America, Passive Nation -- Why Can't We Stand Up for Ourselves When Our Rights Are Stolen?

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http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/americans-are-afraid-speak


I'm a longtime subscriber to an Internet mail list that features items from smart, thoughtful people. The list editor forwards items he personally finds interesting, often related to technology and/or civil liberties. Not long after the Guardian and Washington Post first started publishing the leaks describing the National Security Agency's vast surveillancedragnet, an item appeared about a White House petition urging President Obama to pardon Edward Snowden. The post brought this reply, among others:

"Once upon a time I would have signed a White House petition to this administration with no qualms. Now, however, a chilling thought occurs: what 'watch lists' will signing a petition like this put me on? NSA? IRS? It's not a paranoid question anymore, in the United States of Surveillance."

As we Americans watch our parades and fire up our grills this 4 July, the 237th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence – the seminal document of the United States – we should take the time to ask ourselves some related questions: how did we come to this state of mind and behavior? How did we become so fearful and timid that we've given away essential liberties? Do we realize what we're giving up? What would the nation's founders think of us?

No one with common sense believes Obama is planning to become a dictator. But the mail list question was indeed not paranoid – because Obama, building on the initiatives of his immediate predecessors, has helped create the foundation for a future police state. This has happened with bipartisan support from patriotic but short-sighted members of Congress and, sad to say, the general public.

The American media have played an essential role. For decades, newspaper editors and television programmers, especially local ones, have chased readers and ratings by spewing panic-inducing "journalism" and entertainment that helped foster support for anti-liberty policies. Ignorance, sometimes willful, has long been part of the media equation. Journalists have consistently highlighted the sensational. They've ignored statistical realities to hype anecdotal – and extremely rare – events that invite us to worry about vanishingly tiny risks and while shrugging off vastly more likely ones. And then, confronted with evidence of a war on journalism by the people running our government, powerful journalists suggest that their peers – no, their betters – who had the guts to expose government crimes are criminals. Do they have a clue why the First Amendment is all about? Do they fathom the meaning of liberty?

[cantbeserious]

1. And Hence, The Reason For The Concern By Many Here And Elsewhere

eom

[hifiguy]

2. I see two big things,

though there are surely others.

TPTB have been dumbing down the educational system, dramatically so, since the Reagan years. Most people today are far more purely ignorant than Americans were 40-50 years ago. That has been by design, and do not ever think otherwise. People without knowledge are incredibly easy to manipulate.

Which leads to the media, which have given the Teeming Millions nothing but pablum for at least thirty years. The media now exist to engage in rah-rah boosterism for the patently ludicrous notion that the US is the most exceptional country that has ever existed. Dumbed down people who can't engage in critical thinking, basic reasoning, or even begin to formulate a serious question do as they're told.

It hasn't worked on everybody, but it has worked on enough.

[MsLeopard]

10. +1000 nt

[Jackpine Radical]

12. Ergo the rise of fundamentalism, the rejection of science, etc.

You can't sell global-warming denial or Creationism to someone who actually understands the principles of scientific investigation.

We no longer have education in this country. Who actually studies philosophy, literature, art? We have job training. And those who manage to get through their glorified trade school programs are saddled with such huge debts that they dare not rock the boat or their lives will be destroyed.

Dumbed down indeed.

[zeemike]

15. Yes all of that and fear.

There has been a constant drumming of fear....think about how many times you have heard "be safe".
We have raised a generation of fearful people...so fearful we will submit to anything.

[valerief]

17. and it couldn't have been done without Jeebus. nt

[hifiguy]

20. Never in a million years.

Man, 'murkans are dumb. And we wonder why the rest of the world laughs at us. Whatever problems they may have elsewhere, outside of the Muslim world the religulously insane are not an issue. And all real 'murkans hate Moooslims even though many of us believe exactly the same theocratic horseshit as they do.

The mind shrivels.

[Ilsa]

23. And blaming powerless poor people, the sick, and disabled.

Christ's exhortation to love "the least amongst us" including children, has been corrupted and displaced by derision, vituperation, and scapegoating. Most GOPers believe the financial problems in the US are due to individual citizens being leeches. In their minds, wannabe-saints must become billionaires because God rewards his followers with gold, not just salvation. the church movement of prosperity is as vile as any devil could manufacture in the minds of weak-minded Christians.

[MNBrewer]

3. I probably went on the watch list when the SCOTUS installed George Bush to the White House

and I sent a strongly worded letter expressing my disapproval to Justice O'Connor.

[99Forever]

4. This:

"And then, confronted with evidence of a war on journalism by the people running our government, powerful journalists suggest that their peers – no, their betters – who had the guts to expose government crimes are criminals."

When a Democrat commits crimes, they are still crimes, and secret rubber stamp courts are nothing but a fig leaf. Every member of Congress that knew of this and let it happen, is a traitor to their oath of office.

[ileus]

5. We get shouted down an told to shut up the good guys are in charge.

the same thing we've tolerated for decades when it comes to the 2A....now everyone (well half) have put on faux poutrage pretending the care about the 4th. Gander juice also good for the goose I suppose, or maybe bad for everyone some just don't want to admit it.

