Felony Snowball Tossing Charges Lodged

FEBRUARY 9–Felony snowball throwing charges have been leveled against two Virginia college students for allegedly pelting a city plow and an undercover police car during Saturday’s blizzard.

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We Don’t Need A State

We Don’t Need A State

Many people ask, “But how in the world could a laissez-faire society deal with aggression by foreign nations, since it would have no government to protect it?” Behind this question are two unrealized assumptions: first, that government is some sort of extra-societal entity with resources of its own – resources which can only be tapped for defense by the action of government – and, second, that government does, in fact, defend its citizens.

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Obama May Censor ’Net In Effort to Shut Down ‘Conspiracy Theorists’

By Victor Thorn

Big Brother is running scared, and it’s the double-edged sword of technology that pursues him. Most certainly science can be used to control, but just as powerfully it can be utilized to expose. That’s why the moneyed elite have historically been so horrified of allowing information to be freely released to the masses, and why they so desperately try to conceal it.

The great science fiction writer Robert Heinlein once propounded, “Secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy—censorship. When any government or any church, for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, ‘This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,’ the end result is tyranny and oppression.”

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Wake Up America-Current State of Affairs in a Nutshell

Stephen Byers, Sr
Whitefield, NH USA

To my Fellow Americans,


“I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within” – General Douglas MacArthur.

What exactly did General MacArthur mean? Let me try to explain. The United States was founded as a Constitutional Republic based on liberty and the unalienable rights of the individual; and where the government exercised it’s limited power and authority with the consent of “We the people”. But slowly, over the course of the past 100 years, “invisible” forces have turned us into a socialist “Democracy” where government is the Ultimate power and authority; where every action of our lives is legislated and restricted, and where Rights are becoming nonexistent. (If that sounds like an absurd statement, then think about this: the United States, a supposed Free society, has a population of 300 Million; yet this Free society has a total of 2.3 million adults held in prison; or one in every 99.1 adults. That puts the US far head of ANY other country: including Communist China, a supposed repressive society. China has a population of 1.3 Billion people, yet they have only 1.5 million people behind bars).

To those who believe that we continue to be a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people”, and that the government is limited in it’s power and authority as enumerated in the Constitution, I say take the blinders off your eyes and wake up! If you do, and honestly seek the truth, this is what you will see. That today the true seat of Power in Washington is the “Invisible Government”, which exercises its total control from behind the scenes. Who is this Invisible Government? It is a small elite group of individuals who own and control the Giant International Banks and Corporations, and who exercise their control through the Military-Industrial Complex. Through their foundations and organizations, like the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Trilateral Commission , they train and groom those who would be the “movers and shakers” of both U.S. political parties; in other words, they own and control the Republican and Democratic parties.

In his book, “With No Apologies,” former Republican Presidential nominee Barry Goldwater wrote, “The Trilateral Commission is intended to be the vehicle for multinational consolidation of the commercial and banking interests by seizing control of the political government of the United States. The Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power– political, monetary, intellectual and ecclesiastical. What the Trilateral Commission intends is to create a worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nation-states involved. As managers and creators of the system, they will rule the future.”

In 1961, John F. Kennedy warned in a speech “For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed”. Sadly, Kennedy ignored his own advice, took these people on, and was “silenced”!

The Invisible Government also owns and controls the Media. In 1915 JP Morgan interests and their subsidiary organizations purchased the editorial policies of the 25 most important newspapers in the U.S. By controlling the policy of the most important newspapers, they were able to control the general policy of the whole media. The Rockefellers eventually took over the Morgan empire. They gained control of the Associated Press. They also own the trend setting magazines Time, Life, Fortune, and Newsweek. The “elite” own and control ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, ect….

In 1991, the founder of the CFR, David Rockefeller praised the major media for their complicity in helping to facilitate the globalist agenda by saying, “We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. . . . It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.”

