Stop Telling Me To Vote!

Every election cycle I have to deal with so many people asking me if I voted and then being shocked, angry or disappointed with me when I say that I don't vote. Maybe I should just say I voted for the Tea Party, is that better? At least I voted right? I have no problem with you voting if that is what you really want to do but I have my reasons for not endorsing this political circus with my vote. I have a right to decline participation in a political system that I believe is corrupted by money, that forces cultural programming and propaganda on us everyday, that is assisting corporate interests in the looting of our wealth and resources, that supports constant wars and military occupation all over the world, that is gradually dumbing down America and has a strong hand in shaping the New World Order.

Voting in America is about giving in to one of two manufactured options. Both options have continually failed us, over and over again, yet we continue to support a political system that cleverly feeds on one of our last bits of freedom; the right to resist the mechanisms of powers that be. Voting is not the last right we have left, so stop telling me it is. We have the right to cognitive liberty, to think for ourselves and act according to those ideas and principles. Every election cycle the machine chews us up, gets us all riled and agitated and then spits us out, excited for a fight and the promise of change that will never come. We are led to believe that our vote gives us a seat behind the steering wheel, but it doesn't. We aren't fighting the machine by voting, we are becoming it.

Our politicians are illusionists, highly skilled at distorting the field of reality. They playfully distract Americans from whats going on behind the scenes, funded by their corporate sponsors. You are constantly being asked to vote against the other party and not for what you believe would be better for our country. You may ask yourself, "what happened to the man I voted for?" or excuse his failures by blaming the opposition of his political rivals but don't give in to the illusion. Do you really think that not voting is what the other political party wants you to do? Are you that afraid that you would vote against your best interests just because you think the other party is more dangerous? Make no mistake, Democrat or Republican, the machine is tethered to corporate interests, big business and the banking elite. There is no great champion of the people, there is no catalyst for change in the two-party system, there is only the illusion that your vote makes a difference and that your candidate will make things better. The masters of political manipulation, the alchemists of internet and television propaganda; they know how to transform opinion and bypass reason, so that they can grab hold of our emotional cords and pull us into their illusion.

Do you ever ask yourself why you really vote? If its because you actually researched your preferred candidate, agree with their policies and know they aren't receiving large amount of campaign contributions from big business, then you are a rarity. I think most people vote like I used to, because they are afraid or angry. Everyday, fear is propagated through a narration of carefully selected emotional issues. We get angry when we feel that others want to take our power away and afraid when we think we are actually loosing that power. We are being played against each other, while they pull off the greatest heist in history and shape the future of our world. We are toys in their game and intuitively we know it, but instead we deny that other people can control our fate. They are playing for the end game but we are playing battle to battle. Refusing to vote and working to expose the false narrative is a form of culture jamming. We will tear down the layers of illusion and display the political beast, naked and transparent, for all to see.

When you vote, you endorse this system and feed the very monster you want to transform. You have a right to do so, but if you choose not to, you may be guilted into relinquishing your right of refusal or convinced to vote for the "lesser of two evils," but is that what you really want? There is no longer such a thing as a strategic vote, the machine will move forward in the same direction, regardless of which party holds office. The only thing that really makes sense when you see through the lies? Don't vote. Or at least don't vote for the politicians who support the two-party system that you know you oppose. There is a slow rise of alternative candidates who we all know won't win, but that vote is a vote is a form of resistance as well. Whether you vote your conscious or choose not to vote at all, the most important thing is that we continually write, produce art and music, spread the word, work to better our communities and if you have the stomach for it run for local office. Do what you can to disrupt and subvert the mainstream cultural institutions which make this machine work. This is a War we live in and its not Republican vs. Democrat, as you may have been led to believe. The sides are drawn and even though we don't have the same resources that they do, we can still tear down the illusion piece by piece.

