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The Emotional Evolution Checklist

Nikki Sapp
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8
The Emotional Evolution Checklist

“There is no such thing as maturity. There is instead an ever-evolving process of maturity, because when there is a maturity there is a conclusion and cessation. That’s the end. That’s when the coffin is closed. You might be deteriorating physically in the long process of aging, but your personal process of daily discovery is ongoing. You continue to learn more and more about yourself everyday.” ~ Bruce Lee

The process of emotional evolution and self-discovery is one that should last our entire lives. If we are the same person that we were 10 years ago, emotionally, it would be safe to say that we have become stagnant emotionally, consciously, and spiritually. When we really sit and think about it, the task of progressing as a person is really our only task while we are here on this earth.

The details of our life don’t matter too much if we are not ultimately on an upward progressive slope to becoming a better version of ourselves. While many of us have experienced huge shifts in our understanding of ourselves and the world in the form of “aha moments” or sudden revelations, the majority of our progression happens slowly over a period of time.

This slower progression may make it a little more difficult to tell if we are becoming a better version of ourselves or if we are regressing. And while many people may measure their “maturity” against external factors, this is not the only indicator of how far we have come. So how can we tell if we are evolving?

Here is an emotional evolution checklist to help us measure our current selves against our former selves:

1) I can more easily stay in the ‘what is’

Progressing emotionally doesn’t necessarily mean we stop having “bad” or “negative” emotions, it just means we observe them without judgment when we do have them. If you haven’t experienced sadness, or envy, or anger you are not human. The true test is if we can be honest enough with ourselves to admit when we are experiencing these emotions.

When we know that we are not our thoughts, nor are we our emotions, we can sit in the energy of the emotions more easily and actually use our emotions as a tool in our personal development process.

2) I can laugh at myself

The more a person evolves emotionally the less seriously they take life and themselves. Since they are less attached to who they think they are and more anchored in their awareness of who they think they are, they are more able to see when they may be over-reacting, or over-stressing about a situation, and actually be able to find the silliness of it all.

When one realizes not only are they not their thoughts, or their physical body, but neither are other people, situations or “conflicts” with others become less dramatic and can actually be a source of entertainment because we realize that while there is a part of us that wants to be so attached to emotions like anger, there really is no point.

These emotions are always stemming from the illusory self.

3) I can see things from both sides

When we see that none of us are “perfect”, but that we are all actually imperfectly perfect, we stop being so dead set on that our perspective is the “right” one and just realize that everyone we meet has their own perspective on things.

We realize that just like we have our own values, beliefs and morals, that other people have their own too. At this point we can see that most people are not intentionally trying to hurt people, or cause problems but they are just operating from their own level of understanding of things which means they cannot be “blamed.”

Seeing things from both sides and from the bigger picture is always a sign of a person who is operating from a state of consciousness that is based more in unity and oneness.

4) I don’t see myself as a ‘victim’ of others behavior

As we grow in our development we start to see that others are not doing anything TO us, but rather we are the ones generating our own perception of reality.

So, anytime we are angered or upset by another person we turn it back around on ourselves and ask “What belief about myself am I holding on to that is causing me to be angered by their behavior?”

When we see ourselves as the creator of our reality instead of the victim of it, we become completely empowered to accept the things we cannot change, and change the things we can.

We can’t always force other people to act in a certain way, but we always have the power to walk away from situations that aren’t conducive to our well-being and to decipher when we are taking something personally that may not have been intended as a personal attack. Wisdom lies in knowing the difference between the two.

5) I stay focused on myself and my own personal progress

The only person we truly have any control over is ourselves. And while we may be willing to offer advice to family and friends when they ask us for it, ultimately we must know that forcing someone to do something we think they should do is just not possible.

Everyone we meet is weathering their own storm and navigating through their own journey of self-awareness. It is not up to us decide who is moving fast enough or not fast enough, but only to be there for them when they need us to without judgment.

If we only compare ourselves to our former selves we save our energy and time focusing on the one person that we do have control over. The evolution of our emotional “maturity” and consciousness is the one necessity if we truly wish to always be growing as a person. Though, it won’t always be easy…. it will always be worth it.

The Beginning is Near: The Marriage of Science and Spirituality

Gary Z McGee
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15
The Beginning is Near: The Marriage of Science and Spirituality

“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.” ~ Nikola Tesla

Amidst all the doom and gloom of Armageddon, post-apocalyptic scenarios, and talk of the “end times,” there is emerging a glass-is-half-full, positive and encouraging way of looking at the future. “The beginning is near” is the antithesis to “the end is near.”