This criminal cabal of power elites, banks, corporations, government officials, and the mainstream media have effectively destroyed our economy, and the foundation of constitutional government which we have taken for granted. These evil people have stolen the wealth of the US Treasury whilst exploiting the power and might of the US Military to achieve their agenda. Meanwhile, corrupt government officials continue to pass unconstitutional laws to the benefit of themselves and the elite. They believe our Constitution and Laws don’t pertain to them. It is imperative everyone know that both political parties are controlled by the “Invisible Government”, and that our presidential election is a fraud between their two preselected candidates. Their “man” always wins.

We have just transitioned from the lies, deceit and prevarication of one administration to the lies, deceit and prevarication of another; it is, in fact, a continuation of the same betrayal of constitutional guarantees, unlawful and unrestricted immigration, insecure borders, wild frivolous spending, and government encouragement of the continuing transition to a deeply immoral society. The government will persist in eroding our constitutionally protected unalienable rights, and what little is left of the people’s sovereignty will most assuredly be legislated away. In days gone by our leaders were chosen from among the people: they were the servants and we were the Master. Now our leaders are chosen from (and by) the elite: they are the Master, and “we the people” are their servants.

Realize this: If the Republicans or the Democrats could have fixed this nation, they would have done it long before now. The more you look, the more you see that both major U.S. political parties are dominated and controlled by this “Invisible Government”. Both major U.S. political parties do NOT work for, nor do they represent “We the People”; but instead represent the the global elitists; the super-rich foundations; the NGO’s; the global bankers; the global corporations; and the lobbyists. Bankrolled by the Rothschild money dynasty (principal owners of the federal reserve banks), they have emerged as our present day aristocracy, the “ruling elite families” which includes generations of Rockefellers, Kennedys, and the Bush family; perennial “intellectuals” like Kissinger, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Albright, Christopher, and Rubin; all the members of the “Council on Foreign Relations” and the “Trilateral Commission”; and all of the one-time and/or yearly attendees at the annual “Bilderberg” conference.

The much anticipated Obama “change” has been to simply change one CFR perennial appointee for another. Don’t believe me? Well, let’s look at Obama’s top cabinet picks. When considering their collective histories, a trend becomes clear, proving that the more things “change” under Obama, the more they stay the same.

Timothy Geithner – Treasury Secretary : Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, president and CEO of Federal Reserve Bank of New York, formerly of Kissinger Associates.

Paul Volcker – Economic Recovery Advisory Board : Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, North American chairman of Trilateral Commission, Federal Reserve chairman under Presidents Carter and Reagan, president of Federal Reserve Bank of New York, chairman Rothschild Wolfensohn Company.

Lawrence Summers – National Economic Council : Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Treasury Secretary during Clinton administration, chief economist at World Bank, chief economist at IMF.

Hillary Clinton – Secretary of State : Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, US Senator.

Joseph Biden – Vice President : Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, US Senator.

Robert Gates – Defense Secretary: Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, Defense Secretary under President Bush, former CIA Director.

General James Jones – National Security Advisor : Bilderberg, Trilateral Commission, European supreme allied commander, special envoy for Middle East Security during Bush administration, board of directors for Chevron and Boeing, and member of Brent Scowcroft’s Institute for International Affairs along with Bilderberg Icon Henry Kissinger, top Obama Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Bobby Ray Inman, and former CIA Director John Deutch.

