Day 25 of my Boycott of TSA and the Airlines
Labor Day is about recognizing the economic and social contributions of all us workers. To celebrate I’d like to honor all the people who worked and risked and are still doing so everyday by creatively coming together with powerful intention and noble purpose to expose the crimes of our government on its own citizens.
I would like to appreciate and take a deep bow to the many thousands who made it possible for me to learn about the following US atrocities inside our own borders which have been blamed on “terrorists” or stooges or innocent people.
I would also like to honor the victims of these government conspiracies that had fatal repercussions for so many innocent people. And I’d like to apologize to all affected as a citizen and resident of this country in the hope that my concern and hope may help these individuals and communities heal.
When there is murder without justice, time heals not a bit.
Waco. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/waco/
Oklahoma City. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmHnePnaR6E
9/11. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvay28lZiHU
Iran-Contra. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYikJv8uIpw
There are many more, but these were front of mind. This is not new, it’s one of the oldest stories in the world—filled with drugs, prostitutes and lies and many mysterious deaths.
I think we’re just now waking up to the fact that we can change it. I feel our future requires we take these lies and make them true.
How Americans can become more globally competitive and unstoppable leaders.
I love the days when I wake up feeling how simple it could be to evolve the world and create peace, sustainability and the pursuit of prosperity. There’s no doubt to me nature’s impulse is toward flourishing. The impulse of nature is toward cooperation too–even the roots of trees work in communication and communion together.
There’s more than one way to rule the world, if that’s what our government insists on doing. What about applying some of Dale Carnegie’s methods in our foreign policy. Grandma’s wisdom agrees–you catch more flies with sugar than you do with vinegar. It starts at home.
It’s crazy of me to think somehow as Americans we must become less bold; we must stop wanting to dominate. There are too many people who believe that’s our mission, our right and even our duty and I’ll never convince them all otherwise.
What could happen though that could make a great difference is we change our tactics on how it’s achieved.
If before coming into my classroom I required all my students to get scanned and gave them pat downs, what kind of message am I sending them? Actually I understand there are some inner-city schools now run in this way. Certainly this has been an avenue of the desperate parent who can’t afford to send their derelict child to a kind of military academy, but what happens when we treat everyone with suspicion, contempt, distrust?
Anyone who’s gone to high school knows we become influential when others like us, not fear us. People like people who like them back. The bully is never an influential figure, he’s just the bully—you avoid him, conspire covertly against his interest, try to rally against him, and if all else fails, you tattle on him.
This is what’s happening to us now, lots of folks are trying to tattle on US. They’re screaming at us that our corporations are contaminating their drinking water and that our so-called free trade is crippling their economies. They’re crying because we make crucial global decisions that directly affect huge populations unilaterally, or nearly so.
So let’s say our role in the world is to rule and police the globe as supreme leaders. What kind of rulers do we want to be? Do we treat our global or national citizen with mistrust brandishing firearms, provoking, using strong man tactics? Do we decide we’ve had enough when there’s a camera on every street corner or when guards with machine guns are on permanent patrol?
Who are they protecting us against?
As you go to work each day, as you sit in the plane, as you shop–are you feeling regularly threatened by the people around you?
Tyrannical leaders are paranoid and trigger-happy. They keep people in dungeons without trail and use abuse and violent threats to coerce. They empower themselves at every occasion with more money and control. Is that US?
I don’t feel afraid enough to allow my civil liberties or others’ to be severed, do you? I’m more concerned about cancer from GMOs than I am about a terrorist hijacking my flight—and that’s not because the TSA is using obscene procedures.
Just as in a classroom I know there are only ever a few bad apples and their influence is minimal unless you start treating them all as bad apples. The correction does not come in a banishing or slapping of the wrists. It’s more of a “keep your friends close and your enemies closer”–and I think our government knows this and applies it, along with a host of unconscionable activities.
But the natural moral course is the one that most contributes to the flourishing of all of life. Surveillance, intimidation, suspicion, control, abuse, fear, silence, oppression. None of these describe flourishing yet they all describe US. Maybe we are among the “most free” of the world, but it would seem that’s really nothing much. I believe we can do much better.
What’s wanting to emerge is a new kind of leadership. If it’s our role to lead the world into democracy, let’s test it at home first. Then let’s invite other’s to participate, even the bullies. And if any one of our neighbors is feeling so threatened by our freedom that they must war on US, then let’s have a good DEFENSE system in place. Let’s not assume everyone is a terrorist until proven otherwise. Let’s treat everyone fairly, as we would want to be treated in their home country.
We can’t be the kind of leaders who motivate, uplift and inspire while demonstrating disrespect, dishonesty and denial.
If we must or want to be the leaders, then let’s use the persuasive tactics our grandparents taught us—kindness, generosity, humility, friendship, laughter, persistence, patience.
Criminals and conspirators walk among those in power by the scores and nothing is done about it, but as law-abiding citizens we are treated as criminals in a dozen ways.
Transparency, accountability, justice, equity–these are supposed to be our shared American values. How can we offer them to others if we haven’t been cultivating them ourselves? Let’s take these lies and make them True!
It’s starts at home. And there’s something rotting in our House!
Today I’d like to invite you to honor with me all those who labored to bring us Truth not Tartuffery.
