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Climate Change and the Promise of Violence in Pathocratic America

11/18/2014

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In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a disaster which many reference as climate change intensifies, there was a rash of white vigilante violence visited on black residents.   A number of blacks, like
Donnell Herrington,  were "shot with impunity," by white perpetrators, left to bleed on the street.  As a result of systemic racism, the undeserved black community of New Orleans had already been abandoned to squalid, post storm conditions, where dead bodies were literally left to rot in the street, while wealthy whites hired private contractors like Black Water to protect their gated communities.  In segments of racist America, this brief glimpse of an already broken system did not paint a picture of historical injustice that runs up into the present moment.  Rather, the hurricane merely served to reinforce hateful preconceptions of black neighborhoods. 

That line of thought is far from extraordinary in the United States, and it is unfolding in yet another, more recent story.  The National Guard has been put on notice to restore order for the anticipated handing down of a grand jury decision to not prosecute police officer Darren Wilson for the shooting death of unarmed black teen, Michael Brown.  Blacks have long decried the ongoing police harassment, heavy handed tactics, and outright murder that they endure under a racist police system that profiles people of color and incarcerates disproportionate numbers of blacks relative to the actual rates of criminality.  These cries are largely ignored, and brushed aside by the white adherents of a so-called "post racial" society, who, by claiming to not see color, fail to recognize and properly address the violence, prejudice, and criminal treatment that people of color contend with on a daily basis.  

Shortly after Michael Brown was murdered by officer  Darren Wilson,
police further provoked residents by allowing a police dog to urinate on a makeshift memorial, which was then run over by police cruisers.  Such raw disregard for the humanity of community members was emblematic of a pattern of police abuse that saw outraged protesters in the streets.   Protesters were met by a heavy handed police response, leading to the assaults and arrests of demonstrators as well as a member of the Washington Post and the Huffington Post, lending further credence to the notion that the rights of individuals were being trampled.  Donned in military surplus gear that had been garnered through taxpayer funded government handouts, the police attacked protesters and members of the press, shooting tear gas and rubber bullets at Al Jazeera English reporters.  One police officer resigned after pointing a rifle at protesters and threatening to kill them, telling protesters to "go fuck yourself." (see video below).  Another officer was fired for stating on social media that protesters should be "put down like rabid dogs." 

Police violence is not limited of course to minorities and activists, but it is typically those who are viewed as relatively powerless, who are then targeted for their brutality.  Studies have shown that police are 2-4 times more likely to commit acts of domestic violence than the national average.  Their victims have no where to turn, since their armed abusers literally work for the corrupt system known to shield its members from punishment.  As the National Center for Women & Policing points out, women victimized by officers are uniquely vulnerable in that the officer
  • has a gun,
  • knows the location of battered women's shelters, and
  • knows how to manipulate the system to avoid penalty and/or shift blame to the victim
In early November in Ferguson, a police officer was arrested for raping a female inmate.  This kind of systemic violence has been a part of the fabric of American society since the decimation of indigenous people, to the enslavement of Africans, up through today's modern wars and epidemics of violence toward women.  Abuse is normalized, hidden, justified, even celebrated.  The trauma of living in such a sick arrangement only feeds itself, escalating tension rather than healing deep wounds.  Adding fuel to the fire in the anticipated war zone in Ferguson, the KKK has been calling officer Wilson a hero and has been attempting to raise funds to support him.  The white supremacist organization also announced that they will use lethal violence against protesters in any upcoming unrest. 

Bubbling below the glittering American facade is a nation on the brink.  Social tensions are palpable.  Gun sales have skyrocketed in response to perceptions of government overreach.  The country is deeply in debt and rushing headlong with the rest of the world into economic disruption and climate chaos, and yet its leaders remain committed to maintaining their imperial mission and the farcical global war on terror.  Americans are increasingly poor and desperate, while government officials unapologetically preside over the disintegration of deeply enshrined rights.
How, then, will a violent and traumatized American society cope with the collapse of civilization, a scary proposition which is getting even mainstream play in reports like the one funded by NASA, which predicts mass social breakdown in the not so distant future?  It is a question, which given just a few moments of consideration, conjures seemingly obvious and horrific scenarios, and yet faced with this potential, most Americans dismiss the possibility, chalking it up to unrealistic negativity, before moving on to the next distraction. 
It is as if much of the overworked, ill informed, zombie and pop culture obsessed nation has decided at some subconscious level to simply die off and take the planet with it.  

