3 Issues More Important Than Star Wars The Force Awakens That You May Have Missed

As a self-confessed Star Wars fanboy myself, seeing the trailer was a pretty epic experience. It seems I was not alone in thinking so, as the whole internet blew up over the release.

I’m going to risk the ire of the internet, and be a downer anyway-

Fantasy, science fiction and stories of any kind (including the mainstream media narrative) are designed precisely to appeal to that core attribute of the human experience… the part of us that believes that the good guys win, that light eventually triumphs over dark, and that with enough gosh darned hard work anyone can achieve anything. What was that attribute called again… gas…?

The Force…?

No, no. It’s Hope. New or old, it’s mostly the same thing.

It would be a shame if we survived solely on fictional hope, and lived solely in that world- one which the creators had meant to inspire us to greater feats and (I hope) not to distract us from what’s really going on (ahem, Fox News and ).

George Lucas, the creator of the original 6 movies before he sold out to Disney, had a deeper message for his franchise than most understand. From the horse’s mouth:

Star Wars “was really about the Vietnam War, and that was the period where Nixon was trying to run for a [second] term, which got me to thinking historically about how do democracies get turned into dictatorships? Because the democracies aren’t overthrown; they’re given away.“

According to the Chicago Tribune,

“Lucas said he wrote … the screenplay’s … politically pointed elements before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the subsequent war on terror. So when Palpatine announces that he intends to remain at war until a certain General Grievous is captured, no parallels to the hunt for Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein were intended.

“‘First of all we never thought of Bush ever becoming president,’Star Wars producer Rick McCallum said, ‘or then 9/11, the PATRIOT Act, war, weapons of mass destruction. Then suddenly you realize, ‘Oh, my God, there’s something happening that looks like we’re almost prescient.'”

There are battles between light and dark in this world that are even more pivotal to our existence and our freedom than the merits and practicality of a light saber with a cross-guard. We become so obsessed with these minute details of a story, that we cannot see the larger message that is being told.

Here are just three issues, involving three governments, that are worth debating. Try to see if there are any parallels between real life and fiction:

1) Children Being Trained In ISIS Camps In Turkey

The Turkish government has long been a key player in the Syrian crisis. From Turkey’s “porous” border that seems to drip ISIS forces to how a US (of all people) raid has revealed an “undeniable” link between Turkish officials and senior ISIS leaders.

Would it surprise you to find that they were letting children train with ISIS too?

Turkey’s government was happy to let ISIS enter and exit Syria to wage war against Assad, as long as it did not bomb the hand that feeds it… or as long as they were not a useful scapegoat.

A bombing that took 100 lives on October 10 was quickly blamed on ISIS, the Kurds (the first arrests in relation to the bombing were in fact Kurdish PKK, NOT ISIS) and even Syria! And more insane than that, Turkish President Erdogan accuses all three of cooperating in some grand conspiracy. Talk about getting all your ducks in a row…

In order to avoid further accusations of having “turned a blind eye” to preventing suicide attacks that targeted pro-Kurdish protesters (yeah, the Kurds worked with ISIS and the Syrian government… in order target their own protesters… who were protesting against Erdogan, who now has a better chance of winning his election… I call bullsh**), Turkish police have now suddenly arrested dozens of foreigners who were getting ready to move into ISIS territory as part of an investigation into the bombing.

53 people were arrested, 24 of them were kids, just over a week after the bombing. Kids being sent to fight, knowing nothing about the reasons, nor possessing any ability to survive in actual combat… Canon fodder being trained by ISIS on Turkish soil.

Although ISIS is normally boastful of its conquests, it has stayed silent over the bombing. If you want to know who was most likely responsible, look at who stood to gain the most.

It is unfortunate that the Turkish government had to wait for a tragedy on its own soil, and Russia to properly destroy ISIS, before acting… but I’m sure they meant well.

2) Julian Assange Is In Constant Pain. British Govt Ignores Human Rights, Denies Him Treatment

One of the best-known whistle-blowers of our time is “in constant pain“, and the UK govt has refused to allow him safe passage to a hospital for an MRI scan.

As Manning sits in prison for decades under the constant threat of insanity-inducing carbon-freeze… I mean solitary confinement, and Snowden is forced to flee to “the enemy” in order to avoid a similar fate, the status of our most “celebrated” truth-telling rebels remain decidedly set to “limbo until forgotten/ dead”.

