Repost: The Move to Secede (It's not as simple as you think)

Recently there's been a little uproar about the move of several states (proposed by citizens, not the state legislature, of course) to secede from the Union. It's easy to wag our fingers at these people, as this became public information in the media immediately after Barack Obama was elected for a second term. However, this is not news. That is, the threat to secede has been working its way to a head for years, and not necessarily for reasons you may be thinking. This blog post is not meant to as a cry of support for these threats, but as an attempt to help folks understand the movement a little more accurately.

Over the past year or so, I've been exploring numerous websites discussing dirty financial and political dealings between America and a host of Asian, European, and Middle Eastern nations for many decades (most of what I've read revolved around our dealings with China and Japan, but that limitation is likely due to my sources.) There has been so much information, and combined with the loose research I've done into other scandalous activities (wars, industrialization of medicine, control of education, suppression of energy technology, etc.) I can't even begin to regurgitate it here. Know simply that we owe many nations a great deal of money. We are refusing to provide government bonds for gold which we took under false pretenses. Individuals seeking to utilize the bonds they were given are being arrested for doing so, in part because the notes they have were purposefully falsified just in case they were ever "cashed out." Our underhanded treatment of other countries is reflected our treatment of U.S. citizens, most certainly.

In the mean time, we are losing our ability pursue life, liberty, and happiness. I mean this quite literally. In a basic hierarchy of needs, we must have food, water, and shelter before we can begin growing mentally and emotionally. When the masses are too busy trying to find employment, afford terrible food, and avoid a lifetime of medical debt, they don't have the time or the will (or, usually, the education) to seek to improve themselves--as individuals or as a society. Enlightenment of any kind is unattainable when our most basic needs are not met. Our brains don't function as well and our bodies grow ill and weak. Here are the ways in which America keeps its citizens from those three "God-given" rights:

• The food (and its production methods) provided by our most powerful agricultural companies are harmful not only to us, but to the environment. When individuals try to fight back, these companies actually have the rights of the people reduced. (http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/02/04/monsanto-the-evil-corporation-in-your-refrigerator/)
• The medicine provided to us is controlled by pharmaceutical companies which are far more interested in long term financial gain than in actual cures. We create treatments, not cures. We do not remove the causes, but deal with the symptoms. Rather than fix our food and our living conditions, we create a campaign to make diabetes a "livable condition." We prepare to have a population in which 50% of adults are diabetic by 2020, rather than working to avoid it (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Diabetes/diabetes-half-us-adults-risk-2020-unitedhealth-group/story?id=12238602). We treat our diseases and ailments like vague, unavoidable instances of misfortune; while our poisoned society, poisoned food, poisoned medicine, and negative (poisoned) psyche makes us far more susceptible to things like heart disease, cancer, autism, etc. Don't buy Komen's pink ribbons. They are not creating cures. (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/the-drugs-dont-work-how-the-medical-industrial-complex-systematically-suppresses-negative-studies.html)
• Supplements are not properly regulated, and therefore the ratios provided are often ineffective. The food, supplement, and nutritional allowances provided by the Food And Drug Administration are often false, if not specifically misleading and dangerous (and are made with the specific intent of encouraging The People to continue buying into entities like Big Agri and Big Pharma.) In part because of this, the use of supplements is mocked by the media and the FDA. (http://relivecorp.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/fda-suppression-of-truthful-health-claims-for-nutritional-ingredients-and-supplements-is-destroying-our-future/)
• Our energy is provided by a small collection of companies (energy which is required for us to live well and therefore should be a right, not a commodity) which provide us with old and earth-damaging technologies, while other countries are implementing far more wide-scale alternative energy solutions. Even in terms of combustion engines, Europe utilizes engines that are more than twice as fuel efficient as the engines sold in America. They are legal to produce here for sales to other nations, but they are illegal to sell here. (http://www.naturalnews.com/036183_fuel-efficiency_automobiles_government.html)
• Our news and media in general are controlled by very few companies. (See this infographic: http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4fd9ee1e6bb3f7af5700000a/media-infographic.jpg) Most of our news outlets stay far away from actual news, preferring to focus all attention on local scandals and partisanship. They repeat the same stories--even the same exact wording-- because it has been approved by a few political heads. Just look at the focus on the Petraeus scandal, while war has erupted in Israel and America is dumping its assets into the fray (all while you are dubbed a racist anti-Semite if you do not support Israel's war.) (http://www.naturalnews.com/036609_mainstream_media_White_House_influence.html)
• Our communications technology (constantly under government surveillance, especially recently) is outdated and slow compared to other first-world countries, but that limitation allows the handful of companies which sell these services to charge exorbitant fees for a simple product. "Digital" technology is simple, and we pay ridiculous amounts of money for it because so few companies compete. (http://internetdistinction.com/blog/2011/11/02/susan-crawford-communications-crisis/)
• Our education system is laughable. The uneducated are easier to control, struggle for employment, and work harder just to live. Our history is altered to suit the desires of the Powers That Be. Our science is not emphasized and little of it is required in most public schools. Personally, I am finding that fewer and fewer children communicate effectively with their native language. We continue to rank lower and lower in international tests with other nations. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/23/us-students-still-lag-beh_n_1695516.html.)
• Our prison system is nothing more than a Prison-Industrial Complex. It makes incredible amounts of money while doing nothing to benefit our society. We make everyone into criminals (especially minorities) and ruin countless families. (http://www.publiceye.org/defendingjustice/overview/herzing_pic.html)
• Recently, steps have been taken to strip our rights to privacy and information (SOPA, PIPA, news suppression, TSA abuse, etc) and our rights to a trial by jury, our rights to due process, and our rights for fair treatment if suspected of illegal activity ("On December 31, 2011, President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), codifying indefinite military detention without charge or trial into law for the first time in American history." http://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/ndaa)
• (In relation to these points, the argument for Rights vs Commodities is impossible to have, as money for the individual is far more important than happiness for the many. However, as times change, we change. As we change, our technology changes. We have the resources, technology, and man power to produce all of the natural food [with nutritional requirements met], earth-safe energy, and mass communications systems for everyone in the planet. There is no need to treat these things as limited resources anymore. More specifically, we can understand their limits without having to fearfully keep them "all to ourselves.")

