Is That Right?

Our faith is our strength
--motto of Tristan da Cunha 

I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the
Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination
--John Keats 

Freedom is a bourgeois prejudice
V.I. Lenin 
__________________  

"Truth", "Freedom", "Rights", "liberties", endowments ... these terms occur in our foundational documents, but have never been definitively explained. That is why a person like Edward Snowden is either deified or demonized -- we are not sure what we are allowed to do.

The most famous line from the Declaration of Independence (1776) states:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

But in a society based upon laws, definition is important. How can these be "self evident" when at the time of the Declaration's writing, all men (= people) were not treated as though they had been "created equal[ly]"? If they are "truths", then they would have trumped behavior to the contrary.

It would take the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteen Amendments to confer freedom, full citizenship and the right to vote upon black males. It would not be until the 19th Amendment (ratified in 1920) that women would gain the right of suffrage.

Perhaps one may believe in universal equality of the construction of man, yet still believe that some few ubermensch retain the right to overmaster them. However, that is not societal equality, of the sort that a government document may confer. Further, how can it be "true" and "self-evident" that all are created equally when the observed evidence is so contrary. 

If rights are inalienable, they why need they be conferred by a "Creator"? If one were a citizen atheist, one still maintains his rights even though he denies they have been conferred upon him by a Creator. If rights are inalienable to my existence, then they need not be conferred, and are just a fact. 

If rights are "inalienable", then they are indwelling in the human, and may not be divorced by fiat or behavior. The Existentialists argued for man's radical freedom, even in cases of incarceration or death sentence, but that is a philosophical argument arguing for freedom in one's head space, a domain on which the government has not yet intruded. 

Justice Brandeis sought to protect that intangible freedom in his dissent in Olmstead (1934), when he foresaw a time when governments might develop and enlist technology to invade even that private sphere -- a "thought police", of sorts. However, one's actual physical condition may indeed be constricted, either by one's violation of his contract with the State or bad faith behavior of the State itself. So one's essential "liberty" is not a truth.

Liberty is not so much a right as a very tenuous condition. While an enlightened individual may eke out a mental zone of free thought when physical freedom may be denied to him, liberty is only the result of an agreement between the free man and his government, and only exists in the zone when both are performing their responsibilities correctly. Slavery and servitude is more generally man's state. 

"Life" is the one given among the "truths", but even it is not a "Right" -- life is simply a biological imperative. It is the seed seeking rich soil, the egg seeking fertilization, and then implantation. The impetus to life is a dumb fact if one is existing on this planet, much as when life has been extinguished, death and the absence of life will be a fact.

The Articles of Confederation also alludes to the “Great Governor of the World.” Were these references to a Big Guy just sops to simple people fleeing religious persecution? Many of the Founders were Deists, but they also believed in an "unmoved mover", a disinterested creator of all that is.

In Jefferson’s view, the rising generation, once sustained by complete liberty of conscience, would abandon religions based on biblical revelation in favor of those founded on reason. “There is not a young man now living in the United States,” he predicted in 1822, “who will not die a Unitarian.” (Separation of Church and State.) But reason had its day with The Enlightenment.

In fact, there are NO inalienable rights; ask Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. There are "rights" conferred by government, rights which may be abridged, abrogated or annulled, either judicially or extralegally.

We must be honest about who we are and what we want if we are to understand our present condition, yet who can do this even on a personal level? Our founders were brilliant and brave, their rhetoric soaring, but the words belie terrific contradictions and outright misstatements.

We are a riven society because men are riven, and men have created these concepts called rights.

[cross-posted @ milpub]

A Most Wanted Man

Are there control agencies?
There are only control agencies.
Of course they aren’t meant to find errors,
in the vulgar sense of that term,
since no errors occur,
and even if an error does occur,
as in your case,
who can finally say that it is an error? 
--The Castle, Franz Kafka 

If my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine 
--It's Alright, Ma, Bob Dylan 

I love this place.
I love the freedoms that we used to have!
I love it when it didn't take a major catastrophe
to get people to care for one another!
I love the fact that we're on camera all the time,
everywhere, from all angles! 
 --The American Dream,
George Carlin
________________

Ranger just finished Le Carre's A Most Wanted Man, a thoughtful novel on intel operators in the War on Terror.  The author reveals the ease with which such people can construct a false file on an innocent person using data often provided by foreign nationals, indicting said person as evil incarnate.

Intel is not factual but rather a reflection of reality as interpreted by someone sitting behind a desk, a person usually all too happy to receive or interpret data to reflect what the boss wants to hear. Intel operators are not police and lack arrest powers yet, they too often produce damning dossiers based upon innuendo and assumptions which are then employed by highers up to function as judge, jury and executioner of the implicated. But intel and judicial requirements are worlds apart; legal evidence is based upon produceable fact.