In the face of such apathy, atmospheric CO2 is now at a level not seen in at least 800,000 years, if not several million.  The gas concentration is actually increasing at an accelerating rate, jumping 3 parts per million in 2013.  The rapidity of its increase will outpace our ability to adapt, and even conservative

scientists are saying we are now on track for the worst case scenario for planetary warming.  But  these projections ignore the possibility of catastrophic, runaway climate change fueled by the release of methane from the melting arctic sea bed.  This kind of rapid feedback loop could trigger a sudden climate shift with disastrous consequences.   Some scientists predict this scenario could be triggered by a 1.5  degree rise in global average temperatures, a mere .7 degrees beyond the .8 we've already witnessed, (see video left), while a few scientists, having considered the vast plumes of methane already coming out of the arctic, have even postulated that the runaway climate scenario is currently underway.If Katrina and Ferguson are indicators of what climate breakdown may look like an a social level, we will likely see pockets of both lawlessness and State crackdowns, where the boundaries between police and military become nearly indistinguishable, while in the later stages of decline, bands of disaffected violent males, often former police or military
If Katrina and Ferguson are indicators of what climate breakdown may look like an a social level, we will likely see pockets of both lawlessness and State crackdowns, where the boundaries between police and military become nearly indistinguishable, while in the later stages of decline, bands of disaffected violent males, often former police or military If Katrina and Ferguson are indicators of what climate breakdown may look like an a social level, we will likely see pockets of both lawlessness and State crackdowns, where the boundaries between police and military become nearly indistinguishable, while in the later stages of decline, bands of disaffected violent males, often former police or military If Katrina and Ferguson are indicators of what climate breakdown may look like at a social level, we will likely see pockets of both lawlessness and State crackdowns, where the boundaries between police and military become nearly indistinguishable, while in the later stages of decline, bands of disaffected violent males, often former police or military members themselves, ravage the countryside, and as is typical in war and the breakdown of societies, escalate violence toward the vulnerable. 

The exact shape of this
descent is impossible to predict, as we are now swimming in uncharted waters.
A rapid methane release could spell the end of human life on earth, as could the push toward a third world war.  The same sociopathic forces that are undermining planetary integrity are pushing the US to the brink of war with Russia, while  supporting the violent government overthrow in Russian partner states Syria and Iran.  The contours of a gradual, decadal decline, however, will be partly defined by ongoing external wars and hysterical, violent, and paranoid elements within society, further enraged by perceived personal failures as well as the failures of the  government and corporate elites to produce earth-saving technology, a stable economy,  and just governance. 

As the Republican Party has retrenched its efforts at "climate obstructionism" after the 2014 midterm elections, the reality of climate change will none the less bear down on even the most denialist portions of the electorate.  Yet given their penchant for ignoring science, the response for some will likely be fueled by the brand of religious extremism that blames gays, feminists, immigrants, abortionists, and intellectuals, to name a few, for natural disasters (see above video).  Climate change won't just be a time of shortages.  For some, it will be a time of retribution. 

Former Gilberton police chief Mark Kessler, and the scores of un-uniformed men who support him, are likely candidates for such climate fueled vigilantism.  Though his gun filled rant (video above), which implicitly indicates the desire to assassinate "libtards," is shocking in its candor, especially for a public official, it none the less represents just the tip of the iceberg of the thuggish mentality and autocratic tendencies seen within places of authority, as well as within segments of the population who blame liberals for the destruction of their nation.  Online hactivist group Anonymous sought to "unhood" KKK members in response to their calls for blood in Ferguson, and in so doing, exposed at least one Klansman who was a former police officer.  A statement coming from Anonymous suggests that killer cop Wilson himself may have ties to the KKK.
During the Occupy Protests which arose from widespread and unaddressed government and corporate corruption, investigative journalist Naomi Wolf revealed in a redacted FBI document a plot by Texas authorities to potentially assassinate the leadership of the movement with snipers.  Activists are increasingly being viewed as domestic terrorists by both authorities and nervous members of the public, while Americans have become aware of a vast surveillance network blanketing the country and much of the world.  The implications of tracking and quashing demonized social movements responding to the reality of climate change has been largely ignored.  What's also missing from the discussion is the way this violent system which is already felt by minorities, as well as women, will likely capitalize on social breakdown for intensified predation..

This is the pathological unfolding of mass trauma and Machiavellian dynamics in an increasingly unstable world.  To believe that such dire conditions are perpetuated by one individual or political party over another is to be duped by this system's propensity toward divide and conquer and sociopathic deceit.

