. Anyone willingly accepting money from such an institution that extorts poor people is by default not a good person.

People want to believe they are good without challenging their false beliefs. There are no good cops. Ethical and legal are completely separate things—therefore, there are no good cops as they are required to enforce unethical laws.

Are there decent individuals that become cops? Of course. However, the institution of policing means police officers, by default, are oppressors by occupation—meaning there truly are no good active-duty cops.

What is the alternative to policing? Community policing by the people who live in the community is a viable solution. Further, the situation will be improved by legalizing victimless crimes, making sure everyone’s needs are met, and reducing income inequality.

A conscious cop would think about quitting, realize they are not qualified for any other job that pays anything even close to what they currently get, and would quickly adjust their thinking back into justifying what they are doing.

All cops oppress poor people and are therefore evil. All cops make threats of death and are therefore evil.

Dismantling the institution of policing does not mean anarchy in the context of chaos. The word “anarchy” is a beautiful thing when used in certain contexts where people understand what the word actually means.  For me, anarchy means equality, horizontalism, and no false authority. Communities can and should police themselves.

This article (#ACAB: Why the Institution of Policing Makes All Cops Bastards) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and theAntiMedia.org. Tune in! Anti-Media Radio airs Monday through Friday @ 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Help us fix our typos:edits@theantimedia.org.

PM Beers joined Anti-Media as an independent journalist in April of 2014. Her topics of interest include mental illness, neurology, quantum physics, Tourette’s, Autism, compassionate parenting, horizontal democracy, activism, and art. Born in Long Beach, California, she currently resides in Los Angeles, California. Learn more about Beers here!

Public School Students Are the New Inmates in the American Police State

Posted on by
8

school_is_prison_by_twarrior-d4atw5g

By John W. Whitehead

Source: The Rutherford Institute

In the American police state, you’re either a prisoner (shackled, controlled, monitored, ordered about, limited in what you can do and say, your life not your own) or a prison bureaucrat (police officer, judge, jailer, spy, profiteer, etc.).

When you’re a child in the American police state, life is that much worse.

Microcosms of the police state, America’s public schools contain almost every aspect of the militarized, intolerant, senseless, overcriminalized, legalistic, surveillance-riddled, totalitarian landscape that plagues those of us on the “outside.”

From the moment a child enters one of the nation’s 98,000 public schools to the moment she graduates, she will be exposed to a steady diet of draconian zero tolerance policies that criminalize childish behavior, overreaching anti-bullying statutes that criminalize speech, school resource officers (police) tasked with disciplining and/or arresting so-called “disorderly” students, standardized testing that emphasizes rote answers over critical thinking, politically correct mindsets that teach young people to censor themselves and those around them, and extensive biometric and surveillance systems that, coupled with the rest, acclimate young people to a world in which they have no freedom of thought, speech or movement.

If your child is fortunate enough to survive his encounter with the public schools, you should count yourself fortunate.

Most students are not so lucky.

By the time the average young person in America finishes their public school education, nearly one out of every three of them will have been arrested.

More than 3 million students are suspended or expelled from schools every year, often for minor misbehavior, such as “disruptive behavior” or “insubordination.”

For instance, a Virginia sixth grader, the son of two school teachers and a member of the school’s gifted program, was suspended for a year after school officials found a leaf (likely a maple leaf) in his backpack that they suspected was marijuana. Despite the fact that the leaf in question was not marijuana (a fact that officials knew almost immediately), the 11-year-old was still kicked out of school, charged with marijuana possession in juvenile court, enrolled in an alternative school away from his friends, subjected to twice-daily searches for drugs, and forced to be evaluated for substance abuse problems.

Under similarly misguided school zero tolerance policies, students have been suspended for bringing to school household spices such as oregano, breath mints, birth control pills and powdered sugar. Look-alike weapons (toy guns—even Lego-sized ones, hand-drawn pictures of guns, pencils twirled in a “threatening” manner, imaginary bows and arrows, even fingers positioned like guns) can also get a student kicked out.

Acts of kindness, concern or basic manners can also result in suspensions. One 13-year-old was given detention for exposing the school to “liability” by sharing his lunch with a hungry friend. A third grader was suspended for shaving her head in sympathy for a friend who had lost her hair to chemotherapy. And then there was the high school senior who was suspended for saying “bless you” after a fellow classmate sneezed.

Unfortunately, these incidents are indicative of a nationwide phenomenon in which children are treated like suspects and criminals, especially within the public schools.

When you bring the police into the picture, after-school detention and visits to the principal’s office are transformed into punishments such as misdemeanor tickets, juvenile court, handcuffs, tasers and even prison terms.

More and more, police are “stepping in to deal with minor rulebreaking—sagging pants, disrespectful comments, brief physical skirmishes. What previously might have resulted in a detention or a visit to the principal’s office was replaced with excruciating pain and temporary blindness, often followed by a trip to the courthouse.”

Thanks to a combination of media hype, political pandering and financial incentives, the use of armed police officers to patrol school hallways has risen dramatically in the years since the Columbine school shooting.

Funded by government grants, these school resource officers have become de facto wardens in the elementary, middle and high schools, doling out their own brand of justice to the so-called “criminals” in their midst with the help of tasers, pepperspray, batons and brute force.

Now advocates for such harsh police tactics and weaponry will tell you that school safety should be our first priority lest we find ourselves with another Sandy Hook. What they will not tell you is that such shootings are rare. As one congressional report found, the schools are, generally speaking, safe places for children.

In their zeal to crack down on guns and lock down the schools, these cheerleaders for police state tactics in the schools might also fail to mention the lucrative, multi-million dollar deals being cut with military contractors such as Taser International to equip these school cops with tasers, tanks, rifles and $100,000 shooting detection systems.

Indeed, the transformation of hometown police departments into extensions of the military has been mirrored in the public schools, where school police have been gifted with high-powered M16 rifles, MRAP armored vehicles, grenade launchers, and other military gear. One Texas school district even boasts its own 12-member SWAT team.

As if it weren’t bad enough that the nation’s schools have come to resemble prisons—complete with surveillance cameras, metal detectors, drug-sniffing dogs, random locker searches and active shooter drills—the government is also contracting with private prisons to lock up young people for behavior that once would have merited a stern lecture. Nearly 40 percent of those young people who are arrested will serve time in a private prison, where the emphasis is on making profits for large megacorporations above all else.

