The U.S.

Sprint from Freedom to Totalitarianism and Beyond

As must appear self-evident to both historians and astute observers by now, the United States, in its history, has had a rather facile and at times acrimonious relationship to the idea of domestic democracy (If this is not self-evident, see Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival, alon withFailed States! "or a specific analysis of this observation applied to the USA #atriot Act, see my A Users Guide to the USA Patriot Act$! %hat is seldom noticed, however, is the speed with which the U!S! has moved from a liberal democracy to, at best, an authoritarian overnment! &o demonstrate this rapid movement in U!S! overnment, we will use as a base "ranklin 'elano (oosevelt)s *"our "reedoms+ address to Con ress, on ,anuary -, ./0.! 1y all ri hts, and re ardless of "'()s real intent (some say it was to arner support for U!S! involvement in %%II$, very few would doubt that his elucidated four freedoms form an important base for understandin liberal democracy! 2ere are "'()s own words, 3uoted at len th4 &he first is freedom of speech and e5pression 6 everywhere in the world! &he second is freedom of every person to worship 7od in his own way 6 everywhere in the world!

&he third is freedom from want 6 which, translated into world terms, means economic understandin s which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants 6 everywhere in the world! &he fourth is freedom from fear6which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorou h fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical a ression a ainst any nei hbor8anywhere in the world! &hat is no vision of a distant millennium! It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and eneration! &hat kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb! &o that new order we oppose the reater conception6the moral order! A ood society is able to face schemes of world domination and forei n revolutions alike without fear!+ &he point of this article is to compare (oosevelt)s understandin of a *moral democracy,+ with where our domestic *democracy+ stands today! I will assume that the "our "reedoms are in stark contrast to Authoritarianism, &otalitarianism, and "ascism! 1ut by way of eneral definition, 9ust for purposes of reference for this article, I would like to adopt the followin eneral definitions of Authoritarianism and &otalitarianism! Authoritarianism e5ists when an elite roup monopoli:es all political power; &otalitarianism e5ists when an elite roup monopoli:es power on every aspect of society, such as economy, education, art, and acceptable moral codes! %hen combined with a stron nationalism and militarism, such forms of overnment become "ascism! %ith these contradictory positions as our bookends (i!e! democracy versus Authoritarianism and its e5treme forms$, the comparison we will make here yields the inevitable conclusion that the U!S! has one a lon way, with increasin speed, in the opposite direction of freedom and a moral society that (oosevelt thou ht was the key to a thrivin democracy! Roosevelts First Freedom: Freedom of speech.

2ow free is speech in the U!S! today< =ven if, in principle, people are free to use technolo y to communicate their thou hts with others, the s3uelchin of this freedom can easily occur with knowled e of such pro rams that seek to record such speech, such as the NSA spyin pro rams! %ithout privacy in sharin our thou hts with others, there is neither freedom of speech nor of association! No protests or dissentin movements can be successful, since those a ainst whom the dissent occurs and who are eavesdroppin will be enabled to have all their plans to s3uelch it in place in advance, based on their pre-knowled e of any dissent and its planned actions! Contrary to that, the Supreme Court ruled, in National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Ala ama (./>?$, that not only was freedom of association protected by the "irst Amendment, but that privacy of membership was an essential part of this freedom! %orse yet, if the overnment knows where every person is and with whom they are associatin by trackin their technolo y use, how truly free is our speech< In other words, if you know there is a spook around every corner listenin to you, would you alter your speech< @ost people would! In short, overnment pro rams that seek to have knowled e on and about persons and or ani:ations by collectin it all, *willy-nilly+ as Abama stated it, without probable cause that they are en a ed in ille alities, directly undermine democracy, if for no other reason than that we do not surrender our ri ht to privacy, of speech, or of association6all of them ar uably the en ine of democratic discourse6simply because we choose to e5press to others our disa reement with our overnment or the corporations with whom they work, or choose to associate with like-minded people! In direct contradiction to "'()s "irst "reedom and the Constitution)s "irst Amendment re ardin free speech, let us e5amine some NSA pro rams re ardin speech! Ane is called *Co-&raveler,+ the cell phone mappin pro ram that tracks not 9ust the locations of cell phones, but which other cell phones they are in eo raphical pro5imity to! It doesn)t matter if your cell phone of off4 the pro ram still tracks it! &he NSA en a es in this operation without warrant or court authori:ation!

