The government habitually strips citizens of their rights whenever it suits them to do so. Currently, the Obama administration and the NSA have deemed that Americans are fair game when it comes to domestic surveillance, as we are certainly no longer
secure in [our] persons, houses, papers, and effects.
This is obviously not a new phenomenon. I find that people often forget, for example, that the Jim Crow laws in the South were indeed laws, not just social conventions. State and local governments codified the practice of segregation and indeed would punish businesses and organizations for daring to integrate—systematically disenfranchising blacks through legislative power.
The state will protect and respect individual rights as long as it suits their own interests. They have proven repeatedly that, when convenient, they will forget that the Bill of Rights even exists.
In a famous and extremely disturbing example, the United States considered Japanese-Americans to be a threat to national security after the attack on Pearl Harbor. On February 19, 1942 FDR signed Executive Order 9066 which allowed the military to designate areas from which “any and all persons could be excluded.” As a result, over a hundred thousand American citizens with names like Richard Kobayashi and Catharine Yamaguchi were locked away in concentration camps. Without trial or cause, these people were forcefully removed from their homes and interned solely because of their ancestry.
In 1943 famed American photographer Ansel Adams, renowned for his stunning shots of the American west, visited the Manzanar camp in California. Disturbed by the ramifications of FDR’s “relocation” policy, he took some poignant and beautiful snaps of life in Manzanar that are distressing reminders of how fragile our rights and liberties really are.
The NSA’s extralegal invasions into our privacy should rightfully enrage every American. However, it should not be surprising to anyone with a pulse. The truth is simple and blunt: This is what governments do. Mendaciously, the state—dripping with patriotism and draped in red, white & blue—claims to protect the rights of Americans while simultaneously showing absolute disregard for their sanctity, and at best deigning to acknowledge their very existence. To politicians, civil liberties are mere talking points rather than the inalienable rights that this nation was founded upon.
Sadly, there really are no rights in this world. Most would agree that everyone has a right to food and shelter. How, then, are so many people starving and homeless? The Declaration of Independence champions the rights of life and liberty, however, both are so easily taken away. Our rights are better understood as glorious ideals, Vitruvian Men that we all need to aspire to achieve and maintain.
The problem now isn’t so much that governments are invading our privacy, as concerning and Orwellian as their encroachment is. That known entity is to be understood and expected. The most troublesome factor is the absolute apathetic ambivalence and—indeed!—endorsement of these policies from the American populace.
I am reminded of the famous poem attributed to Martin Niemöller:
First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
The American citizenry is a frog being boiled slowly, and the rising heat gradually erodes their rights. When are they going to realize that when they’re the only ones left, no one will be there to speak for them?
Eric Holder, head of the Department of Justice, recently announced that the DOJ will allow the legalization of cannabis in Washington and Colorado. While cannabis remains illegal at the federal level, it has been legalized for recreational use in both states. Recreational users and those using cannabis as a medicine have been rejoicing since the beginning of the year, but had remained nervous due to potential federal crackdowns. It appears the smoke has been cleared; Washington and Colorado are completely free to ingest cannabis without interference at the federal level, well almost completely.
Although the DOJ has reserved the right to file a lawsuit against the states, they have taken a “trust but verify approach” to the new state laws. According to Deputy Attorney General James Cole,
The Department’s guidance in this memorandum rests on its expectation that states and local governments that have enacted laws authorizing marijuana-related conduct will implement strong and effective regulatory and enforcement systems that will address the threat those state laws could pose to public safety, public health and other law enforcement interests. A system adequate to that task must not only contain robust controls and procedures on paper; it must also be effective in practice.
Despite a new level of state freedom, the DOJ will still prosecute individuals to prevent:
the distribution of marijuana to minors;
revenue from the sale of marijuana from going to criminal enterprises, gangs and cartels;
the diversion of marijuana from states where it is legal under state law in some form to other states;
state-authorized marijuana activity from being used as a cover or pretext for the trafficking of other illegal drugs or other illegal activity;
violence and the use of firearms in the cultivation and distribution of marijuana
drugged driving and the exacerbation of other adverse public health consequences associated with marijuana use;
growing of marijuana on public lands and the attendant public safety and environmental dangers posed by marijuana production on public lands;
preventing marijuana possession or use on federal property.
Regardless of the stringent guidelines, this represents another huge step in the right direction.
Illinois, the 20th state to legalize medical marijuana, along with Washington D.C. is part of a growing list of regions in America that want an end to the fruitless War on Drugs, and free access to a totally non-toxic, highly effective medicine.