The beginning is near is both humbling and hopeful. It’s humbling in the sense that it admits that we don’t have things figured out yet and that the greatest human wisdom is still to be achieved. And it’s hopeful in the sense that we are close to achieving that wisdom.

We are approaching a singularity of sorts, a human threshold, one that will launch us into a whole other level of evolution, where we may finally figure out how to live in accord with each other and align ourselves with the earth and its laws.

Like Janine Benyus said, “We’re basically this very young species, only 200,000 years old. We’re one of the newcomers, and we’re going through the same process that other species go through, which is, how do I keep myself alive while taking care of the place that’s going to keep me and my offspring alive?” How indeed?

There’s a psychosocial game that we’re playing as members of an unhealthy world-destroying culture that most of us are not aware we’re playing. This game is affecting everything from the air we breathe and the water we drink, to the relationships we make and the wars we wage.

It’s a game that we were all born into, a game that we’ve been forced into playing, because opting out is not acceptable by the greater culture. Some of us are aware of how destructive this game is, but most of us are not aware.

Those few of us who are aware are still forced to play the game, but we are playing strategically, either to maintain the game that keeps us in power, or to undermine the game that keeps us powerless.

We’re either playing to make the game healthier, by changing or even breaking the rules of the game. Or we’re playing to keep the game unhealthy so that we can continue to make money off of people and natural systems to leverage our power.

But the vast majority of people are not aware that they are a part of this game of exploitation or even that there is a game being played. Most people are so caught-up in going through the motions of being a cog in the machine, that they couldn’t care less if the machine is destructive or not.

Like Noam Chomsky said, “The general population doesn’t even know what’s happening, and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know.”

Their attitude is as long as they can get through the day, with as little heartache and grief as possible from their fellow humans, then it’s all good. But it’s not all good. The excuse of “just getting through the day” doesn’t change the fact that the psychosocial game we are playing is systematically destroying the planet and everything that lives on it, including us.

“The bullshit machine says the small is the great, the absence is the presence, the vicious is the noble, and the lie is the truth” writes Umair Haque. “We believe it, and greedily, it feeds on our belief. The more we feed it, the more insatiable it becomes. Until, at last, we are exhausted. By pretending to want the lives we think we should, instead of daring to live the lives we know we could.”

And there’s the rub. That’s the crux. The “bullshit machine” has us caught up in living unhealthy lifestyles that we’ve been conditioned into wanting, while neglecting the healthy lifestyles we could be living. We have been burdened with ugly, stupid lifestyles on a planet pushed to the very edge of destruction by status-quo junkies feeding us new promises of consumable happiness that gets sh*t out all over the planet in mass-destructive ways.

Perhaps nobody else puts it into clearer a perspective than Ernest Becker in The Denial of Death: “Modern man is drinking and drugging himself out of awareness, or he spends his time shopping, which is the same thing.

As awareness calls for types of heroic dedication that his culture no longer provides for him, society contrives to help him forget. In the mysterious way in which life is given to us in evolution on this planet, it pushes in the direction of its own expansion.

We don’t understand it simply because we don’t know the purpose of creation; we only feel life straining in ourselves and see it thrashing others about as they devour each other. Life seeks to expand in an unknown direction for unknown reasons.”

The question is: how do we figure out these unknown reasons. How do we get in balance with this “unknown direction?” How do we change the game? How do we slow down the bullshit machine? Is teaching ourselves how to recondition the precondition enough? Is teaching people how to live healthier lifestyles enough?

Marriage between science and spirituality

Perhaps our saving grace can be found in the marriage between science and spirituality. It’s a double-edged sword, for sure. One side of the sword is science, the attempt to figure out the secrets of the universe.

The other side of the sword is spirituality, the attempt to bring meaning to the universe. If the lighting of the first fire was science and the lighting of the second fire was spirituality, then the lighting of the third fire is the marriage of both science and spirituality, a sacred union. Sacred activism is a branch of this concept.

If we are to have any hope of righting the ship, of changing the game, indeed, of being game changers ourselves instead of merely players of an unhealthy game, then we must learn, or relearn, how to use this sword. Like Werner Heisenberg said, “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.”

Indeed, let’s sharpen the double-edged sword. Let’s allow science to teach us healthy from unhealthy so that spirituality can teach us moral from immoral. And then let’s discover that God has always been hiding inside us. We just had to empty our “cup.”