In Assange’s case, it seems to be the latter option.

Since June Assange has been in severe pain, and his doctor Laura Wood had recommended in August that he get an MRI done.

At a press conference given by Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino on Wednesday.

“He [Julian Assange] has been suffering with a constant pain to the right shoulder region…[since June 2015]. There is no history of acute injury to the area. I examined him and all movements of his shoulder (abduction, internal rotation and external rotation) are limited due to pain. I am unable to elicit the exact cause of his symptoms without the benefit of further diagnostic tests, [including] MRI,” Patino read, citing a letter from the doctor.

The UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) issued a reply stating that Assange could not be guaranteed unhindered passage for a more thorough medical diagnosis on October 12.

Patino stated that “even in times of war, safe passage are given for humanitarian reasons”. 

Carey Shenkman, an American lawyer,had this to say about the government’s decision, which effectively forces Assange to choose between freedom and medical treatment:

“The UK and Sweden right now are clearly violating international law. The UK is effectively brshing off its international obligations. The UK is party to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights, both of which grant the right to medical treatment.” Shenkman told RT.

“There is also an internationally recognized right to asylum under the 1951 Refugee Convention. The UK and Sweden both recognize asylum in embassies – there is precedent for this,“he added.

Article 25  of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family including… medical care”.

When men reveal some of the darkest secrets of our rulers, one expects them to be persecuted by those who view them (rightly so) as the only threats to their rule.

They will break even the fundamental rules of human rights in order to secure a few secrets and show the fearful populace just what happens to those who rebel against the system.

This ain’t fiction, sometimes the bad guys do win.

3) With Russia Properly Destroying ISIS… DOJ “Pivots” from ISIS To Domestic Anti-Govt Groups

Now that Russia is handing ISIS’s ass to it on a platter, the US war machine has little to do (not that it was doing much to begin with). Might as well have the troops come back in time for the holidays, this time against “domestic terrorists” according to CNN (seriously, after cloning… I mean funding a ginormous army, what else would a government do with it).

The CNN piece seems to think that domestic terrorists are worse than ISIS and Al Qaeda- which isn’t saying much considering the fact that neither of those Islamic “terror” organisations were ever much of a real threat to America to begin with, which was there primarily to oust Assad and has decided to more or less pack its  bags now that it knows that he’s not leaving anytime soon. Suicide’s a worse threat than all the terror in America, and nobody’s ready to wage war against that.

In a stunning admission of their plans for blameless civilians, the DOJ “will coordinate the investigation and prosecution of anti-government and hate groups”- being anti government is hardly a crime, and this blanket term will cover everyone from whistle-blowers to a journalist who refuses to lie in order to make the government look good.

The CNN piece then quotes Carlin saying that “a number of violent attacks or plots against the U.S.” were motivated by “anti-government views, racism, bigotry and anarchy, and other despicable beliefs.”

Interestingly, he lumps being “anti-government” together with racists and bigots- and then goes on to say that anyone who thinks poorly of the government that has been accused of war crimes by Doctors Without Borders is “despicable”. This obvious bit of propaganda is designed to make it seem… worse than traitorous… it’s practically racist to be against the government.

The article notes that domestic terrorism is not YET a crime, and that such “terror” groups have to be prosecuted based on “firearms or explosives offenses, hate crimes or murder.” So basically, people who are anti govt need to be arrested for ACTUALLY committing crimes, until the DOJ gets to call em terrorists and arrest em at a whim. Ya don’t say.

As we warned long before, laws that were designed to “combat” foreign terrorists will soon be widened to include “domestic” terrorists.

Imho, if a person is explicitly threatening violent harm against someone else, go ahead and stop him or her. But this sort of activity is precisely what the government does to people living overseas, and the police does to innocent people domestically. To be able to arrest people for resisting such heinous acts, not even in action but in thinking and speech is… well, a major plot device of Star Wars.

Nobody roots for the Sith or the Empire, right? George Lucas was quite clear where he got inspiration for those guys…

Sources: Antiwar, The Free Thought Project, RT, WSJ, The Guardian, Think Progress, RT again, UN, CNN, Breitbart, Washington Times

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