As much as Westerners, particularly Americans, have had a tendency to pull the covers over their head when news of society's decline and imminent crash has comeup over the last few decades, we're getting to a point that will make the Great Depression of the 1930's look like a mosquito bite. The problem is getting to be too big for even the mainstream news - which is owned by just five behemoth corporations - to sweep under the rug. And it's tough to fool people when their real wages are decreasing as corporate profit margins fatten, and they can barely afford to drive to work. Have a look at the slideshow to the right - you don't have to be an economist to see that something's going majorly wrong here. Meanwhile, we've got an estimated 800 concentration camps built in the U.S. alone (see article), with a few spotted in Canada. We've got Bush quietly replacing courts with military tribunals, and signing legislation purportedly authorizing him to swap out local police in favor of soldiers if he feels the need. We've got federal and local police working together for large-scale secret arrests of 30,000 people, while somehow not making it onto the radar of the news. And of course we're training our soldiers overseas for "urban combat operations", to install a completely new regime in a country while conducting house-to-house searches, detaining, interrogating and torturing suspects, and learning to present a friendly image to the locals - all against the day when we "bring the troops home" - to quell the domestic rioting when the money and food runs out. It's not going to be pretty.

But while the public has been able to convince itself to go on with business as usual for decades, we're reaching an unparalleled opportunity in all this. Things are finally getting dire enough for everyone to agree that something's wrong, and we can finally take some direct action to set it right. Maybe, just maybe, Westerners will realize that living inside a huge carnival isn't as fun or affordable as they thought, that the rides are dangerous and unthrilling, and all the soda and cotton candy is only making them nauseous. And we'll all decide to do something about it.

With legislation to censor free speech on the internet, including Hubs like this one, passing by a landslide (404 votes for, to 6 against), this may be the last opportunity we have to discuss our options. Those would seem to be either to fix the system, or to pull out of it into self-sufficient communities. Here,, I'm going to share some tools for doing both. First, some tools and strategies for fixing the system.

Possibly the best thing we can do to start with is to use the internet to learn about what's going on, share it with others here on HubPages and elsewhere, and share strategies for fixing the problems. With the mainstream media effectively out of action on this sort of thing, this may indeed be our only shot at getting information until the problem is corrected. We can go to sites with under-reported stories that mysteriously aren't making it into the mainstream media, places like Project Censored, and write Hubs about those stories - effectively putting them back into the mainstream reporting where they belong. We can use social organizing sites like PledgeBank to organize social action and political reform - before that too is declared illegal and wiped out. This has already been demonstrated to be successful - 1,000 people decided to move to one area and start their own free state.

Those living in the States will have a much easier time of fixing the system than people in other countries. This is because the Union was created to be extremely free, with all kinds of checks and balances, rights and remedies on the part of the People. That underlying structure is still there, but has been carefully wallpapered over through decades of concerted effort by politicians and attorneys. The inattentiveness of the People has allowed that to happen. Small communities of people have been researching what the laws and nature of the Union's government really is, and sharing information for means to resurrect it, but because nobody's been paying attention the system has felt free to sweep them aside in many cases, even when they're manifestly within the law. With enough public participation, we can make sure the government can't get away with that kind of chicanery, because it will be within full public view if it tries to. We can share research here and on sites like FamGuardian and SuiJuris, and get this information out there while we still can.

Did you know that when a politician makes an Oath of Office, it's a public contract with the People? And that when he or she violates that solemn Oath, they are liable to the People for the damage they have caused? While this damage is theoretically recoverable in court proceedings, in the rare cases in which proceedings have been brought against them it has boiled down to who can afford the best attorney - that in itself is probably a form of special treatment that deserves remedy in law. But there exists a perfectly lawful means of recovering damages that can occur out of court, called a commercial lien. The technique has been used in the sovereign citizenship community, and involves a paper process of commercial law. Essentially, the dispute is brought up and the injured party makes their case on paper to the offending party. The offending party is given three months in which to politively refute the assertions. After three months time, any and all assertions which have not been resolved lie in favor of the injured party and are considered amply proven in law. The damages are calculated in terms of money, and the final amount goes into a lien against the offending party. Their houses, cars, credit and any other real property now has a default judgement against them that is almost impossible to remove in court - after all, the offending party had plenty of opportunity to resolve the matter during the three months' time. Politicians have received complaints from their wives, who went out to go shopping and found that their credit cards wouldn't work. If the damages aren't paid off, their property can be reposessed to pay for them, with the help of the local sheriff's office. This process has worked in the past, because it's completely lawful, and because it's an instrument of commercial law, it can be applied in any country in the world, rather than being isolated to one country's legal system. Unfortunately, this process has only been used on a one-a-penny, two-a-penny basis by individuals in the sovereign citizenship community. Without being in the public gaze, court officials have often felt free to disregard the process with impunity. But with larger public involvement, this could be a devestatingly effective means of holding politicians, corporations, and other seemingly omnipotent behemoths accountable for their actions. The People can once again reclaim the system that their parents and grandparents let fall apart.