At a cultural center in Jakarta in 2013, Senator John Kerry suggested that climate change should be viewed as a weapon of mass destruction.  In framing this symptom of deep human disconnect as a matter of national security, he indicated the likelihood of social unrest and climate refugees as the ability for people to feed themselves breaks down.  This sentiment was echoed in a 2014 report issued by the US department of defense, which stated that
The impacts of climate change may cause instability in other countries by impairing access to food and water, damaging infrastructure, spreading disease, uprooting and displacing large numbers of people, compelling mass migration, interrupting commercial activity, or restricting electricity availability. These developments could undermine already-­‐fragile governments that are unable to respond effectively or challenge currently-­‐stable governments, as well as increasing competition and tension between countries vying for limited resources. These gaps in governance can create an avenue for extremist ideologies and conditions that foster terrorism. Here in the U.S., state and local governments responding to the effects of extreme weather may seek increased DSCA. [Defense Support to Civil Authorities]

These analyses predictably smack of the very imperialistic and hyper-competitive paradigm in which the climate crises has emerged.  Viewing climate change through the lens of national security and protecting national economic and strategic interests ensures that climate change, when addressed at all, will be viewed as a technical challenge to be handled through market driven adaptability across the security and technology sectors.  The fundamental hierarchies of power within a society based in violent competition, relentless economic growth, Machiavellian deception, and imperial warfare, remains unchallenged. The result is a guarantee of increased violence, which is not merely being predicted by the US government, but in fact, orchestrated by it.  To put it another way, the minions of empire who speak of the reality of climate change are simply prognosticating the results of their own pathological worldview, one which they fully intend to continue, profit from, and even amplify in the years ahead.

Kerry's dire warning of climate change destabilization, rather than being a breath of fresh air in the land of climate denial, should be viewed then as a cynical attempt to manage public perception in the face of looming disaster.  We're supposed to believe that these honest bearers of climate realities are working in our best interest, sounding the alarm for an unsure world to hear.  But the world has known of these realities for years, and in some cases, decades, and the Obama administration has been anything but honest and forthright.  While in 2014 his administration tries to take the helm of climate leadership, and pry it from the jaws of so-called GOP "obstructionism," just a few years ago in 2011 at the UN climate talks in Durbin, the administration itself was being accused of "startling levels of obstructionism" coming from within the State Department, in its desire to delay the watered down process of climate reforms for another five to ten years.  For those who still believe the climate change situation is or was solvable, the window of opportunity that presented itself was discarded as readily by the Obama administration as a Pakistani wedding party targeted by his drone fire. 

In the realm of geopolitics, in a devastating piece by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hirsch, Secretary of State Kerry was revealed to be yet another mendacious figure in American empire, who in 2013 was manipulating evidence to make a case for war in Syria, much as the Bush administration had lied and cherry picked evidence in the lead up to the Iraq war.  Rather than being a separate issue from climate change, the state of liquid war spilling across borders is part of a larger phenomenon of destabilization occurring at the economic, social, and environmental levels.  The money spent on destroying lives and infrastructure abroad is the very definition of barbaric and unsustainable practices, and Kerry has a direct role in setting the tone for how monetary resources will be allocated.  The same drive for power found in this continual geostrategic positioning both fuels and is fueled by the increasing demands on the natural world to produce the raw materials for both warfare and consumer society. In an insane logical loop, the growing death machine necessitates itself, and taxpayer funded global conquest is at the heart of the planet devouring, ruthless progress of our technological worldview.   

