Welcome to the Peri-Totalitary Period Between Partial and Complete Subjugation by the Empire

Everyday there's another story capable of turning my grandfather over in his grave, Grandpa was a Republican, an Eisenhower Republican, most folks were in rural New England when i was a kid in the 50's. Can still hear him bellowing that he "didn't agree with them long haired beatniks but he'd defend their right to say their piece with his life". The times have changed [not in the direction Bob Dylan and i woulda predicted and hoped for. Wonder which way Grandpa woulda changed with 'em?

One thing that's very different between the 50's-early 60's and now is FEAR. Back then WW11 and the mindset inherent Roosevelt's message that "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" framed every individual's outlook. Now, fear rules. Fear of not being rich enough or skinny enough. Fear of the bogeyman, of the unknown generally. Fear of authority, fear of the cops, the gangs...not to mention fear of the 'Big Kahuna'. How we deal with our fears is more important than what they really are.

The dominant culture is awash in fear, paralyzed by it really. The 'haves' fear the have-nots will soon shake off the anchors like of their fears of authority and firepower, will standup and see again that they are the lucky mud and that all of society's inequities, all of the  environmental destruction, all wars, all resource exploitation, all of it is caused by the inequality of resource distribution, by capitalism. The 'haves' have fortresses, weapons and spooks galore, but even more, they have fear, they fear the many, who's energy they live off, will wake up. and recognize that we aren't broke, we've been robbed.

Now is still the time of partial subjugation, there's still a possibility that the memory or ghost of liberty can sneak back into our attention. That's what the authorities fear, that's why five billion mobile phone location records are logged by the NSA every day, that's why tomorrow's story will be just as chilling or worse. They're scared, they're scared of you and me, they're scared we'll wake up before the  military/industrial complex, the Empire Eisenhower warned Grandpa about, has completely subjugated us.

Way back in 1976 Senator Frank Church warned: “If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know.“

i'm a grandfather now, and when my grand kids are older i hope they remember that their grandfather never bent to the whip, never feared authority [outside the range of it's artillery] and loved every living thing equally - a freeman. What Frank Church missed is that freedom is an internal condition.