Edward Snowden brought to the world’s attention that America is watching. Big surprise right, George Orwell warned the world, through his book, Nineteen Eighty-Four, that big brother was watching. Imagine if you will a fiction writer in 1949, writing about how the government would watch over its citizens and control their every move. Of course Orwell wrote about a fictional state, in a fictional country. Or did he?

Think about some of the concepts that Orwell spoke about such as; Big Brother (Snowden crashed the illusion that US citizens are immune to government surveillance) doublethink (political ads filled with non-truths yet quoted as truth) thoughtcrime (the Bush administration’s insistence that “If you’re not with us in the war against terrorism than you are anti-American”; although the weapons of mass destruction were never found, the ideology of questioning the sound decision of the war in the Middle East became a turning point in the us against them political arena ) newspeak (Fox News) just to name a few.

We are experiencing a division in the United States; political arguments are no longer discussed between politicians, but between corporations who have a huge stake in the future oppression of the American citizen. You may accuse me of being too left in my thinking, but let me ask this question; when 3% of society holds the majority of the wealth, who exactly does the 97% answer to?

Let’s explore the 3% reality using the Cosby Show as a jumping off point; in one episode of the Cosby Show, the Huxtable children said something on the order of, “but dad we are rich” and in answer to that statement, Cliff (played by Cosby) said to them, “Your mother and I are rich, you kids have nothing.” In other words, we are all children of the 3%. Most jobs are funded by the 3%; most of higher education is funded by the 3% (I recently attended a marketing meeting for a local private University, and found that the latest numbers on fundraising show that 95% of funding comes from less than 3% of contributors); I contend, therefore, that logic dictates that 97% work to collect wages from and return money to the 3%.

Okay Ken, get back on topic; how does this relate to Edward Snowden and George Orwell? The answer is simple. James Comey, the current head of the FBI, recently said, “Are we no longer a country that is passionate both about the rule of law and about there being no zones in this county beyond the reach of that rule of law? Have we become so mistrustful of government and law enforcement in particular that we are willing to let bad buys walk away, willing to leave victims in search of justice?” And to that I answer, “UM YES”, and the reason that I believe that we should be mistrustful of government is because of the 3%. We work for, spend our money with, and are governed by the 3%. Our existence is not protected by law enforcement nor by the government; our existence is protected by living within the comfort zones allowed by the 3%. On my drive to work this morning the thought hit me, “Ken, just go do your job and be happy that they allow you enough income to be comfortable and to forget that others are starving.” Thank God that shutting up has never been my strong point.

Peace All