Further, Kerry heads a State Department whose environmental impact assessment of the Keystone XL concluded that the pipeline's construction would have minimal effects on green house gases.  This assessment came under fire by environmental groups, who criticized the report for being produced by firms which have worked for TransCanada.  Even as Obama has been lauded for his acknowledgement of climate change, it was in 2012 in Cushing, Oklahoma that he boasted that his administration had
" added enough new oil and gas pipeline to encircle the earth.”  His tip of the hat to big industry indicated the record amount of domestic oil production occurring under his watch, and laid bare his true intentions, when he said
Now, right now, a company called TransCanada has applied to build a new pipeline to speed more oil from Cushing to state-of-the-art refineries down on the Gulf Coast.  And today, I’m directing my administration to cut through the red tape, break through the bureaucratic hurdles, and make this project a priority, to go ahead and get it done. 
This seems to contradict the popular wisdom that Obama would "block" the pipeline.  While well meaning people are fooled yet again by manipulative rhetoric, the reality is that these "blocks" are merely a pause in construction plans for the arrival of flawed environmental impact statements .  A short delay may look like environmental protection when spun by politicians or mainstream environmental groups, but it just more of the same song and dance.  Reports of Obama's most recent, so called "criticism" of the Keystone pipeline indicate the desperateness of people with no good options, still holding onto their hope for the pathological system to finally turn itself around.
Obama criticized the project during a trip to Asia late last week, saying it would not lower fuel prices for drivers, but would allow Canada to "pump their oil, send it through our land, down to the Gulf, where it will be sold everywhere else."
After Obama's Cushing speech, the president issued executive order 13604, which called for expediting the permitting process for pipelines, a time frame he would later call for halving.  The pipeline projects underway that have benefited from Obama's bureaucratic grease exceed the Keystone's own oil transport capacity projects, a reality which has been documented in a number of investigative pieces (here and here).   The president's so-called criticism, then, upon examination is really just a bland statement of fact, made to further placate his environmental base.  The Senate voting down the Keystone legislation in mid November was only a bump in the road for industry.  Currently Tar Sands oil, like that coming out Bakken, is merely shipped through a combination of alternate and expanding pipelines and railway.  The industry's ability to skirt environmental laws, and the Obama administration's willingness to speed the permitting process for non Keystone pipeline, has led one CEO to suggest that the XL pipeline is no longer needed for the record North American oil production underway.  Unless widespread radical actions are taken by the populace, a path which up till now has only been embraced by a handful of activists and indigenous groups, that oil will not be staying in the ground. 

Further, Obama's "all of the above" energy strategy, which includes heavy reliance on natural gas fracking for the production of the so called "bridge fuel," has been blasted by scientific findings that demonstrate it could actually intensify climate forcing.  Meanwhile, Obama has promised to send 1,500 troops to Iraq and has maintained domestically a policy of recruiting former military personnel into police forces.  His call to re-examine military style policing post Ferguson was in reality a PR stunt that will only further legitimize the use of military hardware in policing the climate destabilized "homeland."  The gilding of such destructive policies with a veneer of civility and reform will only deepen denial in the short term, and simultaneously intensify the potential for violent repression and backlash. 

The internet has been abuzz with Obama's sudden push for environmental reform and talk of his climate legacy in the last two years of his presidency.  But Obama already has a climate legacy, and while he may be celebrated for his recent "successes," the actual effects of the policies he has implemented will not be window dressed.  Ultimately, what must be understood is that civilization as we understand it is not sustainable, and yet the leaders of that civilization continue to push forward aggressive global stratagems and meaningless solutions obfuscated in rhetoric.  The Keystone Pipeline issue, though handled with typical imperial deceit, is in fact a red herring in pipeline production America.  For years, this de-contextualized issue has been sapping energy from any broad based movement to make more fundamental challenges to the system itself.  And such efforts have been rewarded with hollow statements and empty promises.

This is the two faced incarnation of empire.  Even when the "embattled champions" of climate in Washington are spotlighted in the media, their words must be checked against a larger backdrop of behind-th-scenes wrangling and building climate chaos.  The sugar coating of our problems and the diversion of attention from radical critiques of civilization has proven to be a death sentence.   Kerry, Obama, and military planners understand the likelihood of global violence in the face of mass privation which the very system they represent is already creating.  Similarly, given the growing certainty of scientists and the increasingly observable phenomenon of extreme weather, it seems quite likely that Republicans may secretly believe in the reality of human induced climate change, a notion I have recently come to intuit, and which has been somewhat substantiated in an article of Business Week. 

