The Cult of the Flag

pa·tri·ot·ism

   [pey-tree-uh-tiz-uhm] noun

devoted love, support, and defense of one's country; national loyalty.

Beware, Americans, of becoming a member of the Cult of the Flag.

The US government has brainwashed the ignorant of America to justify all manner of atrocities by veiling those sins in a cloak of "patriotism".  People have not only stood by while we have committed grievous acts, they have cheered resoundingly as citizens of other countries are devastated and killed by us.  Leaders have manipulated the masses through patriot propaganda to support a corrupt government, validate unfair foreign policy and agree to the mistreatment of countless citizens of our own country.

• 1947: After the attack on Pearl Harbor, over 110,00 innocent Americans of Japanese descent were rounded up and placed in internment camps.  62% of those people were American citizens, but the vile act was justified in Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt because "the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national  defense material, national defense premises, and national defense utilities."  Few Americans protested, because they had been convinced that it was necessary to keep the country safe from traitors and espionage.
• 1950:  Senator Joseph McCarthy, an anti-Communist zealot, spent his 10 year career as a senator accusing innocent Americans of Communist ties.  Despite the fact that the cases were unproven, careers were destroyed, people were blacklist and families were shattered.  One vocal opponent, Senator Millard Tydings, was said to have committed "the most brazen whitewash of treasonable conspiracy in our history."
• 2001:  After the 9/11 attacks, the war drums began to pound furiously.  According to President George Bush, "You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror."  It didn't matter that this war would kill, to date, nearly 1.5 million men, women and children.  All good patriots had to support the war, support our troops and support our blood-thirsty quest for control over the Middle East's oil supply  vengeance.  Flags waved furiously across the United States, with every flat surface belonging to good Americans plastered with a red-white-and-blue decal.
• Vietnam, Korea, Grenada, Lebanon, Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, Cuba, South America:  pick a destination on the globe and we've been told that it is our civic duty as Americans to blow it up.
• The Present: Over the past 10 years many laws have been passed that negate freedom in the name of Americanism.  The unPatriot Act, the establishment of the TSA, the NDAA, the American Expatriation Act, the anti-protest Trespass Bill - all of these have combined to make a mockery of the Constitutional principles that our country was founded on.  They've been presented in a way that an unquestioning general populace can feel snug and secure against domestic and foreign threats, when in fact the real threat to America is within the buildings of Washington DC.

Loving one's country doesn't mean blindly accepting the actions of the leaders.  When the leaders of the country abandon the Constitution, human conscience and morality, the act of a true Patriot is to question that and question it loudly.

The US government knows that the Cult of the Flag is the most powerful tool in the brainwashing arsenal.  By propagandizing through the special-interest-owned media, they intend to convince every American that it is his or her patriotic duty to support the President, right or wrong.  They intend to distribute the red-white-and-blue Kool-aid to persuade us to ignore our values and morals and blindly wave the flag.

Our patriotic duty is not to the government.  The act of a patriot is to question the acts of the government and to not be diverted from that call for accountability by a war-mongering, go-team rhetoric.  Our duty is to think critically and dissent when necessary.  You can love your country without loving your government.  We must be willing to defend our country from within, and that means risking discomfort, persecution and potentially, our lives.

BE A REAL PATRIOT.

LEARN.

QUESTION.

SPEAK UP.

CAMPAIGN.

MAKE A SCENE.

RESIST.

"You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality.  Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it."

~  Malcolm X

(Credits: NinaO)

The Enemy Expatriation Act: Could YOU Be a Target?

Flashback to the Third Reich.

I hope you didn't breathe a sigh of relief when President Obama promised not to use the power of the NDAA, also known as the Indefinite Detainment Act, against US citizens.  You may be as American as Granny's apple pie but it doesn't mean you are safe. 

Currently on the table in the House of Representatives (HR 3166) and the Senate ( S 1698) is the Enemy Expatriation Act.  This venomous bit of legislation joins hands with the unPatriot Act and the NDAA to allow the United States government to strip Americans of their citizenship.

Why would they want to do that?  Well, there has to be a way to silence the dissenters.  This bill bears and eerie resemblance to a bill passed by the Third Reich in Germany in 1935.  The Nuremberg Laws took away the citizenship of German people based on race, blood type or dissent against Hitler's regime.  The Expatriation Act threatens to take away citizenship of Americans for "engaging in, or purposefully and materially supporting, hostilities against the United States."

The very ambiguity of this law, especially when added to the other unconstitutional acts that have recently and rapidly come to pass, should strike fear into the heart of any patriotic American.  For something as simple as DISAGREEING WITH YOUR GOVERNMENT you might be considered hostile.  For donating to the campaign of a constitutionalist, you might be considered hostile.  Other hostile acts that could label one a terrorist as per the DHS Gestapo could include having more than two weeks worth of stored food in your home, engaging is discourse on the internet regarding the state of the union, or even purchasing ammunition for your personal firearm.

