By Reginald Johnson
America
has slid into a form of “corporate totalitarianism”
where basic rights and freedoms outlined
in our Constitution have been wiped away.
The only thing
that will restore our rights will be a mass movement, similar to the labor
movement and civil rights movements of years past, where people defy the government and engage in
acts of civil disobedience.
That’s the
view of one of America’s
leading intellectuals, Chris Hedges, the author of numerous books on America’s
social condition and a former reporter for The New York Times. Speaking at a recent conference on civil liberties
at Central Connecticut
State University,
Hedges said the establishment of a mass surveillance system, repressive new
laws and corporate power have made democracy in the United
States
“a fiction.” There is only one way to turn it around.
“Reform
will only come through building mass movements and alternative centers of power
that can overthrow --- let me repeat that word for Homeland Security ---
overthrow the corporate state,” he said.
Hedges was the keynote speaker at the conference
sponsored by the Connecticut Coalition to Stop Indefinite Detention. The
gathering also featured workshops and panel discussions on issues related to prisoners,
discrimination against Muslims, deportations, drones, unlawful detentions and
other civil liberties subjects.
A 20-year foreign correspondent who
reported in East Germany
and Czechoslovakia
under communist rule, as well as in El Salvador
and Guatemala during
the civil wars in the 1980s, Hedges said the United
States is taking on many of the
characteristics of the dictatorial regimes he once covered.
Under the guise of
fighting terrorism, a vast surveillance apparatus has been set up through the
National Security Agency and the FBI, which allows the government to learn everything
about you --- who you are communicating with, what your views are, what your
activities are, where you travel, and if you’ve had any personal issues or
problems in the past. As whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed, the NSA sweeps
up phone calling “metadata” of all Americans as well as their emails.
The FBI,
through legislation passed after 911, can secretly gain your personal information
by issuing warrantless National Security Letters to anyone --- your employer,
your bank, your doctor, your friends or a library, Hedges said. They also have the
technical capabilities through cell phones and GPS systems to track your
geographical movements.
Moreover, “they will store this
information for perpetuity in government computers,” Hedges said.
Additionally, under the Section
1021 provision of the National Defense Authorization Act, the government now
has the power to arrest an American citizen simply on the basis that they might
be linked to terrorists, place them in jail, and hold them indefinitely,
without due process. And, as has happened under Barack Obama, the President can
order the assassination of American citizens, if it is determined such
individuals are terrorists.
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| Chris Hedges speaks on the surveillance state |
Hedges said that those who try to
expose illegal behavior by the government are “hunted down” and pay a heavy price. He
pointed to Chelsea Manning, an Army officer who released military files to
divulge war crimes by U.S.
soldiers, and then was tried on espionage charges; and Snowden, who released
classified files to reveal the unconstitutional NSA spying program, and then
had to flee the country to avoid prosecution.
“This is
always the way totalitarian secret police forces work --- the SS, the KGB, the
East German Stasi,” said Hedges. “Dissent is criminalized, truth is hidden.”
As the laws were
passed and court decisions handed down which enabled the surveillance state,
Constitutional provisions such as the 4th Amendment and its
guarantee of privacy, have been shredded, Hedges said.
Hedges said many people in the legal
profession should have spoken up during this period of constitutional erosion,
but did not. “Where are the judges, the
deans of law schools, the nation’s 1 million lawyers?” he asked. “Why do they refuse to defend the
Constitution? They have become valued partners, along with a bankrupt press, in
a campaign to eradicate our most basic civil liberties.”
While the ‘war on terrorism’ and ‘national security’ are
always cited as the reasons for the passage of the laws and judicial decisions
curbing civil liberties, Hedges sees another reason behind the repression:
corporate influence. In these times of
economic distress and widening inequality,
the elites in the corporate world fear potential unrest and seek control,
Hedges said. A mass surveillance system
serves their interests.
“Totalitarianism
no longer comes through communism or fascism, it comes now from corporations,”
Hedges said. “And these corporations fear those who think, write and speak out
and those who form relationships freely. Individual freedom impedes their power
and their profit.”
Hedges, the
author of a dozen books, including “Days
of Destruction, Days of Revolt,” “Empire of Illusion,” and “Death of the
Liberal Class,” dismissed the idea that reform of our government and repealing
anti-democratic laws will somehow come from elected officials like Obama or members
of Congress.
About the recent
proposal by Obama to restrict NSA’s metadata collection, in the wake of Snowden’s
revelations, Hedges said at first it seems good, “until you look at the
details.”
Then he said, “I ask you, how many times does Barack Obama
have to lie to you before you get it?”
He said Obama had broken a number of pledges
concerning civil liberties and constitutional matters, including the promise to
close the Guantanamo Bay
prison; a pledge to revisit the Patriot Act; the promise to shut down our
“black sites”; or the promise to reverse unconstitutional executive decisions
by his predecessor, former President George Bush.
“We got none of
this. We got more untruths,” Hedges said.
To restore our
liberties, Hedges said, the American
people cannot look to government officials. “It means refusing to trust in
their cosmetic reforms. Reforms will never come from those complicit in
crimes.”
In the end, it will
be the people who will have to bring about change. “We can only save ourselves.
We are the people we have been waiting for,” he said.
“We must find, like
Snowden, the physical and moral courage to tear down the structures that
enslave us,” he said.
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