This is Not Better

Honestly, I can't keep up with the news.  There is the IRS scandal involving selective treatment of those applying for non profit status based on ideology. We have Animal Farm and 1984 going on at the same time.  Some charities are more equal than others.  Pro-choice good. Pro-life bad.  --cue sheep for the chorus.

We have Eric Holder shall investigate himself and I'm sure find nothing wrong.

There is the hey, we have a sequester and still no budget to speak of anywhere in sight but no matter, onward!

Gitmo remains open with no end for those imprisoned save death. Hunger strike continues and no one notices.

There is the fast and furious long forgotten.

There is the no call at 3 A.M. except to create a cover story involving a pathetic Youtube video about the killing of our ambassador and three others from Benghazi.

But all of that is old news, it's 2013 for crying out loud, those happened last year and before! Why would we worry about the past?

Okay, if we just stay in the moment: There is the seizing of phone records for the AP and other members of the press, the government investigating journalists for being journalists as a means of silencing those who do not properly show due respect to the White House spin of all things.

Or how about the epic fail of Homeland Security, the FBI and CIA to track two kids in Boston who had been radicalized and who the Russian government warned about being a threat, and the mysterious non story of the death in custody of a person of interest by the FBI? How bad a guy do you have to be to get outed by the Russian government as a baddie?

What exactly will tip off our government to action?  Does Homeland security need the villains to dress like Snidely Whiplash and have bombs with long wicks like in cartoons to recognize that if multiple alarms go off about a guy they should probably investigate?  Wasn't Homeland Security INVENTED to connect the dots between the intel of the FBI and CIA to address these sorts of scenarios?  But I digress. Again, these are old things. That happened in April. It's June.

What's new today?

Last week we learned about the massive data grab with Verizon, the latest indication that this government thinks as long it thinks there is no problem, there is no problem with recording everything said and done by everyone. Yeah we grabbed phone records and could see who you called for how long and how often but hey...we didn't listen in or anything.   Well, then everything's just hunky dory. So glad to know the government is on the job, making sure they know I call my mom almost every day.

Little noted was the fact that our government now photographs every piece of mail it processes.  Why?

IRS spends lavish amounts on line dancing and star trek videos, loses receipts.  It also pretends that the targeting of Tea parties was due to a "rogue agent." Not even a pure sycophant like the New York Times believes that line.

I forgot that the EPA also outed American Farmers in multiple states in public records when they should have been kept confidential, and that there was an imaginary employee that received awards for being an Ethical Employee, a fabrication created by a former head of the EPA who now works as a consultant for Apple.

But the steaming fresh stuff is Prism, a top-secret system at NSA to collect emails, documents, photos and materials for agents to review. Pesky judges can be so cumbersome what with their hang ups about following the law and all that, this way, there's no guess work. You know you've got a thumbs up all the way for everything, no chance of a Simon Cowell type member of the judiciary sending you home empty handed.  What does Prism mean and what can we do about it?  It means no correspondence is free of government scrutiny, so free speech is being "monitored" even if nothing is being done.

Do I sound like a tin foil hat person yet?

I've tried in recent years to get my information from multiple sources, right and left and center, and as close to original sources as possible, but if this many instances smell, from right, left and center, doesn't it mean the whole thing stinks?

Doesn't it mean there is something really wrong when a government has no process of checks and balances of power and no balancing of its check book in the process?   Doesn't anyone think a government that has unlimited authority to tax, spend, audit, spy, to use drones, investigate, and imprison without end (oops and I forgot kill if deemed a threat) might be I don't know...out of control?

To those who say, you should have been screaming then...lots of us did.  But, if today someone is just waking up and sees this is bad, don't you who already knew this was bad think, good, I'm glad you finally woke up now help me tell them to stop this instead of go back to sleep, we don't want you to notice because you didn't see it then and now, we're going to not see it instead?

For those who say, Bush did it first?  So what? It's clear it's been expanded. If it was wrong then, it is wrong now. If you knew it was wrong then, why aren't you furious now? That someone else did it first is a defense I don't take from my kids, why in heaven's name would I tolerate such a lame excuse from the federal government.

Whatever your political stripe, one thing is clear, this is not better.

