Dear conservatives who have been so angry at Muslims for 9/11,
I am going to give you a link to look through. I take no position. I am frightened, in fact, by what it makes me think.
I am asking you to look, too. Don't take any position either. Just look. Look in the same way you would look at a car that isn't working and might see things that would give you a good idea what is wrong, or if you're a rancher, how you might be able to tell at glance what happened to a fence that fell over. Use your mechanic senses. Take all the politics out of it and just look.
Now, whatever you think about who did what, put that aside and let's look, together, conservatives and liberals, at what we know followed from 9/11.
We know that a MASSIVE centralized intelligence agency was created and that NSA-spying went into effect.
Conservatives, upset at the attack and scared of terrorists, pushed for government action and better detection to make sure this never happened again, and strongly supported the centralized agency, the Patriot Act without concern about NSA-spying.
Though they normally oppose large government agencies, what characteristics did conservatives have which made them susceptible to a centralization of agencies? They are suspicious of foreigners and in an national emergency, implicitly trust the president and the military
Liberals, upset at the attack, accepted the centralized agency but came to oppose the Patriot Act and strongly opposed NSA-spying. They also saw a larger context for why the attack might have happened (US mistreatment of Muslim countries) and so did not focus on Muslims or have a big fear of terrorism. They see how it can be used as a trick.
Okay, so one group goes against its natural fear of big government, driven by its greater fear of terrorists and trust in everything military.
And the other group has on-going suspicion of US foreign policy and a distrust of the military and sees the lies and opposes loss of constitutional rights.
In any case, a giant spying agency with vast databanking - likely of most of us - was set up.
Now, there is another push for another MASSIVE centralized agency - the Department of Food Safety that would bring together the FDA and the USDA (virtually run by Big Pharma and Big Pharm) at least in part would rely on another vast computer databanking, this time in the form of NAIS - the National Animal Identification.
Now watch the reversals here and what group is afraid and which one opposes loss of rights.
Conservatives - at least among farmers and ranchers - STRONGLY oppose NAIS. Though they did not flinch at NSA-spying on people because of their fear of terrorism, they see NAIS as a major and intolerable violation of their civil rights and privacy (and for some like the Amish, of their religious rights) and even consider the insertion of GPS tracking tags into every animal as the opening to do the same to human beings (and the government does want to imbed GPS tracking devices in our drivers licenses). The argument being pushed for NAIS is food safety and farmers and ranchers do not buy it nor trust the agencies promoting it. They are not afraid of germs so they are able to stand up against losing their constitutional rights as citizens and see NAIS as only a huge corporate move aimed at controlling and then putting farmers and ranchers out of business, since they and the sustainable agriculture are the competition to corporations.
Liberals - unafraid of terrorists and usually highly distrustful of government pronouncements and government agencies and seeing corporate corruption of government everywhere when it comes to war or the EPA, are scared of germs. Just as conservatives charge when a "terrorist" red flag is waved in their face by government, calling themselves patriotic to back the Patriot act and spying that removes our real democracy, liberals charge when the government declares a food scare, declaring themselves "scientific" to demand one regulation after another that the corporations have been suggesting, that will spy on farmers and destroy them and take over our food supply.
They can't hear each other because they have different fears and different ingrained trust of the answers to save them from those fears - police or science.
MASSIVE CENTRALIZATION OF INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES
When liberals tried to tell conservatives there were no WMDs, it didn't get through. Conservatives believe deeply in patriotism and their fear of "the enemy" so couldn't be dislodged by any amount of evidence that they were being lied to, or by any efforts by liberal groups to point out that they were being spied on in violation of the constitution. And conservatives who hate big government and whose religious beliefs even warms them of a single world order and numbering everyone, still supported a vast data bank in the hands of big government and actual spying. No WMDs or who was benefitting (oil and contracting and arms companies) or who was being targeted (Muslims sitting on the most oil) for what purpose (oil), mattered.
Now let's put the shoe on the other foot.
MASSIVE CENTRALIZATION OF DATA ON ON EVERY FARMER AND RANCHER AND ANIMAL IN THE US AND CONSTANT TRACKING - NAIS.