Young people have become easy targets for the private prison industry. For instance, two Pennsylvania judges made headlines when it was revealed that they had been conspiring with two businessmen in a $2.6 million “kids for cash” scandal that resulted in more than 2500 children being found guilty and jailed in for-profit private prisons.

It has been said that America’s schools are the training ground for future generations. Yet as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, instead of raising up a generation of freedom fighters, however, we seem to be busy churning out newly minted citizens of the American police state who are being taught the hard way what it means to comply, fear and march in lockstep with the government’s dictates.

The lesson is this: you not only get what you pay for, but you reap what you sow.

If you want a nation of criminals, treat the citizenry like criminals.

If you want young people who grow up seeing themselves as prisoners, run the schools like prisons.

But if you want to raise up a generation of freedom fighters, who will actually operate with justice, fairness, accountability and equality towards each other and their government, then run the schools like freedom forums. Remove the metal detectors and surveillance cameras, re-assign the cops elsewhere, and start treating our nation’s young people like citizens of a republic and not inmates in a police state.

 

Historical cycles: are we doomed to repeat the past?

Posted on by
Reply

content_9366

By Stefan Verstappen

Source: Intrepid Report

“Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.”—George Santayana

Few people have not heard the above quote, but is the reason history repeats itself because we fail to learn from it, or because history follows an unbreakable pattern we are doomed to repeat? The answer is crucial since, by all indicators, we are about to repeat the classic pattern of social collapse. This would explain why your government is preparing for the worst.

The theory of history repeating itself is as old as history itself. The earliest written account dates back 3,500 years to the Hindu writings known as the Vedas. Since then, many who studied history, from the Greek historian Polybius, to the father of modern history A. J. Toynbee, have formulated a theory of historical cycles.

The clearest example of repeating patterns can be seen in the Chinese Dynastic Cycle. China’s three-thousand-year unbroken history shows a repetitive rise and fall of dynasties. Historians divide this cycle into four parts; the founding of the dynasty, the flowering, the decline, and the period of chaos between dynasties.

This four stage pattern is common to most theories of historical cycles from the Roman poet Ovid, to Hindu philosopher P. J. Sarkar, and more recently in the Strauss–Howe generational theory. Although the titles of the four stages vary among the theories, their characteristics remain nearly identical. I have combined the most commonly used terms for each age as: Warrior, Intellectual, Merchant, and Chaos.

To better illustrate the four stages let us see how they compare to China’s rollercoaster of history.

Warrior

After the previous dynasty has collapsed and the country broken apart, a new warlord vanquishes his rivals, declares himself emperor, and founds the next dynasty.

This is the age of heroes with value placed on honor, strength, and courage. Notable activities include exploration, conquering, colonising, and building infrastructure. Crime is at its lowest, women’s equality at its highest. Wealth is distributed on a meritocratic basis and the population level recovers from previous lows.

Intellectual

Each new dynasty needs to establish its legitimacy through benevolent rule and so during the reigns of the next few emperors the living conditions of the common people begin to improve. This is often the dynasty’s ‘Golden Age.’

This is the age of arts and sciences valuing new ideas, inventions, and techniques. Notable activities include public art projects and the founding of libraries and universities. Crime is low, women’s equality remains high, and wealth begins accumulating towards administration. Population continues to increase.

Merchant

While the empire enjoys a period of peace and stability, merchants prosper and the standard of living continues to improve. However, the seeds of the dynasty’s decline are already being sown in the growth of a vast bureaucracy. Soon the government is controlling and taxing all facets of daily life.

This is the age when greed dominates the political system. Crime increases, women’s social status declines, wealth begins accumulating towards oligarchs. Population continues to increase.

Chaos

The dynasty is in decay and on the verge of collapse. The court and courtiers are corrupt and decadent. The emperor is effeminate, licentious, often an idiot.

Having pilfered the treasury, the empire raises taxes until the common people are reduced to poverty.

The country’s infrastructure falls into disrepair. Levies and irrigations systems fail, destroying farms and crops and causing famines. The people rise up.

This is the age where government is so corrupt that it is unable to effectively rule. There is a breakdown of law and order. Crime is rampant, women’s status reaches its lowest point, and because of disease, warfare, and natural disasters, population declines rapidly. Wealth is in the hands of criminals.

The country splits apart into warring factions each fighting for dominance through a series of civil wars. The fighting continues until a new ‘Hero’ takes control and founds the next dynasty.

This then is the Chinese Dynastic cycle based on a four stage pattern. Can the theory be applied to all civilizations and used to predict future trends? If you study various histories from ancient Egypt and Rome, to the Aztec and Inca you will find this four stage pattern, with slight variations, always discernible.

So what stage in this cycle is America in and where are we heading?

Comparing the characteristics of each stage to our current conditions we can quickly eliminate the Warrior and Intellectual ages. The days of heroic leaders and brilliant thinkers belong to an America long past.

Obviously we are in the Merchant stage, and as anyone who has tried to buy anything ‘Made in America’ can tell you, we are at the end of that stage. The destruction of America’s manufacturing base and devastation of its natural resources can only mean that the fat lady is about to take to the stage.

So is history doomed to repeat itself or can we learn from previous mistakes and avoid rushing headlong into chaos?

In the case of China, their history shows no dynasty was able to avoid this fate. Did they fail to learn from the past? Far from it, Chinese history is the most thoroughly documented of any civilization. China’s philosophers and historians were well aware of the mistakes made by the previous dynasties and ceaselessly warned the emperors of the perils of ignoring the past, all to no avail.

Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that civilizations are indeed doomed to repeat the past.

Whether warned by a predictive model based on historical cycles, or mindlessly playing out their villainous roles, there can be little doubt that the current elite are preparing for Chaos. How else to explain the militarization of domestic police, the massive purchase of arms, ammunition, and armored vehicles, the full spectrum domestic surveillance and the endless nibbling away at our rights and freedoms.

Obviously their plan, as was the plan of all despots before them, is to hole up behind a wall of security while the rest of us fight over the remaining scraps of our civilization.

What to expect

Of the four ages the easiest to predict is the age of Chaos. It seems every regime throughout history uses the same worn out playbook on how to self-destruct. So here is the future.

Widespread corruption drains the state of its treasury. To recover the losses, the state increases taxation driving businesses into bankruptcy and employees into poverty. Taxation quickly becomes forcible confiscation of property, precious metals, and food.

