It has come slowly over a period of decades - so slowly that we barely notice. NSA spying, TSA abuse, militarized police, massive incarcerations, drones, spy cameras, GPS tracking, proxy wars, false flags, etc., you name it, it's here and it's here to stay:
Or consider the act of flying off for a weekend getaway. It used to be something you did on a lark without pre-screening by the authorities or arriving an hour early to the airport in order to be sexually molested by TSA agents in the name of security. Yet people accept this as the new normal of travel. What a triumph it is for totalitarianism that we all accept the zip-lock bags in which we place our little shampoos.
Life is more difficult because the state and complicit businesses are gathering more information, invading more rights, demanding obedience. People are being treated like criminal suspects rather than customers.
The second part of your question is whether we are hearing more about a general dissatisfaction because of the same wider access to information due to the Internet. Yes ... and no. The increase in dissatisfaction is real and it would exist without the Internet. It is being actualized, shared and widely expressed because we now have the means by which to do so. Humanity itself hinges on communication and we've never had more of it than right now. This is a good thing.
But I do not see recovery or any turn for the better in the near economic or political future. Instead, there could be a long, slow slide into a prolonged depression as occurred in the 1930s or there could be utter stagnation as with the zombie economy of Japan. With no sarcasm, I say that those are the scenarios I prefer because they allow people the room and time to use their ingenuity to protect themselves.
The scenario I don't prefer is a collapse that results in violent civil unrest and/or an openly totalitarian state. The first situation often leads to the second. And I am familiar enough with history to know how devastating to human life totalitarianism can be. I know that Stalin's planned famine murdered an estimated 7 million people who starved to death by political design in a farming area that was known as the breadbasket of Europe. Politics can be literally lethal. I dread a collapse into totalitarianism.
I remember that article, "Do Not Tolerate Domestic Violence," well. Many of the parallels I drew were psychological ones through which I tried to capture why some people are so loyal to the idea of a state – the idea of "America," for example – that they tolerate incredible abuse without ever thinking of leaving.
Domestic violence is a topic to which I've given considerable thought because of my own background. I am legally blind in one eye due to hemorrhage in the center of my vision which resulted from being beaten by someone with whom I lived years ago, a man who said he loved me. And, so, I drew that parallel in writing things like "America swears it is protecting you while violating you at every turn; and you've become so brainwashed that you now mistake a fist in your face for safety." People mistake agencies like the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for protectors, even when the agents stand in front of them, groping their children.
After I dredged up enough self-respect to leave the abusive relationship, one question haunted me for years: Why did I stay? I had a long list of reasons. The fellow expressed regret and swore to "make it up" to me; I wanted to believe him. He vowed to change; I hoped things could go back to the way they were before. I was frightened because I doubted my own worth and believed his inflated self-opinion. Besides, leaving meant losing close friends whom he would force to take sides.
In the article, I explained: "America is doing much the same to you. Officials mouth regret at violations like ruinous taxes, and then offer entitlements with your own money. America promises to change and you remember what 'the land of the free' used to be like. The state makes you feel powerless and it is a relentless Goliath. Besides which, leaving would mean moving away from family and friends."
But walking away was one of the best things I've ever done. It was also one of the most difficult. But, then, I met someone else – my husband – who taught me that love wasn't pain. For many people, walking away from America could be a similar experience.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has put in an acquisition request to buy body armor — specifically, “ballistic vests, compliant with NIJ 0101.06 for Level IIIA Ballistic Resistance of body armor,” the solicitation stated.
The request was put in writing and posted on May 7 — just a few days before the same agency sought “the commercial acquisition of submachine guns” equipped for 30-round magazines, Breitbart reported.
The May 7 solicitation reads: “The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General, [seeks] Body Armor [that’s] gender specific, lightweight, [containing] plate/pad (hard or soft) and concealable carrier. [Also a] tactical vest, undergarment (white), identification patches, accessories (6 pouches), body armor carry bag and professional measurements,” Breitbart reported.
The solicitation also reads that “all responsible and/or interested sources may submit their company name, point of contact and telephone number,” the media outlet reported. And “timely” respondents “shall be considered by the agency for contact,” Breitbart said.
Add it to the list of federal agencies making requests for guns and ammunition in recent months.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Postal Service requested the go-ahead to buy “assorted small arms ammunition,” via a website posting. A year ago, the Social Security Administration put in a request for 174,000 rounds of what that agency described as “.357 Sig 125 grain bonded jacketed hollow-point” bullets.
And the Department of Homeland Security raised eyebrows with its recent request for 450 million rounds — at about the same time the FBI asked for 100 million hollow-point rounds.
On top of that, the Department of Agriculture itself sought 320,000 rounds within the last year or so.
Breaking during the weekend was a story by Der Spiegel and Bild that American mercenaries were on the ground in Kiev. According to the report 400 mercenaries from Academi (formerly Blackwater) were on the ground “involved in a punitive operation mounted by Ukraine’s new government.”
Der Spiegel claims “the information originates from U.S. intelligence services and was presented during a meeting chaired by the Chancellor’s Office chief Peter Altmaier (CDU). At the meeting were present the president of the intelligence agencies and the Federal Criminal Office, as well as the intelligence coordinator of the Chancellor’s Office and senior Ministry officials.”
Indeed, the German newspaper apparently claim that the American mercenaries are directing andcoordinating the attacks by the fascist Right Sector militia.
Blackwater is more or less an extension of the CIA.
There are also dozens of CIA and FBI “advisors” in Ukraine, and the CIA director visited Kiev before the massacres started.
In any event, even if the U.S. is not directly responsible for the massacres, we are certainly indirectly responsible. After all, the U.S. is backing neo-Nazis in Ukraine (and see this).
Don’t believe me?
