An American Perspective
by M.E. Krewson
The media and our politicians have apparently found common ground to justify using public fear to sell both product and public policy. For the media, the fact is, fear sells copy and product, for the government, fear opens doors to justify tax expenditures to fund programs that create a false homeland security and allows fundamental constitutional law to be subjected to possible irreversible change that could prove tragic for the future of the American way of life and freedom as we have known it.
The phrase "war on terror" is used as a means to an end for the potential accelerated erosion on our freedom and individual rights that have never seen this form of internal threat since McCarthyism in the 1950's. Recently our FBI has been allowed to investigate public library records to monitor the reading habits of citizens. The veil of a perceived threat can now include individual incarceration by the government without bail or a charge of a crime to any citizen. A single misplaced word, spoken or written can cause investigation into innocent personal lives. Security agencies ill prepared and unwilling to work together since their creations are now forming alliances. This is America?
The approach is too little and too late to reverse what occurred September 11, 2001. Instead, as so many believe, to insure our future security, more is better while the current policy appears to be that of pouring money into wishful band-aid repairs rather than taking time to study the surgical procedures necessary to correct the initial problems and internal weaknesses that led up to this situation. A public announcement that, we as a nation, are in a "war on terror" is as ineffective as previous media supported political campaigns such as the "war on crime" and the "war on drugs". Such coined phrases from the past did little to solve the problems and still are problems we face in our country. Are we to feel safer as individuals and a nation knowing we are in a "war on terror"... rhetoric has done little to solve our past problems, do we think today will be any different?
Yes, we have been violated internally as a nation by outside terrorists. Yes, we as a nation need to expect answers from those we pay with our vote and our tax dollars to protect us, that they will work towards practical solutions to insure all that can be done is being done to eliminate future terrorist actions.
Can we eliminate it completely? No. Our country's foundation is one based of personal freedom. Our borders are open because we choose to honor and share our freedom. Yet we can awaken to what the rest of the world has known for years, not everyone likes us. Some have publicly chosen to make it their life's work to hurt us. Those people we need to address without hesitation when their actions speak in a way that brings direct harm to our nation and "we the people". But to now impose sanctions of the rights "we the people" have to personal opinion and literary freedom of choice as well?
It worries me as an American citizen when the government has decided to use resources to investigate our personal tastes in what we do with our minds. If I must be concerned that I might read the "wrong" book, say a word that could lead to misinterpretation, or look at a web page with curiosity on the internet, then I worry where this war on terror and those who are supposedly fighting it for our benefit are leading this nation's very infrastructure of constitutional freedom.
The devastation of September 11th is inexcusable, the criminals should be caught and tried and punished. Yet does this mean we as a nation should expect our own everyday personal freedoms to be lessened because of a minority of fanatical individuals in the world? It is obvious we do need to get up to date with internal national security regarding our infrastructures. Why has it taken a tragedy to do it now is what I question.
We have become a superpower without protecting those who have made it happen, the taxpayer, the citizens who go to work each day, who raise families, buy groceries, pay mortgages, and live peacefully believing our elected officials have been occupied with our best interests on their agenda. Maybe it is time to demand accountability for why we are in this position today. Rather than our government asking us to be accountable to them, maybe they need to be accountable to the American citizen.
The fact is there is no way to impose a successful war on terror. A war by definition implies a winner and a loser will exist at the conclusion of the final battle. The future has arrived and it is no different than the past, there will always be battles. I am afraid society and the world has outgrown our ability to afford our former innocence as a nation. We now have been awakened by reality and that includes the fact that not everyone embraces the American way of life. Accept it as fact, and it becomes easier to deal with on a daily basis.
Personally, none of us are naive as individuals to think we can be all to all who we come into contact with each day. Yet we do our jobs, pay our bills, work hard to make our own worlds a safe place for ourselves and hopefully our neighbors. What do we do now with this new threat? We do what we do, we live on, the best we can. Yes, the past can serve us well if we remember the infamous words of FDR, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Life does go on.
Maybe the media and our elected officials might look closer at home and how closely in comparison to terrorist like damage is being done to our economic welfare when on a daily basis corporations are failing investors and employees and our nation's economy by the actions of the few who have been caught in fraudulent activity and accounting procedures that would send any individual to jail if the individuals were not protected by the veil of being a part of a large corporation. Are these actions not but another form of terrorism? Why do these individuals whose actions seriously have costs our economy and economic security to falter not viewed as terrorists?
A key foundation to a solid society is a secure financial infrastructure. Have these recent corporate failures not threatened our social stability by the criminal actions of a few?
America is strong and I have faith in our future. This nation is stronger today because we as a people have retained and defended the freedoms we were blessed from our founding fathers. Yet this is another period in history that requires us to grow, to reach inside ourselves, as citizens, for strength so we may have a future. It will take work on our part as a people, a society, and as a nation to solve these problems, to preserve our freedoms, and continue to work for a better place that we can pass on to our children.
I only hope that the media realizes the responsibility technology has given it over the years, in its ability to be such a contributing factor in public opinion, and that our elected officials realize their responsibility to we the people and the constitution our nation has been built from since its inception. It is critical that individually and collectively we all become responsible to the continued safety and success of our nation.
It is my personal opinion, that as a nation, we all can see the hope that is out here in what I refer to as "everyday America", in the everyday lives being lived by everyday people who do hope for a better tomorrow. Hope is what made America. Our future today is only as strong as our hope for tomorrow. Hopefully we will carry our daily lives with this foremost in mind.
