Think about what the world now knows from the revelations of Snowden, Manning, and Assange. We know about the NSA surveillance of the American people, our allies, and our economic trading partners. Because of Snowden we know that both our online metadata and the details of our correspondence with all others is now property of an emerging Grand Voyeur government. And all of this is being done without any accountability constraints being placed on those collecting or using the information.
But it is not just our internet use that is being monitored, the metadata for our phone calls is also being collected and monitored by our Big Brother. The effects of such monitoring, according to Christ Hedges (see his debate on the Favorite AV Links page, A Debate Between Chris Hedges And Geoffrey Stone) is that it greatly inhibits the press's access to whistleblowers and thus reduces government accountability. And we should note that nothing says more government power like less government accountability.
And what did Manning & Wikileaks reveal? Besides a number of State Department cables some of which were meaningless while others could be counted as embarrassing while others could be counted as incriminating. For example, the video clip to the left here shows the coldblooded murder of Iraqi citizens along with two Reuters' journalist. And following that attack is another assault on a van containing two children. What is especially telling in the dialog that accompanied this video is the complete disregard for the humanity of the unarmed Iraqis who were killed.
Who was punished for this brutal attack? Those who released the film and information. The people who did the killing were cleared of all wrongdoing.
How should Christians think of Snowden, Manning, and Assange? Before answering that question, we should define the role that these three play in society or the world. When we think of what they do, that is they release information on what the government says and do, we can think of them as the public's counterpart to the NSA. Just as the NSA stores information about our movements and communications for governmental use, Snowden, Manning, and Assange have stored information about the government's actions and communications for the public's use.
So how should Christians think of Snowden, Manning, and Assange? I know at least a few Christians will look no farther than Romans 13 to make up their minds. They will see that Snowden, Manning, and Assange have broken the law and those in authority have been ordained by God to make and enforce the law. Thus, this is a slam dunk and no-brainer to these Christians.
Christians who consider themselves to be patriotic might think ill of Snowden, Manning, and Assange because their release of information has been embarrassing and lowered American prestige around the world.
Other Christians who automatically oppose the Democrats and especially Obama might at least appreciate Snowden because the information he released confirms what they have said about Obama being control-freak.
But perhaps, the key scriptures that these Christians should read before making up their minds about these three is not Romans 13 but Matthew 23:37, Luke 13:34, Hebrews 11:37. In Matthew and Luke, Jesus complains how Jerusalem, meaning God's chosen people, have rejected the prophets and all whom God has sent to them. In Hebrews 11:37, the writer talks about some of the ways by which God's prophets have been killed. And when we look into history, we see how God's Old Testament prophets often received scorn, threats, and persecution for speaking God's Word to a rebellious people.
But why would those scriptures apply to how we regard Snowden, Manning, and Assange since none of these three are prophets? It is true that none of these three men are prophets but they do have something in common with the prophets of the Old Testament. All of them are all truth tellers and what they have revealed are the sins of the people. For the Old Testament prophets often challenged Israel before the split and Israel and Judah afterwards, the general public and those in government, not to practice idolatry and to protect and take care of those in need. What Snowden, Manning, and Assange have told the American people is how their government is sinning against both them, such as through surveillance programs, and the people of other countries, such as through war crimes.
To the extent that Snowden, Manning, and Assange are telling us the truth about the sins of our government's officials, we should react as Israel and Judah should have reacted to the prophets. And if we should regard them as prophets, then we should demand that our government should treat them as prophets. Rather than threatening and punishing these men, we should demand that our government repent of the wrongs that have been revealed. We should realize that if we don't make that demand and the government doesn't respond to the revelations of these three men with repentance, we will be following the same self-destructive pattern of behavior practiced by God's chosen people in the Old Testament. In other words, we will have become our own worse enemy.
www.flamingfundamentalist.blogspot.com
(Only one person pictured is a Christian Fundamentalist. And so which one pictured is not like the others)
Showing posts with label Edward Snowden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Edward Snowden. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Monday, July 8, 2013
ONIM For July 8, 2013
- Christian News
- Fears More Students Will be Lured Into Prostitution -- Christian Today (U.K.)
- National 'Poverty Pilgrimage' Gets Underway -- Christian Today (U.K.)
- Don't Worry But Rejoice For Us Says Egyptian Bible Society Leader -- Christian Today (U.K.)