Obama Conspiracy Theories - Manufactured Distraction

I have to admit right off the bat, I am not a strong supporter of President Obama, but I think that many of the Obama conspiracy theories that are floating around are ridiculous. The mainstream Obama conspiracy theories are a manufactured distraction to keep people from evaluating the real consequences of this Administrations domestic and foreign policies. By providing the public with an easy to understand and easy to spread conspiracy, the public becomes unable to look at long term policy effects and instead focuses intensely and passionately on manufactured disinformation. Here is a breakdown of what I consider the top six Obama conspiracy theories:

1. Obama Is Not An American Citizen - Everyone has probably heard of the Birthers by now. There is a large group of people in the United States that think Obama is Kenyan and some think he is British. They charge that Obama has a forged birth certificate and fake social security number. 
2. Obama The Facist/Socialist/Communist - Many people have been comparing Obama to Hitler and the Nazi Party. Also popular is the comparison to Stalin and the Communist Party. Followers of these conspiracy theories often use the terms Socialism, Fascism and Communism interchangeably and incorrectly. 
3. Obama The Radical Muslim - The claim is that Obama is a Muslim and a supporter of Islam. People also claim that Obama wants Iran to develop a nuclear weapon to attack Israel. 
4. Obama Is The Anti-Christ Or A Satan Worshiper - Some Christian's have made the claim that Obama is the Anti-Christ. Many quote scripture and try and connect passages to Obama life and presidency. Some use backwards audio of his speeches as evidence that he is secretly praising Satan. 
5. ObamaCare - Many claims about the new Health Care bill have been incorrect or exaggerated. The most popular were the claims that Obama wanted death panels that would equal euthanasia for the elderly and that new laws would require people with public health insurance to be implanted with a microchip. 
6. Obama Concentration Camps - Conspiracy theorists claim that Obama is using FEMA to build concentration camps to detain or imprison political activists. Some claim that he will declare Martial Law and many people will be systematically arrested and placed in these camps. 

Obama's rise to presidency was driven by a modern day cult of personality. Obama's campaign and the mass media managed to brand Obama as a paradigm changing hero or savior. Before Obama was elected I wrote a long essay on his stated policies and how I thought they would be twisted or completely ignored when he was elected. So far much of those warnings have come true. Obviously Obama did not pull our troops out of the Middle East, end the U.S. use of torture, close the Guantanamo prison or end domestic surveillance. Many of the Bush administrations policies have been continued by the Obama administration, including an extension of the Patriot Act and a continuation of the War On Terror.

The problem is that many people seem to be ignoring concrete evidence that the Obama administrations policies reflect the Bush administrations policies. Democrats and Republican's tend to take different approaches in policy implementation and media coverage, but the left arm always works a little different than the right arm. The completely ridiculous Obama conspiracy theories do nothing more than distract people from seeing the long term goals of the Republocratic body. The party that does not hold the presidency always works with the other party to reverse the pendulum's swing. Switching back and forth between Republican and Democratic parties is necessary to maintain the illusion of real choice.

Let's Address the Obama Conspiracy Theories:

1. Obama is not an American Citizen
More than a quarter of Americans think Obama was not have been born in the U.S. Many of the claims circulating the media, email chain letters and website have been discredited or proven to be false. Sure, there may be a possibility that Obama's documents are forged, but even if they are, the Birther movement is a dead end path. Not only can nothing be done to prove Obama isn't an American citizen, focusing on this aspect is a waste of resources and time. Obama is already in office and isn't going anywhere, so regroup and refocus. The Birther movement really just makes more legitimate conspiracy theorists look crazy and does a lot of damage to real conspiracy researchers.

2. Obama the Facist/Socialist/Communist
Everyone from mainstream media pundits to tea-party protesters throw out political terms such as Fascism, Socialism and Communism when attacking Obama and his administration, without regard to the actual meaning of these political terms. These terms are distinct political movements and can not be used interchangeably. They are being used merely for shock value, without any intelligent argument to back up the claims. Painting a Hitler mustache on a photo of Obama is nothing but a shock tactic. Once again, this approach makes people look crazy, out of touch and ignorant. Obama does have some socialist policies, but he is not a socialist.

