Built in the early 1960s by the Naval Research Laboratory, the small town of Sugar Grove Station, West Virginia was later operated by the NSA and purposed with top secret surveillance activities, including involvement in the ECHELON communications network. Officially retired in late 2015, the town went on the auction block the following February, but with the few serious bidders on the one-million dollar asking price reneging shortly thereafter. The search for interested parties desirable to transferring this approximately 50-year old, never meant for public consumption town from federal ownership to private continues, in the form of a sealed bid auction.
But for the right Wayward Pines fanatic or zombie apocalypse survivalists or super-villain team, this former spy town housing 80 single-family homes, a fire station, a swimming pool and bowling alley, a water tower, a youth day-care center, basketball, tennis and racquetball courts, a football field and a community center all contained within a fenced-in, self-sustaining community surrounded by forest up in the mountains of Appalachia can be yours. Just mind the hidden microphones and shallow graves, yeah?
This same time last year, prior to the reneges when that auction was first receiving attention in the press, there was another strange example of unsuccessfully sorting out the past. President Obama was becoming the first American President to physically visit the Japanese village of Hiroshima, known to history books for receiving an atomic bomb from the Americans towards the end of World War II, killing tens of thousands of civilians in the blink of a bloodshot eye. If Obama had there called upon the world to help America evolve its moral system, that would have been commendable. Instead, he invited the rest of the world to evolve their own various moral systems, to theoretically all match the American taste for dropping nuclear weapons of mass destruction on the likes of innocent fishing villages. A sentiment surely echoed today by current President Trump’s first foreign tour encompassing costly though lucrative visits to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Vatican.
While Obama’s visit was taking place, the U.S. military stationed in Japan was busy enforcing new restrictions on off-base alcohol consumption by its American soldiers, following allegations of rape and murder committed by the soldiers against Japanese citizens and tourists alike. Which means that leftist citizen journalists had been overly critical of Obama, as clearly the man suffers from some dramatic form of mental retardation and thus deserves condolences and sympathies rather than scorn. Same goes for Trump.
At the time, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey stoically called out the blatant hypocrisy of Obama, for using the historic Hiroshima visit to also beseech a future free of nuclear weapons while simultaneously launching a new one-trillion dollar plan to refurbish the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal. After 8 years of this, I don’t understand how anybody can still be surprised by the Obama administration’s one constant of saying one thing while always doing the exact opposite. Like denying American troops were on the ground in Syria despite photographs adamantly proving otherwise.
Also a year ago, speaking at The Next Web conference in Amsterdam, Peter Sunde, a co-founder for both The Pirate Bay and IPredator, dropped some wise observations about Mark Zuckerberg, namely how the Facebook big cheese is a dictator of “the biggest nation in the world”. Unfortunately in covering the story for cable news, Arjun Kharpal came off as quite protective of Zuckerberg, and even limited mention of Sunde’s background to little more than his brief time in prison, which was solely the result of western media conglomerates over-stepping their own perceived authority. Ironically, since Sunde’s descriptions Zuckerberg has actually become noticeably obsessed with campaigning. Zuckerberg’s tax avoidance schemes easily shelter wealth enough to purchase Sugar Grove Station a thousandfold, but he seems to be doing everything in his considerable power to make Sunde’s words a reality.
More and more research is spotlighting the detrimental physical effects which come from prolonged use of digital technologies which Facebook and similar cults are entirely dependent upon. These effects are painfully self-evident, the invasive surveillance activities perpetrated by past residents of Sugar Grove Station and comparable facilities elsewhere aside, from eye pain and headaches to exhaustion and sleeping issues. Even to the extent of manufacturing new phraseology such as “tech hangovers” and the laughable nomophobia, the fear of being without mobile contact. These purposefully defeated peoples are the zombified subjects of Zuckerberg and his ilk’s dominion.
The National Toxicology Program published results to a federal study conducted over the course of two and a half years and costing around $25 million, concluding that radio-frequency radiation emitted by cellphones can and do cause cancer. California state workers illegally but proactively suppressed similar findings from a completely different study. Those who survive the experience will have their brains transformed into sour mash.
Richard Faussett reported on the plight of millennials, feeling horribly let down by their place in this modern world, and left with nothing but their e-cigs and Lady Gaga tracks and perfectly unkempt hair while being forced to live anywhere other than Hollywood and not achieving fame nearly as fastly as their televisions promised. Working less than any previous generation in the history of our species is still asking too much of them, so it appears or maybe, being so self-centered as to be oblivious to that fact, to all of history and the world beyond their video game screens for that matter, might well be the graver concern. The electronic toys too many of their number eagerly and doggedly obsess over do not result in a meaningful existence, rather they are a distraction from a meaningful existence, breeding a herd of walkers to follow the merest suggestion of brains instead of rediscovering the world with their own lifeless forms.
The barely post-pubescent but probably still virginal students at Oberlin College requested that their school abolish below average grades, issuing a petition for chats with professors to replace the testing of actual midterms and finals, citing a more pressing need to pursue activism. They do not want to work, they do not want to learn, and they do not want to have to suffer any consequences for their inadequacies in accomplishing in any way a life beyond what their screens convey. They are so self-absorbed and ill-informed they do not realize how every previous generation was able to produce its share of activists regardless of having the time for it. There is a difference between posturing for online social media, and exhibiting the accountability demanded in turn. A key tenet of social growth would be matching the accomplishments and obligations of the previous generation, and doing them one better. The entire fucking point of activism is fighting for rights, but they seem to believe the horse should follow the wagon instead. Just as the entire fucking point of higher education is to meet with the unknown, not to be sheltered by voids already comfortably filled.