- Half Of Adults Say That Religious Nones Are Bad For America -- Christianity Today
- My Top Five Books On Evangelism -- Christianity Today
- Violence Erupts In Egypt In Pro-Morsi March -- Christian Post
- 4th Of July, Gettysburg, And The U.S. -- Christian Post
- The Humanities Makes Life Bearable -- Religion Dispatches
- World News
- 3 Nations Offer Asylum To Edward Snowden -- Antiwar.com
- How America Eavesdrops On Allies -- Antiwar.com
- Rep. John Lewis On Voting Rights -- Democracy Now
- Edward Snowden Says We Are Being Watched -- Democracy Now
- Foreign Media Portrayals Of Syrian Conflict Are Dangerously Inaccurate -- Information Clearinghouse
- Bradley Manning Should Win The Nobel Peace Prize -- Information Clearinghouse
- Inequality Is Real, Personal, Expensive, And Was Created -- Occupy.com
- 60 Minutes And The Billionaire Agenda -- Occupy.com
- EPA's Abandoned Fracking Study One Retreat Of Many -- Truthdig.com
- Noam Chomsky On Defending Our Existence -- ZNet
- Austerity And Resistance -- ZNet
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Is Snowden The Solution?
Edward Snowden will join a growing line of whistleblowers who have been or are being persecuted/prosecuted by the Obama Administration. The irony is that the candidate who promised transparency in government has become the President who has gone after more whistleblowers than all other presidents combined. And what is worse is that the liberals who elected him, for the most part, remain blindly loyal to him.
What Snowden revealed about what the government is doing under Obama's presidency simply added to the long laundry list of power grabs it is making. And conservatives should note that most Republicans elected officials are as anxious to punish whistleblowers like Snowden as Obama and his team. As we reflect on the fact that Obama is simply extending the surveillance and other abuses legalized and practiced by the Bush Administration, we find that extending government power is one subject on which members from both sides of the isle can reach out to each other and work together.
But it is not just government that is growing in power, bills protecting certain corporations from legal action and the government's own refusal to prosecute our largest financial institutions even for money laundering show that a double standard not only exists but is growing between those with power and wealth and the rest of us. Those with power and wealth are gaining more power and immunity from prosecution while the rest of us have more to be accountable for with less protection.
So the question is: Are whistleblowers, like Snowden, the solution to our problem with a more intrusive but less accountable government? The answer is obviously no because Snowden did all he could do by informing us of what is happening. The rest is up to us and that is the problem because of the current relationship between us and our government.
What is the current relationship between our government and the people? It can be best described being like the relationship between a spoiled child and his or her negligent parents who are too busy with their own interests to correct the child. As the child continues to get away with more and more, the child becomes impossible to work with until finally nothing can be done to help the child. So when we consider that voting every x number of years is the extent that people want to be involved with their government, the spoiled child here represents the government while the negligent parents represent the people. What role does Edward Snowden play here? He is simply a concerned neighbor who tells the parents what he just saw the child do.
Of course the analogy breaks down in that a spoiled child can do little to strike back at a tattletale neighbor unlike what the government can do to Snowden. But the real issue here is the dysfunctional relationship between the parents and the child.
Two solutions to this problem have been offered. The Conservative solution is to limit the damage the spoiled child can do by partially grounding him or her. This is what Conservatives propose when they promote "limited" government. It is simply an attempt to limit the expected damage done by the child.
There are two problems with the Conservative approach. The first problem is that because of the continued negligence of the parents, the child never grows up. So that even though some of the rooms of the house have their doors locked, the child remains spoiled because the parents did not provide the discipline needed by the child. The second problem is that because Conservatives put so much weight on defense, our undisciplined child not only has keys to the gun cabinet, he or she has a credit card with which they can purchase new guns. This is what we have allowed our government to become. It is a spoiled child who is armed to the teeth. This reverses some of the parent-child roles where the child becomes the boss and the parent becomes subservient.
The other approach is one that was preached and practiced by the Occupy Movement encampments. That is that people learn to rule themselves in a more participatory democratic system. This system preached repentance to both the 1% and the 99%. The Occupy Movement told the 1% to change by saying they must change the economic system by which they have become rich to one that is based on sharing and cooperation. And the Occupy Movement told the 99% that they can no longer be negligent parents. Rather, they must give up some of the time they spend on their own pursuits and pleasures to study and make the mature decisions that one would expect from adults. Unfortunately, neither the 1% child nor the 99% distant parents were ready to hear these messages.
