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Lucky you!
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Except: something does not add up here.
For years and decades, you were told how free you were. And how oppressed, unfree, those against whom you are being protected, are.
You were told how rich you are, and how miserable "the others" were.
To stop those deprived and deranged hordes, some serious measures had to be applied. A right-wing death-squad in some Central American or Southeast Asian country had to be trained in US military camps; a thoroughly absolutist and corrupt monarch had to be supported and pampered; a military fascist coup had to be arranged. Millions raped, tens of thousands of corpses. Not pretty at all, but you know" necessary. For your own good, North American or European citizens; for your own good". Even for the good of the country that we designated for our 'liberation'.
Few dissidents in the West have been protesting, for decades. No one has been paying much attention to them. Most of them became 'unemployable', and were silenced through misery and the inability to pay their basic bills.
But suddenly"
What happened, suddenly? Because something really happened"
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The Empire got tired of plundering the non-Western parts of the world, exclusively.
Well-conditioned, brainwashed and scared, the Western public began to get treated with the same spite, as people in the plundered and miserable parts of the world. Well, not yet, not exactly. There are still some essential differences, but the trend is definitely there.
The Western public cannot do too much to protect itself, really. The regime knows everything about everybody: it spies on every citizen: where he or she walks, what he or she eats, drives, flies, watches, consumes, reads. There are no secrets, anymore.
You are an atheist? No need to 'confess'. You are confessing every minute, with each and every computer click, by pressing the remote control button, or by shopping on Amazon.
Is Big Brother watching? Oh no; now there is much more detailed surveillance. Big Brother is watching, recording and analyzing.
General Pinochet of Chile used to brag that without his knowledge, no leaf could ever move. The old, fascist scumbag was bragging; exaggerating. On the other hand, Western rulers say nothing, but they clearly know what they are doing. Without their knowledge, nothing moves and nobody moves.
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