While al Qaeda is a violent organization which needs to be countered and contained, this can and should be done legally lest our democracy be corrupted and superannuated. Simply: illegal terror violence cannot be countered by illegal governmentally-sponsored acts of terror.


An example would be the extrajudicial, Presidentially-ordered killings of Anwar al-Awlaki and his son, Abduhlramen, in 2011. Where was the trial and the evidence? What was the death offense committed? If the President can justify the murders of two American citizens, then no one can rely on his democratic safeguards.

A great nation does not kill people on the basis of affiliation, because they are Taliban or al Qaeda. When the U.S. kills, it should be because a person has committed an executable offense which can be proven in a court of law. The cases of OKC bomber Timothy McVeigh and Boston Marathon bomber DzhokharTsarneav are examples.

Ever since the beginning of the War on Terror and the suspension of the liberties and protections to which we had become accustomed, the usual psychological justification enlisted by the many has been, "I don't have anything to hide, so what need care I if my transmissions are secretly monitored?" U.S. citizens are naive -- the majority having been relatively safe from such fascist-type State intrusions -- and do not understand the slippery slope that is government overreach until they have been overreached.

The Bill of Rights concept of "probable cause" is seen as impossibly naive in a nation allowed unfettered State Secrets in its war against terrorists, which becomes de facto a war against your privacy. A people not accorded privacy is not a free people. The notions of secrecy and privacy are neither Republican nor Democratic (though it is usually the Republican electorate which is more willing to abdicate their rights, and the Republican leaders more willing to take them away.)

Only we can destroy our democratic principles, and the intel types are not always right. Those are the only givens in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©)

Bradley Manning Trial

--Rainer Hachfeld, Neues Deutschland

Picket lines and picket signs
Don't punish me with brutality
Talk to me, so you can see
Oh, what's going on 
 --What's Going On, Marvin Gaye 

I'm as mad as hell
and I'm not going to take this anymore! 
--Network (1976)
____________________

The National Security Agency moved swiftly and forcefully today to remind its employees of its longstanding zero-tolerance policy on conscience, warning that any violation of that policy would result in immediate termination. 

“When you sign on to work at the N.S.A. you swear to uphold the standards of amorality and soullessness that this agency was founded upon,” said N.S.A. director General Keith B. Alexander. “Any evidence of ethics, decency, or a sense of right and wrong will not be tolerated. These things have no place in the intelligence community.” 

To enforce the policy, General Alexander said that once a month all N.S.A. employees will be wired to a computer to take full inventory of what is going on in their minds: “We want to be sure they are spending their free time playing Call of Duty, not reading the Federalist Papers.” 

-- fr. N.S.A. Enforces Zero-Tolerance Policy on Conscience, Andy Borowitz

_________________

The Bradley Manning trial which began this week is not getting much press; some 75% of mainstream news outlets will not be covering the trial, and the press gallery remains mostly empty.

Meanwhile, the United States government continues perfecting its adversarial electronic surveillance posture against both the press and the rest of us. It is apparent that secrecy and the diminution of our privacy rights are a daily event in our brave new world, and we the marching morons continue in lockstep throwing our rights away by the fistfuls.

As Juan Cole wrote, "The US Government has been gleefully getting access to your private correspondence and that gave the Government Class an inherent superiority over ordinary Americans. Manning announced that turnabout is fair play, and we should be able to see their correspondence, too, especially given the war crimes in Iraq. That's why they're trying to execute him."

But as U.S. intelligence agencies perfect their methods of spying on us -- with our complicity -- there will always be the few like Edward Snowden and Manning who refuse to forbear their part in the voyeurism. Adrian Lamo who turned Manning in, under oath described Manning as having a sort of oceanic moment of awareness in which he realized the brutality we do to others, we do to ourselves. At this thought Manning felt suicidal, but instead of acting on that he revealed to us the source of the impulse to self-immolation.

We did not do much with the data other than to shuffle it off with a time-worn, "Things happen in war."

Once in a while there's a Howard Beale who dares to yell out the open window, but we don't mollycoddle our whistle blowers. Most of us go along to get along, just so happy for the Costco membership, the (hopefully one) mortgage and the 10-day family vacation. But there is another Bradley Manning out there now releasing secret court orders and PowerPoint presentations showing government tendencies to overreach its constitutionally-mandated boundaries.

To that person, whomever he may be -- we will say, "thank you for your service."

Tread on Me

But the law, Judah.
Without the law, it's all darkness
--Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
__________________

Remember all of the purple thumbs which were part of the constructed pastiche that said, "We're winning?" Well, voting is not the sign of either freedom or democracy.

The sign of democracy is being allowed to vote on key issues and having politicians who will then fulfill our mandate. That is freedom and democracy marching hand in hand. When we in the U.S. vote for President, is our intent to elect a warrior king ? An assassin? A jailer? Do we expect him to uphold The Constitution, or to view it as a buffet for the choosing?

