I Should Have Taken
the damn Blue Pill by Michael Bragg
"The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can 'feel' it when you go to work and when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth."

 "What truth," Neo asks again?

 "That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Born into a prison you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind."

"Unfortunately, no one can be 'told' what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends and you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember, all I am offering is the TRUTH, nothing more."


So begins the Wachowski Brothers sci-fi world of fantasy called "The Matrix." The Matrix itself serves as an allegory -- a kind of shadow world -- where things seem normal on the surface, but when you begin to peel back the layers (or take the red pill) we find that things are quite different. As the plot unfolds we find that the world has been taken over by machines, and humans are not born, but are grown and placed in pods to be used as power generating "batteries" to serve their mechanical masters. This is a world in which truth and fiction are blurred. A world in which people are oblivious to the fact that they are not in control of their own lives, but that their "lives" are actually spent in captivity -- their mind controlled by computers to make the humans believe they are in the "real world." You cannot escape the ever-watchful eye of the "Agents" in charge, and if you begin to release yourself from their omnipresent control, a new "reality" will emerge to keep you in suspension.

 Buckle your seat belt Dorothy,
'cause Kansas is about to go bye, bye!

Are we really any different? With new advances in technology, and new legislative powers dubiously empowering Federal, State and Local Law Enforcement to implement these technologies, is it that much of a stretch of the mind to envision agents everywhere you turn, cameras on every corner and constant monitoring of our lives? "Smart" ID cards, bio-metric scanners, face recognition cameras, implantable microchips, government databases, global positioning devices, mandatory reporting to Federal Agencies by private businesses, forced drugging and quarantine, The New USA Citizen Corps which reeks of Nazi Germany or old Soviet Russia, even the power to search your home without a warrant or even notifying you, are all part of our new "Homeland Security" or as it's written in German, "das Heimatland Sicherheit." Don't you feel safer? Go and read The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act and tell me who you are more afraid of - our government or Osama bin Laden?

 Knock, knock, Neo...

Except this time there will be no knock. There will be no hello, no warning and you will not even know that it happened until it is too late. Section 202 of the "USA-PATRIOT Act" signed into law in October 2001, allows the government to "sneak and peek" into your home if you are suspected of being involved in "terrorist" activity. Using their vague and established precedents set by corrupt judges (read: The Controlled Substances Act), law enforcement officers can now break into your home without notifying you, search for anything they can find (whether on your hard drive, on your bookshelf, or in gun cabinet) and establish probable cause for any crime they choose for you to have committed. Any possessions or assets can and WILL be seized and forfeited, and just as with the War on Drugs, the ability to reclaim your stolen possessions will fall squarely upon your proving your innocence -- not on the government's ability to prove your guilt. Due process? Not in the War on Terror! Now if that isn't bad enough, the FBI recently released a new flyer for citizens to be on the lookout for certain "extremist" types of individuals including "defenders of the US Constitution against federal government and the UN" and others who would "Request authority for a stop [roadblock]." Moreover, a report issued by the Reno regime also listed those who " believe we are in, or [are] approaching, a period of violence and social turmoil which will precede the Second Coming of Christ" as potential terrorists. That's right! Billy Graham is a terrorist!

 Welcome to the "Real World"

Time after time our so called "leaders" use deception, lies (now called "spin") and political rhetoric to manipulate the masses and corral them into their world of illusion. By creating dubious problems, demagogic reactions and fabricating solutions which only exacerbate the so called problems they previously created, they weave their web of treachery and wait like the Black Widow -- ready to drink the life-blood from their unsuspecting victim's veins. How many times have we seen partisan bickering take place over no more than the so called "left" playing "political up-manship" against the so called "right", or the right blaming the left for favoring this special interest group or that special interest group, while in the end we still get pretty much the same thing-- SCREWED?

It is no wonder people choose not to participate in our political process. The hard truth is that you can't really blame them. The average "Joe" on the street not only does not really know what is going on, but if he were to listen to most politicians he would become so confused by their lies that he would have no clue as to what the truth is. On the other side of that coin are those who are active in social affairs and actually believe they are doing the right thing and actually helping people. While their intentions are benevolent their actions usually cause more harm than good.

Many of the worse abuses of power and cover-ups in our recent history have been so masterfully orchestrated by the perpetrators that it takes months or even years to sort through the misinformation and get to the truth. By then, most of the physical evidence has been destroyed (Waco, Ruby Ridge, OKC and now WTC) and we are left with anecdotal reports, hearsay and unanswered questions. For example, there are numerous investigative reports from very credible individuals including a former Oklahoma State Representative that we have been lied to about the bombing of the A.P. Murrah Building allegedly done by Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Where are the videotapes from the 12 surveillance cameras outside the building? Was there a middle-eastern connection with McVeigh and if so why was it buried? Was the mysterious "John Doe #2" of middle-eastern descent and why was the APB on him suddenly pulled? Why was the FBI there on the morning of the blast WELL BEFORE it happened? Why did many local and national news agencies report that unexploded bombs were removed from columns supporting the building if it was blown up by an ANFO bomb and many others? Even more repulsive than the obfuscation and obstruction by the government is that the so called "major media" rarely report anything other that the official propaganda they are given, thereby making it even more difficult to sift through lies to get to the truth. These questions and MANY others have been ignored concerning that horrendous event and hundreds more have risen from the rubble of The World Trade Center. I shall not list them here as I plan to write an entire piece on this very subject very soon titled "Unanswered Questions", so be sure and look for it.

The real mind control however does not take place in the media, but in the government indoctrination centers known as "Public Schools." Cultural Marxism better known as "political correctness" and "diversity" are the new forms of "newspeak" that seek to eradicate individuality in favor of their new paradigm of "collectivism" all disguised under the feel-good name of "democracy." Actually, this is nothing new and has been attempted before by the likes of Marx, Stalin and Mao where each had brilliant success! Included in this new paradigm is a litany of leftist agendas that would make the average socialist have a spontaneous orgasm. Radical environmental nonsense based on junk science, hate crimes and thought police, redistribution of wealth, the teaching as "fact" of things that are not -- and cannot -- be proved as fact such as Darwinism, and promoting the "it takes a village" mentality that the State is the answer to all the worlds ills, are all part of their war for you and your children's minds.

Do not forget they are VERY good at their jobs. As long as they can keep you believing they are here to help you they can continue their assault. As long as people continue to fall for the "illusion" that there are actually differences between the two factions of the party in power they will continue their assault. You see, it's like a covert operation creating a diversion to focus your attention elsewhere, so they can slip in and slit your throat. They know if you pay enough attention to the sideshow you will miss the Carnival.

 Is Ignorance Bliss?

Sometimes in my weaker moments of frustration I wonder about the above question. In The Matrix they never free a mind that has been in the Matrix too long. If I allow myself, I too become overwhelmed with the extent our lives are controlled and just how far they will go to control us. I sometimes wonder as I try to explain to people who listen -- but do not really hear the truth -- if it would not be better to go through life living day to day happy as a clam and never knowing I am a slave. What if I had never taken that red pill? I surely would not be pissed off all the time. During these painful times when I ponder these thoughts, I continue to come back to the reality that just as a mind cannot be set free once it is lost to the Matrix, a free mind can never return.

 

Michael Bragg is a member of the Libertarian Party of North Carolina where he has a day gig in sales. He is an lifelong songwriter, musician, wanna-be webmaster or studio engineer in his spare time (which is always uncommon). He proudly serves The Libertarian Party of Forsyth County as Outreach Director and is Co-Founder, Columnist and Webmaster
for Liberty For All - Online Magazine.
He can be reached at patrioticus@triad.rr.com