Taking Liberties with Civil Liberties
Wednesday, 08 June 2011 00:51
The protests in the Muslim world from Yemen, to Egypt, to Jordan, to Syria, to Bahrain, to Tunisia demonstrate the bravery of common people against tyrant rulers. But the world has also witnessed protests in Europe over the past 12 months as a result of the global economic crisis. In places like Spain, where the unemployment rate is at 20%, 4.9 million people in the country are without work. So youth are staging protests across the country with posters saying, “the banks grow rich while the rest of the world lives on the edge.” Similar protests have occurred in Britain, Italy, France and notably Greece.
Maybe it is for fear of such rebellion coming to the United States that the Army War College recently stated that the Pentagon is preparing for “violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States” and “widespread civil violence” due to “purposeful domestic resistance.” In addition to this, Former US Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair recently testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee stating that the greatest threat facing the US is not terrorism, it’s the current economic crisis. His exact statement: “The primary near-term security concern of the United States is the global economic crisis and its geopolitical implications. The crisis has been ongoing…Of course, all of us recall the dramatic political consequences wrought by the economic turmoil of the 1920s and 1930s in Europe, the instability, and high levels of violent extremism.”
In the U.S., as anti-poverty programs like social security, Medicare, food stamps and unemployment benefits are unable to make payments to the poor, it is more and more likely that the civil unrest seen in many parts of Europe will manifest itself in America. When an overwhelming majority of the population directly feels negative effects upon their own living standards, the propaganda system and the talk of "freedom and democracy" collapses. It is in this atmosphere that we see the extension of the Patriot Act by President Barack Obama two weeks ago during his visit to France. “It’s an important tool for us to continue dealing with an ongoing terrorist threat,” Obama said after a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
The current economic crisis has proved the failure of Capitalism because it has created a problem that it cannot solve. Consequently, it is bracing itself for civil unrest and riots resulting from people not being able to put food on their tables. As if that weren't enough, they made the pre-emptive strike to spy on their own citizens via the U.S. Patriot act, suspending the freedom, democracy and civil liberties they proclaim to the rest of the world.
