A conspiracy theory

I am not big on conspiracy theories, with all due respect to people who built careers on theories about the JFK assassination. I remain convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald was a seriously disturbed man, perhaps influenced by his time in Russia, but a man who acted alone.

But yesterday a conspiracy theory popped in to my mind when I read about the rules the Trump administration has sent done to the CDC banishing these words: vulnerable, entitlement, diversity, transgender, fetus, science-based, evidence-based.

How can the government banish words that are a part of our language—in this case, words that provide problems for the GOP, things they don’t want to talk about? The only way to banish them is to violate The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution which guarantees the right to free speech and to peaceful assembly. Established international law also recognizes individual freedom to speak without fear of retribution or censorship.

Plain and simple: this is censorship, one of the steps on the slippery slope to totalitarianism of one kind of another. Control our speech, and eventually your control our minds.

I would hope the CDC files suit in Federal court.

Yesterday my mind coupled this disturbing censorship with the recently passed reversal of net neutrality. I don’t pretend to understand all that is at issue here—the mechanics of broadband provisions, etc. But I understand enough to recognize that this puts control of our media in the hands of a few corporations. So now someone somewhere is controlling the information we received, the words we use. That slippery slope just added some grease.

It amounts to slow but steady brainwashing of the American people.

Particularly after his rant about the FBI, I don’t pretend to think the occupant of the White House is smart enough to orchestrate such a subtle conspiracy. But what if he is knowingly or not the puppet for some other agency? I leave it to you to fill in the blanks. Or perhaps Mueller will.

What this means to me is that our country is now on a steeper downhill trajectory unless the American people do something—and that something as a very basic step is to vote out the Republican party of ever state and national office possible. (It would be an enormous help if Mueller’s investigation would do something sudden and surprising, but that’s now how he conducts business).

I am weary of people who say, “I don’t like labels. I don’t want to be affiliated with any party.” It’s well and good to be an independent, but please recognize that it is the GOP that is destroying America, taking it on a path diametrically opposed to our democratic principles. It is crucial for us to speak out against censorship, information control, destructive economic measures, environmental disasters in the making—the whole shebang that has happened in the last year.

This is not your father’s Republican Party.

Rant over, but the crisis builds. Help America. Donate, speak out, vote!