[Doctor_J]

6. It's the media

as everyone else has mentioned. If we decide to fight back, Big Media will be ground zero. It started out 35 years ago with "war on journalism", but has at this point evolved itself into the most finely tuned propaganda apparatus in history. Those with liberal political views aren't even considered for jobs in Big Media. And the "they'll do anything for ratings" is a canard. Treason or impeachment trials for Bush & Cheney would have made great TV and great ratings. The "news" networks are in the employ of the far right that owns and runs everything in the US.

Strongly suggest reading "Dirty Truths" by Michael Parenti. It's almost 20 years old now but spectacularly prescient.

[mnhtnbb]

9. Thanks for the reading rec. Picking up a .50 copy from Amazon.

Surprised it's not in our public library (Chapel Hill is very progressive).

[Doctor_J]

22. You won't be disappointed

He's written a lot over the years, but that one is IMO the best. I actually bought it when we were in SF, at the City Lights book store. I didn't realize there were such places.

[Junkdrawer]

11. Speaking of Michael Parenti, I posted this the other day....

Recorded in 1992 and probably more relevant today as then.

http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/1762

The State are those mechanisms of raw power meant to protect property and wealth.

Democratic Government are institutions meant to constrain (but often disguise) the powers of The State.

We are living through a period where The State is taking those powers back.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023167655

[hifiguy]

13. After Watergate the right wing collectively decided

that nothing like that would ever again happen to one of their own. And that's when the war on real journalism was declared. And it wasn't even necessary. As media became more and more consolidated they became willing lapdogs to TPTB that now owned them. But it was perfectly OK to try and destroy Bill Clinton.

[Doctor_J]

21. Yep. When ratings and propaganda coincide - great. But when they clash - propaganda wins

every time. They dragged Clinton through the mud because it was good for ratings AND advanced the fascist cause. Bush and Cheney were strictly off limits though. Just imagine if Al Gore or Joe Biden had gone away for a weekend with a mistress, gotten drunk, and shotgunned someone in the face. It would have been on every TV and radio station 24/7 until the subject was forced from office. But Cheney was left completely alone.

Like I said, when we're ready to fight back, targets will be easy to find

[valerief]

18. Right. The "anything for a rating" and "it's what the people want" is all bullshit.

We proles get prolefeed and lies.

[marions ghost]

7. It seems to me that many people

can't really make the connections and don't understand the implications --of the extensive secret surveillance. But if leaders & reps take it up as an issue, as some have, maybe they will begin to get the point. Most Americans don't pay any attention to the news and are allergic to any sort of bad news, partly a legacy from the Booshcheney years. And then on top of that you have the apathy of the young, who don't want to think that all their social media is being data mined by the govt with not so good intentions, and so there's a lot of denial.

This will take some time to sink in.

[KG]

8. extrapolating from a certain segment of DU, it seems a goodly portion of the citizenry don't feel

any rights have been stolen.

many, too many, on both sides of the two-party political spectrum are a-ok with whatever craven abrogation of their rights as long as it's 'their' side shitting on them.

[Doctor_J]

24. It's the Good German phenomenon

As Mayer points out, one doesn't see the drift "Any more than one notices the daily growth of the corn stalk, until eventually it's over his head" (paraphrasing). But for God's sake. By the end of this decade, the US isn't going to have public schools. Would you have believed 20 years ago that this would be possible? All of the things that made the 20th Century the American century are being disposed of, one by one. We spent the early part of the 1900's building roads, RR's, schools, sewers, and electrifying the west - with public money. Now all we build are prisons and bombs, and a few moguls take an enormous chunk of the money.

It is, frankly, disgusting.

[kentuck]

14. The importance of a strong Democratic Congress...

...could never be more clear.

[DeSwiss]

16. There are a myriad of reasons.....

...why we're where we are. The best way to explain it is that ''we asked for it.''

1. When we turned the wheel, the car decided on a ''better'' direction. But we stayed in the car and went along for the ride.

2. When the car sputtered and backfired, we hired a new mechanic. But now it sputters even worse and the backfires are so loud now the mechanic can hardly hear us. But still we keep going back to the mechanic, hoping that ''this time'' he'll get it right.

3. Then one day we turn the crank, and the engine doesn't start. The battery is dead, or maybe the engine's gone. How would we know? We don't know anything about anything. We let everyone do the work, the learning, and make the decisions so we wouldn't have to. So we keep the car. Even though it doesn't run and will never take us where we want to go.

- So what the hell did we expect would happen?

K&R

They kept trying to tell us. Ike. Then JFK. And Senators Frank Church and Daniel Inouye. Then the revelations seemed to just stop. Maybe they were in control now. It all sounds so absurd, doesn't it? No one wants to even consider it. And if you repeat it, you're just another crazy CT. That's the beauty of it. It's a self-correcting system of oversight integrity which relies principally upon its victims to protect its existence through their own ignorance and incredulity. And through the constant use of ridicule against those able to see things more objectively and realistically, they maintain a consistent hard outer shell made of incredulous, unknowing people. Because it is understood in our society that being accused of being stupid is the one thing an truly ignorant person hates to be accused of the most.

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[Orsino]

19. Because anyone who isn't comfortable is rendered invisible.

The frogs don't know how many other frogs are also being boiled.