John Robles

"They are doing everything possible to find new ways to restrict our freedoms, to spy on us, surveil us, to monitor us, to intercept our communications."

In the US, the corporate military industrial complex has completely taken over the Government. After the events of 9\11 the US Constitution has been completely shredded, leaving the American population the most surveilled, subjugated and restricted in the world. What was once considered the land of the free has now become the land of the surveilled, with average Americans afraid to do anything to protest a government which is out of control and looking after its own interests and not those of the people. Despite the almost complete and total surveillance state that has been implemented in the US, defense contractors, firms and governments continue to seek billions of dollars to develop even more means to surveil and control the populace, the classifying of peace activists and anyone who opposes the paradigm as terrorists is something the US populace has grown accustomed to. The Voice of Russia's John Robles spoke to long-time peace activist Bruce Gagnon on these issues and much more.

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John W. Whitehead

“A fool with a tool is still a fool. A fool with a powerful tool is a dangerous fool.” — Michael Fullan, international school reform authority, on the powerful “tool” that is Common Core

As I point out in my new book, A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, there are several methods for controlling a population. You can intimidate the citizenry into obedience through force, relying on military strength and weaponry such as SWAT team raids, militarized police, and a vast array of lethal and nonlethal weapons. You can manipulate them into marching in lockstep with your dictates through the use of propaganda and carefully timed fear tactics about threats to their safety, whether through the phantom menace of terrorist attacks or shooting sprees by solitary gunmen. Or you can indoctrinate them into compliance from an early age through the schools, discouraging them from thinking for themselves while rewarding them for regurgitating whatever the government, through its so-called educational standards, dictates they should be taught.

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Arthur Silber

Imagine that there is a special class of American citizens. This special class is made up of individuals from private business, in fields such as agriculture, finance, the internet, academia, and utility companies. These people have certain responsibilities and, in exchange, they are granted certain privileges. These people are dedicated to providing information that, in their view, might be related in some way to possible threats to "national security." They are encouraged to report all such information they may come across, including information about their fellow employees. Imagine that there are tens of thousands of such "special" people, spread across the entire United States.

Members of the special class are given phone numbers for the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. When they call to report "suspicious" behavior, and when they identify themselves as members of the special class, they know they "will be listened to." Were you recently angered by a decision by your boss, and did you mutter something about wanting "to give that bastard what he deserves"? Or perhaps you were chatting with one of your neighbors, and you casually and unthinkingly remarked that you'd like to see some of the politicians in Washington "get what they have coming." If a member of the special class heard such comments, you may already be known to the State, and in a decidedly unfavorable way.

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