The leader of the “protests” in February 2014 which ousted the president of Ukraine (Andriy Parubiy) is a neo Nazi and follower of a prominent WWII Ukrainian Nazi.
He’s now the head of national security in Ukraine. In that role, he has organized neo-Nazi brigades to murder Russian-speaking Ukrainians en masse.
The bolstering of Ukraine’s ultra-right began in 2004, when the United States directly funded and organized the “Orange Revolution. The Guardian would admit in its 2004 article, “US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev,”
…while the gains of the orange-bedecked “chestnut revolution” are Ukraine’s, the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes.
Funded and organised by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organisations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box.
And while the West parades out before global audiences “Jewish” commentators claiming the new regime is free of antisemitism, growing fear has been documented amongst Ukraine’s Jewish population during the last decade the West has been propping up the ultra-right. An interesting report in the wake of the Fatherland Party’s failed attempt to take power during 2010′s elections by The Jewish Week titled, “Change For Ukraine, But Likely Not For Jews,” portrayed Ukraine’s Jews in fear of a potential win by “Fatherland” which was perceived as both nationalist and anti-Semitic.
A video report published in 2012 on Jewish News One titled, “Ukraine far-right Svoboda party anti-Semitism,” further exposes the West’s current narrative regarding their proxies in Kiev as nothing more than a public relations campaign designed to cover up what is essentially a Nazis regime.
Having masterminded the coup in February against the democratically elected government in Kiev, Washington's planned seizure of Russia's historic, legitimate warm-water naval base in Crimea failed. The Russians defended themselves, as they have done against every threat and invasion from the west for almost a century.
But Nato's military encirclement has accelerated, along with US-orchestrated attacks on ethnic Russians in Ukraine. If Putin can be provoked into coming to their aid, his pre-ordained "pariah" role will justify a Nato-run guerrilla war that is likely to spill into Russia itself.
Instead, Putin has confounded the war party by seeking an accommodation with Washington and the EU, by withdrawing Russian troops from the Ukrainian border and urging ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine to abandon the weekend's provocative referendum. These Russian-speaking and bilingual people – a third of Ukraine's population – have long sought a democratic federation that reflects the country's ethnic diversity and is both autonomous of Kiev and independent of Moscow. Most are neither "separatists" nor "rebels", as the western media calls them, but citizens who want to live securely in their homeland.
Like the ruins of Iraq and Afghanistan, Ukraine has been turned into a CIA theme park – run personally by CIA director John Brennan in Kiev, with dozens of "special units" from the CIA and FBI setting up a "security structure" that oversees savage attacks on those who opposed the February coup. Watch the videos, read the eye-witness reports from the massacre in Odessa this month. Bussed fascist thugs burned the trade union headquarters, killing 41 people trapped inside. Watch the police standing by.
'At every juncture, there was a settlement announcement. It was the thing that kept throwing a wrench in gear'
For the first time since the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks halted, US President Barack Obama has directly blamed Israel for the failure of negotiations, the New York Times reported Thursday.
"At every juncture, there was a settlement announcement," a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said. "It was the thing that kept throwing a wrench in the gears."
The official also said Obama still believes that another round of talks is possible during his term, but wants now "to let the failure of the talks sink in for both parties, and see if that causes them to reconsider."
The administration also wants to make clear to both parties that "they have a door that’s open," the official added. "If they want to walk through that door, we’ll be there to work with them."
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the prevalence of anti-Semitsm in the West Bank, as noted in theAnti-Defamation League's global survey of the phenomenon released last week, is the result of the Palestinian leadership's incitement.
Ranking anti-Semitic sentiments by region, the ADL determined that the most anti-Semitic regions were found to be the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Palestinian anti-Semitism is “pervasive throughout society,” the ADL found, with 93% of respondents affirming anti-Jewish stereotypes.
Speaking at the beginning of the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said that the statistics were "the result of non-stop anti-Semitic incitement by the Palestinian Authority, which distorts the image of Israel and the Jewish people."
Netanyahu hinted that the distortion of Jews was similar to that employed by the Nazis, saying that such incitement had been seen "in other places in our past."
The prime minister expressed pessimism about the prospects for peace with the Palestinians, in light of last week's rallies marking Nakba Day in the West Bank and Gaza. The "Nakba," or "catastrophe" in Arabic, is the day in which Palestinians mourn the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.
"Those who see the establishment of the state of Israel as a disaster, do not want peace," Netanyahu stated.
As talks between world powers and Iran came to a closewithout any signs of progress, Tehran said Sunday that the Arak research reactor, which the West fears can be used to make plutonium for a nuclear bomb, would continue its work with 40 megawatts of power.
In comments carried by Iran's Press TV, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi emphasized that the Arak reactor would remain a heavy water facility and also stressed that Iran has the right to enrich uranium.
The fate of Arak which has not yet been completed is one of the central issues in negotiations between Iran and the world powers, aimed at reaching a long-term deal on Tehran’s nuclear program by a July 20 deadline.
Araqchi said on Friday that no progress had been made during the fourth round of negotiations in Vienna.
"The talks were serious and constructive but no progress has been made," Araqchi told reporters at the end of the fourth round of negotiations between Iran and the United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia.
The negotiations began in February and are aimed at reaching a long-term deal to curb sensitive parts of Iran's nuclear program in exchange for a gradual lifting of sanctions.
"We have not reached the point to start drafting the final agreement," he said.
“Talks have been slow and difficult. Significant gaps remain,” a US official said after the talks concluded. “Iran still has some hard decisions to make. We’re concerned that progress is not being made and that time is short.”
After three months of comparing expectations rather than negotiating possible compromises, the sides had planned at the May 13-16 meeting to start drafting the text of a final agreement that could overcome many years of enmity and mistrust and dispel fears of a devastating, wider Middle East war.
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