Can the governments of the world be trusted? Can our faith be safely placed in to the hands of nation states? World War One was raging for years before the United States entered the battle. German forces sank the Lusitania, a luxury ship carrying nearly 1,200 passengers, many of them Americans. Woodrow Wilson delivered a speech to his people, saying, "Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe conduct through the proscribed areas by the German Government itself and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reckless lack of compassion or of principle:" [Woodrow Wilson before congress, April 2, 1917.] The American people were led in to this great world war, with the unflinching belief that there was a superpower that had threatened them and their way of life. What was neglected in all of the mainstream newspapers at that time was that the Lusitania was also carrying munitions and weapon supplies to England. The US government had involved the entire nation in a world war on the false premise that its ships weren't being used to give military aid to England during the war. But when the government repeats over and over again, that terrorists, Spain, Germany, Mexico, Cuba, Grenada, Haiti, Guatemala, Vietnam, Korea, China, and Russia are a threat to the people of America, the citizenry is raised up in arms. Fifty thousand Americans were sent to their deaths; and they only marched willingly because the government and the mainstream media had constantly perpetuated the false notion that Germany was attacking America's ships without cause.

     The Treaty of Versailles effectively crippled and destroyed the economy of Germany, creating the perfect conditions for the rise of a militarist dictator who had less than half of the support of his own country. The sight of concentration camps, of tens of millions enslaved and executed, of governments slaughtering their people openly in the streets -- all of this might have been avoided if someone was willing and strong enough to expose the lies of Woodrow Wilson. But, there were dissidents. Big Bill Haywood and over one hundred others were convicted and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment, because they promoted the truth: the idea that war is a tool of governments, to satisfy the interests of the economic and political elites, at the great cost of human life. [Siitonen, Harry (March, 2005). The IWW - Its First 100 Years. Industrial Workers of the World. URL accessed on 2006-03-31.] Once again, wartime brought with it a suspension of civil liberties and civil rights. Looking at history as it happened and not as our presidents so slyly elude to will change your perception of the world as it happens today. George Bush constantly makes references to the Patriot Act as a tool of America to defeat the enemies of its people. And, of course the title "Patriot Act" is used, because anyone who would oppose the United States fighting terrorists must not be a patriot. The games the government plays today are hardly new. In fact, they perfectly capture the activities of organized states as they have been carried out for centuries. Perhaps George Bush's violation of personal liberties and freedoms will be enough to spark another international war -- and Americans will only have to blame themselves when rain of nuclear fire strikes them, because their government involved them in a war after repeatedly lying to them and then imprisoning those who try to tell the truth.

Part 3: Opinion-Setting Campaigns

"An established government has an infinite advantage, by that very circumstance of its being established; the bulk of mankind being governed by authority, not reason..."

-- David Hume, "Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth," by David Hume, 1754.

     On American currency, one can find the phrase "E Pluribus Unum," which translated directly from Latin reads: "One out of more." There are few phrases more worthy of describing a real Democracy, but since the Enlightenment, people have started to believe that the government was made for them and that they were not made for the government. The policy of the state has since changed, from an aggressive and enslaving tone to a sympathetic and quietly coercive manner: the orders of the state no longer carrying the seal of the church, god, and the army, but they all come with the message that the people need its government to be strong and powerful. The people, our masters tell us, need the army, the navy, the air force, the police, congress, parliament, the president, and all other authoritarian aspects of the state. People start to believe that an authority with power is the greatest tool in defeating the things which threaten their lives and their culture; few people stop to think that such a great tool will also be used against them.

