The Deep State and The Shadow

In the past couple of years since I last wrote a post for this blog, the country has moved further away from democracy and become more divided.  I see two factors as being at the core of these changes.

First and foremost, people are scared.  Across the entire country, across all ethnic lines and wealth groups, people are scared in the present and concerned about the future.  At first glance these fears stem from a number of different sources and manifest in a number of different ways.  Yet I believe that the fear stems from a common source, and I will get into that later.  

Second, the social constructs that have allowed people to avoid looking at themselves and accepting their own negative behaviors are breaking down.  The age old scapegoats of foreign enemies and other races are being revealed as nothing more than boogey men conjured up by institutions and organizations larger than any single individual.  The control mechanisms that have been created to keep Americans divided into easily conquered and manipulated groups based on race and economic class are starting to break down as we are confronted with the reality that a very small fraction of 1% of population has rigged the system heavily, perhaps irreversibly, in their favor and to the detriment and disadvantage of the rest of us.

Lying beneath all of these trends while at the same time hovering over everything is this concept of the "Deep State".  The Deep State is a quasi-shadow amalgamation of government entities, public sector corporations, private institutions, and wealthy, powerful individuals who operate "behind the scenes" to keep everything running in favor of the 1%.  The Deep State, along with the 1%, have emerged as the latest scapegoat to allow otherwise capable, intelligent, thoughtful and good intentioned Americans to abdicate their responsibility for what is happening in society and place it on a powerful entity that they have no control over.  

And by doing that, we give ourselves an excuse to let all of the injustices in the world continue.  We give ourselves the ability to tell ourselves that what is wrong with the world is not "our fault".  We get to point to something external to us, something so powerful and oppressive that it either directly or indirectly affects nearly every aspect of our lives.  Yet at the same time, something so nebulous and defuse that we cannot get our arms around it, and cannot do anything to affect it or change it.

The source of fear is rooted in the fact that the world is changing.  Specifically, America's standing in and relationship to the rest of the world is changing.  For anyone reading this, you have grown up in a country that was the preeminent superpower that dominated the global economy.  As did your parents, and likely, their parents did too.  At the same time that America was the world's superpower, the living conditions of the average American have remained the same, or in many instances, declined.  The power of the United States of America has been used to enrich a few at the very top of society, while the rest of us have to work harder and struggle more just to get by.

At the same time, we have allowed this to happen.  We have continued to buy into the age-old myths of American self-sufficiency.  Of the capable individual making it for him or herself.  Of the person who can do it on their own, who can achieve fortune and fame.

Violent "Children", Mass Shootings in America and What To Do About It

After yet another mass shooting in an American school, the social media space is abuzz with conversations about the subject.  Unlike past events, there seems to be an effort to mobilize young voters to participate in the electoral process.  Specifically these voters and soon to be voters are being encouraged to put pressure on Congress to enact meaningful firearms legislation.  I think that this is a step in the right direction, but without an idea of what legislation should look like, I do not see how anything will change.

I am personally leaning towards the belief that there does need to be some legislative action taken to attempt to address the ease with which weapons are obtained, the lack of barriers to prevent them from being used in tragic ways, and the lack of consequence for their use.  This an extremely complex topic and I do not have "the answer" to it.  I would like to think that the thoughts that I have on it are useful to the discussion, and perhaps might help create a middle ground that people can come together on.

It is a fact that the "right" to own a firearm is enshrined in the Constitution.  Because of this, having any rational discussion about restrictions on ownership of firearms is extremely difficult.  A common narrative among a sizeable portion of the population is that the United States was founded by people who did not trust the government.  Because of that lack of trust, they created the Constitution as a safe guard to protect the people from the government exercising too much power over them.  They also created a number of checks and balances to allow the people to change the Constitution and if necessary, revolt against and dismantle the government.