On the one hand we have the universal mythological intuition that the order we perceive in the universe exists by divine fiat (spirituality). And on the other hand we have the contemporary cosmological speculation that reality is arbitrary and a manifestation of an infinitely greater potentiality (science).

Why can these two perceptions not be one and the same thing, or even two sides to the same coin?

Science has come a long way in explaining the fascinating reality in which we live, but, as Adam Zeman wrote, there’s still only “night at the end of the tunnel.” It’s the job of spirituality to make sense out of this “night.” It’s the job of spirituality to discover a moral question for our culture to thrive off of and continuously attempt to answer, even while we go through the scientific motions of figuring it out.

It’s the job of spirituality to bring about sacred spaces for science to take place in, just as it’s the job of science to attempt to explain the nature of space. Like Wendell Berry said, “There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.” Spirituality can help us to embrace the sacred, while science can help us to heal desecrated places.

So don’t lose heart. The beginning is near. And even if it’s not, at least we have the marriage of science and spirituality to guide us a little closer. So strap on your post-apocalyptic sunglasses. Let the bullshit machine clog itself with its own bullshit and slowly die out.

The bright side is we can use it as manure to plant seeds of healthy change. The sky is the limit. Climb up that precarious ladder, out of the destruction and decay of the outdated system. Peak over the walls built by unsustainable men, and discover that the universe has always been at your fingertips. The beginning is near. Let’s begin.

Science and spirituality: Jeff Lieberman makes a scientific argument for mystical experience

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It’s your move
God & galaxy
Einstein & Jesus

Surrender: When Free Will Converges with Universal Will

Nikki Sapp
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10
Surrender: When Free Will Converges with Universal Will

“In total surrender of the ego, the transformation of our vibration unfolds by itself to levels far beyond our imagination” ~ Annette Duveroth

It is often discussed whether or not destiny and fate are real, or if we come here with complete free will to create our life however we choose. Technically we can see the evidence of both. We hear stories of how people were in the right place at the right time to discover someone or something that completely changed their life.

surrender to the flow of the universePeople have dreams or premonitions of instances before they happen, which can only lead us to believe that some circumstances are fated to occur. On the other side of the coin, we see people who waste their entire lives on an addiction or in a dysfunctional relationship only to just grow older, get sicker and eventually just die, which leads to the question, “Was that really their destiny?”

Couldn’t a few better choices in their life have led them down a path that would have eventually led them to a happier and more fulfilling life? In these instances, we have to assume that the individual person’s exercise of their free will led them to make a series of unconscious choices which ultimately led to their demise.
So on one hand we can see that there is a will of the Universe which is more commonly known as fate or destiny. The will of the Universe is the best possible case scenario of our lives that will lead exactly to the life we have always wanted and probably better than we can ever have imagined, but there is also free will.

Through free will we can make choices that are motivated more by fear and less by love which will lead us farther and farther away from the plan that the Universe has for us. So how do we marry the two? How can we make our free will match up with the will of the Universe and straight into our “best case scenario” life?

surrender“Transformation happens on the other side of surrender” ~ Unknown

The concept of surrender is often hard for the human ego to grasp. It can’t possibly comprehend how it will go about creating the life it wants while at the same time surrendering to the unknown (fate of the Universe).

The fear or attachment to outcomes makes it constantly think it needs to control and manipulate circumstances so that it can always be “involved” and “in control” of all decision making and that maintains its relevance or illusion of relevance in our psyche.

However, it is this constant attachment to how we want things to happen that actually prevents the will of the Universe from being able to manifest. Attachment stems from fear. In terms of energy, attachment causes us to contract, to be closed off and also causes blockages in our energy field which prevent the flow of universe from being able to move to and through us.

Surrender is based in love. Outside of the ego in our true selves, we are just love. It is only our ego that causes us to believe that we need to seek outside of us for what we already are.

The more conscious we become we start to resonate in this loving space more and recognize it as the real “us” instead of all the fearful thought forms and beliefs that are floating through our minds on any given day.

When we completely surrender to whatever the Universe presents us in terms of our external reality, we start not only making conscious choices (choices motivated by love instead of fear) but we allow the will of the Universe to take over our lives which means we don’t have to worry and stress about having absolute and complete control of every situation which becomes a huge relief.

Doesn’t it sound nice to be able to relinquish a little bit of the constant worrying our minds throw at us and instead surrender our burdens to an intelligence that is much higher and greater than our own?

