Hello Steemit, my name is Johnny Hurley. I became interested in politics and government and became an activist after being jolted "awake" watching online films like Zeitgeist and Esoteric Agenda and listening to G. Edward Griffin and Michael Tsarion in the summer of 2007. To just call it becoming an activist leaves so much out though; starting on a path to truth changed my whole life. I have never been the same since, and I never will be. Arundhati Roy put it quite beautifully saying "once you see it, you can't unsee it", and for most of you reading this you know what that means. There is no blue pill. You either begin to take responsibility for what you know or you begin to pile up the excuses not to. I chose to take the responsibility, having no idea what to do or where to start.
I never paid attention to politics or world affairs before and thus didn't understand them. Ironically I was a little rebellious as a kid, listening to bands sing about corruption and revolution, skateboarding where I wasn't supposed to, breaking curfew, running from cops... Saying "fuck the system!" and scrawling anarchy symbols on my desk without quite taking the full meaning of it all or seeing how it directly affected me, outside of dealing with trespassing and underage drinking tickets. I didn't put it all together until I was much older.
A close friend of mine had been bugging me about watching some youtube videos that were really messing with his mind. This guy had also previously told me he thought the Queen of England was a shapeshifting reptilian alien, so reluctant though I was to take him serious all the time I decided to check out this Zeitgeist movie. I cannot stop thanking my him for pointing me to that. It absolutely blew me away, all of it. I had never heard or seen anything like it. I watched it over and over. I cried for days. I followed every story, every researcher, every documentary, every link it provided. It changed me forever. I now divert away from some of the conclusions the Zeitgeist Movement has come to but I will always turn people on to the film as it was my first trip down the rabbit hole.
In 2009 I met up with We Are Change Colorado at a street action outside my restaurant on the 16th Street Mall in Denver, CO. They had been doing actions, making videos, hosting Alex Jones for the DNC, winning cases against the police about civil rights to protest, tabling at local festivals, etc. Finally! These were my people! I jumped immediately in and we had many great successes in spreading messages of truth and freedom. Some close calls, some failures, but all great times, always in the name of free humanity. I believe that we have certainly been effective in putting out our messages and that we have made a difference in people's lives.
Now I, as so many, many folks have, come full circle (pun intended) back to the Anarchy symbol; to an understanding of Natural Law, of the non-aggression principle, of Libertarian values. Though it may be great folly to think that you have come to the end of your path to truth, that you finally have all the answers and you now "get it", I feel that this is a further awakening for myself and a lot of folks. It feels almost as liberating again as the first time to know that I own myself, and that this whole charade of government is one big fat lie, and that there's really no need to bother with it anymore.
This platform here seems to be a great answer to the dominant and likely controlled centers of social media, and it is already attracting the kinds of people I want to associate with. My good friend Kenny @kennyskitchen turned me on to this and I feel like I'm already late to the game as we have the likes of him, @lukewearechange, @dbroze, @larkenrose, @amandarachwitz, @dollarvigilante, just to name a very few that I follow and respect greatly. Steemit seems to cultivate intelligence instead of mindlessness, and civil discussion instead of pissing matches. Is there room here for cat videos and pictures of what you cooked for dinner? Perhaps, but that ain't what I'm here for. I want freedom. I want others to be angry about their own oppression. I want people to love themselves and humanity. I want the truth. I want to share my ideas and hear from others. I want to conduct business with like minded people. Oh yeah, and I wanna get paid some bitcoin!
So thank you for having me Steemit, I look forward to writing and sharing much more!