Why Millennials Won’t Turn “Conservative”

Every so often the wonks of wishful thinking give us an article about how blacks are becoming Republicans, how Hispanics are supposedly a natural GOP constituency, or, as is the subject here today, how the millennial generation is turning “conservative.” Perhaps pundits asserting the last thing recall Winston Churchill’s observation, “If you’re not a liberal at 20, you have no heart; if you’re not a conservative at 40, you have no brain.” And perhaps they overlook that it’s possible to raise a brainless generation.

Don’t think, as one might, that this will be a typical analysis sneering at the proverbial “next generation” using the perceived gold standard of one’s own. After all, I realize that my generation is the tree the millennial nut fell from. Placing matters in further perspective, it’s true that older and younger generations ever slam each other; it’s also true that they both are always partially right. Lastly, I’ll say that I don’t at all consider the WWII FDR voters the “greatest generation,” though it makes for a nice narrative. The greatest generation was the one that founded our nation and wondered if we could “keep” its republic, and there has been a consistent, but accelerating, degeneration ever since.

In discussing our latest movement toward idiocracy, my starting point will be a Sept. 4 American Thinker article written by one Chriss Street. In making his case for millennial hope, Mr. Street points out that while 61 percent of millennials voted for Barack Obama in 2012, his approval among them has now sunk to 46 percent. But this is a deceptive statistic. For an approval rating amounts to the judging of a candidate relative to people’s ideal personal standard for the presidency, whereas in an election he is judged relative to another specific candidate for the presidency. And if Obama were again running against Mitt Romney — with all the usual media propaganda — does anyone really think he’d lose millennials to the governor? No doubt more would stay home, but I suspect the president would enjoy something close to his 2012 support among those who casted votes.

Moreover, millennials may have soured on Obama somewhat, but this reflects cynicism more than conservatism. Of course, that they’d be cynical is no surprise; they’ve been raised in an unraveling West in which feckless, morally confused adults in their homes, schools, government, houses of worship and elsewhere have let them down. Nonetheless, cynicism is not traditionalism; in fact, it is a form of naiveté. Believing all people act out of selfish motives, the cynic instinctively paints everyone with the same brush. And such a person can hardly distinguish well among candidates.

Mr. Street also tells us that, “in 2008, 37.4% of incoming freshman women and 30.5% men identified themselves as liberals or leftists, the most in 35 years.” The reality, though, is even worse than this indicates. First consider that self-reporting is more about perception than reality. For starters, it always underestimates leftist numbers, as likely a majority of “moderates” are liberals who — usually because of self-delusion (a leftist bailiwick) and a desire to sound “reasonable” — don’t brand themselves what they really are; bear in mind when pondering this that liberals are generally solipsistic and fancy that they define the center, and also realize that the label “liberal” has been discredited enough so that many won’t don it. Yet even more significant here is that it isn’t just people’s perceptions that shift — the definitions of “liberal” and “conservative” do, too.

Consider that while a conservative in 1952 America was staunchly anti-communist, a conservative in the Soviet Union at the time was a communist. And “conservatives” in Western Europe are often our liberals’ ideological soul mates. This isn’t for lack of truth in political advertising. Rather, it’s because the only consistent definition of “conservative” is “a desire to maintain the status quo” while “liberal’s” only consistent definition involves a desire to change it. This means “conservatism” is always changing: tomorrow’s version will reflect today’s liberalism’s success in altering the status quo. Conservatism is the caboose to liberalism’s locomotive (I treat this in-depth here).

This explains a few things. First, it’s often pointed out that a healthy plurality in America describes itself as conservative. Is this surprising? All it really means is that many, many people align themselves with the status quo — and if this weren’t the case, the status quo wouldn’t be the status quo. Second, some insist that millennials will move toward conservatism, and this is true in that most people become somewhat more traditional with age. Yet it’s also true that conservatism will move toward them.

That is to say, as “conservatism” drifts “left,” it follows that millennials will “become more conservative” even if they stay in the same place, in that they will be situated more on the post-shift political spectrum’s right side; this is just as how a person can become poorer in a definitional sense if the poverty line standard is altered.

That so few recognize this reflects the relativism of our time, where we label ourselves with provisional terms and measure ourselves against other people (it’s people who define the political spectrum). If we want to see matters clearly, however, we must define them differently: in absolute terms.

In other words, what do millennials actually believe? Well, never before has an American generation been so tolerant of intolerable sexual practices, so supportive of faux marriage and skeptical of actual marriage, so relativistic and disconnected from Christianity (church attendance is one of the best predictors of voting habits). Never before has an American generation been to their degree socially “liberal.”

This brings us to the claim that millennials are, at least, fiscally conservative. Now, not only is convincing evidence of this elusive, but considering it a saving grace is essentially saying that it profits a man to gain the world but lose his soul. Regardless, however, while the social liberalism/fiscal conservatism marriage may exist in particular cases, I suspect that in principle it is an impossibility.

For instance, speaking of principle versus particular, if you ask people, “Do you believe government should balance its budget and be frugal,” of course they’ll say yes. But if you ask them if they’re willing to relinquish their particular piece of the pie (government college aid?), their tune changes. Espousing fiscal responsibility requires only a voice; achieving it requires virtue.

Second, consider the side-effects of social liberalism in modern times. And this should be prefaced by saying that since this explanation warrants a book, my treatment here will necessarily be lacking. But just as an example, social liberalism means loose sexual mores. Loose sexual mores mean a high rate of single motherhood (today it’s 42 percent…and rising). And what does this mean? Since the modern West won’t let these women twist in the wind, the government will step into the breach and play daddy with handouts and/or mommy with tax-funded daycare. It is unavoidable.

And in point of fact, this cultural decay brings us to the real reason for political drift. It was something about which the Founding Fathers — as well as great thinkers throughout Christendom’s history — spoke much. Ben Franklin warned, “As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” British philosopher Edmund Burke observed, “It is written in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.” And John Adams wrote in 1798, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Question: does “moral and religious” describe us today?

Of course, some will now say, “But why do you think millennials supported Ron Paul? They want liberty!” Sure they do.

So does a tiger in a zoo.

So does a toddler.

Neither, however, can be allowed to roam free in civilization without hurting himself or others. And the less people are civilized growing up, the closer they will be to that infantile or animalistic state — and the more they have need of cages and masters.

The truth? Government can be no better than the public’s virtue, though it can be worse. And this morality-government relationship is evident in voting patterns. Is it a coincidence that every group orthodox Christians label immoral — those involved in “alternative” sexual deathstyles, criminally inclined inner-city dwellers, effete college professors, grunge-type youths scarred with multiple tattoos and body piercings — vote left? “What fellowship hath light with darkness?” The darkness hates the light. When people have sins they yearn to rationalize away, the last thing they’ll do is support leaders who would uphold, even just through word, a moral standard condemning their passions.

Providing specificity as to how this affects government is another book-worthy topic, so I’ll offer just two examples. We’ve heard about those ruggedly individualistic Americans who’d rather live in poverty in Appalachia than accept government handouts and those spirit-of-entitlement types who protest violently when they don’t receive them. And society will always contain both kinds, but the ratio can vary greatly. In a nation characterized by self-sufficiency, honor and virtue, a redistributionist will find barren ground. But if a spirit of greed, covetousness and thievery prevails, people will be susceptible to the demagogic appeal, “You’ve been cheated, but give me power and I’ll get you your piece of the pie, comrade!” Or consider lust. If people resolved to be chaste outside of marriage, do you think the abortion movement or taxpayer funded contraception appeal could gain traction?

So how do you make a civilization susceptible to dark demagogues?

Make it love the darkness.

I wouldn’t first and foremost spend time on intellectual appeals. As the Soviets once did (as by ex-KJB defector Yuri Bezmenov) I’d seek to undermine the morality of the target nation. I’d spread the idea that morality is really “values” and values are relative — all just a matter of perspective, you see. Once this was accepted and people no longer believed in the rules of morality, it would be as if they ceased believing in the rules of human nutrition: not thinking any food could actually be “bad,” they’d be governed only by taste and would try, and could develop an affinity for, anything — even perhaps poison. Vice corresponds to this on the moral menu.

I’d then get them hooked on their bad moral diet through inundation. Stoke their lust’s fires via highly sexualized entertainment, and portray violence as just as casual and cool, so lashing out at others seems the norm. I’d engorge their egos with media messages about how they could determine their own morality so that, as the serpent said, “you will be like God.” I’d provide co-ed dorms and a general party atmosphere at universities, creating “occasions of sin” that will ensure the kids have as much as possible they need to justify. And after robbing them of moral judgment and creating a visceral craving for vice, I’d fill their heads full of anti-Western, anti-Christian — in fact, anti-goodness — ideas in college classrooms. When I was done with them, they’d not only possess the discernment of a man in the midst of a drug-fueled orgy, their egos would be so bloated they’d consider their ignorance wisdom.

Speaking of wisdom, when conservatives indulge wishful thinking and suppose that millennials will “wake up,” they ignore that we actually need a shake up, something that changes the cultural trajectory on which we’ve long been (so if an asteroid strikes the Earth, millennials may turn into conservatives — of course, they instead may turn into cavemen, too). Until then, whatever the keepers of the flame plan had better require the participation of only a zealous minority. For the masses will not wake up when beset by a cultural narcolepsy in which nightmares are fancied nice dreams.

Hate Power: Compelled To Act

“Most people today stand for nothing and hate nothing and as a result fight for nothing” ~ R. J. Rushdoony

It is widely assumed that love is “good” and hate is “bad”.  “Love” and “hate” could be the two most confusing words in the English language.  The dictionary contains multiple definitions for both.

Hate has been the subtle weapon used to push the Black agenda into American social life.  It bears an uncanny resemblance to Zionist policies of forcing acceptance by legal mandate.  Both Jews and Blacks have succeeded in gaining sympathy by skillfully describing past suffering and convincing a feckless contemporary Caucasian population that they are owed a debt.  Jews have used the Holocaust to gain sympathy and Blacks have used slavery in exactly the same way.  Reparations are a Jewish idea that has been co-opted by Blacks.  Black hate for Whites is centered on slavery while Jewish hate goes back to the Cross.

A recent email link showed Elbert Guillory, a Black Senator from the 24^th District of Louisiana giving a careful explanation of why he has switched to the Republican Party.  The sender hoped it would “go viral”.  .

Speaking from a softly darkened church sanctuary Senator Guillory maintains the Republican Party is a better friend to Blacks than the Democratic Party.  He believes Liberal Democratic programs have hurt Blacks by making them dependent and controlling them.  He says the government should preserve freedom and keep its nose out of the education of our children as well as our phone calls and emails. Guillory claims these proper ideas are the core of the Republican Party.

White Americans are seriously gullible.  They think that if a politician speaks the name of Jesus he or she must be a Christian.  When a Black politician claims to believe in Constitutional government he gains immediate attention.  The distortion of partisan support for Blacks is ignored and a naive assessment of the core of the Republican Party is overlooked.

Black leader Randall Robinson was recently featured on C-Span supporting reparations to Blacks. With his softly intellectual erudition Robinson is a convincing advocate for a program that would by immoral, larcenous, divisive, ineffective, and tragic.

Craig Steven Wilder, a professor at MIT, has put together an expose entitled “Ebony and Ivy” subtitled “Race, Slavery and the Troubled History of American Universities.  In an interview by Black radio personality Joe Madison, Wilder claims that his heavily footnoted record of slave ownership by Christian college leaders and slave money going to support universities is a factual account that should indict former White educators.  Wilder is a talented scholar but his book is a partisan attempt to keep the fires of racial hatred burning brightly.  See the interview here.

Guillory, Robinson, and Wilder are engaged in a rhetorical revolution but there are others who are more cogent.  Ayo Kimathi, a Department of Homeland Security employee, would like to start a world-wide race war between Blacks and Whites.  See the video .

Jews have exerted heavy influence on the Black agenda in America.  They directed the NAACP from its inception in the early Twentieth Century into the mid-Nineteen Sixties. See here and here.   They control the press and media and have used its immense influence to promote Black policies.  Jewish speech writers produced speeches for Dr. Martin Luther and many other Black leaders.

Though vehemently debunked by Jewish voices this statement attributed to Israel Cohen in a 1912 piece called “A Racial Program for the Twentieth Century” was read into the Congressional Record on June 7^th, 1957, Vol. 3, p8559:  “We must realize that our party’s most powerful weapon is racial tensions. By propounding into the consciousness of the dark races that for centuries they have been oppressed by whites, we can mold them to the program of the Communist Party. In America we will aim for subtle victory. While inflaming the Negro minority against the whites, we will endeavor to instill in the whites a guilt complex for their exploitation of the Negros. We will aid the Negroes to rise in prominence in every walk of life, in the professions and in the world of sports and entertainment. With this prestige, the Negro will be able to intermarry with the whites and begin a process which will deliver America to our cause.”  In response to questions concerning the authenticity of this quote Canadian Jewish writer and inventor Henry Makow believes it is authentic.  Read here.

In 1858 Abraham Lincoln entitled a famous speech “A House Divided Against Itself Cannot

Stand”.  His source for this titular wisdom was Matthew 12:25 in the Christian Bible. His solution was dreadful but this concept is being successfully used by contemporary White haters to destroy the United States of America.

The case against George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin was justly adjudicated by Stamford police chief Bill Lee and would have been closed if the media had not intentionally distorted the facts and created an issue that has destroyed lives, exacerbated racial tensions and threatened justice.  Blacks are unwitting pawns for a Jewish agenda. Louis Farrakhan has noticed this manipulation but most Black leaders have not.

Hate is the driving force behind Jewish success in undermining White Christian culture.  Jewish hate is mostly covert while Black hate is mostly overt.  Jews use Blacks to disrupt White society. Contemporary White Americans have never owned slaves.  They generally treat both Jews and Blacks with respect.  Millions of Jews opt to live in the U. S. rather than Israel and Blacks do not emigrate to Africa because they live better here than anywhere else in the world.

Hate is used to create and support war.  It is created by skillfully propagandizing naïve citizens.  In the United States hate for Germans and Japanese was almost universal during WWII.  Song writers composed songs, the newspapers told of horrible atrocities, the government declared war, Germans became “Huns”, the Japanese became “Japs” and murder became the spirit of the day.  Young men joined the Army with the specific intent of killing Huns and Japs.

Hate is manipulated to conform to the latest government agenda. A new category in our cancerous legal system is called Hate Crimes.  Hate crimes are offenses committed against individuals or institutions because of their race, ethnic background, sexual orientation, or religion.  Hate crimes involve victims under special government protection.  These laws are effective in creating anger and separation.

In the secular world people are forced to hate what the sovereign hates.  If the government is sovereign it will decide what should be hated.  Hate crimes force the population to grant special treatment to individuals protected by government mandate.

Freedom finds its zenith when the sovereignty of the One True God is recognized and His commandments are allowed to rule the society.  Secular governments always result in tyranny.   In a God fearing society evil is easily identified as disobedience to God’s Commandments.  Freedom cannot exist without hatred for evil.  When government attempts to rule a social order without the overarching Commandments of the God of the Bible, brutality is forthcoming.

Courts that seek adjudication through competing advocates subject their victims to a cruel gamble. The varied opinions of wicked men cannot produce justice.  Justice is produced by courts that seek righteousness and hate evil.

Contrary to prevailing opinion God’s Law was not given to Moses as an impediment to freedom but rather as a formula for producing peace, order, and prosperity for His creation. God seeks obedience because obedience produces the most joyful and productive existence.  Love is impossible without a healthy disdain for evil.

Pervasive New Testament Christianity is a cultish distortion of the full orbed religion God has given us in His Word. He gives us miraculous healings and prophetic blessings but when we fail to obey His Commandments He gives us and effete and useless confusion.  This confusion has marked American Christianity for at least the past half century.

The Devil is delighted when Christians busy themselves with predicting the Second Coming or work to arouse the Holy Spirit in order to obtain blessings.  He is delighted when preachers confine their preaching to the gifts God has for His people, when they use expository preaching to avoid addressing current issues, or when they emphasize love as if it is a warm emotional bath.

I receive innumerable requests from well meaning cultish Christians who want me to read a current prophetic utterance from their favorite prognosticator.  They are rapt with its truth.  Unfortunately, this waste of emotional energy has been going on for decades and if God’s Commandments were properly enforced the sources of these bogus prophecies would cease.

Our adversary, Satan, uses hate effectively as a weapon against Christianity.  Christians are an easy target because they are unable to hate an enemy they have failed to define.  The distorted, Pietism love of New Testament Christianity leaves them in open view without weapons and worse yet without understanding..

Love and hate are inextricably entwined with Christianity.  Hate for sin is an essential part of the Christian life.

How Obedient Are You?

In the early 1960s, Yale professor Stanley Milgram conducted a serious of famous psychological experiments to measure people’s obedience to authority. A volunteer was instructed by an experimenter to help administer a simple test to a subject in another room. Cards were drawn to determine which of two “volunteers” would play each role, but the cards were rigged such that the actual volunteer was always given the same role each time, and the other role was played by an actor. This gave the volunteers the impression that the role they happened to be assigned was arbitrary.

The test subject (i.e. actor) could be heard but not seen by the volunteer. Whenever a test question was answered incorrectly by the subject-actor, the volunteer was instructed to administer a shock by pressing a button on a control panel. These shocks began at a negligibly low voltage, but with each wrong answer, the shocks were to be increased in 15-volt increments until eventually the final level of 450 volts was reached. The shocks were fake, so no one was physically harmed, but the volunteers didn’t know that the shocks were fake.

As these shocks were administered, the subject in the next room (who again could be heard but not seen by the volunteer), would express discomfort in a manner befitting the severity of the shock, including complaining of a heart condition, screaming louder and louder, and banging on the wall. After a certain voltage was passed, the shock-receiver eventually become completely silent (as if to simulate unconsciousness or death). Even after this point, the volunteer was instructed to continue administering shocks.

Milgram’s experiment was intended to test how far the average person would go. At what point would they refuse to give out any more shocks, despite being told by the experimenter to continue?

If you haven’t already heard of this experiment, what would your prediction be? What percentage of people would go all the way to the end?