When we are able to surrender and trust this higher intelligence we allow destiny and fate to be more prevalent in our lives which usually pops up in the form of “synchronicities” or more commonly known as “coincidence”. When we see lots of synchronicity in our lives we can be assured that our will is starting to match up with the will of the Universe.

“The goal of life is to match your heartbeat to the beat of the Universe” ~ Joseph Campbell

In our complete and utter trust, faith and surrender of our “plan” to the plan of a higher intelligence we will most assuredly see that there is a life that is waiting for us that is above and beyond anything we could have planned for ourselves. Patience is also the key.
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Along the way we can always look for the signs. The signs and synchronicities are everywhere. They come in forms of other people, books you read, something someone says on tv or through music, and they remind us that we are on track.

Also, if we focus on each decision that is presented to us throughout our day and simplify it down to whether our choice is motivated by love or by fear it makes it a little easier when deciding what to do.

Love will always bring us closer to our best selves and ultimately to our best case scenario life. The more rooted in love we become, the more conscious our choices, which means the more we can let go, stop controlling and start giving over to the higher intelligence.

At this higher level of consciousness beyond any preconceived notions and plans of how we want things to go, we converge our “free will” with the will of the universe which ultimately leads us to a good life.

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Floating Fairytale
Suffering
Divine will
Letting go

Abdominal Breathing : Tapping into the Real Power of Breath

Sonali Bansal
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4
Abdominal Breathing : Tapping into the Real Power of Breath

While we are in the womb, we receive oxygen from the placenta & umbilical cord. But the moment we are born, we are on our own. Our body is in a panic state, we gasp for air, and we cry. The lungs fill up with oxygen for the first time & we embark on a new journey.

The significance of the very first breath is beyond comprehension. The ideal situation demands us to replicate the first breath for the rest of our lifetime but unfortunately, we create constrictions with emotions like anxiety & stress thereby distorting the perfect picture.

When we are born, we are not taught how to breathe, but as we grow, we unlearn this perfect ‘How’ to ‘how not’. Yes! The way we are breathing right now is not how we were created to do it. So what is the right way? Yoga has all the answers to these perplexing mysteries of life.

For centuries, the yogic gurus have been focusing on the correct form of breathing. However, there are many ways of breathing in yoga, the one we would be discussing here is a simple way, the one we should practice everyday.

Have you ever noticed a child or an animal breathing? Without any stress or anxiety, s/he raises the stomach on inhalation and flattens the belly with exhalation.

The simple yet effective way to breathe is called abdominal breathing or diaphragmatic breathing.

Adults often lose touch with their natural flow of breath, thereby engaging only in shallow or chest breathing. Reawakening it allows you to tap one of your body’s strongest self-healing mechanisms. Let us first understand the mechanism of abdominal breathing.

How does Abdominal Breathing work?

Our lungs and the intercostal muscles are attached at the end with the diaphragm. These thin, dome shaped muscles works in coordination with the lungs under the influence of breath.

deep_breathing

As we breathe, the rib cage expands out and the diaphragm contracts & is pressed down. It massages the internal organs of the abdomen, lifting the abdominal wall out. This leads to a rise in the abdomen when we breathe.

When we breathe out, the lungs also flatten out, chest contracts and come back to the normal position. The diaphragm position is restored and the abdominal wall that was lifted earlier also comes back to its resting position. This leads to a fall in the abdomen when we breathe out.

This is considered to be the most effective and refined way of breathing. Often suggested during meditation, abdominal breathing is invaluable and reaps long-term benefits.

How do you practice abdominal breathing?

Now, that we know the mechanism of abdominal or belly breathing, this simple technique can be carried out anytime, anywhere. The first and foremost step in the whole process is to keep the attention fixed on the breath, at least initially.

Feel the movement of breathing, as you inhale and exhale. Next lie down on your back if possible. Gently close your eyes and focus on the breathing pattern. Let all your thoughts drift away.

Once you are aware of the breath, gently place your hand on your stomach above the navel. Simply breathe in and out. Feel the movement of the abdomen. The expansions and the contractions hold the secret of healthy living.

Now, place the other hand on your chest. An important thing to observe is that the hand on the chest should not really move up with the movement created by breathing. It can lightly rise up with expansions of the chest but not towards the shoulders.

Also, while you breathe in, inhale through the nose and when you breathe out, exhale like you are blowing a candle through the mouth (you can also gently breathe in and out through the nose). Carry this simple procedure every day for some weeks until it’s ingrained in your mind enough to become your normal breathing style.

Abdominal breathing practice can be done anytime, preferably an hour before or after eating meals. This is the way one can step into the world of perfect breathing filled with peace, tranquility, and happiness.