3. Obama the Radical Muslim, Satan Worshiper and Anti-Christ
It wasn't long ago that conspiracy theorists were claiming that George Bush was the Anti-Christ. There has always been a connection between the secretive Skull and Bones organization, Bohemian Grove and the theory of Satan worshiping people in power. The Satanic Panic of the 1980's turned out to be media-hyped hysteria with claims that playing certain music records backwards would unveil hidden messages and playing games like Dungeons and Dragons could lead to recruitment into Satanic circles.

The backwards audio claim today is that Obama's slogan "Yes We Can" is "Thank You Satan" when played backwards. Backwards audio claims are one of the crazier conspiracies out there. "Yes we can" is basically the English equivalent of "Sí, se puede," a United Farm Workers motto reportedly created by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. There is also no proof that Obama is a radical Muslim, attends mosque, studies the Koran, prays to Mecca or observes any Islamic holidays. Obama was not sworn into office using a Koran instead of a Bible. Obama appears to be a religious pluralist, which scares any fundamentalist because religious pluralism is, generally, the acceptance of various religions.

Religious conspiracy theories are some of the worst because they blatantly make-up "evidence" to support their claims. There is a major difference between looking at facts and concluding that there is the possibility of a conspiracy and fabricating entire scenarios to support a conspiracy theory. Religious conspiracy theories are mostly based around lies and false statements being used to manipulate people through their religious views.

4. ObamaCare
At the height of the ObamaCare craze there were a lot of blatantly false accusations circulating the internet, mostly propagated by the far right. End of life counseling turned into death panels that would murder senior citizens or forcefully pull the plug on life support systems. A registry for implanted medical devices like pacemakers and hip implants turned into the forced micro-chipping of anyone who had public health care option with fears of RFID chips with GPS tags. There were claims that the new law would require hiring 16,500 new IRS agents who would be armed to enforce mandatory health insurance laws. A provision that required fast food chains to disclose real nutritional information, including calorie counts turned into a law that would dictate what we could and could not eat. These were just a few of the far fetched conspiracy theories that were proven false. What no one seemed to bother doing was to read the parts of the bill being referred to, such as the "death panel" section, and see for themselves what the bill was trying to do. These days it seems to be easier to believe the fear being propagated by the media and the social meme's, than to do a little research on your own.

5. Obama Concentration Camps and Martial Law
There seems to be a persistent theory that Obama is using FEMA to set up concentrations camps that will imprison American citizens when he decides to declare martial law and become dictator. I remember similar claims when Bush was president and he never declared martial law and didn't become a dictator. There are other things that we should be focusing on, like how Obama has authorized the assassination of U.S. citizens. This is just a continuation of a policy that president Bush implemented, but maybe we were too focused on the FEMA concentration camps to realize it at the time.

Fear of unconfirmed possibilities, which are purposefully being stoked by the mainstream media, distracts us from the actual policies that have been approved and implemented. When we focus on far-fetched conspiracy theories we become blind to the the real conspiracies that mold our foreign and domestic policy. Its time to stop spreading manufactured meme's and dig deeper into the confirmed attacks on our constitutional rights, our liberty and what it really means to be free.

The Internet Take Over - A False Flag Is Coming

Our privacy and freedom of information on the internet is under attack.  We've been waging a war for at least a decade to keep the internet free from government regulation and keep our activities private.  The Bush Administration cracked the wall of our defenses and the Obama Administration is blowing a hole right through it. The war is being fought for Net Neutrality and it looks like we might be loosing.