Barack Obama is himself a Council on Foreign Relations member. Corporate members of the CFR include ABC News, General Electric (owner of NBC News), News Corporation (owner of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal), and Time Warner (owner of CNN and Time). (Remember, I told you they own and control ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, ect…). In regard to key economic policy advisors, all of Obama’s selections maintain a close relationship with one or more of these long time CFR, Trilateral Commission, government insiders: Ben Bernanke, Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan; as well as ties to bailout engineer Henry Paulson.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner picked former Goldman Sachs lobbyist Mark Patterson as a top aide. Patterson will serve as Geithner’s chief of staff at Treasury, which just happens to oversee the Trillions being handed out through the financial bailout programs. The list of former Goldman Sachs employees holding top positions in the Obama administration includes: Mark Patterson, a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist, who is the chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Geithner. Reuben Jeffery III, former managing partner at Goldman Sachs, who holds the post of undersecretary of state for economic, business, and agricultural affairs. Neel Kashkari, former Goldman Sachs vice president, who is the assistant secretary of the treasury for financial stability, responsible for administering the TARP funds. Dianna Farrell, former financial analyst at Goldman Sachs, who serves as deputy director of the National Economic Council. 2 Former chairmen of Goldman Sachs, Henry Paulson and Robert Rubin, also held the job of US Treasury Secretary.

Source:

The Decline and Fall of the American Empire

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Albert Einstein said: "the men who possess real power in this country have no intention of ending the cold war." It is one of the most incredible 'coincidences' in history that as the Berlin Wall fell and communism ceased to be the global threat we had been told it was, a new 'bogey man' would arise, as if on cue, to take its place. World terrorism', like a good steward, is now on the job, keeping the crooks on K-street and the Pentagon in firm control of one of the largest, most dangerous empires since Rome. Like the U.S. today, the Roman economy was 'militarized', the empire over-extended, the battles fought by mercenaries. The currency might get you into the Coliseum for the 'games' but little else. Thus --bread and circuses were popular. When the Praetorian Guard auctioned the Roman Empire to Didius Julianus the sale was completed in Greek Drachmas --not worthless Roman Sesterces.

Some two decades ago, it was decided by the global financial elites that the framework for the global economy shall consist of:

1) A global derivative-based financial system, controlled by the US Federal Reserve Bank and its associate global banks in the developed countries. 2) The re-location from the West to the East in the production of goods, principally to China and India to “feed” the developed economies.

The entire system was built on a simple principle, that of a FED-controlled global reserve currency which will be the engine for growth for the global economy. It is essentially an imperialist economic principle. Once we grasp this fundamental truth, Bernanke’s boast that the “US can produce as many US dollars as it wishes at no cost” takes on a different dimension.

I have talked to so many economists and when asked what is the crux of the present financial problem, they all respond in unison, “it is the global imbalances… the West consumes too much while the East saves too much and consumes not enough”. This is exemplified by the huge US trade deficits on the one part and China’s massive surpluses on the other.

--Red Alert: The Second Wave of The Financial Tsunami

The U. S. is routinely pimped on K-Street and, like Rome's sesterces and denarius, the dollar is all but worthless; China boasts the Worlds largest POSITIVE current account balance; the US the largest trade deficit. China props up the US dollar but only because it has to. This Faustian bargain was first cut by Bush Sr who paved the way for Nixon's famous trip to China's Forbidden City.

In December 2008 Lawrence Summers, soon to become the administration’s highest-ranking economist, called for decisive action. “Many experts,” he warned, “believe that unemployment could reach 10 percent by the end of next year.” In the face of that prospect, he continued, “doing too little poses a greater threat than doing too much.”Ten months later unemployment reached 10.2 percent, suggesting that despite his warning the administration hadn’t done enough to create jobs. You might have expected, then, a determination to do more.--Paul Krugman, The Phantom Menace

Some have said that the stiumli were not enough, in other words, 'too small'. It was not that the stimuli were too small but that those getting the stimuli were the banksters who had created this mess to begin with. Alas --nothing is learned from the lessons of history.

Most economists agree: the West consumes too much and the East, primarily China does not consume enough. Compounding the problem --China props up the dollar but only because it had to dump cheap product upon the American market via Wal-Mart, it's retail 'arm' in the U.S.

Source: The Existentialist Cowboy

Political Correctness: The Scourge of Our Times

Does anyone know the origins of Political Correctness? Who originally developed it and what was its purpose?