Food protests turn into riots. The state marches out their henchmen to ‘teach the rabble a lesson.’ Martial law is declared and the full array of terror tactics, from unreasonable search and seizure, to imprisonment and torture are used against ‘dissenters.’

Meanwhile, the lack of government funding leaves the infrastructure to crumble. In the past, this meant farmlands were either flooded, or dried up. Crops failed and starvation ensued. In our modern world we can add grid failure, no gas to heat your homes or run your vehicles, and no access to clean drinking water.

Starving people become desperate and crime increases. Poor nutrition and a lack of funding for hospitals or medical supplies contribute to an increase in epidemic diseases.

The state’s last play is to start a war to kill off a goodly number of ‘useless eaters’ and cower the survivors into submission.

So what did people in the past do to survive the age of Chaos? One strategy used in many civilizations is the monastic system. After the fall of Rome, monasteries served as centers of trade and produced much of the local wealth through farming, winemaking, and small industries. They were the only places where one could receive any sort of education, and if not for the books they preserved and copied, we would know nothing about ancient history.

In China, India, Japan, and the Middle East monasteries were able to survive relatively unscathed while their societies collapsed around them.

If we remove the religious aspect, what we have are autonomous communities that are self-sufficient, share knowledge and skills, and support each other during the bad times. A more recent and secular example of such communities can be found in the mutual aid societies of the 1800s. Learning basic disaster preparedness and working together in mutual support is the key survival strategy.

Despite the grim short-term forecast, the not too distant future will be brighter since the next stage is the Warrior age and a return to ethics, prosperity, and equality.

So what of the elite? Will they emerge from their bunkers to enslave and rule the world as their ultimate dream comes true? In this Chinese history is in accord with Karma. Every member of the aristocracy, of each failed dynasty, was hunted down and executed during the ages of Chaos. Only one emperor lived long enough to see the founding of the succeeding dynasty, and he did so by hiding for forty years—in a monastery.

Stefan H. Verstappen is a Canadian writer, and researcher and author of six books, including “The Art of Urban Survival” and “The Thirty-Six Strategies of Ancient China.”

“Breaking the Fear Factor”: Opposing War, Financial Fraud and State Terrorism, Dismantling Propaganda

Posted on by
Reply

4501e162f2a86d1f455bb5d8a1814139

By Peter Koenig

Source: Global Research

We are living in a (western) world dominated by neoliberal dictators, criminals and crooks. And many of us, impregnated with the human idiocy, as so well described by  Andre Vltcheck (The West Spreads Intellectual Idiocy) are every day deeper and deeper immersed into fear – fear of action, fear of what’s next – fear of losing our comfort zone. The western propaganda machine paid for by the corporate and financial oligarchy through the presstitute media is constantly indoctrinating the little we have left of our free-thinking brains.

Fear is everywhere. People who are afraid can easily be manipulated. People who are afraid obey. The system needs people who don’t resist. Renegades are potential drone targets. The Big Constant that pervades our western world with ambitions to also infiltrate Asia – is terrorism. Man-made terrorism – or better – elite-made terrorism; George Orwell would have called it Big Brother-made terrorism; terrorism with a particular purpose: spreading fear and submission.

On Friday, 21 August 2015, on a train from Amsterdam to Paris, according to the New York Times, “a heavily armed gunman opened fire aboard a packed high-speed train, traveling from Amsterdam to Paris [….] wounding several passengers before he was tackled and subdued” by two American military servicemen (on leave), who were helped by a third American. According to French officials, they “averted a mass killing.”- The gunman was armed with an automatic pistol, an AK47 and a knife (NYT annotation: AK47 is Al Qaeda’s preferred weapon). The Americans were coincidentally and suitably near to subdue the shooting 26 year-old Moroccan, a convenient Arab, who was taken into custody when the train stopped in Arras, France, just beyond the French-Belgian border. No doubt, he will be squeezed for confession. He may try to escape – and then may be shot death. Amen.

The French anti-terrorist unit took immediately charge of the investigation. The unit is known to work in utmost secrecy. Whatever news comes out of it is most likely ‘cooked’ to suit the system.

The NYT proclaims that the three Americans saved the train from a massacre. Nobody was killed. Just one of the American heroes was injured. Hollande thanked Obama for the brave Americans’ exemplary behavior and for preventing a train carnage. Propaganda all over. In America we trust – is dogma number one; dogma number two is – there is no save place on earth.

Fear everywhere, but America is there to help. Danger lingers at every corner. A terrorist may be just next door. Just give yourself up to Big Brother and he won’t let you down.

The first step towards sub-doing fear is asking yourself: Who invented and fabricated terrorism in the first place? In countries and entire regions ravaged by Washington incited wars and conflicts, terrorism is the expression of hopelessness, of wrath – of fighting back, when there is nothing left to lose. Look at the Middle East. A battlefield of nations destroyed by years of war – people living in ruins, in miserable squalor; some escape – and become the endless and EU loathed stream of refugees. According to the UN High Commissioner, there are more than 50 million refugees worldwide.

People take-up arms in self-defense. The west calls them terrorists. A term popularized by the media. A term that instills fear. – Imagine a world where the Judeo-Christian aggressors would suddenly see the light and stop spreading wars and conflicts and subjugating the world – peace would break out and settle in – terrorism, one of the key reasons for fear, would have no purpose to persist – fear would die, trust and solidarity would grow. The empires worst enemy: solidarity, friendship, and trust among people.

All wars and conflicts are multi-purpose. They boost the elite-dominated war industry; in the US more than 50% of GDP; they help dominate and subjugate people, exploit their resources, and are trailblazing a path towards Full Spectrum Dominance – world hegemony. They also help one of the ‘elite’s’ key objective – depopulating the world, so the elite may live longer with the ever scarcer resources of our gradually depleted planet. Reducing world population is a key objective of the Bilderberg Society – voiced by Henry Kissinger already in the 1960s. Recently I overheard one buddy telling another: I hate wars; but the only good thing about wars is – they reduce world population.

That is the horrendous level of immorality and greed to which humanity has sunk. – We the over-fed west may not get enough in an ‘overpopulated world’ (sic), therefore let’s reduce the human stock by killing off the under-people.

According to FAO – the UN Food and Agriculture Organization – with the current available agricultural technology Mother Earth could aliment at least 12 billion people, almost double of today’s world population. Fear and greed decimate our rational thinking. The me-me-me of abject western consumerism – and the fear of losing it – overwhelms our innate sense of human solidarity.