The Obama Administration wants to know what we are doing on the internet without obtaining a court order.  Joe Lieberman has introduced a bill that would give the President an Internet Killswitch that could disconnect our access to the internet "in case of emergency" and set up a National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications that would spy on ISP's and private websites so that it could share that information with the government.  Google is also working on a project called Recorded Future with the CIA.  Recorded Future will use analytics to monitor internet chatter, find "invisible" connections between people and events and predict future events.  Obama's head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Cass Sunstei, proposed government infiltration of online groups and websites that talk about "false conspiracy theories."  There is also a push for the FCC to reclassify Broadband service as a Telecommunication Service, which would allow the government more control over regulating the internet.

Look out for a series of false flag cyber attacks on the United States being used as an excuse to implement stricter controls over what we can see, hear and talk about online.  The internet is really the last media platform that hasn't yet been taken over by regulatory commissions and used to manipulate public opinion.  We still have a degree of freedom on the internet and it should stay that way.  Most people thought the internet would be safe from censorship because of its very nature, but we know other countries such as China, highly restrict their internet content.  Cyber-Security is a national concern, but it is not an excuse for censorship and regulation.  Keep that in mind next time you see a story about internet vulnerability or cyber attacks on the United States.

9/11 Conspiracy Theories - False Flags and the Strategy of Tension

I think a healthy amount of skepticism for the official 9/11 story is a good thing.  I have my own idea of what may have happened but I don't have any hard evidence and neither do any other 9/11 conspiracy theorists.  We may never know what really happened, or why, but we can look at the evidence we have access to and come to our own conclusions.  9/11 conspiracy theories range from what I think is a plausible theory, that our government knew about the terrorist plot and let it happen, to the less plausible "no plane theory" where planes didn't even hit the towers.  There is a wide range of theories but one thing everyone can agree on is that the U.S. government not only withheld the truth from us, they also covered up a massive amount of evidence that would have helped independent investigators piece together that truth.  I find it incredibly annoying to be barraged by most 9/11 conspiracy theorists, who always seem so completely certain that their theory is correct.  If you don't believe what they believe, you must be crazy, a disinformation agent, brain-washed or just plain stupid.  Then there are believers who think everything happened exactly the way our government told us that it happened and if you don't believe what they believe...  well you must be insane.

Is the official story true or is one of the many conspiracy theories true?

I admit that I have no idea what really happened on September 11th but I do have a theory.  Like many other countries, the United States has a long history of false flag operations and I think 9/11 was one of them.  In the 1950's, Iranians working for the CIA helped stage false flag operations to overthrow the Iranian government.  In the 1960's, Operation Northwoods was a plan to hijack planes and stage terrorist acts in the United States, with the purpose of starting a war with Cuba.  Also in the 60's, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was a false flag operation that was used to justify the start of the war in Vietnam.  F.B.I. officials new about the 1993 WTC Bombing beforehand and allowed it to happen.  Two years later, Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City, which I believe was also a false flag operation.  In response to the Oklahoma city bombing, Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.  Following the September 11th attack, it was found that the chemicals used in the Anthrax Attacks on Capital Hill could be traced back to military stock in Ft. Detrick.  The 9/11 attack was used as an excuse for the USA Patriot Act, a War on Terror, the War in Iraq and a systematic attack on our individual rights.  9/11 proved to be the biggest and most effective false flag operation in U.S. history, allowing a gigantic leap forward in the establishment of a Totalitarian Police State.

Image from The Vigilant Citizen

The Strategy of Tension uses fear, disinformation, false flag attacks, psychological warfare and other divisive tactics to force a change in public opinion. We see it happening everyday in the mass media.  Fox News feeds the public a constant flow of disinformation and propagates the false left/right political dichotomy.  All the other major news outlets do the same, although they are more subtle.  Talking points and single phrases quickly become viral in the mass media.  Suddenly everyone seems to be saying the same thing, using the exact same words to describe a media event.  Stories are latched onto and quickly spun, to instill fear, distrust or hatred against "the other."  The Underwear Bomber, Time Square Bomber and Jihad Jane were all part of the governments campaign of psychological warfare to boost Patriot Act support.  They want us to think there is a gigantic network of terrorists and that we need to give up all our constitutional and fundamental rights to fight them.  We can't go around blaming Bush or Obama for these problems, there is a larger organizational effort going on.  Placing the blame on one individual or a small group of individuals ignores the larger network that allows these things to happen and continues to prop up the two-party political machine.  They will continue to divide, dis-inform and conquer us, unless we stop playing the red/blue game.

