It was recently revealed that the U.S. has been engaged in the widespread monitoring of European Union diplomats. Edward Snowden’s leaks reveal that the National Security Agency bugged EU diplomatic offices in Washington and New York, hacked into its computer networks and monitored phone lines at its headquarters in Brussels.
“We are no longer in the Cold War,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesperson said. But in a sense, we are living in a Cold War-type of scenario. As before, the whole world is being held hostage. Before, annihilation was a very real threat as the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. engaged in a wild, global power grab. But now, there’s a different threat to the safety of humanity.
In a post-evil empire world, what role have the supposed victors played? The U.S. government is a machine of immense power. It can spy on nearly anyone in the world, especially with a desire to. It can also, as we learned from Iraq, lead us to strike another country preemptively based on a lie without a declaration of war and stay engaged there for a long time.
This machine kills innocent children with drones and manages to get away without word from the mainstream media.
Once upon a time, the people, or our representatives, would have the chance to debate decisions in the public. Now these decisions are made by unelected bureaucrats, including generals, and even most of our representatives are too spineless or don’t care enough to debate the morbid disrespect of power that’s taking place.
Each drone missile costs lots of money. Every cyber attack costs money. Whether we like it, we’re instruments to the machine’s ends. The machine has been allowed to grow and grow unchecked until now — finally — when some of the curtain is pulled back. And it’s clear that something big — very big — happened when Snowden did that because powerful icons from both the left and the right now hate him.
Are we living in “1984”? While we wouldn’t say that there’s no freedom of the press left in this country, shoddy reporting and spin doctoring in the mainstream media are reminiscent of George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth when heroes like Snowden are repeatedly painted as infamous.
Just in case you’re not sold on the “1984” idea, Julian Assange, de facto leader of WikiLeaks, recently appeared on ABC News and talked about the special court that the U.S. wants to send both him and Snowden to where they can be convicted quickly with a more than 99 percent certainty. “What does the law mean if there are secret interpretations in secret courts?” Assange asked.
Obama has a lot to answer for, but he’s just a link in the chain. We’re to blame, too, if nothing gets done to change all of this.
The whole world sees what’s happening. Who has the power to stand up to the machine and say enough is enough? Only the people do. It’s up to us and only up to us. It is up to the public to bear the responsibility of fixing things in a democracy when the government is broken. Republicans and Democrats have failed us. Let’s remember that on our next visit to the polls.