Not all Republicans are as wedded to climate-change denial as their public statements suggest, according to retired military officials and Republican Hill staff. “If you talk with them privately, without any media around, the vast majority of congressional Republicans know perfectly well that climate change is real,” Titley says. “But they won’t say so publicly because they don’t want to end up like Bob Inglis.”
Radical transformative steps to address climate change have never been in the cards, outside of unproven market driven technologies, a metastasizing security and militarized surveillance state, and top down, last ditch efforts like geo-engineering.  Whether you are a Democrat who warns of impending disaster and argues for climate change reform, but makes only token gestures and acts in the interest of large corporations, or a Republican who then denies the same climate change he secretly believes in so as to advance his political career, the results are the same.  It is a deception steeped in the structural violence of a system built on death and exploitation for profit.  In its guarantee to make the world less secure, it  is a strategy that  will be a short term boon to the same national security apparatus and multinational corporations benefiting from the bipartisan wars abroad.
Senator Lindsey Graham was right when he said, in regard to section 1021 of the NDAA, which authorizes the indefinite military detention of US citizens on US soil without trial, that "The world is the battlefield, including the homeland."  Climate change, like the war on terror, is a man made disaster, producing conflict without borders in space and time.  The war on terror morphs into a war on life itself.   Under such circumstances, social violence is seen as a tragic and yet unavoidable consequence of modernity, and the brutality of police and military 
personnel is barely addressed, passed off as some fluke of occasional bad apples, but exists in reality as the very modus operandi of a culture of dominance and abuse.  Out of a sense of elite self preservation, especially in times of social fragility, those  elements of society given the legal authority to maim, kill, and arrest are courted by the liars in power, and must simultaneously be feared and respected by society at large.  The ubiquity of "supporting the troops" is a victory for the bipartisan perpetrators of the military industrial climate catastrophe.  The low IQ's and pathological traits which, according to former police captain Ray Lewis (see video above), are selected for among the candidates of low level police enforcers, will help to ensure their ability to unquestioningly follow the orders of the pathocracy, patrolling the prison we inhabit even as the walls fall in.

Within the speeches of high placed government officials who regard climate change as a threat, therefore, there is no true break from the momentum of this industrial death machine, just clever turns of phrase while global leaders march in lockstep to the self reinforcing and suicidal mandates of permanent war and infinite economic growth.  By appearing to be the reasonable voices of empire as a counter to outright climate denialism (a presented belief which itself may be yet another charade), such actors are in fact ensuring our demise.  A false dichotomy has been presented to us, keeping average Americans misdirected with empty solutions and meaningless political carnivals,  as many struggle with the violence of abusive authorities and individuals from within a system that already denies them basic needs.  In such a context,  the false political rhetoric of climate change on both sides of the aisle is itself an act of violence against us all, contained in both its contempt for the truth and the current and coming violence that it invites, yet seeks to hide.
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Obama, Climate Saboteur

2/23/2014

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Roving Camera Drones to Catalog and Track You During Collapse

12/5/2013

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Pittsburgh CBS affiliate KDKA recently reported on drones equipped with facial recognition technology that could some day be used to monitor the population and scan for behavior or individuals deemed suspicious by authorities.   Almost as disturbing as the implications of the technology is the scripted presentation in which the news anchors do nothing to raise the alarm of surveillance abuses in the midst of Snowden's NSA revelations, and instead normalize the "freakiness" of having one's face captured and being put "in the system."  In the end the anchors conclude that the development of this surveillance state technology is "fascinating" and "really cool stuff."  Clearly the interests that are working through this station are attempting to downplay any legitimate fears one might have from witnessing these kinds of capabilities in order to get the populace to accept constant monitoring by the State. The only question that remains is will this technology come into full implementation before the environmental and economic meltdown get into full swing?  Indeed, the mantra, it's okay to have my privacy shredded because I haven't done anything wrong, will be meaningless when the true purpose of the control grid becomes apparent in the midst of an inevitable backlash from a corporate government led destabilization of the systems we have come to depend on for our lives. 
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DHS Claims Authority  to Search Your Electronic Media Devices for No Reason

2/12/2013

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In a a recent DHS Civil Rights/Civil Liberties Impact Assessment
regarding border searches of electronic devices, the so-called Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties concluded that anyone can have their electronic devices searched at the border, for any reason whatsoever.  Warrants or suspicion of wrongdoing, according to this  flouting of the fourth amendment of the US Constitution, (which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures), are not required.  A so-called Constitution Free Zone now extends one hundred miles from all US borders, both land based and maritime, which means, according to the ACLU, nearly 2/3 of US citizens are now living in areas where the Constitution no longer applies. 

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US Government Expanding Surveillance Grid with Argus and The Big Pipe

2/1/2013

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The Wall Street Journal reported that In 2009, President Obama closed down the controversial Bush era National Applications Office, which gave law enforcement officials access to spy satellite imagery shot over the United States.  The office had raised strong concerns with civil libertarians who recognized the potential infringement on a person's right to freedom from unlawful searches. 

