Culture of Useless Secrecy
The Bush Administration's guiding principle in all things is, "There are some things the general public does not need to know, and shouldn't."
After much thought, I believe this is the root of ALL our problems. I mean humanity's, not just America's. This erroneous presumption that a government can treat it's people like children, instead of adults capable of making rational judgments once given all the facts.
It's inherently arrogant. It presumes and panders to the lowest common denominator, instead of demanding and creating the uncommon denominator, increased wisdom in all.
Those who - by luck of circumstance FAR more than act of will - have power (in government, religion, or media), look down on the mass of our populous, instead of expecting better of them and helping them get there. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You create mindless drones who aren't capable of processing complex problems because, quite simply, you've never presented them with any complex problems and expected them to be part of the solution.
Ultimately, it's a shitty way to live.
And this is why every rascal in politics will tell you, "You can't handle the truth": not because you can't, but because if you knew what crimes they were really up to, you'd probably make them stop.
The problem is, the statement, "There are some things the general public does not need to know, and shouldn't," hardly EVER applies to the logistical concerns of the combat or real national security (which I think are quite valid). More often than not, indeed the mass preponderance of ALL secrets held by our government, have not one damn thing to do with protecting soldiers on a battlefield immediately preceeding a combat engagement.
MOST of the information in those files, is self-serving nonsense like Cheney's secret energy meetings, or info on crimes the government itself has committed, such as secret detentions and prisoner abuse violations, or much of the information regarding the Kennedy assassination, or information that is long past relevent to any current security concerns, like the thousands upon thousands of documents from WWII or the Cold War that are still secret for no damn good reason.
There's simply too much of it. So much of it that even most intel officers THEMSELVES don't know the full extent of it. And this culture of secrecy has no bounds - it constantly grows amoeba-like, to include all manner of things it shouldn't, all to protect the already powerful.
One of the more prominent examples of the kind of thing I'm talking about, happened to John Lennon. Lennon and other artists and Liberal activists were drawing huge crowds to events in which the war, and the government's continuing fascist behaviors were discussed. A series of concerts were to be held, culminating in a grand event timed to coincide with the Republican National Convention in Miami during the Presidential election of 1972. So the FBI at the bidding of the Nixon White House and by extension the GOP, started secretly monitoring his activities, as a part of COINTELPRO.
One of the things they deemed supposedly critical to national security were the lyrics to one of Lennon's songs, "John Sinclair". These musical lyrics were classified as secret as a part of this damn fool investigation, even though they can be seen quite readily, in the liner notes on his album. So taxpayer dollars were spent both classifying, and later declassifying, something that the public already had total access to. Under any interpretation of this action, it can only be regarded as dirt stupid, and a fine example of fraud, waste, and abuse of taxpayer money.
In addition, they then tried to deport him on a trumped up drug charge. Possession of marijuana -- in Great Britain. In other words, he was threatened with deportation not for something he'd done on American soil, but for something he'd supposedly done on foreign soil. And other foreign-born artists, who had similar charges on their records, but who were not as vocal or political as John Lennon, faced no such deportation charges. Clearly, this was a politically motivated attack by the Republicans, who improperly used the full force of our government agencies to pry into and harass John Lennon's life.
For heaven's sake, the government kept the fact that John Lennon and his friends had trained a pet parrot to say, "Right on!" secret for a full 20 years!! Not only is it an overreach of power what they did to this man, it was functionally retarded and utterly ridiculous.
Ultimately, the concerts were never held, because roughly once a month, John and Yoko had to go to court to fight deportation on these foolish charges. Nixon slithered into office not long after. And surveillance of this supposedly "dangerous criminal" ALSO ceased - AFTER the election. The true purpose of the harassment is now frightfully clear.
Only after John had been tragically shot, and an author writing his biography asked for the assistance of the ACLU and using the FOIA Provision, has ANY of this idiocy come to light. And since the same band of losers who once worked for the Nixon Administration are now in positions of power again, should it be any sort of surprize to anyone that, once again, they are abusing their power and the good graces of the American people?
