Bradley Manning was convicted by a military court on the charge of espionage and Edward Snowden was just granted temporary asylum by the Soviet Union.  Espionage originally was defined as any attempt to interfere with military operations, to support U.S. enemies during wartime, to promote insubordination in the military, or to interfere with military recruitment.

In my view, Bradley Manning did just the opposite of espionage; same for Snowden.  It is the President and other officials in the US Government that not only have supported the enemies of the U.S. but have themselves become the enemies of the U.S. by trampling on the U.S. Constitution and the People who are the sovereigns of this nation.  What Manning, Snowden and others did was what was required of them and what is required of all of us under the circumstances... which is to say, to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all its enemies foreign and domestic.  This court proceeding was just one more affront to the Constitution and the sovereign People who have pledged to live by and for it.  
_________________________

Aren't you sometimes ashamed to be a Jew?    I am.  When I was a kid my mother made me go to Hebrew school where they talked about our heritage and how in Egypt we were once slaves.  They taught me to love freedom and to be proud of my heritage and all that BS.  I call it BS because all of a sudden I find out that they just teach that stuff to kids but when you grow up, no one really expects you, or wants you, to believe that stuff.   I mean it’s just Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.  Look at what so many Jews are doing to the Palestinians.  Yuk. Not all, of course.

I went to a Scottish Clan Gathering not too long ago.  There were thousands of people there.  My wife was so proud of her heritage.  She thought all the men looked so dashing in their kilts.   At the opening ceremony when all the bands came in -- a hundred pipes blaring -- she said, can you imagine what their enemies must have felt when they heard these pipes coming over the hill knowing they were about to go into battle with these people?  Yeah, that was impressive..  But during the ceremony they sang the national anthems of Scotland, England, Canada, and the US.   Oh, you never heard such crap in all your life.  Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light… blah, blah, blah, … and the land of the free and the home of the brave.  What a joke.  And God save the Queen.  Oh my goodness.  God save the Queen!   Like maybe the Queen stood for freedom as England built its empire by crushing the freedom, hopes and dreams of peoples in every corner of the world, including its own people who toiled night and day so the Royal family could be filthy rich.  Let them eat cake.  Oh my goodness, what a cute baby.  We’re so proud.

All that pomp and circumstance… signifying nothing.  All those thousands of people in one place and not one word about the fact that the US government is now recording and storing every phone call and every email of every person there, perhaps using that information to blackmail some and destroy others, as a small elite faction of our population, right in front of our eyes, is plotting to usurp the freedom of every American citizen, and every other world citizen... and what do you hear about that when all those kilts get together?   Not a word.  At least not that I heard.

And how about blacks?  Do you think that Martin Luther King, if he were the keynote speaker at some event, would let the occasion go by without saying a word or two about the treason that is blossoming right in front of our eyes.   You would think a people who not so long ago were slaves and are now free -- (I use that term loosely, obviously.  You remember Rosa Parks don't you?) -- would just stand idly by as their hard won freedom after hundreds of years of slavery might inspire them to voice some outrage at being returned to their former status -- (but at least along with whites too, this time) -- by their own country that pretends to stand for freedom.   But what’s the response--not much really. We're so proud to have a black president. Taught Constitutional law, you know.  Right.  Except that here and there, there are a few voices.  A few of them still remember King.  If you recall, he was more interested in a person's character than the color of their skin.

Look around.  Where is there a country, religion, race, sex, college, university,  city,  state, party, arm of government or agency, major newspaper, TV, or radio station, corporation, club, or major gathering of any kind whose members are insulted by the fact that the US government, (with the support or silence of just about every other government in the world), is in the business of deceiving and subjugating its own people, betraying them by taking away their liberty and destroying the very idea of democracy itself.  And all you hear is a few people here and there saying anything at all about it or doing anything about it.   I mean really, read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  You have read it recently haven’t you?   I mean really.  Women want the freedom to choose whether or not to have an abortion, and gays want to marry each other, but they haven’t said all that much about losing every other right and freedom the Constitution promises them.  But then again, who has.  Not many.  How inspiring.

What part of my heritage or your heritage are we supposed to be proud of?  Which people from which country, religion, race, sex, or other organ of society should we belong to and be proud of because as a member of that group we all stand for something, believe in something worth fighting for -- really.   What do you stand for? What group do you belong to that really stands for anything at all.  Please, please !!  Don’t make me laugh. 

If you and/or your group are the exception, I hope you understand... 
please forgive me… I'm not referring to you. 

______________________

On Citizenship

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Implications of the Surveillance State

What to do about the NSA and our Freedoms

“Liberty lies in the hearts and minds of men and women;
when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it;
 no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it…”
                                                      —Judge Learned Hand

2013...First they came for the whistleblowers...