This was originally written as my "dead man's switch," to be published in the event of my death. While it serves as both an epitaph for myself and the nation, I see no reason why I should withhold its publication.

[The proper soundtrack for this article is Isolated System, by MUSE]

Before I go I want to put down in writing how I feel about this world in turmoil. I leave no heirs and there is a reason for that. The Earth is coming out of equilibrium. It can absorb a change in one system, but it is undergoing a change in every system. The globe is heating, the winds are changing, rivers are drying, the glaciers are melting, oceans are acidifying. Bees are dying from pesticides, GMO plants that were never commercially released have been found growing feral.

The Obama passed DARK act takes away states' ability to label GMO foods; it nullified laws that allowed labeling genetically engineered seeds. Congress also repealed the law requiring meat to be labeled with the country of origin. Questionable, unsourced foods are being forced into our food supply and we are powerless to stop it.

The struggle of man is going backwards. The working class is merely economic fodder: As the people who lived in The Matrix were actually just source of energy, the oligarchy sees the populace as an array of economic engines who have been conditioned with an insatiable need for more stuff. The American heart is becoming empty, for even those who have the most are the least likely to appreciate the touch of humanity.

Here in the United States our standard of living is going downhill. It's going downhill everywhere except in emerging markets like China, and there it's going from dirt poor to living in a corporate work-house only a shade above slavery. Trade agreements that were written behind closed doors are lauded in America as increasing our exports, but our trade partners tell their citizens the same, and what no one will reveal to us is that one of these countries will end up importing the lion's share. And what happens to a country that imports more than it exports? It weakens its economy and it loses jobs.

'Hey that sounds like us. You mean these agreements aren't meant to favor the USA?'

What favors the USA? That which favors the people in the USA, or that which favors the corporations and stock holders of the USA? These are mostly mutually exclusive. Yet half the people I know see corporations as great benefactors who are continually seeking ways to treat their employees better. The days of Henry Ford paying his workers a livable wage have passed, replaced by the era of Wal Mart where the biggest feature of our economy is offshoring jobs to put downward pressure on wages. No, I said it's a feature, not a bug. Who are you anyway, a prole?

The world is going to hell in a bucket. Many people know this. Many people are committed to stopping this. And yet most of those people vote for continuing the process. They think they're being given a choice, but it's only what the powers that be choose to feed us. Because the powers that be pretty much run everything. They own everything. They decide everything. Once again we are under the naive impression that we get the laws we want. Perhaps we are represented by someone we once wanted, but they do not do our bidding. Their decisions reflect the needs of their true masters.

You see, there's no way the trade agreements they have passed were written to benefit the people of the United States. Those trade deals bypass the U.S. courts with their "investor state dispute settlement," where work and safety standards can be broken and a 3 man tribunal made up of pro-corporation attorneys have the final word. The trade deals give investors the right to sue a partner country if their investments on that country's soil are diminished or don't live up to projections. So for example TransCanada is suing us for not building the Keystone XL pipeline.

And yet here we are again, about to sign another one of these trade deals, by a president who was elected by people who oppose the over stepping of power by large corporations. How did things get to be so fucked up?

The fascist state began in 1984. Not Orwell's bleak and dystopian 1984, but Reagan's, on a day when I was never shown the evidence for the probable cause that gave the jackbooted thugs permission to kick my door in. Yeah, Captain Jeremiah Marron and Detective Ronald Bussell, I'm pointing my finger at you.

Since then, it's safe to say I've been on "the list." Despite some close brushes, I managed to stay under the radar until the age of the Internet. And that was amazing, and liberating, and horrifying, for I got to see it all unfold. I was the guy staying up late on election night googling maps of Florida counties. I knew the "Brooks Brothers riot" was just a bunch of GOP plants imported to strongarm the process. I revolted when the Florida legislature said it didn't care what the state supreme court decided because it was going to certify the vote anyway. And I lamented the death of our democracy when The Supreme Court of the United States decided, on the basis of "equal protection" not to be applied as precedent in any other case, that it was better to stop a two week recount that would have given the Presidency to Al Gore*, than to marginalize and cast doubt over George Bush's win.