     E Pluribus Unum... It stands for real Democracy. The will of the people is the only inviolable course for a society to take. Those today who are called presidents, prime ministers, congressmen, and senators, they are all referred to as representatives, because they were held with the sacred task of representing the interests of all of society and then carrying them out in all policy. I believe, like Jean Jacques Rousseau that "the voice of the people is in fact the voice of God." ["A Discourse on Political Economy," 1755.] The most democratic of statesman will consider himself a blank canvas, to obligingly and lovingly carry out the will of the people, regardless of his own personal opinions. At best, this model of government serves to eliminate the complications of setting the policy of a collective by giving one person the authority to interpret the voice of society. Naturally, the faith of citizens has betrayed them, sending them their children in boxes, casualties of some armed conflict, or casualties to the massive poverty created by our socio-economic organization, one constantly defended by the military and the organized states as "the equivalent of justice."

     Benito Mussolini, the dictator of Italy and butcher of his own people, would deliver in a speech, "Fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact that it is a majority, can direct human society; it denies that numbers alone can govern by means of a periodical consultation..." ["What is Fascism?" 1932.] Perhaps Mussolini should have looked to the wisdom of the other Italian political theorists before him. To quote Machiavelli, "...one cannot by fair dealing, and without injury to others, satisfy the nobles, but you can satisfy the people, for their object is more righteous than that of the nobles, the latter wishing to oppress, whilst the former only desire not to be oppressed." ["The Prince," by Nicollo Machiavelli, written c. 1505, translated by W. K. Marriott, chapter 9.] By being the majority, the individuals of a collective are the greatest judges of what they as a society can want; and it is the society, having its own continual experience with itself, that understands its own pains best. Should the power ever leave their hands and be secured by absolute dictators and authoritarian magistrates, the end result -- as history constantly proves -- is countless dead and dying, following orders with pure obedience, because they were led to believe that sacrificing themselves for a government meant the same thing as dying for liberty and the security of their own people. With the ideas the world has about humanity, it is no longer simple enough for a government to coerce its people by gun and bayonet. It has now become a war of ideas...

     In the 1950's and 1960's, there were many journalists who were critical of the way President Richard Nixon was running the government. Plans were made by the Nixon administration to poison these journalists with LSD while they were reporting the news, to induce hallucinations and awkward behavior that might discredit such reporters. The White House Chief of Staff for Richard Nixon, Harry R. Haldeman, would write...

"Colson had signed up an ex-CIA agent named Howard Hunt to work for him and thereafter became very secretive about his exploits in the name of Nixon. Years later I heard of such wild schemes as the proposed fire bombing of a politically liberal foundation (Brookings) in order to retrieve a document Nixon wanted; feeding LSD to an anti-Nixon commentator (Jack Anderson) before he went on television; and breaking into the offices of a newspaperman (Hank Greenspun) who was supposed to have documents from Howard Huges that revealed certain secrets about Nixon." ["The Ends of Power," by Harry R. Haldeman and Joseph DiMona, 1978, The New York Times Book Company, page 6.]

     Of course, in their discussions and preparations for carrying out this plan, I imagine the question of legality never came up. With all of their propaganda on the destructive capability of drugs and how no citizen is good enough to be trusted with such a chemical, one might think that Nixon's administration would have been the first to oppose such a plan. Nor did they ever doubt their righteousness when it came to secret bombings or clandestine break-ins; the protectors of the American people never stopped once to think that they were disobeying the will of their citizens by burning their buildings and putting their lives at risk. But, the makers of the law are also the greatest violators of their own policy.

     Why would a government ever find a means and method of profiting by manipulating opinions and ideas? In the past, the state has forged and fabricated evidence to justify its military actions, but now it is using the same tactics to change opinions. Nixon had use in dosing his opponents with LSD because then the people would start to believe that those who opposed the government were psychotic, emotionally unbalanced, and otherwise untrustworthy. The only role of Democratic government is to accept the will and wishes of the people as though god was speaking directly to them; but opinion-setting campaigns have become a particularly favored pastime of all governments. The state is no longer the humble and sincere carrier of people's will. It now sets the agenda for what people should believe. Our only natural conclusion can be that the idea of authority and the state is antagonistic towards a real and genuine expression of the people's will, that is, true democracy.