Image from Revista Amauta

The War on Terror is not a real war, in the sense that we have a well defined enemy and a goal for defeating that enemy.  It was designed to be an open ended conflict that could potentially be fought forever.  America can define whoever she wants as a Terrorist organization or a Terrorist state, including our own citizens.  It's a giant, twisted psychological campaign to break us down, take away our rights and promote a totalitarian police state.  Instead of evaluating the root of our international relations with the middle east, we invade it, destroy it and kill people.  The United States and our partners are intentionally making the problem worse so the world can take bigger steps towards a New World Order.

Yes, I have a theory, but who is to say that it's correct.  Whatever happened is probably way more complicated than we can imagine.  What I do know is that it's okay to theorize and think about narratives that are alternative to what we are officially told is the truth.  Our government, like every other government, has a long history of lying to it's citizens.  Every government has factions that work behind the scenes, they withhold information because of national security, they do things that we don't think is right and if they think they are going to get caught, they cover it up.  I think it's safe to say that our government hasn't changed suddenly, becoming honest and transparent sometime in the last 20 years.  What really happened on 9/11,?  I don't know, but I don't believe the official story because I know something is wrong.

The Fundamental Rights - Cognitive Liberty

Everyone should have the fundamental right to think for themselves and control their own consciousness. As long as a person is not harming another, we all have the right to Cognitive Liberty. If Neuroethics tells us anything, it's that:

• All people should be free to alter their own consciousness.
• No one should prevent anyone else from altering their own consciousness.
• No one should alter another person's consciousness against their will.

Everyday this fundamental right is threatened. We are constantly manipulated by the mass media, marketing and advertising, corporate opinion shapers, public education and our own government. It all starts when we are young, public education no longer teaches us how to think for ourselves but instead teaches us that we can't think, so we better ask an experts opinion. An increasing number of children are being forced against their will to take prescription drugs like Ritalin, so that they are allowed to attend school. Neuromarketing technologies give advertisers the ability to test sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective response to marketing stimuli. Advertising is everywhere, we grow up consuming our favorite brands. The news supports the artificial left-right political paradigm. We argue in talking points and sound bites. There is a narrow cognitive path set before us and we are herded in line.

We don't even have the right to alter our own consciousness with entheogens, like humans have done since the very beginning. The War on Drugs isn't just a war on the ingesting of physical substances but a War on consciousness itself. Its about controlling what mental states we are permitted to experience. They want to narrow the expectable range of conscious experience so that we are easily directed and molded into fine, unquestioning citizens. Entheogenic substances are thought to facilitate sacred and spiritual experiences, yet those in control demonize and restrict access to mental states that risk waking people up or at the very least, expanding their consciousness a little.

This is evolutionarily suicidal for the species. This War is a denial of our very nature. We all seek intoxication and altered states of consciousness because we intuitively know something is wrong with the way we have been programmed to think. It is there, in the invisible landscape, that we can most creatively shape our future. Whether we use entheogens, our dreams, psychology, yoga or meditation, we need to travel outside our ordinary consciousness to learn how we have been programmed and open our minds to the potential array of consciousness that is available to us. The fundamental problem with drugs is not that people are using them, it's that they aren't being used safely and more importantly, we aren't being taught how to induce altered states without the use of drugs. As a culture based on freedom, we need to change our approach to consciousness and spread the message that we should all have the fundamental right to cognitive liberty.

Rise of the Third Political Party

As the two-headed political monster lifts it's ugly head, more people are catching a glimpse of its hideous body. It's been a long time coming, but we are peering through the smokescreen and finally coming to realize the political left and right are working together towards the same ultimate goal. As more and more people wake up to the republicratic monster, we'll see the eventual rise of a third political party. Until then, beware the Republicat.