What are the Benefits of abdominal breathing?

I would ask the question other way round. Which diseases are not covered under this style?Everything falls under the peripheries of this great style. Only if we follow, would we know the real art of living and breathing. When the breath is refined, no diseases can harm you. Here are some of the benefits:

  • Reduces anxiety, stress, and mental disorders.importance-of-breathing
  • Reduces the chances of cancer by 400%
  • Lowers the risk of heart ailments
  • Strengthens the digestive fire and stimulates internal organs to perform better
  • Increases the flow of the blood and thins the blood due to added oxygen by proper breathing
  • Reduces the signs of aging and wrinkles
  • Reduces the risk of diabetes by strengthening the insulin levels
  • Busts insomnia and induces refined sleep patterns
  • Strengthens the immune system, thereby fighting everyday diseases
  • Improves concentration, focus, allowing one to meditate properly

This is not all, there are many other benefits of conducting abdominal breathing. The only thing required is the first step. Once you start walking in the right direction, you would not want to look back.

Often in the race of time, in the battle of the best we forget to realize our true purpose of life. What we were born to do. Finding & fulfilling the purpose of life is the most significant revelation that can ever happen to a human being.

With abdominal breathing, one can slip into relaxed living, thereby allowing the practitioner to drift into meditative pauses and to further find & fulfill their purpose of life.

Let’s begin.

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Deep breathing
Breathe
Breath
Tree Lungs

Four Ways to Turn the Tables on Tyranny

Gary Z McGee
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1
Four Ways to Turn the Tables on Tyranny

“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.” ~ Arundhati Roy

In the wake of yet another tragic example of how the voting system simply does not work, many of us are left scratching our heads asking, “What kind of democracy is this?”

Well, simply put, it isn’t a democracy at all. It’s a tyrannical oligarchy of the worst kind: one that’s disguised as a democracy and hidden behind the smoke and mirrors of political propaganda. Just because governmental decrees are no longer issued by royal fiat but are instead issued by lobbying and propaganda, doesn’t make it any less tyrannical. It is nothing more than inverted totalitarianism.

And it is our responsibility, if we would be proactive citizens, to revert this totalitarianism. The 99% must turn the tables on the 1% or we will not survive as a species on this planet. It’s as simple as that.

Here are four ways we can turn the tables on tyrannical oligarchy.

1.) Mock Plutocracy

“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” ~ Warren Buffett

Wake up to the fact that the plutocrats have created their own economic apartheid. Money is the illusory carrot being dangled between you and the truth.

The way the current oligarchy maintains its vice-grip on power is by making the people believe that it’s all okay because greed is good, and making money is important, and with enough money comes the freedom to do what you want like buying the rules made by government and funding lobbyists who significantly contribute to the laws that Congress writes and passes.

While the world goes through the motions of getting poorer and poorer the moneyed elite are getting richer and richer, to the extent that it is costing people their lives. We must be able to muster the courage to put our foot down and draw a line in the sand. A declaration of emergence is needed.

One way to put our foot down is to mock the plutocratic entities that have a monopoly on power and to ridicule the cult of personality.

Shame is a very powerful psychological motivator. The sooner we make them realize that they have to be morally responsible with their power, the sooner we will be able to bring balance to the world.

And the way we make them realize it is through the stultifying effect of shame.

Like Confucius said, “In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.”

And have no illusions, countries the world over are badly governed. Through a healthy mockery of their power we inadvertently get power over power and turn the tables on the power dynamic.

2.) Defy the Police State

“A primary purpose of the police is to enforce the delusions of those with lots of pieces of green paper. Those without the green papers generally buy into these delusions almost as quickly and completely as those with. These delusions carry with them extreme consequences in the real world.” ~ Derrick Jensen

No longer do police act in the capacity of peace officers. Now they are simply hired thugs of a government that no longer has the best interest of the people at heart. Like George Orwell said, “The capitalist society is a police society where the number one goal is the protection of upper class property.”
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While the governments of the world have been taken over by corporate interests, bankers and special interest groups, our countries have been turned into police states.

Systems of control vainly attempt to keep everything the way it is, inefficient with a controlled obsolescence, so that We the People keep buying things we don’t need so that the rich can keep auctioning elections and buying laws to keep the poor suppressed.

Like Stefan Molyneux said, “To efficiently control the human farm, you need a majority of broken, self-attacking, insecure, shallow, vain and ambitious sheep, forever consumed by inconsequentialities like weight, abs and celebrities –and a minority of volatile, angry and dominant sheepdogs, which you can dress up in either a green (military) or a blue (police) costume and use to threaten and manage the herd.”