Despite former heads of the DEA warning the federal government earlier this year that allowing state legalization of cannabis would be dangerous, a growing number of Americans aren’t buying the mindless propaganda. Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance accurately states that:
The former DEA chiefs’ statement can best be seen as a self-interested plea to validate the costly and failed policies they championed but that Americans are now rejecting at the ballot box.
Despite the role of police as ‘law enforcement,’ they have decided that they are better suited as political activists.
According to a letter submitted to the DOJ from police groups around the nation:
It is unacceptable that the Department of Justice did not consult our organizations — whose members will be directly impacted — for meaningful input ahead of this important decision.
Now, when the police say they will be directly impacted, they are not referring to work load or moral obligations, they are referring to the almighty dollar. Cannabis crackdowns makes up a large portion of police funding, and without being able to destroy the lives of peaceful, pot smoking citizens, a large portion of officers may very well become unnecessary. Less criminals means less police.
The failure of the Federal government to act in this matter is an open invitation to other states to legalize marijuana in defiance of federal law.
For once, let’s hope the police are right. Not only will the DOJ’s decision give freedom back to states and individuals, it will also allow a medley of marijuana stocks to leave their penny stock status and enter the market place, providing additional state and federal revenue and more jobs. Who knows, maybe all the cops made redundant can get a job at a pot shop.
In the poignant words of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.),
the Justice Department should focus on countering and prosecuting violent crime, while respecting the will of the states whose people have voted to legalize small amounts of marijuana for personal and medical use.
You know him. Maybe you are him. The casual acquaintance, not quite friend, he saunters forward, dilated pupils scanning over each of his shoulders, iPad casually out and ready, a knowing smile forming a crest of righteously pompous paranoia across his stubbled jaw, beads of youthfully enthusiastic perspiration clinging to his hipster handlebar mustache, and, beaming with false solidarity, he presses play:
Half-way through the clip, he starts digging through his leather “Tool” wallet and pulls out five pre-creased bills to further baffle you with (below).
Ok, great, I’ve seen this stuff before. So was 9-11 an inside job? Maybe just allowed to happen for private agendas? It’s old played-out news, and, most likely, your mind was made up long ago. The more important question no one seems to be asking is, “why should we give a shit?”
Woah woah woah!! You can’t mean that?
I do. Absolutely. And if I do my job here, hopefully you’ll be shrugging with indifference as well by the end of this article, and the world can be a happier place with just a few more rainbows and baby unicorn farts. Come follow me on this fanciful rollercoaster ride, enjoy all the benefits of “disregarding bad news.”
Where we stand
Today, 36% of Americans either are certain or pretty sure that 9-11 was an inside job. So, this is not some fringe group of loonies, but a rather hefty chunk of “we the people,” not to mention the masses on the fence open-minded to the idea. The countless YouTube links circulating Facebook are everywhere so the question has been posed to just about everyone by now. If we can all unite for a moment and assume the very worst, “9-11 was our government killing its own people,” that’s exactly why we need to knock this right the hell off. Terrorism is bad, but thinking about terrorism is far worse…
There is a natural rhythm to peering down the rabbit hole. First is the rush of finding something sensational; it triggers this carnal craving to be “in the know”. Then, once the initial high of learning something edgy wears off, the specific details slowly fade away from our memories and we’re left with only a few linchpin ideas. These are the singular points that, at least to us, are utterly irrefutable. The linchpin is a beautiful mental process that allows us to unburden and feel righteous in our opinion, free wonder about other things.
On the official story believer’s side of the case is the old, “how could that many people possibly keep something this big a secret?” Then, to the conspiracy theorists, all they need are 2 words, “building 7,” and the argument is over. In either case, it’s like an atheist preaching to a born-again; it always ends in a, “well I just have faith,” and a perforated stress-ulcer coupled with bloody stool.
I mean something far greater than apathy when I say this: once you quit giving a shit, it’ll all be roses. I promise.
Whoever the group responsible, there is a wide array of believed motives. Conspirators say Iraq war, oil, create enemy, repeal rights, globalization, fear agenda. Meanwhile, official storyers say… umm… “They hate freedom” or something, U.S.’s Saudi Arabia presence, sanctions on Iraq. Whoever the culprits, whatever the aim, each of these explanations shares a common bond; they all hide under the same umbrella: “propaganda.” There is some message that attack was designed to send. There was a message, and that is part of why we need to stop caring…
See, the mind of the conspiracy theorist is an interesting place. They tend to be the more curious amongst us, believing themselves more open to the truth than others. Whether their world view is ever validated or not, there have always been a segment of the people who don’t buy the “official line.” Be it JFK, the moon landing, Lincoln, freemason founding fathers, or “God” is a mistranslation for “Aliens,” alternative explanations of history abound.
