What Does R.I.S.E. Stand For?

Reason ​​Integrity Sovereignty Enlightenment?
​Remembering ​​Inspiring Seeking Enriching?
​Reaching ​​Inviting Sharing Encouraging?

Freeing our species from strife, ignorance and fear.
Real history (not available on The History Channel).
Applying levity to the insanity of humanity.
Giving new meaning to politically incorrect
Discovering the truth behind the lies.
Winning the battle for your mind
Stunning insights too hot for TV.
Too subversive for the pulpit.
Too unprofitable for college.
A guide to political plunder.

What Is R.I.S.E.?

A cub reporter from the local newspaper requested an urgent interview with Gordon Philips, founder of R.I.S.E. Let's listen in...

Q: Can you explain the R.I.S.E movement? 
A: Certainly. We are not a movement. Movements move around. We all pretty much stay in the same place and diverge. 

Q: Diverge? From what?
A: From conventional wisdom, from the illusion of popular choice. Where two roads diverge in a yellow wood, we look for the tunnel.

Q: Can you give me an example?
A: Absolutely. Think of it this way. There are two main political parties in America. It doesn't matter which one you vote for. Either way, the same government gets in.

Q: So you're anti-government?
A: Not at all. Government is a relatively young social experiment, about 5,500 years old, and it hasn't gone all that well so far. Throughout all of recorded history more people have died at the hands of their own government than from all natural causes combined. But we love government anyway. It's very entertaining. And it keeps the empire expanding for a little while longer.

Q: If you're not a movement, perhaps you're some kind of cult? 
A: You mean a small clique that's out of touch with reality and plots in secret? Like Congress? Not at all. We're just everyday, normal people, as all-American as mom, apple pie and corruption.

Q: Do you have a leader?
A: No, that would be against our nature. The herd follows leaders. When they grow tired of a leader, they find a new one to follow, often right off a cliff. We cannot be led. We each herd ourselves.

Q: So does divergent mean contrarian?
A: No. Whatever the public does, contrarians simply do the opposite. It's a reflex kind of thing. But they do so within the same publicly shared holo-reality we call Trumanspace which we exit altogether through a warp in the cultural membrane. 

Q: This is getting a bit confusing.
A: You're telling me. You should be on this side of the membrane!

Q: OK, one more try. Where is Trumanspace?
A: It is all around you, like the ether that Tesla wrote about. It's in the classroom, in the living room, in the ballot box, under your hat, in bank ATMs which we associate with Morlock temples. Creepy.

Q: So if Trumanspace is all around you, how can you exit from it?
A: Through the back door which leads to an RV park where recovering Normals sit around the campfire and share escape stories. 

Q: What are some of the types of activities you engage in?
A: Everyday activities like unplugging cable TV and reading, declining vaccinations and using natural healing methods instead, teaching our home schooling children to think for themselves as individuals, things like that. 

Q: Do any of you diverge just for the sake of diverging?
A: No, that would be sophomoric and lemming-like. Then we would be a lot like the Normals.

Q: You seem pretty down on the public. Are you opposed to everything public?
A: Not at all. We love the public. If it weren't for the public we wouldn't have parades. And selfies. The public can't help themselves. They endured twelve years of public school and thousands of hours of TV. That kind of brain washing is pretty hard to overcome.

Q: But you do reject all conventional wisdom, don't you?
A: Pretty much, but not because it is public. Because it is incorrect, and we're big on reality.

Q: What are some examples of things the public is wrong about?
A: Sure. Well, let's see... there's real history, criminal politics, the fiat money cartel, zero point energy, the idea that the allopathic medical monopoly ever healed anyone, that we live in a democracy, why three NYC skyscrapers all fell on '9-11' and the third one wasn't hit by a plane. You know, things like that. Pretty much everything I guess.

Q: Do you make any attempt to educate the public to your point of view?
A: We wouldn't dream of it. We'd be tarred and feathered. People need to diverge on their own. It's just something that happens when you turn off the TV. Pretty soon you find yourself sitting there with your own thoughts and questioning everything. It's rather refreshing. No commercials either.

Q: Thank you, this has been most enlightening.
A: I was afraid you'd say that.

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What R.I.S.E. Is Not

R.I.S.E. is not a club, a political movement or a religion. We are not joiners and we have no members. 

More than anything we are a philosophy generally shared by individuals who elect to fraternize for the purpose of achieving common goals. 

We have no president and no governing council. There are no dues. There is no written document outlining rules of behavior. We associate of our own free will.

If you were to interview any one of us we might tell you the following.

THAT we envision a world in which each and every individual is free to make, explore and realize their own personal choices of how best to live their lives; a world not only free of violence perpetrated by others, but free of violence perpetrated by government in their name.

THAT we understand that, ultimately, there are only two types of people in this world: collectivists and individualists.

Collectivists see society as a living organism. They would sacrifice the rights, and even the life of the individual for the good of the hive.

Collectivists prefer security to liberty and find it easier to elect others to do the thinking for them.

They see proponents of liberty as selfish and self-interested, even as they themselves vote in political popularity contests for officials who will subject them to the least amount of organized theft through taxation. Pure democracy, socialism, communism and fascism are all forms of collectivism.

