Posted on by Michael Romano

The Delicate Balance of Terror 22

“Which sub is that? said Winston, automatically feeling for money. About a quarter of one’s salary had to be earmarked for voluntary subscriptions, which were so numerous that it was difficult to keep track of them.” George Orwell

They will Rise. As I close my eyes to enter the darkness , the whirring begins. The coldness of Bunny is comforting against my head, but there is something stirring within him. I am shaken to consciousness as I feel the hands that created him, mangled, bloody, reaching out for my awareness. I close my eyes once again and see row after row of stuffed bunnies, marching in formation, reaching for the sun as blood drips down upon them. They are marching towards a rainbow, the only color in this blackness, I scream out them to turn back! The whirring stops as a shadow appears walking across the rainbow. As I succumb to the darkness the claw never comes tinkering into my head, and The Colonel never appears, the approaching shadow is lighting its own way down the rainbow. Its footsteps are trailing blood, in his shadow I see his eyes slowly open. They shine a light that I have never seen in this world. The bunnies become animated with the pulse of life as tears of joy fall from their eyes. The whirring begins but they continue on unfazed. they feel the claws reaching out for them, but they are focused on those eyes of light walking down the rainbow. As the claws attempt to tinker inside them, their laughter pushes the claws away. The Colonel stomps the ground behind them as they all fall to the ground in a roar of laughter. The man walking down the rainbow in a trail of blood tips his hat and without a word leaving his lips, communicates, They Will Rise

…the orange, red, and yellow leaves float in the air twisting around and around, landing at my feet and floating away down the creek. I just wanted to disappear until I looked into your eyes for the first time, your dying, burning eyes. When I reached down to feel my pain they still looked at me as if the fault was all my own. I looked in the mirror and couldn’t see anything I recognized. The voices in the night as I picked up the phone reminded me I am nothing. The way my parents looked at me reminded me I am just a ghost now. Once the shaking began, it never stopped, flowing along with the creek and the oscillating trees. As your hand touched mine, the noise within my mind ceased and I remembered the beat I was following and could once again hear it as the whirring subsided. Maybe we found what it meant to be free, and what it meant to be heard. There was still always that darkness following not far behind, but as long as we could still hear the song, those claws, the whirring, those rainbows dripping blood down into our eyes, they just seemed so childish here.

“The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be “free” because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free.” Julian Assange

Posted on by Michael Romano

The Delicate Balance of Terror 21

“How could you have a slogan like ‘freedom is slavery’ when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking-not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.” George Orwell.

The building changes shape as it sees fit, almost as if its only purpose was to never be seen the same way. The old man with the beard stands up. It’s been so long his joints crackle and he is a bit wobbly. He sees a door open and senses freedom for the first time in a long, long time. He sits down swiftly as the door closes immediately after it opens. How can you sit here, day after day writing words which are never read and as that building…It’s just a distraction, you can’t worry about that building, it becomes you, you can’t worry…maybe it’s a distraction but…it’s hard to close your eyes…but it’s there…and you don’t know if you are. The Detective falls to his knees. His eyes close but he can still see the building spinning within his mind. You can see anything you want coming from there, the old man points to the building. I thought I was sent here to find truth…what is truth? As he stands up a rainbow appears in the distance, shooting over the top of the shifting building. If you can’t find it, maybe the problem lies in it not being a thing at all. Through shadows he watches a claw form, reaching out for his mind. Tears of blood fall from his eyes as he hears piercing screams traveling down a long black corridor. He sees people rising from the soil beneath his feet. The Doctor’s heart bursts into flames. He touches his own enflamed heart as he hears a ringing in his ears. The sky burns pink as he once again finds himself in the middle of a vast desert. A dark shadow appears along the burning pink horizon. The shadow is clutching onto something so bright, burning so strong, The Detective cannot fully open his eyes to see it. The light is trying to communicate to him as he is walking towards the shadow. The pulsing within him tells him he’s heading in the right direction. The old man cries out to him, remember it is not a thing. No, no, it’s not just a thing, it is everything he is.

“What are the differences between Mark Zuckerberg and me? I give private information on corporations for free, and I’m a villain. Zuckerberg gives your private information to corporations for money and he’s Man of the Year.” Julian Assange

Posted on by Michael Romano

The Delicate Balance of Terror 20

“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller…reality control…The revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.” George Orwell

You were warned. He begins picking up the pieces of all she was. There was always a darkness that seemed perched on his shoulder, shielding him from the truth, and making him forget the chattering voices in his head. Sometimes it had the power to lead him in a certain direction, a direction that always lead to a million different paths. At night he would awaken to Her barely audible whispers, the Colonel, the Colonel, run… The day he looked into her eyes and saw her eyes expand as she gazed into his, the real story was set in motion. Everything he ever thought, everything he ever saw began appearing on the canvas he was painting of his life. And as he walked on the pieces of her life, putting them together to understand Her story, his own became clearer. You were born for this, she whispers in her sleep. This was always the way it was suppose to be, this was how the ending was written…I’m so tired, so, so tired. This is why we were born, all of us, we have a choice…The chattering of teeth and shooting of sparks become overwhelming as he clutches his head and looks into his cold, sad, dying eyes. An eclipse, the sky becomes deep reddish pink, the tears of the sky falling down to the earth. The sky is crying, everything looks like it is in the last gasps of life. A shadow of the Colonel dragging her by the hair as his shadow burns away in the sun…this is what we’re up against…Why? Does anyone ever ask why? They disappear when you ask that. The Colonel places his hand over her heart but it’s already gone. Why? As he pushes away the shadows, dusting them away from the pieces of her life, he sees a cracked view of himself amidst the rubble. He picks up the piece and instantly remembers…the purpose, the world seen through his eyes…why me…his vision, underneath the surface of it…why…the story is all of ours…why? They took the narrative and we forgot everything…why? The Colonel removes his hand from her heart, and now it’s full of stars…why? Colonel what are you holding? He’s holding her heart as it continues beating, still full of life, full of what the Colonel has no need to understand. Colonel what are you holding? Her soul, but he has no idea what to do with it.

“The world is not sliding, but galloping into a new transnational dystopia. This development has not been properly recognized outside of national security circles. It has been hidden by secrecy, complexity and scale. The internet, our greatest tool of emancipation, has been transformed into the most dangerous facilitator of totalitarianism we have ever seen. The internet is a threat to human civilization.

These transformations have come about silently, because those who know what is going on work in the global surveillance industry and have no incentives to speak out. Left to its own trajectory, within a few years, global civilization will be a postmodern surveillance dystopia, from which escape for all but the most skilled individuals will be impossible. In fact, we may already be there.

While many writers have considered what the internet means for global civilization, they are wrong. They are wrong because they do not have the sense of perspective that direct experience brings. They are wrong because they have never met the enemy.”  Julian Assange