Forum Post: What was your "red pill"? What made you wake up?
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 18, 2011, 9:11 p.m. EST by sudoname
(1001)
from Berkeley, CA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
For me, it was learning about the drug war and how the government can control what we put in our bodies for the sake of corporate profit. My pristine picture of our government was shattered forever.
Not being born White.
I am sorry that you have suffered because of the color of your skin. This distinction based on color is one of our primitive functions based on delusional superiority.
But it made me laugh.
Germs Guns And Steel by Jared Diamond was a great help.
Great book! Great author.
great point man...haha I actually had to think about mine for awhile
ditto :P
Probably Zeitgeist 1, along with Loose change. Now regardless of whether or not you agree with what was proposed in those documentaries in respect to 9/11 it undoubtedly woke my mind to the reality that there's definitely more going on than what we're allowed to see on TV. This was a very long time ago when I was in my teens lol.
marijuana! No bullshit.
Sure: when you find out that the government has made something illegal that is less socially destructive that alcohol, you really get the idea that someone is a big liar.
It's illegal because tobacco and cotton industries will lose out on money.
Hemp could be legal without legalizing marijuana (its sister plant) but its illegal because cops can't tell the visual difference between the plants.
Thats a great way to put it
Realizing that when democrats are in power, everything gets worse, and when republicans are in power, everything gets worse, and thinking that maybe both of them are wrong. Then I started studying Austrian Economics.
For me it was taking a job in which I listen to people call in all day and describe the terrible debt they're in. The banks and debt collectors are raping people in the courts every day with frivolous bogus trumped up lawsuits, legal fees, gutter service, court costs and default judgments. The people ask for help and I try to offer them solutions. One day I played all 50 answering machine messages at once from just one overnight period. It sounded like a chorus of voices, a cacacophy, but one word stood out: HELP! And I realized that no matter how hard I tried, I could never help all the drowning people. My helplessness gave me a new compassion. I am Miss Lonelyhearts and these nameless voiceless people haunt me. Their stories blend in my mind as one. Capital One, Chase, Bank of America is suing me. I lost my job, my illness wiped out my savings, I can't pay back this student loan because I can't find work. Help me. Help us. This Occupy movement gathers up the weak cries into one glorious cacaphonous symphony. We are all the 99%. We help each other.
That is awful stuff to hear every day! How can the banks be this heartless!
American Imperialism Abroad contrasted with the Virtuous propaganda they shove down everyone's throat. Also the vulgar Idiocy that is Bill O'riely. Bush having the i.q. of a mushroom didn't help either.
I've seen so many problems in this country and my friends standard of living getting worse and worse, as well as my rising tuition and barely useful medical insurance that I'm lucky enough to have. Also, no jobs, no hope of a job even.
What took me to the street? Watching innocent women getting maced and finding out that the movement was in my own backyard, so to speak.
Hear Hear!!
I experienced school as a prison, and I was distrustful of authority for as long as I can remember.
I could cite specific experiences in school, but perhaps the more important thing is that I took education into my own hands. I read about mathematics primarily, but through Bertrand Russell I found a transition from math to social analysis.
Beautiful! I also suggest to those in the quest for reason begin researching three fields of knowledge: space, mind and body. All you need is the basics of astronomy, psychology and biology. Look for the top scientist in these fields and their theories. Example: Carl Sagan, Sigmund Freud and Richard Dawkins. That should be enough.
Probably the moment when I looked into my hand and saw 0.1g of methylphenidate, under prescription, looking me in the eye. Decided that after ten years of unrelenting medication I was better off without the "help" of state-corporate endorsed medicine.
Right around that time I read Crimethink's DYI Guide 2 along with a hand-made zine about dropping out. Thank the gods for my liberation!
Wait-- even before that upon reading a book called "Lies My Teacher Told Me," which was about how American History textbooks are slanted to make certain images more prominent and to give the feeling that America is just great despite so much else they don't tell about. That definitely helped.
weed allows you to see the world differently. It removes the filter society puts on your eyes. Damn, I wish I had some.