Individualists - also called voluntaryists - support the right and cherish opportunity of each individual to explore and fulfill the full expression of his or her dreams and ambitions, so long as the property, privacy and rights of others are not encroached upon in the process.

THAT the vast majority of war, plunder, oppression, conquest, famine, genocide and other human misery has been the work of collectivists busily harnessing the power of the state to mold others into their vision of a perfect world.

THAT throughout recorded history, collectivism has resulted in the death of countless hundreds of millions at the hand of their own governments. 

THAT organized acts of violence like these have always occurred over the ignored protests of history's most celebrated scientists, inventors, philosophers, writers and poets, the vast majority of whom were enthusiastically individualists. 

THAT even today, on this beautiful and very small planet overflowing with abundant food and natural resources, every other person alive goes to bed hungry each day as a direct result of planned interventions in the economies, distribution infrastructures and social management of their respective nations, all the work of concerted collectivists..

Collectivists and voluntaryists.
Consumers and citizens.
Violence and freedom. 
Security and liberty.
Scarcity and plenty.
War and peace.

Which begs asking, Dear Reader, which of these perspectives do you support?

Making Sense Of It All
If like many forward-thinking individuals you find yourself deeply concerned over the clear and accelerating down trend in just about everything these days, you might be asking yourself:

"Why is everything so screwed up?" 

That's a big question, isn't it? To be sure, much about life on this small, blue planet is great. But much is not.

Billions of our fellow humans suffer each day from the effects of war, hunger, poverty, disease, political corruption, deprivation of freedoms, racial divisiveness and much more.

Some of these phenomena have natural causes. But many, and provably so, come to us courtesy of international corporations, ancient societies and of course, governments, all of which network together for their mutual benefit as we are left to pick up the tab.

This cozy cabal constitutes a deep and integrated layer of global management and control with the goal of forming all nations into a single, one-world social, economic and political structure molded according to their shared vision of utopia.

Some of these controllers are visible. Most are largely invisible. Many you will never be allowed to know.

These people - and truth be told, this is more a network of ancient families - control 99% of the world's wealth and natural resources which gives them monopoly control over the world's major institutions such as banking and money, schools and education, energy, transportation, communication, manipulation of public thought processes via their monopoly media, and military intervention with armed forces sent to enforce freedom in places without indoor plumbing, whether they like it or not.

Are there any effective solutions that "We the little people" can apply to these problems? Said more simply, what can we do to "take our planet back?"

Perhaps The Solution Is Political? 
Unfortunately, as recorded history proves, every political party -  even those that begin with the purest of intentions - soon and easily become penetrated, compromised, corrupted and controlled.

What About Religion?
Perhaps faith in God holds the solution? Regrettably, throughout countless centuries, billions of people the world over have been subjugated and slaughtered in the name of organized religion. ​As proof of this, religious wars continue to this very day.

Perhaps Government Can Provide The Answers?
"We asked for help, they sent us men with guns." - Hurricane Katrina survivor. 

Governments aren't just inept (and then corrupt, in that order) it is the very nature of government to be corrupt. Even those governments which purport to be the most democratic exist by exerting coercive control over the populace. How else to extract labor, loyalty and taxes?

Politicians (for the most part, bought-and-paid-for) pass laws according to their personal views of a perfect society, and you must then do as they say. Or else.

Perhaps The Schools Can Make a Difference? 
You were thinking of the public schools? Not on your life. Not when the government is the one assigning the textbooks. Why would any government educate future voters in the very principles of liberty that would empower them to resist?

Perhaps The Answer Lies In Higher Education? 
Would any college dare offer a course in the only practical solution to the "government problem," which is to enlighten young people in the self-interested advantages of a voluntary society based on free and ethical interactions, thereby eliminating the need for government altogether?

See what we mean? Ain't gonna' happen. Subsidized college tuition programs would dry up overnight.

Perhaps Home Schooling Offers The Answer? 
This was true at the beginning of the home education movement, back when parents teaching the Constitution at the kitchen table were arrested for "abetting truancy" because their children were not warming government classroom seats during school hours.

Unfortunately, many of today's home schoolers study from the same government-issued textbooks as the kids seated in the government school up the street. 

To their credit, their parents don't want their precious children being exposed to bullying, experimental drugs, nose piercings, gang tattoos, demonstrations of proper condom use, locker inspections, metal detectors and more.

Good for them! 

But often the education being received by these "at home" public schoolers about real history or the true meaning of liberty (and its outright theft by government) looks a lot like a goose egg after the goose left town.

We should add that many of the finest home educating families still allow television in their house as if it were just another member of the family. 

Yet people who watch television for many years have their paradigm subtly yet deeply altered in ways most are not aware of. Do we dare to call this a mild for of cultural hypnotism?

Not to mention that when it comes to the truth, the very best place to hide anything is on TV.

So if "all of the above" potential solutions have been tried already and failed to create a rational, responsible, ethical and spiritually enlightened society, where does this leave us?

We would suggest, Dear Reader, that the answer does not lie at the plane of socio-economic struggle, but lies above.

Perhaps the solution to rescuing humanity from the forces of economic manipulation, political oppression, armed aggression and other social controls is to raise our thinking a little higher.

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