CARTOON: The Sneaky Rat In Your Living Room, Pocket & Hugging Your Wrist

Am I being a tad paranoid? No, unfortunately, it’s understanding and protecting oneself and allies in change as much as possible in the world as it now is. A world without privacy. None.

Cartoon by Mark Taylor / DeMOCKracy.ink
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HOMEMADE SURVEILLANCE: How We All Turn Ourselves Over To The Deep State

Beware of Alexa, the ugly little rat in the corner of the living room…and the other cool little rat hugging your wrist!

By Mark Taylor
DeMOCKracy.ink (7/1/25)

Late last week I had a conversation with someone in my living room and in the course of that we briefly talked about an LLC business license they were getting. Based upon my having had an LLC, I confirmed the information they shared. It was less than two minutes of a 20-minute chat.

Beginning immediately after that I have been getting a steady stream of LLC-themed videos on YouTube. Coincidence? No, it’s surveillance and the ugly little rat is the Alexa in the corner of the room.

Or perhaps the phone in my pocket.

And this is not the first time I have had something like this happen.

Need for security awareness

A number of years ago I went to a local meeting with a courageous young environmental protester being investigated and criminally charged for doing minor damage to a valve on a fracking oil pipeline as an act of civil disobedience. At the door of the room we were asked to place our phones in a box to be kept out of the room. It was a condition for such meetings by the young man’s attorneys.

I remember being shocked and initially thinking it was a bit paranoid. I now see it as essential with any sensitive political conversation or planning meeting. And, of course, now many people carry a high-tech smartwatch rat on their wrists.

Recently, I attended a group of local activists discussing plans for the No Kings protest and organizing for mutual aid efforts and labor organizing. I thought at the time such conversations really can no longer happen with pockets full of iPhones and ear buds and wrists covered in cool little wrist rats. All that crap needs to be outside the meeting and critical note taking should be on paper…handwritten. And shredded when no longer needed.

On top of that the group does much of its organizing and planning on the Discord app. Like serving up Deep State sugar cookies to state and federal agents.

Sound far fetched and whacko? Study up on the CIA’s Operation Chaos that effectively sabotaged and compromised anti-war and civil rights groups and organizing during the 1960s. Think it’s not happening now?

Please, don’t be so naive. Just look at the government in charge.

A harsh truth

Activists need to grasp that privacy is done. Over, done and buried. Every organizing group needs to understand that, or collaborate in their own abuse and possible imprisonment. My recent served-up YouTube menu has convinced me.

We need to understand all the snazzy technology firmly embedded in our lives both receives and sends information, and — as we saw with the obscene and cowardly Israeli pager terror attacks in Lebanon — can be weaponized.

Today’s opposition needs to study previous resistance movements before the arrival of our traitorous digital dystopia. It’s been a few years since I read this powerful biography of the German Christian theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was deeply involved in anti-Nazi resistance. I’ve put it on my reread list and encourage DeMOCKracy.ink readers to check it out.

Soon.

Gene Sharp’s Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework For Liberation, which inspired a number of liberation movements around the world is another resource. I wrote an earlier post on Sharp’s work, in which I noted:

“Given the totalitarian regime we are in and the despotic path we see before us, I urge you buy a paper copy or download and print out a free copy. Do not depend solely on a digital copy. The fascist collapse is accelerating by the day and it won’t be long before the digital resources for resistance will be limited, cut off or used to track resistance.”

Am I being a tad paranoid?

God, I wish.

No, unfortunately, it’s understanding and protecting oneself and allies in change as much as possible in the world as it now is. A world without privacy. None. A world of ever-present surveillance cameras, illegal government intrusion of privacy and defecation on Constitutional rights, foreign and domestic detention and torture camps and a Supreme Court actively handing over the nation and our rights to Donald Trump and demonic little toads like Stephen Miller.

Resistance can take many forms from active to passive. The use of humor — especially mockery — can reveal the truth of the dummy despot wearing no clothes. A recent example highlighting VP J.D. Vance is at the end of the post.

For those with more tech knowledge than me, feel free to share your observations and suggestions for digital shielding.

Resist
Persist
Don’t be complicit!

