Today’s target of American civil rights abuses

Glenn Greenwald agrees with Law Professor Jonathan Turley that Americans are facing "ten major, ongoing assaults on core civil liberties, expanded during the Bush administration yet vigorously continued and/or expanded by President Obama:

Assassination of U.S. citizens; Indefinite detention; Arbitrary justice; Warrantless searches; Secret evidence; War crimes; Secret court; Immunity from judicial review; Continual monitoring of citizens; and Extraordinary renditions.
In today's column, Greenwald asks "who are generally the victims of these civil liberties assaults?" Perhaps his question could be tweaked as follows: "Who are today's victims of these civil liberties assaults?" Here is his answer:
The answer is the same as the one for this related question: who are the prime victims of America’s posture of Endless War? Overwhelmingly, the victims are racial, ethnic and religious minorities: specifically, Muslims (both American Muslims and foreign nationals). And that is a major factor in why these abuses flourish: because those who dominate American political debates perceive, more or less accurately, that they are not directly endangered (at least for now) by this assault on core freedoms and Endless War (all civil liberties abuses in fact endanger all citizens, as they inevitably spread beyond their original targets, but they generally become institutionalized precisely because those outside the originally targeted minority groups react with indifference).
This endless war and civil rights abuses are destroying the American character. On this point, Greenwald refers to Martin Luther King's 1967 speech critical of the Vietnam War, which includes this passage:
I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such . . . .
Like so much of Greenwald's research and writing, today's column is detailed and precisely and persuasively argued. I would highly recommend reading the entire original.

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“I watch whatever is on TV.”

I recently overhead a conversation between two women who were discussing television shows. After discussing the particular shows they watched each night of the week, one of them blurted out: "Actually, I watch whatever is on." This attitude concerns me because it risks handing marketers and content providers the keys to one's brain. To the extent that we indiscriminately allow our televisions to stream programing into our homes un-self-critically, the television view of the world risks becoming our view of the world. A salient example these days is that millions of Americans believe that the United States is under constant serious attack by Middle East "terrorists" who have the capacity and desire to destroy America. A constant stream of television programming, including "news" reports, warns us of these "terrorists" without any indication of who these "terrorists" are. The end result is a national nightmare, not a reality, that massively skews our priorities and budgets. As long as the media providers are a diverse group and as long as they vigorously question both the conventional national wisdom and our political leaders, it wouldn't be a terrible strategy to "watch whatever is on." That's not the type of programming that is typically offered, however, and that is the reason for the existence of Free Press. I just happened to receive this save the date card for the next national conference for media reform (April 5-7, 2013 in Denver Colorado), and the message on the front of the card is apropos: The above short message recognizes three critically important ideas: A) the power of the media, B) the danger of a captured media and C) the opportunity we could have if only our media seriously accepted its responsibilities, as envisioned by the founding fathers: Speaking truth to power. It's amazing what passes for "news" these days. There are many good reasons to make sure that our televisions are turned off unless we are consciously seeking particular programming. For more information on the work done by Free Press, search this site for posts from prior media reform conferences, and be careful that you don't slip into watching "whatever is on" TV.

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Conservative Fantasy Role Playing

I wonder sometimes how a modern conservative maintains. Romney has won the New Hampshire primary.  All the buzz now is how he’s going to have a much tougher fight in South Carolina, primarily because of the religious and social conservatives who will see him as “not conservative enough.”  There is a consortium of social conservatives meeting this week in Texas to discuss ways to stop him, to elevate someone more to their liking to the nomination.  And right there I have to wonder at what it means anymore to be a conservative. I grew up, probably as many people my age did, thinking of conservatism as essentially penurious and a bit militaristic.  Stodgy, stuffy, proper.  But mainly pennypinching.  A tendency to not do something rather than go forward with something that might not be a sure thing. I suppose some of the social aspect was there, too, but in politics that didn’t seem important.  I came of age with an idea of fiscal conservatism as the primary trait. That doesn’t square with the recent past.  The current GOP—say since Ronny Reagan came to power—has been anything but fiscally conservative, although what they have spent money on has lent them an aura of responsible, hardnosed governance.   Mainly the military, but also subsidies for businesses.  But something has distorted them since 1981 and has turned them into bigger government spenders than the Democrats ever were.  (This is not open to dispute, at least not when broken down by administrations.  Republican presidents have overseen massive increases in the deficit as opposed to Democratic administrations that have as often overseen sizable decreases in the deficit, even to the point of balancing the federal budget.  You may interpret or spin this any way you like, but voting trends seem to support that the choices Republican presidents have made in this regard have been supported by Republican congressmen even after said presidents have left office.) [More . . . ]

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