Op-Ed by Brandon Turbeville
Over the years in my own articles, I have used the terms “creeping fascism,” “growing police state,” and “descent into totalitarianism” among others to describe the domestic situation in which we find ourselves. I have often written that, if Americans do not stand up to the myriad of laws being passed by federal, state, and local governments we will soon wake up to find ourselves in an Orwellian police state nightmare.
Now, however, I cringe whenever I read those words in contemporary articles. This is because such warnings are so far past their time they are utterly useless. In fact, they may do more to hurt any potential for change in American society than they do to promote it.
These warnings work on the supposition that the U.S. is not a police state yet but, if things do not change, it will become one in the future. Thus, the readers are left with the impression that, while their freedoms are being taken away, the police state is somewhere down the road – in the future – and they have plenty of time to entertain themselves until it comes knocking on their door with a uniform and a bright flashing neon sign that says “ATTENTION!!! POLICE STATE!!!”
But the police state is not coming – it is here.
The United States is a police state.
Americans may not be able to admit it to themselves but the military soldiers parading on the streets as police officers, police-operated tanks, and horrifying number of imprisoned citizens have spoken for them. The number of Americans brutalized physically and mentally by those who are sworn to “serve and protect” are speaking clearly enough.
The relatively recent concept of “pain compliance,” “rough interrogation,” and “rough rides” coupled with the long held tradition but fast increasing commonality of direct beatings, shootings, murders, and “on-site executions” by police in America have had the final say. Since 2003, police have killed more American citizens than were killed by “insurgents” in Iraq, a country whom the US invaded illegally and subsequently imposed a reign of terror upon.
The United States is now a country where millions of people are locked away in inhuman conditions of confinement, the overwhelming majority of them for crimes in which there was no victim.
From the federal, state, and local levels, behavior previously considered normal and innocuous is now mandated and regulated by a tangled web of government agencies. Of course, any disagreement or defiance of those mandates will result in a clash from the militarized police forces mentioned above and an eventual confinement to a cage where the offender is treated like an animal at best.
In the United States of 2016, children are regularly removed from parents by the State simply because of the parents’ economic status, political beliefs, or methods of upbringing. Surely no country that imprisons as many people as America, “enforces” oppressive law with military-style troops, and snatches children away from loving homes simply because those homes are not the ideal model of what the state desires can be called a free country.
With the recent increase of PC fascism enveloping the nation, even free speech and expression, no matter how ineffectual, is becoming regularly silenced by the long arm of the law.
Children are being routinely arrested for acting out in elementary school while citizens learn that their first “duty” in America is to “obey” police authority lest they be subject to brutal takedowns, torture, and possibly death.
This is the America many warned about years ago when they protested the militarization of police but were met with responses citing “officer safety” and “growing crime rates.” It is the America they warned about when they opposed the drug war but were met with programmed responses of a “drug-addicted youth” and “drug-related crimes.” It is the America many could see coming a mile away when the State-sponsored threat of terrorism was used to justify any and all means of “keeping us safe” and providing “security” to the frightened citizens of the world empire.
Those warnings were ignored and now we have the result.
It is now time to call the United States what it is – a police state.
Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is the author of seven books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 650 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s radio show Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. His website is BrandonTurbeville.com He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.
I saw it first hand in 2007 when drugs were planted in my car
How did they grow in there? What kind of soil did you use? Did you have a watering system hooked up (maybe from the windshield washer tank)?
Sounds like you have some first hand experience with planting drugs there dummy.
Dana King: A perfect example of an uneducated American fool, that just has to be mean and condescending at every opportunity (because he/she/it can hide behind a computer screen). Dana allows for no humor. Dana is programmed to be unhappy. Dana is a mouth breather….
So your arrogant and immature reply to Bradley is OK, getting called out on it is not. Got it.
Are you all there?
There were various absurd and abusive police encounters over the years as I worked nights, but it was an incident in San Diego that finally motivated me to just apply for Social Security Disability and quit the pretense of being able to cope with their crimes. I could go into details, but it just makes me sick inside to think about them and what they do to peoples’ lives.
I would suggest we have been a police state since the Whiskey Rebellion. We have also been a fascist state since that time. George Washington used force of government to further his corporate / business goals.
This is yet another simple illustration of ‘following the money’. We have seen Rome fall, Athens. History is littered with cases of our greatest aspirations laying in rubble behest to the ideas of money and scarcity.
“Do not be afraid of mistakes, providing you do not make the same one twice.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
Have we not learned, yet? Do we need to continually return to this exact same point, to attempt learning it yet again? History it seems is bound to repetition.
I keep asking, “how can we fix that”? Each time, I can only conclude we need to evolve, not revolve. If we have a ‘revolution’, we’ll revolve. That means we will again return to right here. We’ll face the same damn problems all over, yet again.