What politician will cease being a reactor and fulfill the role of statesman, instead being an actor for the betterment of his nation? As long as any man sits in prison sans trial, none of us is a free man. Rights are not rights if they can be abrogated by arbitrary Presidential fiat. Discretionary rights are as bogus as discretionary war.

How can we tell our troops that they are fighting for our rights, when one of them (Bradley Manning) sits in jail without any rights at all? Do we and they not see this? The actions of Presidents George Bush and Obama to assassinate citizens and incarcerate people without trial embodies the Constitutional concept of high crimes and misdemeanors.

The Republican candidates are stepping up to the plate, but no one asks them, "Would you free, try, or just let Manning continue to rot in prison?" Instead we focus on their sex lives and other meaningless drivel. We should ask, "Do you support the assassination of U.S. citizens sans benefit of trial?", but we do not, because we know the answer. Both political parties support the truncation of citizen's rights in this not-so Brave New World.

It is strange that the U.S. would try and impeach a president for sexual dalliances with an intern, while gladly accepting the assassinations and jailings without a whimper.

Don't Tread on Me has left the building.

Freedom Riders

Suddenly it's repression, moratorium on rights
What did they think the politics of panic would invite?
Person in the street shrugs -- "Security comes first"
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse
--The Trouble With Normal, Bruce Cockburn
_____________________

Ranger is still discombobulated from the Veterans Day effluent, which gave a tiny up to all things war. Every newspaper I read had an article to the effect that our troops are fighting for our freedom, liberty and our very way of life.

This hogwash beats me down. There is no way the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) is about our freedoms, rights or way of life (unless one is speaking about their corrosion.) The terrorists -- whomever they may be -- may be able to cut off our oil flow or even knock down the World Trade Center, but they can never take away my rights and liberties.

Only my country can do that to me. Our sacrosanct rights are precious but are only as strong as the covenant in which they appear (The Constitution). Sans that legal document, there really are no divine rights, which is why it must be so fiercely protected.

To the degree that my country encroaches upon my constitutional rights, the terrorists win.

Desideratum

--Arend Van Dam

It's a weight, a wonder that is wise
I am here, you are there
Love is our cross to bear
--Love is Our Cross to Bear,
John Gorka

Dark waters rise and thunders pound
the wheels of war are going round
and all the walls are crumbling
Shelter me lord underneath your wings
--Shelter Me, Buddy Miller
___________________

In honor of National Poetry Month, a poem by Polish poet Julia Hartwig (b. 1921):

Yet We Desire It above All

Freedom does not mean happiness right away
the free world hides more traps than tyranny
mastiffs let loose from chains passions exceeding the horizon
steps entangled in the ropes of old bonds
that try to pull tight again

Freedom both for scoundrels and those
who sacrificed themselves for it
freedom for those who feel as pure as a diamond
and want to cut deeply surrendering passionately
to a new slavery—of hatred
from which the earth cracks like under dynamite
changing the course of rivers

[cross-posted @ milpub]

Granfalloons

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
--Sixteen Tons, Tennessee Ernie Ford

The union has made me wise
To the lies of the company spies
And I don't get fooled by the factory rules
'cause I always read between the lines
--Part of the Union, Strawbs
________________

Call Ranger weak-minded, but he can't resolve an issue which issued from yesterday's post documenting the gallantry of the Marines during the breakout to Haguru-ri ("Fox News").

While the same praise must be extended to our soldiers fighting, suffering and dying in Afghanistan (there is no absence of valor and dedication in either scenario), we are told that the fighting in whichever war was and is necessary to defend freedom and our way of life. But is it really so?

In December 1950 young Ranger lived in a coal company house, and his father and grandfather worked the mines to provide a subsistence-level existence. Ranger's father mined until the recessions killed the industry. More correctly -- until the Japanese and Germans killed the steel industry (another story.)

All the while, good men were fighting and dying, but it wasn't for America's freedom and prosperity. Those goods passed his house on its road march to the better neighborhoods of America; his family was free to be poor. Coal miners in '50 and '51 were struggling for unionized living wages, but the fighting Marines didn't do a thing to improve their lives.

Americans allow their corporations to bond together (see the insurance and petroleum oligarchies) but are against union organization, against their better interests. Still, they are never against war, as that would be unpatriotic. How did any American benefit from the sacrifices of those Marines in Korea?

What is different in 2009? Our soldiers follow orders, yet what does this have to do with our daily freedom and security? We think John Lennon said it best in his classic interview with Dick Cavett: The media works hard to distract us from the un-necessity of war with a multitude of red herrings. As a result of our easy distraction, we are becoming a nation of Granfalloons, missing the import of the vital issues, failing to make the connections.

Contrary to what Obama or any leader says, there is no correlation between the battlefield and freedom. All freedoms are won or lost in our backyards. The Civil War oversaw the emancipation of slaves, but it was politics, not war, that made the former slaves and miners free men.

The unions helped, too.