So we got the laziest, most entitled President ever. His poll numbers from day one were a cascade, and he remained aloof. Unfazed. He seemed to know that he had an ace in the hole. He took the longest vacation ever. Then in July of 2001, Newsweek published a small mention that U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft would no longer be flying commercial airlines for the rest of his term, due to "security concerns." This is an irrevocable truth. It is in the print version of the Newsweek of July 30. One day, the AG's office would deny that it ever made the statement.

During that summer, I learned about Eschelon, a massive underground computer and database complex that scanned all telecommunications searching for keywords. I changed my telephone answering machine message to the following:

"Thanks for calling. Leave a message. Bush. Bin Laden. Bomb. President. Terrorism. Oklahoma City. Mcveigh."

Bin Laden. Even I knew he was public enemy #1 and a major terrorist threat.

But when a 747 crashed into the most important building in New York City, George Bush thought "that was one bad pilot." That's what Bush thought even after speaking to his National Security Advisor, which he did before being "whisked off" to his crucial engagement with The Pet Goat.

Then we watched the towers collapse, with structural supports thrown laterally at 30mph, a pool of molten steel at the bottom, traces of thermite, 200 floors of concrete pulverized to dust, isolated windows popping 60 floors below the pancake zone, and a shockwave caught on camera seconds before the collapse. And laid on top of it all, like a garnish that fluttered down in the end as if placed there by the hand of God, was a hijacker's passport.

The plane that crashed into the Pentagon was the only plane crash in history that evaporated 95% of the aircraft aluminum and titanium, with only a small piece of the tail section recovered. The hole in the pentagon was only big enough for the fuselage, yet the wings did not get sheared off outside the building. And yet there were massive fires inside the building despite the fuel being kept in the wings. But what's even more inexplicable is the photo of the damage, where clearly visible along the cross section of the cropped building is a desk with the phone book open. Unscorched, unscathed. But no, that wasn't a precision missile strike. It was an out of control aviation fire that evaporated a 747. And when the FBI rushed to the gas station across from the Pentagon to confiscate their security video in only 22 minutes, they were just being thorough.

The plane crash in Pennsylvania was not a crash at all. It was a debris field. One of the plane engines was found 2 miles from the rest of the debris.

The general consensus is that raising these facts, or questioning the official version of 9/11 is a conspiracy theory. To that, I have to ask, which official version does the reader wish to defend? The one published in the 9/11 Commission Report, or the one given to the public during two years of sworn testimony? For some reason, the Commission Report whitewashed all testimony that indicated NORAD knew about any except for the first of the hijacked planes. We were told that several Air Force personnel lied under oath to conceal that they had no foreknowledge. We are supposed to believe that they invented the narrative wherein their intelligence systems were functioning and our armed forces failed. We are told that these Air Force personnel schemed to give coordinated, false testimony in order to conceal the lack of formal military response. What's that called again, when two or more people plan an unlawful act together? Oh yeah. It's called a conspiracy. So take your pick. Which conspiracy do you want to believe in? The one where United States Air Force personnel lied under oath, to cover up a NORAD failure? Or the one where a cabal of neocon warmongers caused domestic destruction as a excuse to justify a unilateral and preemptive invasion of an oil producing nation.

But what I say is inconceivable! Could our government be complicit in taking the lives of 3,000 of its own citizens? Put it in perspective. 2.5 Million people die every year. 30,000 die on the highway. Now I sound like some callous and empathy lacking asshole, don't I? As callous and empathy lacking as George Bush when he mocked Carla Faye Tucker's plea to be spared her life? Is Dick Cheney everyone's favorite grandpa? Does Donald Rumsfeld have a heart of gold? Was Paul Wolfowitz a boy scout troop leader?

It wouldn't be so shocking if it weren't so transparent. It gave them the pretext to spend TRILLIONS fighting an endless war, initially fighting an enemy that originated as a U.S. military pawn (al-Qaeda), and transitioning to fighting an enemy that originated as a U.S. military pawn (ISIS). It's given us a foundation for an Imperialist foreign policy that toppled governments in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Honduras (and now maybe Brazil?). It's amazing that the public has tolerated such an endless war. But what's even more amazing is this entire Middle East scenario was outlined by the neocon hawks years before 9/11 happened. It's a publication called the PNAC, Project for a New American Century.