     The National Security Agency in the United States right now is engaged in a wiretapping program that listens to all phone calls made overseas. President George Bush has launched a criminal investigation to discover who leaked this information to the public. Of course he claimed that his concern was "national security." ["John Dean appears at hearing on whether Bush should be censured," Friday, March 31, 2006, Associated Press.] I'm sure Woodrow Wilson's concern was "national security" when he was shipping weapons to England, involving his people in a world war that would lead to the deaths of possibly hundreds of millions. President McKinley, who knowingly invaded Cuba on forged and fabricated evidence, must have also held the same concern: the average American cannot be trusted to know what their government is doing internationally, whether or not the actions of the government will lead to the deaths of its own citizens. In the case of international banks stealing billions of dollars, terrorists being paid by the FBI in third world countries, the government suppressing information about what it knew on 9/11, every time, again and again, our leaders always tell us that they are the ones who have absolute and irrevocable authority; and it is the people who try to expose the lies that find themselves sitting in prisons and jail cells. The lies the US government told its people have led to an unbelievable cost of human sacrifice. Though the intentions of Conservatives and Republicans in the White House may be "national security," I'm sure it will be their covert military operations in foreign countries that spark another world war. Following their program of national policy is going to be what causes more hate and disgust for our nation in the world image.

     When Vladimir Lenin gained control of the Russian government, he delivered in a speech to his people: "The government abolishes secret diplomacy, and, for its part, announces its firm intention to conduct all negotiations quite openly in full view of the whole people. It will proceed immediately with the full publication of the secret treaties endorsed or concluded by the government of land-owners and capitalists from February to October 25, 1917." ["Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies," Lenin, Report on Peace, October 26 (November 8).] An absolute authority is always so willing and unflinching to expose the lies and cruelty of the one before it. Upon gaining power in the Russian government, Lenin handed over most of his peoples' homeland to Germany. It was a bit ironic, seeing as it was the German government that endorsed and encouraged Lenin, when extradited, to overthrow the Russian government. The self-proclaimed hero of the Russian Revolution sacrificed the homes and lives of his people to pogromists, murderers, and rapists. Perhaps Lenin forgot the true slogan of all socialist revolutionaries: no peace without justice. Being the "master of socialist and Marxist theory," one might assume that Lenin wouldn't drink the blood of the Capitalist system. The leader had promised to save his people if only they gave him absolute authority; and once power was within his grasp, it was used for the explicit purposes of exploiting, manipulating, and controlling the people.

     Wikipedia today is the world's free encyclopedia: anyone is allowed to go in and edit any entries. Oddly enough, with such a free style of writing, editing, and publishing, it has been hailed as a very informative and relatively unbiased collection of articles, now passing over one million entries. Members of the White House, however, made more than a thousand edits to the online encyclopedia, writing out all of the negative or otherwise harmful content about the elected representatives. For example, the entry for Marty Meehan, the Representative of Massachusetts, originally read: "Meehan first ran for Congress in 1992 on a platform of reform. As part of that platform Meehan made a pledge to not serve more than four terms, a central part of his campaign. This breaking of the pledge has been a controversial issue in the 5th Congressional District of Massachusetts." The edited entry reads: "Meehan was elected to Congress in 1992 on a plan to eliminate the deficit. His fiscally responsible voting record since then has earned him praise from citizen watchdog groups. He was re-elected by a large margin in 2004." Countless other changes can be found. ["Rewriting history under the dome," By Evan Lehmann, Sun Washington Bureau.] If the true purpose of government is to defend the rights and liberties of its citizens, then why is tax money being spent on restricting what information is available to the public about their elected candidates? Somehow, I'm sure Bush's administration could explain lying to the public about the public record of his associates is the equivalent of defending national security. The Alien and Sedition Acts passed by President John Adams allowed him to deport any immigrant or imprison anyone who spoke out against the government. The Sedition Act reads...