For people who do not trust the government and who see the government as a tyrannical force that threatens their own sense of freedom and self determination, the Second Amendment is sacrosanct.  To these people, they imagine a day when the government will get "so bad" that they will have no choice but to pick up their assault rifles and start killing Congressmen, the President, police officers and anyone else identified as an agent of the government.  For people with that mentality, firearm ownership is like a safety blanket.  They can reassure themselves that "everything is going to be okay" as long as they have enough guns and ammunition, and surround themselves with like minded individuals.

Similarly there are those who see a societal collapse as inevitable.  They also do not trust the government and do not believe in the government's ability to maintain order in a crisis.  They feel isolated from their neighbors and threatened by their fellow citizens.  They worry about, or maybe even look forward to the day, when a crisis of serious magnitude strikes and society collapses.  In their minds, their ownership of firearms will allow them to save themselves and live in freedom while the world melts down around them.

The above two groups of people are the primary obstacle to any rational discussion on firearms policy.  They are borderline delusional, view anyone who thinks that a society needs some level of government to function effectively as the enemy, and are scared.  They will of course not admit that they are scared, because that would be too difficult for them.  In their minds, their guns make them strong.  Owning guns means that they do not have to be scared.  They will not admit that they want to own firearms to one day overthrow the government because doing so would land them in jail.

The people in the groups above have the most to "lose" in any discussion about limiting access to firearms.  They have the most to lose by having open and honest discussions about why they REALLY want to own firearms.  Crazy is okay as long as it is kept in the dark and not discussed.  Once it is out in the open, it has to be owned.  It has be justified.  A person with a crazy belief has to come to grips with the fact that THEY might be the ones on the fringe, the broken ones.  They might have to realize that it is not society that is the problem, it is their perception of society and their responses to those perceptions.

A third group that I will not spend too much time are the firearms manufacturers.  They make a lot of money every year selling guns.  Any limit on the ability of people to purchase their products will cut into their profits.  I think this speaks for itself and it is quite clear why they actively fund opposition to gun legislation.

On the other hand, to have any hope at any meaningful gun legislation, the gun owners need to be considered.  Their views have to be given careful consideration.  Their fears need to be addressed.  They need to feel safe to speak about issues that affect them and not be judged for their responses and behaviors.  Every single person in the world is doing the absolute best that they can given the circumstances that they have been raised in.  No one out there is without fault.  No one can say that they are flawless or that they cannot do better.  Nobody does not have a weakness that they are afraid of others using against them.  In fact those who proclaim the loudest that they are without fault, that they are not weak, they are the ones who are the most damaged and the most in need of help.

Here we are in a country where a significantly politically active and vocal group of people have made certain that practically anybody can easily obtain weapons designed to kill as many people as efficiently as possible.  Whatever their reasons for wanting to provide easy access to these weapons are, the fact of the matter is that those weapons are available.  And it is the availability of those weapons, and the lack of controls around those weapons, that is leading to tragedy after tragedy.

The conversations around what to do about access to the weapons are too polarized.  They are too extreme.  Banning the weapons completely is never going to happen.  Too many people already own the weapons and it is impractical to seize them all.  And truthfully, 99% of gun owners are "responsible" gun owners.  Their weapons will never be used against another human being.

However it is clear that if the status quo is maintained, hundreds of innocent people are going to continue dying every year at school, shopping malls, movie theaters, and various other public places.

The question is how to we respect the interests of those who want to own guns, but also foster a society in which those guns are kept away from people with evil intentions to harm others.

The fact is that no solution is perfect.  Anyone who wants a "perfect" solution is not a person who can be reasoned with.  Anyone who derides potential solutions as "imperfect" is not someone who can be reasoned with.  Perfection is impossible.  To expect or demand perfection is to maintain the status quo.  Anyone who does that has no interest in the discussion and should be ignored.  They are just a distraction.