Before the first experiment was run, senior psychology students polled by Milgram collectively predicted that only 1.2% of the test volunteers would go all the way to 450 volts. They expected that about 99% of people would stop before that point, figuring that most people are not so sadistic. Similar polling of professional psychiatrists yielded a prediction that about 0.1% would go all the way to 450 volts, meaning that 99.9% would stop before that point.

What was the actual result?

In reality, 65% of volunteers made it all the way to the end of the experiment, which required pushing the 450-volt button not just once but three times in a row.

This experiment has been repeated numerous times with highly consistent results, even when the experiment was updated to conform to today’s stricter experimental ethics guidelines. Compliance rates are generally in the 61-66% range, meaning that most people go all the way to administering the full 450 volts.

Milgram himself reported 19 variations on this experiment that he conducted. By tweaking different factors, such as whether a fellow volunteer participant (played by an actor) voiced strong objections and quit, or obeyed until the end, Milgram found that the compliance rate could be tweaked up or down. In one variation he was able to achieve a compliance rate of 92.5%, while in another he was able to get it down to 10%. The effect of peer pressure had a strong influence on the results.

Incidentally, the compliance rate was the same for men and women alike, so the female volunteers were no more or less obedient than the male ones.

Instead of being blindly obedient or downright sadistic, the volunteer would usually object to going further at some point, often around 135 volts. In response to each verbal objection voiced by the volunteer, the experimenter would instruct the volunteer to continue with the following statements:

1. Please continue.
2. The experiment requires that you continue.
3. It is absolutely essential that you continue.
4. You have no other choice. You must go on.

If the volunteer objected a fifth time, then the experiment was halted. And of course the experiment would end if the volunteer objected more strongly at any point such as by getting up and walking out of the room. So the experimenter would eventually take no for an answer — but not right away.

There were also a few custom responses that the experimenter would give as replies to specific types of objections. For instance, if the objection was about doing irreparable harm to the subject, the experimenter would assure the volunteer that although the shocks were strong, no permanent tissue damage would occur.

As payment for participating in the experiment, which took about an hour, each volunteer received $4.

How Nazi Are You?

Milgram’s experiments were partly conceived in response to the trials of Nazi war criminals after WWII. Did the Nazis have to recruit unusually sadistic people to implement their plans? Did they have to use fear and force to get people to obey? Or is it actually much easier to get people to obey a perceived authority, even when it runs contrary to the person’s conscience?

I recently returned from a 30-day trip to Europe, during which I visited Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. This was an interesting progression as it relates to WWII since I went from the the aggressor (Germany) to an occupied country (Netherlands) to one of the victors (UK). I visited WWII-related museums and sights in each country and talked to locals about their perceptions of this phase of European history.

It was a compelling experience to visit some of the actual WWII-related locations I’d previously only read about in school or had seen in movies. I visited an old WWII bunker. I walked through the Secret Annex where  hid from the Nazis. I explored the underground war rooms used by Winston Churchill and his staff. I caught trains at some of the stations that were once used to transport Jewish people to concentration camps.

Other than Pearl Harbor (which I visited when I was a teenager) and various constructed memorials, the USA is largely devoid of significant WWII sights. I can’t just stroll around Las Vegas and point to places where bombings or battles occurred. But when walking around certain European cities, such locations are hard to miss.

In many American WWII films, the Nazis are depicted as a society of evil, inhuman sadists. A great example of this portrayal can be seen in the role of Amon Göth (played by Ralph Fiennes) in the movie . The real Amon Göth, who was the commandant of a concentration camp, would do things like make the Jews pay for their own executions, taxing them to compensate the Germans for the bullets used to kill them. After the war he was tried as a war criminal, found guilty, and executed by hanging at age 37. Apparently it took three tries to hang him before the execution was successful, due to a miscalculation of the rope length. As an SS Captain in charge of a concentration camp, Göth had plenty of people under his command to carry out his orders. So why did people obey him? More importantly, how many factors (like the threat of punishment) can we strip away and still see people obeying orders from someone like Göth?

Stanley Migram set out to discover some deeper truths. What would it take for a typical person to override his/her conscience and obey commands to hurt or kill others? As it turns out, for most people it doesn’t take much at all. If someone assumes an air of authority and tells people what to do, there will be plenty of people willing to obey, even if the commands contradict a person’s sense of ethics and morality.

According to Milgram,

“Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.”

Progressive Acquiescence

A key to the Milgram experiments is that a person is gradually eased into overriding their conscience. They aren’t instructed to give the 450-volt shock right away. Instead they begin with a voltage that isn’t even noticed. They progress from there in small increments.

The Nazis used a similar strategy. They didn’t immediately begin shipping Jews to gas chambers. They changed the climate and the culture slowly, such as by producing lots of propaganda, progressively restricting Jews’ rights, increasing Jews’ taxes, isolating the Jewish community in ghettos, and then moving them into camps. They started small and tuned the dial several notches each year. And people went along with each incremental step, which was a little stronger than the previous step.

It’s been interesting to observe some social changes that are happening today, which strike me as part of a gradual progression. For example, Microsoft recently announced the XBox One device, which comes with a Kinect camera system. This device actually watches you while you use it. It can closely monitor your eye movements, allowing it to determine exactly which part of the screen you’re looking at. It can register small shifts in your body movement. Supposedly it can even detect an increase in your heart rate, which tells it which part of a commercial may be affecting you emotionally.

Years ago a device like this would have seemed unconscionable and incredibly creepy. Some people will undoubtedly perceive it as such today, but as part of a progression towards greater personal surveillance and less privacy, this can also be viewed as just another incremental step. It’s only an entertainment system, right? But it also helps you get used to putting a surveillance device in your home, one that watches you, collects data about you, and rewards you in accordance with behavioral conditioning practices (such as by giving you points for watching commercials). If you object to some aspects of this, you may choose to disable those aspects initially, but of course not everyone will. Society will have time to get used to each progressive step, just like Milgram’s volunteers.

You may object verbally of course, but your verbal objections won’t be an issue if you still tolerate the outcome in the long run. As Milgram discovered, just about everyone objects at some point, but most of them still obey.

Another example is Google Glass, which is slated to be released next year. This device has already been banned by many businesses, including Las Vegas casinos, largely because it can function as an unwelcome surveillance device. Google claims that the privacy concerns regarding Glass are overblown. Cell phone cameras are already ubiquitous, and this is just one incremental step beyond that.

And of course if various authorities tell us these next steps are okay, nothing to worry about, then it shouldn’t be a big deal, right?

I’m not saying that this is a terrible thing per se. But I do think these are interesting examples of how progressive acquiescence can be used to change behavior, one incremental step at a time. When people object, it doesn’t necessarily kill the progression. It just means that people may need more time to get used to the current step before moving on to the next one. Verbal objections may slow the progression, but they aren’t sufficient to stop it.

Questionable Work

If Milgram could get people to issue painful/lethal electric shocks by having an authority figure tell them to do so, you might imagine that it’s even easier to get people to take less extreme (but still questionable) actions, such as working long hours for low pay doing meaningless busywork.

Even though many people would naturally object to throwing so much time at empty and unfulfilling work, they’ll still go ahead and do it if someone tells them to. Most people with jobs don’t like the work they do, but they still show up, even if the incentives aren’t very compelling.

What if you want to quit, but your boss, your parents, or some other perceived authority figure objects? Will you surrender and go back to work if they say something like this:

1. Please don’t quit.
2. We need you to keep working.
3. Many people are out of work. You should be glad that you have a job at all.
4. You have no choice. You have to go to work.

Getting people to do meaningless work is actually pretty easy. Most of the time, you can just have an authority figure like a boss command them to do it, and they will.

Is this a trap you’ve fallen into?

Questionable Relationships

Another place where people succumb to overrule-by-authority is their relationship life.

What if you want to split up, but your partner objects? Now what if your family objects? Or you partner’s family? Or your mutual friends? Or what if you sense that society at large objects to your desire to split up? What if you’re married? Do you have the inner resources to make this decision for yourself without being overruled by someone else?

What’s especially interesting about Milgram’s experiments is that just about every volunteer resisted in some way. They verbally questioned the experiment. They sweated, squirmed, groaned, or dug their nails into their skin. Some said they didn’t want the $4 payment. A few even had seizures. The experiment produced obvious signs of stress and discomfort in the volunteers. Yet the majority of them still obeyed all the way to the end.

We see these results all the time when people stay stuck in unfulfilling jobs or relationships. They show obvious signs of distress. Some complain. Some have nervous breakdowns. Some read self-help material incessantly, looking for a way out. Yet the majority still stay in those situations, lacking the inner strength to leave.

Do you allow anyone in your life to wield authority over your relationship decisions? Do you need anyone’s approval or fear their disapproval?

Students and Authority

Many students get suckered into high-stress situations at exam time. They’re told by authoritative professors and administrators that they must be tested and that exams are necessary. But the apparent necessity of exams is a manufactured illusion of academic life. Outside of such domains, the academic examination process is largely irrelevant. No one outside of school cares what exams you have or why you think you need them. In fact, many people consider the academic testing process ludicrous and dysfunctional.

During my first run at college, I disliked exams, so I declined to show up for many of them. A predictable consequence was that I failed many classes and was soon expelled. But I learned that the decision to take or not take any exam was mine to make. No one ever forced me to take a test — my permission was always required. I could see that behavioral conditioning techniques were being used to compel me to behave a certain way, such as rewards or punishments. Once I saw through this silly game, I became free to choose for myself whether to play the role of academic student, knowing that it was entirely my choice and that it was impossible for anyone to force me to be tested if I didn’t want to be tested. This turned out to be a powerful mental shift. When I returned to college later, I found it easy to ace my exams without undue stress and generally without needing to devote extra time to studying. I understood that submitting myself to testing was always my choice and never something I had to do. I could only be tested if I chose to be tested.

As a reward for taking and passing certain exams, you may receive a slip of paper that says you know something, but you’ve probably forgotten most of that material a week after the exams anyway. The purpose of the exam was to temporarily convince someone else that you know what they want you to know. What that slip of paper really says is that you’re obedient to authority and that you’ll do the assignments and take the tests that are given to you, and that in itself is something that many employers value. But if you don’t care to submit to another authority, then that slip of paper is of minimal utility. I have one in a box in my garage from my university days, and no one has ever asked to see it. In retrospect, I regard the effort required to earn it to be largely a waste of time, even though I did it faster than most people. (Incidentally, if you still want that slip of paper and you’d like to graduate faster than normal, read “10 Tips for College Students”.)

If you’re currently a student, recognize that no one has authority over you. You don’t actually have to show up to class, take exams, and do busywork. Participating is your choice, and no one can force to you play the role of academic student without your permission. The best they can do is apply behavioral conditioning techniques to try to get you to submit to their authority, but if you see through their silly games of rewards and punishments, those techniques lose a lot of their power. You may still choose to play the academic game for your own reasons, which is perfectly fine. Just don’t fall into the trap of thinking that any part of it is being forced upon you. The whole thing is your choice.

Awareness

Now that you know about this tendency of human beings to obey authority even when strong objections may be present, how shall you deal with this?

The first step is to become aware of any areas in your life where you may already be succumbing to the pressure of authority and allowing it to override your own morals, ethics, values, or desires.

If you value your time, then where are you feeling pressured to waste time or to invest in activities or responsibilities that aren’t actually important to you? For example, how much time did you invest in social media or web surfing this week? Was that a conscious decision on your part, or did you behave that way because someone or something else was conditioning your behavior with the promise of updates, information, or the illusion of pseudo-connection?

If you value freedom, where have you been encouraged to give up some of that freedom in ways that feel uncomfortable to you? What do you feel compelled or obligated to do this week? What are your have-tos? Are those genuine needs you’ve decided to fulfill, or were you progressively lured into a trap by giving your power away unnecessarily? For instance, did you choose to take on as much debt as you have now, or were you subtly enticed to go there, one easy step at a time?

What areas of your life are causing you signs of distress? Where are you sweating, squirming, complaining, or biting your nails? What parts of your life are causing you the equivalent of mild seizures?

Notice where some part of you is objecting to the state of your reality. Is this an area where you’re still obeying some kind of authority, even if you’re not happy with the results?

As you become aware of your tendency to submit to authority, even if it’s hard to stomach all the areas where you’ve been doing so, this will increase your alignment with truth. At first these realizations might sting a little. But please don’t allow yourself to sink back down to a place of denial and ignorance. Do your best to maintain this level of awareness, even if you don’t feel ready to act on it yet.

A run of one of Milgram’s experiments with a single volunteer took about an hour. That didn’t give people much time to think about their decisions — they were caught in a high-pressure situation. In real-life situations, however, you’re more likely to have some time to pause and reflect on your decisions. This is especially true when it comes to career and relationship decisions. Use this reflection time to your best advantage, and learn to trust yourself in those quiet spaces where the influence of a perceived external authority figure is minimal. For instance, pay attention to how you feel about your job when you’re not at work, and notice how you feel about your relationship when your partner is away — in these moments you’ll have access to a more accurate assessment of your feelings.

Seeking Support

Peer pressure certainly played a role in some of the Milgram experiments, either increasing or decreasing the compliance rate. The nice thing about peer pressure is that you can consciously create your own peer pressure to align with your desires.

When it’s possible to do so, seek out the support of others. When your inner voice is being squashed by the seemingly louder voice of some perceived authority, reach out to connect with others who’ve been in similar situations and have already moved beyond them. Especially target people who already have the results you desire, such as a fulfilling career, a happy relationship, or a stress-free academic life, and seek their counsel. Ask such people what they would do in your situation and why. See if their answers resonate with you.

You’ll often find when you talk to such people that they’ll have very different attitudes towards the same authorities that tend to overpower you. I experience this all the time from the opposite side when people share their current challenges with me. They constantly fall into the trap of giving away their power to some perceived outside authority. They often don’t even realize that they can choose to disobey, and that once they get past their resistance to doing so, everything will work out just fine. Disobeying may seem very difficult before you do it, but afterwards you’ll look back and kick yourself for making such a big deal out of it. In many cases it’s as simple as saying no and meaning it.

The student can’t change his/her major because Mom and Dad would be disappointed. The unhealthy relationship can’t end because the needy partner would be hurt. The crappy job can’t be quit because the bank wants to keep receiving the monthly loan payments.

You’re the authority in your life. Not your parents. Not your partner. Not your bank.

You can expect that other people will apply behavioral conditioning techniques to get you to comply with their wishes. Parents do it. Partners do it. Bosses do it. Banks do it. But in the end they’re all powerless to force you to do anything. The only way you obey is that you mistakenly believe that you have to obey. They tell you to obey, and you obey. But like the ornery volunteers in Milgram’s experiments who refused to go all the way to 450 volts, you always remain free to stop administering shocks at any time — especially to yourself.

The good news is that you’re not alone. Other people will be delighted to support you on this path, if you choose to invite their support. But they won’t be the same people who’ve benefitted from your obedience in the past, so don’t go looking for support from the authorities who are still giving you orders. If you go complaining to Amon Göth, you’ll get a bullet in the head for your troubles.

Shifting Gradually

Don’t feel you must make a dramatic shift overnight. You may find it more realistic to make gradual, step-by-step progress.

In the Milgram experiments, even the subjects who objected and quit didn’t generally do so immediately. Their resistance increased gradually as the experiment progressed. As the voice of their conscience grew louder, their willingness to blindly obey authority gradually diminished.

During the 5-year Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, the Dutch didn’t immediately jump to maximum resistance. At first they tried to accept the occupation and adapt to it, but as the Nazis grew more oppressive, the Dutch pushed back with greater levels of resistance, including helping people go into hiding, printing underground newspapers, espionage, sabotage, and armed resistance.

Members of the Dutch resistance also sought to collaborate and coordinate their efforts, working together to support each other. Individually they were weaker, but collectively they could support each other in resisting the occupation on the long journey towards Liberation Day.

Demolishing Unauthorized Authority

Ultimately the task before you is to dismantle the external forms of authority in your life that you’re no longer willing to accept.

One memorable act of rebellion from my own life was when I was 17 years old and realized that I didn’t actually believe in the religious gobbledegook that had been fed to me throughout my childhood. For the first few months, I held this awareness only to myself, not having anyone in my life that I could safely confide in.

When I eventually shared my honest beliefs openly, the reaction from others was predictably negative. Initially this was a stressful time for me. What kept me going was the feeling of certainty that I was in the right, which was largely something created from within.

I experienced a powerful shift when I stopped giving my power away to the old perceived authority figures in my life. I stopped believing that they were smarter or wiser than I was. I finally allowed myself to believe that they could be wrong, mistaken, or deluded. By seeing them as fallible, I no longer held them up as worthy authorities over me.

In other words, I de-authorized those previous authorities. I rescinded permission for them to wield authority over me. Once I experienced that shift in my thinking, I then had the power to think and choose for myself, and no amount of behavioral conditioning tactics (i.e. rewards or punishments) would cause me to yield. As people recognized this shift in me and realized that they no longer had my permission to wield such authority over my thinking and behaviors, they soon gave up on trying to control me. Really I gave them no choice.

The power of Milgram’s experiment lies in the volunteers’ belief in the authority of the experimenter. By giving this person permission to wield authority over their decisions, they gave their power away and became capable of denying responsibility for the pain they may have caused. This allowed them to justify their participation as that of a cog in a machine.

One way to opt out of such an experiment before reaching the end is to place anyone who tries to claim authority over you on a lower rung than yourself on your mental ladder of authority. Don’t assume the experimenter is smarter or wiser than you. Realize that they may be mistaken, wrong, or unethical in their dealings and that you may be right. Stop doubting what your own mind is telling you.

Who or what have you authorized to be a greater authority than yourself in your life? If someone in a position of authority tells you that something is okay, but inside you feel creeped out by their actions, do you go along with them, or do you listen to yourself and say no? What if most of your friends and family go along for the ride? Will you succumb to that kind of peer pressure, even if you feel something isn’t right?

Note that the word authority includes the word author. To wield authority over your life is to become the author of your life. You can’t consciously author much of your life if you give someone or something else authority over you.

