To say that I am more than mildly irritated would be an understatement, the reasons for which will become apparent within the context of this epistle.
As most bloggers do, I have a monitoring service that tracks various interesting and relevant aspects of activity on my blog site. The information provided is innocuous but does provide valuable data relative to the distribution and interest in what I have written.
For sometime it has been common knowledge that Google has been providing surveillance services to the U.S. Government without informing or gaining the approval of their subscribers. My monitoring service has routinely shown that my blog is reviewed on a daily basis, without fail, by googlebot in Mountain View, California. Three days ago, I decided it would be the decent and kind thing to do to (a) make them aware of the fact that I was cognizant of their monitoring my blog for reasons unknown to me, but (b) I am sure the U.S. Government must be very pleased with their diligence in carrying out their surveillance activities. The next two days indicated a sudden absence of any such activity by googlebot. I must have hit a nerve somewhere within that vast organization.
Today, I opened the monitoring report from the service to which I subscribe. Rather than the customary few, I was greeted with 19 hits, from unknown sources, in the past two days with 134 pages of what I have, so far, published on my blog and which have been “viewed” by those same sources. I immediately concluded that I must have struck a nerve somewhere in the vast labyrinths of the murky world of intelligence. Why? Was it for the purpose of intimidation or something far more sinister? How am I to know?
Permit me to set the record straight. I have two serious concerns about where this country is headed. One is the broad base of complacency and sheer ignorance among the electorate of this country that enables those in positions of prominence who choose to exploit their trust for less than noble purposes. The other is the cadre of “politicos” and vested interests that have profited handsomely from that broad base of apathy and ignorance. It has not been just an opportunity for those who exploit it for ulterior motives; it has been a veritable gold mine that just keeps on giving to those who wish to profit.
On the outside chance the terrible tragedy in Tucson, Arizona may figure into this equation, let me make it abundantly clear that there is no place in this country for violence or the wholesale prostitution that enables violence to be done in our name. I would ask you, are tragedies such as mass murder and assassinations that are so much a part of the fabric of this nation the fault of the people? I think not. Once again, I have no doubts but that our ignorance and complacency help to make those acts of violence possible. But, that same ignorance and complacency has enabled the legions of politicians and the complicity of vested interests to profit handsomely from the massive amounts of money that have flowed into their coffers. The most prominent is the National Rifle Association, and other organizations and individuals of like mind, all for the avowed purpose of aborting any attempts at meaningful gun control, that would effectively reduce the threat posed by the indiscriminate proliferation of guns and other weapons of violence that are a constant threat to all peace-loving people. Why have they not been held to account for their blatant disregard for the safety of the citizens of this country they are sworn to uphold? Why in the world would any citizen of this country need a gun for any purpose other than game hunting and law enforcement? The smoke screen of guns for personal protection is more illusory than an established fact. Truth be known, most of those guns probably pose more of a threat to the owner than they do to the imagined criminal that is going to break into their homes with the intent of doing them bodily harm.
Why, I ask you, do we permit those on the lunatic fringe and those right, smack dab in the middle, to cow and intimidate us into believing that owning guns is a fundamental right and an absolute necessity? To the extent that perception exists in regard to the Second Amendment, as far as I am concerned, it could and should be changed. We are a long way away from the frontier that spawned that mind set. The world of today is far too dangerous, and modern weaponry is far too sophisticated, for us to hang onto the mistaken notion that by curtailing the ownership and latent power of those lethal instruments is somehow a violation of our civil rights. To that I would say, “Hogwash.” Thank God Dick Cheney only had a hunting rifle. I shudder to think what might have been the outcome if his weapon had a magazine which held 32 rounds of ammunition. The entire hunting party might have been leveled.
If we are ever to curtail the power of conspiracy theorists or other fringe elements, then there has to be absolute transparency in government. For far too long we have acquiesced to those who convince us it is, somehow, essential to our national security. I doubt the veracity of that statement. Rather, the excesses of the power of that privilege have done more to enable those who seek to exploit the people of this country than to protect them. The gun-control issue is but one. How about those who enable legislatures to make secret deals that are clearly contrary to the best interests of and the will of the people? How about those who vote for and support illegal wars that have virtually no relevance to any real threat to our standing as a world power?
I believe every healthy relationship ever known to mankind must, by definition, be a reciprocal relationship. People who profit from our society must give back to it in equal measure. That means opportunity and economic justice for all. To the extent that does not happen, then someone suffers. Right now, those suffering the most are those who have been most exploited by the very ones who should be concerned about them.
You cannot have a civilized society without paying your fair share of the taxes. You cannot have a modern, healthy democracy by reducing working people to the level of serfs. Eventually, it will come back to bite the “haves” on the ass to their individual and collective peril. My worst fear is that, because there is such a preponderance of weaponry in the hands of those at the bottom of the food chain, they will be pushed to the point of desperation. That, in turn, will lead them to take up their guns, go to the streets and take that which they have been denied the right to earn by honest means. That, folks is a fact of life and not the machinations of an insane mind. That is reality and simple, elementary logic.
We can never hope to have a healthy, viable society unless there is equal opportunity for all. That, by definition, supports the notion that we have an obligation, as a society, to protect ourselves from the frailties of our own human nature. We must ensure that there are regulations and oversight in place to accomplish that, with full accountability and transparency for those dependent upon and affected by those safeguards. Otherwise, we will all be held hostage to raw power in all its forms from which we, as a people and a nation, will continue to suffer.
Our society must rest on a solid base of all those virtues that have somehow fallen out of vogue by the narcissistic, hedonistic and materialistic pursuits that have dominated our national psyche for much too long. Call them what you will, but they are a measure of what we refer to as matters of “morality” or “character.” They are all around us and, if we will but look for them, they exist within most of us. Our very human decency depends on recognition of the fact that, ultimately, they must be the guiding principles by which we live.
For those of you in the United States and Canada who feel the need to monitor the works of people, such as me, who genuinely give a damn about our country and its people in their entirety, I would suggest you reign in your paranoia. You don’t have to sit in some darkened room in front of a computer monitoring my every word. I have nothing to hide and nothing about which I should feel a modicum of shame. Just send me your e-mail address and I will be more than happy to refer you to every blog I post from this point forward. That will eliminate the rather clandestine and sordid manner in which you feel you have to work in order to peruse my meager attempts at writing. Hopefully, you may find a few pearls of wisdom within those words that will provide you with a few insights into another perspective which you might find helpful. If that is the case, then all this will not have been in vain.
As of this writing, I have a deep and abiding concern about the manner in which those we elect to office have chosen to do the people’s business. Am I going to stop criticizing the mainstream political parties? No. Am I going to stop criticizing the institutions of government? No. Am I going to stop criticizing our government for the manner in which it chooses to operate? No. Am I going to stop criticizing those who profit from the compromises made on their behalf by our government officials? No. Am I going to stop criticizing a corporate news media that fails to serve as the real watchdog on government? No. To do otherwise would be an abdication of my principles of personal integrity and fair play. It would be an abdication of my responsibility as a citizen, and it would be an abdication of my duty as an American.
I have little confidence that the changes we need to make in order to repair the damage done to this democracy are going to be realized any time soon. For that reason, I still hold firmly to the belief that we need a new political party, the main thrust of which is to restore integrity to our government, the way it does business and the manner in which it relates to the people who support it. Only through a duly elected government that is spawned by that new political perspective and dedicated to the finest ideals for governing, can we hope to restore this country to the greatness it once was, and bring it back from the brink on which it currently stands.
Cowboy Bob
January 13, 2011
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