This is another step down the slippery slope to a police state with total domination by the government.  It sneakily attempts to circumvent the exceptions put forth on previous bills to set at ease the minds of the people.  Their very diligence in finding ways to get around the arguments of the American people should make you very very uneasy. The conspiracy has ceased to be a theory and is now, simply an evident fact.

Paranoia is no longer a sign of a lack of rationality - it is the only sane reaction to the acts of a government gone insane.

Media Blackout of the Day: Occupy Protests NDAA

Today was a big news day for Occupy Wall Street......except, somehow, it wasn't.

In Grand Central Station an OWS group gathered to protest the NDAA, making use of their Constitutional rights of freedom of speech and freedom of peaceful assembly.  Subsequently, a petite young woman who has been identified as Laura Digioia was literally carried away by several hulking police officers.

When making my rounds of the alternative news sites like SHTFplan and Alt-Market, they were all abuzz regarding this latest attack on the Bill of Rights.  When I checked on CNN, Fox and the other mass media sites, I found NOTHING.  Ditto.  Zilch.  Didn't even happen.

Freedom of the press is apparently dead as far as the mainstream media is concerned.  These companies have become nothing more than a vehicle of propaganda, owned by special interest groups and the government.  Unless the Powers That Be want something or someone exposed, gone are the days of the intrepid investigative journalist who will stop at nothing to fill the people in on the truth.

Equally as horrifying as the NDAA (The Indefinite Detainment bill) is the reality that the people with an occupational duty to inform the public have simply rolled over and given up.  Journalistic integrity is a thing of the past.  They haven't even put up a fight about this loss of rights, and they make every effort to aid the government in their cover-up. Does this mean that instead of being bullied into silence they actually just sold out and became the verbal prostitutes of the government?

An important course of action is to find alternate sources of information.  The "news" that you are receiving from the MSM (mainstream media) is simply the watered-down gruel the government wants you to have.  You are being spoonfed the big government advertisement that every right they take away from you is really just for your own good. You are being lulled into a false sense of security.  You are being programmed who to vote for.  You are being hypnotized by Big Brother himself so that you will no longer even consider questioning authority.

It's up to YOU to search out the truth for yourself, and to spread that information around to anyone who will listen.  Think critically about the news you receive and check multiple sources for the veracity.  Then spread the word.

QUESTION AUTHORITY LOUDLY.

Obama's Thought Gestapo

With all of the hubbub about the passing of the NDAA, a couple of little things have slid in under the radar from the desk of President Obama.

On January 4th, he rolled out the carpet for the new Bureau of Counterrorism. Apparently this shiny new expenditure of taxpayer dollars serves "no greater responsibility than to protect the American people."

Phew.  I guess we can all breathe a sigh of relief now.

Uh-oh...hang on to that sigh......a fact sheet released by the federal government more fully outlines the department, using the vague and open-to-interpretation language we are all becoming accustomed to.  Read it yourself and see if you get that warm and cozy feeling of security or if you get that itchy feeling on the back of your neck that you are witnessing the creation of a thought Gestapo.

My biggest concern comes from this section:

Countering violent extremism:  To defeat terrorists, we must undermine their ability to recruit.  The Bureau of Counterterrorism will focus the State Department in US government counter violent extremism......will work to delegitimize the violent extremist narrative, to develop positive alternatives for populations vulnerable to recruitment, and to build partner government and civil society capacity to counter violent extremism themselves.

In that section alone, I read this......

We, the government must defeat the insurgents by undermining their ability to spread the word about what we are doing.  The Bureau will focus on getting rid of people who make too much noise....will work to censor their message on the internet, in print and over the airwaves.....will endeavour to program young people to believe that we alone are looking out for their best interests......and will strive to convince the populace that those fighting for their freedom are the enemy, and must be destroyed.

The government of the United States is striving to induce Stockholm Syndrome in it's citizens.  Stockholm Syndrome is defined as " the extraordinary phenomena in which captives begin to identify with and grow sympathetic towards their captors."  When you are dependant on one source for food, shelter and permission for anything that you do, you begin to see that source as something to be revered.  You begin to feel sheltered by your very captor, as they lull you into a sense that they alone are caring for you.

When you add this new bureau to all of the rights claimed by the government through the NDAA, you can clearly begin to see the pieces falling into place for even more enslavement.  We are now at risk from the opinion police and disagreement could be very hazardous to one's health and well-being.

Let it be known that we are smarter than that.  Let it be known that we will not be drawn into a net of captivity "for our own good".    We can teach our own children, we can think critically and we can defend our liberties, as they are God-given natural rights, and not privileges extended by the government.

No thanks, State Department. We don't need another branch of the Obama Thought Gestapo.