Objecting to the misapplied use of authority isn’t enough. Just about everyone objects at some point. People object yet still obey. At some point you have to be able to object and disobey, which means to obey your own inner guidance above the demands of any perceived external authority.

Subjectively speaking, there is no external authority. What’s happening internally (within your own mind) is that you’re stressing yourself out. The stress is a result of trying to deny your own power and authority, make yourself weak, and act like a cog in a machine. This is stressful because it contradicts your true nature. The reality is that you’re very powerful and creative, and if you desire to change some aspect of your reality that doesn’t suit you, you can do so. But in order to do so, you must recognize and accept your power. If you don’t like the way the world is right now, you can step up and do something about it. Pretending to be a powerless victim of circumstance doesn’t suit you.

Becoming an Authority

If you de-authorize the phony authorities in your life and become your own authority, you’ll begin to experience the flip side of Milgram’s experiment. Instead of being the hapless follower, you’ll soon find other people following your lead.

This is where the authority game becomes much more interesting. Instead of being a blind follower, you can transform yourself into a conscious leader. By authoring your own life more proactively, you’ll inspire others to follow your example.

I think that’s the secret fear that many people have when it comes to authority. Once you regain your personal authority, it’s an easy progression into the land of greater public responsibility. When you take charge of your life, you’ll attract others who want to follow your lead and do something similar. You won’t even have to try — those people will come to you.

If you know in advance that authoring your own life will result in others wanting to experience a similar story, is this something you can accept? Are you willing to step into the role of leader? Can you welcome that role into your life? Or would you rather keep playing the follower for a while?

You can follow, or you can lead, and there isn’t much of a space in between. If you’re not willing to lead, you’ll end up following by default.

If you’re willing to lead, then how are you going to lead? When people recognize the authority you have over yourself and become attracted to it, how will you deal with that? Will you try to ignore them? Will you accept that kind of responsibility and do your best? Will you abuse it and become a sadist?

One benefit of leadership is that you can learn a great deal more about your own path when you have a chance to see it reflected in those who seek to join you. Just as Milgram’s experimenters could observe when their volunteers were experiencing stress in response to the unethical demands placed upon them, you can also gauge the response to the authorship of your life from public feedback — but without giving your power away to that feedback. Allow the requests of others to serve as input, but make your own decisions from your personal sense of authority, wisdom, and conscience.

Reclaiming Your Power

Incidentally, Stanley Milgram was only 27 years old when he began conducting his famous experiments (he died at age 51), so don’t make the mistake of assuming that he was some wizened old senior professor. In his day he was quite the rabble-rouser, shaking up the status quo by challenging people’s beliefs.

As a result of going against the grain, Milgram had some authority-based pressure used against him as well. He moved from Yale to Harvard, but he was denied tenure at Harvard, probably because of the controversial nature of his experiments. His membership application to the American Psychological Association was also put on ice for a year.

Many of Milgram’s peers challenged the ethics of his experiments because the experiments caused significant stress to the volunteer participants. Yet most of the original participants, when interviewed about it later, were glad to have been part of the study. Some of them even wanted to work with Milgram. They understood the significance of his work, even though helping him with his research was stressful.

If Milgram’s experiments were indeed unethical, then wouldn’t it also be unethical for teachers to use their authority to stress out their students with exams and grades, for companies to control their employees with rewards and punishments, and for parents to demand that their children comply with family traditions and expectations? When is it okay to use stressful psychological tactics to control the behavior of another?

When stress-producing tactics are used on you in order to manipulate you into behaving a certain way, try to recognize these tactics for what they are — an invitation for you to give your power away. Realize that you can always decline this invitation, reclaim authority over your own life, and make your own conscious choices.

Even if most people continue to give their power away, you don’t have to be one of them. You can stop the shocks whenever you want. The shocks were never real to begin with.

Source:  Steve Pavlina

Elysium: The Technological Side of the Police State

“Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth.” — Pablo Picasso.

From George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World to the Wachowskis’ The Matrix, Stephen Spielberg’s Minority Report and most recently Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium, writers and filmmakers have used science fiction to both forecast the future while also holding up a mirror to the present. The best among these transcend what is largely escapist entertainment and engage their audiences in a critical dialogue about what happens when power, technology and militaristic governance converge.

With its dystopian vision of a post-apocalyptic Earth in which the majority of humanity is relegated to an overpopulated, diseased, warring planet while the elite live a life of luxury and perfect health on an orbiting space station, Elysium fits in perfectly alongside the futuristic books and films featured in my new book, , which warn of a totalitarian future at our doorsteps.

However, while much has been said about Blomkamp’s use of Elysium to raise concerns about immigration, access to healthcare, worker’s rights, and socioeconomic stratification, what I found most striking and unnerving was its depiction of how the government will employ technologies such as drones, tasers and biometric scanners to track, target and control the populace, especially dissidents. Mind you, while these technologies are already in use today and being hailed for their potentially life-saving, cost-saving, time-saving benefits, it won’t be long before the drawbacks to having a government equipped with technology that makes it all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful far outdistance the benefits.

For those who insist that such things are celluloid fantasies with no connection to the present, I offer the following.

Robotic Police

Fiction: One of the most jarring scenes in Elysium occurs towards the beginning of the film, when the protagonist Max Da Costa waits to board a bus on his way to work. While standing in line, Max is approached by two large robotic police officers, who quickly scan Max’s biometrics, cross-check his data against government files, and identify him as a former convict in need of close inspection. They demand to search his bag, a request which Max resists, insisting that there is nothing for them to see. The robotic cops respond by manhandling Max, throwing him to the ground, and breaking his arm with a police baton. After determining that Max poses no threat, they leave him on the ground and continue their patrol.

Reality: The United States government is presently developing robot technology that can mimic human behavior. Consider ATLAS, an android being developed by the Department of Defense. Standing at 6 feet tall and 330 pounds, the robot moves, walks, and runs like a human. While still in testing stages, it bears an eerie resemblance to the robotic cops featured in Elysium. It’s not too far-fetched to imagine a time in the near future when artificial intelligence robots are responsible for policing citizens. Considering how difficult it is today to exercise one’s constitutional rights when confronted by SWAT-team attired police with little regard for the Constitution, imagine trying to assert your rights when confronted with autonomous machines programmed to maintain order at all costs?

Drones

Fiction: In another scene ripped from the present, Max Da Costa is hunted by four drones while attempting to elude the authorities. The drones, equipped with x-ray cameras, biometric readers, scanners and weapons, are able to scan whole neighborhoods, identify individuals from a distance—even through buildings, report their findings back to police handlers, pursue a suspect, and target them with tasers and an array of lethal weapons. These drones, strikingly similar to currently existing Quadrotor drones, are depicted in A Government of Wolves.

Reality: Comprising an $82 billion industry, at least 30,000 drones are expected to occupy U.S. airspace by 2020. These drones, some of which will be deceptively small and capable of videotaping the facial expressions of people on the ground from hundreds of feet in the air, will usher in a new age of surveillance in American society. Not even those indoors, in the privacy of their homes, will be safe from these aerial spies, which can be equipped with technology capable of peering through walls. In addition to their surveillance capabilities, drone manufacturers have confirmed that drones can also be equipped with automatic weapons, grenade launchers, tear gas, and tasers. The FBI, DEA, and US Border Patrol are already using drone technology for surveillance operations.

Biometric scanners and national IDs

Fiction: Throughout Elysium, citizens are identified, sorted and dealt with by way of various scanning devices that read their biometrics—irises, DNA, etc.—as well as their national ID numbers, imprinted by a laser into their skin. In this way, citizens are tracked, counted, and classified. The end result is that there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide to escape the government’s all-seeing eyes.

Reality: Given the vast troves of data that the government in its many forms (NSA, FBI, DHS, etc.) is collecting on all Americans, we are not far from a future where there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. In fact, between the facial recognition technology being handed out to police across the country, license plate readers being installed on police cruisers, local police creating DNA databases by extracting DNA from non-criminals, including the victims of crimes, and police collecting more and more biometric data such as iris scans, we are approaching the end of anonymity in America today. It won’t be long before police officers will be able to pull up a full biography on any given person instantaneously, including their family and medical history, bank accounts, and personal peccadilloes.

Behavior/Mood Sensors

Fiction: In a meeting with his robotic parole officer, Max finds his mood and emotions being scanned, analyzed and assessed by his android counterpart. Perceiving a heightened level of stress and frustration in Max, who is finding it difficult to reason with an automaton lacking in reason, the robot offers him mood-altering pills to counteract his perceived “aggression.”

Reality: Advances in neuroscience indicate that future behavior can be predicted based upon activity in certain portions of the brain, potentially creating a nightmare scenario in which government officials select certain segments of the population for more invasive surveillance or quarantine based solely upon their brain chemistry. Most recently, researchers at the Mind Research Center scanned the brains of thousands of prison inmates in order to track their brain chemistry and their behavior after release. In one experiment, researchers determined that inmates with lower levels of activity in the area of the brain associated with error processing allegedly had a higher likelihood of committing a crime within four years of being released from prison. While researchers have cautioned against using the results of their research as a method of predicting future crime, soon it will undoubtedly become a focus of study for government officials.

Brain to Machine Interface

Fiction: In Blomkamp’s world of Elysium, humans are not only able to store computer data in their brains and transfer this data by way of brain-computer interfaces, but they can also plug directly into computer systems that control every aspect of society and government. In such a world, a single key stroke can establish a dictatorship or unchain an enslaved population.

Reality: Although still in its infancy, there’s no limit to what can be accomplished—for good or ill—using brain-computer interfaces. Scientists have already created machines that allow people to manipulate robotic arms using just their thoughts. In the near future, we may see scientists observing human thought using “smart dust”—nanomachines the size of dust—which can be placed in the brain to observe neural behavior. Furthermore, hackers have already been able to “steal” information from human brains using extant brain-computer interfaces which read brain waves and are commercially available for $200-300. Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have created a brain-to-brain interface between lab rats, which allows them to transfer information directly between brains. In one particular experiment, researchers trained a rat to perform a task where it would hit a lever when lit. The trained rat then had its brain connected to an untrained rat’s brain via electrodes. The untrained rat was then able to learn the trained rat’s behavior via electrical stimulation. This even worked over great distances using the internet, with a lab rat in North Carolina guiding the actions of a lab rat in Brazil.

Making the Leap from Fiction to Reality

When Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1931, he was convinced that there was “still plenty of time” before his dystopian vision became a nightmare reality. It wasn’t long before he realized that his prophecies were coming true far sooner than he had imagined. The question that must be asked, writes Huxley in Brave New World Revisited, is what can be done about it?

Does a majority of the population think it worthwhile to take a good deal of trouble, in order to halt and, if possible, reverse the current drift toward totalitarian control of everything? … [R]ecent public opinion polls have revealed that an actual majority of young people in their teens, the voters of tomorrow, have no faith in democratic institutions, see no objection to the censorship of unpopular ideas, do not believe that government of the people by the people is possible and would be perfectly content, if they can continue to live in the style to which the boom has accustomed them, to be ruled, from above, by an oligarchy of assorted experts.

That so many of the well-fed young television-watchers in the world’s most powerful democracy should be so completely indifferent to the idea of self-government, so blankly uninterested in freedom of thought and the right to dissent, is distressing, but not too surprising.

“Free as a bird,” we say, and envy the winged creatures for their power of unrestricted movement in all the three dimensions. But, alas, we forget the dodo. Any bird that has learned how to grub up a good living without being compelled to use its wings will soon renounce the privilege of flight and remain forever grounded. Something analogous is true of human beings. If the bread is supplied regularly and copiously three times a day, many of them will be perfectly content to live by bread alone—or at least by bread and circuses alone.

“In the end,” says the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky’s parable, “in the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, ‘make us your slaves, but feed us.’” And when Alyosha Karamazov asks his brother, the teller of the story, if the Grand Inquisitor is speaking ironically, Ivan answers, “Not a bit of it! He claims it as a merit for himself and his Church that they have vanquished freedom and done so to make men happy.” Yes, to make men happy; “for nothing,” the Inquisitor insists, “has ever been more insupportable for a man or a human society than freedom.”

Nothing, except the absence of freedom; for when things go badly, and the rations are reduced, the grounded dodos will clamor again for their wings—only to renounce them, yet once more, when times grow better and the dodo-farmers become more lenient and generous. The young people who now think so poorly of democracy may grow up to become fighters for freedom. The cry of “Give me television and hamburgers, but don’t bother me with the responsibilities of liberty,” may give place, under altered circumstances, to the cry of “Give me liberty or give me death.”

Source: John W. Whitehead  |  The Rutherford Institute

NFL Marketing Machine

Hey FANS, are you ready for more football? How much do you know about the business end of your favorite entertainment addiction, the NFL? The revenue stream from media contracts, ticket sales, official NFL products and products, government stadium subsidies and syndication rights has reached enormous levels. The pie has grown from a sandlot clubhouse hobby to a billionaire jet set club. Now that fantasy football is in full swing, the beleaguered but rabid buff, sticks with their voyeurism as they act out their heroism celebration. Devotees of the noble sport seek the thrill of victory, but experience the agony of defeat in their pocketbook.

The NFL (not for long) article, Fantasy is the Current Test of Reality, shows that escapism is preferable for most athletic enthusiasts.

“NFL Football is the national sport. It more closely resembles the evolving social trends than any other indicator. Our society is a mirror of a game that once encompassed the essence of the human struggle against the elements of nature and competing warriors. The symbol of this era was the spent sacrifice of an average quarterback who achieved miracles. The famous photo of an exhausted Y.A Tittle captures the meaning of the game that each fan treasured in their heart and desired to know for themselves. The America of this period was not that long ago, but now seems to be from a different century.”

Now that the purity of a game is but a mere memory, the business is all about theBenjamins. Forbes notes in The Most Valuable NFL Teams, that the “NFL’s 32 teams are worth, on average, $1.17 billion, 5% more than last year. The Cleveland Browns, a lousy team for years in a midsize market, sold for almost $1 billion last year.”The last agreement with the players association produced a new contract that “included a provision that gives players between 46 percent and 48 percent of league revenues. That’s down from the previous agreement’s 50-50 split.” Even the causal bystander must admit that the owners are wielding the hammer in free agency. If the marketing machine is geared to extract more revenue out of a hooked public, just what does the future hold?The vision from NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell in another Forbes article, reports:

How The National Football League Can Reach $25 Billion In Annual Revenues.

This year revenues for the National Football League will be somewhere just north of $9 billion, which means the league remains the most lucrative in the world.

He has stated that he wants to reach $25 billion in annual revenues for the league by the year 2027. Here’s how the NFL can get there:

1) The first—and most significant step—will be the renegotiation of the league’s television rights deals.

2) A new labor deal. The 2011 collective bargaining agreement ends in 2020.

3) The NFL has mastered the art of dividing up its rights. In other words when, say, CBS gets the TV rights deal, it does not get the live-streaming Internet rights.

4) The NFL is in initial discussions about forming its own mobile network.

5) The NFL’s fantasy game, at 3 million players, is still well behind ESPN and Yahoo, which have an estimated 14 million and 12 million players, respectively.

This ambitious plan is looking to up the ante. Merchandising will not boost an additional 16 billion out of cash strapped fanatics. Maybe selling NFL uniforms to the military or running a bookmaking network with an anti-trust exemption might get permanent seating in skyboxes for elitist politicians, but it does nothing to bring relief to the lowly stadium season ticketholder. Soon with enhanced and intrusive security measures, many fans will just be content to be tailgaters.

Relying upon the referees to umpire a fair playing field might bring back the perception of an honesty game, but doubts linger that the point spread is often more important than the final score. The Drunk Never Knows When To Leave The Bar, might offer a better option than havingJimmy Haslam or Eddie John DeBartolo Jr. in change of public relations.

“Now you say, what is wrong with the fox guarding the hen house? Surely, you are not saying that this compares to the NFL Players Association passing judgment on all new referees, writing the rule book and picking only from their own ranks every new candidate for the job?”

Looking to the players for that wholesome image has its own pitfalls. Review the NFL Arrests Database.

“These are arrests and citations involving NFL players since 2000 that were more serious than speeding tickets. U-T San Diego reviewed hundreds of news reports and public records in compiling it. The list cannot be considered comprehensive in part because some incidents may not have been reported and some public records proved to be elusive. Increased media coverage of incidents also probably accounts for more incidents listed in recent years.”

It seems that the poster boys are running a campaign to rename the NFL to the Aaron Hernandez league. Ownership flack, when Tim Tebow Says Football Comes After Faith and Family, illustrates that selling the NFL vision of Jerry Jones is the way to the $25 billion super bowl.At some point, the public will become played out. Their satisfaction with the NFL experience will never approach the dignity of Y.A Tittle. An aficionado of the sport likeHoward Cosell would tell it like it is. “Don’t you remember the $28 million dollar judgment against the NFLPA and its affiliated marketing company (of which $21 million was punitive) for breaching their fiduciary duty to retired players?”

Players, players almost sounds like , playoffs . . . playoffs !

Soon the virtual reality of a smart phone app will provide the excitement of a two-minute drill without the cost of admission. The NFL marketing machine owes more to than to the collective wisdom of the players or the owners. The business of the end zone dance rests upon the good will of the fans.

NSA Domestic Spying “Built On Lies”

Kit Daniels recently wrote a brief but very enlightening news story on InfoWars.com:

“On the August 6 edition of the Alex Jones Show, Dr. Ron Paul responded to this very straightforward statement which appeared in a recent New York Times article:

“‘Some analysts and Congressional officials suggested Friday that emphasizing a terrorist threat now was a good way to divert attention from the uproar over the N.S.A.’s data-collection programs, and that if it showed the intercepts had uncovered a possible plot, even better.’

“‘Well, it’s not amazing that this is the truth,’ Paul said in response. ‘It’s amazing, I think, that the New York Times would admit it.’

“Paul went on to say that the NSA’s claim of saving Americans from dozens of terrorist attacks is simply rhetoric to prove that the agency’s massive spying on Americans is a good thing.

“‘Their (the NSA officials) claimed successes are all built on lies,’ Paul said.

