Americans Spying on, Working Against Their Fellow Americans

By Michael Payne

One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. What a beautiful phrase from the Pledge of Allegiance. Yes it’s truly inspirational but, unfortunately the word indivisible, “that which cannot be divided, separated or broken” no longer fits, it’s no more than a myth, at least in the America of today.

spies like us by eagnews.org

What we need do is to look in greater depth at the factors behind the transformation of America from a nation once considered indivisible into one in which the trust between the people and the government is almost non-existent, and the trust between fellow Americans is rapidly deteriorating.   We now live in a country in which people are being schooled and encouraged by their government to distrust and spy on each other.

America, in recent decades, has undergone radical changes, and not for the better; surveillance cameras are everywhere — watching you, watching me. More and more police departments are using swat teams resembling storm troopers to deal with societal conditions that don’t represent that degree of threat. And, of course, we now have become fully aware that our government in Washington and in areas around the country is tapping into every form of communication that we use through the NSA national surveillance program.

Consider what a very bizarre situation this has become. It appears that President Obama has acquiesced to the powers that run Washington and is submissively following their agenda to take control of this society and its people. That is clearly evidenced by his staunch support of the NSA spying program, the Insider Threat Program, the government’s war against whistleblowers, and numerous restrictions on our Constitutional rights and freedoms.

Many frustrated, angry Americans blame the government for the many adverse conditions currently present in our country, and with good cause. But there is far more to this situation than just the government. These same Americans should stop to realize that many of the less than honorable actions that we accuse the government of taking are actually being performed by thousands upon thousands of American people who work for the government and carry out its specific objectives.

Who are those many thousands of Americans who operate the NSA spy agency? They’re people just like you and I; they are our fellow Americans, maybe some of our friends or neighbors, or those with whom we attend church.

The NSA spying program is not being run by a bunch of robots, it is operated by Americans who are directly engaged in gathering the communications of their fellow Americans. They may be very uncomfortable and uneasy about what they are doing, just as Edward Snowden was, but the reality of the situation is that they need and want those government paychecks upon which they are so dependent. Of course, we will see more and more Edward Snowden types emerge but most of these government employees will remain silent and submissive and do what they are told.

I wonder how many of those individuals feel trapped and helpless as they knowingly spy on their fellow Americans; do they feel any sense of guilt about how they are invading their privacy and possibly putting them in harm’s way if the government is prompted to investigate them?

Here’s McClatchy’s revealing article that discusses how Big Brother Obama’s government Insider Threat Program works. And here’s a quote from the Crooks and Liars website about this spying system: “Even before a former U.S. intelligence contractor exposed the secret collection of Americans’ phone records, the Obama administration was pursuing a largely secretive program in which government employees are instructed to watch the actions of their fellow employees and then report any suspicious activities to their superiors. Additionally, department managers have been instructed to punish those employees that they feel are failing to report their suspicions.” Unbelievable, this is straight out of “1984.”

Besides these government spying systems, what about the giant, unscrupulous Wall Street banks and mortgage lenders who have perfected the art of fleecing their fellow Americans by employing their deceitful, fraudulent schemes and tactics to earn obscene profits? Those who have escaped major investigations or prosecutions by the woeful Obama Justice Dept. Well there are many thousands of Americans working in those financial institutions who knew exactly what they were doing as they became directly involved in the preparation of unethical and often fraudulent documents that initially created the housing bubble; that caused its bursting in 2008, followed by the multi-millions of home foreclosures.

My only advice to these people who were caught up in this web of deceit, such as the robo-signing of fraudulent foreclosure documents, and knew that what they were doing was clearly legal is — that if they continue on that path, they may face grave consequences, for they should remember that, in those rare cases of government prosecutions of white collar crimes, those that get caught and prosecuted are generally the smaller fish because the big ones always get away.

This is a massive conundrum, one in which these Americans are, without a doubt, harming their fellow Americans and have let themselves become directly involved in the system of corporate greed and corruption that is running rampant in this country. They are a part of this civil war in which Americans are, in effect, working against other Americans.

What America is becoming is more than tragic; this is a country that seems have been infected with an insidious disease of deceit and corruption that knows no bounds. This disease has contaminated Wall Street; it has spread through the corporate world like a plague, and into the government, especially the Senate and the U.S. House.  [Actually this disease could not have contaminated Wall Street and the corporate world because they embody it, and it’s capitalism. The disease is capitalism.—Eds/)

Wait, I almost forgot to mention the most egregious example of Americans working against their fellow Americans. It’s none other than the leaders of the Republican Party that no longer even try to hide the fact that they have no use whatsoever for those Americans who are not like themselves; namely, African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans and other groups who refuse to accept their twisted ideology and demented thinking.

That Republican Party in Congress is trying to destroy any and all government programs that are designed to help Americans in need; they would eliminate unemployment benefits, food stamps, Head Start, meals for underprivileged school kids, Medicaid programs in GOP controlled states and many others. And to top it off, these craven, narrow-minded, sociopathic Republicans in various states, mostly in the South, are pulling out all stops to suppress the voting rights of all these minorities because they know that this is the only way that they can win elections.

Think that this sad commentary on America can’t get even worse? Well, just watch what’s going to happen before too long. For those who aren’t aware, the officials of the Federal Aviation Administration, who have already issued 1,427 permits for the use of remote-controlled drones for law enforcement purposes in the skies over America have estimated that this number will rise to 10,000 by the year 2020.

And who do we think will be sitting in some governmental facility launching these drones over our cities, towns and municipalities? The operators will be our fellow Americans, yes the same kind of very skilled individuals who are currently controlling the launchings of remote-controlled drones in the skies over Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. They will soon be in evidence in the skies above you; so “watch what you say, watch what you do.”

No we certainly don’t hear the Master Spy sitting in the White House making any objections to these scary unconstitutional government actions. Absolutely not and you won’t because this is right up his alley, this is what he has become. This president is not very good at governing the nation [was never meant to, since he governs on behalf of the plutocracy, see article by Chomsky in this issue] and he has allowed the Republicans to use him as a political punching bag, but he does excel at other endeavors such as running spy programs and launching drones.

I see no way out of this moral morass, and the probability of this situation reversing itself is zero to none. What is going on will continue unabated because those Americans who are involved in spying against their fellow Americans and those who are working against their best interests in other ways aren’t going to willingly give up their jobs and end their careers. It simply won’t happen.

No, nothing is really going to change unless or until some minor miracle or some kind of revolution occurs in America; not until America experiences a severe financial collapse or conditions become so unbearable and intolerable that this country will be subjected to a societal eruption when people have been pushed to their limits to the point that they can’t take it anymore. This government is never going to change; it will never reverse the negative course on which it is proceeding, not until the power of the people forces change upon it.

If we had American patriots present in this country that possessed the same attributes as those of the nation’s Founding Fathers, a deep sense of honor, ethics, integrity, and fearlessness, then we would have a chance. They are not to be found, not in this country, not at this time in its history.

A nation indivisible; once that might have described America — it is no more.

—Michael Payne
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Payne is an independent progressive activist. His writings deal with social, economic, political and foreign policy issues. He is a graduate of Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois and a U.S. Army veteran. His primary objective is to inform readers of the fact that this nation’s agenda of perpetual war is leading it down a path to financial ruin; and that the proliferation of unjustified wars and a military empire must be ended. Secondly that we must find the ways to expel Corporate America from our government and political system before it destroys our democracy.