I looked it up. It was developed at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany, which was founded in 1923 and came to be known as the "Frankfurt School." It was a group of thinkers who pulled together to find a solution to the biggest problem facing the implementers of communism in Russia.

The problem? Why wasn't communism spreading?

Their answer? Because Western Civilization was in its way.

What was the problem with Western Civilization? Its belief in the individual, that an individual could develop valid ideas. At the root of communism was the theory that all valid ideas come from the effect of the social group of the masses. The individual is nothing.

And they believed that the only way for communism to advance was to help (or force, if necessary) Western Civilization to destroy itself. How to do that? Undermine its foundations by chipping away at the rights of those annoying individuals.

One way to do that? Change their speech and thought patterns by spreading the idea that vocalizing your beliefs is disrespectful to others and must be avoided to make up for past inequities and injustices.

And call it something that sounds positive: "Political Correctness."

Inspired by the brand new communist technique, Mao, in the 1930s, wrote an article on the "correct" handling of contradictions among the people. "Sensitive training" – sound familiar? – and speech codes were born.

In 1935, after Hitler came to power, the Frankfurt School moved to New York City, where they continued their work by translating Marxism from economic to cultural terms using Sigmund Freud's psychological conditioning mechanisms to get Americans to buy into Political Correctness. In 1941, they moved to California to spread their wings.

But Political Correctness remains just what it was intended to be: a sophisticated and dangerous form of censorship and oppression, imposed upon the citizenry with the ultimate goal of manipulating, brainwashing and destroying our society.

PC Cuba

My first conscious exposure to Political Correctness was in 1959 – the first year of Castro's revolution in Cuba – while attending an indoctrination session at a neighborhood elementary school in Havana. There I learned for the first time of the claimed superiority of life in the Soviet Union vs. the U.S.

There I also learned that the word "compañero" (filtered version of the communist "comrade" – Fidel was denying his communist preferences) was the correct way to refer to the other members of the new Cuban society-in-the-making.

Mr., Mrs. and Miss were no longer acceptable, and their further use could reveal that you were not a Fidelista. Since repression and violations of human rights came roaring in right behind Castro's sweep down from the mountains in 1959, objection or rejection of Fidel Castro's revolution would (and still will) land you in a lot of trouble. You could easily lose your life in those summary executions at La Cabaña prison under the direction of Che Guevara.

But don't worry about Che. Che was later transformed and cleansed by the masters of Political Correctness. His likeness became a revered icon of the far left, with T-shirts and posters still adorning the campuses of America.

The same techniques were used to cleanse one of today's "heroes," Mumia Abu-Jamal (even if he was convicted, by overwhelming evidence, of killing a cop).

And under the pervasive guidance of Political Correctness that took hold from elementary school to university, from the media to the arts, from the country fields to factories and offices, Cubans learned to say what it was safe to say. Always in line with the overpowering state. Always following the dictums of the only political party left: the Communist Party.

The self-censorship resulting from Political Correctness easily trampled freedom of speech. Political Correctness has succeeded in Cuba by creating a uniform political discourse that has lasted for 43 years.

Political Correctness has given the state (Castro) complete control of speech. That is the main reason why the U.S. media cannot extract the truth of what Cubans really feel when they interview regular citizens and deceptively present their comments as valid to the American public.

The same was true in the former Soviet Union and the former satellite countries. The same continues in the remaining communist world.

It's nothing new. The U.S. media must know that, so why don't they openly report that fact instead of misleading the public? Perhaps that is the reason why the American people are so uneducated about the Cuban tragedy and acted regrettably during the Elian Gonzalez affair.

The PC U.S.

With profound dismay, I have seen how the scourge of Political Correctness has taken hold in the U.S. It is very well entrenched in our educational system, at scientific, religious and community levels, the media, the workplace and even our government.

It is changing the American society from within, and the citizens of this nation are increasingly censoring themselves and losing their freedom of speech out of fear of Political Correctness repression.