Remember the infamous Christmas Day 2009 ‘underwear bomber’ on a Northwest Airliner approaching Detroit wanting to detonate a plastic bomb sewed into his undies? He was suitably identified as a Nigerian Al Qaeda fighter and also conveniently and par hazard filmed by a passenger in the back row — This was such an amateurish attempt to spread fear, that after a short while even the media didn’t want to lose their ‘credibility’ (sic) and shut up.

Is there ever a thought among the fearful that such terrorists might be ‘planted’ by those who are served by the fear they cause?

A former CIA official recently admitted that virtually all so-called terror acts in the US and most of those in other parts of the world since (and including – added by me) 9/11 are false flags. With every false flag, the system can tighten its grip on the population under the pretext of ‘protection and security’. The populace literally asks for it – please protect us, please come to our houses, put them upside down and see whether there are terrorists hiding in our closets… that’s how the Boston people reacted after the April 2013 false-flag Marathon bombing.

Since 9/11 US citizens have lost more than 90% of their civil rights; first through the Patriot Act, then by subsequent extensions of police ‘protective measures’. Most US citizens are not even aware of the power they gave up to the police which has now the authority to invade people’s homes at will, without search warrant or explanation and then find anything justifying the arrest and indefinite confinement without trial of an inconvenient person. The ‘suspects’ are mostly Muslims. These days it’s easy selling to the brainwashed western world a Muslim as a criminal or terrorist.

Yet, the Boston Marathon false flag was of such low grade that anybody with a little bit of reason left, could recognize that the bombs were detonated by special forces with the mere purpose of implanting the notion that even a relatively progressive thinking university town like Boston is in danger of terrorism. Therefore let’s control the people, let’s not this ‘intellectual Boston crowd’ choose its own ways, abandoning the sinking ship. All sheep must be kept together in false solidarity, of course.

The two Chechnyan brothers were pre-identified, they had no clue what may eventually happen to them. They conveniently had a police record, maybe fabricated, to also hurt Russia, hitting two flies with the same stone. The Chechnyan ‘malfeasance’ could easily be sold to the public. One of the two alleged suspects was killed – and silenced – in an artificially created ‘shootout’. The other one is in solidarity confinement and is not allowed to talk, not even in court – condemned to die – soon to be silenced too.

Public events henceforth project fear. – People, please stand up against police and state-sponsored violence and terrorism! – Analyze for yourselves! Don’t believe the lies spread by the mainstream media. Yes, it takes a little effort, seeking out the truth and reading the news on internet – Global Research, Information Clearing House, Sputnik News, VNN, RT, TeleSUR, PressTV, CounterPunch, New Easter Outlook, The Saker – and many more – but it is one of the few chances you have to see the light and stand up for your rights – and get rid of fear.

The Boston false flag bombing, was followed by a similar horror event in Paris, in January this year. The Hebdo Charlie and related supermarket assault killed 17 people. It was opportunely planned at a notoriously anti-Muslim cartoon magazine, executed by CIA-Mossad forces in full connivance with the French secret service

(see http://www.globalresearch.ca/paris-charlie-the-shock-doctrine-par-excellence/5424960).

Two plus one ‘suspects’ with previous police records, were pre-identified. One of them ‘forgets or loses’ casually his ID in the get-away car – the only link the police has to the ‘terrorists’ – they find two, kill them at sight – so they won’t talk anymore. – The third related alleged assassin of a Jewish supermarket at the outskirts of Paris awaited the same fate: death by a police barrage of bullets. A blurred amateur video (maybe by now taken off internet) shows how a hand-cuffed individual is thrown before the wolves outside of the supermarket, to be riddled mercilessly with bullets. Nobody to talk. The truth remains ugly propaganda – propaganda for the system – a system that prevails over and feeds on terrorism. Millions of people, dulled by the event, walked the streets of European cities, solemnly parading placards lettered with “I am Charlie” — millions of people submitted – and still do – to a miserable lie – spreading and perpetuating fear.

Hollande had a justification to tighten the grip around France and within Paris – police everywhere, reducing civil liberties just a tad more – orders from the Washington masters. Being a nominal ‘socialist’ (sic), the emperor doesn’t quite trust him – as he may resent having been forced by the White House to abrogate his country’s lucrative sale of two Mistral type amphibious assault ships to Russia. To dampen any lingering sympathy for Russian President Putin, Hollande had to be reined in; and the spineless French leader (sic) did indeed cave in.

Fear is everywhere. European politicians are all afraid they may be in the crosshairs of the CIA or Pentagon or other US mercenary hit men if they don’t behave. A couple of days ago it was reported that Hollande is now also planning preventive drone assassinations, mimicking his brother-in-crime, Peace Nobel Laureate, Barack Obama. Imagine! – How far can you sink to lick – ehhh – the naked toes of the naked emperor. How far has our western civilization sunk in only the last 30 years – the onset of neoliberalism!

Fear commands everyone – almost. Fear is the public enemy number One – but it can be overcome – with courage, an open mind and foremost an awakened consciousness.

People feel reasonably happy. They feel protected. They gladly trade their civil rights for police and military protection. Terrorism is horrible and it is so unpredictable. It lurks everywhere. And nobody dares to question these bloody fabricated horror events. Nobody dares ask: what motivates the terrorists? How come their number has increased exponentially in the last 15 years? Terror sows more terror. Fear disseminates more fear. More fear facilitates more oppression and manipulation of people – and eventually more terrorism.

Take the massive flood of refugees engulfing Europe. The EU laments the ‘refugee crisis; seemingly not realizing that they helped making it. The Eurocrats cannot deal with the overwhelming influx of refugees. They use the bought media to make people afraid of them. The refugees come from these Arab countries the west is fighting for ‘freedom and democracy’. They are dark-skinned, poor and no-good. They steal our jobs, food and women. The human touch and solidarity of westerners has been annihilated long ago – by the neoliberal doctrine – that knows no mercy, only profit and power. Western powers don’t want these poor homeless beggars within their frontiers. What to do with them? They are a costly nuisance. Most of them are Muslims anyway. There is no space for them.