Our society has plenty of examples to draw from when it comes to controlling access to dangerous things, while still allowing people who need or want access to them, to have them.  The most accessible example is automobiles.  As the 102 people who died every day in 2016 from a motor vehicle accident show, automobiles are extremely dangerous.  None the less, as of 2016 there are approximately 221 MILLION Americans licensed to drive an automobile.

As a society, we have developed a regime of training, testing, licensing and insurance.  We require people to learn how to operate a motor vehicle, test them to verify that they can do so safely, license them to identify them, and require them to carry insurance in case they cause any harm or damage while operating their vehicle.  This is a program that works, and while it is not perfect as proven by the 102 people who died every day in 2016 due to improper use of a motor vehicle, as a society we have determined that the benefits outweigh the risks and the system that we have is "good enough"  (note, it's not perfect).

Before I talk about gun legislation, I want to touch upon one very important aspect of firearm ownership.  That aspect is "self defense".  I think that I am slightly more qualified than most people to discuss self defense.  I have been training kung fu for sixteen years.  I am qualified to teach other people how to defend themselves.  I understand the physical and mental implications of hurting someone else, and if I were put in a situation where I had to, I could do a lot of harm to another human being.  I also understand how to use weapons including clubs and knives.  I am an average sized male, so I also understand what it is like to be confronted with opponents who are larger, stronger, in better shape or better trained.

Having said all of that, I completely understand why someone would want a firearm for self defense.  I am all for firearm ownership for self defense. I am all about women being able to obtain a handgun or shotgun for self defense.  I completely understand why someone who is trained would prefer to use a firearm to defend themselves against an attacker wielding a knife, club or other common weapon.

I think it is important to mention that the best defense is to avoid conflict.  And when a situation begins to escalate towards conflict, to find a way to disengage and escape.

So I think that it is important when considering gun legislation, that a very clear line be drawn and a definition be created that identifies weapons (like handguns) that are good for self defense, and weapons (like "assault rifles") are not practical for self defense.  This is where things get complicated.  I will admit that I am not a legislator nor a gunsmith.  So everything I offer here is just an outline.  The general idea though is to define a class of weapons that is "just good enough" for self defense.  And everything that is "too good (at killing people)" in any situation other than self defense, gets classified into a more restricted and harder to access tier.

Again, not a gunsmith, but one example here is barrel length.  The shorter the barrel, the less accurate a gun is.  Rifles have very long barrels and many are accurate at well beyond 100 meters.  I think that any reasonable person can agree that if someone is 100 meters (a football field away), they do not present an immediate threat.  There is not a 'self defense' need for a weapon that can easily put a bullet into someone 100 meters away.  So the legislation would likely say ANY weapon with a barrel over "x inches" should be restricted.

Similarly, ammunition capacity is often raised.  I just saw a statistic today from the Chicago Police Department that their officers only hit their targets 18% of the time with handguns.  That is ~1 out of every 5 shots.  How many bullets do you need to put into a person before they are no longer a threat?  I don't know, but 3 seems like a reasonable number.  So reasonable legislation would allow people to easily purchase a handgun with a barrel of less than X inches and a magazine capacity of 15 or fewer bullets.

Ammunition caliber is also important.  There are a couple of rifle calibers that are pretty much optimal for killing people.  The most common are 5.56mm and 7.62mm.  Those are calibers that are accurate out to hundreds of meters.  There is no reason for a person to own a weapon "for self defense" that shoots those calibers.  There are plenty of handgun calibers that will kill people just fine.  So legislation will have to take into account calibers.  And restrictions will have to be put in place on ammunition manufacturers to make sure that they are not selling restricted calibers to people who are not licensed to own them.

I am sure as people read this, there are going to be some people who will think, "But you can kill lots of people with handguns too."  Sure, of course you can.  Again, the idea here is not perfection.  Based on a few articles that I have read, there is a measurable difference between a wound caused by a 9mm handgun round, and a 5.56mm rifle round.