I'll tell you, the one saving grace on 9/11 was when the passengers commandeered the plane back from the hijackers. I'm sure that plane was destined for the White House. When one considers the level of sophistication in today's spy technology, the prospect that Bush could have spent 8 years rebuilding the presidential home and office should leave you aghast.

Now suddenly George W. Bush was on the top of his game. He gave us bullshit with a bullhorn, and the public loved it. He got his war in Afghanistan, and with it he began staging his unapproved war in Iraq. Cheney held closed door strategy meetings with oil company executives and maps of Iraqi oil fields. They gave us the kitchen sink as rationale for going in to Iraq, and when that didn't work they made shit up.

"Fixing the intelligence to fit the narrative," is how it was described. But no matter, we're in it now and we're in it to win it! (cue rah-rah pomp and circumstance) Go Murica! We will never rid ourselves of this endless war, this war which I've been told since Jr. High School is a Jihad whose goal is simply to get America to engage with the enemy. For a war without someone to fight is not a war at all. And in choosing to engage in this war, we selected a permanent, shape-shifting enemy. Only a fool with no education could have willingly gone into such madness. Only a fool, that is, or a heartless warmonger who cashes in on death and destruction.

When the President who was touted as having "business experience," that is, the experience of having tanked nearly every endeavor he'd been associated with and made off with $30 million that he grifted from the taxpayers of Arlington Texas, left the U.S. treasury with IOU's, left the stock market at a nadir and a wave of Americans out of their homes, people were shocked! shocked I tell you, and certainly they thought that it was all just some horrible, unpreventable accident or at the very least an unintentional byproduct of a reckless financial policy.

The only problem with Bush's economic strategy is the collapse kicked in much faster than the timeline had paced it. Bush should have been out of office, long gone before the markets collapsed. As it was, he couldn't blame it all on Obama, although his revisionist historians still try.

It's not as though the pillaging of the national wealth began on day one of Bush's presidency. Oh wait. Yes it was. Because on day one, Paul O'Neill did not divest from Alcoa. By the time he did, his options were worth multiple times more than they were on January 20. In the meantime, old "Kenny Boy" Lay who had lent Bush his private plane during the campaign, had his company Enron rig the power markets on the West coast. We know he ravaged the California electricity customers, but what few people know is his manufactured blackouts were the reason cited by the energy department for forcing a reduction in bauxite smelting in the northwest. In other words, they created an aluminum deficit which artificially inflated the value of Alcoa stock. This story used to be easily searchable. Now it's practically been erased. Google is not your friend.

Bush's cronies turned government corruption into an art form. But then we were saved! A progressive firebrand named Barack Obama came into office, and he quickly ... let the banksters who perpetrated the theft of the bottom Jenga pieces off with a fine. Whew! For a moment there I thought someone might go to prison. Oh wait, someone did go to prison. Bradley Birkenfeld worked at UBS and blew the whistle on the bank's tax evasion. He went to prison.

The banks, run amok they are. They played the game of greed and never blinked as the stakes ratcheted up. Now that their problems have all come home their solution is austerity, the program for continued economic decimation via cannibalization of domestic consumption. Austerity has failed time and again, and yet it is always their prescribed solution. Almost as if they prefer populations that are unemployed and willing to work for a meager sustenance. Gosh, why would investors and corporations want that?

Will the suspension of disbelief one day wear off, and allow the American public to see the truth? How many decades must pass before these betrayals become common knowledge? I'm sure it won't be any time soon. The public remains willfully ignorant of the ways they are being manipulated. That, my friends, is my greatest sadness. The wool is being pulled over our eyes as steadily and as deliberately as the sheet gets pulled over a corpse.

And the Left is about to do it again. About to elect a corporate coddler, warmonger, oil fracker. And they'll be so pleased with themselves when they do, for they will have saved us all from... from what? The GOP version of the same?

*Not according to the limited recount that Gore sought, but a full recount of all counties including write in and absentee votes.