Paul referred to NSA Deputy Director John Inglis’ admission that the agency’s warrantless wiretapping only prevented maybe one terrorist plot and even that one is questionable, which contradicts the NSA’s earlier claim of 54 thwarted plots.

“‘It’s all based on lies and I think this is probably a benefit to us because most Americans now are being very, very leery of what our government tells us,’ Paul continued. ‘This is a terrible thing to have to go through… who wants to have to give up on their country?’

“‘We don’t want to give up on our country but I think it’s high time we gave up on a lot of our politicians and the way our government is being run.’”

See the report at:

Ron Paul Calls NSA’s Alexander and Clapper Liars

What is even more amazing than the New York Times reporting such a story is the fact that some of Barack Obama’s biggest Hollywood supporters are beginning to recognize the evil machinations of Obama’s domestic spying.

Breitbart.com covered the following story:

“Actor Matt Damon told Black Entertainment Television (BET) that President Barack Obama ‘has some explaining to do:’

“‘There are a lot of things that I really question–the legality of the drone strikes, these NSA revelations. Jimmy Carter came out and said we don’t live in a democracy. That’s a little intense when an ex-president says that. So you know, he’s got some explaining to do, particularly for a constitutional law professor.’

“When asked his opinion of the President’s second term, Damon chuckled and said, ‘He broke up with me.’

See the report here:

Damon: Obama Broke Up With Me

Damon is not the only one in Hollywood angry over the NSA’s domestic spying. Included in the list are Alec Baldwin, Judd Apatow, Steve Martin, Rob Schneider, Patton Oswalt, John Cusack, Janine Turner, and even (Egad!) Michael Moore.

To read the actors comments, go here:

More Celebs Slam NSA

Here is my problem: how is it that liberal actors in Hollywood can see, and are willing to speak out against, the unconstitutional citizen spying apparatus that Barack Obama is implementing against the American people and our country’s pastors and Christian leaders neither see it nor have spoken out against it? What the heck is going on? You mean to tell me that actors in Hollywood care more about freedom than the men standing behind America’s pulpits? Creepers, Batman!

Plus, neither let us forget that it was George W. Bush who put all of the infrastructure, policies, and laws in place which created the machinery for everything that Obama’s NSA is currently using against the American citizenry. This is NOT a political issue. Both Republican and Democrat administrations and congresses have collaborated to eviscerate the Bill of Rights and turn America into a giant surveillance society.

What is it about people (including Christians and Republicans) that cause them to be infatuated with a police state? All one has to do is say that some law, no matter how egregiously oppressive it might be, is in the interest of “national security,” and, presto, everyone blindly supports it. Yes, yes, I realize that not everyone supports it. Ron Paul and a few others oppose this slippery slope; but the vast majority of Republicans and Democrats, pastors and Christians, liberals and conservatives, the media elite and journalists, do support it.

With all of this love and infatuation that so many people have with the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security, the NDAA, the NSA, etc., why don’t these same people love Nazi Socialism? After all, the surveillance society created by G.W. Bush and Barack Obama makes Hitler’s spy apparatus look amateurish by comparison.

Does anyone really not know that the NSA is lying to us? Does anyone really believe that the surveillance society is about protecting the American people from a few thousand Sand People?

The last report I read on the topic said that the TSA now has almost ONE MILLION people on the no-fly watch list. Almost one million! Al Qaeda has never numbered more than a few thousand people (not to mention that Al Qaeda is a contrivance of our own CIA). And at the rate we keep killing their “number two” guys, it is questionable just how many of them are truly left. Let’s put it this way: there are far more people on the TSA watch list than there are Al Qaeda members worldwide. But it really doesn’t matter how many or few of them there are; they justify America’s politicians turning the United States into a giant police state–for our own protection, or course. BLAH! BLAH! BLAH!

Researcher Joel Skousen quotes a Reuters news report saying, “Details of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration program that feeds tips to federal agents and then instructs them to alter the investigation trail were published in a manual used by agents of the Internal Revenue Service for two years.

“A 350-word entry in the Internal Revenue Manuel instructed agents of the U.S. tax agency to omit any reference to tips supplied by the DEA’s Special Operations Division, especially from affidavits, court proceedings or investigative files. The entry was published and posted online in 2005 and 2006, and was removed in early 2007. The IRS is among two dozen arms of the government working with the Special Operations Division, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency.”

Reuters broke another report about the way the government lies to us entitled, “U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans.” From the report: “‘I have never heard of anything like this at all,’ said Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School professor who served as a federal judge from 1994 to 2011. Gertner and other legal experts said the program sounds more troubling than recent disclosures that the National Security Agency has been collecting domestic phone records. The NSA effort is geared toward stopping terrorists; the DEA program targets common criminals, primarily drug dealers.

“‘It is one thing to create special rules for national security,’ Gertner said. ‘Ordinary crime is entirely different. It sounds like they are phonying up investigations.’”

See the report at:

U.S. Directs Agents To Cover Up Program Used To Investigate Americans

Ron Paul knows the NSA is lying to us; Alex Jones knows they are lying to us; Stewart Rhodes knows they are lying to us; Joel Skousen knows they are lying to us; Matt Damon knows they are lying to us; Alec Baldwin knows they are lying to us; the New York Times knows they are lying to us; Reuters news knows they are lying to us; even Michael Moore knows they are lying to us. So, why don’t America’s pastors and Christian leaders know they are lying to us?

The Actor And Clown Culture

When thespians become caricatures of a popular culture that accelerates the demise of civilization, the routine loses all comic relief. The dramaturge of classic theater, relegated to the standing room galley or the cheap seats, creates a void in context and meaning. Today the promenade of audience interaction merges with the performance of a surreal life play. Looking into the rabbit hole applauds an adventure in the wonderland of narcissism by adopting the cult of celebrity.

Chris Renzo writes in Waking Times, How Celebrity Culture is Destroying Who We Are.

“We live in a world that celebrates image over substance and because of this we have lost sight of who we are. We are bombarded daily with images that celebrate vanity, debauchery, and acts of senselessness. Through the corporate mass media we are subliminally told what to think, how to interpret the way society operates, what is “right,” what is “cool,” and how to keep from looking old and unhip.”

It is said that the only thing funny about  jokes is his violin. Such quips like “My grandmother is over eighty and still doesn’t need glasses. Drinks right out of the bottle.” – seems downright dim-witted. However, the passé humor of your grandparent’s generation is benign and harmless when weigh against the licentiousness of the actual lifestyles of the celeb sect. By comparison, George Carlin appears tame. The political innuendo in his humor, “Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.” approaches the wisdom of the Greek proverb, “Either dance well or quit the ballroom.”

The entertainment industry does not qualify as being a cynic since their value culture never came near to being noble-minded. When they perform on stage their boogie moves and trip the light fantastic toe of their kinky art, Fred Astaire turns in his grave. Their lack of class to exit the theater and perform on the streets, set afire from the relativism of their decadent imagery, causes the pop culture to sink further into the sewer of Hollywood excess.

Gone are the days of Milton Berle, Jackie Gleason and Jack Benny. Ethnic humor, now banned from the airwaves, replaced with hip-hop, and rap music, prompts the next class in the School of the Arts to do the hood boogie-woogie. Clowns like the tame Red Skelton or the risqué Benny Hill were mild showmen judged against the likes of the Showtime staple of vulgarism. Bob Newhart’s wit replaced with Kathy Griffin’s filth is analogous about the state of mind in today’s society.

The folksy humor of Will Rogers, rides into the sunset as the “Cowboy Way”, replaced by the broke back way of life roundup, spread across the plains. Where is the humor in the eviction from the “Little House on the Prairie”?

 

That familiar Three Stooges carnival has become the Barak Obama circus. The spotless reflection of presidential shame, exhibited with each Leno appearance, razz the faithful follower fools. A pre-presidential appearance on  video has the touchy feely and future fearless leader geared up to bring in a new era. Somehow, the skits of Moe, Larry and Curley give more confidence than the nauseating charms of the current joke POTUS.In the NeoCon publication FrontPage, Mark Tapson gives a damaging account of Actor Steven Weber Proves That ‘Inside Every Liberal is a Totalitarian Screaming to Get Out.’

“Weber, a self-described “wise-ass” (he got that half-right anyway), posted a painfully unfunny political rant there entitled ” Comedy Relief.” As near as I can decipher it, the piece asserts that conservatives are a big joke, what with their insistence on sabotaging this country and demonizing the genius President Obama despite all the good he has accomplished.Weber clearly amuses himself, but when it comes to savagely funny and incisive political commentary, the man is no Mark Steyn. Here’s an example of his wit and insight into current events: “Bin Laden’s been gone, Qaddafi’s ka-dead, and the Arab Spring’s been sprung.” Weber actually cites these as examples of Obama’s “real foreign policy victories.”

Weber is right about his vague statement that Obama has the American people “aroused and assembling.” Yes, millions of Americans are aroused and assembling – not in support of Obama, but in opposition to his dismantling of our Constitutional rights, our military, our economy, our borders, our very exceptionalism.”

While Weber is an insignificant celebrity, his essay in the Huffington Times reinforces the gonzo ignorance of glorified groupies exhorting their devotion to political correctness. The history of Hollywood disdain towards Free Speech is legendary, when practiced by traditional conservative Christians. The political affiliation of the  members is well known.

Backstage columnist Simi Horwitz reports in In Left-Leaning Business, Conservative Actors Feel Marginalized.

“There are well-known conservative actors—including Gary Sinise, Tom Selleck, Patricia Heaton, James Woods, Robert Davi, James Belushi, Dennis Miller, and Sylvester Stallone—but according to Morris, their numbers are far fewer than those in the left-wing camp and, more important, they simply don’t have the clout. “If you think even for one instance Stallone can get the same press as Clooney, you’re nuts,” he said. “Clooney is a media darling. If he says something he’s taken seriously. If Stallone says something, it’s ‘Look what the asshole said.’ “

Well, “That’s Entertainment” in the world of star power mania.

From Big Hollywood, the Breitbart team argues back in March 2013, Andrew Was Right: CPAC Hollywood Panel Confirms Culture’s Impact On Politics.

“Andrew’s message that culture is upstream from politics could be heard loud and clear Friday during a panel of Hollywood heavy hitters who implored to directly engage the entertainment industry.

John Sullivan, director of 2016: Obama’s America, told the crowd the biggest deficit conservatives face today isn’t at the ballot box. The “cultural deficit” remains staggering, Sullivan said, estimating about $4 billion is being spent “working against conservative values” when one considers the total money spent on movies and television product.

“Republicans will come into an election year, and they’ll match the Democrats in political campaign contributions and pat themselves on the back on doing a good job,” Sullivan said, ignoring the culture imbalance.”

Now the clowns that control the organization apparatus in both criminal political parties really despise Will Rogers the moralist.

Tom Ashbrook from On Point writes,

“Before Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and Mort Sahl and Lewis Black, Americans fell in love with a cowboy comedian who told it like it was, plain and simple.

Will Rogers was famous for his lariat and rope tricks, his aw-shucks way, his common touch. Everything he knew he read in the newspapers, he said.

But in his day, Will Rogers, homespun comic, was a much bigger draw than Oprah, and a political powerhouse. His humor moved the nation.”

“He was the most incisive political commentator of his era who, beneath his humor, provided his countrymen a critically honest appraisal of American politics and world affairs. Few men touched the American moral and political conscience more deeply than Rogers. His astute observations, his ability to go straight to the heart of the matter and then put that into words that resonated with his listeners, propelled him to a level of influence unequaled in American history. When the witty one-liners are stripped away from Rogers’s message, a sobering and powerful view of his political clout appears. A closer look at whom he met, where he traveled, and the subjects of his writings and speeches reveals not so much a comedian but a true political insider with the power to shape public opinion and ultimately influence public policy.”

The intense cultural imbalance that Mr. Sullivan asserts did not exist back in the day of Will Rogers. Although the reappearance of the American innocence of nearly a century ago will never return, the character of traditional principles and values remain intact for the remnant of faithful loyalists, who adhere to the spirit of limited government and individual liberty.

Corporatists and authoritarians, of all persuasions and ideologies are essentially anti (small r) republicans. There is no humor coming out of the camps of these culturally deprived “true believers”. The achievement of crowd ignorance is significantly a product of mass media distortion and deception. Entertainment artists are not a privileged class, contrary to their own self-pronouncement.

The stupidity that Will Rogers speaks of, intentionally designed to cast a tragic play for the country, is a national pandemic. Buffoons that use comedic lingo to push a repressive agenda are not funny. Actors who lionize tyrannical outlaws and insert subliminal messages in the recital of their play-acting are wretched role models.

Emphatically, the public needs to have the last laugh. An old fashion boycott is in order. Lost generations that swallow the poison from popular culture icons need a sanity intervention. Stop the support of your own ruin. Artists are naturally insecure. Make sure their fear becomes a permanent proviso every time they betray our heritage. Shut off the tube, turn the volume to zero and regain a healthy perspective on your own well-being.

‘The CIA’s Role In Hollywood’

Secret agents are supposed to be secret but their existence is common knowledge.  We know that they exist, but most people don’t know what they get up to, what they actually do.  The main reason for this is that the conventional news media coverage of intelligence agencies focuses almost exclusively on them gathering information, portraying them as passive observers of the shadowy underworlds that surround our ‘civilisation’.  Their active role in covertly wielding influence on both a small and large scale is essentially ignored.

The vacuum left by the absence of real-life news media reporting on the actions of the secret services is filled with spy-fi, or spy fiction.  The world’s most famous spy, James Bond, has been aped across the world, the US versions even sometimes bearing the same initials – Jack Bauer from 24 and Jason Bourne from the Bourne films are simple examples.  Throughout the decades it has largely been British authors – Somerset Maugham in the 1930s, Ian Fleming in the 1950s, John le Carré and others since then – who set the tone and standards for spy-fi authors.  Most of these people were themselves spies for the British security services – Maugham worked for MI6 during WW1, Fleming ran a naval intelligence commando unit during WW2, le Carré was MI5 and MI6.

It was in Fleming’s James Bond novels in the 1950s that the CIA, at that time an agency whose existence was not officially admitted, were first named and portrayed.  As recent research by Dr Christopher Moran has shown, Fleming was friends with then-CIA director Allen Dulles, who was ‘fascinated’ by the Bond novels and in particular the gadgetry.  Over time the two became closer friends, to the extent that Dulles even asked Fleming to use his popular books to help portray the CIA in a positive light.  Similarly, it was British filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock who largely created the spy thriller genre in cinema in the inter-war period.  It was in Hitchcock’s late-50s film North by Northwest that Hollywood first named and depicted the CIA.  In both print and on the screen it was left to British creative talent to break the ground of public portraits of the CIA.

However, unlike Fleming and others, there is no evidence that Hitchcock himself ever worked for the security services, though he was spied on for a time by the FBI.  This included one incident in the early 1960s where an FBI mole at Revue Studios told the Bureau that a character in an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents was an ‘improper portrayal of an FBI agent’.  The Feds applied pressure and the character was watered down to being a private detective who used to work for the Bureau.

Much the same process continues today.  The former head of MI5 Stella Rimington is writing popular spy-fi, the British security services provided ‘former’ officers as advisors on the hugely popular TV show Spooks and the CIA is deeply involved in Hollywood.  In my previous article for this site I outlined how the CIA’s first official entertainment industry liaison Chase Brandon recruited actress Jennifer Garner to appear in a CIA recruitment ad.  However, that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Chase Brandon was a technical consultant on the show Alias, which launched Garner to stardom.  He was also a consultant on The Sum of All Fears (2002) and The Recruit (2003), both immediate post-9/11 films that depicted the CIA in an extremely favourable light.  Just like the pre-9/11 Enemy of the State (1998) the images and stories in these films and TV shows are a synthesis of high-value production with the glory of the security state.  Sexy young things run about and look confused for our amusement, while advanced technology spies on everything to provide the watching audience with a near-omniscient perspective.  Two spectacles for the price of one, you might say.

One particular interesting nexus of connections is worthy of greater scrutiny.  The Sum of All Fears starred Ben Affleck in the ‘sexy young thing running about’ role.  Not long after, Affleck and Garner met while co-starring in the film Daredevil (2003) and they fell in love and got married in 2005.  This is perhaps not at all surprising as they had a lot in common: they were born in the same year, were both rising stars, and had both worked on CIA-assisted productions.  Since they met Garner appeared in a CIA recruitment ad (2004) and more recently Ben Affleck directed and starred in the Academy Award-winning film Argo (2012) which tells the largely true story of the CIA setting up a fake film company as the cover for a black operation.  It is fair to say that they are not only one of Hollywood’s favourite couples, they are one of the CIA’s favourites too.

The links don’t stop there.  One of Argo’s producers was George Clooney, who made Syriana (2007), based on former CIA officer Bob Baer’s experiences in the Middle East.  Clooney is also a listed member of the Council on Foreign Relations, perhaps the most influential foreign policy think tank in the US.  Before he got involved in CIA productions Affleck also starred in Armageddon (1998) andPearl Harbour (2001), two action-disaster films that some people see as predictive programming for 9/11, the ‘new Pearl Harbour’.  Both films were made by whizz-bang closeupwobblecam merchant Michael Bay, and both were produced with assistance from the Pentagon.

If all this is making you wonder whether Hollywood is largely populated by CIA agents and whether Affleck himself is a CIA agent then you aren’t alone.  Fortunately, someone actually felt the need to ask Affleck about these issues:

That’s right, according to Affleck ‘Probably, Hollywood is full of CIA agents’ that we don’t know about.  However, it is perhaps more pertinent to focus our attention on the ones we do know about, such as Chase Brandon’s replacement Paul Barry.  He told Dr Tricia Jenkins that in his view, ‘Most Americans are content to accept Hollywood’s message. Very few ever conduct any research to determine the truth. This is reinforced to us by the public e-mail we receive. In most instances, Hollywood is the only way the public learns about the Agency and Americans frequently shape their judgments about us based on films.’