I have intentionally been using the term "restricted" and not "banned".  I firmly believe in responsible gun ownership.  I do not want to deny anyone the privilege of owning and shooting whatever they have proven that they can responsibly own and shoot.  I like to give people the benefit of the doubt.  But at the same time, I am not naïve.  I know that there are bad people out there who are irresponsible.  To pretend otherwise is folly.

For anyone who wants to own a weapon for anything other than self defense, there should be a clear path that is uniform in every state towards ownership.  It should include training, registration, testing and insurance.  Keep I mind, I am only suggesting this for weapons whose purpose is not strictly self defense.  Weapons with high capacity magazines.  Weapons accurate at hundreds of meters.

In my own "too extreme" opinion, I would support legislation that provided for criminal liabilities and penalties for gun owners whose weapons are used in mass shootings.  For example, I think it would be fair for parents or adult gun owners who fail to prevent a minor from accessing a weapon that is used in a mass shooting to be jailed as if they had killed the people.  I do not really think that it is too extreme to expect gun owners to secure their weapons and take reasonable steps to guarantee that they will not be used in violent acts.  Like I said, 99% of all gun owners are responsible, so this does not seem unduly burdensome.  I think that this is "too extreme" for our society in which individual liberty (and responsibility) is revered.  For many voters, I think that holding one person accountable for the actions of another might be too much.

I have also considered whether or not it would be fair to hold families accountable for the actions of a family member.  For example, every blood relative (mother, father, brother or sister) of a shooter does jail time.  I am less convinced that this is a good idea, given that most shooters are not from stable homes and often times do not care about their families.  I do think it might be enough to deter some edge cases though.  For example, the kid who has been bullied and wants to kill the bully and his friends.  If he knew that his family would suffer because of it, he might think twice.

I realize that I have written a lot, and probably only said a little.  If you have read this far, thank you for taking the time out of your life to do that.  I hope that you see the seeds for a better and safer society in the words above.  I hope that you see that compromise is possible.  I hope that you see that I am not against responsible gun ownership.  I am not against people having "easy" access to firearms for self defense.  I am just a person who has seen too much unnecessary killing, and I am trying to make sense of it.  I am a father who has a daughter who will be in school in a few years. I do not understand why people are so opposed to making "assault weapons" (I hate using this term because I know enough gun owners to understand how it is misused) more difficult to obtain.

Violence Begets Violence - You Reap What You Sow

The latest in a long string of mass shootings in America has hit closer to home for me than previous ones.  One of the fourteen people killed during the shooting at the Inland Development Center in San Bernardino was a friend of multiple friends of mine.  My wife also works for the California Department of Development Services, and friends and co-workers of hers lost loved ones.

I consciously avoid the television news, but the same stories are inescapable online so I am well aware of how this shooting is being used to further the typical narratives.  Those narratives are why I am writing this, because they miss the bigger picture.

The primary narrative is that Muslims are a threat to America and this is yet another example of why we need to control Muslims.  The drums of war are beating more and more loudly every day.  For those of who do not realize it, World War 3 is currently taking place.  You can be forgiven if you missed the obvious because we were all conditioned to believe that WW3 would be a nuclear armageddon between the United States and the Soviet Union, not a "low intensity" conflict in the Middle East.  Yet do not doubt that what is going on right now in the Middle East is anything less than a restructuring of the global chessboard, a conflict designed to determine whose allies get to control which groups of resources.

For better or for worse, Americans are not willing to believe that their government has been involved with oppressive dictators in the Middle East (and other places like Latin America) for over a century now.  Americans are not willing to admit to themselves that our culture of mass consumption, where we can have "anything" we want at "affordable prices" is supported by a military empire that steals resources from the rest of the world, and assassinates anyone who tries to organize opposition to it.  By resources I mean, real, physical commodities like oil, minerals, water and timber.