Conservative farmers and ranchers can't get liberals to let go of their deeply held fears or beliefs, either Liberals are not scared of terrorists (they see that as a wildly exaggerated fear to control people) - no, their fears are of germs. And their supremely trusting belief (parallel to the conservative's implicit trust in military force) is in "science" andin ever more and more regulations to protect them from illness. And, just as with the conservative inability to distrust the president or the military, no amount of pointing to fake food scares (like fake WMDs), and who is benefitting (agribusiness and food and animal processors) and past mistakes of science or its use by fascists in the past, gets through.
So, one group that vehemently opposes big government and regulations and loss of their personal freedoms is so scared when the government yells "terrorist" they'll sell every belief in independence down the river for an BIG agency with a BIG data bank to find those enemies and will let them do whatever they want to liberals.
And another group that totally distrusts government and corporations and guards its civil rights with ferocity, is so scared when the government yells "food borne bacteria," every suspicious political and anti-corporate bone in their bodies is ignored in a push for regulations that will save them from their enemy - germs. And they will sell their independence for a BIG agency with a BIG data bank and will let that agency do whatever it wants to farmers and ranchers.
Both groups share fear and rigid beliefs - in patriotism and in science - as though neither could ever be manipulated for someone's gain. As though both had not been manipulated by the Nazis only very recently, and used to establish what is being established here - extreme (killing, even) government/corporate control over people and over every resource they could get their hands on.
9/11 and the fear of terrorism opened the door to the centralization of intelligence agencies and the data banking of information on the American people. NSA-spying began. Now, using fear of bacteria, the government is proposing another massive centralization of data on our agricultural and health resources. NAIS is getting put into place.
Until conservatives conquer their fear of other people and their trust in military and police power, and until liberals get over their fear of bacteria and their blind faith in science, those seeking immense systems to control us and take what is ours - our democracy and our resources - will continue to succeed.
The FDA already has regulations on the books that are designed by Homeland Security to "protect" us from a combination of both fears - of terrorists AND fear of bacteria - bioterrorism. That, too, can easily be faked, and using it, police and military would rush in to save us, to destroy crops, to destroy livestock, and to put us in the hands of whom?
Look carefully at the link above and set aside politics. This article says both conservatives and liberals are being jerked around by their shortest hairs to be afraid and out of that fear and their rigidly held beliefs, promote HUGE SYSTEMS that destroy our freedoms and take our resources.
I leave you with two more links, to give some idea how emergencies can be valuable to those who cause them and who are ready to replace what is lost with products that are patented. 1) Bird Flu; 2) Poultry Industry and Bird Flu; and 3) GM Chickens.
As you can see in Asia, the poultry industry is using the crisis to push out small farmers. click here A bio-terrorism emergency, a Mad Cow or Bird Flu scare, can do the same here. Good-bye normal, unpatented, unprivatized animals.
One must realize in the push to save us from "terrible diseases" that the very companies considered the cause of Bird Flu and Mad Cow - the big Ag corporations - are pushing NAIS for our safety and yet will not inspect slaughter houses or deal with the contamination they produce in poultry factories and hog factories. And they are linked to the corporations selling the drugs for the diseases they are causing through their filth. All while working to wipe out independent, clean small farming operations.
And they are waiting in the wings if a "bioterrorism attack" happened (or was faked) because it gives them the chance to kill off normal animals to and force the substitution of genetically engineered ones that would no more belong to the ranchers or farmers then, than GE-seeds do now. All offspring would belong to the corporations. Or maybe they would use terminator genes and there would be no offspring ....
My dear conservative and liberal brothers and sisters, it's way part time to get over fears and let go of rigid beliefs. They are costing us too much. Start opposing HUGE CENTRALIZED DATA BANKS and any regulations that reduce the independence of our farmers and ranchers - or anyone of us. Start looking out for each others' freedomes.
NSA-spying is not okay to stop terrorism and NAIS is not okay to stop germs. Both germs and terrorism are being used to put these giant corporate control systems into place and the methods are a page from the Nazis playbook - a manipulated "science of hygiene" and a revved up fear of others.
Time to get together, boys and girls, and hold the line because the corporations are taking over every damn thing god ever made and claiming to own and then improve on nature - after wiping out the real thing.