Black-booted police state beware, your fascist violence is no match for our creative freedom. The so called “herd” is methodically being populated with wolves in sheep clothing, and we will bite if we’re cornered. We can turn the tables on the police state by mocking it like Pussy Riot mocked Putin, and like Anonymous mocks power.

“History does not repeat itself,” wrote Mark Twain, “but it rhymes.” And we’re here to bring an updated healthy rhyme to your outdated dissonant rhythms. Your watchdog heart and brainwashed brains don’t stand a chance against our compassionate hearts and open minds. Your days are numbered.

Civil disobedience has always been a game-changer and the game is about to change. You might as well just toss those badges in the trash for all they’ll be worth. Better yet, join us. The thin blue line is an illusion at best.

3.) Ridicule the NDAA

“The NDAA is not about protecting us. It is about protecting the state from us. That is why no one in the executive or legislative branch is going to restore our rights. The new version of the NDAA, like the old ones, provides our masters with the legal shackles to make our resistance impossible. And that is their intention.” ~ Chris Hedges

When Adolf Hitler was in power in Germany he was quoted as saying, “What good fortune for governments that the people do not think.” Don’t be an unthinking citizen easily influenced by the likes of Hitler. Become a self-aware proactive citizen instead. Like Frederick Douglas wrote, “Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.” Indeed, the more we know, the more capable we are of remaining free men and women.

As it stands, The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is the most diabolically authoritarian law to ever come down the governmental chute. It’s anti-freedom in the name of security, the most deceptive kind of law.

The NDAA is a greater threat to our national liberty than the terrorism from which it claims to protect us from. It impermissibly impinges on guaranteed First Amendment rights and lacks sufficient protections to meet the requirements of due process.

Simply put, it is an instrument for the government to restrain the people. The constitution used to be an instrument for the people to constrain the government, but with legislation like the NDAA and the Patriot Act, the instrument of the constitution is useless and no longer holds a tune.

It’s past time that we get out there and petitioned against the NDAA. We must ridicule it. We must scorn it to the nth degree. Blaspheme it in the face of the president if need be. Inform people about how corrupt it really is. People will remain ignorant as long as we allow them to be.

Let’s not allow them to be; not only for the sake of their freedom but for our own, as well as for the freedom of our children and our children’s children. People are born to be free. Ridiculing acts like the NDAA, and attempting to abolish them, are ways of safeguarding such freedoms.

4.) Challenge the Mass Surveillance State

“It’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees.” ~ Emiliano Zapata

1984-poster-big-brother In 1970 Operation Shamrock was an NSA program that used warrantless surveillance to spy on private telegrams leaving the US. In 1978 The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was written in by congress to prevent this violation.

But beginning with the adoption of the Patriot Act in 2001 (The government’s backbone-less, scared-stupid response to 9-11.) “the floodgates opened for covert government surveillance not only for the NSA, FBI, CIA and Homeland Security but for hundreds of municipal and state governments, a green light to infiltrate and spy on millions of American citizens” (Renee Parsons).

Now FISA is a dead horse that’s been beaten into non-recognition, because it has been morphed into a vehicle of covert means shielded from effective oversight through countless amendments by the Bush and Obama administrations. And now congress itself is hung-up on the fear-mongering tactics of the War on Terror.

It is now up to us, We the People, to challenge this surveillance state, lest we inadvertently become what George Orwell warned us against in his novel 1984. Leaking information has become the civil disobedience of our age.

The late historian and activist Howard Zinn described the act of civil disobedience as “the deliberate, discriminate violation of law for a vital social purpose… Such acts become not only justifiable but necessary when a fundamental human right is at stake and when legal channels are inadequate for securing that right.”

Even Thomas Jefferson realized it, writing, “If a law is unjust, a man is not only correct to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.” Snowden, Manning, Assange, Jeremy Hammond, and the late Aaron Swartz have all continued the tradition of civil disobedience by revealing the details of global mass surveillance programs.

However, we must remember that it is not so much these government agencies that are calling the policy shots, but the transnational mega-corporations, with their private armies of lawyers and lobbyists, who are pulling the strings of presidents, and getting entire governments to dance to their greedy tune. It’s time to change the tune.

It’s time to interrupt their corrupt dance. It’s time to challenge the powers that be. Nothing short of the survival of the human race is at stake.

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Your empire needs you
Big Brother

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