BRATTLEBORO — I always seem to find confirming evidence that things are horribly wrong. Nightmares about corruption and control have crept into my consciousness and are now giant objects of reality for me.
I firmly believe that by controlling money and media, a very small cadre of ultra elites are also controlling an unsuspecting public. They are marching us into a stark Orwellian future, a world of elite rulers and a sea of debt slaves totally dependent upon government for their very existence.
In his book 1984, which was published in 1949, George Orwell was warning us. Sixty-two years ago he saw it coming, a totalitarian world run by the power elite with party slogans of “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” and “Ignorance is Strength.”
Words like doublespeak and doublethink (a willingness to believe contradictory statements when the Party demands it), a Ministry of Truth (an organization to ensure that the Party's version of the past is never questioned), the perpetual surveillance of Big Brother and the specter of Thought Police and Thought Crimes: what were mere novel terms in 1949 are now realities that pervade our society. Even the most ignorant and naive among us cannot fail to see the parallels.
Doublespeak and doublethink are always in full force whenever the G-20 (Group of Twenty) meets. Massive public austerity was this group's answer when they met in Toronto. Entitlement programs, massive debt, and runaway government spending have to be curbed. While calls for “belt tightening” sprang from the board room, $1 billion was spent on security for a two-day summit to protect these elite bankers and financial people from the public.
Trillion-dollar wars and trillion-dollar bank bailouts occur at the same time that public benefits and state budgets are slashed. The cost of privatized medical care has escalated beyond belief, as have the salaries of every health company CEO; these salaries are in the millions. Tax cuts have now been extended to this group of parasites. After all, the masters, the elite, the “inner party,” as Orwell would say, must be taken care of.
This crisis is not about managing the people's money. It is about managing our ability to think, to question authority, and to control our reaction to the massive looting and fraud that is taking place. That is the real challenge, the real problem, and the real tragedy. It's not that people can be evil, but that the masses are manipulated into believing that life on the bottom is somehow necessary for our security.
The editors of every major news outlet in this country engage in censorship for the elite. They are the real war criminals. They have perpetuated a world that is now firmly controlled by an amoral group of bottom feeders. If we get out of line, if we exercise our right to question, to publicly disagree, and to protest, an Orwellian and increasingly Gestapo-like police force suppresses us.
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Invasions, constant war, loss of freedom, media control, mass manipulation, the destruction of the constitution, and the concentration of wealth and power by an elite group of psychopaths led Germany to commit the most horrific crimes against humanity that history has ever recorded.
Consider this: With 264 jets, UPS is the world's ninth largest air carrier. It handles up to 900,000 next-day air packages each night, and another 300,000 to 400,000 second-day air parcels. Then consider FedEx, the U.S. Postal Service, and hundreds of independent freight carriers. Between international and domestic parcel shipments on trucks, ships, trains, and aircraft, millions of shipments occur annually. If terrorism were anywhere near as real as we are led to believe, hundreds of bombs would be killing thousands of U.S. citizens every year.
Yet, according to the U.S. State Department's own records, only nine U.S. citizens worldwide died from terrorist activity in 2009. In 2007, it was 19, and in 2005, it was 56. Prior to 9/11, these numbers were also very low.
Thousands of dead soldiers and civilians, trillions spent on our war machine, billions for Homeland Security, the loss of our privacy, our freedoms and the destruction of our constitution, this “War on Terrorism” is unquestionably the most effective propaganda campaign ever waged in the history of mankind.
Coordinated censorship and the failure of media to inform the public - that is the real conspiracy.
On Dec. 15, 2010, 135 veterans opposed to war were arrested for chaining themselves to the White House fence. It was one of the largest mass detentions in recent history. Daniel Ellsberg, whose release of the Pentagon papers in 1971 changed the course of the Vietnam war, Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize winner and former war correspondent for the New York Times, and Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst, led this civil disobedience. Yet this event was blacked out by The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and even the capital's own newspaper, The Washington Post .
These are not young men. Ellsberg is 79 years old. They put themselves in harm's way because they see what is coming, and they hope their example will be a form of shock therapy to millions of braindead Americans.
When will you consumerist zombies wake up? Your freedoms and privacy are gone. You are constantly at war. Your public police have become a private security force for the rich. Your money, your retirement, and your benefits have been depleted. Our manufacturing base has been gutted. Our country is vanishing. Yet, the majority of you remain transfixed in escapism, weakness, and fear while you huddle around the grey glow of your televisions.
“Austerity, we have to stop spending so much.” This is what the bankers, the IMF, and the World Bank would have you believe. Tighten your belts, discontinue unemployment, cut welfare benefits, extend the retirement age, pay more for health, pay more for education, privatize everything - our problem is too much government, too many services.
Meanwhile, trillions are spent to kill people in multiple wars, trillions of taxes are eliminated by the richest multinationals and people who have hidden their money in offshore tax havens, trillions of bailout funds have been handed out to the banks and the multinationals, trillions of drug dollars are being laundered by the banks, billions are spent on Homeland Security, and millions are spent bribing our governmental and elected officials.
Our free press is about as free as are the editors who censor the news daily for their rich handlers. It is time to put these editor's names and faces on milk cartons and expose these individuals for the war criminals that they truly are. Our country, our priorities, and our morals are upside down. It is time to start fighting for America - not with our fists, but with our brains, our hearts, and our minds.
Turn off your TV. Go to the Internet, and find some alternative news media in video and in print. Be true to yourself. Go deep. Deal with reality, and resolve to find out what is really going on in this country. Educate yourself, and have conversations with people you can learn from.
In my estimation, the Internet is one of the last bastions of free speech left on the planet, and it is in serious jeopardy. The impact of what has been revealed by WikiLeaks has become the excuse for those who wish to police the Net.
Watch as political activism, dissent, and political accountability become blurred with terrorism. Watch as sites formed by law-abiding and patriotic citizens of this country, and thousands of bloggers and independent filmmakers who care enough to become “targets,” get quietly eliminated from cyberspace or worse. Watch as Big Business becomes Big Brother.
However, from this seemingly hopeless landscape, a new community of critical thinkers, independent citizen-journalists, and feeling human beings will emerge as a Real World Order is born -an order based on fairness and the value of life, integrity, and sharing.
An old Chinese proverb says: “It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness."
Let's light lots of candles.