Time to get serious…
You’d better start getting serious.
You see what is happening, and how fast it is moving, right?
Logically, how long until they start in on their enemies lists, weeks….a month?
How long until they dogwhistle and embolden the current version of brown-shirted militias (Proud Bois etc) to begin going after people at the street level, arming them with information about who their enemies are, where they live, what they drive, where they frequent, how they can be expected to react, all gathered from the databases that all of us have willingly surrendered to for as much as decades, since the owners/CEOs/stakeholders of those social media companies that KNOW all of that about all of us have started holding hands with fascism?
And if you think that’s fantasy thinking, why in the world would you think that in the face of what’s happening?
These people are ALL about a punishment mentality, and they have been publicly voicing their desire to punish the “others” for their imagined grievances for literal decades, how can you possibly imagine it WON’T go there?
Do you actually think they’re going to stop at deporting a huge swath of “illegal” humans?! And if so, why would they?! Their lists are much longer than that, and they are currently and have been saying so, all along.
Not to mention that “othering” has now become entwined with corporate/shareholder interests in the form of prison/transport/private security/cyber-security corporations who stand to gain MUCH in this environment. And if you think THOSE people are concerned about Patriotism and Principles, it’s time to change your diapies….
You’d better start thinking about getting off Social Media, learning about secure programs for communication, start using “dumb phones“, learn what a “Faraday bag” is and start using it for certain things in public places.
“Those times” are not coming, they are here, NOW, and the time/distance between now and there is already none.
And on top of it all, the collusion and collapse of a “responsible and free press” means you likely won’t hear about it except anecdotally, in ways that you won’t believe or don’t think you can trust, it will all seem too outlandish and/or crazy.
In every historic time that the social structure has collapsed or rotted enough to be taken over by these kind of people, a huge part of the regular population stood by in disbelief that what was happening….could actually happen.
They couldn’t believe that their world had shattered in such a thorough way, and so they put their head down and tried to go about their everyday life, hoping that normalcy would return, while all around them their world convulsed and crumbled, till “the knock” and pounding was on THEIR door, and it was too late.
You think these people are mean childish fools who are like giant toddlers who have managed to somehow to get the keys to the car and start careening down the road giggling hysterically until they crash and mommy comes to get them, and you’re right, they ARE that….except they are mean and angry and violent and filled with vengeance about imagined grievances and the kind of entitled malevolence only those who are on top of society and feel that is being threatened can have, and they CAN drive, and they ARE capable of attaining organization, and they are armed and they are salivating at the chance to exact punishment and retribution upon those they blame for those imagined grievances, and their mommy is NOT coming to grab them by the ear and sort them out, she’s cheering them on and teaching them to hate and how to “other” and to act.
In a historical sense, what is coming can be seen from a country mile away, and it always does, so don’t get caught flat-footed, just because in your innocence and arrogance you can’t believe they mean “yes you too!”…
And yeh….maybe I’m wrong.
But I’m not wrong so far, and you never thought it would get even this far, did you?
So what does it cost you to learn a bit about your own security, just in case, to start pulling back on habits that you already feel are negative trends in your anyway, to think just even slightly that there may be a real danger to you and your’s?
You have some plans in place for earthquakes/floods/fires depending on where you live, right?
Why not put a little thought into what you might do if I AM right, and the danger could come from people around you, and not just nature?
The social contract has already been broken, and the consequences historically are not mysterious and hard to predict.
Again, I hope like hell I’m just utterly utterly wrong, and believe me no one would be more pleased to be Chicken Little here than me. But I’m not wrong so far, and who could have imagined it would even go this far and not be stopped?
https://ssd.eff.org/module/communicating-others
https://ssd.eff.org/module-categories/basics
https://ssd.eff.org/
TRACKING – If you have a smartphone, look at this and gimme some info?
(CLICK ON THE LINKS, THEY’RE REALLY INFORMATIVE!)
First, a terminology correction….this thing isn’t an “advertising header” (ATT), it’s a “Unique Identifier Header” (Verizon), in the sense that it’s tracking everything you do on the web, and providing that info to ANYONE able to capture the header (everyone), and allowing those sites to gather that data in one place and get a VERY clear view of you and what you do with your phone on the web.
After reading a great article about this that really kinda shocked me, I went to this site to see if I was one of the Lucky People That Get that Crappy ID TAG.
(Quick plug for an app that I use to aggregate news stories I’m interested in called “Zite“, this thing is the bomb for finding news I care about and I recommend it highly, tho it appears to cause SOME memory leaks on my phone according to an Apple Genius who plugged some little doo-dad into my phone at the store that told him all kinda cool stuff about my phone, and presumably me, since he didn’t want me to look over his shoulder and would NOT send me the report about MY phone, which I found really interesting, but that’s a whole other deal.)
I am being tracked, shocker.
However……
When I sent that link around to a bunch of people, I got back word that some of them were NOT being tracked –
what he said
THAT got me wondering why.
Why NOT track some people and track others?
Hmmm….well, one thing might be our political views and how vociferous about them we are. I’m extremely motivated and aggressive about my political views (drrrr), the other fellow not so much….so would that play into it?
And honestly, I don’t know. But one could easily imagine that in this time of technology and NSA spying and corporate governmental takeover and erosion of free speech via erasing of privacy, that such a thing would be a trivial decision to make by those whose interests lie NOT with the public interest, but with their very very extremely rich overlords, in order to find yet one more way to track/commodify/ensnare/intimidate/control/restrain us/me/you/everyone/anyone.
