Slave or Rebel?

OpEdNews Op Eds 6/9/2015 at 12:40:54 Slave or Rebel? Ten Principles for Escaping the Matrix and Standing Up to Tyranny By John Whitehead (about the author)     Permalink       (Page 1 of 2 pages) Related Topic(s): Matrix; Oligarchy; Police; Protest; Resistance; Security; Standing Army; Surveillance, Add Tags Add to My Group(s)  7    7    4   View Ratings | Rate It opednews.com Headlined to H1 6/9/15

The more things change, the more they stay the same. 

It's a shell game intended to keep us focused on and distracted by all of the politically expedient things that are being said--about militarized police, surveillance, and government corruption--while the government continues to frogmarch us down the road toward outright tyranny. 

Unarmed citizens are still getting shot by militarized police trained to view them as the enemy and treated as if we have no rights. Despite President Obama's warning that the nation needs to do some "soul searching" about issues such as race, poverty and the strained relationship between law enforcement and the minority communities they serve, police killings and racial tensions are at an all-time high. Just recently, in Texas, a white police officer was suspended after video footage showed him "manhandling, arresting and drawing his gun on a group of black children outside a pool party." 

Americans' private communications and data are still being sucked up by government spy agencies. The USA Freedom Act was just a placebo pill intended to make us feel better without bringing about any real change. As Bill Blunden, a cybersecurity researcher and surveillance critic, points out, "The theater we've just witnessed allows decision makers to boast to their constituents about reforming mass surveillance while spies understand that what's actually transpired is hardly major change." 

Taxpayer dollars are still being squandered on roads to nowhere, endless wars that do not make us safer, and bloated government agencies that should have been shut down long ago. A good example is the Transportation Security Administration, which, despite its $7 billion annual budget, has shown itself to be bumbling and ineffective. 

And military drills are still being carried out on American soil under the pretext of training soldiers for urban warfare overseas. Southeastern Michigan, the site of one of the many military training drills taking place across the country this summer, has had Black Hawk helicopters buzzing its skies and soldiers dressed for combat doing night combat drills in abandoned buildings around the state. 

In other words, freedom, or what's left of it, is being threatened from every direction. However, as history shows us, freedom is not, on the whole, wrested from a citizenry. It is all too often given over voluntarily and for such a cheap price: safety, security, bread, and circuses. 

This is part and parcel of the propaganda churned out by the government machine. In order to develop a compliant citizenry, people must be forced to live in a mental matrix of words, ideas, ideologies, and teachings that are designed to make us conform. 

"As the Matrix in the movie was used to facilitate the exploitation of humans," writes author Henry H. Lindner, "so the current ideological Matrix was created for, and serves to exploit us, turning us into unthinking workers and consumers--slaves of the ruling elite who themselves are trapped in the Matrix." In fact, "few of us are able to escape the Matrix. We do not even know it exists." 

For there to be any hope of real change, you'll have to change how you think about yourself, your fellow human beings, freedom, society, and the government. This means freeing your mind, realizing the truth, and unlearning all the myths you have been indoctrinated with since the day you were able to comprehend language. 

The following principles, taken from my new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, may help any budding freedom fighters in the struggle to liberate themselves and our society. 

First, the government's primary purpose is maintaining power and control. It's an oligarchy composed of corporate giants wedded to government officials and motivated by greed, whose purpose is to perpetuate itself. 

Second, voting is practically worthless. As Jordan Michael Smith, writing for the Boston Globe, concludes about the American government, "There's the one we elect, and then there's the one behind it, steering huge swaths of policy almost unchecked. Elected officials end up serving as mere cover for the real decisions made by the bureaucracy." Voting is a way to keep the citizenry pacified. It provides the illusion of participation.

Third, question everything. Don't assume anything government does is for the good of the citizenry. 

Fourth, materialism is a death knell to freedom. While it may be true that Americans are better off than citizens of other nations--we have jobs, food, entertainment, shopping malls, etc.--these are the trappings meant to anesthetize and distract us. 

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John W. Whitehead is an attorney and author who has written, debated and practiced widely in the area of constitutional law and human rights. Whitehead's aggressive, pioneering approach to civil liberties has earned him numerous accolades and (more...)