When will it finally be enough? When will we start locking up these men who have so recklessly taken advantage of the security apparatus of this country to use for their own political ends? By rights, anyone even remotely connected to that stupid John Lennon incident alone should be barred from government service for life. And how many other such abuses of power have occurred, but have yet to come to light?
On January 4th 2006, it was revealed that James Moore, an Emmy-winning former television news correspondent and the co-author of the bestselling, "Bush's Brain," a book critical of the Administration, had been placed on the Anti-Terrorist "No-Fly" List. When did this man, who by his own admission has "a mundane Anglo name, who pays tens of thousands of dollars every year in taxes, has never been arrested or even late on a credit card payment, is more uninteresting than a Tupperware party, and cries after the first two notes of the national anthem," suddenly become a threat to the United States? The answer is simple. HE HASN'T. But his writing is a threat to a Christo-Fascist Republican administration, so, "Voila!" - insta-"terrorist" threat. [Sarcasm Alert] Clearly his movements should be restricted and he should be harassed.
Also this January, Edward Allen, a 4 year-old, was stopped from boarding a plane when his name appeared on the "No-Fly" List. A FOUR YEAR OLD. After much wrangling, this ever-so-dangerous CHILD was allowed to board the plane in Houston's aptly named "Bush (League) Intercontinental Airport" and visit his GRANDMOTHER. But on the way back, ever-watchful "security" agents again harassed the family, with one ticket agent telling his mother, "You're lucky that we're letting you through instead of putting you through the other process." The "other process"? What the hell is the "OTHER process"? Are they planning on doing cavity searches on 4 year-olds? What, are they hiring disgraced Catholic priests at the TSA now?
The list alone is problematic just by how it was set up. If you are accused, you are not allowed to fly period. There is no means of redress. You cannot find out why you are on the list. You have no way to get off the list. There were 35,000 Americans in that database last year. According to one European government that screens hundreds of thousands of American travelers every year, the list they have been given to work from has since grown to 80,000.
Now does that sound like anything even REMOTELY associated with Democracy? Can we all agree that this has gotten completely out of hand?
I understand TOTALLY the need for a watch list of actual VALID suspects, but with no means of redress, it's impossible to correct error, and it opens the entire thing up to punative actions by the powerful against people they simply don't like.
For God's sake, Senator Ted Kennedy himself was on the list for like a year.
If a SENATOR of that measure of prestige and notariety can't even extricate himself from this bullshit for a YEAR, what chance do the rest of us have?
It's dictatorial and wrong. It is at this point, nothing more than the Bush Administration's bludgeon against it's political opponents, and that's not what this country is supposed to be about. But what more are we to expect from an Administration run by a pseudo-President who regards the Constitution as "just a goddamned piece of paper"?
Enough already. THIS IDIOCY MUST STOP.
Problem is, there are MOUNTAINS of these secret files, and sifting through all of it ALSO costs money. So the taxpayer ends up paying not just for information to be kept FROM them, but also ends up paying for the privilege to know what the hell their government did in the past. The whole cult of secrecy is INSANE.
And on the issue of "black budgets" the Senate Intelligence Committee is "supposed" to perform oversight of these organizations, but I have about as much faith in the Senate Intelligence Committee's oversight capabilities as I do the Abramhoff-tainted Interior Appropriations Committee's oversight capability -- when it's run by men and women who are beholden to Defense Contractors for their campaign money, I doubt very seriously that the intel agencies are going to be facing the kind of SCORCHING criticism and critical thinking I would apply to their activities.
It's like "Wolf, meet the chicken coup. Now guard it."
And the TRULY terrifying flip side of this slack oversight is that it also can impede intel agencies from doing their jobs PROPERLY. If Congress had REAL oversight of intel, TRUE experts wouldn't have been ignored, and Cheney's little "Office of Special Evil Plans" never would have gotten a toehold at CIA to begin manipulating the Iraq War intelligence data that led us into this catastrophic desert quicksand where we find ourselves now.
