17257--Checkmate in...

Welcome to my 200th post.

I'm not here to name names.

Some folks like their privacy and I'm one to respect that.  I have a friend, though, who was lamenting that he used to be ridiculed for his doomsayer warnings of the growing surveillance state and the shadowy string-pullers behind the thrones.  With the information leaks turning into ever-steadier flows of increasingly public events, though, he's been hearing the vindicating song of people around him waking up and asking, "Didn't you used to say...?"  It's tough not to see the latest stunning news reports of police turning on civilians or governmental corruptions and legal abuses coming to light without pondering the notion of watching it all burn because "I warned them about this years ago.  Why didn't they listen?"  Admittedly, I'm still a bit mystified over Edward Snowden being a hounded whistle-blower.  I haven't heard any revelations attributed to him that haven't come from the conspiracists -- Hi, mom! -- for at least twenty years.  The only thing different in Snowden's case is that he was "on the inside".

Nothing we hadn't foreseen.

Hell, even as far back as Ronald Reagan, it was said that the old man made a fuss about "the mark of the beast" when staffers presented a proposal to push a national citizen ID program through the states using drivers' licenses.  Even though the idea seemed to have been back-burnered at the time, those things never seem to vanish entirely.  Bureaucracy may be notorious for burying things in red tape, but plots and schemes for usurping the rights of the people are easily as complex and tangled.  If a light is shone upon them, they get moved to the shadows to wait till everyone's attention is elsewhere--like turning on the lights in a roomful of cockroaches.  Meanwhile, another maneuver is shifted into action to see how far it can get.  Sounds like I just described the neverending battle of a superhero comic series, doesn't it?  The US government didn't just get awarded the status of "greatest threat to world peace" for nothing.  When I was a kid, people complained that our country acted like it was the world's policeman.  Now, the complaint is that it has become SPECTRE or the Legion of Doom.  Have we let ourselves become so distracted by entertainment and survival that we've let the USA become a terrorist nation behind the veil of news media lies?

"No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is doing is worse than you imagine." ~ William Blum, former US State Dept. employee

It's hard to know where to look.  The Conspiracy is a huge machine with lots of moving parts.  Are politicians inept, evil, greedy, misguided, or just puppets?  Is the problem corporate greed?  Are the bankers who own every damned thing actually evil manipulators?  Of course they are, but if you were part of a family that had built up a multi-generational fortune, you'd probably think you had better ideas about shaping the world than the faceless, impoverished masses, too.  By the time you own your own island and trick out your secluded mansion with an underground lab/lair, the sound of people telling you you've gone too far is just a fly buzzing in the Taj Mahal.

A few years back, there was a fresh fervor over RFID chips.  Electronic implants in you, your bank cards, and your portable electronics would replace money and eradicate all manner of privacies.  Wait!  Flag on the play, as the sports-minded say: even though the implanted chips work, they're not secure and they cause cancer cells to appear around them.  Those realizations seemed to deter things for a while, even with the proposed alternative of wearing RFID chips like jewelry.  The websites were up, but things quieted down.  Plans kept churning.

The most recent announcement in this brave new world order scenario seems to be an RFID chip that the consumer is expected to literally consume, taking a chip-pill every day.  Lining the cows up to shoot themselves in the head is a new twist.  I thought the implants causing cancer would be a bigger deterrent, but that might be why the drug warlords are acquiescing on the marijuana/hemp issue.  This not only allows the masses to fix the cancer easily but also feel like we've made some progress.  Or maybe it only makes some of us feel like we've won something, since it's still a divisive issue that keeps us fighting each other instead of Them.  What a clever distraction.  And turning them into pills?  They can sell the implants and the service on a recurring basis with people volunteering for their own leashes.  I know, you could dismiss it as vague ramblings against faceless plotters, except they're not bothering to hide any of it anymore.  That's when you know they feel secure beyond being stopped.  It's not exactly supervillainous monologuing, but it's damn close.  The RFID chips are from IBM VeriChip and they have a website to tell you all about them.  The chip-pills are coming from Google with the project being headed up by a former DARPA director.  Even though they're willing to say the tech isn't perfect yet, they'll also tell you to just take it.  Or if you don't like that, there's an electronic tattoo tag that's also on the table now.  That one's being pushed as the next trend for the cool kids into concentration camp chic.  Either way, turning the wearer into a walking, trackable, biometric passcode generator seems to be among the favored plans.

They do seem determined to get this stuff attached to our bodies.  Maybe they'll make the jump to nanotech next and put it in our food.  The darkest conception to my thinking (your own personal Hell may vary) would have Them insinuating our bodies with nanotech capable of directly manipulating our pleasure centers, thus exerting more direct control over our decisions and actions than any legislation, drug or media product.  Compliant citizen drones will be rewarded with pleasure--just primal sensations of pleasure.  A world of bliss addicts will do anything They say if They control everyone's next fix.  Fortunately, that's an extreme scenario.  We're not there yet.

Meanwhile, you still have the freedom to choose.  Will you drink the Kool-Aid?  If they stick to the script, you won't be able to "buy or sell without it."  Maybe you'll be carted off to a detention center.  If at all possible, I would like to opt out of being converted into anything soylent. 

How many moves to checkmate?