Would it ever occur to one of those high-flying, arrogant never elected Maastricht politicians to ask ‘why is this onslaught of refugees increasing by the day?’ – They may find the answer in front of their nose, in case they still have some left-over ticking brains. We, Europeans, in full complicity with war-mongering hegemonic Washington have helped destroy their countries, their economies, their jobs, torn apart their families, killed their children, have bombed their very homes to ashes – now they come to seek help from us. These poor people have no choice but asking their hangmen for a bit of mercy, for some crumbs of bread, for some rudimentary shelter. The raped seeks alms from the rapist. It’s the Stockholm syndrome. – Its fear from dying. Maybe the criminals who almost killed them have some humanity left, a bit of mercy – please.

What makes them tick – these criminal hegemonic politicians? Why are they so inhumanly selfish, greedy and violent? The public at large is afraid to even ask. Asking could produce answers that may derange one’s comfort zone. Better don’t ask and follow the rules. Let fear continue to rule.

The NYT also reports, “Stock prices around the world continued to plunge on Friday, threatening to end one of the longest bull runs in the history of the United States stock market.” Fear of losing money is spread. Such ‘market’ fluctuations, as most of us know, have little to do with ‘markets’, be it share or money markets. Money is fabricated by a mouse-click of a bank dishing out debt. Markets are manipulated by banks and political powers for monetary profit and political gains – and to sow fear – fear that something horrendously drastic may happen, may affect our fragile economy – and may foremost affect our stolen well-being. Yes, stolen. Our western riches have been stolen during hundreds of years of abject, murderous colonization of the southern hemisphere. And we continue colonizing them with our modern weapon – MONEY. When banks spread fear, it is to steal the money, pension funds, social systems from us, their faithful clients. Stealing from abroad is not enough.

Rather than fearfully shutting up – wake up! Dare stand up fellow citizen – against the white collar onslaught of fraud and exploitation, against corruption of our elitist neoliberal system! Get rid of those deceiving politicians – the scum of greed and power. Expose them. Neutralize them.

The US as well as the European Commission just enacted laws, allowing banks, effective immediately – to ‘rescue’ themselves by so-called ‘bail-ins’ – meaning, a bank that has overstretched and over-speculated itself into bankruptcy may literally save itself by stealing the money from its depositors and shareholders. – Why does such an edict – not really a law because those who designed the rule are unelected Eurocrats – not prompt an immediate run on the banks? – Why does nobody even protest? – Because people don’t know? Maybe. But Fear – sheer fear from being punished for ‘disobedience’ – is a better explanation.

Instead, our fear makes us trust that such ‘bail-ins’ will always happen to others. We so easily forget what happened only two years ago, in March 2013 to the people of Cyprus, when their deposits were decimated by the infamous ‘haircut’, administered by the highly indebted Cypriot banks, by order of the BCE, with full complicity of the Cypriot elites, who first transferred their fortunes abroad. It was like a trial run. How much would the populace swallow without (too much) protesting? – It worked. The rule is now institutionalized – and nobody says beep. – For fear that worse may follow? – Or for sheer comfort of not moving our butts.

The famous late Howard Zinn said civil disobedience is our – as in ‘we the people’ – strongest weapon against corporate and state injustice and abuse. Today’s version of this wisdom might be for the 99.99% of us, the people, to organize and infiltrate the reigning criminal system and breaking it down from within. Much like did and do the State Department funded Washington-based thinktanks (sic) – initiating the deadly and destructive ‘Arab Spring’, intruding and subverting the European Parliament with bought proxies and fake NGOs – and what they attempt to do in Russia and China, albeit unsuccessfully.

—

Back to the NYT article on the plunge of the US stock exchange. Finger-pointing of the guilty is of the order. The fear factor has to be substantiated and enhanced by fault of an ‘outsider’ – in this case China – which according to the NYT has ‘unexpectedly’ devalued its currency, a sign of a troubled economy and a bleak outlook for the economy of other large ‘developing countries’.

Let’s fear the Evil East. – No good may come from the east. The NYT has of course no explanation of truth. Namely that the Chinese Yuan had been artificially over-valued under pressure of the US, and kept within a 2% band of fluctuation by the Chinese authorities. This was also in line with China’s huge dollar reserves, some 1.6 trillion dollars. Relaxation of the fluctuation – letting the rate slide naturally to an expected 3% margin, would not only make China more competitive, but might enhance the currency’s international standing to eventually becoming a new currency in the IMF’s basket constituting the SDRs, or Special Drawing Rights. The SDR is an international virtual money that may be lent to countries which so desire, hence, better balancing the currency exchange risk of the loan. The current SDR basket is composed of only four ‘world’ currencies; the US dollar, the British Pound, the Euro and the Japanese Yen.

If the Yuan can keep its own by floating against other major currencies, chances are it may be admitted by the west-dominated IMF as the fifth currency to the SDR basket, thereby opening the door for the Chinese Yuan to become a major official world reserve currency. Washington may not like it, but may have little choice preventing the currency of the world’s strongest economy to become an officially admitted reserve currency.

—

Fear may also be the main reason for the Greek Tsipras Government 180 degree U-turn after the 62% NO vote on July 5 – No to austerity, No to more strangulation by the infamous troika – European Central Bank (ECB), European Commission (EC) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Not Germany, not the troika, are Greece’s strongest enemies; fear is. The Syriza government was pressured, blackmailed, coerced – and possibly even corrupted – into accepting an even more nefarious austerity package than the one against which Greeks voted with an overwhelming NO. If indeed enacted, the new debt commitment of € 86 billion will drive Greece’s debt to GDP ratio way above 200 % – and not one euro will flow into Greece’s economy, her social system, fighting unemployment, bringing back public hospitals, schools, water and electricity.

The Syriza Tsipras Government has committed an illegal act against Greece’s own Constitution which puts the people above parliament and above the executive – as a true democracy should. Tsipras’ anti-democratic act could be undone any time by a simple decision of the Supreme Court. According to international standards, Greece’s accumulated debt is fully illegal and could be erased by a mouse click, the same way it was created. Any contract – in this case debt – concluded under duress, coercion, corruption and / or blackmail does not stand up before an international court of law. This must have been known to the Tsipras government. Yet, Tsipras and his inner circle went to Brussels to ‘negotiate’ ignoring this chance. Instead they sold out their country to the banksters, let themselves be humiliated, ridiculed in the face of their own people, let alone the rest of the world.