Unfortunately, we have very few choices. (Graph of the few largest companies we're most familiar with: http://www.convergencealimentaire.info/map.jpg) Meanwhile, we are punished for trying to separate ourselves from this system. For example, living off-grid is increasingly difficult, and individuals find themselves fined and forcibly dragged back into the energy grid. (http://offgridsurvival.com/livingoffthegridcrime/) Eating well is next to impossible, as almost everything on the shelves is pumped with GMOs (proven to cause cancer and organ failure in tested animals, among other complications), MSG (proven to affect parts of the brain and central nervous system), pesticides, modified starches and oils, and is stripped of all nutritional value. We are are malnourished while being morbidly obese.

Our political system is tightly reined by wealthy companies. Our laws are heavily influenced by the financial preferences of these corporations. (Graph of the names and companies which control every aspect of our lives--all linked to the Bilderberg Group, which is entrenched in our politics: http://cloud.decryptedmatrix.com/live/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Ultimate_Bilderberg_Flowchart_Connected_Politicians_Corporations.jpg) It should be known that many of the cosmetic, food, pesticide, and drug additives we use so liberally in the U.S. have been banned in most other first-world countries because they are so dangerous. Marijuana is illegal here not because it hurts users, because it lessens our reliance on some pharmaceuticals--and because its cousin, hemp, eases the monopoly on certain building and clothing materials. (And arguably, because marijuana encourages a different kind of thinking and a release of our egoistic vice-grip on reality as it is--the reality of this ridiculous system. If the issue was personal damages, then alcohol would also be illegal. In a country where we pride ourselves on our individual liberties, we cannot tell adults what they consume in their private lives.)

So what does all this have to do with the threat by people in so many states to secede from the union? I would hope it would be clear, by now. People are tired of being victims in their own country. People are tired of being slowly murdered by their medicine, their food, their banks, and their politicians--even if indirectly. People are tired of being forced to support companies which destroy our planet, abuse the animals we eat (http://www.farmsanctuary.org/learn/factory-farming/), and abuse the money of their consumers. People are tired of being arrested for practicing their constitutional rights. People are tired of paying for war. People are tired of being afraid. There have been plans for years to secede from the union with the intent of rebuilding while out from under this massive, oppressive thumb.

But this is where it gets complicated (hahaha.) No one person can speak for everyone else. Some people will jump on the Secession Bandwagon because they hate Obama (and a shocking number of people hate Obama for purely racist reasons, even if they are not aware of it themselves.) Some people will support secession because they think America is falling apart because of increasingly "tolerance" of homosexuality, religious freedom (including freedom to not partake in any religion), and racial mixing. What's important to note here, however, as that this is not everyone. People are supporting this for many different reasons.

Meanwhile, the media did not begin to highlight this movement until immediately after the 2012 elections, drawing attention not to the core of the movement, but to the population of racists within it. Trust me, this is not accidental. But the movement is not defined by the racism which exists in pockets of its population, just as Occupy Wall Street was not defined by the hateful extremists which cried out for the death of the rich. (God damn it, that was infuriating.) That kind of extremism is harmful to a cause, yes, but it is not the center of it.

I think it is safe to say that no state will actually secede. The driving force behind the threat is the last-ditch effort to grab the attention of our branches of government. "The people are mad," they cry. "Stop ignoring us. Stop forcing us into lifestyles of which we do not approve. Stop misrepresenting us. Stop destroying our planet. Stop seeking profit over people. Stop encouraging ignorance and disease. Stop tricking us out of our money. Stop dangling political puppets in our faces in an attempt to turn us against each other. Stop telling us that consuming will solve our problems. Stop lying. Stop bombing. Stop!"

For the record, I neither support nor ridicule the threats to secede. I feel things are too complicated to be so black and white, and I fear the backlash of those who ridicule the movement will separate the people, rather than uniting them against their abusive Corporate Government. (Rather than divide ourselves, I would suggest looking into this: http://www.represent.us/#video. Represent Us is championing The American Anti-Corruption Act, which "gets money out of politics, so the people can get back in." The following website explains the AACA: http://anticorruptionact.org/.) I also have no idea what the numbers are. I don't know how many people want secede because Obama is black, or how many want to secede because he signed the NDAA, or how many want to seceded for both reasons. From some perspectives, it won't matter. Common ground and wider understanding are what matter. Lincoln didn't abolish slavery strictly for one reason, either, but the eventually result, while not perfect, was absolutely necessary and extremely positive, wouldn't you agree?