When I was growing up in America, I honestly believed we were the good guys in the world.
I thought we were a shining example to the world with our system of democracy and freedoms.
Since I lived in the Bible belt I also thought that God had blessed us, every one and was on our side no matter what.
Because my parents voted for Republican, I thought that must be the party who did things the right way.
What an insufferable little asshole I must have been.
As I grew into adulthood, I realized how bigoted and sexist my religion was. It sought to make young people ashamed of their sexuality, judge anyone who was outside the faith and force women into a role where their sole purpose was to bear children and wait on their husbands.
This was a hetero-normative idea that presupposed a nobleness of male character and an infallibility of masculine judgment.
Becoming a single mother at age 19 and having to deal with heavy discrimination in the workforce did a lot to convince me that I needed to get out of the South.
I eventual moved to California where life seemed a little better.
From there I went to live in Mexico for a while and I became a witness to the consequences of my country's exploitation of Mexican migrants.
My country has passed through what I call, "A Series of Unfortunate Events."
I naively thought they began with the Bush administration after 9-11 but after two years in grad school and a visit to Chile I learned to look further back than that.
I now wonder if we have ever done anything truly decent in our entire history and I'm struggling to find an example that isn't white-washed or greatly exaggerated.
In Santiago, I visited the houses of detention that Pinochet had used to torture and murder individuals who were seen as leftist threats.
I saw the government building known as La Moneda where CIA-backed forces led by Pinochet had overthrown the Democratically elected Socialist president, Salvador Allende.
America helped cause all this suffering and Henry Kissinger later got a Nobel Peace Prize.
WTF, indeed.
The Supreme Court has recently annulled sections of the Voting Rights Act. They have given the police wide-sweeping authority to strip search anyone detained for any reason and they have declared that corporations are people and that money is equal to free speech.
The "War on Terror" has allowed the country to sink to new lows by whittling away Americans Constitutionally-guaranteed civil rights.
Who is a terrorist and what are the risks?
That's for the government to decide in secretly convened, top-security proceedings, thank you very much.
When the Geneva Convention became an inconvenience, a genius named Donald Rumsfeld invented the term "unlawful combatant" which allowed our great nation to detain "terrorist suspects" for an unlimited amount of time while denying them a trial or legal representation.
Guantanamo Bay provided the perfect "neither here nor there" location for such a travesty and hundreds of prisoners who had been sold out by their enemies for a handsome sum in their home countries (where poverty was common) were locked up.
In America, to this day, confessing to being a Muslim is all one needs to be regarded with suspicion and contempt. After all, those who don't accept Jesus as their savior, must be in the service of Satan. Everyone knows this.
In 2011, the U.S. government authorized a drone strike to take out a suspected terrorist in Yemen. This might have been unremarkable had the suspect not been a U.S. citizen who was guaranteed due process by the Constitution.
PresidentBush II Obama allowed the CIA to kill Anwar al-Awlaki because; war, terror, extraordinary circumstances, gas pains, headache, etc.
Even though this should have sparked mass outrage, there were only minor rumblings.
This was where it became apparent to me how groggy-eyed and complacent the American electorate had become.
"Just leave us alone!," they said, "A few of us went to the polls a few years ago and voted...what more do you want?!"
It's okay though, because everyone knows he was guilty and a terrorist so his rights don't matter.
The same is true for Osama Bin Laden which is why it was totally okay for us to send in a covert SEAL team to violate Pakistan's territorial sovereignty in order to assassinate him.
In case y'all hadn't noticed, we're sort of a "big deal" in the global scheme of things so we can do stuff like this.
But what happens when certain citizens become alarmed that the government has overstepped its bounds and lied to the public it claims to serve?
I'm glad you asked!
Please see the case of Bradley Manning, Julian Assange (who is a total asshat, even though I support his cause) and Edward Snowden.
It was kind of funny back when Sarah Palin accused anyone who didn't agree with her ignorant viewpoints as "not being a true patriot" or a "real American."
It's less amusing when the U.S. government does it and then uses all of their incredible powers and international connections to gang up on their own citizens.