It is the nature of Western Civilization to be civilized – respectful of others and concerned with correcting injustices. We don't need Political Correctness to make us think we are not civilized on our own and must have our thoughts and words restricted.

In December 2001, in Kensington, Md., an annual firefighters Santa Claus festivity to light the Christmas tree was objected to by two families. The city council, in the name of Political Correctness, voted to ban Santa from the parade. Fortunately, due to citizen outcry, the decision was reversed in the end and many people protested by dressing up as Santa.

Logically and respectfully, how can one person's benign icon be objectionable to the point of banishment? Offer to add other people's icons. Make it a broader celebration. That's the Perfectly Correct American way.

The rulers of Political Correctness reach absurd levels when they refer to the betrayal of America by the spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg – executed in 1953 – as "non-traditional patriotism"!

We see shameful situations created in our schools and universities in America that have fallen prey to Political Correctness. Some professors, students and publications are being attacked for expressing a point of view that differs from that imposed by a fanatical far left, under the guise of Political Correctness.

In schools and workplaces we see that "diversity" has degenerated into reverse discrimination, where often the less qualified are admitted and the incompetent cannot be fired. We have seen characters like Rev. Jesse Jackson shamelessly blackmailing and threatening to boycott entire corporations if they don't hire those selected by him or simply make "donations" to his organizations.

The Double Standard Emerges

Our Constitution requires the separation of church and state, which has always discouraged our public education system from teaching religion. However, in December 2001, while Christmas cards, symbols and decorations were being objected to for the first time in American public schools in Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Oregon, in an elementary school in Texas, a girl was allowed to give to her classmates an overview and show a video about her Muslim religion.

And in January 2002, a public middle school in San Luis Obispo, Calif., had its students pretend to be warriors fighting for Islam. Another school near Oakland, Calif., also encouraged 125 seventh-grade students to dress up in Muslim robes for a three-week course on Islam.

This arbitrary double standard was applied in the name of Political Correctness following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

According to Ellen Sorokin's "No Founding Fathers?" published by the Washington Times on its front page on Jan. 28, 2002, even our Founding Fathers have fallen victim to the travesty. The article says of the New Jersey Department of Education's history standards,

"The latest revisions to the state standards have disappointed educators across the country, who said the board's exclusion of the Founding Fathers' names is 'Political Correctness to the nth degree.' "

Sorokin points out that "the standards specifically note that students should identify slavery, the Holocaust and modern Iraq as examples in which 'people have behaved in cruel and inhumane ways.' " Conveniently, communism is absent from that short list.

In another article by Sorokin, published by the Washington Times on March 10, "Report Blames Anti-Americanism on College Teachers," she presents two examples of upcoming courses for next spring and fall. They are " 'The Sexuality of Terrorism' at University of California at Hayward; and 'Terrorism and the Politics of Knowledge' at UCLA, a class that, according to its course description, examines 'America's record of imperialistic adventurism.' "

Recently, a historic photograph of the New York firefighters raising the American flag over the ruins of the World Trade Center was going to be made into a sculpture as a memorial.

But history's revisionists used Political Correctness to dictate that other minority faces replace some of the faces in the historical photograph! Fortunately, in the end that didn't fly either, due to the outcry of firefighters and the public.

The Goal of the PC Dictators

For people with the background and firsthand experience of living inside a totalitarian communist society, the tilt and goal of the dictators of Political Correctness in America are obvious.

The beneficiaries in the end will be the fanatic believers in the totalitarian state, who, in spite of the dismal failure of communism and the 100 million people exterminated pursuing that criminal system, have not given up.

Political and religious fanatics, as demonstrated by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the subsequent war in Afghanistan, are extremely dangerous in today's world.

All citizens who cherish liberty must reject the scourge of Political Correctness. Freedom of speech must be preserved in America if we are to continue to be free.

