Ai Weiwei is a Chinese artist and political dissident. Although he collaborated on the construction of Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics, his criticism of the government later led to his arrest without charges and imprisonment for several months. I believe there are two main takeaways from the following article he wrote for The Guardian. First, he knows what it is like to live in an authoritarian regime with very little freedom or civil liberties. Thus it would be wise to take his warning to heart. Second, he illustrates a key point I have been trying to make for years. All citizens of the world must refuse to allow their respective governments to drag us into a war started by various oligarchs located in distinct geographic locations. 99.9% of the population must come together and understand that oligarchs within the U.S. and oligarchs within China are united against us all. We must never forget this. These guys don’t fight wars. Rather, they rape, steal and pillage and then send you to do their dirty work. Don’t fall for it. From The Guardian:
I lived in the United States for 12 years. This abuse of state power goes totally against my understanding of what it means to be a civilised society, and it will be shocking for me if American citizens allow this to continue. The US has a great tradition of individualism and privacy and has long been a centre for free thinking and creativity as a result.
In our experience in China, basically there is no privacy at all – that is why China is far behind the world in important respects: even though it has become so rich, it trails behind in terms of passion, imagination and creativity.
When human beings are scared and feel everything is exposed to the government, we will censor ourselves from free thinking. That’s dangerous for human development.
In the Soviet Union before, in China today, and even in the US, officials always think what they do is necessary, and firmly believe they do what is best for the state and the people. But the lesson that people should learn from history is the need to limit state power.
To limit power is to protect society. It is not only about protecting individuals’ rights but making power healthier.
Civilization is built on that trust and everyone must fight to defend it, and to protect our vulnerable aspects – our inner feelings, our families. We must not hand over our rights to other people. No state power should be given that kind of trust. Not China. Not the US.
There you go David Brooks. A lesson into how to be a human being.
Full article here.
In Liberty,
Mike
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What Is the Government’s Agenda?
There is no longer any doubt whatsoever that the US government is lawless, that it regards the US Constitution as a scrap of paper, that it does not believe Americans have any rights other than those that the government tolerates at any point in time, and that the government has no fear of being held accountable by the weak and castrated US Congress, the sycophantic federal courts, a controlled media, and an insouciant public.
Binney and Snowden have described in precisely accurate detail the extreme danger from the government’s surveillance of the population. No one is exempt, not the Director of the CIA, US Army Generals, Senators and Representatives, not even the president himself.
Anyone with access to a computer and the Internet can find interviews with Binney and Snowden and become acquainted with why you do have very much indeed to fear whether or not you are doing anything wrong.
James Clapper, the lying Director of National Intelligence, who would have been perfectly at home in the Hitler or Stalin regimes, condemned Snowden as “reprehensible” for insisting that in a democracy the public should know what the government is doing. Clapper insisted that secretly spying on every ordinary American was essential in order to “protect our nation.”
Clapper is “offended” that Americans now know that the NSA is spying on the ordinary life of every American. Clapper wants Snowden to be severely punished for his “reckless disclosure” that the US government is totally violating the privacy that the US Constitution guarantees to every US citizen.
President Obama, allegedly educated in constitutional law, justified Clapper’s program of spying on every communication of every American citizen as a necessary violation of Americans’ civil liberties that “protects your civil liberties.” Contrast the lack of veracity of the President of the United States with the truthfulness of Snowden, who correctly stated that the NSA spying is an “existential threat to democracy.”
The presstitutes are busy at work defending Clapper and Obama. On June 9, CNN rolled out former CIA case officer Bob Baer to implant into the public’s mind that Snowden, far from trying to preserve US civil liberties, might be a Chinese spy and that Snowden’s revelations might be indicative of a Chinese espionage case.
Demonization is the US government’s technique for discrediting Bradley Manning for complying with the US Military Code and reporting war crimes and for persecuting Julian Assage of Wikileaks for reporting leaked information about the US government’s crimes. Demonization and false charges will be the government’s weapon against Snowden.
http://lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts398.html
Thank you. If you want to help me sponsor Brook’s one way ticket to the Stasi Archives, let me know.
The globalists have been very successful in their attempts to stay hidden, they have studied the Art of war. They know that their best chance for success was to stay hidden, to be a myth, to be an urban legend ; to be something only the tin foil hat wearing crowd believes in along with the Loch Ness monster. They have hidden right before our eyes long enough. the people need to open their eyes and see. Stop allowing the globalist corporations to call us consumers, or worthless eaters. Let’s own up to it , we’ve been sold out by the globalists; they’ve moved on with the factories and jobs and left us broken without unions, without a civic heart, without ownership of our labor. Most jobs are working for them! Many people have been left with little hope, or a way of expressing the hope they do have, other than servicing debt. They have called us consumers, they drilled into our heads over and over again but that’s what we all are: consumers. The government needs to understand not what consumers want – for that allows them to control of the cost of production of food, water, natural resources and other goods that belong to every free man and woman – but be in service to the people they serve. People need to come together, and understand this. People need to meet in the streets, in the public halls, in the schools, in the churches.
The heart of our government must be individual freedom and responsibility. As a culture, we need each of us to take responsibility. With freedom comes responsibility. We need to have our own laws, police ourselves. This is no utopia. This is the way human beings were meant to be. Above all our bodily and psychological needs, outside and beyond that, stands the need for freedom. Unless we are driven down to absolute destitution, with no food or water – like others in the world have been by war – no static system, no external detached mechanism, no system of harnesses and plullies, no remote control, no computer, no Xbox, no Wii, no iPad, no bottle or smoke can replace our responsibility to take care of our selves and our families. As a people, we have already proven that we can be inventive, entrepreneurial, industrious, creative, musical, artistic. We need to take that chance back. Because if given the chance, we will realize that food, resources, work and freedom, all belong to all of us, not just a privileged few. Begin by seeng abundance rather than scarcity.