Confused about the NSA collecting our phone records? This might help...

The NSA phone records whistle-blower issue is an intellectual buffet of ideas that we haven't seen in a long time.  The reason this one issue is so different than everything else we get bombarded with is it doesn't allow us to follow our normal pattern of opinion forming, which is to land on the side of people that we've already decided we trust.  For example, if you trust Obama then you are for healthcare reform; if you don't trust him, then you're against it--pretty simple.  We all function this way, no matter how actively engaged in current debate issues we are.  I trust the journalists Matt Taibbi and Chris Hayes, and when they present an opinion on an issue that I don't know anything about, it is easy for me to adopt their views on the issue.  I don't blindly go about this, and I'm not afraid to disagree with them, but they are two people with whom I have developed a deep sense of trust in how they approach complicated issues.

So here we have this issue that nobody really knows how to feel about.  I've seen very few opinions from my conservative friends and relatively few from my liberal friends--most of which are just along the lines of "Snowden did a good thing." This says nothing about the deeper issue at hand, but even more fascinating is where the political superstars are falling on this issue.

Snowden is a criminal and should be punished, and this spying program is what we need.
President Obama
Lindsey Graham
Al Franken
Peter King


Snowden is a hero and should be celebrated, and this spying program goes against who we are. 
Al Gore
Rand Paul
Glen Beck
Michael Moore

When will we ever see these guys agree on anything again? There is no other issue that will divide these players into these group, and that is just one of the things that makes this so fascinating.   On social and environmental issues I'm very liberal, so I do have varying degrees of trust in both Obama and Al Gore.  But I can easily place Lindsey Graham and Glen Beck in the "I do not trust at all" category.  So I, and most all of us, are in brand new, uncharted territory of having no guiding lights with this issue, and we haven't even gotten into the particulars of the main issue at hand.  I love this!  This is the intellectual equivalent of our own version of "Survivorman:" being thrust into the wilderness and having to make every decision with only a modicum of information.  If you like intellectual adventure, this is it.

Edward Snowden

One thing I do know is that this is not about Edward Snowden, in the same way that the WikiLeaks case is not--and should never be--about Bradley Manning.  Fox news and other so called news outlets go straight for the dirt and try to drudge up these guys' personal lives and cast them as fractured and deceptive beasts.  If you see this in the news don't fall for it.  It is the laziest and ugliest form of journalism and embarrasses the entire industry. Manning and Snowden knowingly and willingly broke their employer agreements, believing the consequences were worth the risk, and they will face those consequences.  But demonizing whistle-blowers and allowing the bigger issues to take a back-page into the nebulous unresolved ether is not how we should deal with these situations. 

The lens that this issue should be viewed through is how we want our government to function in today's information age, and there is no easy black and white answers here.  Most Americans don't want the NSA compiling all of their personal information in a huge database, but then most Americans are ok with the NSA using phone records to track terrorists.  So it isn't an easy issue, and I have a hunch that this is only the beginning of revalations about secret NSA tactics.

The NSA headquaters even looks ominous.

But I think I can give you a few specks of light for your lens.  It may seem like this is a brand new information age issue, but it really isn't, and we do have some historical perspective to help us.  Our massive intelligence-gathering industry was developed during the Cold War, for good reasons.  We were in a nuclear standoff with Russia, and there was really other no option to protect ourselves.  But after the Cold War wound down, we were stuck with this massive bored but aggressive gorilla in the room, and this is what we have to be cautious of.  What started as a positive thing for our country quickly turned onto our own citizens--most importantly the leaders of the civil rights movement.  This is the most perfect example of how something that can be seen as useful and positive one second can be turned against us the next.  As the civil rights movement heated up, our government and CIA turned the huge angry gorilla of intelligence industry onto the leaders of this movement, and we saw how quickly things can turn sour when the powers that be are challenged.  So we don't have to look far to find our government and intelligence industry being on the wrong side of history.

King leaving the FBI after questioning.

Partisan rhetoric and Tea Party notwithstanding, you might be surprised that most everyone in the upper levels of politics does trust Obama on this matter.  Remember that Lindsey Graham and Peter King are on his side.  This is not about our current administration abusing these powers; what we are all afraid of is if we somehow get stuck with a truly bad administration that will use these powers for nefarious purposes.  We have to decide these issues not just on what is best for us now, but what is best for us in the future under less than ideal leaders.

Joseph McCarthy

The other side of this issue that I believe has created a numb confusion on this issue is the knowledge that all of our information is always being collected by the Googles and Facebooks of the world.  We are aware of this and are mostly comfortable with it, since we still use Gmail and Facebook; so hearing that our phone records were collected by the government didn't create the immediate visceral outrage that it would have a decade ago.  We've already given up so much of our sense of privacy, so why should we care if the NSA is using our phone records to track the evil people that want to kill innocents?  The simple answer is that Google and Facebook don't have the power to arrest you, ruin your life, and break families apart on erroneous and scattered information.   None of this matters when you are Lindsey Graham, a rich white southern man, who will never be profiled.   But we aren't all rich white southern men, are we?  In fact, I met an Iranian man the other night at Foothills Brewery who was amazingly fascinating and intelligent and is someone that I want to stay in touch with.  He lives in England and comes to NC often for his work.  If he and I stay in touch will that put me on a watch list?  Other than the red-neck banjo player watch list, of course.  You can see how easy these issues that at first seem non-tangible to us can digress into something very real.

These are the real issues here.  It is not about the whistle-blowers: it is about the type of society we want to live in, and the powers we want to grant our government to keep us safe.  So for once we can't just fall in line with whatever side the conservatives and democrats decide to fall on.  We have to think about this for ourselves, and I am glad that we have this opportunity.  If we had more of these opportunities maybe we wouldn't blindly side with whatever talking points are rammed down our throats by the powers that be, which have been rammed down their throats by the real powers that be: the corporations.  Americans having to think for ourselves--I'm all for it. 