Let's say it: Castro is not a 'president,' as the U.S. media's Political Correctness calls him. Castro has not been democratically elected to anything in Cuba. The correct word to define him is 'tyrant.' He is not just a 'leader,' as the U.S. media also calls him. He is more of a criminal Mafioso-type character.

Why criminal? Because he has caused the deaths of more than 100,000 Cubans. Thousands have died through his support of guerrillas in Central and South America. Thousands of blacks were killed by Castro's soldiers in Africa. Castro in the 1980s introduced the use of bacteriological weapons to kill blacks in Angola.

How many thousands have died in America as a result of his drug trafficking into the U.S.? How many thousands have died all over the world due to terrorists trained in Castro's Cuba?

Former Soviet colonel Ken Alibek, who defected to America, was once in charge of the Soviet Union's production of biological weapons. In Alibek's 1999 book, "Biohazard," he revealed that with the help of the Soviet Union, in the 1980s Cuba created laboratories to produce chemical and bacteriological weapons of mass destruction – just 90 miles from U.S. shores.

The information about Castro's involvement with bacteriological weapons also comes from various independent sources. We must not forget either that Cuba is on the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist nations.

Why Mafioso? Well, Castro is like an untouchable godfather, surrounded by bodyguards and thugs and a private army of about 40,000 soldiers for his personal protection (roughly the size of the entire army of Cuba prior to 1959).

He stole foreign and national properties in Cuba. He has become one of the richest men in the world, according to Forbes magazine. He has created a despotic and corrupt elite to exploit the Cuban people and keep himself in power. He has made the Cuban people hostages and slaves of his corrupt regime.

The U.S. media do not call Al Capone "the former leader" of the Italian Mafia. Why the double standard with Fidel and other far-left regimes? The answer can be traced to where the sympathies lie – with the elite dictating Political Correctness in America.

It's one thing is to be educated, considerate, polite and have good manners, and another to be forced to self-censor and say things that are totally incorrect in order to comply with the arbitrary dictums of a deceiving and fanatical far-left agenda.

Let's preserve our freedom and say NO to the scourge of Political Correctness.

Source: News Max

What Is Totalitarianism?