What that means is, if a small powerful group of the world’s elite was responsible for 9-11, they knew full-well that some would shout “bullshit.” It’s a matter of human nature. So don’t you think, just maybe, if they knew how you’d react, that might have been part of the plan?…
I hope you can bear with me here. Remember, we’re still assuming the “truthers” are right.
Since the 60’s, the idea of “the man” has been all but ubiquitous, but in the last decade especially, an overwhelming shift in perspective has occurred to where it’s now just assumed common knowledge that “your government is out to get you,” like some unspoken rule. FEMA camps, chemtrails, illuminati symbols, clips of cops beating rioters all flood through our bandwidth. Ideas that would have gotten one ostracized a decade ago are now commonplace. politicians are corrupt, the news is filled with lies, food is poison and breathing causes cancer, so cynicism seems to be justified, but let me ask you this: How bad was 9-11 really?
Even the “they” out to get you isn’t out to get you.
3000 people died that day. That’s terrible, but not really (how dare you?). Nearly 3000 people have died since you started reading this article.
But those weren’t Americans so it’s not as important? Or, those were largely natural causes (circle of life)?
The callous truth is, in spite of all the hype, the numbers are a speck of rubble amidst the heap of steel and concrete that is human mortality. Being blown up by a terrorist is terrifying (hence the name), but not only are you more likely to die slipping in the shower than you are to die in a terrorist attack, you are 4,167 times more likely (where’s the war on hygiene?).
Here’s what I’m suggesting: the result has been accomplished. Even If our own government were the orchestrators of 9-11 (again, maybe so, maybe not), it absolutely doesn’t matter.
The numbers are so small they are inconsequential. If the government attacks its own people, you should worry about it if you also expect to be struck by lightning while holding a winning lottery ticket; it could happen, but it won’t.
The dwindling baby-boomers who still trust FOX-news may fear terrorist, but the internet doesn’t. The internet, though, is afraid. We are afraid of something far worse…
If these elusive shadow men really run the show, the larger game was not anything tangible, but the propaganda campaign that followed, where we now collectively fear our government. That was the aim. The result has been this massive uneasiness on the collective mind of the people that the one’s they were supposed to rely on were out to get them, and that is far scarier.
Pissed off guys in caves with access to box cutters is not a threat to a heavily armed nation. But a group who controls the riot police, watches all the satellites, monitors your browsing history, and owns the judicial system is trying to kill you… that’s scary.
Guess what, my friends; they aren’t. 3000 people. Whoever it was killed just enough to make it seem plausible that they are killing us. They aren’t. They just aren’t. Do serial killers exist? Of course. Will you be skinned and made into a lampshade at some point this week? Absolutely not!!!
Now I can already hear the backlash. “He must be working for the man. They got to Qwizx, too.” Or, “What about the FEMA camps, flying drones, and U.S. citizens put on no-fly lists or labeled terrorists without trial?”
Yep. Those are things alright. So what? The only thing that’s changed is now we know about it. Far worse things have happened and will continue to, because that is part of the human condition. Say thank you to the internet for being a check on the villains of the world’s nefarious bullshit. You are just as safe you were before you did a Google search for codex alimentarius, but now you are aware.
They want you scared; there’s nothing to be scared of. When you “expose the truth” you’re really the one spreading the fear. The very powers you’re trying to expose, you are doing their job for them.
Drones give law enforcement agencies unprecedented abilities to engage in surveillance and intrude on people’s privacy
Dave Norris, a city councilman in Charlottesville, Va. says:
I don’t mean to sound conspiratorial about it, but these drones are coming, and we need to put some safeguards in place so they are not abused
With the looming threat of overpopulation, is it a question of morality to set these drones afloat that is, for the time being, forcing them to stay grounded? Is this simply one more step towards total control that is part of a New World Order scheme? Or is this simply a cost effective way of handling crimes in a technologically advancing society? Like it or not, THE DRONES ARE COMING!
A few days ago, we looked into the coming rise of a new species being developed by the technocrats; it’s nigh. Spectacular as this notion is, as it turns out, the next stage in human development has already arrived, interlaced inconspicuously amongst us, as though “They Live” were a documentary.
