I’ve had a few people ask me now what I think about this whole Snowden NSA leak and my response has been “who’s surprised?” It’s pretty clear this type of stuff has been going on for a while now and is rapidly evolving in the wrong direction.

Now this is no conspiracy theory blog and I want to stay focused on positive action here, but it does serve us well to know the reality of our situation if we are to focus our energy on living as free human beings. Modern oppression is a mind game. Like any psychological condition, no progress can be made until we admit we have a problem.

As citizens of the United States we must come to grips with the fact that we have been lied to about our freedom. We are no longer the freest people on Earth. Because we have been told so since we were children, this is a tough pill to swallow.

This doesn’t mean that the citizens of the US and other countries who are headed in a similar direction can’t turn things around and gain back the liberties that are quickly being taken from us. But the further we let it go, the more difficult it will be.

I won’t go into too much detail here about how our liberties in the US are being taken away. I figure its pretty obvious at this point. It’s happening in a lot of different ways like using the war on terror to pass legislation such as the Patriot Act and the latest versions of the National Defense Authorization Act—laws which deem the country a perpetual war zone where indefinite surveillance and suspect detention, unwarranted, become legally justified.

There’s also a war going on for who gets to feed and heal us, and they are already working on our right to disagree with what they are doing.

I’ll let you look into that more for yourself. But don’t use up too much of your energy doing so. Some people get all wrapped up in it and they have nothing left for the solution to the problem.

So what’s the solution? This is where a lot of people are stumped. They submit to a system in which they see no reasonable alternative. Something else is always more radical than they would dare try.

The solution isn’t going to be everyone moving out into the woods and building fallout shelters in paranoid states of isolation. It begins with the turning of our energies toward self-education and the evolution of small, resilient systems that create community-scale independence through localized production of basic needs.

Within these networks things like the protection of privacy and the right to choose our own foods and medicines can be more effectively upheld. It doesn’t necessarily mean moving to another location, although in some cases it might.

We’ll do what’s necessary to create resilience with like-minded individuals who refuse to give away their liberties and refuse to say, “nothing to hide, nothing to fear.”

If the credibility of the folks running our government is still in-tact in your mind, its time to wake up. Why are we still looking to these people to feed us, medicate us and educate our children? Do you still believe that your health and freedom is what they are working for? Are they creating a world in which your children or your grandchildren will be healthy and free?

And I mean HEALTHY AND FREE in a way that actually means something. We’re beginning to understand that we’ve inherited the watered-down version. What’s coming is ours to create from the soil up.

TVP