I'm Not Really the Victim of an Atomic Blast Flash, but my Patch Blog Photo is

I feel like Kevin McCarthy at the end of 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' when he frantically tries to warn people "They're here! They're here!".

Out of frustration, I'm compelled to speak up just so I can hear my own voice above all the talking heads of authoritarian babble.  I am so, so fed up to here with the day-in, day-out, nonstop barrage of attitudes and beliefs that I find offensive, morally repugnant, and insulting to whatever intelligence I still possess.  We've been living in Orwell's '1984' for quite a while already.  We are being fed nothing but propaganda by a corporate-controlled media that only parrots government-sanitized info-bytes and pushes brain-dead celebrity sensationalism and we still call it 'news'?  Am I overdoing the hyphens?  Maybe I just need to get laid.  Either way, I feel a bit better already, but I'm still concerned about actions abroad and actions here at home.

The American empire has its financial back to the wall, yet we spend more on "defense" than all the other countries of the world combined.  We assert ourself globally through the use of our military and engage in police actions when it serves to satisfy our "strategic" goals.  It's how we traditionally have protected our economic interests abroad and it is the language of our diplomacy.  I'm wary of war-mongering rhetoric and fear that desperate measures will soon be taken to remedy our perceived loss of world economic domination, all enacted under the guise of fostering democracy and freedom while holding evil empires and terrorism at bay.  Do we so easily forget the distortions that led to the invasion of Iraq and the failure of our presence there at the cost of so much suffering?

On the homefront, we are so very fortunate to be living here in beautiful Marin. However, our privilege and ease of life can work to make us less vigilant about the encroaching threats to the liberties we all take for granted.  Society has changed since the outspoken anti-war protests of the turbulent 60's.  The establishment has adapted and learned how to effectively silence dissent.  The mainstream media is in the hands of just a few conglomerates and there are ongoing government attacks on internet freedoms.  International wrongdoings are now classified.  Whistle-blowers are criminals.  We are governed by revolving-door, corporate-interest politicians.  We watch wealth increasingly flow to a handful of the few through the collusion of our elected officials.  We are increasingly being distracted, divided, silenced, and controlled by a system that is robbing our future.  There is a buildup of this country's internal security apparatus on a scale that has never been witnessed before.  We are being told this is to protect us from outside threats; but in reality, our government is more concerned with the threat of an awakened citizenry.  It's happening gradually behind closed doors and is completely ignored by the media.  We are a nation in peril.

Educate yourselves.  Taking nothing for granted.  THEY'RE HERE!  THEY'RE HERE!