Because we cannot believe that we support a government that supports oppression and exports violence, we cannot see ourselves as the "bad guys" and our leaders will not tell us that we are those bad guys.  So, enter Muslim terrorist extremists who hate our way of life and will indiscriminately kill us in movie theaters, meeting halls, and anywhere else that we would normally feel "safe".  When people are not strong enough to look at themselves and deal with their own issues, it is convenient to present someone else, something else to blame.  Another group that needs to be "fixed".

I am not for one second going to go off the conspiracy deep end and say that these attacks are false flag attacks perpetrated by the United States government.  At this point, the government does not need to stage attacks.  There truly are enough people in the world who are angry at the policies of the United States that they are willing to come over here to attack us.

Where the government is complicit in these attacks is in their use of them to further the agenda of escalating war in Syria and the rest of the Middle East.  The government is complicit in the continuation of these attacks by perpetuating the false narrative that more violence in the Middle East, that "getting them over there before they get us here at home" will some how make us safer.  As if we can out violence them and pound them into submission.  To realize how insane that narrative is, consider this...

The United States government has been supporting brutal dictators in places like Saudi Arabia, Iran and other countries for decades.  We have been involved in Afghanistan and Iraq for over a decade already.  In that time, have we seen more terrorist attacks in the United States, or less?  Does being "over there" seem to be doing anything to prevent "them" from coming "over here"?

In order to illustrate a few points, I am going to invoke the Nazi's and Hitler.  Do you think that in the late 1930s, the average German sat down and wrote a letter to Hitler asking him to round up the Jewish people?  Do you think that they wrote to their representatives and asked them to encourage Hitler to invade Russia?

Comparably, have you, or anyone you known written to your Congressional Representative and asked them to make sure to fund CIA operations to de-stabilize Iran?  Did you ask them to create al Qaeda in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets?  Did you tell them that you think it is a great idea to trade weapons to Saudi Arabia for oil and turn a blind eye to one of the most oppressive regimes in the world, a regime that coincidently is the incubator of Wahhabism, the violent strain of Sunni Muslim thought and practice that all of the jihadis like al Qaeda and ISIS follow?

Or like the German people, have we all just sat back passively and watched these events unfold before our eyes?  Have we accepted the propaganda that these actions are being carried out in our best interests, as if our interests are the same interests of the 1% of the population who control the military industrial companies whose whole business is perpetual war and keeping the world off balance in their favor?

What does all of this have to do with mass shootings, in California, in Colorado, in where ever else they will happen next week, or next or next year?  They are all related because violence begets violence.  The American culture is a culture of violence.  We, you and I, benefit from violence conducted on our behalves.

And so, I beseech everyone who has taken the time to read this, to take some time and think about the violence.  Think about where it comes from. Think about who benefits from it.  Think about what drives one person to be violent, to be aggressive, to lash out and attack someone else.  And once you have done that, realize that there is an alternative.  Human beings are amazing, we are amazing.  We can literally be however we want to be.  We can act however we want to act.  For those of us born in America, we are blessed with a system of government that can represent our will.  We can elect who want to elect, and if they are not up the task, we can participate ourselves and represent our neighbors, our families and our loved ones.

We have plenty of challenges to overcome here at home.  The media distracts us with things going on overseas to turn attention away from challenges here in America.  From people who are out of work without any prospects of finding meaningful employment that they can support themselves on.  We are distracted from the insanity of a government that outlaws a plant, but supports an industry that hides the symptoms of bad life choices with pharmaceuticals.  We are distracted from the fact that our economy has been disassembled and exported overseas, while fewer and fewer people at home can even afford the products produced by those who have taken their jobs.  We are distracted from the fact that keeping people in prison is actually a business that generates billions of dollars in revenue every year.  There are so many things that we are distracted from, because those responsible for them do not want to be held accountable for them and because it is easier for them to keep you scared and angry, than it is to promote education and the deep, contemplative thoughtful mindsets that can come up with solutions to overcome the challenges.

