“As
nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both
instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly
unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of
change in the air – however slight – lest we become unwitting victims of
the darkness.” ― Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
No matter what the politicians say about how
great America is and how we, as a people, will always triumph, the fact
is that the nation seems to be imploding.
Despite the dire state of our nation, however,
you can rest assured that none of the problems that continue to plague
our lives and undermine our freedoms will be addressed by our so-called
elected representatives in any credible, helpful way, and certainly not
during a State of the Union address.
Consider the following facts:
Our government is massively in debt. Currently,
the national debt is somewhere in the vicinity of $18 trillion. More
than a third of our debt is owned by foreign countries, namely China and
Japan.
Our education system is abysmal. Despite the
fact that we spend more than most of the world on education ($115,000
per student), we rank 36th in the world when it comes to math, reading
and science, far below most of our Asian counterparts. Even so, we
continue to insist on standardized programs such as Common Core, which
teach students to be test-takers rather than thinkers.
Our homes provide little protection against
government intrusions. Police agencies, already empowered to crash
through your door if they suspect you’re up to no good, now have radars
that allow them to “see” through the walls of your home.
Our prisons, housing the largest number of
inmates in the world and still growing, have become money-making
enterprises for private corporations that rely on the inmates for cheap
labor.
We are no longer a representative republic. The
U.S. has become a corporate oligarchy. As a recent survey indicates, our
elected officials, especially those in the nation’s capital, represent
the interests of the rich and powerful rather than the average citizen.
We’ve got the most expensive, least effective health care system in the world compared to other western, industrialized nations.
The air pollution levels are dangerously high
for almost half of the U.S. population, putting Americans at greater
risk of premature death, aggravated asthma, difficulty breathing and
future cardiovascular problems.
Despite outlandish amounts of money being spent
on the nation’s “infrastructure,” there are more than 63,000 bridges—one
out of every 10 bridges in the country—in urgent need of repair. Some
of these bridges are used 250 million times a day by trucks, school
buses, passenger cars and other vehicles.
Americans know little to nothing about their
rights or how the government is supposed to operate. This includes
educators and politicians. For example, 27 percent of elected officials
cannot name even one right or freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment,
while 54 percent do not know the Constitution gives Congress the power
to declare war.
Nearly one out of every three American children live in poverty, ranking us among the worst in the developed world.
Patrolled by police, our schools have become
little more than quasi-prisons in which kids as young as age 4 are being
handcuffed for “acting up,” subjected to body searches and lockdowns,
and suspended for childish behavior.
We’re no longer innocent until proven guilty. In
our present surveillance state, that burden of proof has now been
shifted so that we are all suspects to be spied on, searched, scanned, frisked, monitored, tracked and treated as if we’re potentially guilty of some wrongdoing or other.
Parents, no longer viewed as having an inherent
right to raise their children as they see fit, are increasingly being
arrested for letting their kids walk to the playground alone, or play
outside alone. Similarly, parents who challenge a doctor’s finding or
request a second opinion regarding their children’s health care needs
are being charged with medical child abuse and, in a growing number of
cases, losing custody of their children to the government.
Private property means little at a time when
SWAT teams and other government agents can invade your home, break down
your doors, kill your dog, wound or kill you, damage
your furnishings and terrorize your family. Likewise, if government
officials can fine and arrest you for growing vegetables in your front
yard, praying with friends in your living room, installing solar panels
on your roof, and raising chickens in your backyard, you’re no longer
the owner of your property.
Court rulings undermining the Fourth Amendment
and justifying invasive strip searches have left us powerless against
police empowered to forcefully draw our blood, forcibly take our DNA,
strip search us, and probe us intimately. Accounts are on the rise of
individuals—men and women alike—being subjected to what is essentially
government-sanctioned rape by police in the course of “routine” traffic
stops.
Americans can no longer rely on the courts to
mete out justice. The courts were established to intervene and protect
the people against the government and its agents when they overstep
their bounds. Yet the courts increasingly march in lockstep with the
police state, while concerned themselves primarily with advancing the
government’s agenda, no matter how unjust or illegal.
Americans have no protection against police
abuse. It is no longer unusual to hear about incidents in which police
shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later. What is
increasingly common, however, is the news that the officers involved in
these incidents get off with little more than a slap on the hands.
If there is any absolute maxim by which the
federal government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer
always gets ripped off. This is true, whether you’re talking about
taxpayers being forced to fund high-priced weaponry that will be used
against us, endless wars that do little for our safety or our freedoms,
or bloated government agencies such as the National Security Agency with
its secret budgets, covert agendas and clandestine activities. Rubbing
salt in the wound, even monetary awards in lawsuits against government
officials who are found guilty of wrongdoing are paid by the taxpayer.
Americans are powerless in the face of
militarized police. In early America, government agents were not
permitted to enter one’s home without permission or in a deceitful
manner. And citizens could resist arrest when a police officer tried to
restrain them without proper justification or a warrant. Daring to
dispute a warrant with a police official today who is armed with
high-tech military weapons would be nothing short of suicidal. Moreover,
as police forces across the country continue to be transformed into
extensions of the military, Americans are finding their once-peaceful
communities transformed into military outposts, complete with tanks,
weaponry, and other equipment designed for the battlefield.
Now these are not problems that you can just
throw money at, as most politicians are inclined to do. As I point out
in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State,
these are problems that will continue to plague our nation unless and
until Americans wake up to the fact that we’re the only ones who can
change things.
For starters, we’ll need to actually pay
attention to what’s going on around us, and I don’t mean by turning on
the TV news, which is little more than government propaganda. Pay
attention to what your local city councils are enacting. Pay attention
to what your school officials are teaching and not teaching. Pay
attention to whom your elected officials are allowing to wine and dine
them.
Most of all, stop acting like it really matters
whether you vote for a Republican or Democrat, because it doesn’t, and
start acting like citizens who expect the government to work for them,
rather than the other way around.
While that bloated beast called the federal
government may not listen to you, you can have a great impact on your
local governing bodies. This will mean gathering together with your
friends and neighbors and, for example, forcing your local city council
to start opposing state and federal programs that are ripping you off.
And if need be, your local city council can refuse to abide by the
dictates that continue to flow from Washington, DC.
All of the signs point to something nasty up ahead. The time to act is now.
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_dire_state_of_our_nation_what_you_wont_hear_from_the_politicians