"That if any person shall write, print, utter, or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered or published, or shall knowingly and willingly assist or aid in writing, printing, uttering or publishing any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame the said government, or either house of the said Congress, or the said President, or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute..." [Sedition Act, Section 2, Approved, June 25, 1798.]

     These acts included the Naturalization Act, which nearly tripled the amount of time it required for an immigrant to become a citizen with voting privileges. The Wikipedia entry on the Sedition Act reads: "Because most immigrants became Democratic-Republicans, the Naturalization Act's longer residency requirement meant that fewer of them could become citizens and vote against the Federalists." ["Alien and Sedition Acts," Wikipedia.] Laws were enacted by the federal government to prevent its people from partaking in politics, but it only restricted those who might vote against John Adams and his political party. The Jim Crow Laws are another marvelous example of the government restricting the freedoms and liberties of citizens, when respecting the political rights of those citizens would threaten the foundation of the corrupt government. Derrick Guidry, a pro-Democracy advocate, had volunteered to help a strike. He was convicted of the charge of "Disrespecting an Officer;" the District Attorney, the lap dogs of government-sponsored terror, asked for a ten year imprisonment. ["You can't jail the spirit but you can't kill it either," Publish Date: 07/10/1991, The Minnesota Daily, Archives.] Other laws loitering, obstruction of a public passage, and criminal trespassing (on public property) are all used as the purpose of arrest by many police officers during peaceful protests. It's a type of abuse that has become expected by the people. And over two hundred years ago, some very faithful political theorists would write...

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

     Programs like DARE constantly spend millions of tax dollars in their attempt to convince the public to take the position that drugs are harmful and ought to remain illegal. Again, more opinion-setting campaigns. The DEA released a publication called "Speaking Out Against Drug Legalization;" the cover had a picture of a syringe lying on top of a Marijuana leaf. Their aim is to teach that "Crime, violence, and drug use go hand-in-hand." [March 2003, DEA.gov.] The learning institutions ban all professors who might try to use their ten plus years worth of degrees at establishing the value and use of drugs to society, such as the case was with Timothy Leary. If it is true that drugs only create crime, violence, and drug use, then why has the government banned all research in to the matter? A scientist who tries to experiment to discover the value of Marijuana will be imprisoned for years. A petition to add ADD to the list of qualifying conditions of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act reads: "There is a complete lack of clinical data to support a finding that cannabis is an effective treatment for ADD. The information is circumstantial. This is in large part due to Federal policies which routinely reject any research request aimed at establishing the basis of cannabis' efficacy." [Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, Debilitating Medical Conditions Advisory Panel, March 28, 2000.]

     Some American citizens might find it a bit disconcerting that the Republican Party in the late 70's and early 80's received most of its campaign funding from terrorists in the Middle East. Everyone is familiar with the 52 hostages held captive in the American Embassy in Iran. In order to have them freed and have the cooperation of such terrorists, Reagan supplied them with weapons of mass destruction. Barbara Honegger, a member of the Reagan-Bush policy research analyst team, would describe the details: "Lavi [the Iranian emissary] also claims that he first offered to arrange for the U.S. hostages to be delivered to the Reagan-Bush camp in Karachi, Pakistan, before, not after, the election in exchange for the delivery of approximately $50 million worth of military equipment and spare parts for Iran's F-14 fighter jets." ["October Surprise," by Barbara Honegger, 1989, page 17.] This is hardly surprising. In the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign, the Democrats received campaign funding from the Chinese Communist Party, hardly a defender of human rights, liberty or genuine Socialism. When Clinton was elected, he gave rocket technology to the Chinese government, making them more effective butchers of their own people. [Kerrey: Senate report on Clinton-China ties no 'love letter', May 5, 1999, CNN.com.] This is our representative government, but the Anarchists will show no surprise at what both the "conservatives" and the "liberals" are doing. The fact that our national elections are determined by foreign powers responsible for putting millions in slavery -- this fact should come as a bit startling to anyone who considers themselves a defender of truth and justice.

Image: U.S. Propaganda