Government rises up amongst people spontaneously. No true anarchy can ever exist in human society. Variances in the character of individual humans always result in leaders, followers, and some attempt at delegating duties.

Units as small as the family can be considered small governments where responsibility of money and resources as well as work is divided, in some fasion, amongst the members.

Government is neither good nor bad. Governments can be oppressive and tyrannical or benevolent and just. All governments, as institutional entities, are self preserving and, to that end, tend toward the usurping of power. But, this power, like all power, can be used for good or bad.

A healthy skepticism about government should include peaceful dissent and non-cooperation. The tyranny of any government should be considered when deciding whether to abolish it, but one must also consider the possibly greater tyranny of the resulting power vacuum.

Peaceful, internal change takes time but it tends to be more stable than violent revolutions that typically eat themselves and result in the same injustices, if not more injustice, than the formerly intact government.

Though, not all violent revolutions are bad (in my opinion and, in the opinion of the founders of America) and there are times when this becomes necessary. I must state cleary and certainly that I do not think America is at a point that warrants any violence. I would reserve this only for a time when a government has begun murdering innocent citizens (like Iran's government in 2009).

In America, we have a constitution and a Bill of Rights that trumps everything and everyone. The Patriot Act is an unconstitutional affront to our liberties and, as such, its removal should be a paramount objective of our leaders. This being said, I do not want or condone violence because I think the government is simply attempting to protect us from terrorist threats that are extremely difficult to root out.

I understand this and I appreciate this. However, I do not think everyone does understand this and I do not think universal domestic spying is a good thing at all because of the slippery slope of what it could lead to and the fact that it is clearly a violation of the constitution.

Unjust power creeps in like a thief. Where are the challenges to the Patriot Act and why has our supreme court been so ignorant of the removal of our rights? Unjust detention, unjust search and unjust seizure seem to be the norm for police and authorities in America. I have been arrested, in America, for refusing to be arrested.

I was charged with disorderly conduct. What law did I break? I failed to obey an officer who wanted to arrest me for failing to obey him. What order did I disobey? The order to put my hands behind my back to be arrested. This is insanity. I was breaking no law when I was arrested. I simply asked the officer for help.

This is not a problem with a particular president, congress, police force, or officer, but with a mechanistic, unconscious, system that is heading more and more towards tyranny. Thomas Hobbes describes this movement in his work Leviathan. It is not any one person or action, but a series of events through long periods of time. We get more and more used to not having our rights until, one day, we wake up and realize they are gone.

Our laws are becoming amazingly oppressive and disrespective of the rights of the individual. It should be mentioned that this has absolutely nothing to do with either socialism or capitalism, these are economic and not necessarily political systems. I must say here that I abhore violence and I would never suggest violence. I am merely exploring the foundations for the discord in large segments of the American population that have begun to flirt with dangerous actions.

In any case, we live in a police state and everyone is being spied upon by the NSA. You can not make a phone call or write an email that is not scanned by a computer system like the FBI's carnivore.

I understand the fear that caused these changes, but the end result of the concessions of our basic liberties is allowing those who want America to suffer, ultimately win.

I understand that the proper execution of law is hard and not as easy as just spying on everyone all at once.

I understand that we face existential threats. I sympathize with those who are attempting to protect us, but I also sympathize with those who realize that it is not legal under our system of government.

The greatest threat to America is not in the Middle East or in Iran or North Korea- though, I would say that both regimes are fairly oppressive.

The American government, however, is no less oppressive in it's war games and false-flag attacks on our own people. It is in our own ignorance of the fundamental rights and privileges that this country was founded upon.

 
"Adobe House in the Desert Under Swirling Moonlight" painting by Anthony Peter Iannini

"Adobe House in the Desert Under Moonlight", 2004, by Anthony Peter Iannini

We have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over and defeat any and all external enemies. But it seems we do not have the sense to protect our precious freedoms at home.

Using Orwellian language like "Homeland" and "Enhanced Interrogation" (a phrase almost verbatim to the one initially used by the Nazis) to conceal the removal of our basic rights is the greatest existential threat we face. Our greatest threat is our own fears that are removing our own ideals. America can survive terrorist attacks but it can not survive a removal of our constitutional rights.

America can survive a mushroom cloud but it can not survive a dictatorship or military rule. I would hope that our army would understand that it is never to be used against our own people and that the use of federal domestic private security forces is in direct violation of the constitution. But, the government has flirted with these uses of the military and I wonder why anyone in the government thinks this is alright?

When I was in the army for a brief time, I swore allegience to the constitution before anyone or anything else. Keep in mind, I am not condoning or advocating any violence because I truly believe the members of our Federal Government are doing what they think is best for our safety. I do not think the US government or anyone in it warrants, at all, any violence or violent uprising.

I simply fear the conditions that were created under George W. Bush's administration and I fear that the illegal usurpations of power in the Patriot Act are not being given back. There are lots of paranoid and desperate people in this country who, for better or worse, feel America has lost its way. I don't see it this way.

think America has simply shifted the power balance a litttle too much toward the executive branch and this can be corrected through peaceful changes in law and not through violence. Violence will not change the laws, it just changes who is in charge of enforcing them. These shifts toward power in the executive have happened before and during times of war.

The problem is that this time of war is perpetual, neverending, 1984-like, and, as we get tougher on the extremists, they will get worse and grow in number both internationally and domestically.

Torture of prisoners is one of the hallmarks of a tyrant. Secret prisons, removal of free speech, and the ability to identify anyone at any time as a "enemy combatant" are all tyrannical qualities we are flirting with. These are the kinds of things that happen in Communist dictatorships and fascist empires, not in a free country. I hope, dearly, that we can walk back from the precipice of absolute fascism. I implore everyone in our country and government to read and understand the constitution.