If the United States came under the control of a totalitarian regime, would we recognize it? This question is of utmost importance today, when many of us harbor fears that some time in the near future ideas such as freedom, liberty, and privacy will be alien to our society. But as we witness the regular passage of legislation designed to restrict and regulate, and the tendency of the Federal government to increase rather than decrease its power (with a handful of exceptions), we are struck by the uninterrupted routine of life in the USA . As the central government brings more and more of private society under its control, we continue to watch cable TV, shop at supermarkets overflowing with products, and eat at our favorite restaurants. Could it be that we have already passed that dreaded threshold and missed it? The trouble with diagnosing our condition is that most people are unaware of what totalitarianism actually is. Among even the most politically astute, there is little mental room for the possibility that a state in the process of becoming totalitarian might lack the most brutal and outward signs of oppressive regimes portrayed in popular culture. Because of our rather simplistic frame of reference—picture black and white images of National Socialist Germany or the Soviet Union —we recognize a country as either being in the advanced stages of totalitarianism or not at all. But just because a state maintains the structures and language of democracy and continues to have elections, for instance, that does not preclude it from being totalitarian. In fact, North Korea has a constitution and holds regular elections with three competing political parties—the Workers' Party of Korea , the Korean Social Democratic Party, and the Chondoist Chongu Party—all united under an organization called the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland. In April 2009, North Korea revised its constitution to include Article 8, which reads, “The State respects and protects the human rights of the workers, peasants and working intellectuals who have been previously freed from exploitation and oppression and have become masters of the State and society.” Yet North Korea is recognized as being one of the most oppressive totalitarian states in the world. Totalitarianism and authoritarianism do not necessarily go hand in hand. Throughout human history, most governments have been authoritarian, but totalitarianism didn’t appear until the 20th Century. That is because until the birth of mass society, governments lacked the means to exercise total control over a large population. Tribes and municipalities may have sworn fealty to an overlord or emperor, for example, but beyond collecting taxes or levying armies, the monarch took very little interest in the personal lives of his or her subjects. Personal behavior was left to be governed by custom or religion. Totalitarianism is therefore not specifically a system of government, but a way of organizing society by means of a powerful, centralized modern state. It requires a mass media, education, and political culture in which the state—that is to say a class of bureaucrats and officials governing a large geographic area—takes over every aspect of civil society. Totalitarianism, as succinctly defined by former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, is “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” The totalitarian mind views individuals not as citizens with their own interests, but as dependents with only one interest, and as such, it attempts to organize these masses around a particular ideology. Any thoughts, words, or actions that do not conform to this dominant ideology are made criminal or driven underground. In short, the state seeks total control over the people living within its jurisdiction. Totalitarian regimes attempt to achieve this control through personality cults, by mobilizing the population into national organizations, by censoring the media, through mass surveillance, and through various levels of state ownership of commerce and the means of production. Traditionally, though with some exceptions, governments have recognized a distinction between public and private life. The earliest civil laws governed interactions between individuals that could result in material or physical harm. The totalitarian state, on the other hand, seeks to extend its authority not just over the public actions of a person, but to his or her own private associations, family life, and possessions as well. The individual interest thereby dissolves into the public interest, or in the words of radical leftist Carol Hanisch, “the personal is political.” Ultimately, the totalitarian goal is not just legal control over our actions, but our thoughts as well. Finally, totalitarianism is a teleological worldview, meaning that the totalitarian mind sees all of history as unfolding toward an inevitable end—whether it be a communist state, a world government, or some other utopia. This end result, though never really achieved (thus the need for a “perpetual revolution”), is held up as a justification for every possible abuse, including mass murder. After all, opponents of the regime are simply getting in the way of historical progress. Therefore, totalitarianism requires not only a belief in the power of the centralized state to eliminate all of humanity’s woes, but a belief in the inevitable victory of that state over private interests. As Mussolini inferred, there is nothing the totalitarian fears more than an individual acting outside the state. It is vitally important to understand that totalitarianism is not an exotic or abstract idea, but a reality of the contemporary world. It is something that we do not often recognize in our society, but is nevertheless an ever-present and growing danger.In the first part of this essay, we defined totalitarianism as the state-orchestrated dissolution of the private sphere, initiated by an ideologically-driven political organization with the goal of exercising total control over the population of a country. In the words of the father of Italian fascism, Giovanni Gentile, the totalitarian state seeks “total representation of the nation and total guidance of national goals.” While this control is most obvious and pronounced under a dictatorship, it is not entirely absent in democratic republics. A legislature may vote in favor of a totalitarian state just as easily as a dictator may impose one. This is totalitarianism in theory, but in order to fully understand what totalitarianism is, we must recognize it in practice. In practice, totalitarianism is expressed in the mass surveillance of the public, in laws that criminalize a broad range of activities usually reserved for individual discretion, as well as in direct government interference in matters of business and religion. These laws are enacted with the purpose of organizing a country around a particular social, political, and economic ideology—such as Marxist-Leninism, Islamism, State Corporatism, etc.