Headline games.

Sometimes I like to play a little game. I gather up the headlines of a major news source and attempt to construct them into a coherent whole. I want to see if these news bits can cast a combined light on the facts in such a way as to illuminate the real story, the story that Federal Powers don’t want you to know. Just yet.

Sometimes these disparate news articles come together is such a way as to give a startlingly clear picture of an event, or place, or time. Today, in the New York Times, is a picture of America in the very near future. These three headlines are the top stories:

Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report
Published: December 24, 2005
WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials.

Transit Strike Reflects Nationwide Pension Woes
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: December 24, 2005
Fast-rising pension costs for government employees - the issue that helped set off this week's transit strike in New York City - are a problem confronting cities, counties and states nationwide, causing many budgetary experts to predict a wave of painful fights over efforts to scale back government retirement programs.

Capitol's Pariah on Immigration Is Now a Power
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
Published: December 24, 2005
DENVER, Dec. 21 - For nearly a decade, Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado, has been dismissed by his critics as little more than an angry man with a microphone, a lonely figure who rails against immigration and battles his own president and party.

What do these mean?

If you squint your eyes just a tad, and allow your thoughts to go out of focus a bit, you might be able to see this:

The United States is becoming the Old Soviet Union.

There it is. I’ve said it. What are the key elements to this assertion?

In the first story, it becomes more and more evident that the Federal Government has established a massive spying operation on American Citizens. It spies on other Nations and their citizens as well, but we’ve known about this for years. The spying on Americans, without a court order, or judicial supervision, is new.

In the second story, the facts are that citizens of this country are in for a rude and perilous awakening when they seek retirement. For years Government agencies, from counties to Federal, have underfunded pension plans. So, when this glut of baby boomers seek retirement, there will be no funds available. Not only that, but our country is controlled by men who do not believe in taxes of any sort, except those needed to conduct wars and make them and their friends obscenely wealthy. So, there will be no action of raising taxes to pay these retirement costs.

Lastly, we have our government moving to the extraordinary step of physically fencing off the entire country from Canada and Mexico. Razor wire and guards trained to shoot first.
In effect, we are in the process of creating a gulag.

The Government keeps close track of its citizens and everything they do or say. There will be no retirement, so Americans will be reduced to poverty and privation, making them more susceptible to manipulation and control of the Government. Lastly, we will have fences and border guards to prevent entry, and exit of unauthorized people.

Sounds like a gulag to me.

I know, your saying to yourself, “a tiny bit paranoid are we?”

And I reply, “when they really are out to get you, it’s not paranoia.”