Monday, November 4, 2013

Enemy Index
      It’s been a while since we moseyed over to the threat board and adumbrated our adversaries. We found something different this time. Instead of a country like Iran, a clan like the Pushtuns or a creed like Islam, our list of dreaded enemies is now topped by an individual human being. 
    Of course, it’s Edward Snowden. Scouring my memory and that of Wiki, I’ve yet to find a single person who has made a bigger dent in modern history simply by dint of taking his work home with him.
     Thanks to Snowden millions of Americans have learned that their government is just as megalomaniacal when it comes to invading our privacy as our military is about invading countries that have done us no harm.
    At the same time, hundreds of millions of foreigners have learned that there is more to Yankee imperialism than simply suffering its diktats.  The empire also aims to be a global Stasi, snooping on everyone everywhere about everything.  
    It looks like Snowden’s store of secrets will just keep flowing into the indefinite future. I can foresee two revelations that would bring on the biggest political mess since the failure of the Articles of Confederation. The fit would hit the shan with proof that the NSA was spying on our elected politicos. And all heck would break loose on evidence that the White House or some other  executive branchlet was using the NSA to surveil Congress.
    Meanwhile, as the revelations pour out, Snowden’s stock rises while that of Obama and the quasi-Stazi state he presides over sinks. Abroad, even old allies are saying suffit to Washington's increasingly absurd 'leadership,' while at home lefties and rightwing libertarians are finding that they finally agree on something: reining our self-destructive propensity to snoop and strafe the planet. So far, this is, for a change, all to the good.
    I’ll catch up with the other culprits on the old threat board with my next blog.

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