Fear was most likely the engine for Tsipras’ behavior. Many of his Syriza colleagues left the government coalition. Ministers who didn’t agree with his politics were fired. He preferred succumbing to fear – fear of the potential wrath that might emanate from the corrupt and criminal EU; from greedy Germany whose neoliberalism is rapidly taking on the colors of Nazism. – German supremacy over Europe – again? – Maybe there were death-threats involved, who knows. It is common practice when power and resources are at stake.

However, a true leader has no fear. He or she stands tall with the moral and ethical obligation to defend the interests of the people who elected him or her. As did Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Rafael Correa, Evo Morales, Cristina Kirchner, Lula, Dilma Rousseff and many more.

Traveling recently all over Greece fear was visible everywhere. When asked, why their inaction in the face of this shameful treason of their PM – no protests, the streets remained calm – the answer was almost uniformly – we are afraid. Afraid of what? Of the police; they shoot at us with rubber bullets, with water cannons – and we don’t know when the military will intervene.

In Delphi, the very town where democracy was born some 2,500 years ago, a shop owner confessed, democracy is dead, not only in Greece – but in Europe, in the world. With this backdrop, a new military takeover was according to him not far-fetched. The Tsipras betrayal was a boon for the rightwing, the Nazi-like ‘Golden Dawn’ – a perfect backing for a new military regime.

After the 1967 US-supported so-called Coup of the Colonels, Greece suffered seven years of a most repressive right wing military dictatorship, where full obedience was of the order, where people disappeared, where the communist party was forbidden and communists were prosecuted and killed, where anything resembling left-wing literature was censured, during which miniskirts, pop-music, long hair, the peace sign and the like were prohibited. This repressive regime has deeply marked the Greek population. They are afraid it may return. They are aware of their country’s vulnerability due to its importance for Washington, hosting the southern-most strategic NATO base. Any deviation of the Washington made and EC imposed rule may bring back the military horror – reminiscent of Costa Cavras’ 1969 extraordinary docudrama “Z”.

Now, the Tsipras Government has resigned – for fear of the domestic consequences of its actions? – A new interim government is to be prepared before the announced 20 September election. Will the radical break-away Syriza faction, the new Unity Party, be able to form a viable coalition and gather the necessary trust to win the coming September elections?

Will Greece after all be able to break the paralyzing streak of fear?

Will Greece set the new standard of fearlessness for the rest of Europe to follow? – Will Greece dare to go the only practical way – exit the unviable euro – go back to her drachma and revamp their economy with public banking for the benefit of the Greek people? – I trust Greece will dare take back her sovereignty, breaking the all-permeating Fear Factor and become a flagship of courage for Europe and for the world.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik News, TeleSur, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance . 

Upside down economics of debt, poverty, unemployment: Ready to seize solutions now, or do you require more pain?

Posted on by
Reply

2013-09-07_1503

By Carl Herman

Source: The Daily Censored

“If people were really self-interested, they would stop trying to be individualistic.” – John B. Cobb, founder of Seizing an Alternative conference (and here, videos here)

Economic Hitman John Perkins’ 2-minutes on today’s neo-colonialism capitalism:

Demonocracy’s 2-minutes on what the US national debt looks like if shown in actual amounts of $100 bills:

Earth economics is upside down.

Accelerating technology can and should provide:

  • more personal freedom from labor,
  • more beauty in infrastructure and nature,
  • greater joy in our freedom to create and explore our beautiful, powerful, and diverse virtues (something like “resource-based economics” as researched by The Venus Project).

We know what we have is in contrived Orwellian opposition of what leadership should create. We know that what we receive is literal criminal fraud:

I could go on to literally ~100 areas of crucial concern.

The first challenge for the 99.99% is to trust their own Emperor’s New Clothes observations that Earth is truly in this tragic-comedy rather than listen to the .01%’s lies attempting to cover naked facts anyone can see.

Please understand that I represent likely hundreds of thousands of professionals making factual claims with objective evidence anyone with a high school-level of education can verify. For example, the June 2015 Seizing an Alternative conference (and here, videos here) at the Claremont Colleges had hundreds of professionals presenting data and solutions in over 80 areas of speciality. My paper and videos for this conference is here.

The purpose of education since the “Age of Enlightenment” is to present facts for public verification, and to seize the victory of refuting lies by would-be dictators, especially when such lies are obvious and of crucial public importance.

The path forward as we build a critical mass of humans recognizing the Emperor’s New Clothes truth is to demand arrests and solutions, obviously:

  1. ARRESTS: the first responsible action upon recognizing massive crimes that annually kill millions, harm billions, and loot trillions is to demand that law enforcement and military enact arrests of criminal leaders to stop the crimes and begin unwinding the truth of what happened in Earth’s tragic-comedy (four-part article series with videos on arrests as the obvious citizen response).
  2. SOLUTIONS: the .01% with corporate media have suppressed solutions documented beginning with Benjamin Franklin how government can abundantly operate without taxes: monetary and credit reform allow the public to have near-instant prosperity: full-employment, zero public deficits and debt, the best infrastructure we can imagine, falling prices, and release of public TRILLIONS held in “rainy day” accounts. Full documentation here.

Humanity’s choices:

  1. Ongoing .01% Orwellian, upside-down, tragic-comic, Emperor’s New Clothes crimes with all the pain, fear, harm, death, debt, poverty, enslavement, crime, destruction, and despair.
  2. Arrests to stop the crimes of the present, and ready-to-start solutions to build a brighter future.

Be your brightest light as the person you’ve always wanted to be.

Former World Bank economist Herman Daly and co-author John B. Cobb of For the Common Good discuss our condition and pathways forward in this 40-minute interview:

Carl Herman is a National Board Certified Teacher of US Government, Economics, and History; also credentialed in Mathematics. He worked with both US political parties over 18 years and two UN Summits with the citizen’s lobby, RESULTS, for US domestic and foreign policy to end poverty. He can be reached at Carl_Herman@post.harvard.edu

The Nature of American Denial

Posted on by
1

409004_2544867183443_1306665339_32089606_585965628_n

By SARTRE

Source: Waking Times

At the core of self delusion is the inability and/or the unwillingness of facing reality. While psychological disorders can often explain abnormal behavior in individuals, the exegesis for deviant social attitudes and accompanying conduct is reserved for society. Or so we are told! But does this make sense to you? As long as you accept that reality does exist and that it can be understood, it follows that we have the right, the ability and the obligation to comprehend it and adjust our actions accordingly.