One thing I know, this is NOT OK with me, and I want it to stop ASAP. So I’m gonna get in touch with ATT and let them know I’ll be moving to another provider if that thing isn’t turned off and I mean NOW.
I’ll let you know how that goes….
(Another BTW, just TRY reaching out to ATT if you’re on their GoPhone plan, and not a month to month contract plan. You’ll immediately understand that they REALLY don’t like you not allowing them to rape you for every nickel and dime they can, if you DON’T know what I mean, click that link to find out how hard you’re getting screwed, it’s a doozy that most people still don’t seem to know. Here’s another.)
So I think it’s going to be very tough to even get someone on the phone about this issue, much more so to get it changed.
Another related note….ATT wants you to think that this thing is about identifying and quantifying you and your preferences for their advertisers, (which, if truly their ONLY motivation, is still WAY NOT OK with me. I’m not the least bit interested in subsidizing them making money off of me by PAYING to be followed around everywhere I go just so someone can SELL me shit I don’t want/need!! Are you fucking kidding me?!?!)
“Take advertising, for example. The whole basis of that industry is to mislead and manipulate, to create desire where none existed before. The concept of a rational consumer may have made sense a hundred years ago, but it was posited before the advent of two essential advertising tools — mass media communications and public relations psychology.”
My last point being, if they plan on using my habits/needs/wants/interests/friends/family/sexual stuff/etc etc, then they can PAY ME FOR THAT, and TELL ME THEY’RE DOING IT!! Maybe we’ll make a deal, much like Google does; you give me a free phone that you can make money off of me with by selling my very specific info, or YOU DON’T SELL OR TRACK ANYTHING ABOUT ME, and I’ll pay for the phone.
THAT seems fair, and would allow everyone their own choice in the matter.
But I digress, usually, and often…
Something else to mention here, and that is that ATT is ALLOWING you to “opt-out” of this tracking.
Well…….kinda…
As you can see, that’s a complete farce.
But this another kind of tracking, that’s what I’m talking about.
ATT has something they call ATT AdWorks Relevant Advertising, which is what they say this bit they stick into your http requests is for, and you can *allegedly* opt out of that, so let’s look at that…
ATT’s NON OptOut
As you see, it appears that this is a way to OptOut of their tracking you on sites….BUT…bullet points #2 and #3 make it clear that’s not the case, and that it will NOT get rid of the code they insert into your http requests, #2 because all it’s saying is that you’ll still be getting ads from them, they just won’t be designed to fit you based on the profile they will develop of you, (and NOT delete, I’d bet a finger on it), and #3 because they’re making it clear that whatever deal you make with ATT will NOT be honored by anyone else, so the implication is that the info will still be there in the header, and that the info will still be gathered by others, and further that ATT might not be using THEIR profile to send you tailored ads, but I’ll bet they’ll happily use OTHER company’s profile of you….to send you tailored ads….
UPDATE 5:15 pm 10/29 – It appears that opting out has worked for me at least, there is now nothing in my UID field at the testing site. YIPPEE!!
The Enforcement “Class” rise up….?
Reposted from my buddy Dillon O’Brian, with whom these conversations have been going on for about 30 years….we diverge these days in some of our thinking, but it’s still an interesting topic.
Enforcment Class Rise up?
It’s my view that this will never happen, as I think that the men and women that go into these areas of work are in modern times attracted by a different motivation than is commonly thought. It’s my view that they are now joining these institutions BECAUSE of the thuggery, the criminality, the abuse of power, the right to wear a weapon, the power of the institution to validate their criminality and natural violence , and as a way to continue their schoolyard bully pattern into adulthood, but with much more lethal and permanent effects.
If you want to have the Police show up where there’s some kind of trouble, say “gun”, they’ll be there in seconds, because they want to shoot someone, want to be that cowboy swagger that only comes from getting to kill someone and call them the bad guy.
Yes, of course there’s REAL bad guys, and of course there are people in these institutions with honorable motives, of course it’s likely that they are even the norm, but there’s one thing that’s has always been true and will likely continue to be, and that is when one of their own commits one of these incredible acts the others will close ranks around them and protect them, and by doing so, they tacitly validate and support those that do these things, even if they themselves never do or would. This is at best guilt by association, and in my mind they become accessories to the criminality by allowing it without repercussions.
If someone breaks the law, they are a criminal, and should be dealt with as such, regardless if they are an Enforcement Class member or not, in fact, MORE so if they are. To NOT punish and invalidate these actions is to become little more than any common street gang, and to ignore that fact is to put ourselves in constant danger from these institutions.
Of course there are exceptions to this, the most obvious one being a Whistleblower like Snowden, whose acts are only illegal really because of laws put in place as deterrents to the act of whistleblowing itself, and not because what they are doing is a threat to the country, it’s only a threat to criminals changing the laws to support their actions. (Lacking a better document, we should ALWAYS be referring to not only the LETTER of the Constitution, but also the SPIRIT of it, which often times can be gleaned by the writings of the people involved in it’s creation, where they tend to be very specific about what their intents and fears were.) (And yes I understand that the document has as one of it’s primary functions codification of the power and rights of the rich landed class, but as I said, it’s the best map we have right now, and DOES contain a lot of good structure.)
So although I think it’s a nice thought that the insiders will “revolt” against the actions of their fellows, I see it as extremely unlikely. Change in these institutions rarely comes from the inside, it’s always pressure from the outside, and that’s going to be a long time coming with the control sector in full command these days.