For me it has been a gradual awakening over 30 years, starting with several back-to-back red pill shocks, punctuated by many more quantum shifts. The biggest and latest one is this:
I am not afraid anymore. I refuse to live in fear. We can make the world we want, right now today. Utopia is possible, because now, for the first time in our history, we have all the tools we need, both technological and psycho-spiritual to make it happen. The only thing keeping it happening is people's fear that it can't be done, or that they will be crushed if they try.
So wake up from the fear machine that is created by the elites trying to keep you down. That's all they really have over us, is fear. If enough people wake up, and REFUSE to live in fear - we are free.
For me it was the letdown after Obama was actually elected. When he put Geithner in at Treasury, a lot of us could see the writing on the wall. Obama was the last chance that maybe the entire Demomcrat/Republican duopoly was not broken beyond repair. It's clear now that it is indeed broken, and we need to rebuild our democracy with new institutions.
The war on Iraq... 8 years ago...
Was at our annual corporate meeting. HR rep going on and on about all these new employee benefits. online grocery purchasing and delivery, lunch delivery to your office, free cab rides home when you have to stay late (past bus hours), and more. all focused on keeping you plugged in for as long as possible. if they could they'd hook up an I.V. and catheter and call it a "benefit". I pulled the plug on that whole lifestyle of fabricated dependence and now work for and take care of myself. Downsized, learning to grow our own food, working 1/2 hours as before for pay, spending 2X time with/in community. never going back.
and reading The Four Agreements. Many of us need to change how we Occupy Ourselves before we can sucessfully occupy anything else.
Hearing "Greed is good!" in 1987. And 1988. And 1992. And 1996. And 2000. And 2004. Growing up near the projects. Living in West Harlem. Realizing that reality TV was actually an industry. Paying for my dad's cancer treatment. Losing a public library. Talking to public school teachers. Talking to the homeless. Reading about Cleveland and Detroit. Walking through Williamsburg and then walking through Bed-Stuy.
SCOTUS ruling on Citizens United - Corporations are not people and money is not speach !!
For me it was when I traveled abroad to Mexico and was able to purchase antibiotics for pennies while in my Own Beautiful country it costs in the hundreds of dollars. There is a whole lot wrong with our system where the sick can not afford to get well.
I wanted to start my own small independent pharmacy when I realized that I would be competing with Walmart and CVS/Caremark. Both of which have altered the industry so much that there is little hope of success for the little guy. and seeing big pharma manipulate the system to extract as much profit as possible at the expense of the sick and vulnerable.
For me it was a slow about face. I was raised in a conservative, Republican family that cheerfully sang the praises of Rush Limbaugh. When I went to college, I studied American history and sociology. I began to question everything I was taught to believe was true. Then I just drifted to a more neutral position and finally far left. Most recently the Zeitgeist documentary series has nicely packaged all the elements of my enlightenment. I have also visited the Venus Project which was awesome.
When no WMD were found, and then the Bushies said that the REAL reason for the invasion of Iraq was to "Liberate the Iraqi's" - all this time, who knew!?
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger." -Herman Goering
Not sure.
Maybe FSTDT.
Geez - bits and pieces over the last 15 yrs. Used to be a school teacher, got disillusioned with the politics and the fact that they had sold out the kids who needed it the most. I didn't believe in what I was teaching anymore - which was science. Later, after I became a nurse and then practitioner, it was medicine. I increasingly didn't believe what they were teaching me in grad school.
Science and western medicine have become a religion hijacked by politics and corporate money - if they're paying you to do the study, then you better damn well make their drug look good. There's a pill for every ill. I'll tell you what - we have bought in to this corporate sick-care system hook, line, and sinker.
Just like on Wall Street, physicians and conventional medicine have a monopoly. Just like the media, they shut up or shut out anyone who doesn't hold their point of view. Just like the politicians, many of the biggest research universities and the medical schools are funded by corporations - you guessed it, Big Pharma.
When I was a teacher, 20% of my kids were on 'psychoactive' drugs. Now, that percentage is even higher, and they are getting kids on drugs that before weren't even approved for children.