And that is where we stand today. We should add one other thing, however. The American Conservative Church has, for the most part, contributed to our current state of affairs. How? By using Biblical passages like Romans 13 and I Peter 2 to make people think that they are the children while government is our parent. That means that the people influenced by the American Conservative Church tells people that it is not their place to try to correct the child when the child does something wrong. Thus, though the American Conservative Church is not telling the people to continue to be a negligent parent here, the end game is the same.
Regardless of one's religious views, what is important here is that people gain a sense of what they want government to be and then work toward that. That will mean making sacrifices especially in terms of leisure time. That if we want government to work a certain way, we have to spend the time necessary to effectively let government know what we want. We cannot afford to continue to be either negligent parents or passive servants. At the same time, if we direct government to merely serve our whims and tastes and do not require that government helps those who are most vulnerable, we will have gained nothing.
What Snowden revealed about what the government is doing under Obama's presidency simply added to the long laundry list of power grabs it is making. And conservatives should note that most Republicans elected officials are as anxious to punish whistleblowers like Snowden as Obama and his team. As we reflect on the fact that Obama is simply extending the surveillance and other abuses legalized and practiced by the Bush Administration, we find that extending government power is one subject on which members from both sides of the isle can reach out to each other and work together.
But it is not just government that is growing in power, bills protecting certain corporations from legal action and the government's own refusal to prosecute our largest financial institutions even for money laundering show that a double standard not only exists but is growing between those with power and wealth and the rest of us. Those with power and wealth are gaining more power and immunity from prosecution while the rest of us have more to be accountable for with less protection.
So the question is: Are whistleblowers, like Snowden, the solution to our problem with a more intrusive but less accountable government? The answer is obviously no because Snowden did all he could do by informing us of what is happening. The rest is up to us and that is the problem because of the current relationship between us and our government.
What is the current relationship between our government and the people? It can be best described being like the relationship between a spoiled child and his or her negligent parents who are too busy with their own interests to correct the child. As the child continues to get away with more and more, the child becomes impossible to work with until finally nothing can be done to help the child. So when we consider that voting every x number of years is the extent that people want to be involved with their government, the spoiled child here represents the government while the negligent parents represent the people. What role does Edward Snowden play here? He is simply a concerned neighbor who tells the parents what he just saw the child do.
Of course the analogy breaks down in that a spoiled child can do little to strike back at a tattletale neighbor unlike what the government can do to Snowden. But the real issue here is the dysfunctional relationship between the parents and the child.
Two solutions to this problem have been offered. The Conservative solution is to limit the damage the spoiled child can do by partially grounding him or her. This is what Conservatives propose when they promote "limited" government. It is simply an attempt to limit the expected damage done by the child.
There are two problems with the Conservative approach. The first problem is that because of the continued negligence of the parents, the child never grows up. So that even though some of the rooms of the house have their doors locked, the child remains spoiled because the parents did not provide the discipline needed by the child. The second problem is that because Conservatives put so much weight on defense, our undisciplined child not only has keys to the gun cabinet, he or she has a credit card with which they can purchase new guns. This is what we have allowed our government to become. It is a spoiled child who is armed to the teeth. This reverses some of the parent-child roles where the child becomes the boss and the parent becomes subservient.
The other approach is one that was preached and practiced by the Occupy Movement encampments. That is that people learn to rule themselves in a more participatory democratic system. This system preached repentance to both the 1% and the 99%. The Occupy Movement told the 1% to change by saying they must change the economic system by which they have become rich to one that is based on sharing and cooperation. And the Occupy Movement told the 99% that they can no longer be negligent parents. Rather, they must give up some of the time they spend on their own pursuits and pleasures to study and make the mature decisions that one would expect from adults. Unfortunately, neither the 1% child nor the 99% distant parents were ready to hear these messages.
And that is where we stand today. We should add one other thing, however. The American Conservative Church has, for the most part, contributed to our current state of affairs. How? By using Biblical passages like Romans 13 and I Peter 2 to make people think that they are the children while government is our parent. That means that the people influenced by the American Conservative Church tells people that it is not their place to try to correct the child when the child does something wrong. Thus, though the American Conservative Church is not telling the people to continue to be a negligent parent here, the end game is the same.
Regardless of one's religious views, what is important here is that people gain a sense of what they want government to be and then work toward that. That will mean making sacrifices especially in terms of leisure time. That if we want government to work a certain way, we have to spend the time necessary to effectively let government know what we want. We cannot afford to continue to be either negligent parents or passive servants. At the same time, if we direct government to merely serve our whims and tastes and do not require that government helps those who are most vulnerable, we will have gained nothing.
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