What can we do about this?  For one, by spotting the spooks in Hollywood we can show those people who do shape their judgments about the CIA based on films that they are being duped, and deliberately so.  The CIA is not a heroic, patriotic institution that wants to protect the lives of ordinary Americans and help spread peace and freedom, no matter how many Chase Brandon-aided films put phrases like that in their dialogue.  If they were such an institution then they wouldn’t have to employ people like Brandon and Barry to massage their image and weaponise the dream factories.  The very existence of people like Brandon and Barry tells us there’s a problem within the CIA, a problem Hollywood cannot solve.  For another, the likes of Affleck and Garner are not celebrities we should look up to, but are the pawns of professional deceivers and therefore probably deserve our pity.  At the very least we could stop paying for our own deception, and encourage others to stop paying for theirs.

Tom Secker is a British based writer, researcher and filmmaker who specialises in terrorism, the security services and declassified history.  He has been writing on the philosophy and politics of fear since 2008. He also periodically contributes here on SmellsLikeHumanSpirit.com, and previously appeared on the Podcast in Episodes 12, 45, and 78. Below is his latest article, ‘The CIA’s role in Hollywood’

5 Growing Cyberspace Phenomena

The Internet connects people instantly everyday around the globe, feeding us news and activities, creating an intangible Cyber world that we are increasingly reliant on. Born from this cyber is an entire parallel cyber existence—complete with all of its trappings.

1. Cyber Flirting

5 Reasons Why More Americans Don’t Protest Against The System

Having recently celebrated their nation’s independence on July 4th, Americans were invited to recall the spirit of protest, rebellion, and revolution that marks the popular myth of the birth of the United States of America.

The Declaration of Independence still stands as an important example of how the tolerance of any man can be exceeded by the actions of an over-bearing and intrusive government. Yet, 237 years after the signing of this document, one has to wonder what has happened to the spirit of fearlessness and rugged self-determination that set the American experiment in motion.

As a form of redress of grievances by a people to it’s leadership, protest is as much of a historical part of democracy as voting is. A near-last resort when the populous is bereft of political power, publicly voicing dissent in an organized, peaceful, and constructive manner is a critical and vital sign of life for a society that wishes to be free. Yet, when a ruling elite and political class become too intrusive, parasitic or too dangerous to the population, protest is often a precursor to violence, therefore the outcome of rebellion and protest is never certain and often disastrous. However, the fate of a people without the will to resist the suffrages of an encroaching tyranny is just as foreboding.

While giving credit to the Occupy movement, those who engage in protest at global summits and party conventions, growing national actions like the Tar Sands Blockade and Idle No More, and growing localized activist movements, the nation has no formidable popular mass-movement for dissent. Apparently the American people have little interest in expressing dissatisfaction with the quality of leadership we have in America today.

Why are the American people so permissive of government abuse, intrusion, waste, corruption, cruelty, and stupidity?

Here are 5 reasons reasons why more Americans don’t protest.

1. Protest is Unwelcome in the Matrix

The matrix cannot function properly when people are in the streets speaking truth to power, therefore, protest is an unwanted inconvenience for the economy, the media and the government.

For this, the government is engaged in squashing domestic protest and the media makes every effort to marginalize and ignore popular dissent. Increasingly, protest and civil disobedience are also being viewed as security threats to be met with near-military force. ‘First amendment zones,’ event permits, and laws that equate protest with terrorism all assist in dissuading Americans from participating, while tricks like agent provocateurs, police intimidation, arrest and assault are used to shut protest events down.

The modern American protestor faces regulations, intimidation and physical threats from military crowd control technologies like flash-bang grenades, the LRAD acoustic weapon, pepper sprays, surveillance of all modern types, and even the prospect of microwave pain ray technologies.

All of this already makes protest and dissent seem rather unpalatable to the average American, but, the media further demonizes protest by highlighting and focusing in on any violence that may occur, while downplaying the peaceful moments where intelligent people come together to articulate valid grievances with an out of control system.

The media tarnishes the image of any protest movement to take advantage of the fact that most people are natural followers, not natural leaders, and that most people are watching the protest in relative isolation at home, separated from friends and neighbors. Creating the perception that protests are dangerous events involving un-American, un-patriotic and irresponsible people who are likely to get hurt, helps to prevent popular support on any single issue from reaching critical mass by convincing the average person that it is too complicated and too risky to get involved.

2. Conflict Consciousness – Divided We Fall

Are you a liberal or conservative? Democrat or Republican? Are you on this team, or that team?

It doesn’t matter at all really, but, we’ve been brainwashed into dividing ourselves into an inescapable prison of bi-polarized pigeon-holes.

We blame our neighbors, friends and families for the mismanagement in the world. We blame those different than us, those in different countries, those with different color skin. We trust in authority, those with matching uniform shirts and batman belts, while we distrust and fight amongst each other. We have become culturally programmed to argue, compete, fight, and win for no real purpose. Winning, and being on the winning team has become more valuable than learning, gaining wisdom or uniting.

In this climate, with a social atmosphere so rigidly divided and so pointlessly competitive, any energy for consensus and widespread concerted action is sapped in inter-personal and tribal-like conflict. We are missing great opportunities for compromise, reciprocity, healing and growth. The consciousness of conflict ensures our self-destruction.

3. Higher Priorities… Work and Play

The American Dream of personal freedom and the opportunity for prosperity as a reward for hard work has been transformed in recent decades, influenced by an ongoing sales pitch about what life should be like for the average person. Convenience, ease, comfort, entertainment, excess, escape, work, money, debt. These are the values most available today.

Americans are working harder than ever, if they’re working at all. The economy is in terrible shape and in decline, and the American lifestyle has become so heavily invested in consumerism and debt that the average person is too dependent on continuity of income to risk even a single paycheck. Protesting is at the bottom of the list of things to do on vacation day.

Outside of work, life for most people has become a screen. Television, movies, the internet, work, handheld devices, iPads, Kindle, whatever. A new version of reality has emerged in the delivery of media and the sophistication of entertainment. Our priorities have evolved to put entertainment and escapism at the top of the list, and increasingly less value on honest government, human rights and justice.

Life is also still very good in America for most in the middle class. Food is easy to come by, credit still widely available. Charity, welfare and government assistance in some form are available to most if sought.Drone strikes and IED‘s are not yet to be seen in the homeland.

Commitment to protest and social change requires personal sacrifice. In our social atmosphere of extreme busyness and dumbed-down priorities, participation in social causes is now too risky, too inconvenient, and insufficiently fun. Our natural and historical energies for rebellion and protest are effectively expired in the office, at the bar, or at the movies, or projected onto a character on a screen.

Life has become a hamster wheel of superfluous labor and deliberate distraction.

4. Mindset of Fear, Apathy, and Resignation

Mindset is everything in our quantum-world, and our emotional under current governs how we relate to and participate in the world. Regarding politics, participatory democracy, and protest, the typical American mindset generally falls into one of three categories:

Fear – We are heavily propagandized to approach life from fear-centered consciousness. Life is to be viewed as a threat. America has already become a police state, and is heavily invested in the combination of fear and security. To the average person, the prospect of facing militarized police and possibly being beaten, gassed, dispersed, arrested and perhaps even criminally charged for voicing dissent is certainly an adequate deterrent.

Brutal, violent oppression of dissent works famously well to stop a protest, and for this, people logically fear getting involved.

Apathy – Apathy is another symptom of our cultural decline, and a mindset that keeps most people from participating in civics or protest. Apathy is a nearly-conscious choice to remain ignorant and distracted about something while pursuing the path of least resistance. Apathy seems to be the number one byproduct of our culture of convenience. People don’t care about the quality of our world enough to become involved.

Resignation – Many Americans understand all too well what is happening to constitutional and lawful government and realize that until a much more massive awakening occurs and far more people take interest, there is little to be gained from protesting. This resignation has led many to focus instead on preparing for the worst, including for scenarios like economic collapse and social unrest. Storing food and developing emergency plans is now seen by many as a more productive use of energy than attempting to influence a by participating in politics or protest.

While there are signs that Americans may be slowly waking from the dream-like state that is preventing any unified form of mass protest, it appears that for now, the formerly American qualities of courage, independence and self-determination have been replaced with fear, apathy, and resignation.

5. People Approve of the Status Quo

Americans, by and large, are still happy to enjoy the lifestyle that the status quo delivers, even if it means further forfeitures of privacy and essential human rights. Additionally, the lack of public opposition in mass is also a de facto approval of the political and economic status quo.

‘It is better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission,’ goes the saying, and by not objecting to any scandal or violation, no matter how offensive, the majority of America consents to being governed by this domineering logic.

Whether actively or passively, the majority of America supports any and all actions by our government and the corporate status quo.

Conclusion

America is a wonderful place with a vast and breath-taking landscape and a rich culture of ingenuity and creativity. Americans are interesting and generous people. It is difficult to grasp the contradiction between the beautiful and comfortable aspects of American life and the troublesome developments emerging from our leadership. It not easy to understand the gap between the values extolled in still celebrated  and the lack of public will to hold the government accountable to even the simple Bill of Rights.

Why don’t more Americans protest things like government spying, endless wars, the fraudulent banking system, the growing police state, the destruction of the environment, genetically modified foods, the assault on natural health, or even torture?

While the above 5 reasons are merely one person’s observations and generalizations about American culture, the patterns that emerge here are useful in helping to recognize opportunities for our own personal and collective evolution.

Source: Waking Times

Ear Tickling, Entertainment, And Irrelevant Exposition

At some point, one has to wonder why America’s churches are the largest block of irrelevant, impotent, and insignificant institutions in the entire country. And make no mistake about it: when it comes to influencing societal conditions, culture, and the political philosophy of the nation, for all intents and purposes, they ARE irrelevant, impotent, and insignificant.

Think about it: according to the latest available statistics, over 75% of America’s adults classify themselves as Christians. That’s over 159 million people. Over 43% of America’s adults attend the more than 300,000 churches regularly. That’s over 90 million people. Yes, both of these statistics are WAY DOWN from just a few years ago, but those statistics still represent a HUGE block of the American population. So why do these Christians and churches have so very little influence in America’s society, culture, and politics? Asking it bluntly, why is America going to hell in a handbasket with all of these churches dotting the landscape?

There is no mistaking the fact that from before the American Revolution, after the American Revolution, throughout the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries, and through the first half of the Twentieth Century, the American Church was a major voice and influence in virtually every facet and sphere of American society. However, with the exception of a temporary resurgence in the 1980s, the influence of the Church in the last half of the Twentieth Century and continuing now into the Twenty First Century is nada. Zilch.

For all intents and purposes, the activist arm of conservative churches, the Religious Right, Christian Coalition, Moral Majority, call it what you will, is clinically dead. It is not comatose; it is dead. When it comes to influencing the culture and politics of the nation, the modern Church is dead. Pastors are dead. Denominations are dead. Christian schools and universities are dead.

Think of it: 159 million Christians, 90 million churchgoers, and 300,000 churches cannot effectively influence even the smallest change of direction in America’s society, culture, and political philosophy. America is in a societal, economic, and political tailspin, and the Church sits irrelevant and impotent. And don’t forget: we are not talking about an enslaved, oppressed country such as communist China where millions of Christians are forced at gunpoint to submit to the machinations of the state.

While it is true that the underground church in China (the REAL church in China) is seeing great growth, without a revolution such as America experienced in the late 1700s, Chinese Christians will never be able to effect societal and political change in that country. And, of course, the communist government in China has all but guaranteed that such a revolution will not take place by completely disarming the citizenry.

In America, we are talking about a nation in which citizens (including Christians) are able to lobby, redress government, protest, rally, organize opposition, speak, vote, form PACs, march, petition, etc. Christians are as free to influence their societies and governments as are any other group of people in the United States. Furthermore, name the other group in this country that can boast 75% of the population who identify with it in name or 43% of the population who regularly attend its public meetings? What would the country look like if the ACLU could boast these numbers? Or the SPLC? Or labor unions?

Labor unions comprise only 11% of the adult workforce. The ACLU membership is reported to be about 500,000. And, of course, the people who belong to the SPLC could fit in a phone booth. By comparison, these groups comprise a miniscule percentage of the population as opposed to America’s churches, yet their influence is exponentially greater. So, what has happened?

The great Nineteenth Century revivalist and major contributor to America’s Second Great Awakening, Charles Finney, said this: “Christians must vote for honest men and take consistent ground in politics. God cannot sustain this free and blessed country, which we love and pray for, unless the Church will take right ground. Politics are a part of a religion in such a country as this, and Christians (and citizens) must do their duty to the country as a part of their duty to God. It seems sometimes as if the foundations of the nation are becoming rotten, and Christians seem to act as if they think God does not see what they do in politics.”

Finney also said, “If there is a decay of conscience, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the public press lacks moral discernment, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the church is degenerate and worldly, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the world loses its interest in Christianity, the pulpit is responsible for it. If Satan rules in our halls of legislation, the pulpit is responsible for it. If our politics become so corrupt that the very foundations of our government are ready to fall away, the pulpit is responsible for it.”

It is no hyperbole to say that, on the whole, the American Church has been mostly ineffective since immediately after World War II. The Church sat mute when God was expelled from America’s public life in the 1960s. It sat mute when the government gave license to the premeditated murder of preborn babies in the 1970s. And today it continues to sit mute in the face of a burgeoning police state. There seems to be virtually no abridgment of liberty, no national scandal, or no threat against our constitutional form of government egregious enough to warrant an outcry from America’s pastors and churches.

For the most part, today’s pastors are not prophets and watchmen; they are cheerleaders and CEOs. Our churches are not “the pillar and ground of the truth” (I Timothy 3:15 KJV); they are centers of social interaction, recreation, and feel-good indoctrination. Preachers are not reprovers, rebukers, and exhorters (II Timothy 4:2); they are ear-ticklers, entertainers, and expositors of irrelevance.

Let me ask you: what good does it do to teach the stories of Daniel and the lions’ den, and the three Hebrew children in the burning fiery furnace, and Esther, and John the Baptist, and Elijah, and Simon Peter saying, “We must obey God rather than men,” and Samson, and Gideon, etc., ad infinitum, if you are not going to apply those stories to the practical, day-to-day events we are experiencing now? What good does it do to preach expository messages on the Bible if one does not make those messages relevant to the times and circumstances in which we live? Yet, ear-tickling, entertainment, and irrelevant exposition seem to be what the modern church in America excels in. The result: ineffective, impotent, weak, unprepared, and sheepish Christians.

Yes, I know there are many churches and Christian ministries that are doing admirable work. We need homeless shelters, food banks, pregnancy resource centers, addiction ministries, etc. We most definitely need pastors and churches to preach the Gospel of Christ. We need missionary outreach. But we also need pastors and churches to teach the Biblical Natural Law principles of liberty and to prepare their congregations to guard and defend our freedom.

I tell you the truth: Christians in persecuted lands are not enamored with entertainment, recreation, and irrelevant Bible exposition. You don’t have to bring in some big-name rock band to entice them to fellowship. You don’t have to give their teenagers a big gymnasium. You don’t have to give their young adults coffee shops and espresso machines. You don’t have to shy away from criticisms of tyrannical government. And you certainly are not going to score any points with your fallacious “obey-the-government-no-matter-what” interpretation of Romans 13.

The time is soon coming in this country when it is going to “rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Matthew 5:45 KJV) Mark it down, Christian: when persecution and tribulation comes to America (and it has already begun), you and your family will NOT be exempt. When a jetliner falls out of the sky, everyone in it (Christian or not) goes down with the plane. And when a nation falls, everyone in it (Christian or not) goes down with the country.

The church was not created to teach Christian sugars how to recreate on a playground, but to teach Christian soldiers how to fight on a battlefield.

So many of our Christian brothers and sisters seem to be literally enslaved or addicted to some form of church formality. They need a certain music fix, or entertainment fix, or teaching fix, or liturgical fix, or a hundred other fixes. They demand a certain delivery, a certain style, or a certain personality. They intend to do nothing with what they hear, but it makes them feel good hearing it. The carnality, rancor, envy, and meanness inside the church is equal to, or superior to, that which is outside the church. Many Christian businessmen are just as greedy, just as dishonest, and just as duplicitous as businessmen professing no faith. Many deacons and church officers are just as untruthful and cowardly as anyone in the outside world.

What have all of these Sunday School lessons done for us? What have all of these pacifist expositional messages done for us? What have all of these gymnasiums, youth programs, self-esteem classes, and counseling centers done for us? Pastors and churches have been teaching all forms of Bible prophecy for decades. Generations of Christians have come and gone arguing over the nuances of Eschatology. What good has it done us? While we have been playing, partying, prancing, promoting, pouting, pontificating, patronizing, and philosophizing, a fire has been burning the foundations of our country; and we have not lifted a pail of water to help extinguish the inferno.

Truly did the Lord Jesus say, “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” (Matthew 5:13 KJV)

The word “savour” here means “saltiness.” Salt is a preservative that retards decay and ruination. God has sprinkled “salt” in the form of Christian people all over the country. We are here to be a preservative and protection against rot and ruin. But when Christians lose their saltiness, Jesus said, they are “good for nothing” and are destined to be “trodden under foot of men.” That is a word description of tyranny and oppression. Can anyone say Jackboot?

Unfortunately, many pastors and churches today are “good for nothing.” They have lost their saltiness; they no longer preserve and protect. And, ladies and gentlemen, the Jackboots have gotten out the shoe polish as we speak.

It doesn’t matter that America has 300,000 churches, 90 million people attending those churches, and 159 million people calling themselves Christians unless those churches and Christians are actively and tenaciously preserving and protecting the foundations and pillars upon which both the church and the country are built.

As God pruned Gideon’s army down from 32,000 to 300, so, too, God may need to prune the Church in America. Let the majority of churches rot on the vine; let them intoxicate themselves on the opiate of entertainment and feelgoodism; let the hirelings in the pulpit lust after ease and social acceptance; let the willfully blind bask in their ignorance; and let the sheepish servants in the sanctuary lick the hands of their oppressors.

Those who choose to fight with Gideon’s army, leave these fancy churches, which are nothing more than ornate tombs, and run to the sound of battle! Gideon’s captains are strategically placed all around the mountains. Join them! God has never needed a majority to prevail; He never will.