The world is hand-delivered to an excruciatingly few primadonnas on a silver platter, rarely without an awful lot of bloodshed. Should any sensible adult in the vicinity of these students hold an actual silver platter in hand I would hope it be weaponized to beat some modicum of sense into these spoiled princes and princesses. For all the noise made by the thousands of Occupy Wall Street protesters, only a handful of really good ideas were honestly ever set on the table. This is where education is fundamental, and those claiming to not need it expressly do. It will require a tad more than lazy, selfish ignorance to effectively sort and counter the damages of prior generations, and do them one better. Know thy enemy by all means, but also know your personal resources for opposition. This is categorically impossible when untried and untested.
In a conversation with journalist Kyle Smith, Dan Lyons asked “What’s the difference between a loyal employee and a brainwashed cultist?” The answer of course is not an awful lot, as Capitalists display every cult-like attribute by design, and the ease with which younger generations give themselves away to the perceived cultural trendiness of brand loyalty is increasingly disturbing as sin. What is a cult, but a rabid refusal in considering alternate perspectives? Capitalism is harmful, your boss is full of shit, and you just wasted your paycheck on a fucking app. Admitting a problem exists is the first step on the road to recovery, especially following the zombie outbreak.
Peter Tait reported on how self-obsession is dangerous, and that digital media enables an extra dangerous variety of self-obsession while also contrarily possessing the tools for the sort of inclusion that would make any bleeding heartfelt. Such articles are incredibly misguided for all the ostracizing they ignore. The online world presents the most hollow form of fraternity, and at the cost of finding better in real life away from keyboards. In person, the weakest links deserve support on their individual paths to becoming their very best, as no grouping is any better than its weakest sampling. But individuality absolutely must be cultivated, and the most successful eras of the more agreeable civilizations were all directly correlated with allowing strong individuals to exist and to grow. The problem with modern society is that there are no great individuals permitted to exist or to grow, no matter how many celebrities we knowingly mislabel otherwise.
A few years ago there was an activist documentary made, titled ReGeneration. There was one scene in particular that stayed with me, with a group of artists discussing the flaws of modern society. They all agreed that mentalities representing the “me” generation are to blame, yet when prompted nobody could actually identify what that meant. I can. It is the vile habit of thinking we deserve to be entertained, and the many aspects of life we block out for the arrogantly unhealthy pursuit of that end. How exceptional are we now, when no previous generation wasted as much time on frivolousness such as collecting toys and playing RPGs and computer games and enabling the obscene gossip that social networking sites thrive upon? Did your great great great grandparents spend as much time in the restroom getting ready for the club? Did they accomplish less?
If the products we mistake for culture do not turn us into zombies, our technology will. Or our manic-depressive, bipartisan political spectrum united behind mutual assured destruction as much as they are the drug companies of the worst healthcare systems in all of existence. The FDA approved an altered virus custom-designed for devouring cancer cells exclusively, which is probably a solid beginning for a zombie virus outbreak. A scientist in Russia is so desperate to uncover a super-drug that he injected himself with bacteria calculated to be around three and a half million years old, which could also make for a satisfactory beginning.
Sparing the fiction, an associate professor from Kent State University in Ohio issued an international call to both fund and promote studies concerning the prevention of a possible zombie outbreak. The study, presented in the British Medical Journal, asserts how the emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria mixed with normal government unpreparedness for handling epidemics might be enough to make the fantasy of excused murdering a reality. Zombie fiction can be captivating for narrating societal breakdown, but in real life actual societal breakdown occurs openly and continuously without inspiration from Hollywood. Like how Satanists are too busy adjusting the artificial layers of pink and black in their hair to see that Christianity is perfectly destructive unto itself, and requires no added seedy underbelly. And serious political movements call for something more constructive than just run of the mill attention-whoring.
The town of Woodland, North Carolina has voted down a proposal to bring a solar farm to its community, over fears that the solar panels would deflect sunlight away from the town itself. So in the event of zombie armageddon any undead rising will just have to shanty off elsewhere, because delicious grey matter is nowhere to be found in Woodland, which is probably not atypical. The dead clawing their way out from under 6 feet of dirt, and out from inside of a coffin is one thing, but dead clawing its way from the concrete box most coffins legally buried in first world nations are themselves buried inside is something else. Like how if vampires have no beating hearts then they have no circulation, meaning no erections which in turn translates to poor romantic ideals. People would have to be on drugs to believe the fiction we are incessantly bombarded with.
A survey conducted by the National Safety Council in conjunction with Indiana’s attorney general concluded that about 80 percent of Indiana employers have been impacted by prescription drug misuse and abuse by employees. In a separate survey conducted in my pants, the number of cases of drug misuse and abuse conducted by employers themselves totaled at an obvious 100 percent. Probably. But no estimates were given regarding how the numbers of drug issues among employees would go down if their employers were more humane. I have never in my life known an honest, ethical or moral employer. I am not a violent man but when all of my former employers become reanimated corpses, likely due to the prescription drug cocktails they subsist on if not their technologies or the blistering fallout of their political spectrum, I am so looking forward to getting my hammer drenched in the blood of their collapsed skulls. I abhor violence though, of course, but even their own mothers will not recognize them when I am done hammering them all into bloodied fragments. Only because survival in the zombie apocalypse makes us do horrible, unspeakable things. For survival.