The chatter this week has been around the government being outed. They are who we thought they were, doing what the conspiracy theorist said they were. Damn you, we should have listened to Alex Jones, or BroadHammer69, or dil7898 when that blogger told us, “I am interested in what you say, and enjoy your point of view More have people should read Check out ladies handbag they made cheap and don trust government.” However, this spy vs. spy, or in this case spy vs. John Q. Public, it isn’t even as interesting as any James Bond film, so it won’t make good television, who wants to discuss metadata… wait… Metadata, what a great name for an evil villain. Who would be Metadata’s sidekick? I’m sure it would be something like “octopussy.” What are we up to after octo? Deca? Noventapussy?
Many already knew or suspected we were being watched, at least under Bush and Ashcroft, but why would this change under Uncle O? Did we expect that the government was going to give up powers once they are held? I studied history, and outside of revolution, I am not certain of too many cases where power was dialed back without a struggle. That is why the last decade was so critical, and why we have already lost our way.
The path has already been plotted and the energy is in this direction of further erosion of our rights, what with private contractors being involved and there being a substantial reward for bringing in the American people, dead or alive. It is that we have all become bounties for these headhunters, skip tracers, and impressors. There is little money to be made in allowing us to be free. Freedom isn’t free but it also pays like shit too. The popular media, clamors in defense of Der Motherland and Fear(tm) and for some strange reason when it is social programs feeding children this is BIG GOVERNMENT(r) but when it is Big Brother, this is just an extension of our government trying to do what is right, the parent state, the nanny state is OK when it is following us with CIA agents, but not reducing our fat intake so we live a few years longer or can walk without huffing and puffing to the corner store in order to buy a pack of Kool Menthol and a bottle of Old English.
On Nationalist Propaganda Radio the other say the focus was on the leaker, who is he, what drives him, did he attend community college, is he gay like Bradley Manning, do gays always leak classified information, are you leaking information, are you a gay, are you gay and should they marry, by saying “leaking gays” did we just cross the line into hate speech, will we be arrested for this, will we be blacklisted by our IP provider, the hosting service of this blog? Even the supposed “liberal” media, has started shifting out attention away from the real story and to what hotel this leaker may or may not be staying at and how well he may or may not have done in community college. There is no snip of fact so small and inconsequential as to be used to distract away from the larger more important issues. The most frightening words being “hi, we’re here from the government, we’re here to help” and “hi, we’re from the government but we are sending out our contractor who has a subcontractor who will be there sometime between 7:30AM and 9PM to help within 4-5 weeks of filling out an online application.”
The Distractathon has begun. That’s OK because it turns out that in polls of Amerikans, the majority of us (I think I heard 64%) are willing to trade privacy for security, and to allow our taxes to be used by the government to pay private for-profit companies that have no open records or set of checks and balances in order to carry out the tasks once reserved for the state. The KGB or Stasi the Shaw of Iran’s police, the Nazi’s should have just hired companies to do their bidding – think of how much the Nazi government may have saved if they outsourced the Holocaust to Xe, Squib, Raytheon, Coke a Cola, BMW, Sears, and Walmart. With Walmart’s technology there would have been no escaping, no forged records diverting prisoners to safe countries, no hiding under floorboards. But, that’s OK because we are told to focus on the personal information of the leaker, to focus on the number of fellow Amerikans who support losing freedom, to focus anywhere but the issue at hand – that our corporatist state is no longer slowly becoming a fascist regime, but we already have a state in place that has a kinder gentler form or oppression. What if those people NPR reports enjoy oppression over freedom are not real. What if they’re part of a program of disinformation run by the government or subcontractors who will benefit from so many more contracts to track everyone? It stands to reason, when we have lost jobs to make things, do things, invent, we need jobs that we make up.
“I work in technology, and I think that even what I do, everything we’re working on is pushing us farther from the life we want to live” and older man told me. I am selling a few things that I own on the village garage sale day in Rhinelandistan and this older man came by to browse and started talking about the political situation. He had seen a portrait of Jimmy Carter that drew his ire – which I was a little taken aback by how many seemingly gentile people were so angered by wee Jimmy. I must have missed something as a kid and also now as an adult where this tottering grandfather who once claimed to have “lust in my heart” now saved starving mice or children or removed hookworms from sugar gliders or something. At least he didn’t gut welfare. Lie about not raising taxes. Use his intern as a humidor and then bomb a country in order to distract the media. Lie to get us into a war. Lie to keep us in a war. Say he was going to end a war in Asia and then intensify it. Wait. Who am I talking about?
This old man involved in developing technology is not the first one in the industry who questions it. Who sees in the face of the computer programs the HAL 9000 or worse. An unthinking multi-level tool to be used by those few, the 1% of the 1%, in order to maintain a type of order that makes the Illuminati, the Lizard Overlords, the Rothchilds, the Space People, Dr. Who, whoever sprays the mind controlling chemicals they pretend are “contrails” seem like amateurs in manipulation and control. This won’t be an obvious New World Order. No marching goose steps. No brick and mortar camps, no FEMA camps, sorry weirdos, you’re not going to be placed in a camp. No banners, no propaganda posters with blimps and tanks and solders. Nothing that has come before will match this city we are constructing, a city that will be invisible and move about us, a city we will all in some way belong to. The city looks something like our own places we mill about today. It will be a place where cartoon bears continue to attempt to sell us ass wipe, baseball games are played on team networks, and our days will be filled with all manner of activities and items we must consume in order to remain a standing member of the city. The city won’t have slums as we see in the Third World. The paucity will be subtle, under the surface, and perhaps by this time the majority of people won’t even see it, not remembering a time when plenty meant a harvest from the fields, water was something you could drink, rain was not something that burned, and trees were out in the open and not strictly under bell jars.
We will worship this city since it is us, we who are already about constructing it. “I was a social worker for 35 years, but I am glad I was able to retire when I did” a woman on the checkout line said. I have heard that too many times from the older generation, those who are lucky enough to get the last helping of our New Deal. Those in public service, those in so many positions where the work is becoming more unbearable and the benefits smaller and smaller. Because things get more complex, does not mean they get better.
All I can say to the corporations and their government is, can you hear me now? Maybe we’ll know this better when the government flips the switch on their supercomputer.
Editors Note: This is the 200th post to this blog. A big thanks to the readers, viewers, commentators, ping-backers, hitters, refers, and even the spam trolls for helping keep this site alive and inspire the blogger to rant on. A book “best of” is indeed in the works with more expanded ranting, more run on sentences, more better language and perhaps a few tips on living the New Normal.