The Surveillance State

by Duke Kell

  “I tried to stop him,” Pheasant said as he called 911.

  ***

  That night a story ran about the assistant director of FACE and how he and his lover fabricated damaging evidence against the US to get back at them for co-opting his software. Somehow, despite mountains of evidence the American people fell back in line and buried their head even deeper in the sand. Fortunately, not all of us. Some of us have taken notice; we’ve begun to stockpile books, stories, and histories, hoping that one day when all of this is gone we will rebuild. The truth won’t be lost.

  THE END

  ************************************************

  Article by Dirk Stone and Michael de Garcia

  Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to George Logan on Jan 11, 1817, “I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and to bid defiance to the laws of their country."

  Moneyed interests have infiltrated our intelligence agencies and have taken over the country. It didn’t happen overnight. In fact, it has been a constant conflict since the first days of the republic. We all have been a part of this, lost in our own dramas, distracted by nonsense; we gladly gave our country away. Our understanding of America is based on the story they wanted us to believe, one where the state of the nation depends on the economic stability of Wall Street and cannot survive without it. The truth sounds like something out of a fiction novel, but make no mistake, our country is no longer a democratic republic. The private prison industry, the military industrial complex, and a handful of American corporations have colluded with the International Monetary fund and the banking industry to slowly erode our national sovereignty. The evidence is clear. Over the last 18 years, the Patriot Act allowed these groups to step up the assault on our country. The top officials in our intelligence agencies became pawns in a much larger game and helped them spy on Americans who they felt could help push their agenda. Perpetual war, Free Trade, and unprecedented inequity was the goal and they have achieved it.

  The two party system has become nothing more than a façade. The difference between the parties only lie within trivial fear-based issues they want us to fight over in their effort to divide and conquer.

  Unfortunately for those who have taken part in this treason, their actions are a direct conflict to the rights the constitution guarantees its citizens. The small group of special interests has broken the law of this land by ignoring the Constitution. In doing so, they left the door open for the people to take the country back, by exercising their rights. Abe Lincoln said, "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it."

  Take President Lincoln words and think about what he said “This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it.” Nowhere does he say that this means only those who own businesses that affect the GDP or the job creators, or Wall Street insiders. No, he said the people and he meant all the people. With that in mind when the government no longer functions to protect the right of the majority of its people, we have the right to change directions. In most countries throughout history a change would take full-blown revolution but it’s not needed here. In fact, we both believe that a reactionary change would not solve the problems we face. What we need is to have a new conversation about what the words “freedom” and “Liberty” actually mean, then we have to discuss the idea that while we would love to see those things spread, it is not our mission or job to do so. Safety and security are in direct conflict with freedom. Ben Franklin said, “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Our founding fathers never intended to change the chaos around us, but to rather embrace it with the understanding that the human animal desires to be free. They also understood that freedom only extended so far, never letting the individual freedom of one person trump that of another. This is the basis for our laws, written to lay out actions that would not infringe upon the rights of another.

  In our love for this country we are willing to give up our lives to do what is right. We joined the rest of the country in hiding from the truth for too long. If we are ever going to live up to our constitution, we need to take a step back from our current direction. No more torture, no more assassinations, no more war, no more police brutality. It’s time to lead by example by making some tough changes. If you are reading this, we are both dead, assassinated by your government to cover up and deflect from the documents we released that prove everything we have asserted. We really don’t need proof. Deep down we know we have all been privy to it and did not object. We will be held accountable if the concentration camps we call prisons become extermination facilities. We will be the ones who will suffer when the world places sanctions on us for war crimes. The religion used to justify these monstrosities will be linked to hate forever.

  There is hope, but it’s time for the people to rise up and claim their rightful throw to ownership of our government and our country. Civic virtue was an integral part of our early republic, considered part of a man’s moral duty to take part in the government. To say the government of a democracy is tyrannical is to say the people themselves have imposed tyranny. We know that the unknown can be scary, but if we are to be the example of freedom and liberty, we must accept all who agree to live by its creed. So today, it’s time to get involved in the movement. Step outside of your cave and take this country back. For those of you who have inadvertently been fighting for a cause that you now realize is just perpetuating war, prisons, and corporate control, don’t fret. Just take your enthusiasm and focus it on tolerance instead of hate, love over fear, and acceptance over division, then find a way to pass that on. We need to get out of our comfort zones and unite, or we will not be able to change the course.

  ***

  Freedom Files

  Dax and Abby, 2091

  I woke up in the morning with the book on my face. I re-read the letter and decided to give it a few days before trying to come up with a good set of talking points for my date with Abby. Friday came faster than I expected and the workload in my other classes was very heavy that week, so I decided to head into the date blind. I had never done anything in my life without planning it out first. A whole life, days, future all planned, until that week when it finally hit me, I was free.