Naturopathy, functional medicine, and alternative medicine are ridiculed, besmirched, and shut down - because they represent competition. More importantly, they cure instead of treating symptoms.
Watching the financial meltdown, seeing people suffering and then watching in SHOCK as the Supreme Court defined Unlimited Corporate Political Money as "Free Speech" -- putting the last nail in our Democracy and sealing the deal for the Wall Street's establishment of a Corporate Neo-Feudalist State in this Country!
Check out my thread on the Jello Biafra hemp history.
Our major chemical companies send chemicals to Columbia. Wonder what they use that for?
Chiquita Bananas was also caught paying off the FARK terrorists. Corporations just have no soul.
My "Social Problems" course as an undergrad. Now I'm getting my PhD in Sociology and I study inequality. I've been screaming about this stuff for years....
A lot of this stuff has been rumbling in my head for years, but I think the point when I really started getting angry was bush getting elected on anti gay marriage. It has nothing to do with politics at all and him getting re-elected on it was the straw that finally broke this camels back. Of course I've been a George Carlin fan for a long time so I've been paying attention a lot longer. People basing their choice of politicians based on things that have nothing to do with how the country is working was my red pill.
California Uber Allis by Dead Kennedys.
Where'd you get that "Red Pill" metaphor from? I've never heard of that.
The Matrix.
Agreed, this is true, so let's start the war against Injustice by starting our own banks to double the income of the Bottom 99% of Workers, for many more people will come to your side when you are proactive (for “new” Business & Government solutions), instead of reactive (against “old” Business & Government solutions), which is why what we most immediately need is a comprehensive “new” strategy that implements all our various socioeconomic demands at the same time, regardless of party, and although I'm all in favor of taking down today's ineffective and inefficient Top 1% Management System of Business & Government, there's only one way to do it – by fighting bankers as bankers ourselves, and thus doubling our income from Bank Profits which are 40% of all Corporate Profits; that is, using a Focused Direct Democracy organized according to our current Occupations & Generations. Consequently, I have posted a 1-page Summary of the Strategically Weighted Policies, Organizational Operating Structures, and Tactical Investment Procedures necessary to do this at:
http://getsatisfaction.com/americanselect/topics/on_strategically_weighted_policies_organizational_operating_structures_tactical_investment_procedures-448eo
Join http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/StrategicInternationalSystems/ because we need 100,000 “support clicks” at AmericansElect.org in support of the above bank-focused platform.
Most importantly, remember, as cited in the first link, that as Bank Owner-Voters in your 1 of 48 "new" Business Investment Groups (or "new" Congressional Committees) you become the "new" Online Congress, and related “new” Businesses, REPLACING the "old" Congress, and related “old” Businesses, according to your current Occupations & Generations, called a Focused Direct Democracy.
Therefore, any Candidate (or Leader) therein, regardless of party, is a straw man, a puppet, a political opportunist, just like today; what's important is the STRATEGY – the sequence of steps – that the people organize themselves under in Military Internet Formation of their Individual Purchasing Power & Group Investment Power. In this, sequence is key, and if the correct mathematical sequence is followed then it results in doubling the income of the Bottom 99% of Workers from today's Bank Profits, which are 40% of all Corporate Profits.
Why? Because there are Natural Social Laws – in mathematical sequence – that are just like Natural Physical Laws, such as the Law of Gravity. You must follow those Natural Social Laws or the result will be Injustice, War, etc.
The FIRST step in Natural Social Law is to CONTROL the Banks as Bank Owner-Voters. If you do not, you will inevitably be UNJUSTLY EXPLOITED by the Top 1% Management System of Business & Government who have a Legitimate Profit Motive, just like you, to do so.
Consequently, you have no choice but to become Candidates (or Leaders) yourselves as Bank Owner-Voters according to your current Occupations & Generations.
So JOIN the 2nd link, and spread the word, so we can make 100,000 support clicks at AmericansElect.org when called for, at exactly the right time, by an e-mail from that group, in support of the above the bank-focused platform. If so, then you will see and feel how your goals can be accomplished within the above strategy as a “new” Candidate (or Leader) of your current Occupation & Generation.