Yet a 2012 article from Popular Science revealed the disturbing surveillance related ambitions of
deputy executive director of national air-security operations for the Office of Air and Marine (OAM), Kenneth Knight, whose position within US Customs and Border Protection (CBP, organizationally nested within the Department of Homeland Security) afforded him the ability to begin putting into place some big dreams.  Knight was helping to lay the groundwork for what in 2005 had come to be known as the Big Pipe, a gestating total surveillance grid that will move far beyond watching the borders by linking together networks of stationary cameras and aerial surveillance, and stream the footage to "fusion centers," creating the ability to seamlessly pass targets between camera networks, and closing gaps in covert monitoring capabilities.    According to the article,
 [Knight ] was targeting a much larger domain: the national air radar picture and the coastal marine surface radar picture, not just the surveillance cameras in the ports and along the border but also the surveillance cameras in metropolitan areas—airports, train stations, on the side of buildings, anywhere—such that the theater of operations was expanded to the widest possible extent. This broad spectrum of surveillance was really what Knight had in mind when he told me about total domain awareness, an operating picture that encompassed pretty much the entire country. Total domain awareness meant the ability to apply these tools, at will and as needed, anywhere in the U.S.
Then in January 2013, PBS aired a documentary, Rise of the Drones, widely criticized on the blogosphere for its propagandistic slant and its Lockheed Martin underwriting.  The documentary revealed that the new 1.8 gigapixel Argus surveillance video camera, when mounted on a Predator drone from 20,000 feet in the air, can broadly monitor at least a fifteen square mile area, and then zoom in and film movements like waving hands or birds in flight.  It's "persistent stare" will potentially be lengthened in the future, with plans for drones that can stay aloft for years at a time.   Argus developer and British based BAE Systems engineer Yiannis Antoniades seems to relish his access to privileged information surrounding Argus, a fitting disposition for the creator of a flying surveillance machine arrogantly named for the Greek hundred eyed god.  Although its deployment remains classified, such an invention would fit well into an evolving "Big Pipe" system, within a governmental apparatus that flouts rules or invents new ones to circumvent laws like Posse-Commitatus and so-called Constitutional protections. 

In 2011 testimony before the House Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Director of the Northern Region Office of Air and Marine, (OAM) John S. Beutlich, talked about one of the Operational Integration Centers (fusion centers) being set up in the country in order to better streamline surveillance and intelligence sharing capabilities at varying levels of law enforcement.
CBP has also established the Operational Integration Center (OIC) located at Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Harrison Township, Michigan. The OIC is a demonstration project, involving the application of personnel and technology to enhance border security and situational awareness for CBP and its mission partners in the Detroit region, a critical area of the northern border. In terms of personnel, the OIC allows for a collaborative work area and communications capabilities for all components of CBP, USCG, other DHS organizations, federal law enforcement agencies, state and local law enforcement, the RCMP and CBSA.

The OIC brings together information feeds, including radar and camera feeds, blue force tracking, database query from databases not previously available to CBP, remote sensor inputs, RVSS and MSS feeds, and video from various POEs and tunnels. Additional information feeds such as local traffic cameras will be added in the near future. This level of personnel and technology integration serves as a model for collaboration and technology deployments in other areas of the northern border.

Beutlich then fleshed out in a little more detail, just how the"Big Pipe" is coming together, and how it might make the data collected through mass surveillance more accessible to law enforcement.
In 2005, CBP created a robust information sharing environment known as “BigPipe,” which links equipped CBP aviation assets and information sharing protocols to federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement and public safety agencies to provide near-real time video and sensor data—enhancing situational awareness for officers and rescue personnel across the public safety community. BigPipe is also used by numerous federal, state, local and tribal agencies during warrant presentations, controlled deliveries, search and rescue and surveillance operations. Earlier this year, live video information streamed via Big Pipe was used to enable FEMA Rapid Needs Analysis (RNA) teams to quickly determine the condition of levees during the flooding that occurred in the Mississippi River Valley.

Additionally, Processing, Exploitation, and Dissemination cells have been established at the Air and Marine facilities in Riverside, California, and Grand Forks, North Dakota, to provide essential information to law enforcement across the nation—increasing our understanding of evolving threats and providing the foundation for law enforcement entities to exercise targeted enforcement in the areas of greatest risk. This intelligence-driven approach prioritizes emerging threats, vulnerabilities and risks, greatly enhancing our border security efforts.