  There was a strange calm I felt as I walked down the street toward the café. The people walking by danced in bubbles of their own worlds, some lost in thought, some smiling, and a couple holding hands. A group of four men on the corner sang an echoing song that pierced my soul and made my body want to wiggle. I entered the café and saw Abby sitting in our same booth, so I hurried over and slid into the bench seat.

  “Good afternoon.” I said.

  She smiled, saying, “I got here a little early and saw the same booth, so I went ahead and sat. I hope you don’t mind.”

  We talked about our week, ordered some lunch and dove headfirst into The Surveillance State. We talked, laughed, and ate an appetizer, lunch and a small desert, before the waiter came over and told us that there were two open seats at the bar. Apparently three hours is the longest they let one party stay at a table. We decided to move across the street, to the park where we found a bench under a large canopy of a tree.

  “I don’t know, but I think they stopped teaching philosophy a as construct of understanding how we interact with each other,” I said.

  She shook her head, saying, “I just don’t understand how the people who called themselves Christian could let themselves and their religion be used to destroy the only country that allowed them to flourish. I don’t care what they were taught at school, but if you read the words of their savior J
esus Christ, it is pretty clear that nearly everything the twenty first century Christians voted for was in direct conflict with his views.” She shook her head.

  “Have you heard the term ‘Dominionism’?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “‘Dominionism’ was a theocratic theory that heterosexual men had been given the duty by god to have dominion (control) over secular society by controlling both political and cultural institutions,” I said.

  She shrugged her shoulders, “So.”

  “So, when Christians gave up on Christianity and began believing in a new religion called Dominionism they were no longer Christians. Dominionists began pushing a revised history to suit only their very narrow view of the world. They gave up on reason which was and is the backbone of freedom. They denied the things around them in the natural world in favor of dogma, because it was easier to trust the silver-tongued politicians than their own eyes. This is why Christianity was tied to the corrupt state that arose behind their blind allegiance and why they didn’t realize it till it was too late.”

  “Hun, I never thought about it that way.”

  “I’d like to take credit for it, but actually President Verdusco said something similar in an article a couple of years ago. She was under attack for practicing a form of Christianity that had been passed down in her family for generations.”

  She nodded, “I do remember that. She said her family used a Jeffersonian Bible and that she was Unitarian/Deist like many of the founding fathers, including Jefferson and Franklin.”

  “Yes, that’s the one, she quoted Jefferson and Franklin in defense of her position. I find it interesting that the president was using the same defences as the founders, but against an overwhelming belief in atheism, while both founders were defending their position against an overwhelming belief in an orthodox view of Christianity.”

  “Hold on, let’s find those quotes.”

  She pressed a button on her wrist watch and began to type in midair. When she stopped a hologram with the Google search engine popped up with hundreds of links to the quotes.

  “Here is the quote she used for Jefferson,” she said, pointing at a letter Jefferson wrote to William Short, then reading it out loud, “The establishment of the innocent and genuine character of this benevolent moralist, and the rescuing it from the imputation of imposture, which has resulted from artificial systems, (the immaculate conception of Jesus, his deification, the creation of the world by him, his miraculous powers, his resurrection and visible ascension, his corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity; original sin, atonement, regeneration, election, orders of Hierarchy.) Invented by ultra-Christian sects, unauthorized by a single word ever uttered by him.”

  I jumped right in, stating, “She’s hinting that the form of Christianity she follows is one of reverence for the revolutionary moralist, not the one of divinity that was used to justify the twenty-first century executions of the homosexuals, illegal immigrants, Muslims, and in the end African Americans.”

  “Let’s look at the Franklin quote before we jump to any conclusions.” She said.

  She moved her fingers and a new list popped up. She began to read a 1790s letter to Ezra Stiles, “"You desire to know something of my religion. It is the first time I have been questioned upon it. But I cannot take your curiosity amiss, and shall endeavor in a few words to gratify it. Here is my creed. I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe. That He governs it by His providence. That He ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render Him is doing good to His other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental principles of all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them. As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupt changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity.”

  She stopped to look up at me, “It sounds like you’re right. She is explaining that what she is following is based on reason and she won’t let superstition control her policies.”

  “How did we get on this subject?” I asked.

  She laughed, placed her hand on my knee and said, “To be honest, I have no idea. It’s just so addictive, critically thinking about life, existence, everything. Do you remember what it was like in the corporate days? I never dared utter a word to anyone about the past, religion, any of this, but now, here with you, it’s as if, I don’t know.”

  She blushed, leaned in and kissed me on the cheek pulled back and said. “I’m so glad I have someone to experience this with.”

  We finished up the night with a walk to her door and another kiss, and we talked on the phone every day between then and class.