The media and our politicians have apparently found common ground to justify using public fear to sell both product and public policy. For the media, the fact is, fear sells copy and product, for the government, fear opens doors to justify tax expenditures to fund programs that create a false homeland security and allows fundamental constitutional law to be subjected to possible irreversible change that could prove tragic for the future of the American way of life and freedom as we have known it.
The phrase "war on terror" is used as a means to an end for the potential accelerated erosion on our freedom and individual rights that have never seen this form of internal threat since McCarthyism in the 1950's. Recently our FBI has been allowed to investigate public library records to monitor the reading habits of citizens. The veil of a perceived threat can now include individual incarceration by the government without bail or a charge of a crime to any citizen. A single misplaced word, spoken or written can cause investigation into innocent personal lives. Security agencies ill prepared and unwilling to work together since their creations are now forming alliances. This is America?
The approach is too little and too late to reverse what occurred September 11, 2001. Instead, as so many believe, to insure our future security, more is better while the current policy appears to be that of pouring money into wishful band-aid repairs rather than taking time to study the surgical procedures necessary to correct the initial problems and internal weaknesses that led up to this situation. A public announcement that, we as a nation, are in a "war on terror" is as ineffective as previous media supported political campaigns such as the "war on crime" and the "war on drugs". Such coined phrases from the past did little to solve the problems and still are problems we face in our country. Are we to feel safer as individuals and a nation knowing we are in a "war on terror"... rhetoric has done little to solve our past problems, do we think today will be any different?
Yes, we have been violated internally as a nation by outside terrorists. Yes, we as a nation need to expect answers from those we pay with our vote and our tax dollars to protect us, that they will work towards practical solutions to insure all that can be done is being done to eliminate future terrorist actions.
Can we eliminate it completely? No. Our country's foundation is one based of personal freedom. Our borders are open because we choose to honor and share our freedom. Yet we can awaken to what the rest of the world has known for years, not everyone likes us. Some have publicly chosen to make it their life's work to hurt us. Those people we need to address without hesitation when their actions speak in a way that brings direct harm to our nation and "we the people". But to now impose sanctions of the rights "we the people" have to personal opinion and literary freedom of choice as well?
It worries me as an American citizen when the government has decided to use resources to investigate our personal tastes in what we do with our minds. If I must be concerned that I might read the "wrong" book, say a word that could lead to misinterpretation, or look at a web page with curiosity on the internet, then I worry where this war on terror and those who are supposedly fighting it for our benefit are leading this nation's very infrastructure of constitutional freedom.
The devastation of September 11th is inexcusable, the criminals should be caught and tried and punished. Yet does this mean we as a nation should expect our own everyday personal freedoms to be lessened because of a minority of fanatical individuals in the world? It is obvious we do need to get up to date with internal national security regarding our infrastructures. Why has it taken a tragedy to do it now is what I question.
We have become a superpower without protecting those who have made it happen, the taxpayer, the citizens who go to work each day, who raise families, buy groceries, pay mortgages, and live peacefully believing our elected officials have been occupied with our best interests on their agenda. Maybe it is time to demand accountability for why we are in this position today. Rather than our government asking us to be accountable to them, maybe they need to be accountable to the American citizen.
The fact is there is no way to impose a successful war on terror. A war by definition implies a winner and a loser will exist at the conclusion of the final battle. The future has arrived and it is no different than the past, there will always be battles. I am afraid society and the world has outgrown our ability to afford our former innocence as a nation. We now have been awakened by reality and that includes the fact that not everyone embraces the American way of life. Accept it as fact, and it becomes easier to deal with on a daily basis.
Personally, none of us are naive as individuals to think we can be all to all who we come into contact with each day. Yet we do our jobs, pay our bills, work hard to make our own worlds a safe place for ourselves and hopefully our neighbors. What do we do now with this new threat? We do what we do, we live on, the best we can. Yes, the past can serve us well if we remember the infamous words of FDR, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Life does go on.
Maybe the media and our elected officials might look closer at home and how closely in comparison to terrorist like damage is being done to our economic welfare when on a daily basis corporations are failing investors and employees and our nation's economy by the actions of the few who have been caught in fraudulent activity and accounting procedures that would send any individual to jail if the individuals were not protected by the veil of being a part of a large corporation. Are these actions not but another form of terrorism? Why do these individuals whose actions seriously have costs our economy and economic security to falter not viewed as terrorists?
A key foundation to a solid society is a secure financial infrastructure. Have these recent corporate failures not threatened our social stability by the criminal actions of a few?
America is strong and I have faith in our future. This nation is stronger today because we as a people have retained and defended the freedoms we were blessed from our founding fathers. Yet this is another period in history that requires us to grow, to reach inside ourselves, as citizens, for strength so we may have a future. It will take work on our part as a people, a society, and as a nation to solve these problems, to preserve our freedoms, and continue to work for a better place that we can pass on to our children.
I only hope that the media realizes the responsibility technology has given it over the years, in its ability to be such a contributing factor in public opinion, and that our elected officials realize their responsibility to we the people and the constitution our nation has been built from since its inception. It is critical that individually and collectively we all become responsible to the continued safety and success of our nation.
It is my personal opinion, that as a nation, we all can see the hope that is out here in what I refer to as "everyday America", in the everyday lives being lived by everyday people who do hope for a better tomorrow. Hope is what made America. Our future today is only as strong as our hope for tomorrow. Hopefully we will carry our daily lives with this foremost in mind.