Manning and Snowden in 2016?

Boundless Patriotism

By Frank Scott
Dissident Voice
June 12, 2013

While media stenographers echo the regime’s charges against
whistleblowers who represent democracy far more than the
government and its loyal servants, Americans have an opportunity
to respond to real patriotism with support for its foremost
practitioners.

No elected official – so far – has come forward to stand up for
the rights of the imprisoned Bradley Manning and the hunted
Edward Snowden.

It may be too much to expect any of our corporate owned or rented
elected, “representatives” to stand for anything but great wealth,
the military and Israel, but Americans who’ve rallied to Manning’s
support need to increase their efforts to include Edward Snowden
before the cyber-police take further control of our minds on the
road to totally destroying any notions of free speech and privacy.

Suppressing dissent has always been a part of the American
creed but kept to minorities, reassuring most people that
they indeed were free to speak, especially if they had nothing
to say that threatened ruling power.

From the Alien and Sedition acts passed shortly after the nation’s
founding to the Palmer Raids of the early twentieth century,
punishment of those who threatened systemic stability by calling
attention to its shaky foundation was the order of the day.

A mad rush to collect data on Americans became stronger during
the Cold War that saw suspected communists, socialists and others
who dared challenge minority rule placed under police state control.

During the 1960s when the anti-war and pro-civil rights movements
led more citizens to question and often confront authority, the
suppression of dissent grew more violent but again seemed to only
threaten minorities, leaving the great majority feeling safe as long
as it remained uncritical, obedient or fervently supportive of any
denial of democratic freedom to evil “others”.

In the name of democracy and freedom, of course.

But after the 911 attacks on New York and Washington, whatever
slight caution may have existed vanished as realistic fear of
terrorism replaced fictional fear of communism.

It was frightening enough to cause another rush of government
intrusion into the lives of citizens, allegedly to save them from
further terror attacks.

While this argument still works for misinformed innocents, true
believers and cynics who fully accept mass murder and deceit as
necessary functions of the American marketplace, it is losing its
strength among a growing minority.

This group responds to the information offered by these brave
Americans who “blow the whistle” on the treachery of minority
state power and face severe punishment for daring to speak out.

Manning and Snowden voluntarily acted as members of a budding
democratic state, in contrast to the bought and paid for media
wimps and political pimps who express outrage at these courageous
men who perform genuine public service and thereby threaten
corporate government and its subservient employees faithful to
private rule.

Manning performed heroically as a member of the armed forces and
continues to pay a hellish price for his bravery, while Snowden, also
acting on his conscience and still hopefully free, was operating in
the marketplace for private profiteers who have latched onto the
multi-billion dollar business of collecting information on Americans
and using it the way every thing in this economy is used to benefit
some at the expense of all.

Trillions of our tax dollars have gone to a military industrial complex
we were warned about long ago and they have created a permanent
at war state with military bases all over the world.

Now, during capitalism’s return to pre-social democratic pretensions
that have religious market forces back in control and the public
sector under total assault, cybernetic domination has become more
profitable with hustlers getting taxpayer money under the guise of
protecting them from outside attack by destroying inside freedoms
and making a helluva lot of money in the process.

These military and cybernetic profiteers represent a greater threat
to the nation than any terrorists who would disappear if we brought
our military home and ended our support of regimes hated by their
people who then loath us even more for doing so.

A primitive public sector that bailed out the economy for a
generation has come under assault in a return to pre-Great
Depression capitalism, with uncontrolled market forces that
impoverish the many to enrich the few.

Billionaires and millionaires are doing better than ever and
their servant professional class is just fine, for the moment.

But the majority of working people dubbed a middle class during
the generation of credit buying are slipping into more dangerous
conditions.

And those already at the bottom are facing survival problems
more deadly than at any time since the last depression.

In this context, market profiteers are feasting on public money as
corporate capital’s government fires public workers and hires private
firms to do for only some of us what those public workers once did
for almost all of us.

Schools, libraries, and post offices are closed and programs for
the poor and elderly are slashed or completely ended, while the
stock market booms and luxury goods sell at historic rates.

Millions of pets in America live at a higher material standard than
hundreds of thousands of human beings and the inequality gap
between animals and people is growing as fast as that between
the 1% and the rest of us.

In this madhouse of growing military expenditures and increased
warfare, the threat to Americans from terrorism also rises as we
create more people who hate us.

Whistleblowers who try to alert the public to a reality that hardly
exists on the propaganda outlets of corporate media are seen as
more dangerous than all past “subversives”, and it may be that
authority’s fears are finally getting something right.

The examples set and the information released by Manning and
Snowden is most dangerous to minority power since it is being
shared, discussed and given thought by far more than were ever
aware of past injustices to minorities while a majority either slept
or contentedly enjoyed the trickle down profits for their service.

Now, hundreds of millions the world over understand that humanity
faces a problem that is global, and here in the headquarters of
empire awareness of the role we play in that problem is growing,
thanks in part to communications not yet completely in control of
the 1%.

That control is being sought every day and courageous patriots like
Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, who risk their freedom in
doing so, are making it possible for people to get a greater sense
of this reality and do something about it before the situation gets
beyond our control.

While the corporadoes are already doing financial planning for
the employees they will run in the next election, social change
advocates should be realistic enough not to think it’s possible,
but it’s symbolically probable that a campaign for “Manning and
Snowden in 2016” might be a way to garner support for these
two American heroes.

And realistic or not, you know they represent infinitely more
integrity, bravery and dedication to the American people than
whatever toadies the corporate parties will present.



Frank Scott writes political commentary which appears in print
in the Coastal Post and The Independent Monitor and online at
the blog Legalienate.

http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/06/boundless-patriotism-manning-
and-snowden-in-2016