The great Christian patriot and “Father of the American Revolution,” Sam Adams, said, “It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in the people’s minds.”

Let the majority of churches be irrelevant, impotent, and insignificant. Even now, God is raising up unconventional fellowships. A fire for liberty churches is ablaze in the hearts of millions of Americans. The establishment churches are dead; shake off the dust of your feet and move on. Already, we have over 700 patriot pastors and churches that appear on our Black Regiment web page. There may be one near you.

See the list of patriot pastors and churches here:

The Black Regiment

If you can’t find a patriot pastor near you, consider watching our service live at Liberty Fellowship each Sunday afternoon at approximately 2:30pm Mountain Time. Watch us here:

Live Stream

If you cannot watch the service live, you can watch my archived messages at:

Video Sermons

A majority of pastors, churches, and Christians may be irrelevant, impotent, and insignificant; but you and I don’t have to be. Already, God is resurrecting Gideon’s army. Will you join us?

World War Z – Zionist Predictive Programming

This is no surprise of course. What’s interesting is how they’re positioning Zionism and Israel in the apocalyptic finale. It certainly is playing a big role in bringing the world into World War 3 which has actually already begun since the US and Israel pulled the pin out of the grenade with 9/11.

Since then the number of countries drawn into these increasing staged middle eastern conflicts meets the definition of a world war.

World war: Merriam-Webster: “a war that involves all or most of the principal nations of the world” or the MacMillan dictionary says “a war that is fought between many countries from different parts of the world”. Looks like we’re there, people, and it’s just going to keep escalating. Clever how they slipped us into this unending conflict that only gathers momentum by the day.

World War for Zion

This WWZ type of predictive programming is standard fare in the media. It’s gone on for centuries via books and embedded religious teaching, but now with modern media they can really mash it down the mass mind with abandon – and they do.

Of course they call it “entertainment”. The definition? “Something that amuses, pleases, or diverts, especially a performance or show.” Remember diverts. Overall might sounds innocent enough, but we know better. It’s like the word “amusement”. The original meanings were “to divert the attention of so as to deceive”, “to occupy the attention of: absorb, distract, bewilder.” Now? “to entertain or occupy in a light, playful, or pleasant manner”.

It’s a tactic for diversion more than anything, while the war mongers carry out their Machiavellian plan.

WWZ – Predictive Programming Propaganda

This world war Z is just another propaganda flick, using the popularized zombie meme to the max to get the biggest bang for the buck. It’s written by the son of long time Hollywood Zionist insider Mel Brooks no less, so you can be sure he got all the right coaching, input, directions and help. And of course using another CFR/CIA type gofer in Brad Pitt who’s about to marry confirmed CFR member Angelina Jolie.

Predictive programming is very powerful, using the power of suggestion via carefully crafted emotionally charged scenarios to implant an idea for easier later acceptance as the actual scenarios roll out at the hands of the social programmers.

Alan Watt explains Predictive Programming:

“Hollywood is the magician’s wand (holly-holy) which has been used to cast a spell on the unsuspecting public.”

“Things or ideas which would otherwise be seen as bizarre, vulgar, undesirable or impossible are inserted into films in the realm of fantasy.”

“When the viewer watches these films, his/her mind is left open to suggestion and the conditioning process begins.”

“These same movies which are designed to program the average person, can give the discerning viewer a better understanding of the workings and the plan of the world agenda. ‘Be-aware’”

“Predictive Programming – The power of suggestion using the media of fiction to create a desired outcome.”

Enjoy this perceptive write up on “Z is for Zionism” as I call it, he nails it nicely:

Zombie Hasbara: ‘World War Z’ and Hollywood’s Zionist Embrace

I went to the Drive-In in Atlanta Friday night, to celebrate a friend’s birthday, a beautiful night under an almost full moon. We watched This is The End and Fast and Furious 6, and two of us stayed for the 2:00 am screening of World War Z. I’m not a zombie fanatic, so other than watching the Walking Dead, I had few expectations beyond the trailers that have been on TV since the Super Bowl. So I was surprised, jarred out of the movie really, when right in the middle of the narrative, Brad Pitt’s character, Gerry Lane, travels to Israel and spends more than 10 minutes in a full-on pro-Israel propaganda piece that was as corny as it was crazy.

The Times of Israel may be only slightly exaggerating when it calls this “the greatest piece of cinematic propaganda for Israel since Otto Preminger’s “Exodus.” Not only is Israel’s fanatical Wall Building proven to be justified, against the hordes of undead invaders, and not only are Jewish victimizations paraded to justify the aggrandizement of Israeli military prowess, but it’s Israel’s supposed humanism, and multicultural inclusiveness, which in the end weakens the fragile post-apocalyptic state and allows the zombies to overrun everything. Its pretty heady stuff.

Conclusion

It’s all a smokescreen, with a few hints at what’s really going on behind the scenes. Analyzing and looking for meaning in this mass propaganda we’re being sprayed with is like looking for corn in a dung heap. But see through it we must, and then wash our minds clean of the stench and stain.

Beware how much you take on board, this type of stuff is toxic and loaded with occult symbolism, trigger words and subliminal messages meant to drag you down to their low vibration where you become even more susceptible.

Stay clear, but see these phony projections for what they are. Same with the news. We’re getting what they want us to get in these “breaking” stories, no matter how “revelatory” some of these spying and government and finance “revelations” are. It’s under control, and timed releases to test for reaction as well as let people vent some outrage and feel they have some say so are a common tactic.

I just don’t take the whole world geopolitical picture that gets painted as a reality. It’s a construct and tool of manipulation by its very nature.

Don’t let them define your reality by unwittingly adopting their parameters or living within their prescribed playing field.

We’re not separate to be put at variance against each other at the drop of a hat. Humanity is one, sharing a common consciousness. The entities that deny and attempt to erase this knowledge are the enemy.

First, get your mind and spirit truly free. Then you will know what you are to do.

Then do it.

All of it.

Love, Zen

[Hat tip: Bob Hitt - tx!]

Source: ZenGardner.com

Nikola Tesla: Calling All Freethinkers!

Humanity’s horizons glowed from the brilliance of Nikola Tesla. But to our horrible misfortune, the glow was much too bright for the Power Status Quo (PSQ). Money means power, and Tesla cost tycoons a lot of money by slaying with alternating current (AC) the dead-end direct current (DC) power distribution system of Thomas Edison (financed by J.P Morgan).

More than forty of Tesla’s patents from 1888 cover the entire system of “polyphase” AC that, virtually unchanged, powers civilization to this day—a monumental lifetime achievement for any man.

But polyphase AC didn’t lead directly to the PSQ’s campaign of erasing Tesla from history. It was “Tesla’s Coil,” key to unlocking “Aether” and harnessing “Radiant Electricity.” The ultimate forbidden technology, Aether and Radiant Electricity was a primary focus of Tesla’s last forty years on Earth.

By tapping the Aether, by touching “ . . . the wheelwork of nature,” Tesla illuminated visions of humanity freed from domination by the likes of Rothschild, Morgan, Rockefeller . . . the entire global tyranny machine powered largely by fossil energy, private central banking, war.

One man found an antidote for pathocracy, humanity’s premier poison. [1] His name was Nikola Tesla; that remains one of the few things about the man that has not been altered by the PSQ. The name survives, but little else about Tesla has not been violated. His crime or “sin” was competition tycoons couldn’t control.

Tesla always knew he would triumph. In his own words, regarding tycoons such as J.P. Morgan: “I am unwilling to accord to some small-minded and jealous individuals the satisfaction of having thwarted my efforts. These men are to me nothing more than microbes of a nasty disease. My project was retarded by laws of nature. The world was not prepared for it. It was too far ahead of time, but the same laws will prevail in the end and make it a triumphal success.”

Tesla’s “ . . . triumphal success” has the power to unwind tyranny. All we need is for enough humans to awaken from the PSQ’s spell. Tesla obviously thought awakening was possible even while insisting, “No free energy device will ever be allowed to reach the market.” Tesla knew that mass awakening was the wildcard. If we let him down, we let humanity down.

Tycoons throw enormous wealth at protecting people from reality by keeping them asleep. But waking up is free, the only ticket to freedom of development of the human potential.

Freedom . . . a gorgeous concept increasingly hollowed-out by the PSQ. Try to imagine what humanity might achieve without being kicked in the face by the psychopathic elite.

George Orwell said in his novel, 1984, “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”

If we have any chance at proving Orwell wrong, Tesla might be our best hope. So he gets the boot. But they haven’t stamped out Tesla’s spirit. His ultimate technology is still alive not only in Black-Ops, but in laboratories of valiant researchers cheating death-by-truth.

The PSQ’s perpetual fouling of Tesla accents his elevation of what it means to be human. That most salient testament to Tesla’s brilliance, his suppression by the PSQ—it’s all around us, hidden in plain sight.

Style of the PSQ exhibits fear of people thinking for themselves. As long as pockets of human intelligence resist brainwashing, and independent thoughts fly around uncontrolled, that means the PSQ’s choke hold on power is not “safe.” Similar alarm flourished in America’s top Rothschild agent, J.P. Morgan. [2] He knew monopolistic fortunes were not safe with Tesla a funded free spirit. Morgan and other tycoons stung by the “War of the Currents” [3] went into a defensive blitz. And when Tesla denied Morgan control of Radiant Electricity, Morgan had Tesla’s laboratories burned down. Works of genius were destroyed, but not the man. Morgan also instructed the four publishers of school textbooks to never mention Nikola Tesla; ditto for the Smithsonian—Nikola Tesla was an unperson. Morgan stamped like a professional on truth about Tesla. And the money boot keeps stamping with help from public ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in “authority.” . . .

Creativity . . . humans working outside “the box”—writers, inventors, scientists and researchers and free spirits soaring above dogma embody what the PSQ fears in humanity. Nikola Tesla is a stellar example of what the PSQ fears most.

Tesla revered nature, not money. That got Tesla the electrical wizard off to a bad start with the PSQ—a moral eminence compounded by Tesla’s public declaration: “Science is but a perversion of itself unless it has as its ultimate goal the betterment of humanity.”

Those were fighting words to the tycoons—especially the part about, “ . . . betterment of humanity.” Tycoons seek “arrested human development,” conspire to fit humanity with cement overshoes. Tesla’s treasures remain difficult to fathom with the PSQ so good at not only mangling and suppressing them, but misrepresenting many as works of Edison, Marconi and others.

On his deathbed, Edison said his biggest mistake had been in trying to develop direct current, rather than the superior alternating current system that Tesla had put within his grasp.

Tesla’s reply about Marconi’s work in radio: “Marconi is a good fellow. Let him continue. He is using 17 of my patents.”

If Tesla doesn’t terrify the PSQ, why their obsession with polluting his accomplishments? Why did they ban Tesla in textbooks and at the Smithsonian, choke off his funding and conjure him into a bogeyman?

Standard indoctrination coddles third graders along in this video of an “Awesome! ‘Tesla Coil’” (don’t miss Alex Jones growling in the wings). [4]

Here’s an encouraging story of spunky third graders with a great teacher, and their letter-writing campaign focused on getting Tesla acknowledged in the Smithsonian. [5]

Among Tesla’s most noble contributions to humanity and the cause of freedom . . . his intimate disclosure of PSQ’s will to protect their power at the complete disregard of humanity. Tesla revealed what it means to be psychopathic, and elite, showing humanity what inhumanity we are up against. Destruction of competition is a martial situation where, as the PSQ likes to frame it: “No options are off the table.”

The Internet has made progress against common public sentiment regarding Tesla being derivatives of: “I heard Tesla was kind of a crackpot.” Big money manipulates this idea from off in the wings, but when it comes to truth about Tesla, austerity takes center stage.

A nurtured “ . . . then how come?” variety of popular ignorance clings to the idea: “If Tesla was so great, then how come we’re not utilizing his so-called ultimate technology?” The PSQ religiously stamping out competition is “how come.” And once again, when it comes to protecting their monopolies, “ . . . nothing is off the table.”

Accurate information about Tesla still haunts the Internet. People can even learn about Eric Dollard. [6] But the PSQ’s “Internet problem” seems merely a speed bump, considering the PSQ’s record of successfully controlling whatever they want to control, if given enough time. Where would the PSQ be without it’s enablers, us?

A great quote from Eric Dollard: “Tesla scared the central bankers senseless. They knew what his plan meant. Energy independence meant an almost complete loss of control of the people.”

Tesla fought in the trenches, pulling back curtains on the PSQ—on humanity versus tyranny, freedom versus slavery. Profit from death and destruction—perpetual war fueled by fossil energy. Private central banking’s “ . . . continuous consolidation of wealth and power into higher, tighter and righter hands” (GHW Bush quote). Continuous consolidation of wealth in the fewest hands drives debt slavery, genocide, looting of the future, the “New World Order.”

“If we don’t exploit every resource with alacrity and no mercy, our competitors will”—that’s the apparent creed of the PSQ. Sugary platitudes regarding people yet to be born seem vulgar in light of the PSQ twisting future generations into competitors. First come, first served. A penny stolen is a penny earned.

Imagine “free” energy.

Imagine no contrived shortages and price gouging. No ”gas” tanks, power lines, meters, power bills, wars for oil and pipeline routes, Alberta tar and Keystone XL kinds of high-pressure DilBit arteries of death—imagine some of the PSQ’s worst nightmares. Toss in no climate-changing hydrocarbon pollution, no more churning out mountains of radioactive waste to attack the human genome for thousands of generations, no psychopathic domination by an invisible elite controlling what billions of people need to survive. Imagine modern warfare obsolete. [7] Tesla offered salvation from survival of the wickedest.

The wicked panicked . . .

Truth is the antidote for diseased wealth and propaganda smothering and mangling the best of Tesla. A rare step in the right direction would be millions of people realizing that Tesla really did not dedicate the second half of his life to making bigger and ever-more-“Awesome!” sparks—but rather, he was absolutely dedicated to freedom of humanity. Tesla’s greatest invention being reduced to a toy for “ . . . entertainment and educational displays”—that’s very potent PSQ mind venom. They even tagged Tesla the “God of Lightning.” Can’t beat lightning for “Awesome!” sparks. Can’t beat the PSQ for . . . perhaps W.C. Fields said it best: “There comes a time in the affairs of man, when we must take the bull by the tail, and face the situation.” The “bull” in this case is the PSQ; the situation is what blasts from under the bull’s tail to foul humanity, and our nest.

Do we still have, if we ever did have, the mettle to wake up and rub the PSQ’s nose in their foulness? The stakes have never been higher.

The sin of competition

A quote variously attributed to both J.D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan set the stage for maniacal fouling of Tesla: “Competition is a sin.” [8]

Chutzpah of these two “tycoons’” implies that monopoly is divine—especially monopoly on energy, money, food, fresh water, and war; a “royal flush” in this Earthly game of poker.

Consider our nightmare of perpetual war in terms of this quote from Aldous Huxley, author of the novel, Brave New World: “The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.”

Lies are the foundation of the PSQ’s reaction to Nikola Tesla. It’s paramount to humanity that freethinkers survive the elite and witness epiphany of this wisdom from Buddha: “The lie tastes sweet at the beginning, but bitter at the end. The truth tastes bitter at the beginning, but sweet at the end.”

“Tesla’s Coil” versus “The Tesla Coil”

The jungle of confusion and suppression of Tesla’s masterpiece might be easier to navigate if we distinguish between “Tesla’s Coil,” and the “Tesla Coil.” The former could be the epitome of human invention, the latter is its neutered caricature. For elaboration on this distinction, let’s check in with Zionist propaganda, the richest kind.

Wikipedia is hailed by Zionist Israel as “ . . . the major source of information in the world.” They even advertise, with standard Zionist chutzpah, that Wikipedia is “ . . . under constant, paid review of Zionist assets.” [9]

Below is Wikipedia’s first three paragraphs (underlining added) for their listing: “Tesla Coil” (as opposed to “Tesla’s Coil”):

“A Tesla coil is an electrical resonant transformer circuit invented by Nikola Tesla around 1891. It is used to produce high-voltage, low-current, high frequency alternating-current electricity.

“Tesla coils can produce higher voltages than other artificial sources of high-voltage discharges, electrostatic machines. Tesla experimented with a number of different configurations consisting of two, or sometimes three, coupled resonant electric circuits.

“Tesla used these coils to conduct innovative experiments in electrical lighting, phosphorescence, x-ray generation, high frequency alternating current phenomena, electrotherapy, and the transmission of electrical energy without wires. Tesla coil circuits were used commercially in sparkgap radio transmitters for wireless telegraphy until the 1920s, and in pseudomedical equipment such as electrotherapy and violet ray devices. Today their main use is for entertainment and educational displays.”

Please note the use of “high-voltage, low-current, high frequency alternating-current electricity,” and, “high frequency alternating current phenomena,” topped off with, “Today their main use is for entertainment and educational displays.” In terms of what Tesla actually achieved—in terms of transcendent capabilities of “Tesla’s Coil,” Wikipedia’s “Tesla Coil” definition could not be more misleading if Wikipedia’s goal was to mislead.

Smell a rat? Tesla has offered to show us that rats don’t always win.

Regarding Wikipedia’s, “Today their main use is for entertainment and educational displays” . . . this is a naked example of Wikipedia’s Zionist-propaganda roots, and propagation of twisted truth.

Frank Zappa characterized America’s educational system as a mechanism designed to create “ . . . functional ignorance.”

Disguised as an educational system, America’s youth indoctrination system also gets a nod in Wikipedia’s line about the “Tesla Coil” being for “ . . . entertainment and educational displays.”

Entertainment, surely, but educational? Entertainment and indoctrination are more accurate here; the “Tesla Coil” is hailed while “Tesla’s Coil” is . . . what, “conspiracy theory”?

We suffer severe multi-generational distress when “education” is largely indoctrination aimed at inhibiting independent thinking. Students memorize dogma sanctioned by the PSQ so they can pass standardized tests sanctioned by the PSQ. Students learning to think for themselves, learning how to distinguish truth from dogma—this will not do. The PSQ wants young minds regurgitating hive thinking in preparation for becoming obedient workers in thrall of authority, wingless and weighed-down by leaden dogma planted in their minds by PSQ ovipositors.

