Total Information Overhype

All right, let's first briefly discuss the Bush Administration's preposterous justifications for its spying activities.

Any kindergarten student knows that al Qaeda knows that it's being spied on. Perhaps not surprisingly, however, only one member of the White House Press Corps could figure this out:

Q General, what's really compromised by the public knowledge of this program? Don't you assume that the other side thinks we're listening to them? I mean, come on.

But, quickly shot down by General Hayden, the question was never raised again:

GENERAL HAYDEN: The fact that this program has been successful is proof to me that what you claim to be an assumption is certainly not universal. The more we discuss it, the more we put it in the face of those who would do us harm, the more they will respond to this and protect their communications and make it more difficult for us to defend the nation.

QED. Except, of course, that the "Global War On Terror" has been an abysmal failure, even on its own miserable terms. The number of major terrorist incidents has skyrocketed since September 11th, and in 2004 hit an all-time high.

The Administration's logic is (as usual) equally suspect.

If it's so critically urgent to keep the program classified, why did the Administration for several years raise and lower the "Terror Alert" level like a freakin' yo-yo (which it'll probably return to doing as soon as the spying scandal blows over)? That doesn't tip off the terrorists that they're being watched? The December 2003 hysteria, while particularly comical, should have been, to use the Administration's current logic, considered particularly reckless as well.

Why all the furor over "sleeper cells" receiving coded messages over the teevee? If the terrorists are unaware they're being spied upon, why wouldn't they just send such messages over the phone?

And what of the vaunted "flypaper" theory? You know, "We're fighting the terrorists over there so that we don't have to fight them over here." Apart from this being a most despicable justification for laying waste to and occupying another country; if it were true, then why would we need to worry about another attack on U.S. soil?

A few days ago, Trent Duffy got into the act as well:

This is not about monitoring phone calls designed to arrange Little League practice or what to bring to a potluck dinner. These are designed to monitor calls from very bad people to very bad people who have a history of blowing up commuter trains, weddings, and churches.

So the domestic ends of these phone calls are to people "who have a history of blowing up commuter trains, weddings, and churches"? If true (which has been shewn to not be the case -- but play along anyway), why bother with merely monitoring them, and instead go ahead and arrest them?

Or, conversely, if the Administration wants to argue that it wants to keep the criminals at large in order to glean information regarding future terrorist attacks; then why doesn't it release all of the detainees in Guantanamo, and monitor them as well? After all, aren't we supposed to believe that the Guantanamo prisoners are "very bad people"? But we're also supposed to believe that, "Our interest is in not trying them and letting them out. Our interest is in -- during this global war on terror -- keeping them off the streets, and so that's what's taking place."

Oh, you naughty Bush Administration fucks: can't even keep your own lies properly catalogued; and yet you want to be entrusted with the better-living-through-data-mining project?

Well, as has been argued so many times before in this space, it's expected that the Administration should be comprised wholly of liars and criminals. And, certainly, better to have incompetent that competent liars and criminals pulling and prodding the levers of power. The real scandal here is that the mainstream media is so utterly incapable and/or unwilling to sail its Ship of Fourth Estate through the massive holes in the Bush Administration's pitiful arguments. If only they'd let the Kindergarten class attend the White House press briefings, the Bush Administration would be history in two or three days' time.

Having said all of that, though, the sky-is-falling left-liberal reaction to the New York Times' revelations has been fairly difficult to stomach.

This is an impeachable offense, we are told, because Dubya willingly admits to having committed the crimes. (Uh, gee, you mean I can go out and break any laws I want to, so long as I don't admit to having done so?)

"The expansion of Presidential powers and the expansion of police powers is the single most important issue facing this country," we are told.

"...this represents the greatest threat to the Constitutional order in American history," we are told.

"We have finally reached the constitutional Rubicon," we are told. "If Congress cannot stand firm against the open violation of federal law by the president, then we have truly become an autocracy."

Got it?

We didn't become an autocracy by slaughtering scores of thousands of innocent people in Afghanistan and Iraq (millions of people if we include Korea, Vietnam, Central America, and Yugoslavia) -- though they clearly had no say in the matter.

We didn't become an autocracy by unilaterally imposing economic policies which result in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people every single day -- though they clearly have no say in the matter.

We didn't become an autocracy by merrily arming some of the more repressive regimes in the World -- though clearly their dictators' subjects had no say in the matter.

We didn't become an autocracy by sending unmanned aerial drones to off terrorist suspects in foreign countries; nor by "scooping up", and then detaining indefinitely without charge (often in secret facilities), "illegal combatants" in the "War On Terror".

We didn't become an autocracy by amassing the World's largest prison population.

Hell, even spying on people without their consent is apparently not a problem -- or else what in the name of je-fucking-hova is the purpose of the CIA (when it's not, that is, toppling democratically elected governments in all corners of the globe)?

Even good old Ralph Nader seems to be okay with the CIA's activities, judging by this passage from a recent piece on the Counterpunch website:

Now comes the most recent, blatant impeachable offense -- Bush ordering the spying on Americans in our country by the National Security Agency. This disclosure stunned many NSA staff who themselves view domestic surveillance as anathema, according to Matthew M. Aid, a current historian of the agency. [Emphasis added.]

The implication is pretty unmistakable: the crimes of Empire only matter when they begin to affect white Liberals.

Except that, they aren't even, really, affecting us. Yeah, okay, we're being spied upon. And, sure, we've inhaled the occasional waft of tear gas, or been roped into "Free Speech Zones", or had our protest signs taken away from us, or received a scolding or three from the FBI.

And, yes, just to show us all how tough-on-thought-crime it is, the Administration does imprison the odd seventy-five-year-old nun for a year or two.

All violations of our rights, to be sure. But pretty small potatoes when compared with having one's brains blown out, or being starved to death, or incarcerated, or tortured, or sent away for life for toking-while-black.

So could we maybe steer our analysis more in the direction of Malcolm Little than Chicken Little?

As for what we can do about the Bush Administration's nasty predilections, we should first of all take note of, and utilise, the astonishingly useful play which the Administration has given us. If it's "Total Information" the Bush Administration wants, then it's "Total Information" it should get. This is our big chance to tell the sons of bitches just how goddam much we despise them.

If it's going to look at our library records, then let's make sure to check out as many subversive books as we possibly can -- even if we can't get around to reading them all.

If it's going to track our web-browsing habits, let's make sure to bookmark and visit as many dissident websites as we can. (And, given the Administration's moralistic bent, may as well visit a bunch o' porno and/or Darwinist sites as well.)

If it's going to listen in to our phone calls, then let's make sure that our every conversation includes the words "Donald H. Rumsfeld can eat my motherfucking ass".

And, oh yeah, perhaps let's take notice when the Bush Administration's activities actually do place us in great jeopardy.

A few days before the NSA story broke, for example; another in a very long string of reports detailing the ongoing catastrophe wrought by global climate change hit the streets: the polar bears are drowning. But that story has itself been drowned -- overwhelmed by a tsunami of righteous fury accompanying the spying revelation.

Too bad, because it places, once again, our meat-eating, war-tax-paying, motor-car-driving, sweatshop-made-clothes-buying, big-box-shoppping-at "lifestyles" squarely in perspective.

Our actions speak much louder than our words. So, please: quit bellyaching, already, about non-existent threats to our non-existent democracy. The rest of the World has suffered the horrors of living under the thumb of autocracy for a helluva long time -- and our lifestyle choices both motivate the Empire to propagate itself, and allow it the means to do so.