Yet we can choose peace.  We can choose to not participate in the program laid out for us by those who are currently in power.  We can choose not to be scared.  We can choose to realize that we are being marched into World War 3 through promises of security and necessary actions that must be taken to secure our "national interests", and instead stand up and say, "I will not pay for the past sins of the 1% with my life, with the lives of my friends, and certainly not with the future of my children, my nieces, or my nephews."   We can choose to instead spend our lives helping each other, and demanding that our government align itself with good, and right and justice for everyone on Earth.

Life is an Opportunity

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

-Mahatma Gandhi

I want to look back on my life and be proud of myself and those who I shared this time on earth with because we did something to make the world a better place for those who will live on after us.

As a society we are on the cusp of the potential for great change, because the way that things have been going are causing strife and chaos in the world.  War and violence and oppression have become themes so common, so ingrained in the dialogue and psyches of humanity that by and large, the majority of us have given up on the belief that there can be a better way to live. Yet there is a better way a live, but to get there will require a significant amount of effort and the ability to believe that our neighbors and complete strangers are willing to do good for themselves and for all of us.

I still believe that the American system of government as laid out by the Founding Fathers and taught to us in the school systems is the best form of government that has ever been provided to a people.  I believe it is the best form of government for individuals and groups to use to represent themselves and collectively guide the entirety of society for its own greatest benefit.  I also believe that this system has been hijacked by a self appointed, elite minority that is hell bent on preserving their power and control to the detriment of 99% of us.  This minority is not just a group of Americans, but who are a group of people spread around the globe who are through industry, media and government are tirelessly working, directing, organizing and perpetuating destructive policies and strategies for their own enrichment.

I do not blame these people for doing what they are genetically pre-disposed to do.  We are all blessed with one life on this planet, and it is natural for us to make the most of it for ourselves, and for our children.  It is natural for us to show our children how to preserve what we have worked to provide them with, so that they can make the most of their own opportunities and to continue the cycle for their own loved ones.

I do blame them for being selfish, short sighted and for lacking a sense of the collective conscious and the need to partner with all of us, for the betterment of all of us.  Not just the betterment of Americans, but the betterment of humanity. 

The good news is that we live in America, a place where an immigrant can work hard and make a better life for themselves, a place where a child can decide to go the moon, or a person can decide to become President.  We live in the land of opportunity, and no opportunity is greater than the opportunity to contribute to our community and to strive to create the kind of economic and political system that provides the greatest benefit to the largest number of people.

The thing is that opportunity is just that, opportunity.  It is the potential to do something, not a guarantee that it will be done.  It takes a life time of dedication, a good heart, a wise mind and an enlightened spirit to bring about positive, lasting change that will persist for generations to come.  Like a window, opportunity does not stay open forever.  A wise person once said, “What some people call luck, I call being well prepared when opportunity arises.”

I look at the Internet and I see the opportunity to enact change in the way that America is governed.  I see the opportunity to create a better economy and to bring transparency and accountability to the functions of military and government that since the end of World War 2, have been turned upon the people not to support them, but to keep them in line.  The Internet is a place where a person can make a silly video with Legos about a preview for a science fiction movie and within a week, have that idea viewed by over 40 million people and mentioned on broadcast television.

Think about that for a second.  Someone can have an idea, have a vision that they put some effort into sharing with their friends and complete strangers.  Those friends and strangers can enjoy what they see and on some level, agree that it is worth sharing.  They can leverage computers and smart phones to spread the idea through a computer network, and that idea can eventually reach millions of people.

If that can be done with a movie trailer or some humorous content, why not with the idea that we have the ability to create a world where war and violence are the exception to the rule because people have food, and shelter and the opportunity to better themselves? 

How about these ideas? (There are plenty more where these came from)

·         A President who dedicates four years to bringing transparency and accountability on the workings of government to the American people, in order to educate the people on how heavily corporations and special interests exert control over their lives?

o   A President who is open with their itinerary

§  Who comes to talk to them?