Nothing That Concerns You Has Happened

Nothing that concerns you has taken place.   Be calm.  Be of good cheer, no bad evil or wrong thinking is going on in your government, we're benign happy people who only spend money responsibly on good things.  The only people who ever are wrong or bad, are those other guys who aren't in power, but are stinky heads anyway, to be spit on, possibly jailed, and always ignored.  If any of them raise any concerns, it's not because they're right or we're wrong, it's because they're greedy for power we have.  You can't trust them.  But you can trust us. We've the better intentions even if we do exactly what was done before but don't tell you. 

Yesterday, I read about the hunger strike at Gitmo, where possibly as many as 166 inmates have been on hunger strikes owing to the abuses and conditions they endure in their never ending confinement.

It seems only a few years ago,  I remember when the political left was a champion for their rights, for human rights, for the Constitution and the rule of law.  I remember when the idea of the U.S.A being engaged in torture or permanent imprisonment without possibility of trial or parole or even charges, brought thoughtful and consistent outrage at the administration for its slow responses and casual indifference to violations of agreed upon standards for treatments even of "hostile enemy combatants."  I remember back when Bush was president, feeling horrified at the existence of the camp, and thinking, anyone brought there, if they weren't broken when they went in, would hate  the US if they ever got out.  I remember thinking, this couldn't be our government, being coy with the rule of law, pretending to somehow parse the constitution to allow something like torture and indefinite imprisonment to exist.  I remember feeling ashamed.  I also remember musing that in creating such a place, a door was opened for future mischief.

That future mischief happening has now been going on for a while.

Now that it is 5 years into the existing administration's run of the land,  can we possibly consider the moral legitimacy of arguing against this policy without being told such criticism undermines the existing president, is politically or racially motivated, or has no weight since Bush did it first and worse? 

Wrong is wrong. Violating rights and holding prisoners in permanent limbo isn't a policy any person with an R or a D beside their name should endorse, it is UnAmerican,  it is inhuman.  People who watch Fox News and those who comment on Das Kos ought to be on the same page about this, that we can't be a nation of laws if we ignore those laws when they are inconvenient.  Human beings matter.  They matter whether they are Muslim or have Alzheimer's or Down Syndrome or have been raped, or are the teenagers who committed the crime or are unborn.  We are a nation that claims to be better, to cherish life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as part of our core.  We are ignoring that core for some people, because it is easier than the alternative that freedom demands.  We are going to have to live unsafely and be okay with the reality that life and liberty, involve risk.

So how do we let these people go?  We swallow hard. We recognize that we have probably created by our unwillingness to follow our own laws, regardless of political affiliation, a whole new generation that can declare us hypocrites and justify by their own pain, any rage they throw our way.  We will have to work seven times seventy times to earn the trust we have burned over the years. Some of those injured or who view the injuries, will never trust us.  We will have to live with that too.

We live in an age that is honestly burnt out on outrage.  We should be. We have seen how little fruit it produces.  Our congress passes laws without reading them and spends money without thinking.  It holds committees that make recommendations that are promptly filed away never to be used.  As a people, as a government, we waste, we idle, we blame, we rule, we smother, we take, we spin. But we never stop a program. We never cut back. We never stop what is politically convenient.  We never release power once acquired.  

For our society to begin to get better, Americans have to not spend energy being outraged, and instead spend our talents speaking and learning and pushing back against the political sloth that paints all approval or dismissal of policy as purely based on politics and thus not worthy of note if it goes against your guy's side.    We need to insist to the President and to the house and the senate, that this place be closed. We need to insist that these people be returned to their homes.  We need to have trials with charges to illustrate to the world and ourselves, we aren't petty tyrants with large credit cards.  We need to respect the rule of law for all people at all times, if we would be a society that values the rule of law.

Everyone gets that those laws, following them, in all scenarios, it's hard. It's why we've failed in some cases, but we have the power to stop failing. Being a nation of laws is what makes us a nation worth having, worth keeping.  Call your representatives and senators, write your papers an email.

My fellow blogger The Ironic Catholic has some excellent links and her piece also talks about the need for all of us as Americans, as people of good will, as humans, to speak out and ask that this place be closed.  Those who have been cleared, must be set free immediately.  There is no excuse, save fear of what we have done, and we need to be a braver people who when they see something is wrong, stop the wrong itself.

So I stand with my fellow blogger in asking questions, and the others who have joined...