*Tartuffery–behavior becoming of a person who hypocritically pretends to be authentically pious or moral. As in “What Tartuffery we allow in our leaders!”
Follow this blog for ONE more day, you brave soul, and really consider if all this Terrorist Watching is making you feel any safer.
If you think there might be something rotting in OUR House that needs our attention, simply in the comments section write:
Not in my House!
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You call for a good defense system in place. Don’t you understand that all the “oppressive policies” you rail about are part of that defense system? Was there no Sept 11, no Columbine, no Oklahoma City, and more? Those who complain about oppressive govenment policies are usually the first to complain about lack of government protection for we citizens.
Definitely NOT IN MY HOUSE!
What a courageous compilation of facts and eye-openers, which we all sense, but never saw compiled in one place. “It’s more of a ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’–and I think our government knows this and applies it, along with a host of unconscionable activities…………………what’s wanting to emerge is a new kind of leadership………” I am holding my breath for sure –
Thanks, Mishelle, for stepping into the trenches to unearth and compile all these truths for us! Warm greetings, Ilse.
Not in my House!
Leo, thanks for your comment. 9/11 and Ok City were inside jobs, well-documentet– terrorism is our own government’s method of keeping us fighting it. By “defense” I meant just that, if we are attacked on our land we should defend ourselves–we as regular citizens as well. I do believe our government has needlessly oppressive policies–like those used at TSA, and I feel plenty “protected” by our government. More like over-protected. My big complaint is with the LIES and Hypocrisy–did you watch any of those links? Should they be able to get away with cold-bloded murder of innocent people in order to “protect” us from themselves?
Ilse you are so dear thank you! Trisha dear trooper so much thanks to you too!
Mishelle. What do you mean by “inside jobs?” Surely you are not saying that the government commited these heinous crimes? There are terrorists out there, I have faced them as a diplomat and as a businessman. In fact while running a company in Turkey I had a former Kurdish “terrorist” as my body guard.
By the way did I ever tell you about the Franciscan monastic order in Nebraska that was the real perpetrator of President Lincoln´s assassination?
Leo I do believe there are terrorists out there! And I believe we are training and supplying more of them every day. And yes that’s what I’m saying, the evidence brought forward by whistleblowers is overwhelming.
You were mentioning Syria last week in one of your posts–this might interest you: http://www.infowars.com/eyewitnesses-reveal-daraya-massacre-carried-out-by-u-s-backed-rebels/
You wondered if we should intervene–I believe that’s the intention we’ve had.
Would they all be better off without US? I ask myself that all the time–here’s an interesting doc that says “no”
http://www.theworldwithoutus.com/
And no Leo I don’t know your story, do tell! Or is that a joke?!
No, it was a popular conspiracy theory after the assassination of Lincoln. I found it to be the most absurd of the many conspiracies blamed for Lincoln’s death and still use it as a fine example of conspiracy theories run amok.
Leo, what kind of proof would you need to bring it out of the realm of “conspiracy theory”? How about hoards of witnesses and whistleblowers? Check out those links!
Mishelle. I have read the various claims that Sept 11 was the work of some mysterious cabal, or the US Government itself, and not by the crew that actually did the deed. Ditto for Oklahoma City, the assassination of JFK and so on. I am confident the Sept 11 attack was done by the people on board the planes with some help from their Muslim fringe friends. Oklahoma was the work of I believe his name was McVeigh. And JFK was shot by Oswald. But there are those who still believe Obama was not born in the USA and is a secret Muslim. There are those who will believe just about any crazy idea let loose on a gullible public. Why one could speculate why had I left my job in the World Trade Center before the attack? Could I have been involved? I did work on the very floor where one of the planes hit the building.
Leo, so you don’t believe anything Susan Lindauer and others are saying about 9/11?
Mishelle. I was close enough to the Pentagon to hear the explosion when the plane hit it. I once worked on the very floor where one of the planes hit the bulding. The whole event was quite vivid to me. I am certain the deed was done by the Muslim fanactics who died in the act.
Mishelle. In the 1990s while the US was bombing Yugoslavia into submission my partner at our office in the DC suburbs was on the phone each day with his parents in Belgrade making sure they were still alive. His mother was Muslim and his father Christian. We saved thousands of Muslims from death. I was running a company in Turkey when we rescued Kuwait from an Iragi invasion One result of our effort was to revive a Turkish far left group that used the US invasion as a pretext to murder Americans running companies in Ankara, my colleagues, and perhaps I was on a hit list. I know of two who were murdered. And what did we get for rescueing Muslims in Bosnia and wresting Kuwait from it Iraqi invaders? September 11.
Leo,
http://www.infowars.com/colorado-public-television-presents-911-explosive-evidence-experts-speak-out/
Mishelle. I just saw this program or one like it on PressTV, the Iranian government´s “international” news service in English. PressTV is nothing more than a slick propaganda machine and it will run anything that slams the USA: Apparently the gist of this is that the World Trade Center buildings came down not because of the fires from burning jet fuel but by bombs placed on the main structual supports. Of course this would mean that the plane highjackers were simple dunces who were led into their plot by mysterious manipulators. These same myserious actors had to time the blasts from the bombs to coincide with the jet crashes. And of course the only people capable of such a dastardly deed are US government secret agents.
Baloney!