MEMORIAL DAY EDITORIAL
“MEMORIAL DAY 2014, NSA, AND YOU” BY Phil Seahorn May 23, 2014
BOTH MY PARENTS ARE BURIED IN JEFFERSON BARRACKS CEMETERY. Memorial Day is the most important holiday to me and my family. Everybody in and out of my mother’s family, everyone, held my mother to the highest esteem. She joined the military to get out of her little Illinois town of black and Native American folk. She spent four years in Japan ( and introduced my sister and
me to anime, keiju, martial arts, and all things Asian WAY before it caught on in the States in 1985.My mother was the strongest woman I have ever known (next to my Sicilian step mother), and had the physical presence to back it up. She stood six feet barefoot. There is a photo of her in military dress taken over in Japan. That photo has become cherished in my entire family; cousins, aunts, uncles, friends of the family on down. It was a tough act to follow, me and my sister being born to a woman like this. So, if you can imagine your MOM being Army back in the day, then you can imagine how I grew up. My mom, being Cherokee Indian as well, had the need to serve this country. Literally , it was in her DNA, as well as my dad (who served in World War Two as a cook in the Pacific Arena, but the story went ” he was a gunner”) serving for the U.S. because of his culture. I and my sister had U.S. PATRIOTISM literally stamped into our DNA. I’m seeing this country, this country I love almost genetically, head down a path that is DANGEROUSLY
close to another period in another century of human history. It turned out not to be such a good period. I’m a historian, that’s my thing. I LOVE history. Any history, particularly involving the U.S. and the African American and Native American Diaspora. So, when I’m researching things like data mining, gang stalking, the FBI setting up innocent Americans as domestic terrorists to insure Patriot Act grant money, hundreds of thousands of Americans getting government clearance and privileges who HAVE NOT BEEN VETTED AT ALL, all hired by The Patriot Act, Suspicious Activity Reports (SARS) that can be filed with a phone app but can also result in everybody you know and are related to being interviewed by the Feds and local law enforcement; shit like this that, as an American Baby Boomer, I thought I would never, ever see in my lifetime IN THIS COUNTRY. Apparently, so did THE WASHINGTON POST, PBS, FRONTLINE , THE HUFFINGTON POST, and news outlets AROUND THE WORLD, who are watching the U.S. become a police state. Just Google: gang stalking or especially “gang stalking in St. Louis” or go over to Youtube or any major internet content provider, and
look up “Patriot Act Violations”. Just look that shit up. Or, just go to the Washington Post website (www.topsecretamerica.com), and read all about it. Funny thing is, while the NSA and “television “ manufacturers turn American households into their very own versions of “THE TRUMAN SHOW”, the rest of the media remains silent. Why is that? Could it be that, with the recent revelations of just how far the surveillance and technology has gone into making that 48 inch LED in your bedroom a fucking video camera, maybe the media has literally “been caught with their pants down?” Or, far more insidiously, are media scared of retaliation on the level that drove Vickie Newton, former reporter for Channel 4 news, out of St. Louis by “The Program?” Or Larry Connor’s difficulties with the IRS? The Patriot Act was designed to help and protect Americans, not gather information, harass, illegally perform surveillances and illegally store personal information on Americans for God knows what purposes in things called “fusion centers” ?
In 2014, the level of civil rights violations in regards to American personal privacy has “out Orweillianed” George Orwell’s most dire future predictions made over 40 years ago. I don’t want this for my country or my fellow Americans. And I certainly don’t want my fucking tax payer dollars going to fuck over somebody’s life because, thanks to The Patriot Act, WE CAN DO SHIT LIKE THAT TO PEOPLE NOW. From research done on this topic, back in 2001, American minorities and women were first targeted (the beta testers) with the new toys and shit that the Act provided for government and law enforcement people (federal AND local) to fuck with people, AND LEGALLY GET AWAY WITH IT. Not anymore. Here, in 2014, thanks to the Washington Post (www.topsecretamerica.com) and other news outlets, who want to break this story wide open with even more revelations on how far the government is now in American’s lives, are going after this .The Washington Post spent years going after Nixon. That resulted in them breaking the Watergate Scandal.
Make no mistake, if they have been spying on millions of Americans, as the reports are surfacing, it “sho’ ain’t the communities of color and women no mo”. With that, a happy Memorial Day ,2014, God Bless America, and we’ll just wait and see what else comes forth on the misuses of the “fight on domestic American terrorism,” and how these misuses really tarnish the lives lost by the military Americans who TRULY FOUGHT THE GOOD FIGHT. peace