Tesla’s “Wheelwork of Nature”

While the primary function of the contrived “Tesla Coil” is to disengage Tesla’s masterpiece from reality, the primary function of “Tesla’s Coil” is to disengage voltage from current—disengage “the true electricity” (Aether) from the flow of massive electrons. Only when zero current is achieved in “Tesla’s Coil” will Aether flow freely and the “Tesla Effect” be realized. Any flow of electrons chokes off the Aether. It’s no coincidence that the awesome-spark-toy “Tesla Coil” has popularly replaced “Tesla’s Coil” to choke off Tesla’s threat to the PSQ.

Tesla’s inspiration regarding the decoupling of voltage and current grew during his brief employment by Thomas Edison.

Edison’s DC power distribution system was so inefficient that power-line resistance would cause voltage to fade within several city blocks. Voltage was cranked up very high at the main generators, and “pumping stations” were required every half mile to boost sagging voltage and current.

When a main switch was thrown to hit transmission lines with cranked-up voltage right off the main generators, a blast of blue and purple spikes and stinging, shocking sensations radiated in all directions from the transmission lines before electrons (current) flowed in the lines. This instantaneous phenomenon actually killed some linesmen. Engineers considered these bursts of magnified electrostatic potential a nuisance to be eliminated. Tesla saw them as a powerful, mysterious form of energy to be explored.

In Part Two:

● Tesla and the Earth (his laboratory)

● “Tesla’s Coil” (the real thing)

● The “Tesla Effect”

● Aether’s “whitefire” fountains and “mass-free cold electricity”

● Wardenclyffe without propaganda

● Tesla allowed a cameo appearance in the Smithsonian

● Eric Dollard’s eight destroyed laboratories, and why a most profound and honorable way to help humanity, Earth, and generations to come is also the most dangerous

References:

1. http://www.ponerology.com/evil_2b.html

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. http://www.think-aboutit.com/Misc/nikola_tesla.htm

6. http://www.jinnwe.com/quest.php?id=1002

7. http://www.cheniere.org/books/part1/starting%20pages.htm

8. 

9. http://www.ascertainthetruth.com/att/index.php/the-media/who-controls-the-media/429-zionist-control-of-wikipedia

Rand Clifford lives in Spokane, Washington. His novels, CASTLING, TIMING, Priest Lake Cathedral, and many earlier essays are published by StarChief Press. Contact for Rand Clifford: .

Source: Intrepid Report

Media Once Bitten, Forever Scorn

Hurrah, the worm has turned! Or has it? The corporatist controlled mass media love affair with the puppet spinmeister seems to be on the rocks. For progressive propagandists, the profession of journalism has long sunk into the sewer. Withal, the elitist snobbery of the self-appointed gatekeepers for the globalist power structure got a slap in the face and a wakeup call, from Associated Press spy-gate. The reporter darlings for the Obama “Chicago Outfit” protection racket just got a taste of unexpected payback appreciation. Slow on the uptake, Obama Lapdog Andrea Mitchell on IRS Scandal: “One of the most outrageous excesses I’ve seen in all my years in journalism” “Wait until this fossil finds out about AP records being seized.”

 

This sentiment typifies the insincere shock from the hypocrites that ignored the criminal pattern of governance for the last four plus years. Just listen to their temper tantrum in the YouTube video, . Oh, woe is I, how can our esteemed profession be treated in such a way by our celebrity creation rock star? How could he betray us, after we covered for him at every turn?

Well, the fact that the “Chicago Gangster Organization” of the Obama crew targeted the electronic communications of the press should not be a shock in the age of the Patriot Act. The real bombshell is that the Justice Dept. Wiretapped the House of Representative’s Cloak Room. “California congressman Devin Nunes made the claim yesterday that the Justice Department wiretapped telephones in the House of Representative’s Cloak Room, an exclusive part of the Capitol where members are able to privately interact with one another.

“Will the newly invigorated and hardy souls of the “Fourth Estate” become bloodhounds and sniff out the ugly stories behind the headlines? Before the long beleaguered news consumer regains confidence that the muckraker tradition of theWashington Merry-Go-Round has returned, consider who really benefits from this miraculous turn of conscience.

Let’s get right down with the despicable truth that most mainstream news is simply a product of disinformation that benefits the shadowy forces that control the editorial content of the spin. Polite company is supposed to ignore that Zionism and the Mediahas an Israel-First agenda in reporting. The direct links of tribe ownership, editorial approval and journalists staffing is simply a fact within the industry.

The linkage of a systemic slanted viewpoint and sympathy for an ideology that conflicts with traditional Americanism is a reality that cannot be denied by any honest observer. Prodigious lies from politicians are expected, but repeating the prevarications, while professing a claim that objective journalism is their trade, is a primary reason whypresstitutes are so despised.

In order to understand the current media scorn towards the Obama regime needs a shot of bold courage for analysis of the geo-political influence that dictates the perspective that goes into print. Since the mass media is a top down cabal of groupthink, it is entirely explicable that some political objective is at the core of the “so called” fabricated media outrage.

The Obama administration has demonstrated a reluctance to do the bidding of the most bellicose pro Zionists. The significance that an illegal preempted strike on Iran, a priority for Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, has not received approval from Barry Soetoro means that the string is running out on Obama usefulness. Interminable media speculation has been registered about Barack Hussein Muslim sympathies. Leaving the extent of such motivations aside, the critical question is whether a teleprompt reader, tutored by the CIA to become an asset for the agency, is really making foreign policy decisions.Consider that the red line has passed for Obama, and that operations for false flag distractions are firmly in the hands of his controllers. Stripping the imposter in chief of his political capital and placing blame on his inept and gonzo behavior is a natural for the skilled character blackwash of media assassins.

The most reasonable conclusion from an analysis of the sudden turn by a uniform media is that the order, from on high, went forth that ignoring greater Israel interests, has consequences. From none other than the oracle of Zionist supremacy, the New York Times editorial board Spying on The Associated Press, expresses their new found denigration.

“For more than 30 years, the news media and the government have used a well-honed system to balance the government’s need to pursue criminals or national security breaches with the media’s constitutional right to inform the public. This action against The A.P., as the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press outlined in a letter to Mr. Holder, “calls into question the very integrity” of the administration’s policy toward the press.”

The mere mention of the Attorney General from the Department of Injustice, mildly stated is just a little late. “Fast And Furious” Eric Holder is the poster boy for careerist corruption going back to the Oklahoma City Bombing. Why now is the media turning on an AG that makes one longing for the resurrection to office of John Mitchell?

The POTUS proclaims, I Have ‘Complete Confidence’ In Holder.

“President Barack Obama continues to back Attorney General Eric Holder following the fallout over the Justice Department secretly obtaining two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press.

During a Rose Garden press conference, the president stated that he has “complete confidence” in the job Holder is doing.”

And why would Obama not back his buffoon sibling in law-breaking? Know NothingHolder is either the minister of incompetence or the sheriff of selective memory.

“Attorney General Eric Holder used the phrase “I don’t know” or some variation, at least 57 times during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee today as House Republicans grilled him over controversies including the IRS’ targeting of Tea Partiers, the Justice Department’s seizure of journalist phone records, and the security lapses surrounding the Boston bombing.

Holder, who says he has recused himself from an intelligence leak probe in which the Department of Justice subpoenaed phone records from Associated Press reporters, repeatedly dodged questions about the growing scandal.

When asked whether the DOJ attempted to work with the AP before seizing the phone records, Holder said, “I don’t know what happened. I was recused from the case.”

The Daily Mail expands in the article, Eric Holder points finger at his DEPUTY, “Holder said that he recused himself from the making the controversial decision to subpoena the phone records of Associated Press journalists, saying that it was made by Deputy Attorney General James Cole.”For all those remaining Obama supporters, why isn’t Eric Holder indicted for obstruction of justice as a prelude to impeachment of his boss?

Already we are hearing that many more disclosures are about to break. One such disgrace, coming out of a broadcaster, notable for their ESPN coverage, is the account of the IRS Official in Charge During Tea Party Targeting Now Runs Health Care Office.

“Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.”

The sport of network political coverage has been more about entertainment than accountability coverage. The application of investigative inquiry and objective criteria is mostly absent from the half-truths and feel good treatment of favored political causes and personalities. Quality investigatory reporting of a Robert Novak, Seymour Hersh or a Jack Anderson is very rare today. The standards that they practiced need to be applied by the Washington press corps.

Will the media demonstrate the same intensity of scrutiny, when querying Press Secretary Jay (Ron Ziegler, Jr) Carney as they did during Watergate? Dream on folks, the asymptomatic embellishment in reporting by the progressive media is embedded in their genes. Their function is to enable the collectivist cover-up that has a primal goal of dismantling our constitutional republic.

Independent news organizations need to get down to veracity and confront the power structure with the same vigor and intensity of John Peter Zenger. The publishing trade honed by Benjamin Franklin is dishonored by the journalists that grovel for career recognition from media conglomerates that write deliberate falsehoods.

Journalists know that their editor can strip out any item that does not conform to the “PC” policy of the publisher. The real Associated Press scandal is that the moguls of media stories are in the business of serving the political agenda of their ownership masters.

The reason that alternative news sites are dangerous to the establishment version of information is that the internet readers obtain none filtered content and are able to assess their own conclusions. The rightful contempt due for government political propaganda also applies to the slick talking heads that mouth the scripts of their internationalist overlords. Whom do you trust? The globalist adaptation of reality has no credibility.

Understanding The Ruling Elite

Intense speculation on the ‘ruling elite’ many believe is running the world from behind the scenes can lead to the presumption that it is all-powerful and infallible. But is it? Identifying the human foibles and underlying desires of those who may be planning centralised domination could lead to a greater chance to offset their agendas.

In my book The Truth Agenda, I explore a widely-held hypothesis in certain quarters: that the world might be controlled by a powerful ruling elite, which puts its own narrow interests and convictions above ours through manipulation and engineered global crises to help bring about an Orwellian-style ‘One World Government’.

The book also considers the possibility that our planet is about to undergo a huge change, social, spiritual or cosmological, something seemingly anticipated by several ancient cultures around the world in the now renowned 2012 prophecies. The exploration of these ideas throws up disturbing possibilities and more pieces of evidence to support them than is entirely comfortable.

However, if all that the most extreme speculation achieves is to help prevent such a grim picture from reaching full fruition, then it will have served a useful purpose. It is also crucial that a note of optimism is struck.

An often valid criticism of conspiracy theorists, or ‘truthseekers’, is that their fevered investigations into humankind’s worst nightmares can leave some listeners feeling more fearful, and risks driving them into a state of disempowered paralysis, putting up the shutters when what is needed is engagement. Yet the unavoidable truth is that looking a potentially tough situation in the eye does mean facing up to disturbing realities that may have been swept under the carpet, for they might require urgent action.

Lifting the blindfold even just a little means that we might not run into the approaching wall at such a great velocity. If the idea of a secretive but all-pervading cabal running the world leaves some feeling shocked, the act of simply contemplating such an idea may in itself spark a new awakening of consciousness.

What psychologically motivates this elite, however? What kind of minds are we really dealing with? How can we attempt to understand them, so that solutions and strategies for dealing with their actions may become clearer?

The Elite and its Motivations

Something too often missed in all the conspiracy speculation is the realisation that if we are being governed by a powerful cabal trying to twist the world to its own ends, then we are still essentially dealing with fellow human beings (putting ET/reptilian bloodline theories aside for a moment).

Like every other person on the planet, they must have physical, social and emotional needs, even if the latter faculty may be too easily set aside in the kind of mind that would plan 9/11-type scenarios (an event widely suspected to have been deliberately staged by Western sources as part of a march towards the ‘New World Order’). The personalities involved must have loved ones of their own, and experience thoughts, feelings and cares in at least some directions. They also, like most of us in our lives, probably think they are doing the right thing, however much we may see their schemes as misguided.

This is an important point. We all have reasons for doing what we do, and can often justify actions to ourselves in the face of serious challenges from the outside. Hard though it may be to comprehend, the motivation of those who might think that wiping out their own people would be a positive move, or who believe that planning wars and economic breakdowns to effect the creation of a unifying world government is an acceptable strategy, the fact is that many seemingly well-intentioned visionaries throughout history have voiced the need for such approaches. This does not make them right, of course, but there is plainly a significant, if small, seam of humanity that believes a bigger picture should be put before the needs of the masses. Those who have expressed support for eugenics and depopulation strategies, for instance, often have deep-seated environmental concerns or feel strongly that we have lost our balance with nature and must put the planet’s future ahead of the requirements of the common people.

One of the most prominent promoters of the term ‘New World Order’ was the famous and much revered writer H G Wells, who believed passionately that the only answer to global strife would be the creation of the eponymous hierarchy, actively proposing it in his 1940 book The New World Order. This is clearly not a modern concept, and has roots going back even further than Wells’ idealistic vision of it. Some believe both World Wars were deliberately coordinated, or at least used, to help bring about a mandate for world government. As early as 1913, writing in his book The New Freedom, President Woodrow Wilson made clear that some formidable force already underpinned the commercial, and probably political, infrastructure of the USA:

Some of the biggest men in the US, in the field of commerce and manufacturing, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organised, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.

What is striking in H G Wells’ writings, however, is his sense of excitement and enthusiasm for the idea of a dominating collective that would put all to rights and avert “the disastrous extinction of Mankind.” There is no sense of negative intention nor a Malthusian dislike for humanity. Yet at the same time Wells was an advocate of eugenics. Many find this concept entirely repugnant, but here is the paradox – the very kinds of people truth-seekers tend to single out as the enemies of humanity very likely see themselves as its saviours. It is all a matter of perspective and of where one chooses to draw the moral line.

The philosopher Bertrand Russell openly accepted the inevitability of a controlling One World Government, founded on the basis of hard scientific values, and was disturbingly frank about the culture that would result. Writing in his 1953 book The Impact of Science on Society, he states:

Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible…

…Gradually, by selective breeding, the congenital differences between rulers and ruled will increase until they become almost different species. A revolt of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organised insurrection of sheep against the practice of eating mutton.

On the surface, Russell’s thoughts appear to encourage such a world, rather than condemn it, and such thinking seems outrageous, even if it does come close to identifying the very philosophy that may now be actively shaping our society. However, although it seems difficult, almost distasteful, for some to contemplate, there is a thought to be considered here: What if such thinking were definitively shown to be right? What if humankind’s very survival did rest on the notion of more control, not less? What if the choice were demonstrated to be between total destruction through over-population, pollution and over-stretched resources, or a selectively-bred, closely-monitored world that regulated itself and continued on? What if an anarchy-ridden post-2012 apocalypse society could be shown to stand no real chance of survival, whereas a tightly-controlled disciplinarian civilisation would?

Uncomfortably, in the light of the world’s current challenging issues, it can be seen, at least to a small extent, how arguments could be made in these directions when looked at from a certain viewpoint. The problem comes, as ever, with the massive issue of who gets to decide. Those in comfortable circumstances looking down from on high must inevitably see things rather differently to those scraping an existence lower down the rungs, at their mercy.

We already hold the power of genetic manipulation in our hands, and it will not be too long before required characteristics of children will be able to be routinely selected and engineered. Also, with life spans ever increasing, and our understanding of tissue and brain cell regeneration growing by the year, how long will it be before life can be sustained indefinitely? When that occurs, the population problem will clearly explode if unlimited access to such power is allowed (that is, if the majority of humankind is permitted to survive in the first place – depopulation conspiracy theories are rife). A world of immortals would risk stagnation, but also domination from those who attained the status of immortality first. They would effectively decide who would be offered the gift from thereon. In the end, the gene pool would almost certainly be controlled by such authorities, the new eugenics having arrived through the back door.

These issues are already reality, not dystopian fiction. The power of genetic engineering, which is currently changing our food, both animal and vegetable – and thus our entire ecosystem, as spliced and altered genes make their way into nature through pollination and cross-breeding – means that humankind has already taken the entire planet’s evolutionary destiny into its own hands, and there is no going back. Do those calling the shots have the moral compass to carry such a huge responsibility? Can they serve as the gods they are setting themselves up to be?

In a society of angels, perhaps a charter of rigid regulation, surveillance and genetic population control could be applied with compassion and the wide agreement of a common consensus – but we are nowhere near such a state of being. With the motivation of those governing our world today clearly in question, it seems impossible that the kinds of agendas many feel the ruling elite is implementing could work in any way other than being a simple attack on the larger percentage of humankind. Without common consensus, whatever the supposedly good intentions that might exist somewhere behind the plans, any attempt to regulate the world by coercion and draconian measures remains an immoral one.

Inherent Deception

The problem with global cover-ups is that they arrive and build up – as deception does so often for all of us – through a lack of honesty largely sparked by the fear of what people might think or do if they were to perceive the true vulnerability within. The elite appears to fear us and our reactions as much as we may fear it – otherwise it would not need to manipulate and control. Many disingenuous actions are borne of inner psychosis; a lack of trust that other people will understand. Our leaders appear to have got so used to playing deceptive games that they cannot now operate any other strategy. Everything from the banking system to Parliamentary administration appears to be based on subterfuge. Right now we are clearly not trusted by those affecting our lives so strongly and as a result we do not trust them.

Not that some of the elite would be remotely bothered about what any of us thinks of their actions. For those who may feel that caveats to explain such motivation is too generous to people who maim, kill and deceive to get their way, for whatever reason, it should be noted that there do also appear to be those pulling the strings who simply seek power for power’s sake. The lessons of history tell us that selfishness, greed and excited bloodlust cannot be ruled out as prime movers in some cases, at least. And, to acknowledge the not-insubstantial suspicion of a ‘reptilian agenda’, if it were to turn out that this highly exclusive club was indeed the result of a dominating extra-terrestrial gene seeded aeons ago (as some believe, based on ancient myths) and being exploited and/or activated by celestial visitors today, then it admittedly might explain why concern for the needs of humanity appears to be as low down the list of its priorities as our general concern for the welfare of livestock is today.

