There's a lot of indignation from the right over a recent Homeland Security Department (HSD) press release which stated that right-wing extremist groups are being watched. Bloggers and pundits on the left don't seemed bothered by the announcement at all. What's up with that?
Under America's adversarial system, it's quite okay if the government spies on fellow citizens you don't happen to agree with!! When the Bush administration's HSD targeted peace activists and the like, right-wingers saw no problem. They reasoned that HSD's job was to keep the nation secure and if left-wing groups were posing a threat, then they should be watched.
Now that the shoe is on the other foot, left-wingers are parroting this same reasoning and the people complaining have flip-flopped too.
I may well be in the minority, but this leftist is just as bothered by HSD bird dogging rightists as when they did the same to liberals and progressives. I certainly acknowledge that there may be genuine threats from both sides, but our history has shown that when our government spies on their own citizens, they tend to do so with a very WIDE net.
Remember back to the early and mid 1960s. It was two Democratic Party administrations -- Kennedy & Johnson -- who allowed the FBI to wiretap, spy on and attempt to infiltrate Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Oooh! Now there's a dangerous group!
It would be one thing if the HSD and FBI were watching some particular dangerous organizations, but announcing that you're doing it is rather counterproductive -- if that's the true reason for your announcement. I happen to think the real reason for the announcement is to send a chill up everybody's spine. The government wants us to know that they dislike dissent and you never know whom they are watching.
It could be you.
Under America's adversarial system, it's quite okay if the government spies on fellow citizens you don't happen to agree with!! When the Bush administration's HSD targeted peace activists and the like, right-wingers saw no problem. They reasoned that HSD's job was to keep the nation secure and if left-wing groups were posing a threat, then they should be watched.
Now that the shoe is on the other foot, left-wingers are parroting this same reasoning and the people complaining have flip-flopped too.
I may well be in the minority, but this leftist is just as bothered by HSD bird dogging rightists as when they did the same to liberals and progressives. I certainly acknowledge that there may be genuine threats from both sides, but our history has shown that when our government spies on their own citizens, they tend to do so with a very WIDE net.
Remember back to the early and mid 1960s. It was two Democratic Party administrations -- Kennedy & Johnson -- who allowed the FBI to wiretap, spy on and attempt to infiltrate Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Oooh! Now there's a dangerous group!
It would be one thing if the HSD and FBI were watching some particular dangerous organizations, but announcing that you're doing it is rather counterproductive -- if that's the true reason for your announcement. I happen to think the real reason for the announcement is to send a chill up everybody's spine. The government wants us to know that they dislike dissent and you never know whom they are watching.
It could be you.
I just don't feel that chill you're describing, about Obama. I'm sure Obama and his administration have their prejudices, like anybody. But I don't think this HSD warning was singling out rightwing groups.
ReplyDeleteThe Right has been making a lot of noise these past few months. There might be some fire among all that smoke, or there might not be. You probably saw that racist site linked at my comment section ("Lyn" was the commenter). And a few weeks ago, Chuck Norris bragged that there are hundreds of armed sleeper cells all over the country, and they're getting ready to "take back" their country.
Maybe I'm just wearing blinders, but I never picked up that level of hatred from leftwing extremist groups. Plenty of name-calling, yes. But I think if a famous leftwing actor said he knew of hundreds of armed groups that were going to take back America, that person would would be sent to Gitmo pronto. Just my guess.