I’m pretty sensitive about the Matrix. I mean, when I saw it, I wasn’t totally enthralled with it like everyone who was telling me that I just had to see it, but I thought it was a pretty good movie nonetheless. Only until I delved deeper into my religious studies courses at Indiana State University and my extra-curricular studies of Gnosticism did I see the Matrix for what it really was — the most profound piece of Gnostic film that may ever be created. So when people say the Matrix sucks or that they didn’t understand it, I usually have to hold back a tirade about how deep the storyline is and all of its correspondences to ancient scriptures.
But today, I read the ultimate Matrix insult. This one nearly caused me to shoot my monitor. From the ACLU’s website:
The MATRIX (Multistate Anti-TeRrorism Information eXchange) surveillance system combined information about individuals from government databases and private-sector data companies. It then made those dossiers available for search by government officials and combed through the millions of files in a search for “anomalies” that may be indicative of terrorist or other criminal activity. It was terminated in April 2005, though components continued to be made available to police in individual states.
Now it would figure that the government would need to watch TV or a movie to get the name for their new piece of crap program that’s designed to turn citizens into slaves (can’t you just feel the irony???). Bureaucrats and politicians do it all the time, from cool shit like Star Wars to lame-ass slogans like “Where’s the Beef?” I’m surprised Walter Mondale isn’t embarrased to show his sorry ass in public for that one. But even when coming up with the name for this domestic spying program, they had to stretch to come up with MATRIX as their cockamamie little acronym.
But fuck that. Everyone should go to the ACLU’s site and contact their respective Congress critters and tell them what they really think of this program. Not because they’re running the Matrix’s good name through the mud, not because of how you feel about the American Civil Liberties Union, but because the United States government has made a conscious decision to fully endorse and embrace fascism. That’s right, fascism, the same failed political ideology that many Americans died trying to save the world from in World War II.
For those motivated more by entertainment than by activism, the ACLU’s site has a Flash animation that demonstrates what it would be like to order a pizza under a MATRIX-like system. I’m sure that after seeing it and chuckling for a brief moment, you’ll be in the proper mood to express some choice words to your elected representative. The first time that I saw this animation was at an advanced screening of the movie America: From Freedom to Fascism. I definitely recommend it as the must-see movie event of the upcoming summer blockbuster season. If it wasn’t such an accurate and depressing depiction of what’s really going on in America today, I might be tempted to say that it was even better than the Matrix.
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