As an American, I have grown fervently supportive of our freedom of speech. From this right, all others can be argued in the open. From this right, all injustice has, at least, the potential to be aired and cured. Without the freedom to criticize one's government, what prevents it from being an unjust tyrant? I suggest slow, internal liberalization as a mode of trying to reach the right of free speech for those multitude of nations that do not currently have such a right.

I would generally advocate peace as a way to affect change, but, if a government becomes so tyrannical that it is regularly imprisoning or murdering innocent citizens (or citizens simply attempting to speak freely), then the forceful, internal, removal of that government is certainly just.

By just, I mean in terms of a focused and internal revolution that does not take innocent lives with it. I do not mean, for example, the unjust way in which Sadaam Hussein was removed that cost, by some estimates, a million lives. As historian Howard Zinn has said, "If you go to war against a tyrant, you go to war against the tyrant's victims".

I think it would be just for Iranian citizens to remove their government and I think it would be just for North Korean citizens to remove their government. I do not think the US government is, at all, this tyrannical. But, I worry that one day, given the way things went under Bush, it could be.

Side Note: As for tyranny, universal healthcare is about as far from tyranny as one can imagine. Conservative right-wing opponents of healthcare reform are about as deluded about reality and their own conditions as any group of people I have ever seen.

Tyranny, also, is not when the economy has been manipulated and money drained. That is all very bad but it is not tyranny. Tyranny is murder and crushing power. We can peacefully correct all the ills in America as far as I can see.

It should be remembered that a tyrannical government is often better for justice and stability than the complete absence of one. And, it is often better than the more tyrannical government that comes to be. For some, living in fear is better than death. For others, death is preferable. Those in the latter category should remember those in the former because the use of force will always result in a lot of death and a lot of suffering.

Unless there actually is, already, a lot of death and suffering, people should be cautious about creating it. Also remember the innocent children that will lose mothers and fathers if not their own lives as collateral damage.

Perhaps people in the Bush administration (Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Yoo, Gonzales, George W., Wolfowitz, Bolton) and Tony Blair should have thought more about the value of human life before they embarked on a criminal and outrageous campaign to topple Sadaam Hussein based on lies and deceit.

Perhaps Americans and the British can not prosecute these degenerates, because we have weak-willed and ethically bankrupt governments, but we can certainly write the history that condemns and reviles these psychopathic impirialist warmongers.

These people are horrible and they should be treated and remembered as horrible. Shun them and make their lives a living reminder of their shame. Any institution that hires a war criminal or their legal counsel is despicable. Any group that pays a war criminal to speak is despicable. And, Tony Blair's recent, late 2009, admission that Sadaam Hussein was going to go regardless of whatever bullshit would sell the people is outright criminal.


picture of Donald RUmsfled shaking hands with Sadaam Hussein while HUssein was an ally of the United States on the government page
Donald Rumself Shaking Hands with Sadaam Hussein

Always remember that no one disputes that Sadaam Hussein was our ally while he was gassing his own people but while he was serving a purpose as the opposition to Iran.

Rumsfeld met with, and shook hands with, America's great partner, Sadaam Hussein. Note the photo of them shaking hands when we were allies in 1983. The following link, here, is a documentation of the chemical weapons the United States sold to Iraq.

To say that Sadaam Hussein had to go because he was a bad guy is nothing short of ridiculous idiocy. He had to go because neocons wanted him to go so that geopolitical and economic interests of impirialistic western powers could be met.

Remember that Osama Bin Laden worked for the CIA in Afghanistan's war against the Russians.

I implore foreign governments (and our own government) to detain and try, for war crimes, anyone involved in the orchestration of the Iraq war. Even if only foreign governments do this, it will, at least, prevent them from freely traveling and highlight their crimes. While America criticizes China and North Korea for violations of human rights, let us not forget the mass murder that has been committed by our government, with our tax dollars, all over the world.

I am sympathetic to our soldiers who largely do not understand these issues, because, if they did, they would not fight in most of the recent wars. Soldiers are lied to, brainwashed, and indoctrinated. Soldiers are also the victims of lies and deceit who have fallen victim to the religion-like faith of nationalism.

Want to know what leaders think of soldiers? As Henry Kissinger, the Secretary of State under Nixon once said, soldiers are "dumb, stupid animals to be used" like pawns. More details of this quote can be found here. We see the Afghan war as the just war and the Iraq war as the bad war. But, what if elements of our own government allowed and indirectly synthesized the events of 9-11? I have more to say about this real probability on my history page.

I say let's be peaceful and reasonable and air our dirty laundry and try our dirty war criminals from administrations past so we can heal as a people and as a nation. Bush traumatized us and without justice, it's like our rapist is just going free. Until we prosecute the sadistic torturers of the Bush Administration, we, as a nation, can have no honor or moral authority whatsoever. Read the following quote by New York attorney Scott Horton:

"At Nuremberg, U.S. prosecutors held German officials accountable for the consequences of their policy decisions without offering proof that these decisions were implemented with the knowledge of the policymakers. The existence of the policies and evidence that the conduct contemplated in them occurred was taken as proof enough." The full article, A Nuremberg Lesson, is here.

Here is a link to a page highlighting Abu Ghraib photos and links to other anti-torture, pro-prosecution of Bushies websites.

 

All content on hiartx.com is by Anthony Peter Iannini © Copyright | All Rights Reserved. If properly attributed and referenced, all images and excerpts of written content from this site may be used for non-profit and/or educational purposes freely. Please provide a hyper link back to the website page where the images or text was found. E-mail contact regarding all uses of content on this site is appreciated. For all other uses of content on this site, please e-mail me at: apiannini@yahoo.com.