John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN KIRIAKOU IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Neither Rain, Sleet, nor Snow Will Stop the Post Office From Spying on You
“It’s called the “Mail Cover Program” and it’s run by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Yes, even the Post Office is spying on us”
Good little piece.
I like the personal anecdote about sending his wife a card from prison (where this convicted CIA whistleblower spent just short of two years), something which highlights humble realities of life in a national security state.
"In general, Americans don’t–or at least haven’t–objected to a gradual loss of civil liberties and constitutional rights. That has to stop."
The first part of that statement seems so true. But the herd behavior of populations, so counted upon by advertisers and marketers, is very much also counted upon by the power establishment and its security apparatus. I say “its” because that’s who is largely being served, not people in general.
I personally take a dark view of the second part of the statement, “That has to stop.”
There is no effective political mechanism for dealing with the situation.
The parties are both married to the security state through money.
Government by, of, and for the privileged and wealthy is what you have.
The combination of the various security mechanisms, the military, and the bought-and-paid-for members of the legislature work round the clock for their interests.
That is what the Dark State is, what America is.
Small independent voices heard in American politics are just that, small and independent. They are tolerated, but they have no power or hope of power.
The more prominent seeming-rebels – a Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren - are just more of the same old, same old, dressed up in jeans and beads.
When you support activities like America’s outlaw work in Venezuela, when you support Dark State creatures like Hillary Clinton, and when you vote for Pentagon budgets, when you parrot all the lines about Iran or Syria, you are only a pretend critic, a potential reformer of nothing that counts. Moreover, even your more fanciful ideas about matters such as education and healthcare have zero chance ever without fundamental reform. That’s Sanders and Warren, completely.
The truth is that any kind of serious popular movement has almost no chance of accomplishing anything in a contemporary, advanced Western state. Just look at France’s Gilets Jaunes. There was a genuine, spontaneous popular movement and it started to have some impact, but France’s national security apparatus – and France is a state just like the United States in the way it is run - now appears to have quieted them with false accusations of being associated with anti-Semitism and a possibly contrived provocative event.
Sorry, but that really is how I see America, and I consider myself very much a realist.