Are we as human beings not exhausted from spinning our gears and getting nowhere?
Are we as human beings not worth so much more, so much better?
Are we as human beings incapable of setting aside fear, hate, division to unite and create a better way to live for all in equanimity?
Again, “how can we fix that”, I ask.
Si vis pacem tranquillam agere. Pacificus, pacem facit actione.
If you want peace, act peaceful. Peaceful action creates peace.
To do so we all must understand there is no scarcity. The universe provides more than enough abundance for all within itself, far more than enough actually. The Hermetics have an expression, “so above, so below”. What is meant is that if the universe provides for planets, planets provide for life. That same expression is also used another way, “know one, know all”. In that context it means that if you know one human for example, you know all humans.
If you take heed of Delphi’s motto, “know thyself”, then you’re knowledgeable of your fellow human beings. Do you like being happy? Not too far a stretch then, concluding others do as well. Do you need to eat? Again, others do as well. Money and scarcity are now, dead ideas. They serve no purpose to but enslaving all human beings, dragging us all down the path of fear, hate, violence. They are useless in fixing any of our problems. Look at history to understand why.
Let us liberate ourselves. Let us start fixing our problems and not cowering, consenting to have more/any problems foisted on us. Let us evolve.
You eluded to the answer ever so slightly in your last line but never really touched on it prominently enough. Much of our problems are caused by those who seek power and wealth at the expense of others. History does not repeat itself rather men do, for our history is of US is it not? In spite of the previous failures in conquest and dominance these greedy people always think THEY ARE DIFFERENT, thus perpetuating the disaster all over again.
Success in fighting this evil is in the small battles. Like rust, if it begins at all, it is in its nature to GROW. We must show diligence to fight any sign of this cancer, when it is small, no matter where it is, because we already know what it will be like when it becomes big. We are seeing it now!
It is about time the alternate press caught up to reality. Now we need the alternate press to realize that WWII never ended and the promised radioactive nightmare of WWIII is already upon US with all the radioactive events that have occurred to date and the ones that are ongoing. When the alternative media moves into the present tense; we will truly have an “alternative media” and begin the great awakening by such informed viewpoints. It is the duty of the alternative press to lead its readership into this arena of actuality so that informed citizens can act properly no matter what happens. Kudos to the author of this article.
Well done, Brandon!
All my life I’ve voted for mostly “third-party” candidates, whoever I thought was least likely to further damage the nation with more freedoms lost. All that time, I’ve had to contend with the “wasted vote” meme because I wasn’t voting for someone who “could win”. So now, all you folks out there in the Land of America who were voting for the Democrats and Republicans who have turned us into this police state: who was wasting their vote?
its a corporation and you are property reaperishere.weebly
Not… US. is a nuclear fascist state that has been playing blood suckers for too long with nuclear state terrorism. The second your Congress pressed your “president” to equip Ukraine with lethal force – NUKES – I think you made a very sincere statement about yourselves AND your government. I tell you folks right now, if this ends into a nuclear Holocaust you will be blamed for this since you played with nuclear terror for 70 years now. Isn’t that long enough for anyone on this planet to despise every American on this planet. You let this madness append pay for it.
Nice, comment about the US foreign policy on an article about the US domestic policy.
Finally! I’ve been “cringing” for several years now! I thought reporters were being paid by the words they DON’T USE… like Now, Currently, IT IS! Thank you for finally coming out and saying it as it is! As long as they are lulled into a false sense that something can ‘still be changed’ within the system, we will vote our worst votes and still be held accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the World, for it is all done in the Name of WE the American People. There is no alternative to Fascism except revolution!
Yes, I’ve heard those rumors! I find them most disheartening…and by God, you don’t hear that pap from THIS AMERICAN! Your conclusion is not wrong, all I can do is fight against Fascism in hopes of a Direct Democracy…until we have a “More Perfect Union” to focus all our efforts upon! We can’t do this without some mercy, which is rarer than, well, clean air, clean food and clean water!!!
America looks more like a Soviet Union, in a privatized form..
I wish I could share this, but we did not invade Iraq illegally.
I’m not sure that any invasion should be called “legal.”
ummm, yes, yes you did. EOS
So the fact there is criminal activity means that all citizens can be unjustifiably beaten, murdered or otherwise treated with contempt?
“We need the police to remind us of social boundaries that we are NOT supposed to cross.”
Irrelevant. The problem is that there is no one to remind the POLICE which boundaries they are not supposed to cross.
As long as police are not held accountable for breaking the law, we will be living in a police state. There are two sets of laws. One for us, and one for them.
Police State? Yes, and will only get worse.
Glad I don’t live in Police State America
Fuck America – The 4th Reich