An acquaintance of more-than-slightly-right political leanings often reminds anyone who will listen that this is ‘the home of the free because of the brave.’ I thought of his thought as D-Day came and went on Thursday.
The Brave who marked that day in our history are dying by the hundreds each day now. Soon they will be gone altogether. Some of them volunteered to serve, Many were drafted. Hardly any, deep down, objected to giving themselves to stop the militarism of Japan and the totalitarianism of the Nazis. It is probably just as well that they do not have to hang around and witness what is happening to the country for which they were willing to risk their lives.
The freedom their bravery bought is becoming a casualty of fear. The words ‘terror’ and ‘terrorism’ are being used by our government in a way that Joseph Goebbles, Minister of Propaganda for the Third Reich, would be proud. For years now, the mis-named ‘Patriot Act’ has permitted the secret surveillance of any and all of us who have used this very medium by which blog postings are possible. Every email, chat, web crawl or Tweet any and all of us have been a part of is and has been available for our government to ‘mine’ for data.
Never mind that our Constitution prohibits government entry into our spaces in drag-net kinds of searches fishing for any possibly incriminating information. The fear of ‘terrorism’ has fastened blinders around Lady Liberty’s eyes. Our liberty has been and is being deliberately eroded by the Bush and Obama administrations.
Taps is playing not only for WWII vets, those same sad funereal notes are being played over our rights for any who can hear the mournful tune above the background noise of government agitprop.
Sanchismos 