COMMENTARY:

Real Patriots Can Think--and They'd Better Start Exerting Themselves

The American people are probably in favor of maintaining the Bill of Rights as an essential part of the Constitution, but the Patriot Act will make hash of many of the fundamental legal protections afforded individuals. The media have, so far, not seen fit to cast it as such. They have not, apparently, viewed this Act as giving "Big Brother" a license to further invade their privacy.

The Bush administration will have to keep people scared enough that they will be willing to sacrifice their Constitutional protections--perhaps, trusting in their leaders to give them back when they deem the threat to be over. School kids of my generation hid under our desks during nuclear drills in the 50s, so I guess we will follow our leaders this time too.

In the absence of any evidence (other than hyper-ventilated statements from the Department of Justice) that the Patriot Act provisions have enabled law enforcement to nab even one certified terrorist, the case for the Patriot Act is thin at best. The recent bombings in London are a case in point--from what we know so far, there is nothing law enforcement could have done to prevent what happened. Short of martial law around the clock, curfews, and religious and ethnic profiling, there is not much chance of preventing terrorist acts where the perpetrators lead ordinary lives and could not be detected by any known criminal schematic. Should we fear only good citizens who are behaving perfectly so as to avoid suspicion? We can only imagine the ingenuity of the Javerts of the world as they look for evidence of socially acceptable behavior.

We might actually do well to investigate how young people in their late teens and twenties can be brain-washed in Pakistan religious schools to the degree that they will kill themselves in the service of a higher purpose. What is this purpose and why is it compelling? Is it the promise of a better world after death? What is it about this world that warrants rejection?

By all accounts these young suiciders are not from bad homes and have not been abused, and are rather well educated by community standards. If America was not the empire in control, and Americans had to be subservient to some other stronger empire who dictated how the world should work (such as China or Russia, had they prevailed in the Cold War), could Christianity be interpreted to support suicide bombers? Historically, Christianity has supported far worse. (I invite a reading of The Sins of Scripture by John Shelby Spong, a retired Episcopalian Bishop, for a full consideration of the attrocities committed with Biblical support.)

It is likely that the Justice Department and the FBI have been keeping their guns holstered and their powder dry pending the next great extension of this ill-conceived act of statism and repression. Many experts (unfortunately, not members of Congress) feel that it will be used to stifle dissent and infiltrate protest groups. The definition of giving aid to the enemy, with such an amorphous enemy at that, will be broadened so that Americans may be cowed into withdrawing support from nearly all charitable causes. After all, who knows how charities are really using the donations one sends? They can easily be innocent dupes themselves. Anti-Americanism will be defined by the most narrow-minded nationalistic elements that adhere to the principle: my country right or wrong, man the torpedoes and full steam ahead.

There are those who see every war as World War Two--the Great War. Movies and propaganda have done wonders to clean up that war in retrospect. The theme with such knee-jerk patriots is "forget history--we are making it." Thus the head counts will continue and sacrifices will be made to continue our "manifest destiny."

Of course, this is only a prediction based on observable trends. Real patriots (called thinking citizens) could emerge from out of the fog and reclaim the ideals of the American Republic--never fully realized, true, but fixed in our collective psyche. We could elect leaders who would serve the people and not the corporate interests that finance their campaigns and give them job security. The corporate monied interests are the ones who need a war on terrorism to cover their rear as they march ever onward in a great linear progression of frenzied exploitation.