I have tried to point out the disparity between the policies that "Hope & Change"® Candidate Obama advocated and those pursued by "Look Forward, Not Back"® President Obama. Now, a new video by Reddit's "Restore the Fourth" movement highlights those differences. Watch and marvel as Candidate Obama debates President Obama on the proper role of civil liberties in our fight against terrorism:
While Islamaphobia rages here in America, we might do well to pay attention to some numbers from Europe:
In 2009, there were fewer than 300 terrorist incidents in Europe, a 33 percent decline from the previous year. The vast majority of these incidents (237 out of 294) were conducted by indigenous European separatist groups, with another forty or so attributed to leftists and/or anarchists. According to the report, a grand total of one (1) attack was conducted by Islamists.
Popular social news site Reddit provides a dramatic example of how innocent and ordinary conversations are enough to trigger terrorism investigations in our modern America.
Reddit allows anyone with a free account to post items of interest, and the discussion generated by postings provides much of the site's appeal. About three months ago, a user named JayClay posted the following query in regards to the TSA's security screening procedures at airports:
"So if my deodorant could be a bomb, why are you just chucking it in the bin?The thread on Reddit has generated 1,563 comments as of now, mostly critical of the security theater that is the TSA. [More . . . ]And if it's just harmless deodorant, why are you taking it from me?! But no. I did not say this aloud. Like everyone else, I didnt want to say or do anything that would jeopardize making my flight. So I just turned around and walked towards the room after security.Where they just happened to sell deodorant.
I found this speech of JFK's to be tremendously powerful, and the applicability to today's situation should be obvious. Kennedy was speaking to the American Newspaper Publisher's Association on April 27th, 1961. The whole speech is worth reading, but I wanted to highlight a few key excerpts, especially in the context of Wikileaks' release of war documents from the Afghanistan theater. Kennedy simultaneously pleads for a more well-informed public, while arguing that the press ought to be mindful of national security issues in choosing which stories to publish. You can almost imagine him talking about the danger posed by terrorists in the present day, rather than the danger of Communism in the Cold-war 1960s:
The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it.
Why don't politicians clearly define the word "terrorism," the alleged principle on which they allegedly based so much national policy? As he does so often on so many topics, Glenn Greenwald hits the mark:
[T]he word that is used most frequently to justify everything from invasions and bombings to torture, indefinite detention, and the sprawling Surveillance State -- Terrorism -- is also the most ill-defined and manipulated word. It has no fixed meaning, and thus applies to virtually anything the user wishes to demonize, while excluding the user's own behavior and other acts one seeks to justify . . . The reason no clear definition of Terrorism is ever settled upon is because it's virtually impossible to embrace a definition without either (a) excluding behavior one wishes to demonize and thus include and/or (b) including behavior (including one's own and those of one's friends) which one desperately wants to exclude.