Speaking of large corporate behemoths, were you aware that corporations are only allowed to exist when they're contributing to the public good? When the Union first debated whether or not to allow private corporations to form, there was a hugely controversial debate. After all, they didn't want huge corporations overpowering the People. But on the other hand, there were great works in the public interest that no individual had the means to accomplish - building bridges, digging canals, and so forth. So corporations were allowed to exist, provided they served the public interest and contributed to the public good. The prospect of individual profit with limited liability was added as an enticement for people to invest in these great works, but after these corporations got big enough they hired people called "borers" to bribe Congressmen and politicians in state capitols, and eventually the laws were made more favorable to corporations. Court decisions even granted them "corporate personhood", and this precedant is often cited to argue that corporate charters cannot easily be revoked. But however kindly an interpretation that courts and legislators have made of the laws that govern corporations, an unconstitutional ruling is still without power. The ruling simply needs to be challenged by the People, and struck down, and we'll again have the means to revoke corporate charters when corporations are not only not serving the public interest, but are manifestly acting against it. In addition, commercial liens present the possibility to seize a corporation's assets, reposess the entire corporation, or possibly dissolve the corporation itself outright. For example, most people acknowledge that Fox News puts out government propaganda - the talking points their pundits drum into viewer's heads are handed down from Rupert Murdoch himself. So many people complain about the lies and venom Fox News puts out, but nobody's holding them accountable in law for their behavior. If we did, they wouldn't be able to do it anymore - and America would not only have shut down the first of many sources of hateful rhetoric and constant totalitarian drivel, we would have taken back a news source and be able to make sure it was actually used to report the news. The real news, with real reporters asking real questions of politicians. All that's needed is sufficient public attention to explore this potential. There's no reason to feel powerless against large corporations. The answers have been there all the time - the only thing lacking has been you.

While it's common knowledge that a judge can deliver judgement on matters brought before it, few people are aware that lesser agents of the court system also have the authority to render default judgements as well. These judgements stand in law until overturned by someone with greater authority, like a judge, and this authority extends all the way down to the least agent of the court - the humble and often-overlooked notary. If you're tired of writing to politicians and corporations about wrongdoing on their part and having them ignore you or not address the situation, then you should know that you can use a notary to render a default judgement against them, using a process known as a Notary Certificate of Default. This default judgement via a humble notary stands in law, just as a judge's determination would stand, and is much more affordable. Notaries who regularly work with banks, real estate companies, and debt collection companies are often used to deliver Certificates of Default, but the process was kept hidden from the public - lest everyone else realize that notaries have this power and ordinary citizens begin leveling the playing field. Citizens have used this approach with great success, and even claim a 100% success rate when used against the IRS. This is understandable, because the IRS doesn't actually have the lawful authority to levy taxes against citizens involuntarily, and its typical strategy when called on record to explain its normal approach with people is to clam up, give up, say nothing it can be called to account for and lose that particular battle - so that it can go on doing what it's doing on a regular basis, and thereby win the war. With an approach like this on the part of the IRS, citizens have had great success making it back off and get out of their face - because what it's doing isn't lawful, and it knows it. Several IRS employees have learned that what they were doing is against the law, and not only resigned from the IRS, they've gone to tell the public. Income taxes aren't lawful, they aren't mandatory, and unless you've agreed to, you don't have to pay them. Since Americans work about three months out of the year just to pay their taxes, and those taxes now subsidize things like warrantless wiretapping, human torture in places like Guantanamo, the unneccesary wars overseas, and an estimated 800 concentration camps in the U.S. alone, learning what you need to do to lawfully stop paying your income taxes may well be the best thing Americans can do for themselves, and for their country.

We can thank the sovereign citizenship community for bringing the notarial certificate of default out of the secret use of the banks, and into the hands of the average citizen.

While most Americans are finding it tougher to make ends meet due to a corrupt system draining their earnings and choices away, few realize that they can actually make quite a successful living righting wrongs. For every injury caused by corporations and politicians, the law demands a fair remedy - otherwise, law wouldn't be fair, and fairness is what the law is all about. Today, the average American has been buffeted about and ripped off by one corporation after another after another, and their politicians as well. If they pursued these damages, and did it organized into a large enough group to ensure justice under the law was done, they would find that the damages owed to them by people in positions of power was more than enough to assure them a comfortable lifestyle for the rest of their lives. If you've ever considered devoting your life to making the world a better place, if you've ever secretly wanted to be a superhero, this may be the career track for you. With enough resource, organization and application, you have the opportunity to make a very successful living cleaning up corruption. There's certainly plenty of it, and it also happens to be where the majority of the money is as well. There are few opportunities in life to make the world a better place and get rich in the process - don't let this one slip through your fingers.

If you've found this information useful, consider participating in my online pledge to make this kind of information more visible and available to people. Just a few clicks and a few minutes of your time can change the world around you.

It may be the last chance we get.

In this Hub, we've looked at some of the tools and techniques for fixing this society, and making it better. If you know of some that I've missed, please leave a Comment about them here, or respond to my Request with a Hub of your own - as more people do this, all this information will be grouped together and easily accessible under the Request.

In the next Hub in this series we'll be looking at new ways to live "off the grid", whether totally or partially, and some amazing new technologies and techniques that will let us do that in ways we never could have before.