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If HOMELAND SECURITY were a board
game it would have to be classified as a farce. There are now so many
Security Agencies involved in 'protecting the American people' that one has
to wonder who is left to do the living and the working in this so-called
nation?
Law enforcement, or any of the
hundreds of Agencies that purport to be interested in those
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activities
which attempt to monitor every facet of our lives, have just
entered the realm of the Twilight Zone.
Total Information Access (TIA),
under the direction of former Admiral, former felon - John Poindexter, who
seeks to collect all the data that exists on every American citizen: This
includes, medical and dental records, banking, personal phone calls, and
all computer records, in addition to anything else that TIA might be able
to learn by any other means. That's the civilian thought police at its most
bizarre. From there we move on to TIPS - which is the new government
program to enlist delivery and repair services personnel (said to be
roughly a million people) to spy on their customers, "in case they
might notice anything 'suspicious' about anyone they might encounter in
their daily rounds." These two additions to the public safety police -
are only two of the latest innovations to control the thoughts and actions
of all citizens of what is still billed as the most free and open society
on earth.
WHEN THE GOVERNMENT FEARS THE
PEOPLE, THERE IS LIBERTY. WHEN THE PEOPLE FEAR THE GOVERNMENT, THERE IS
TYRANNY! Thomas Jefferson
When the above is seen against the
immense backdrop of overarching federal agencies: The FBI, the CIA, and the
NSA: augmented by the Defense Intelligence Agency and all the pro-active
branches of each of the above - things began to border on the ridiculous.
Admittedly the nation's welfare is
one of the government's jobs. But it is not the only job of government, nor
is this a productive use of the public's money - as the goal is impossible
to satisfy. No government, no agency, nor any individual can be held
responsible for the absolute safety of every individual in any nation.
There are NO guarantees in Life - for anyone! Moreover, whenever government
tries to do this, the quality of both liberty and life itself is degraded
to that of laboratory animals.
The most obvious question that all
this new security raises is who will watch the watchdogs? In the old days
there was Congressional oversight of these largely redundant idiocies - but
now there won't even be that haphazard impediment - to this government's
continued abuse of legislative power and political thought control.
Under HOMELAND SECURITY and its
enforcements arm, The USA PATRIOT ACT, there are several larger questions
that are in need of very clear answers. Since there are several very
different areas of threat to any population: International, Criminal,
Civil, Political and or Medical, the protections and precautions afforded
to the public cannot be the same in every instance. Bank robbers are not
the same as Terrorists, just as illegal drug users are not the same as
corrupt corporate officials. The threat from the hallucinations of a mental
disease cannot be treated in the same way one deals with the excesses of a
Wall-street broker, nor are the failings of political leaders necessarily
on a par with a grade school teacher who is also a pedophile. The
differences in the laws are there to accommodate the differences in the
threats to society that each action represents. Yet here under the
all-encompassing blanket of SECURITY as the only national concern -
everything is now a threat to the national security of the United States,
and that is nonsense.
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This nation was founded in part as an
escape from the religious and royal tyrannies of a decadent Europe in
decline. Here individuals were to be able to live self-responsibly - in a
nation that was created not to dominate the people who became its citizens
- but to serve them. It was a grand idea, but it has now proven to be
vulnerable to petty greed and the personal ambitions of a small army of
thugs, and some ex-felons, who
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have taken over the government - in the
order to "save" the nation. Bush and his cohorts are
crudely poised to "Make the World Safe FROM Democracy" which they
are doing by destroying the last vestiges of personal freedom and
legitimate government authority at every turn.
If the United States had been
created as a place devoted only to PROTECTION: then we are on course to
achieve that false sense of personal security. But if this nation is about
Life and about what each of us chooses to do with our lives, then we have
the wrong political leadership to obtain those ends. When Life matters, so
do truth, and ethics, and the settled laws of the land. When people matter;
so do economics, jobs, education, medicine, the environment, and the
viability of opportunities. But if SECURITY is the only consideration for a
nation to exist - then nothing else can matter. Laws, civil rights,
personal freedoms, private as well as public integrity in binding contracts
- none of this now matters to the Congress or the Bush administration. And
as the poet said, it now appears that: "We have sold our reputations
for a song." - in this case for a promise of a 'security' that can
never be fulfilled.
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The HOMELAND SECURITY
Re-Organization Act, in tandem with the USA PATRIOT ACT, have brought this
country to the threshold of an Orwellian nightmare where this flawed but
once proud nation of the United States once was. Maybe it has ever been
thus, maybe we just never realized the extent of the corruption, the depths
of duplicity, or the actuality of the 'real purposes' behind the actions of
our government. But whatever else may have taken place - at least a
semblance of adherence to the laws was maintained. Those days seem to be
gone forever because as a people we have lost our willingness to challenge
the government whenever it exceeds its authority in our name.
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Here we are in the midst of a
national meltdown, with nowhere to look for guidance, no one to lead us out
of this hellish pit of violence and unilateral proclamations that seem to
place the USA on a collision course with the rest of the planet. The people
of this country still have it, within their grasp to stop this nightmare.
But to do that we will have to choose to become public and visible in
personal positions that oppose insupportable aggressions, and are in favor
of a return to sanity and to Life!
In effect WE must become the ones who
will: 'Watch the Watchdogs' if we want to ever have a country worth living
in again.
In Life there are NO guarantees
only problems to be solved. And unless we are willing to confront this
problem at the very core of our foundation - then the grand experiment
within this Democratic form of a Republic, has indeed come to an ignoble
end.
Think about it. All those security
cameras that now watch every movement, record every act they can see. The
wholesale sell-out to gossip and envy that will take over, once we've
legitimized spying on ourselves - as a way of life. From the earliest years
in public schools though twisted corporate business protocols: as people
we're being constantly herded into lives that have no personal value except
perhaps survival. Where there were choices in occupations and modes of
living - now there is only mandated conformity to the will of the few that
are on the verge of 'owning it all.'
As wage-slaves in the United
States of today we have allowed ourselves to become only footnotes in those
visions - that truly are the dreams of others. One example is this story
that confirms that Bush and Unocal just signed the agreement with
Afghanistan for that oil pipeline that was always the issue, beneath the
war we declared on that region.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/12.30A.afgh.pipe.htm
No longer do we have any say over
our own lives. It has become our job collectively, to enable those at the
top to go on living their lies and stealing what's left of this society.
What keeps us here beneath this horrible yoke? Are we really so easily
bought? And how much longer will we continue to remain in collective
denial? The questions have to be asked of all of us, but they may be
inconsequential if the war on Iraq proceeds.
To quote a friend: "This war
can now never be stopped. A pullback of forces at this time will discredit
the US at home and abroad and expose the internal corruptions of those in
power. This will break the US economy, likely permanently.
But if the US goes ahead, it will
be going it virtually alone, because the streets of Europe are about ready
to erupt against all US interests here.
Washington's wannabee civilian
emperors have made the worst-case military mistake in all of history, which
is so obvious that nobody sees it and will be a tragedy without end for UK
and US interests, and even for the continental US -- alas!
At least, the established order of
world power will be decisively and permanently overthrown: a New World
Order *WILL* result, only not the one planned for by the elite. And this
has been the way of humanity since history began."
So - Who will Watch the Watchdogs?
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kirwan
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