• Former CIA Agent Confirms: You Have NO Privacy: 15-minute video

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DECEPTION: How Western Media Use Headlines To Manipulate Public Perceptions & Push US/Israeli Lies

[Editor’s Note: Having worked half my professional life as a print journalist, I can confirm everything Assal Rad says about how distorted headlines manipulate and herd readers. The use of manipulative language, subtle phrasing and leaving truth unspoken are longstanding traditions in corporate journalism. — M. Taylor]

The Listening Post
Al Jazeera (6/28/25)

Over the past 20 months, historian Assal Rad has been correcting misleading mainstream news headlines on Israel’s genocide in Gaza. She talks us through the unmistakable parallels she has noticed with the coverage of Israel’s 12-day war with Iran.

8-minute video

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AS IF WE NEEDED ONE: Another Reason To LOATHE The Parasitic Wealthy

The Daily Beast (6/20/25)

Joanna Coles is joined by author Evan Osnos to parse the twisted games the world’s wealthiest play with, and aboard, their crazy expensive yachts. As tech billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg snap up gigayachts, Osnos, author of 'The Haves and Have-Yachts', unpacks what these floating palaces reveal about a seismic shift in American wealth and power. He explains why Donald Trump shut down the KleptoCapture task force, how oligarch envy shapes Trump’s worldview, and what it means that he once owned a Saudi arms dealer’s yacht—but hated being on it.

From Adnan Khashoggi to Elon Musk, Osnos traces the rise of ostentatious money, the death of discretion, and why the modern billionaire isn’t satisfied with private jets—they want political control too. Plus: how Musk crossed a line even Andrew Carnegie didn’t, and why Americans may finally be waking up to a new, gilded threat.

47-minute video

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Oligarchic Rule Over Representation

“MAGA Republicans don't want to represent America—they want to rule it. And they want Donald Trump, a 34-count convicted felon, a sexual abuser, a defamer, a liar, a man who called our soldiers ‘suckers’ and ‘losers,’ to lead us possibly into another war, economic hardship, and a future defined by hate and division.”

— People Powered United

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INSTILLING FEAR: The ICE Tactic Protesters Need To Understand To Avoid Arrest

Parkrose Permaculture (6/28/25)

“ICE is looking to manufacture assault charges charges, whether or not they will stick. It is just simply the threat of those that is meant to chill dissent. They want to make you afraid to interact with them. They want to make you afraid to question them. They want to make you afraid to exercise your Constitutional rights. They are using the threat of assault charges. They are using the threat of sending you to federal prison in order to get you to back down and to obey in advance.”

10-minute video

• MORE TIPS FOR RESISTANCE: Trump’s Immigration Arrests Are Seeing A Growing Wave Of Resistance — Recent weeks have seen the Trump administration’s “mass deportation” program kick into overdrive. …The nation disapproves, polling shows. Massive protests around the country ― in both large urban areas and small towns ― have showcased Americans’ fury at having their loved ones and neighbors ripped out of their communities at random. Across the country, people are also taking action to slow down what they see as the egregious over-enforcement of immigration law, attempting to starve Trump’s mass deportation machine of fuel and to throw sand in its gears. … Link to story

BOUNTY HUNTERS? True Patriot Stands Up To Trump's Immigration Thugs

[Editor’s Note: Notice the POS pretending to show his badge. Remember, to step onto your property they need a warrant signed by a judge. An ‘administrative warrant’ is not the same thing and illegal. If they don’t have that you can assume they are criminals … and cowardly little POSs and undeserving of any respect. — M. Taylor]

The Majority Report (6/29/25)

7-minute video

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Why You Definitely Should…ER, SHOULD NOT…Share This JD Vance Meme

MSNBC (6/26/25)

After landing at Newark airport, Norwegian tourist Mads Mikkelsen says he was detained and denied entry to the U.S. because immigration officials found on his phone a photo depicting JD Vance as a bald baby.

3-minute video

WARNING! ICE GESTAPO CITIZEN BULLETIN! Scrub These J.D. Vance Memes From Your Phone, NOW!

Definitely do NOT use these mean images in posts or emails!

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Pete Seeger On Resistance…

“When you’re facing an opponent over a broad front, you don’t aim for the opponent’s strong points, important though they may be. Pick a little outpost that you can capture and win. And then you find another place that you can capture and win it, and then you move slowly toward the big places.”

— Pete Seeger