Northern Valley Beacon
Information, observations, and analysis from the James River valley on the Northern Plains----- E-Mail: Enter 'Beacon' in subject box. Send to: Minnekota@Referencedesk.orgSaturday, April 22, 2006
A lot of people want totalitarian government
The CIA fired Mary O. McCarthy Friday because she was identified as the person in the agency who told reporters that the CIA operated secret prisons for captured Al Qaida operatives. The stories on those secret prisons and on the Bush administration's spying on U.S. citizens won Pulitzer Prizes for the articles.
With the ascendancy of George W. Bush to the presidency, the U.S. became a working model of Oceania, the country in which George Orwell's 1984 is set. Many of the civil liberties which have distinguished America from totalitarian republics have been canceled or are eroding away. The tough fact is that many people want it that way. Here is a comment from a blog on the subject:
That comment was made by Dawn J. Benko, a woman who identifies herself as a photographer for the Daily Record, A Gannett newspaper in Morris County, New Jersey. She also says she is a right wingnut.
If Mary McCarthy did in fact leak information, she did so in the spirit of a democracy that, until recently, prided itself on the fact that government offcials work at the behest of the people. Therefore the people have both a right and a need to know how that government is conducting itself. Sometimes people, like some colleagues of Mary McCarthy have suggested, will sacrifice their personal careers and lives to keep Big Brother from running secret prisons where no one can monitor whether they observe the rules and from keeping citizens under surveillance and the threat of "vaporization."
As the blog quotation indicates, there is a significant number of U. S. citizens who do not support freedom, equality, justice for all, and the openness of government required to allow the people to hold their government accountable.
In South Dakota we have seen a legislative session in which elected representatives acted more like they were in the Kremlin of the Cold War Years, not Pierre in the age of terror. The abortion ban was conceived and passed in an atmosphere of deceit and intimidation. The cut of funding for Public Broadcasting, although restored, revealed a governing process that has much more to do with totalitarian objectives than it did democratic integrity.
We live in a time when secrecy is a requisite for the kind of government some people want. They brand as criminals and traitors anyone who exposes nefarious workings within government.
America is split between those who believe in the Bill of Rights and those who want to hold the citizenry in thralldom.
The election of 2006 is about whether we will honor the American revolution and the great experiment in democracy. Or whether the majority wants to return to feudalism and the rule of tyranny and subterfuge.
****
Here is link to TPM Cafe that gives deep insight into the Mary McCarthy firing.
With the ascendancy of George W. Bush to the presidency, the U.S. became a working model of Oceania, the country in which George Orwell's 1984 is set. Many of the civil liberties which have distinguished America from totalitarian republics have been canceled or are eroding away. The tough fact is that many people want it that way. Here is a comment from a blog on the subject:
BEFORE I FORGET Friday, April 21, 2006
I would just like to take a moment to congratulate the New York Times and Washington Post on their Pulitzers for undermining our national security. Way to go.The Pulitzer can now take its place next to the Nobel Peace Prize in irrelevance.
That comment was made by Dawn J. Benko, a woman who identifies herself as a photographer for the Daily Record, A Gannett newspaper in Morris County, New Jersey. She also says she is a right wingnut.
If Mary McCarthy did in fact leak information, she did so in the spirit of a democracy that, until recently, prided itself on the fact that government offcials work at the behest of the people. Therefore the people have both a right and a need to know how that government is conducting itself. Sometimes people, like some colleagues of Mary McCarthy have suggested, will sacrifice their personal careers and lives to keep Big Brother from running secret prisons where no one can monitor whether they observe the rules and from keeping citizens under surveillance and the threat of "vaporization."
As the blog quotation indicates, there is a significant number of U. S. citizens who do not support freedom, equality, justice for all, and the openness of government required to allow the people to hold their government accountable.
In South Dakota we have seen a legislative session in which elected representatives acted more like they were in the Kremlin of the Cold War Years, not Pierre in the age of terror. The abortion ban was conceived and passed in an atmosphere of deceit and intimidation. The cut of funding for Public Broadcasting, although restored, revealed a governing process that has much more to do with totalitarian objectives than it did democratic integrity.
We live in a time when secrecy is a requisite for the kind of government some people want. They brand as criminals and traitors anyone who exposes nefarious workings within government.
America is split between those who believe in the Bill of Rights and those who want to hold the citizenry in thralldom.
The election of 2006 is about whether we will honor the American revolution and the great experiment in democracy. Or whether the majority wants to return to feudalism and the rule of tyranny and subterfuge.
****
Here is link to TPM Cafe that gives deep insight into the Mary McCarthy firing.
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