"Man Up" Yourself, Secretary Kerry!

To:  Secretary of State John Kerry
From:  Dondep

I'm prompted to write this rant to and about you, Mr. Secretary, after hearing your hypocritical and deceptive words today all over the mainstream news organs concerning Edward Snowden, one of America’s few courageous patriots.  And to think I would have voted for you given the chance in 2004!  Of course at that time I was a political refugee in Canada, having escaped the terrorizing surveillance of a government you now serve, so was unable to.  A good thing, too, as it would weigh even more heavily on my conscience that you knowingly accepted the theft of your winning vote tally for president that year. 

I didn’t need anyone to tell me that you received more than enough votes in the seven contested states in which Diebold voting machines were used that had been re-programmed with an algorithm (Al Gore rhythm?) to show your opponent George Bush winning, but it was your reaction that told the story.  And that reaction is one reason I feel you acted cowardly.  You did NOTHING on that election night to raise your voice against the crime of which you were aware and complicit in; NOTHING.  You did NOTHING to insist the light of day be shone on the shenanigans in Ohio  – despite your stance in your concession speech  –  that fateful night in 2004, of which you had to be aware. (Yes, “we”, because a vote is not just the candidate – it includes the voters and the Spirit of Destiny those voters represent that is at stake.)  Wiki may downplay the, uh, “irregularities” (ugh) but they still resonate with many despite your sponsorship of Barack Obama that same year in which you gave him the platform he needed for his own run.  While that one act may well be your greatest legacy, it isn’t enough to paper over the stains of the Patriot Act, your vote authorizing the Bush Iraq Misadventure, or today’s rant against Snowden.

That night was only one prelude to your most incredibly hypocritical statement of today, in which you publicly excoriated Edward Snowden to “man up” and “come back to stand trial” for actions that many feel are just as patriotic and courageous as even your swift boat adventures in Vietnam allegedly were.  The fact that “swift-boating” even entered the political lexicon is testimony to how you allowed a nefarious deception to take place, just as your vote to support the oxymoronic so-called “Patriot Act” was.  In fact, as deep as my own vocabulary goes, I don’t know if there is a word that adequately describes someone like you in our language.  Is there a word for someone that allows a deception to take place, and in fact is accomplice to the effort – even when it is publicly at odds with your own personal and political interest?  (I chose “mountebank” because it comes close on one level at least, but give us time and one of us will coin an adequate term.)

How could you do those things in good conscience, John?  Go along with the deception of that legislation that formalized the establishment of Big Brother in the name of “patriotism”? As a bright (well, B-grade) Yalie that was also a Bonesman, I’m certain you knew what you were doing when you went to Vietnam for that “abbreviated four-month tour of duty” and returned to speak out against the war, only to betray the anti-war constituency when you not only voted for the Patriot Act but to allow your fellow Bonesman Bush to take the US into a meaningless war in Iraq?  One that had nothing to do with “terrorism” but everything to do with enriching your fellow Bonesmen while eliminating as many civil liberties as possible in the run-up to a martial law you felt would be necessary in the face of the coming poleshift?

That IS what you were concerned with, isn’t it, sir?  And still are, if your rant today is any indication.  Why you were not out and front with forceful admonitions about an encroaching surveillance state is indicative of someone who cares not about the Constitution, but rather public reaction when the masses are finally told about what they will shortly be facing.  When politically-disaffected civic activists and voters talk about the Tweedledee and Tweedledum nature of the modern political system, your face is one they point to.  The Constitution was not meant to be ignored and junked in the face of modernity, it was meant to be updated without infringing the intent.  And it needs champions to succeed, not apologists and shoulder-shruggers. 

Let me share something with you, John.  If you thought the third rail of politics was one to worry about, then you should know that you just touched the fourth rail – the one with Edward Snowden’s face on it.  Your comments against him may play well in the Cosmos and Jockey Clubs in DC, but they will remind many in the heartland just how much of an Establishment figure and how out of touch with them you are.  On this issue, your main supporters will be right-wing Republicans who mouth platitudes of “liberty” while rushing to sacrifice true freedom in the name of authority and security.

Haven’t you paid attention to the mainstream media that covers your every move?  Or do you only watch when your face is on?  Snowden’s face, and more importantly the revelations he gave the world, have changed the discourse and brought to light the depth of the surveillance state, and even though you can spin it a thousand ways, when it gets down to it I’m sure even Dianne Feinstein isn’t comfortable knowing some twenty-five-year-olds at Booz Allen are watching her put on her panties.  Do you think anyone should be watching you and Teresa “doing the nasty”?  Do you think that your position precludes that from happening?  Do you think that having those moments – and the moments in which a spontaneous and ill-formed thought is uttered that may come back to haunt you – available to potential enemies in the future is not a distinct possibility?

If this screed ever comes to your attention, which I doubt it will but if it does, it will be as a consequence of the “haunting surveillance” I suffered from in 2002 while you and your colleagues passed legislation to give legal cover to it.  Fortunately that surveillance has been reduced from “haunting” to “light” in my case, and in point of fact, even “light” can easily be translated to “haunting” as a consequence of the exponentially-increasing technological advances made by the NSA that you so championed and enabled.  TIA [Total Information Awareness] about every citizen is now manifest from any location.  You and your fellow elitists feel a sense of entitlement to view every citizen's communications, even the most intimate.  All the while, you give only the flimsiest of nods to the civil liberties this Big Brother state erodes.

I mention that haunting surveillance because I am one of the very few Americans that have suffered unduly from the egregious application of that “Patriot Act”, even before it was passed, along with all the subsequent abuses of “signals intelligence” the intelligence community has engaged in.  How would you like having a government van parked outside your house, engine running constantly, day and night, every day (with rare exception), for over a year?  Being followed to work, to the grocery store, to the bank?  And having your phones tapped both conventionally and wirelessly?  That seems to be just fine with you, but now you insist on pushing the envelope by publicly calling out a hero as a “coward” who needs to “man up”.  Why don’t YOU “man up” Mr. Secretary?  “Man Up” and tell the public to get ready for a public admission by your boss as to exactly WHY the government you serve is so paranoid it has to Hoover-up all our communications, every last scrap of them, from every last one of us!  “Man Up” and explain why the NSA has been flouting the Constitution since its inception! “Man Up” and confess you made a mistake in supporting the anti-constitutional Patriot Act! “Man Up” that you were a coward in not challenging the theft of your duly-elected presidency! “Man Up” and admit that the legal system is controlled by the same forces that allow the NSA and MJ-12 to terrorize the citizenry with surveillance that can extend to “haunting”, and all for simply asking what the government has been Covering Up and why it continues to lie by omission – as well as commission.  "Man Up" and explain what the euphemism 'climate change' is really all about, or at least stop misleading the public about it while we await the Great Admission.

In short, Mr. Secretary - "Man Up" yourself.