The following are excerpts from a New York Times article about Laura Poitras who has made several documentary films criticizing U.S. policies and who aided Snowden in leaking his intelligence about the NSA's domestic spying program:
-When she landed at J.F.K., she was met at the gate by two armed law-enforcement agents and taken to a room for questioning. It is a routine that has happened so many times since then — on more than 40 occasions — that she has lost precise count. Initially, she said, the authorities were interested in the paper she carried, copying her receipts and, once, her notebook. After she stopped carrying her notes, they focused on her electronics instead, telling her that if she didn’t answer their questions, they would confiscate her gear and get their answers that way. On one occasion, Poitras says, they did seize her computers and cellphones and kept them for weeks. She was also told that her refusal to answer questions was itself a suspicious act. Because the interrogations took place at international boarding crossings, where the government contends that ordinary constitutional rights do not apply, she was not permitted to have a lawyer present.
“I assume that there are National Security Letters on my e-mails,” she told me, referring to one of the secretive surveillance tools used by the Department of Justice. A National Security Letter requires its recipients — in most cases, Internet service providers and phone companies — to provide customer data without notifying the customers or any other parties. Poitras suspected (but could not confirm, because her phone company and I.S.P. would be prohibited from telling her) that the F.B.I. had issued National Security Letters for her electronic communications.
William Binney, a former top N.S.A. official who publicly accused the agency of illegal surveillance, was at home one morning in 2007 when F.B.I. agents burst in and aimed their weapons at his wife, his son and himself. Binney was, at the moment the agent entered his bathroom and pointed a gun at his head, naked in the shower. His computers, disks and personal records were confiscated and have not yet been returned. Binney has not been charged with any crime.
While being interrogated at Newark after a flight from Britain, she was told she could not take notes. On the advice of lawyers, Poitras always recorded the names of border agents and the questions they asked and the material they copied or seized. But at Newark, an agent threatened to handcuff her if she continued writing. She was told that she was being barred from writing anything down because she might use her pen as a weapon. - Peter Maass, New York Times
This article came out right before the partner of Glen Greenwald was detained at an airport in London under one of their anti terrorism statutes and questioned for nine hours. His electronic equipment was also confiscated although he was never charged with anything.
Great Britain admitted to calling the White House before detaining Greenwald's partner although, the White House claimed that Britain acted on its own and was not doing the bidding of the U.S.
Of course they weren't.
Somebody is a liar, lair and should check their pants for fire.
While many have been forthcoming in their condemnation of this abuse of power, others still take the line that this man is aiding and abetting a traitor to the U.S. government and deserves what he gets.
I'll just leave you with this poem by Martin Niemoller:
“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—
I thought we were a shining example to the world with our system of democracy and freedoms.
Since I lived in the Bible belt I also thought that God had blessed us, every one and was on our side no matter what.
Because my parents voted for Republican, I thought that must be the party who did things the right way.
What an insufferable little asshole I must have been.
As I grew into adulthood, I realized how bigoted and sexist my religion was. It sought to make young people ashamed of their sexuality, judge anyone who was outside the faith and force women into a role where their sole purpose was to bear children and wait on their husbands.
This was a hetero-normative idea that presupposed a nobleness of male character and an infallibility of masculine judgment.
Becoming a single mother at age 19 and having to deal with heavy discrimination in the workforce did a lot to convince me that I needed to get out of the South.
I eventual moved to California where life seemed a little better.
From there I went to live in Mexico for a while and I became a witness to the consequences of my country's exploitation of Mexican migrants.
My country has passed through what I call, "A Series of Unfortunate Events."
I naively thought they began with the Bush administration after 9-11 but after two years in grad school and a visit to Chile I learned to look further back than that.
I now wonder if we have ever done anything truly decent in our entire history and I'm struggling to find an example that isn't white-washed or greatly exaggerated.
In Santiago, I visited the houses of detention that Pinochet had used to torture and murder individuals who were seen as leftist threats.
I saw the government building known as La Moneda where CIA-backed forces led by Pinochet had overthrown the Democratically elected Socialist president, Salvador Allende.
America helped cause all this suffering and Henry Kissinger later got a Nobel Peace Prize.
WTF, indeed.
The Supreme Court has recently annulled sections of the Voting Rights Act. They have given the police wide-sweeping authority to strip search anyone detained for any reason and they have declared that corporations are people and that money is equal to free speech.
The "War on Terror" has allowed the country to sink to new lows by whittling away Americans Constitutionally-guaranteed civil rights.
Who is a terrorist and what are the risks?
That's for the government to decide in secretly convened, top-security proceedings, thank you very much.
When the Geneva Convention became an inconvenience, a genius named Donald Rumsfeld invented the term "unlawful combatant" which allowed our great nation to detain "terrorist suspects" for an unlimited amount of time while denying them a trial or legal representation.
