July 4, 2013

Both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died within hours of each other on the Fourth of July, 1826, fifty years after the Declaration of Independence was signed. They were friends and opponents, each deeply respectful of the other's intelligence and humanity and even of their opposing views. Jefferson died around one in the morning. Adams died around four, before sunrise, with the words, "Independence forever," and "Jefferson survives." He was wrong. Twice.

Both Jefferson and Adams regarded the growing power of political parties with suspicion but for different reasons. They argued bitterly about this trend. Both saw the possibility of abuse if overwhelming power were to be invested in blocs of influence. Neither imagined the disaster of two massive parties controlling the political dialogue of their nation. Neither conceived that the death of their hopeful and logical social experiment in democracy might be a logical step away from two-party control: the ultimate oligarchy of both parties quietly controlled by the same billionaires and global corporate "entities."

How refreshing it would be if our billionaires were progressive humanists. Alas. The global megacorporations that fund both parties are massive and massively powerful clay "men" without souls or ethics or – most dangerously – nationality.

This Fourth of July, 2013, may be significant to future historians as the end of Jefferson's and Adam's ideals for a nation. We are governed by a legislature and presidency and court that makes extravagant claims of democracy, diversity and morality, but the difference between this administration and the last is disappointingly monotonous. Better diction, same results: a seamless erosion of basic legal rights, privacy, dignity and volition.

A recent article in The New York Times reveals a shadow government controlling the daylight laws by which most of us live. Suddenly and without our consent there are secret courts trumping the rights we assumed were absolute.

It seems to work in an Animal Farm way: there are laws for sheep (that's us), and secret, overriding laws for pigs (that's the unrestricted Gestapo of Homeland Security and the NSA). Most of the time we have the right to a trial by jury, the right to counsel and legal procedure, the rights against self-incrimination, &c. Most of the time, in sheep matters. But when a matter interests pigs, we have no rights. By pig-law, under Homeland Security legislation, we can be arrested, imprisoned, tortured, even executed without counsel or formal charges IF the pigs declare us a threat. What are their criteria for threat? Dunno, it's a pig secret.

In the article you'll find that there are eleven judges on the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court, ten appointed (not elected) by the conservative right of the two-party-same-funders power bloc. One judge reviews and signs off on about 1800 requests for data gathering (what we might in days of yore call "search and seizure") each year. To date, we're told, not one has been refused. Little wonder: this comprises about 5 legal documents a day, a heavy "case load." No refusals.

The pigs have law, power and surveillance completely controlled. The sheep have a desperate need to believe their pastures are the greenest, sweetest, most moral farm in the world. If they didn't believe that, they'd be obliged to protest against a monolithic power structure, they'd be upset and nervous and sad, and many of them would be disappeared. Pigs and sheep thus achieve a balanced harmony. Jefferson and Adams would both be in the custody of Homeland Security, somewhere, and proud of it.

Braxinoso Speaks

Himself talks about the NSA's surveillance lightly, as if he isn't subject to it. Their algorithms connecting firebrand words and patterns have almost certainly earned him at least a file among other dissidents. What the NSA can't plumb is that my inkfish master is about as dangerous as a grumpy groundhog. Still, we hope for literate and pleasant cellmates in the FEMA camp, the NSA lockup, or Guantanamo. There's also the possibility that he only hopes to have a file. A case of wishful paranoia.