Somehow the majority of Americans continue to vote along strict party lines, regardless of a candidates actual character, policies and political history. We all know plenty of people who go to the polls and just look for a D or R next to a candidates name. American politics are really just a distraction, a circus of procrastination, stalling and watered down policy making. The polarizing talking points are meant to keep us from seeing the real policy changes being slipped by us, while we are distracted by media hype and false narrative. I warned my peers that the Obama administration would continue or expand many of the same policies of the Bush administration, but they saw Change and Hope as a real possibility. The police state is growing, the dollar is rapidly loosing value, the economy is collapsing, our fundamental rights are under attack, the constitution is continually being violated, we are being spied on, we are being dumbed down, we are being stolen from and we keep thinking that maybe next president can fix things. Everything we know is wrong, these days a new president picks up where the last president left off. There is a long-term plan behind, what appears to us, to be complete madness. The approach and rhetoric may be different, but the end results remain the same.

Surprisingly, this is something that has helped with the rise of a few strong third party options, like the Libertarian Party and the Progressive Party. Other political forces, like the Tea Party and the Constitution Party, have also been gaining support and of course there is always the Independent, whatever that means. Unfortunately, any threat to the status qou seems to be quickly hi-jacked and turned into controlled opposition. Just look at what Sarah Palin has done to the Tea Party movement and don't forget that they have found funding and support by Koch Industries.

 We have recently seen some strong support towards ending the Federal Reserve or at least opening it up to government oversight and auditing. More people are becoming aware of domestic surveillance and want government out of their private lives. People are becoming more aware that our national debt can't continue to increase at such an enormous rate without risking the security of the nation. A global political awakening is underway. Unfortunately, there is a strong divide among third party political groups, so they aren't quite up to challenging the two-party system yet. The mainstream media paints third party politics as radical and extremist, in an attempt to maintain the current, corrupt political system.

For a real third party option to become viable, these different movements need to agree on some basic policies and band together to enter the mainstream political system. I think that it is highly unlikely that any of these parties can breach the two-party club without doing so. Although, what I'd really like to see is the elimination of party based politics altogether. How about having no political parties and voting for candidates based on their policies and character instead of what gang they belong to, or is that "too dangerous?" I say, let's throw out all the social policy issues and focus on priorities; like the Federal Reserve, the Fiat Money system, the National Debt, the Military Budget and the Banking Cartel. After we take our economic system back from those that are robbing us blind, we could potentially have the resources necessary to fight other important battles. Everyone has the right to have their own social policy opinions and I'm sure we will be arguing about those so-called "problems" for a long time, but for now let's take care of the criminals who are looting the country, before we have nothing left.

The Way is Dead, We Walk Our Own Paths...

When the shadowy veil of obliviousness falls over the eyes of the chosen, the great cultural Beast will easily be driven to docility… Happily walking down the narrow path of certainty, while the Controllers observe from the second tier and confer on which direction they will steer the lumbering creature. The increasingly translucent decimation of cognitive liberty is in close pursuit of our depleted intellectual capital. What a weightless nightmare! To be free from the burden of responsibility and truth. Our teeth, gnawing at the flesh of sweet surrender. Our dilated eyes, fixated on the cloudy dream of comfort and stability. Our hands, trembling to hold onto any fragment or memory of what might have once been real.

They set the canon of acceptable conduct, medicating the deviants with wave after wave of designer drugs. If you think outside the box, you must be insane. The definition of a diseased mind is curiosity and questioning. Philosophy is dead. Its body, spread throughout human history and studiously examined like a lab animal. It is caged and prodded, imprisoned in academia. While its head, the forgotten ability to think for oneself, has been buried in the depths of our complacency and used as fertilizer for the modern, constrained mind.