Guantanamo Bay provided the perfect "neither here nor there" location for such a travesty and hundreds of prisoners who had been sold out by their enemies for a handsome sum in their home countries (where poverty was common) were locked up.
In America, to this day, confessing to being a Muslim is all one needs to be regarded with suspicion and contempt. After all, those who don't accept Jesus as their savior, must be in the service of Satan. Everyone knows this.
In 2011, the U.S. government authorized a drone strike to take out a suspected terrorist in Yemen. This might have been unremarkable had the suspect not been a U.S. citizen who was guaranteed due process by the Constitution.
President
Even though this should have sparked mass outrage, there were only minor rumblings.
This was where it became apparent to me how groggy-eyed and complacent the American electorate had become.
"Just leave us alone!," they said, "A few of us went to the polls a few years ago and voted...what more do you want?!"
It's okay though, because everyone knows he was guilty and a terrorist so his rights don't matter.
The same is true for Osama Bin Laden which is why it was totally okay for us to send in a covert SEAL team to violate Pakistan's territorial sovereignty in order to assassinate him.
In case y'all hadn't noticed, we're sort of a "big deal" in the global scheme of things so we can do stuff like this.
But what happens when certain citizens become alarmed that the government has overstepped its bounds and lied to the public it claims to serve?
I'm glad you asked!
Please see the case of Bradley Manning, Julian Assange (who is a total asshat, even though I support his cause) and Edward Snowden.
It was kind of funny back when Sarah Palin accused anyone who didn't agree with her ignorant viewpoints as "not being a true patriot" or a "real American."
It's less amusing when the U.S. government does it and then uses all of their incredible powers and international connections to gang up on their own citizens.
The following are excerpts from a New York Times article about Laura Poitras who has made several documentary films criticizing U.S. policies and who aided Snowden in leaking his intelligence about the NSA's domestic spying program:
-When she landed at J.F.K., she was met at the gate by two armed law-enforcement agents and taken to a room for questioning. It is a routine that has happened so many times since then — on more than 40 occasions — that she has lost precise count. Initially, she said, the authorities were interested in the paper she carried, copying her receipts and, once, her notebook. After she stopped carrying her notes, they focused on her electronics instead, telling her that if she didn’t answer their questions, they would confiscate her gear and get their answers that way. On one occasion, Poitras says, they did seize her computers and cellphones and kept them for weeks. She was also told that her refusal to answer questions was itself a suspicious act. Because the interrogations took place at international boarding crossings, where the government contends that ordinary constitutional rights do not apply, she was not permitted to have a lawyer present.
“I assume that there are National Security Letters on my e-mails,” she told me, referring to one of the secretive surveillance tools used by the Department of Justice. A National Security Letter requires its recipients — in most cases, Internet service providers and phone companies — to provide customer data without notifying the customers or any other parties. Poitras suspected (but could not confirm, because her phone company and I.S.P. would be prohibited from telling her) that the F.B.I. had issued National Security Letters for her electronic communications.
William Binney, a former top N.S.A. official who publicly accused the agency of illegal surveillance, was at home one morning in 2007 when F.B.I. agents burst in and aimed their weapons at his wife, his son and himself. Binney was, at the moment the agent entered his bathroom and pointed a gun at his head, naked in the shower. His computers, disks and personal records were confiscated and have not yet been returned. Binney has not been charged with any crime.
While being interrogated at Newark after a flight from Britain, she was told she could not take notes. On the advice of lawyers, Poitras always recorded the names of border agents and the questions they asked and the material they copied or seized. But at Newark, an agent threatened to handcuff her if she continued writing. She was told that she was being barred from writing anything down because she might use her pen as a weapon. - Peter Maass, New York Times
This article came out right before the partner of Glen Greenwald was detained at an airport in London under one of their anti terrorism statutes and questioned for nine hours. His electronic equipment was also confiscated although he was never charged with anything.
Great Britain admitted to calling the White House before detaining Greenwald's partner although, the White House claimed that Britain acted on its own and was not doing the bidding of the U.S.
Of course they weren't.
Somebody is a liar, lair and should check their pants for fire.
While many have been forthcoming in their condemnation of this abuse of power, others still take the line that this man is aiding and abetting a traitor to the U.S. government and deserves what he gets.
I'll just leave you with this poem by Martin Niemoller:
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