—and to restrict dissent against that ideology. There are several areas that have become fertile ground for the growth of totalitarianism in recent years: the Internet, electronic surveillance, and thoughtcrime. The Internet, as the most obvious symbol of the free exchange of ideas in the contemporary world, has routinely come under attack by totalitarians of all stripes. The People’s Republic of China , for instance, maintains a force of over 30,000 “Internet police,” who monitor the country’s estimated 338 million Internet users. Among other restrictions, no one in China may use the Internet to “incite to overthrow the government or the socialist system,” “injure the reputation of state organs,” or “promote feudal superstitions.” Most of these regulations can be broadly interpreted to shut down any dissent—or even discussion to that effect—against the state or its official ideology. China ’s Internet police monitor discussion groups and chat rooms and erase comments that are deemed unsympathetic to the government. Keywords such as “Falun Gong” and “Red Terror” are blocked on search engines. China is not the only totalitarian state to target the Internet. Use of the Internet in Cuba , North Korea , and Burma requires official permission, and even then its users are heavily scrutinized. Those are, of course, the most extreme examples of Internet censorship in the world, utilizing the least sophisticated means of regulation. By attempting to erase online privacy, many democratic governments have embraced mass surveillance—another hallmark of totalitarianism—to attack the free flow of information on the World Wide Web. At the beginning of November, the Daily Telegraph reported that the British Home Office established new rules for telecom companies and Internet Service Providers requiring them to “keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they are contacting, when, where, and which websites they are visiting.” This information is now accessible to 653 public bodies, including police and the Financial Services Authority, without permission from a judge or magistrate. In June 2008, the Swedish parliament, led by the Swedish Social Democratic Party, approved a similar law that allowed a government agency called the National Defence Radio Establishment to tap its citizens’ cross-border Internet and phone communication, meaning that all digital information coming into Sweden is now carefully monitored. The mass surveillance of communication is only one way totalitarians threaten privacy through electronic means. In recent years, closed circuit cameras have sprung up all over urban areas. While we in the West are quick to criticize the Chinese government for its surveillance programs, London , England has one of the highest number of street-corner cameras in the world; 10,524 to be exact, or roughly 16 cameras for every square mile. The United States is not far behind. Washington , DC has led the country with its network of over 5,200 cameras (or roughly 76 per square mile), recently linked together by the Video Interoperability for Public Safety program. Mayor Adrian Fenty has cheerfully noted that his video monitoring system will have an “all-hazards” approach, rather than just focusing on crime. According to the Mayor’s own news release, phase two of his project will see “all remaining CCTV user agencies…integrated into a central facility and a new common monitoring facility will be established.” Totalitarianism is further characterized by a government’s desire to go beyond regulating behavior into regulating thought and its expression in the form of speech and the written word. In George Orwell’s novel 1984, this was called “thoughtcrime.” Thoughtcrimes were committed when an individual deviated from official state ideology. Many left-leaning governments have adopted this approach in order to criminalize unfavorable opinions toward officially protected groups or associations. The Canadian Human Rights Act, for instance, “forbids the posting of hateful or contemptuous messages” on the Internet, and while expressing hatred or “possessing hate propaganda” is prohibited, it is allowed if the person’s intent is to illustrate said hatred “for the purpose of removal.” Hate propaganda has been defined by the Supreme Court of Canada as any expression that is “intended or likely to circulate extreme feelings of opprobrium and enmity against a racial or religious group.” Laws against feelings such as hatred are a direct attack on individual opinion and imply that the only appropriate emotions are those approved of by the government. While all of these restrictions are common under totalitarian regimes, they do not in and of themselves constitute totalitarianism. A totalitarian state requires both the tools and a political class who employs those tools in the service of a national ideology. The United States certainly possesses the infrastructure to support a totalitarian state, and various ideologues who would readily embrace totalitarianism, but it lacks a cohesive, dominant ideology. Unlike the three political parties of North Korea , political parties in the United States are not united in a common front. The danger we face in the United States today is that if a particular ideology were to ever gain predominance, a totalitarian state would not be difficult to impose. Since we now know what totalitarianism is and how it operates, we are that much closer to defending ourselves against it. If we wish to prevent a future reminiscent of 1984, our task is threefold: to dismantle the state apparatus that consolidates power into the hands of the Federal government, to expose the agenda behind mass surveillance, censorship, and thought crimes, and to prevent the nationalization of private industry. While we cannot force the totalitarian-minded to give up their designs, we can make it difficult for them to force those designs upon us. Educating ourselves in the what and how of totalitarianism is just the first step in that battle.Source: Strike At The Root