“Who hath ears to hear, let him hear…[There are some] who have eyes to see but do not see, and ears to hear but do not hear.”

As an American of both Scandinavian and Panamanian descent, whose father fought for freedom in the Korean Conflict as among others, I am extremely disappointed, upset at the threat that Big Government poses in its present incarnation. I grew up watching a host of war movies that indoctrinated me on the might and right of American justice abroad, protected by the whitewashed history of America. Now, older, having read some of the less falsified histories, I realize what horrible lies I was fed.

Unfortunately, the ugly parts, the parts covered in whitewashed paint, are bleeding through…you know, the ugly fascist, racist, exclusionary parts that see America as a promised land only for certain people who can do anything, must do anything to destroy anything, and anyone, that gets in their way. The part of America that has hunkered down in the mud and slime, waiting for the moment when they could shamble out in masks of anonymity, wearing weapons to maim, hurt, and kill, not in service of the law, but to batter it down until the law of the club is all that remains.

And you thought the days of the Wild West frontier were over. The rabid wolves are again at our door, their offal souring the pleasant aroma of freedom once so predominant in America for the chosen. Alas, the ever-watchful, hungry wolves (or, if you prefer lions of Scripture) lie in wait to take us all unawares, as we sleep. How ironic that they are clothed in the robes of Christian nationalism, evangelical self-righteousness. All are blind until the moment of reckoning. That moment has arrived for many now.

The Enablers: Facial Recognition Software Companies

Tik Tok, under American control, serves as a tool of surveillance and consequence. Within days of the deal going through, those who speak out against the Administration, its foul acts and policies, are censored, denied views. Alas, you’d think that China REALLY WAS the bad guy, that would have been normal already. But it’s not.

Consider the use of Gen AI tools for surveillance that results in consequences for American citizens who are simply exercising their Constitutional rights:

Agents use facial recognition, social media monitoring and other tech tools not only to identify undocumented immigrants but also to track protesters, current and former officials said…including one made by the tech company Clearview AI and a newer program, Mobile Fortify.

The agency is also using cellphone and social media tools to monitor people’s online activity and potentially hack into phones. And agents are tapping into a database, built by the data analytics company Palantir, that combines government and commercial data to identify real-time locations for individuals they are pursuing, the current and former officials said.

See what these companies can do, being able to match your physical self with your bills and interest rates with online presence, all through pictures, effectively building a dossier on Americans (what else is the push for voter rolls?). Then, leveraging that information to cause you harm or take actions that result in serious inconvenience. Why do they do that? To send a message, to threaten you, to terrorize you by giving you the label they own by action and misdeed

“Be silent, don’t protest, avoid doing anything we disapprove of…or else. We will accuse you of being a domestic terrorist, do everything in our power to silence you.”

Then brutally showing you what else they mean. We’ve all read that it only gets worse when they get you in their torture camps, and the stories coming out of there involve brutalized men, rapes and illicit sexual engagements where the jailers have all the authority.

…three days after the encounter with the ICE agent, she received an email from the Department of Homeland Security saying her Global Entry and Transportation Security Administration travel privileges had been revoked. No explanation was provided.

Ms. Cleland said she had swung from anger to fear. “I don’t know how far-reaching ICE can be,” she said. “I’m struggling to figure out what I can do, without putting myself at greater risk or putting other people at risk.”

As a American, son of a patriot, I am ashamed of America, I am ashamed of MAGA Americans, but worse, I shudder at the looming figure of the AntiChrist coming to collect the flesh of evangelicals and religious supporters of callous cruelty, barbaric brutality, and unaccounted for murder in the streets.

Sacrifice Wasted

When I think of the hard-won sacrifices of so many American veterans of war, I am profoundly concerned that the current presidential administration has chosen to leverage Generative AI to fight against its own citizens. A part of this concern centers on the expensive investment the Administration has made to create a constitutionally-uninhibited enforcement agency for king-like proclamations (a.k.a. executive orders).

He invented a tool that could end your ability to walk down the street anonymously, and provided it to hundreds of law enforcement agencies, ranging from local cops in Florida to the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security.

His tiny company, Clearview AI, devised a groundbreaking facial recognition app. You take a picture of a person, upload it and get to see public photos of that person, along with links to where those photos appeared. The system — whose backbone is a database of more than three billion images that Clearview claims to have scraped from Facebook, YouTube, Venmo and millions of other websites — goes far beyond anything ever constructed by the United States government or Silicon Valley giants. (source)

Message received. Stay in your lane, shut up and enjoy what we can scrape by on, or the Big Bad Government wolves will come howling at your door, huffin’ and puffing to blow your door down.

I can’t help but ask myself, “What horror my fellow Americans who voted for this must have imagined, experienced to have decided this was acceptable behavior from its government.” You see, I was raised on stories of Americans making their government fear them, not the other way around.

Those days may be gone. It also is a signal. The time for huddling behind the door, waiting for the wolves to come may soon be over. The time has come for simple, direct action.