  ***

  Freedom Files

  Class 4

  University of California, Berkeley, 2091

  When President Verdusco began to speak, Abby squeezed my hand, gave me a smile, and whispered, “Good luck.”

  We made a bet to see who could get called on the most for today’s class. I was prepared, but in all honesty I wasn’t sure I wanted to win because the winner had to make dinner for the other and let’s face it I’m not a whiz in the kitchen.

  “Good afternoon,” the President said.

  Everyone in the room repeated, “Good afternoon,” as if they had been coached to do so, but I assure you we hadn’t.

  “The Surveillance State, hit the second Constitutional Congress in the face of what they thought they could do. A large group of people were adamant that we keep intact the surveillance we had become accustomed to under corporate control, but this book,” she held it up, “turned the tide. Who can tell me why?”

  Abby got the first point when she was called on. “The book illustrates the dangers inherent to any system that doesn’t protect the privacy of citizens. Lincoln said, ‘If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.’ His words are still applicable today. There can be no half measure in a country where freedom is its creed. When we decided to revisit the original constitution, it was clear that the erosion of its promise had been systematically legislating away by people wanting to protect us from ourselves. In the early twenty first century, the passing of the Patriot Act and the infiltration of the military industrial complex into all aspects of the politics led directly to WWIII in the Middle East and was ultimately the last straw that allowed the corporations to finish their takeover of the world,” Abby said, then sat down.

  “Excellent. Anyone else?” President Verduzco asked.

  She called on me. I explained, “Yes, Samuel Adams said, ‘Driven from every other corner of the earth, freedom of thought and the right of private judgment in matters of conscience, direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum.’ Those of us who lived during the corporate years know all too well what happens when the erosion of privacy is complete and that is tyranny. I for instance have always wanted to study political science but because I did poorly on a test at age eleven, I was relegated to a world where verbalizing anything other than complete compliance was considered an act of treason punishable by death.”

  I sat down and I could hear the whispers and gasps as the students who never had to live in such a divisive world.

  “I remember those days very well,” the President said. “And let me tell you, you are both right. The Surveillance State was the last work of a man who should get a great deal of credit for stoking the flames of resistance that eventually would become the army that took back America, Michael de Garcia. As you know, he was also part of The Weed War and The Cancer Culture. His maturation demonstrated to us that despite what we were told by the corporation, the people o
f the United States didn’t all go willingly. In fact the more we dug, the more we realized that the way de Garcia was treated was far from an isolated incident. The mountains of information the citizens allowed the government to collect became the evidence used to carry out the great purges that wiped out fifty percent of the population. That was genocide.”

  She paused, looked out into the eyes of crowd with a cold, steely stare, and then continued.

  “Think about the fact that they killed nearly five billion people. They used the people against themselves, and a systematic failure of nearly every institution can be directly linked to corruption through greed. The 9-11 terrorist attack on the United States brought forth a new religion of sorts, American exceptionalism, Dominionism, Christianity and capitalism became one entity. The power-hungry politicians and money-hungry news profiteers wove this new tapestry of belief. They used fear to coerce the followers of this new belief to vehemently defend the takeover of their own country and ultimately genocide. The Muslims of the Middle East were the first to feel the wrath, after the 2016 election handed another corporatist the reins to the country. The invasion of Iran in 2018 sparked WWIII which gave the eugenicists their war. Can anyone expand on the role eugenics played on the destruction of the United States and how it pertains to The Surveillance State?”

  Abby and I both shot our hands up, but someone behind us was called on.

  A young man I had never noticed before stood tall and said, “The same moneyed interests that financed all sides in WWII also funded WWIII and the evidence points that they were an elite group of bankers and industrialists who believed in eugenics. They also believed that in order to keep their way of life viable the earth’s population should be managed to never exceed 500,000,000, which can be seen on the Georgia guide stones. They duped the world’s population into killing those who didn’t fall into their narrow view of an acceptable consumer citizen. Independence from the global market was seen as a direct violation punishable by death. The surveillance state gave them the ability to find and destroy all who didn’t agree. We now know that they were wrong. It wasn’t the size of the population that caused the problem. It was a failure to use the science they had available to them, improper use of our natural resources, and a basic breakdown of the understanding of self-reliance and local production. We now understand that sustainable energy and responsible living that creates a positive footprint on our environment is attainable. We also have the technology that has broken our dependence on big agriculture, livestock production, and food transportation. Those in the most barren of locations can now enjoy a fruitful existence thanks largely to early twenty first century NASA developments of eco-domes to be used on the moon and Mars where there is no viable natural habitat. So why didn’t they use those then? Because the eugenicists couldn’t figure out a way to keep the power over the world if the economic model they followed was disrupted. They were right! Our new system gives all the advantage to small local business and has shifted the power back to the people.”