August 30, 2013 at 1:57 P.M. Senator Menendez has called for "limited strikes" against Syrian targets without awaiting the UN Weapons Inspectors' reports. As Chairperson of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee this irresponsible declaration has called into question the N.J. Senator's commitment to international law: Jordan will not allow its territory to be used for any attack; Iran will close its airspace and uphold its military alliance with Syria; Hezbollah will retaliate against Israeli targets; Al Qaeda and other forces in the so-called Syrian "opposition" may be responsible for an incediary bomb dropped today on a schoolyard in Damascus, allegedly, to draw foreign powers into the conflict. Al Jazeera is still blocked on Time/Warner systems.
The debate in Britain concerning possible strikes was excellent and was broadcast live early this morning. Mr. Milliband was especially persuasive for Labour. The foreseeable consequences of strikes may be quite adverse for Western interests.
Herb Jackson, "Jersey Leaders Divided On Syria," The Record, August 29, 2013, p. A-1. (Senator Menendez offers a "mischaracterization.")
Steven Castle, et als., "Britain to Wait On UN Weapons Report and Parliament Vote Before Syria Strikes," The New York Times, August 29, 2013, p. A11. (Mr. Cameron correctly stated that, whatever Britain ultimately decides based on the nation's interest, he will "not apologize to Mr. Obama." I cannot understand why it was thought that he should apologize or do anything different from what he is doing.)
In the midst of all of this "war talk," New Jersey officials have posted a number of bogus orders and/or "ethics" judgments, based on now admittedly fraudulent evidence, aimed at smearing me. I am amused and undeterred, but deeply flattered by their attentions. ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and "Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?")
Today's news articles:
Scott Shane, "Data Collection Is Illegal, A.C.L.U. Says in Filing," The New York Times, August 27, 2013, p. A14. ("Americans' privacy is a plot by Al Qaeda," according to the U.S. government.)
Manohla Dargis, "In London, the Walls Have Eyes," The New York Times, August 28, 2013, p. C1. (Manohla Dargis says it all in "her" best sentence in this memorable review: "A lot -- especially through the ubiquitous closed-circuit television cameras that dot London like neighborhood constables or plague sores, depending on your view of life in the surveillance state." I have no idea what this sentence means. Ms. Abramson, why is this person, or persons, writing movie reviews for the Times?)
Tom Shanker, et als., "Obama Weighing 'Limited' Strikes On Syrian Forces," The New York Times, August 28, 2013, p. A1. (What is a "limited strike"? If a child is killed in such a strike is it a "limited death"?)
Books exploring themes in these articles:
Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (New York: Ballantine, 1962).
Anthony Burgess, Tremor of Intent: An Eschatological Spy Novel (London & New York: W.W. Norton, 1966). (Take another look at Ms. Dargis' review of a movie entitled "Closed Circuit.")
Richard Condon, The Manchurian Candidate (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1959).
John Marks, The Search For the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind/Control (New York: Dell, 1979).
George Orwell, 1984 (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1949).
Irving Howe, ed., 1984 Revisited: Totalitarianism in Our Century (New York: New American Library, 1983).
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (New York: Harper & Row, 1932).
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited (New York: Harper & Row, 1958).
Philosophical Exploration:
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York & London: Viking, 1979).
I am beginning to feel less lonely as a target of U.S. government surveillance. Apparently, EVERYBODY is now a subject of American government surveillance and monitoring, except for foreign terrorists:
" ... the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] argued in court papers filed Monday that the sweeping data gathering [by the NSA] violates the Constitution and should be halted."
The suit may be a Quixotic gesture by the ACLU that fully expects the complaint to be dismissed or made impossible to litigate by government claims of "secrecy" or "national security" concerns.
If a lawsuit is filed concerning the quality of the food in the Congressional cafeteria, these days, no doubt the government's response (perhaps an accurate one) would be "non-disclosure" based on "secrecy and national security issues."
Will responsive pleadings addressing the merits of this ACLU suit be filed by government? I doubt it:
"The A.C.L.U. cited the writings of George Orwell and the comprehensive East German surveillance portrayed in the film 'The Lives of Others' in warning of the dangers of large-scale government intrusion into private lives. The new motion, elaborating on the A.C.L.U.'s arguments against data collection, come in a federal law suit challenging the N.S.A. program that the group filed in June."
George Orwell's works -- even more the scientifically-informed writings of Aldous Huxley! -- focus on the threats to personal autonomy posed not only by surveillance, but also by biology and technology in the twentieth century and beyond. ("The Allegory of the Cave.")
These British gentlemen -- Orwell and Huxley -- would be delighted to find themselves cited as legal authorities in an American law suit even as they are quoted by courts throughout the land for "representing" our moment in history accurately. This is the power of ideas in literature.
Persons all over the world feel powerless and baffled at the insanity of powerful countries devastating Third World societies governed by even worse maniacs exterminating their own people. The result of all the recent saber rattling and posturing regarding Syria will probably be the deaths of many innocent persons, often children and old people who run less quickly than young men when the bombs are falling. Obama's poll numbers may rise, but there will be little advantage beyond this for the White House and none for the Syrians.
It is ordinary people in America -- like the innocents dying in Syria -- who are subjected to monitoring and control as opposed to the sort of persons whose training permits them to avoid the technological speed-traps set by intelligence agencies and police in order to communicate, successfully, with their colleagues.
This communication can often be accomplished even with intercepted messages that usually cannot be read until it is too late. Terrorists and international criminals know how to get around NSA surveillance; the rest of us do not.
Much of this "ubiquitous" monitoring can be made totally irrelevant by encrypted communications and so-called "field intelligence," as Mr. Snowden's recent adventures have taught us.
I suspect that the true motivation for much of the absurd spying on Americans today is political. "Data gathering" has nothing to do with concerns about crime or terrorism. Ideas are not crimes. Beliefs and values held by individuals in a free society are not the province of the state, according to that famous alleged terrorist Thomas Jefferson.
My inner-life is not a neighborhood subject to policing by any government. My thoughts, passions, creative work are (and should be) my business:
"Calling patterns can reveal when we are awake or asleep; our religion, if a person regularly makes no calls on the Sabbath or makes a large number of calls on Christmas Day; our work habits and our social aptitude; the number of friends we have, and even our civil and political affiliations."
The NSA has realized Herbert Hoover's wet dream of information gathering on those who think "differently," like me, and they are now only awaiting the call to round us up so as to ship us off to Guantanamo.
Will I be able to write my essays from a torture cell in Guantanamo prison?