People often react to the increasingly pervasive surveillance state with the notion that if you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear.  As I have said before, and will continue to say, these systems of extreme tracking and intrusion, down to the level of traffic cameras, will serve as a means to control large uprisings, when the deterioration of the economy and the environment accelerates under the weight of high level, government enabled, criminal activities.  It's interesting to note that the term blue force tracking is actually military parlance for GPS systems that keep tabs on friendly forces, which are pictured in blue (and enemy forces, pictured in red).  With 1.8 gigapixel clarity, we see again the way in which the NORTHCOM operational United States is increasingly being viewed through the lens of a tightly surveilled war zone. 
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US Homeland Security to Purchase Fully Automatic Weapons

1/29/2013

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While the United States government contemplates banning the sales of semi-automatic rifles for civilians, it has recently put in a bid for 7,000 fully automatic weapons (like the one used by US NORTHCOM soldier pictured left) to be distributed to various agencies within the Department of Homeland Security, the umbrella organization which oversees FEMA. In the wake of the DHS purchase of 1.6 billion rounds of ammo and the decade of military grade hardware going to local police forces, along with drones increasingly arriving on the scene, it seems clear that the Feral Government is preparing, in the words of Senator Lindsey Graham, to make "the world the battlefield, including the homeland."  Why, you might ask?  Social unrest in the face of economic instability, drought, food shortages, and environmental meltdown.  It won't matter if you "aren't doing anything wrong" or "have nothing to hide."  Think widespread hurricane Katrina/Sandy level incompetence in the face of a corporate government created national catastrophe, where millions of people don't have access to food.  Hopefully before then you will have realized what the military zombie drills are all about.  Hopefully you will have prepared.
 
Here's some sample text from the bid:


1.0 SCOPE
The scope of this contract is to provide a total of up to 7,000 5.56x45mm North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) personal defense weapons (PDW) throughout the life of this contract to numerous Department of Homeland Security components. This Statement of Work delineates performance criteria and testing to be used for the evaluation of the firearm.

3.9 Action/Mechanism.
3.9.1. The firearm shall be able to be operated by a left or right-handed user without permanent modification.
3. 9.2 The action shall be select-fire (capable of semi-automatic and automatic fire).

3.9.10 The action shall be capable of accepting all standard NATO STANAG 20 and 30 round M16 magazines (NSN 1005-00-921-5004) and Magpul 30 round PMAG (NSN 1005-01-576-5159). The magazine well shall be designed to allow easy insertion of a magazine.

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To The Religious Adherents of Transhuman Techno-Psychopathy 

1/23/2013

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To those who have abandoned the natural world in favor of a technological order structured through an often denied but underlying platform of violence and authoritarianism, I send you this poem, to let you know that there are many whose eyes are now opening to what you are creating.  To those who still hold out  hope for a positive future, may this work help you realize that the struggles we face cannot be trivialized if we are to succeed. 

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Organic Consumer Association Political Director Arrested

1/8/2013

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When the secret service arrested Alexis Baden-Mayer of the Organic Consumers Association, they were essentially working in collusion with the federal government to prevent the right of individuals to petition their government, as protected by the first amendment of the Constitution.  While some might object and say that the petitioners did not leave when police instructed them to, if the government refuses to return calls or send out an intern to receive a petition, then, it should become incumbent upon the police to allow the assembled individuals to fulfill their constitutionally backed mission without unnecessary interference.  But that is not their de facto role, as agents of the state, and so while the petitioners should realistically expect to be arrested for attempting to air grievances, they are certainly not in the wrong for acting as they did.  When the police suggested there could hypothetically be an "emergency, and so the gates could not be blocked, there was already a very real emergency taking place: a constitutional emergency, as well as the coming health emergency resulting from unlabeled, widely consumed toxic GMO foods.  In reality, the emergency that the secret service was preventing referred to none of the aforementioned situations, but instead it was the perceived emergency of "citizens" attempting to exercise power, and thus threatening not the peace, but the violently maintained order that masquerades as a tranquil day in Washington. 
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Chinese Labor Camp Survivor Force Fed Psychiatric Drugs

12/31/2012

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In a recent post critiquing John R. Shook's look at a the future of "morality enhancing" pharmaceuticals, I posed the question, what might it look like if the Chinese government were to implement these types of pills, to "grapple" with an internal rebellion as Shook mildly described it in his paper.  Then I came across this story, (and the accompanying video), in which the Chinese government is apparently forcing imprisoned practitioners of the Falun Gong religion to take psychiatric drugs as part of a larger regimen of torture.  Shook, neuroethicists, and transhumanists alike should take note: this is part of the context in which these morality pills would emerge.  For those who might dismiss the significance of this reality, force-medicating, brain-excising, organ harvesting, China calls over one seventh of the world population its own, and therefore the insidious effects of a mass-produced, socially-engineering morality pill could be far reaching indeed.  
Additionally, Chinese companies, which coordinate with their communist government,  also have a penchant for stealing so-called intellectual property.  According to an article in Bloomberg Businessweek, the unprecedented level of theft covers a range of industries, including "biotechnology, telecommunications, and nanotechnology, as well as clean energy."  This means that a powerful, populous, and human rights abusing nation with an established interest in the technological Singularity, will likely acquire, legally or otherwise, any pharmaceutically enabled means that might arise to suppress its own citizens. 
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Adam Lanza and Mass Violence