New paths, new ideas, new connections.

"People don't know exactly what they want, but as one friend of mine put it, they know one thing: FUCK THIS SHIT! We want something different: a different life, with different values, or at least a chance at different values."  --M. Taibbi



Something has to give.  We can't continue on this path and give our grandchildren and great-grandchildren the life we want them to have.  Populations are exploding, and our oceans, rain-forests, and middle-class are dying.  We can pretend that those 3 things don't factor into our future, but you have to shut off any sense of reason to do so.  People who consistently look for new paths, new ideas, new connections are able to experience moments of clarity when things suddenly make sense, where several pieces of the puzzle suddenly  snap into place, creating a new picture that was not expected.   Two weeks ago I stumbled across an amazing video that articulated the visceral drive of the people protesting the current dirty affair between money and politics in this country.  But first, a few thoughts.   


The coverage of the Occupy Movement has been run into the ground by the 24-hour news cycle media; as one of my friends put it, "If I hear the word 'occupy' one more time, I'm going to lose it."  The protests started in the most beautiful sense that I've ever witnessed.  "We are the 99%" was a beautiful slogan that rightfully stated the true division of power, but through the combination of the Fox News Agenda and also of the Left Wing extremists taking over the discourse, the movement has been mostly divided back into the 49% vs 49% that so easily fits the standard media narrative.   If we keep it framed within this comfortable narrative then nobody has to stretch their ego-centric world-view to see a possible new path. If the story is 49% vs 49% then everything stays the same.  But if the story is 99% vs 1% then there is a chance for fundamental change in how Americans not only view our place in the global economic village but also how we focus our daily energy and how we define our "success."


But if you look close enough, and if you forget about arbitrary labels, then there is a tiny sliver of light breaking through the cracks.  A light that asks the questions, "Are you ok? Are we ok? Does the current zeitgeist feel right to you?"  The reason the protests took off with such speed and force throughout the world is that the answer is a general, "No.  We don't feel ok," and "No.  The current state of our society doesn't feel ok either."  Something isn't right and we can feel it, but we aren't sure what it is, and the easiest and quickest answer is to just blame the other side.  Blame the liberals, blame the conservatives.   Blame al Qaeda, blame the Chinese.   Blame the poor, blame the rich.  And on and on.  We have to blame somebody right? 

 Is it getting better?
Or do you feel the same?
Will it make it easier on you now?
You got someone to blame 

U2 - One

If we can just get those people out of our way then everything will be fine again; and just like an episode of The Andy Griffith Show, all will be fixed by supper time.  The first step to expanding our consciousness out of this endless blame cycle is to stop thinking in terms of labels.   There is only one label that will produce positive results: the human label.  It is important to realize that there are no such things as liberals or conservatives, republicans or democrats.  These are completely arbitrary terms that have no meaning other than to allow us to not only be divided and controlled, but also give us permission to turn off our brains and our sense of reason.   "I'm a conservative so therefore I believe this."   Or, "I'm a liberal so therefore I believe this."  Without any recognition that the given list of beliefs contains absurd contradictions and unyielding stances that by their very nature stop viable, workable solutions in their tracks.  It is almost as if the powers that be stood beside each other and picked hot-button social issues like an 8th grade gym class: "I'll take abortion rights.  Ok, I'll take gun rights.  I'll be against the death penalty.  Ok, well it is weird that I will be both pro-life and pro-death penalty, but what the hell,  they won't notice!"  And on and on...


I wish my writing could begin to match the beauty, elegance, and wisdom of Charles Eisenstein, but I am smart enough to know when to let someone's words shine.   Every line has a vast depth and meaning that is rare in today's pop-culture world, and it is important to recognize when someone so beautifully articulates the feeling in our collective hearts.  

What we are missing in today's money-based economy is our sense of meaning and purpose, and I believe that the majority of stress and unhappiness comes from the lack of these vital ingredients of a balanced life.   Eisenstein does a beautiful job of explaining that the top 1% are also missing these things, and their sense of unfulfillment is even stronger since, in the view of our money-based society, they theoretically have everything. "It's lonely at the top."    We've all seen the bitter Mr Burns character that sits alone in his mega-mansion suffering suffering from loneliness and isolation, and it is a near universal reaction that none of us would desire this.  Given the choice we will always claim  to pick love and community over wealth, but a strange disconnect happens when we spend our lives obsessing over the very thing we claim to not desire.    

“Someone asked us if we make money doing this... the answer is no... we make art, friends, emotions, adventures, songs, ideas, changes, noise, we make ourselves happy, and hopefully a few other folks happy along the way. Those are the things that we make. Who needs money?!”

In many ways the ongoing global depression has forced us to reconnect with both our community and our extended family.  Many are forced into roles of needing the people closest to them.  We are now depending on one and another in ways reminiscent of the last economic depression, and it is important to recognize that this is a positive transition for us.  When the federal government proves inept, we will find local solutions that not only solve direct problems but also strengthen the sense of community around us.  Sometimes 1 +1 can = 3, or 4.   If we are able, or even forced, to change the current paradigm from unbridled consumerism to service and support for those around us we will have the chance to re-develop the connective tissue that provides us with purpose and meaning, thereby filling the gaps in life with what is actually important.   The modern day financial philosophy that every person should have enough money that they can become an independent island and not need anybody for anything is an unsustainable idea and is fortunately dying a slow death.  The very act of having an important role in your community, of being needed, creates vitality, energy and love that symbiotically builds on itself.  

Hope everyone is having a great week.  
Brian