§  What do they talk about?

§  What does that person / the people that person represent, want?

·         A President who dedicates four years to removing the obstacles Americans face to making healthcare decisions for themselves.

o   Intelligent marijuana policy that recognizes its health benefits.

o   Intelligent food and drug policy that exposes the dysfunction at the FDA and sets the organization on the path towards enabling Americans to be healthy through nutrition and preventative care.

·         A President who dismantles the Drug War and speaks truth to power about the schizophrenia between pharmaceutical  drugs which are ‘good’ and street drugs which are ‘bad’

o   Finding a better use for the ~$40 BILLION spent every year on the drug war.

·         A President who embraces realistic energy policies that strike the balance between renewable energy technologies like solar, wind and hydro-electric combined with baseline nuclear generation to replace American dependence on fossil fuels.

·         A President who champions a foreign policy that seeks to export opportunity, not weapons and death.  

    All human beings essentially want food, shelter, safety and opportunity.  Let’s focus America on delivering those things to our fellow citizens and those citizens in other countries who want the same things.  Let's give peace a chance.

Where this is all coming from

There a collective shift in the consciousness of humanity taking place right now.  People are being confronted with the frightening reality that the social order that has been in place for generations is beginning to break down.  It is no longer serving the collective good and has instead become a tool for oppression.

Maybe it has always been a tool for oppression, and people are finally waking up.  I choose not to believe that.  I believe that the American Experiment, the Constitution and limited government over an educated people free to make their own choices so long as those choices do not harm others, is the single best form of government that has been devised.

I also believe that the above stated form of government needs to be tested.  Because while those words and those ideas presumably still exist in one form or another, they do not seem to have been embraced by those who have been elected to represent the American people.

I also believe that I have probably put enough keywords and syntactic clues in this blog so far that it will hopefully be saved by the vary surveillance technology that threatens the very ideals that deserve to be strengthened.  By saved I mean collected, stored and filtered for long term retention while being cross correlated with similar Internet content.  Because that is what happens these days.  Thoughts, ideas, expressions of a collective humanity are collected, sorted, cataloged and categorized to identify trends with the intention of allowing others to get out ahead of, shape and if necessary, indirectly or even directly oppose them.

Who would want to oppose positive thoughts of peace and prosperity?  Well, that is what this series of blogs intends to find out.  And that is where this is all coming from.  An experiment into whether or not an "Average American" has any chance of championing a positive intent for world peace and wide spread, shared economic prosperity.  An experiment to determine whether or not the American people are ready for it and whether or not the world is ready for it.  Ready for it, open to it, accepting that there is a way forward that does not involve war and organized, orchestrated, violent conflict with our fellow human beings.  Ready for the idea that as a society, we do not need militarized police states and corporate control mechanisms to hold society together.  That in fact, those very mechanisms that have been put in place to keep things going, are actually hastening the decline of what those who leverage those mechanisms are trying to save.

Power.  Power and the ability to the wield it effectively to maintain order and bring about a better world.  The question is, where does it belong?  Does that power belong in the hands of the few because they are better positioned to see the "entire picture" of what is "really going on"?  Or does that power belong closer to the people who are directly impacted by the consequences of wielding that power.  Those who are sent off to war.  Those who are faced with limited choices for "health care" that makes them sick.  Presented options for "fast food" that barely qualifies as that.  Presented with pre-selected options that have been made for them by others.

But that is what the question is.  The saying goes that "People get the government that they deserve."  Do Americans deserve to be self sufficient?  Are we ready for the responsibilities of being in control of our own lives?  Are we evolved enough to accept responsibility?  To realize that in order to be free, that you cannot point a finger at someone else and blame them for the way things are?  To realize that in order to be free, that you must make choices and act in ways that promote freedom?  That you must prove, to yourself and others that you are worthy of being free.  That you can be trusted.  That you can work towards the collective good for your family.  For your friends.  For your community.  Are Americans there?