You see, everyone loves a good ethnic slur, but under our thin veil of cultural, linguistic, economic, and pigment differences, it’s understood that we’re all one collective unity of mankind. Hi, brothers and sisters. So with the utmost love and respect for all y’all round the globe (minus Canada, America’s ceaseless punchline), we can all join hands in an orgy of discrimination against the one group that’s not like the others. Proudly, I’ll stand on my soapbox of an anonymous keyboard and proclaim something we’ve all long suspected, but never voiced: “yuppies aren’t human.”
…Literally… Let me explain
If there’s one thing I’d gleaned from my last stint in the psych-ward (like you didn’t suspect), it’s how, like an uncured slab of beef, the lines between mental illnesses, unfortunately, are neither cut nor dry (consider the utter failure of the DSM). A great deal of consensus, however, stands in the psychologist community to where these muddied lines can be drawn, and the word “psychopath” is not a term bandied lightly, folks. A psychopath, apparently, is not always the image immediately drawn to mind of some knife wielding pariah, glazed in dried mustard and animal-semen (gross), prowling the subway adorned only in a single strategically-placed pool-floatie, who passes the day lobbing “Jesus saves” paper-airplane pamphlets at jaded urbanites. Nah, he’s probably wearing a silk tie, Gucci perhaps.
Psychopaths, in fact, while occasionally criminal masterminds, are masterful social chameleons, often indistinguishable from the crowd. Preconceived notions blown. A new theoretical analysis suggests that psychopathy is not merely a mental disorder, though, but rather the psychopath is a separate new sub-species of human altogether, a new animal. No joke. Sure, Patrick Bateman may lob revving chainsaws upon fleeing call-girls, but he wasn’t human, so it’s copacetic. Evolution, it seems, just won’t take a day off. Psychopathy is categorized with traits of:
To sum all that up, psychopaths (henceforth redubbed Homo PsychopathiusTM) are highly-intelligent, calculating, manipulative machines of self-interested ambition, lacking the capacity for conscience due to the inability to feel emotion. They are a manifestation of the cliché wolf in sheep’s clothing as a predator in white-collar work clothes, and these things aren’t human.
With an untappable spigot of raw uninhibited self-interest at its disposal, Homo Psychopathius often rises to the top of whatever organization/ field it sets its aim at. They are natural visionaries, innovators, and leaders of men, so it just makes sense that, statistically, the career with the highest propensity for psychopathy is nothing less than the CEO.
Over the last few decades, as you’ve undoubtedly noticed, the global power regime has shifted reigns from the uber-nation to the empire-corporation being the vaster colossus of influence. Our ruling class, then, are the highly-competent next stage in evolution, being more adapted for the major-leagues without the nuisance of those silly outdated oddities called feelings. Further still, note this list of the top ten careers Homo Psychopathius are found in, not forgetting the psychopath, more often than not, is at the forefront head of his field:
1. CEO
2. Lawyer
3. Media (Television/Radio)
4. Salesperson
5. Surgeon
6. Journalist
7. Police officer
8. Clergy person
9. Chef
10. Civil servant
Wait! Wait! Wait! Holy shit! What are you saying?
This thing is smarter than you, vastly more driven to power. It controls the companies you work for; it represents your legal system, decides what news you hear, tells you what to consume (down to a science), holds your life in its hands, arrests your deviants, propagates your religions, and it dominates your politics… oh yeah, and cooks your food (never trust a guy with a set of personally engraved knives, I guess).
We’re not alarmist here. Rather, I propose a happy compromise over this news: as successful as these things have proven themselves to be, rising to the apex of society, I offer that we humans dutifully permit this new animal to take the reins (cause it already has) as the new dominant species of the planet. You win, psychopaths. Game over. Anyway, our outdated human machine doesn’t mind serving as the structural base for your mighty overlord will. We’re more suited for playing Minecraft, masturbating, and following your orders. It’s kinda what we’re good at. If it’s not overly presumptuous of me to assume the diplomat between our 2 great peoples, let me be the first of my kind to say, “I vow my allegiance. All hail the morlocks! (I’m on board, guys. Eat someone else’s kids.)”
Fellow sapians, kinda brings the whole “Occupy Wall Street” thing into a new light, huh? Looks like the X-Men comics had it right all along: the 1% with all the powers really were the next stage of human evolution.
Take it; leave it; use it as an excuse to embrace your inner asshole.
Wondergressive 