Distraught by an un-nerving sense of disparity between manufactured extremes; the Beast became divided and folded in on itself. Each side, thinking it was autonomous, viciously fought the other, forgetting that it was once complete. Never trust the man who preaches the only answer but be without doubt when the wise, who have pierced the veil, reveal the wound of dissociation and its potential to be restored. An Alchemical solution promises to fuse the fractured halves, mending the psychosis of self-inflicted conflict and repairing the damaged heart and soul.

Unknown Source

Mass consumption depends on ignorance and suggestibility. This is an age of increased information and transparency, the two most important weapons we must employ in this great cultural war. Real learning starts when we have de-schooled and de-programmed ourselves, to see through the propaganda and mind-control. The real has been neglected and its vast expanse has been left barren, starving for meaningful content. We need to rediscover and rebuild before there is nothing left. Break open the head, unseal the heart, initiate the soul and expose the fraud we have been insistently taught is the only way. The way is dead, we walk our own paths and they are many.

Media Manipulation and the Israeli Attack on the Gaza Flotilla

By now we’ve probably all seen the footage that Israel released, showing their soldiers being “attacked” on the Gaza Flotilla. What we haven’t seen is the massive amount of audio, video and pictures that must have been recorded by people onboard the ship. Israel is deliberately controlling the media and attempting to manipulate the public view to make them appear to be the victim. Israel’s PR machine managed to control what was covered in the mainstream media for those first crucial 48 hours, but more recently we have been finding out more details about what really happened. They were able to create the defining image of the event and burn it into the average viewers mind, forming opinion and letting the majority of the public move on to the next days news.

Snapshot from Video release by the IDF

Eye witness accounts contradict Israel’s “official” story of what happened. Israel kidnapped nearly 700 activists from 42 different countries, from international waters, brought them to Israel and detained them until Israel’s “official” story could saturate the mainstream media. Israel robbed the activists of an estimated $3.5 million dollars in cash and equipment, including about 600 mobile phones, 400 video cameras and 350 laptops that remain in the possession of the Israeli military. That means there was a massive amount of video that was seized by Israel and intentionally suppressed. We live in an information age where portable recording technology is widespread but we only get to see what Israel wants us to see.

Luckily a journalist working on a documentary called Cultures of Resistance was able to smuggle out about an hours worth of footage. There is a 15 minute video and also the full 1 hour of raw footage available online. The journalist, Lara Lee, was interviewed on Democracy Now and tells her side of the story. We can’t forget that there were activists from 42 different countries onboard the ship. What we had was the word of 42 countries up against 1. What we have now is documented evidence that Israel lied and tried to cover up the truth. There have also been some photos smuggled out but Israel is still in possession of almost all of the documented evidence, which they choose to release when they want, heavily edited in their favor.

The Gaza Blockade isn’t really about security, it’s about demoralization and oppression. What the Gaza Blockade does is weaken the people and make it impossible for them to recover and rebuild. The living conditions in Gaza are saddening. Israel does not have a steady list of items that they block from entering Gaza, instead they evaluate goods on a case by case basis. That means that Israel can change its mind at anytime and seize any goods going to Gaza. The pressure is definitely building in the international community for Israel to lift the Gaza blockade or in the very least, make it more reasonable. I think we can all understand that Israel does not want weapons or explosives entering Gaza, but Israel also restricts humanitarian aid, medical supplies, technology, construction materials, spices, a variety of foods, fishing supplies, fabric for clothing, newspapers and musical instruments. Not only is this economic warfare, it is a direct attack on the souls of the people.

I hope more raw footage of this disaster is leaked and available to those who are interested in knowing. The only way to evaluate a perpetual problem like the Israel-Palestine conflict is transparency. We need to know what is really going on and what the majority population on both sides actually want. I strongly believe that those who continually feed fuel into this conflict are in the minority, but sometimes it only takes a couple of people to screw over everyone else. My heart goes out to the people on both sides of the conflict who just want to live their lives, have a family, get an education, have access to technology and have some job security. And for God’s sake Israel, let them have some musical instruments.