Most Americans view, of their own personal identity, is inculcated by the political culture. Delmar England, in his provocative work – Mind and Matters, The World in a Mirror – offers this valuable insights into our mutual and shared condition: “In human affairs, as surely as effect is preceded by action, action is preceded by belief, and belief is preceded by thought and conclusions.”

Applying this standard to politics Mr England depicts government is this fashion:

“For all the sidestepping, dance arounds, word games, and confused rhetoric, the term government is easily defined; not by subjective agreement, but by reference to objective reality and the actual entities involved. First, we know that there is no such thing as an infinite entity and that the term, government, necessarily denotes a relationship. The actual entities involved are human individuals. The base options of relationships between individuals are non-initiation of force and non-coercion, or initiation of force and coercion. It makes no difference how many different subjective labels are put upon the situation, the objective fact remains that at the root of it all, these are the only two options. The former is in recognition of the individual as a self-owned entity. The latter is based on the idea of an individual being the property of an “infinite entity”; which is the “justification” for rule by the individuals who hide behind the abstracts and exercise their will to dominate and control all others.”

“The subjective and arbitrary labels arbitrarily associated with government such as democracy, socialism, communism, etc. are purely for the purpose of self-delusion. Although form of implementation may vary and some versions start closer to ultimate self-destruction than other versions, the common and identifying objective content of each and every one is initiation of force and coercion. Millions may volunteer for such an anti-social system and play self-deluding word games for the sake of preferred self-image, but all the pretense in the world and “definitions by agreement” will not erase the truth about government, nor prevent the certain violent consequences of initiation of force and coercion.”

No doubt, this is a correct assessment. Virtually every society and country operates with the implied and universal acceptance that government is natural and ordained. The individual accepts force and coercion as a substitute for avoiding the risk and responsibility of personal Freedom. MindMatters concludes with this point:

“Rather than freedom being the highest value sought by most, it is their deepest and most abiding fear. So much so that they can’t even envision it.”

American denial has caused an epidemic dysfunctional confusion. The delusion that our own self identify is equivalent with the “collective will” of society; which, in turn is synonymous with the government and its policies, is a sociopathic sickness. The antisocial behavior of the STATE demonstrates all the characteristics of a profile of a sociopath. Apply the top five to the demeanor of government: Glibness/Superficial Charm – Manipulative and Conning – Grandiose Sense of Self – Pathological Lying – Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt. We are all taught what we should believe about government; but only the fool, the liar or the delusional accepts that our – self-owned entity – benefits from the force and coercion that the State demands upon us.

Robert L. Kocher has compiled a body of works far too numerous, on this topic to cite sufficiently. We urge you to review and absorb the wisdom in his insights. Most of the lessons detail the last administration, but are completely relevant to the current regime. One essay, especially compliments the Delmar England conclusion. Mr Kocher writes in American Mental Health and Politics:

“If some of us are appalled, frightened, and even driven half crazy by the maddeningly and complacently silly or psychotic levels of denial, by the superficiality, by the abysmal immaturity, by the primitive level of personality structure, by the too-easily employed distorted rationalizations, by the lack of contact with basic reality that we deal with in our daily lives, hear in our college faculties, and see on TV and in high political office, we can nevertheless know that the reality of our perceptions is validated by mental health figures as well as those patients being seen in therapist’s offices.”

Currently, the national mood is absorbed in the illusion that Americans are at risk and that they are in danger from terrorists abroad. While reality demonstrates that enemies of America are plentiful, the disconnect that their veridical hatred is focused upon the U.S. Government and its policies, is concealed. Vast numbers of Americans feed their denial that they are the target of madmen; while they seek comfort in the fallacy that support for the WAR Party will make them safe. The force and coercion that the government imposes upon you, under the pretext that it is necessary and protective, diminishes your safety as it destroys your Liberty. The utter fraud of national security policy, seeks only to preserve the government, no matter how much harm it inflicts upon citizens.

So why do so many misguided flag-waving zealots rally to a jingoistic cause? Kocher provides the answer: “We now live in a society where many people no longer want or value freedom. Personal freedom and the responsibility that goes with it are abrasive intrusions or demands upon a crippled self-absorbed internal state.”

“American Denial” prevents the admission that U.S. policies only benefit the government. Their own personal delusional perceptions are interchangeable with a phony litmus test, judged by their support for State illusions. The thought of exercising the Freedom to think, criticize, condemn and resist is far too disconcerting to the sheeple. They view their own self worth as an adjunct of an abstract deception; while, the true motives of the government are to control society and all individuals, using force and coercion. Both England and Kocher have it right. The association between an individual and an infinite entity denotes a relationship; and the reluctance or unwillingness to exercise freedom and responsibility, allows the government to implement force and coercion.

“Eternal Vigilance” is no longer enough to preserve Liberty. Sound mental health, appreciation for your own self worth, trust in the integrity of reality and the courage to do battle with the forces that seek to delude your own dignity are all necessary to win this struggle. America is NOT the Government. When policies are dishonest they must be opposed. When officials are depraved they need to be removed. And when your neighbor demands your allegiance to a corrupt government, it is your duty to confront his delusion.

We can no longer afford to be silent in the face of “American Denial”.

 

About the Author

SARTRE is the mind behind BATR. org (Breaking All The Rules), which documents the steady decline of American exceptionalism.

Closing the Doors of Perception

Posted on by
2

d03cb0bf54313e420e3d8b280ae2ac23

By Dylan Charles

Source: Waking Times

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”  -William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

We, the people, are the foundation of a vast human pyramid, at the top of which comfortably rests a world elite that manipulates the human population and world events to broaden and maintain their power. The main agents of this global cartel are the banking elite, the military industrial complex, the medical establishment, the mainstream media, the entertainment industrial complex, and the hundreds of corrupt and co-opted world governments that act as henchmen and watchdogs for the unelected world rulers.

Over our heads they hang the constant specter of war, financial collapse, terrorism and pandemic disease, and to keep us from reacting to their deeds they enlist evermore advanced forms of mind control, biological control and social engineering.

The key to their dominance over the human race is the management of public perception, and how the public mind, in turn, affects the individual mind. Reality for us is very narrowly defined, which magnifies the perception of division between human beings, between humans and nature, and between individuals and their own true spiritual nature. As such we are all too easily sidelined or conquered altogether, and doomed to toil as relatively well-off slaves in their matrix of control, constantly struggling with and murdering each other.