Ultimately, this irrational Cult of Useless Secrecy endangers us all.
After much thought, I believe this is the root of ALL our problems. I mean humanity's, not just America's. This erroneous presumption that a government can treat it's people like children, instead of adults capable of making rational judgments once given all the facts.
It's inherently arrogant. It presumes and panders to the lowest common denominator, instead of demanding and creating the uncommon denominator, increased wisdom in all.
Those who - by luck of circumstance FAR more than act of will - have power (in government, religion, or media), look down on the mass of our populous, instead of expecting better of them and helping them get there. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You create mindless drones who aren't capable of processing complex problems because, quite simply, you've never presented them with any complex problems and expected them to be part of the solution.
Ultimately, it's a shitty way to live.
And this is why every rascal in politics will tell you, "You can't handle the truth": not because you can't, but because if you knew what crimes they were really up to, you'd probably make them stop.
The problem is, the statement, "There are some things the general public does not need to know, and shouldn't," hardly EVER applies to the logistical concerns of the combat or real national security (which I think are quite valid). More often than not, indeed the mass preponderance of ALL secrets held by our government, have not one damn thing to do with protecting soldiers on a battlefield immediately preceeding a combat engagement.
MOST of the information in those files, is self-serving nonsense like Cheney's secret energy meetings, or info on crimes the government itself has committed, such as secret detentions and prisoner abuse violations, or much of the information regarding the Kennedy assassination, or information that is long past relevent to any current security concerns, like the thousands upon thousands of documents from WWII or the Cold War that are still secret for no damn good reason.
There's simply too much of it. So much of it that even most intel officers THEMSELVES don't know the full extent of it. And this culture of secrecy has no bounds - it constantly grows amoeba-like, to include all manner of things it shouldn't, all to protect the already powerful.
One of the more prominent examples of the kind of thing I'm talking about, happened to John Lennon. Lennon and other artists and Liberal activists were drawing huge crowds to events in which the war, and the government's continuing fascist behaviors were discussed. A series of concerts were to be held, culminating in a grand event timed to coincide with the Republican National Convention in Miami during the Presidential election of 1972. So the FBI at the bidding of the Nixon White House and by extension the GOP, started secretly monitoring his activities, as a part of COINTELPRO.
One of the things they deemed supposedly critical to national security were the lyrics to one of Lennon's songs, "John Sinclair". These musical lyrics were classified as secret as a part of this damn fool investigation, even though they can be seen quite readily, in the liner notes on his album. So taxpayer dollars were spent both classifying, and later declassifying, something that the public already had total access to. Under any interpretation of this action, it can only be regarded as dirt stupid, and a fine example of fraud, waste, and abuse of taxpayer money.
In addition, they then tried to deport him on a trumped up drug charge. Possession of marijuana -- in Great Britain. In other words, he was threatened with deportation not for something he'd done on American soil, but for something he'd supposedly done on foreign soil. And other foreign-born artists, who had similar charges on their records, but who were not as vocal or political as John Lennon, faced no such deportation charges. Clearly, this was a politically motivated attack by the Republicans, who improperly used the full force of our government agencies to pry into and harass John Lennon's life.
For heaven's sake, the government kept the fact that John Lennon and his friends had trained a pet parrot to say, "Right on!" secret for a full 20 years!! Not only is it an overreach of power what they did to this man, it was functionally retarded and utterly ridiculous.
Ultimately, the concerts were never held, because roughly once a month, John and Yoko had to go to court to fight deportation on these foolish charges. Nixon slithered into office not long after. And surveillance of this supposedly "dangerous criminal" ALSO ceased - AFTER the election. The true purpose of the harassment is now frightfully clear.
Only after John had been tragically shot, and an author writing his biography asked for the assistance of the ACLU and using the FOIA Provision, has ANY of this idiocy come to light. And since the same band of losers who once worked for the Nixon Administration are now in positions of power again, should it be any sort of surprize to anyone that, once again, they are abusing their power and the good graces of the American people?