As for what kind of people may comprise the global elite, the well-intentioned and the not-so well-intentioned, most likely we are largely dealing with high-ranking politicians, academics, intellectuals (as with Wells and Russell), monarchies, and very rich and influential families – with a mixture of political, religious and occult undercurrents. In other words, all the obvious candidates. Numerous books and websites go into the detail, so there is little need to explore it here. How much of the grand plan all of them know, however, and whether there are pyramids-within-pyramids amongst even the power structures near the top, is another matter.

Factions Within Factions

The presumption is often made that the very existence of a ruling elite means that those involved must be all-powerful and of one mind, accurately manipulating domino events that hit the required spot every time, all to a predetermined agenda. But this may apportion them an unwarranted infallibility.

There is evidence to show that there are factions and disputes within the echelons of those with great influence over our lives. After all, the world is a big and complex place. Even with a general agreement on how it should move forward, the pressures of regional needs and personal biases are almost certain to blur the clarity of purpose from time to time. Going on the word that does sneak out from Bilderberg meetings and the suchlike, it seems that as many disagreements, compromises and negotiations arise there as within any supposedly democratic Parliament. If this weren’t the case, the meetings would not presumably need to take place, so pre-orchestrated would the scheming be.

As with Masonic and other secret society structures, there is also a pecking order to consider. It is doubtful that all those ‘in’ on a global conspiracy seeking centralised control would be party to every machination, and certain players may themselves be manipulated from within without realising it. From the outside, for example, it appears that British ex-prime minister Gordon Brown, for all his many references to creating a ‘New World Order,’ seemed destined to be a fall-guy from the start, set up to come to power just as the world economy took a tumble. The question is, did Brown know the full plan? Was he someone faithfully playing a game with a known outcome of outward failure, while secretly ensuring success in an agenda of weakening the UK on the world stage to quicken a move towards One World Government? Or did he cling on in the genuine belief that all would come right and that he would one day be hailed as a political hero?

Likewise, when Bill Clinton found himself under threat of impeachment following the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, was this all part of a contrived drama, or a sign of factions within factions very genuinely trying to remove him after an unplanned gaffe? And did Richard Nixon go rogue or was he just playing a pre-auditioned role? On a smaller level, when a man in the crowd died after being pushed to the ground by a policeman during the 2009 G20 protests in London, it took all the seemingly contrived focus away from images of a few people smashing a bank window, and suddenly all the headlines became howls about police brutality. Was this an ongoing twist to deliberately stir civil unrest or was it (as many suspect) something going unexpectedly wrong and changing the script? Does every war and false-flag terror attack really go to plan, or is there as much ‘cock-up’ involved as conspiracy?

How organised, then, is this global elite, and is it really as united as some truth seekers give credit for? The evidence suggests that there are chinks in the armour and disagreements within, and weaknesses and unpredictable elements always arise in any grand plan. This offers hope. The foibles of human nature and the sheer universality of chaos theory may ensure that unexpected events and peculiar side tracks undermine the apparent solidity of the control agenda just when they are least expected. We could therefore be dealing with something far less coordinated than feared – indeed, the wide truth seeker presumption of the elite’s potency may make it seem more of a problem than it really is. But can we take the chance of becoming complacent?

It is clear that certain events and trends do seem to be part of an unfolding pattern that suggests an attempt to engineer a mandate for centralised power. Whilst we must not become petrified into inaction by this, nor, however, should we take the opposite risk of assuming there is no real threat, even if the conspirators are found to be less competent than some believe. Either way, it is important at the very least to call attention to the appalling deeds committed by those at least trying to be an all-powerful force.

Consent by Apathy

If plans for world domination are being laid on any level, a simple fact needs to be recognised – that it only goes on because we collectively allow it. Even with obvious governmental deceptions such as the weapons of mass destruction debacle in Iraq, such things only continue to occur as widely as they do because too few people stand solidly against them or fully call their leaders to account. We have allowed apathy and the distractions of (apparent) comfort, trivia and entertainment to hold us in our armchairs in the hope that anything dark ‘out there’ will remedy itself in due course, without our input, energetically or even electorally (voter turnouts for Western elections, whatever they are worth, are generally perilously low).

By having become so disconnected with what goes on around us in our names, we have not stood up in our collective power – and are therefore as responsible as any global elite for having created the world we live in today. With the consent granted by our passivity, we have watched obvious lies and manipulations take away our strength, resolve and liberty, and have done little or nothing about it. As such, we have given away our personal responsibility. The energy spent complaining loudly but emptily in the pub or bus queue about the shortcomings of today’s society, if applied in more proactive and positive directions, could be used to offset the very things being complained about. The problem is that we have been trained to think that we cannot make a difference – when, in truth, we can, especially when we match the tangible power of the collective mind with the practical rewards of direct action, as I explore more in The Truth Agenda.

Speaking out

Much of the awakening process that HAS begun has come from the kind of people drawn to be part of the truth seeking community. Unfortunately, their often unseen efforts are generally rewarded by undeserved ridicule and sidelining by a culture that has shut its eyes and ears to anything but the skewed vision it is fed by those who prefer to keep us dumb. People who question the status quo are easily neutered in the mainstream by being branded with false ‘wacko’ stereotypes created by a media that is all too often either itself controlled, fearful or just lazily stupid. Truth seeker enthusiasm does allow things to spill over into fanaticism and lack of discernment sometimes, no doubt, but the fact is that there are also absolutely vital questions and observations being raised by very reasonable, normal people, which could make a real and positive difference to people’s lives – if ever given a chance.

It doesn’t take long for the average person to see through manipulation once obvious anomalies are pointed out. Assuming the masses will always be dumb may be an arrogant and huge mistake on the part of our masters. When discussed in an accessible and objective way, the concept of a ruling global elite, which believes that some kind of catastrophic cosmological or climatic change may be imminent and has thus been implementing a regime of draconian restrictions by nefarious means to ensure it retains control during and after the chaos, is nowhere near as far-fetched as it may at first seem. It can all be made to sound credible when expressed in balanced tones, and when sensible evidence is presented.

Tones are important. Extreme conspiracy dogma, passionately but indiscriminately shouted, can repel potential support and plays into the hands of the mainstream’s characterisation of all alternative thinkers as uneducated fanatics. Those with the power of insight who can rise above this have a responsibility to convey a user-friendly overview of the control agenda. Successful outreach requires initial moderation – and compassion. Newcomers can be confused by all the many complex sources of information out there, and may shrink from the at-first disturbing idea of a manipulative ruling elite if not properly approached. The uncertain era we live in now, with glimpses of the truth shining in through the cracks, provides a unique opportunity for those with the insights to offer another view of the world – while they can.

There may be more than one reason why a world of centralised control would be desired by a ruling elite, and we cannot fully presume to understand from the outside. But no strategy that imposes an undeclared agenda without transparency or choice can be right, and any regime of underhand manipulation must be resisted. To resist successfully, however, those with awareness must hold on to optimism and strike an appropriate tone if they are to be listened to and people awakened so that a self-elected and questionable minority’s vision for the world is not allowed to ride roughshod over the needs of everyday people.

No elite, of any kind, can be infallible, and this offers true hope for the future – if enough people can rise above their fears and speak out, loudly and clearly.

Adapted from The Truth Agenda by Andy Thomas (Vital Signs Publishing 2009, revised 2011)

ANDY THOMAS is a leading researcher into unexplained mysteries and is the author of the acclaimed The Truth Agenda (Vital Signs Publishing, 2009, revised 2011). His many other books include Vital Signs, described widely as the definitive guide to crop circles. Andy also edited Geoff Stray’s seminal Beyond 2012. Andy extensively writes and lectures, and has made numerous radio and TV appearances around the world. For further information, visit www.truthagenda.org.

Source: The New Dawn

The Man Who Fired The Shot Heard ’Round The World

In II Samuel 19 there is the story about an often-overlooked man by the name of Barzillai. He was a Gileadite who helped save King David’s life. The Scripture says of him: “He was a very great man.” Today, I’m going to tell you about a very great man. In fact, I’m going to talk about several great men.

I am reminded of these men, because tomorrow I have the distinct honor of speaking at a giant freedom rally on Lexington Green, Massachusetts, on the occasion of the 238th anniversary of the famous Battle of Lexington and Concord. If you live within driving distance, please come and join us. Oath Keepers founder, Stewart Rhodes, will also be speaking at this event. I believe the rally begins at 2pm local time.

In truth, April 19, 1775, should be regarded as important a date to Americans as July 4, 1776. It’s a shame that we don’t celebrate it as enthusiastically as we do Independence Day. It’s even more shameful that many Americans don’t even remember what happened on this day back in 1775. For the record, historians call this day, “Patriot’s Day.” More specifically, it was the day that the shot heard ’round the world was fired. It was the day America’s War for Independence began.

Being warned of approaching British troops by Dr. Joseph Warren and Paul Revere, Pastor Jonas Clark and his male congregants of the Church of Lexington (numbering 60-70) were the ones that stood with their muskets in front of the Crown’s troops (numbering over 800), who were on orders to seize a cache of arms which were stored at Concord and arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock (who were known to be in the area, and who had actually taken refuge in Pastor Clark’s home).

According to eyewitnesses, the king’s troops opened fire on the militiamen without warning, immediately killing eight of Pastor Clark’s parishioners. In self defense, the Minutemen returned fire. These were the first shots of the Revolutionary War. This took place on Lexington Green, which was located directly beside the church-house where those men worshipped each Sunday. Adams and Hancock were not apprehended. A few of Pastor Clark’s men led them to safety as their Christian brothers were preparing to stand in front of the British troops. Sam Adams and John Hancock owed their lives to Pastor Clark and his brave Minutemen.

According to Pastor Clark, these are the names of the eight men who died on Lexington Green as the sun rose on April 19, 1775: Robert Munroe, Jonas Parker, Samuel Hadley, Jonathan Harrington, Jr., Isaac Muzzy, Caleb Harrington, and John Brown, all of Lexington, and one Mr. Porter of Woburn.

However, by the time the British troops arrived at the Concord Bridge, hundreds of colonists had amassed a defense of the bridge. A horrific battle took place, and the British troops were routed and soon retreated back to Boston. America’s War for Independence had begun!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, these two elements of American history are lost to the vast majority of historians today: 1) it was the attempted gun confiscation and seizure of two patriot leaders by British troops that ignited America’s War for Independence; and, 2) it was a local church pastor and his male congregants that mostly comprised the Minutemen who fired the shots that started our great Revolution.

With that thought in mind, I want to devote today’s column to honoring the brave preachers of Colonial America–these “children of the Pilgrims,” as one colonial pastor’s descendent put it.

It really wasn’t that long ago. However, with the way America’s clergymen act today, one would think that preachers such as James Caldwell, John Peter Muhlenberg, Joab Houghton, and Jonas Clark never existed. But they did exist; and without them, this country we call the United States of America would not exist.

Caldwell was a Presbyterian; Muhlenberg was a Lutheran; Houghton was a Baptist; and no one really seems to know what denomination (if any) Jonas Clark claimed, although one historian referred to Clark as a Trinitarian and Calvinist. But these men had one thing in common (besides their faith in Jesus Christ): they were all ardent patriots who participated in America’s War for Independence, and in the case of Jonas Clark, actually ignited it.

James Caldwell

James Caldwell was called “The Rebel High Priest” or “The Fighting Chaplain.” Caldwell is most famous for the “Give ’em Watts!” story.

During the Springfield (New Jersey) engagement, the Colonial militia ran out of wadding for their muskets. Quickly, Caldwell mounted his horse and galloped to the Presbyterian church, and returning with an armload of hymnals, threw them to the ground, and hollered, “Now, boys, give ’em Watts!” He was referring to the famous hymn writer, Isaac Watts, of course.

The British hated Caldwell so much, they murdered his wife, Hannah, in her own home, as she sat with her children on her bed. Later, a fellow American was bribed by the British to assassinate Pastor Caldwell–which is exactly what he did. Americans loyal to the Crown burned both his house and church. No less than three cities and two public schools in the State of New Jersey bear his name.

John Peter Muhlenberg

John Peter Muhlenberg was pastor of a Lutheran church in Woodstock, Virginia, when hostilities erupted between Great Britain and the American colonies. When news of Bunker Hill reached Virginia, Muhlenberg preached a sermon from Ecclesiastes 3 to his congregation. He reminded his parishioners that there was a time to preach and a time to fight. He said that, for him, the time to preach was past and it was time to fight. He then threw off his vestments and stood before his congregants in the uniform of a Virginia colonel.

Muhlenberg was later promoted to brigadier-general in the Continental Army, and then to major general. He participated in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, and Yorktown. He went on to serve in both the US House of Representatives and US Senate.

Joab Houghton

Joab Houghton was in the Hopewell (New Jersey) Baptist Meeting House at worship when he received the first information regarding the battles at Lexington and Concord. His great-grandson gives the following eloquent description of the way he treated the tidings:

“[M]ounting the great stone block in front of the meeting-house, he beckoned the people to stop. Men and women paused to hear, curious to know what so unusual a sequel to the service of the day could mean. At the first, words a silence, stern as death, fell over all. The Sabbath quiet of the hour and of the place was deepened into a terrible solemnity. He told them all the story of the cowardly murder at Lexington by the royal troops; the heroic vengeance following hard upon it; the retreat of Percy; the gathering of the children of the Pilgrims round the beleaguered hills of Boston; then pausing, and looking over the silent throng, he said slowly, ‘Men of New Jersey, the red coats are murdering our brethren of New England! Who follows me to Boston?’ And every man in that audience stepped out of line, and answered, ‘I!’ There was not a coward or a traitor in old Hopewell Baptist Meeting-House that day.” (Cathcart, William. Baptists and the American Revolution. Philadelphia: S.A. George, 1876, rev. 1976. Print.)

Jonas Clark

As I said at the beginning of this column, Jonas Clark was pastor of the Church of Lexington, Massachusetts, on April 19, 1775, the day that British troops marched on Concord with orders to arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock, and to seize a cache of firearms. It was Pastor Clark’s male congregants who were the first ones to face-off against the British troops as they marched through Lexington. When you hear the story of the Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington, remember those Minutemen were mostly Pastor Jonas Clark and the men of his congregation.

On the One Year Anniversary of the Battle of Lexington, Clark preached a sermon based upon his eyewitness testimony of the event. He called his sermon, “The Fate of Blood-Thirsty Oppressors and God’s Tender Care of His Distressed People.” His sermon has been republished by Nordskog Publishing under the title, “The Battle of Lexington, A Sermon and Eyewitness Narrative, Jonas Clark, Pastor, Church of Lexington.”

Order the book containing Clark’s sermon at:

“The Battle of Lexington, A Sermon and Eyewitness Narrative, Jonas Clark, Pastor, Church of Lexington”

Of course, these four brave preachers were not the only ones to participate in America’s fight for independence. There were Episcopalian ministers such as Dr. Samuel Provost of New York, Dr. John Croes of New Jersey, and Robert Smith of South Carolina. Presbyterian ministers such as Adam Boyd of North Carolina and James Armstrong of Maryland, along with many others, also took part.

Numerous Baptist preachers participated in America’s War for Independence, so many that at the conclusion of the war, President George Washington wrote a personal letter to the Baptist people saying, “I recollect with satisfaction that the religious societies of which you are a member have been, throughout America, uniformly and almost unanimously, the firm friends to civil liberty, and the preserving promoters of our glorious Revolution.” It also explains how Thomas Jefferson could write to a Baptist congregation and say, “We have acted together from the origin to the end of a memorable Revolution.” (McDaniel, George White. The People Called Baptists. The Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1918. Print.)

And although not every pastor was able to actively participate in our fight for independence, because so many pastors throughout colonial America preached the principles of liberty and independence from their pulpits, the Crown created a moniker for them: The Black Regiment (referring to the long, black robes that so many colonial clergymen wore in the pulpit). Without question, the courageous preaching and example of colonial America’s patriot-pastors provided the colonists with the inspiration and resolve to resist the tyranny of the Crown and win America’s freedom and independence.

I invite readers to visit my Black Regiment web page to learn more about my attempt to resurrect America’s Black-Robed Regiment. Go to:

Black Regiment

Readers should know, too, that a brand new book co-authored by me and my constitutional attorney son, Tim, entitled, “To Keep Or Not To Keep: Why Christians Should Not Give Up Their Guns,” will be released in just a few days. This book examines the entire Bible, both Old and New Testaments, and proves conclusively that nowhere does God expect His people to surrender their arms in the face of any would-be tyrant. With hundreds of references, we show from both Natural and Revealed Law that the right of self-defense, the right to keep and bear arms, is a God-ordained right and responsibility. This book is sure to be a blockbuster. To order the book, go to:

Keep Your Arms

This is the fighting heritage of America’s pastors and preachers. So, what has happened? What has happened to that fighting spirit that once existed, almost universally, throughout America’s Christian denominations? How have preachers become so timid, so shy, and so cowardly that they will stand apathetic and mute as America faces the destruction of its liberties? Where are the preachers to explain, expound, and extrapolate the principles of liberty from Holy Writ?

I am absolutely convinced that one of the biggest reasons America is in the sad condition that it is in today is because the sermons Americans frequently hear from modern pulpits deal mostly with prosperity theology, entertainment evangelism, feelgoodism, emotionalism, and Aren’t-I-Wonderful ear tickling! One man recently wrote and told me that his ears had been tickled so much in church that he had calluses on them.

This milquetoast preaching, along with a totally false “obey-the-government-no-matter-what” interpretation of Romans 13, have made it next to impossible to find Christian men with the courage and resolve to stand against the onslaught of socialism, corporatism, and, yes, fascism that is swallowing America whole.

Tim and I also wrote a book entitled, “Romans 13: The True Meaning of Submission.” This book examines Romans 13, and the rest of Scripture, and shows that nowhere does God demand that His people yield to wicked and unjust government. To order this book, to go:

“Romans 13: The True Meaning of Submission”

As we celebrate Patriot’s Day tomorrow, please remember Jonas Clark (along with James Caldwell, John Peter Muhlenberg, Joab Houghton, and the other brave pastors of colonial America). “He was a very great man.”

« Previous Page — Next Page »