12/20/2012

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The recent shooting tragedy has pushed to the forefront issues around gun control and monitoring mental health, yet the elephant in the room remains the State sponsored violence that occurs on a daily basis on a much larger scale.  The pathology of lone gunmen within a pathological system is only a powerful shock when one believes the system as a whole is basically morally upright.   The outrage, fear, and frustration that people are expressing casts into strong relief the the lack of anger, action, culpability, or even interest surrounding the mass murders we are collectively funding, and the environmental violence we are perpetrating, whose scope dwarfs the growing constellation of mass killers we have witnessed over the years.  The lack of empathy for babies born with birth defects in Vietnam or Fallujah, the hundreds of thousands of children who died in Iraq during the 90's at the hands of US imposed economic sanctions, the countless civilians killed in our latest Middle East incursions,  juxtaposed against Black Friday level consumption and the teary speech of Nobel Peace Prize winning President "I have a drone," is part of the same psychological soup from which Adam Lanza emerges.  It is a world where what saddens us is not the depth to which we are all complicit in a culture of violence that spans the globe, but where instead we are fleetingly traumatized  when seemingly senseless violence outside of ourselves victimizes individuals that remind us of those humans who we do value.   

The current interdependent suffering we are wading through is a sticky societal syndrome, and cannot be "solved" technologically, when technology itself emerges not in some neutral space, but within a context of Machiavellian Realism occurring at a global scale, where, for example, corrupt forces turn the world's food commodities into gambling chips, and corral much of humanity into the futile pursuit of accumulating numbers.    Realize that our economies depend upon destabilizing weapons exports.  Realize that artificial intelligence research funding primarily comes from the military, and that the majority of financial trades come from unfeeling machines maximizing profit no matter what the human cost.  And as the UN drug and crime tzar Antonio Maria Costa laid bare,  during the 2008 financial collapse the illegal drug trade provided the needed source of liquid capital to keep our fraudulent way of life afloat.  When former UBS banker Bradley Birkenfeld revealed that 20,000 millionaire and billionaire US clients, undoubted beneficiaries of military industrial complex investments,  were illegally hiding their money from taxation in Swiss accounts, he was the only one to receive prison time.   All things intertwine, and the foundations we have built upon are rotten to the core.  

Adam Lanza is a convenient place to point our fingers, a sign post for the deepening augmented reality disconnect, in which we can tell ourselves that we as individuals and as a society are functioning in a sane manner, as we babble on about the endless fictions of pop culture.  It is because we have never deeply grappled with the fact that we are a nation built upon land grabs, extermination, and slavery, (at best a passing source of guilt, and at worst something justified in the name of progress) that we collectively ignore the criminally violent, nationally orchestrated, and technologically facilitated behaviors which continue up to this very moment.  It is also why we are simultaneously terrified by the implications of an Adam Lanza loose among us, armed with a technology far less destructive than a Hellfire missile, but for most of us living on this side of the Green Zone, far more menacing.  Similarly, it is for this reason that things like psycho-pharmaceuticals at the macro scale will at best become a means for shaping desired elite outcomes within an undemocratically forged future, perhaps helping us better cope with the suffocating symptoms of realities we dare not approach. The 2012 NDAA, the Patriot Act, the lack of meaningful reforms and prosecutions after the financial meltdown, the Wallstreet entrenched two party war system, the absence of effective social change in the face of a climate destabilization which is outstripping scientific predictions, should be indicators not of what's to come, but what's already here.  Adam Lanza is a mere ripple in the tidal wave.  And while predictive analytics search for the next crime hotspot or neighborhood psycho, further empowering our gestating Homeland Security funded police state, the pathological CEO's, international financiers, and government fat cats will enjoy all the protections money, private and publicly funded security, and a brainwashed society can provide.  Unless we are willing to make significant changes in our own lives and communities, outside of proposed gun control or health regulations, in all our moments of Shock and Awe, we will continue to depend upon the unstable order that this underlying, participatory violence creates.
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