When will it finally be enough? When will we start locking up these men who have so recklessly taken advantage of the security apparatus of this country to use for their own political ends? By rights, anyone even remotely connected to that stupid John Lennon incident alone should be barred from government service for life. And how many other such abuses of power have occurred, but have yet to come to light?
On January 4th 2006, it was revealed that James Moore, an Emmy-winning former television news correspondent and the co-author of the bestselling, "Bush's Brain," a book critical of the Administration, had been placed on the Anti-Terrorist "No-Fly" List. When did this man, who by his own admission has "a mundane Anglo name, who pays tens of thousands of dollars every year in taxes, has never been arrested or even late on a credit card payment, is more uninteresting than a Tupperware party, and cries after the first two notes of the national anthem," suddenly become a threat to the United States? The answer is simple. HE HASN'T. But his writing is a threat to a Christo-Fascist Republican administration, so, "Voila!" - insta-"terrorist" threat. [Sarcasm Alert] Clearly his movements should be restricted and he should be harassed.
Also this January, Edward Allen, a 4 year-old, was stopped from boarding a plane when his name appeared on the "No-Fly" List. A FOUR YEAR OLD. After much wrangling, this ever-so-dangerous CHILD was allowed to board the plane in Houston's aptly named "Bush (League) Intercontinental Airport" and visit his GRANDMOTHER. But on the way back, ever-watchful "security" agents again harassed the family, with one ticket agent telling his mother, "You're lucky that we're letting you through instead of putting you through the other process." The "other process"? What the hell is the "OTHER process"? Are they planning on doing cavity searches on 4 year-olds? What, are they hiring disgraced Catholic priests at the TSA now?
The list alone is problematic just by how it was set up. If you are accused, you are not allowed to fly period. There is no means of redress. You cannot find out why you are on the list. You have no way to get off the list. There were 35,000 Americans in that database last year. According to one European government that screens hundreds of thousands of American travelers every year, the list they have been given to work from has since grown to 80,000.
Now does that sound like anything even REMOTELY associated with Democracy? Can we all agree that this has gotten completely out of hand?
I understand TOTALLY the need for a watch list of actual VALID suspects, but with no means of redress, it's impossible to correct error, and it opens the entire thing up to punative actions by the powerful against people they simply don't like.
For God's sake, Senator Ted Kennedy himself was on the list for like a year.
If a SENATOR of that measure of prestige and notariety can't even extricate himself from this bullshit for a YEAR, what chance do the rest of us have?
It's dictatorial and wrong. It is at this point, nothing more than the Bush Administration's bludgeon against it's political opponents, and that's not what this country is supposed to be about. But what more are we to expect from an Administration run by a pseudo-President who regards the Constitution as "just a goddamned piece of paper"?
Enough already. THIS IDIOCY MUST STOP.
Problem is, there are MOUNTAINS of these secret files, and sifting through all of it ALSO costs money. So the taxpayer ends up paying not just for information to be kept FROM them, but also ends up paying for the privilege to know what the hell their government did in the past. The whole cult of secrecy is INSANE.
And on the issue of "black budgets" the Senate Intelligence Committee is "supposed" to perform oversight of these organizations, but I have about as much faith in the Senate Intelligence Committee's oversight capabilities as I do the Abramhoff-tainted Interior Appropriations Committee's oversight capability -- when it's run by men and women who are beholden to Defense Contractors for their campaign money, I doubt very seriously that the intel agencies are going to be facing the kind of SCORCHING criticism and critical thinking I would apply to their activities.
It's like "Wolf, meet the chicken coup. Now guard it."
And the TRULY terrifying flip side of this slack oversight is that it also can impede intel agencies from doing their jobs PROPERLY. If Congress had REAL oversight of intel, TRUE experts wouldn't have been ignored, and Cheney's little "Office of Special Evil Plans" never would have gotten a toehold at CIA to begin manipulating the Iraq War intelligence data that led us into this catastrophic desert quicksand where we find ourselves now.
Ultimately, this irrational Cult of Useless Secrecy endangers us all.
posted by CTF Editor at
4:47 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home