They recruit us to enforce this prison of the mind on ourselves, and are creating a rising class of those who willingly support them in their efforts. The rest of us are merely subjects of their tyranny, whether we acknowledge it or not, and until a major cultural upheaval occurs, there is little chance of liberating the human race. Thus we must for now focus on liberating the individual and freeing human consciousness.

This realization is a powerful motivator, for it challenges all life-loving, courageous and compassionate people to hastily wake up, discover who we really are as spiritual beings having a human experience, and then become the best possible version of ourselves so that we me may contribute to the awakening and help to cast light on that which thrives in shadows.

“Sometimes I think this whole wide world is one big prison yard. Some of us are prisoners, the rest  of us are guards.” – Bob Dylan

Slamming the Doors

To gain administrative access to our consciousness and constrict our perception to such a narrow band, our vibration is kept humming along chaotically in the lowest possible frequencies of fear, panic, anger, blame, hate, uncertainty and limitation. To parry this onslaught, it is essential that we recognize the many negative influences that invade our minds, bodies and spirits, and fortify ourselves against the shallowness and negativity being marketed to us at every corner.

The mind is the agent of the spirit, and the body is the vehicle of the mind. By attacking first the body, the mind and spirit are thus duly compromised.

We are under continual barrage from industrial environmental pollution, toxic pesticide-laden and overly processed foods, DNA altering genetically modified organisms and vaccines, chemtrails, radiation, EMF’s, pharmaceuticals and so much more. The body’s immune systems are quite capable, but the deliberate trashing of our environment, food supply and health is one of the foremost challenges we must overcome in order to be able to move beyond the limitations imposed upon us. A full rejection of these pollutants (as best as is possible) is warranted in order to detoxify the body, decalcify the pineal gland and prepare the body to support the mind and spirit in its natural evolution of consciousness.

Stress is the weapon of choice for the elite, and the stress of living sedentary, material-driven, worker-bee lifestyles in pursuit of manipulated currencies keeps us focused completely on our personal interests and affairs, and always in competition with our neighbors, peers, friends and family. When our mind and spirit falter and our mental health suffers, we are herded to the clinics for mass-produced psychiatric evaluations that aim to hook us on psychotropic medications which numb us to life’s beauty and keep us entranced in the day-to-day work of supporting the economy with our time and energy.

Human imagination is crushed as today’s children are hammered with rigidity and mind-numbing repetition from an early age, and with the introduction of Common Core, our education system has become even more intolerant, close-minded and non-sensical. This system produces conformists who are good at following directions and working hard for material and superficial rewards. The ability to think clearly, focus, and imagine new possibilities are absolutely critical to understanding who you are, and to understanding your inherent power and flexibility as a human being.

The law and those who enforce it are there to add to the stress and confusion of living in the matrix, and the law is used overtly to cut us from organic and chemical substances which have the potential to help us quickly see through the grand illusion that is crafted for us. Human consciousness, however, naturally pushes to thrive, grow and expand, and as such it has triggered a wave of interest in the spiritual gifts of iboga, ayahuasca, psilocybin and shamanic medicine traditions. We have open access to alcohol, pharmaceuticals and are deliberately over-exposed to other consciousness debilitating substances like aspartame, fluoride, and high-fructose corn syrup, and there is an abundance in availability of parasitic street drugs like cocaine, heroin and meth-amphetamines.

Government plays the roles of spy, censor and thought police, thus robbing the psyche of the freedom of the exploration of thought. Religion seeks to homogenize spiritual experience and externalize divinity. The mind worms of the entertainment-industrial complex pollute the psyche and suck away our precious time by hammering us with insane amounts of celebrity worship and trifling entertainment options, usually in the form of sit-down-and-watch programming that lulls the mind and sub-conscious mind into deep, hypnotic states of trance and suggestiveness. Television has become a theater of the absurd, and constantly works at further blurring the lines between reality and false-reality, tinkering with our ability to accurately perceive the difference between the important and the trivial.

The dogs of war and the military industrial complex are there to enrich the elite while dominating the poor and insubordinate. They heavily propagandize our world to create the perception of constant threats, working to corral us into the narrowest possible ‘us-versus-them,’ reptilian modes of consciousness, and to distract from legitimate issues and concerns.

Heavily beaten down by all of this, most people seek security in the comfort of being part of a collective, some sort of like-minded group, no matter what it may be. As survival mechanisms, people attach labels to themselves and embellish their egos, picking teams and choosing sides, following the leader wherever he may go. Some join the Democrat team or the Republican team, some side with their particular race, some take trivial associations like sports teams and university associations far too seriously. The divisions among us are are driven into the collective conscience which wields heavy influence over the individual by way of peer pressure and conformity. The result is robotic closed-minded madness.

Your Task at Hand

It’s simple to control someone’s reality when you have unlimited resources, a sophisticated media apparatus at your fingertips, and a monopoly on currency and security. Doubly so when you can dumb people down with toxic lifestyles and mindless distractions. The point of this conversation, however, is to promote the simple idea that awareness offers opportunity, and when we acknowledge the many limitations which are criminally placed on most of us here on earth, we give ourselves the creative freedom to seek out and discover ways of being and living that defy heavy currents of conformity.

It is now your personal responsibility to do your best to mitigate the effects of your exposure to all of this insanity, and to fortify yourself physically, mentally and spiritually. By doing so, you’ll quickly become a wizard of sorts, someone who develops a new kind of immunity to the insanity and toxicity of modern life. You’ll become resilient and fearless, a new kind of warrior, if you will. Take this message with you and detox, purge, cleanse, renew, revitalize, reconstruct, restart, and re-awaken yourself, so that the infinite and wonderful experience of being a human being, alive on this amazing planet at this particular time, will not have been stolen from you.

The top of a pyramid is an insignificant part of its structure when compared to the base, for, if even one cornerstone crumbles the capstone itself falls.
Dylan Charles is a student and teacher of Shaolin Kung Fu, Tai Chi and Qi Gong, a practitioner of Yoga and Taoist esoteric arts, and an activist and idealist passionately engaged in the struggle for a more sustainable and just world for future generations. He is the editor of WakingTimes.com, the proprietor of OffgridOutpost.com, a grateful father and a man who seeks to enlighten others with the power of inspiring information and action. His remarkable journey of self-transformation is a testament to the power of the will and the persistence of the human spirit. He may be contacted at wakingtimes@gmail.com.