If this wasn)t enou h, other Snowden revelations concern malware that the NSA is now sendin out to the individual computers in which they are interested! Called the *Computer Network =5ploitation,+ it is estimated in the Snowden documents to have infected >B,BBB computers so far! &he malware is powerful enou h to take control of the computer it infects! Add to this the facts that corporations such as 7oo le now place cookies on computers for the purpose of overnment information collection, and the NSA)s *Special Source Aperations+ (SSA$, which *mana es surveillance pro rams that involve collaboration with corporate communication providers+ ((obert Stevens, *New 'ocuments =5pose @ore NSA #ro rams,+ %orld Socialist %eb Site, 'ecember .0, CB.D$! Add to all this what we already know about corporate spyin on people! "or e5ample, accordin to a new report on corporate spyin , corporations such as Eraft, Cola-Cola, 1ur er Ein , @c'onald)s, @onsanto, Shell, 1#, Chevron, 'ow, %al-@art, 1ank of America, and the U!S! Chamber of Commerce now en a e in espiona e a ainst nonprofit civic or ani:ations and the individuals involved in them! (http4FFwww!corporatepolicy!or Fspookybusiness!pdf, summari:ed nicely in (alph Nader)s article *Corporate =spiona e Undermines 'emocracy,+ November C-, CB.D$! &ake all of this to ether, and you have a powerful but small roup of people that control all communications data in the U!S!4 the NSA and a few lar e corporations! &his technolo y and these practices are not limited to the federal level, either! Now local police use the same spyin pro rams and practices as their federal mentors have done! In fact, the *trickle down+ of totalitarian technolo y and practice has infiltrated local police departments! &he !ashington Post reports ('ecember ?$ that local police departments now have technolo y to obtain what are called cell phone *tower dumps+ from all telecommunication companies that use the towers! Additionally, police a encies are usin fake cell phone towers to simply collect data, period! None of this information collection is done with warrants! &his means that local police now randomly collect all cell phone information, includin 7#S location information, email addresses, and web sites (http4FFwww!washin tonpost!comFworldFnational-securityFa enciescollected-data-on-americans-cellphone-use-in-thousands-of-towerdumpsFCB.DF.CFB?FCB>0/./B->e?B-..eD-beBG-BB-cGG-C--edHstory!html $! Accordin to USA "oday, this is bein done by local police in DD states (http4FFwww!usatoday!comFstoryFnewsFnationFCB.DF.CFB?Fcellphone-dataspyin -nsa-policeFD/BC?B/F $!

%e can thus conclude first, that NSA actions are not an attempt to thwart terrorism; they are an attempt to maintain full control of citi:en association, movement, and information! 1ut there is a second, even more alarmin conclusion that we must draw from this! It was summari:ed poi nantly by ,ud e (ichard ,! Ieon, who ruled that the NSA)s collection of metadata from phones is *almost Arwellian,+ statin forthri htly that the U!S! overnment had failed to cite *a sin le case in which analysis of the NSA)s bulk metadata collection actually stopped an imminent terrorist attack!+ Couple this 9ud ment with the rulin of ,ud e (e ie %alton (referenced by ,ud e Ieon$, that the NSA was in *systematic noncompliance+ with the "ederal Intelli ence Surveillance ("ISA$ Court! #erhaps most e re ious of all in the NSA)s *Arwellian+ pro rams is the NSA SI7IN=& document that in essence states *the law has not kept up with us, so we can violate the law with impunity!+ &his document, a ain courtesy of =dward Snowden, states that the law must be adapted to the NSA practice of unlimited spyin , rather than the other way around, as is normall the case for a overnment that abides by the rule of law! It details how the NSA intends to have *mastery of the lobal network,+ and makes open mention of their corporate partners in this venture! Contrary to the NSA antics, it is certainly well within the confines of the authority of the ,ustice 'epartment and of Con ress to both investi ate and criminally prosecute NSA members who are violatin our Constitutional ri hts, specifically in this case, the "irst and "ourth Amendments! Instead, the U!S! ,ustice 'epartment defended the NSA spyin pro rams in New Jork federal court, in November! Additional to that, the Abama administration)s hand-picked *advisory committee+ on the abuses of NSA spyin recommended only surface chan es to the pro ram! &hus, not only have our *democratic+ institutions been almost completely silent on this issue, but con ressional members have even one to len ths of en a in in scare tactics in order to continue the unchecked operations of the NSA!

"or e5ample, both 'emocrat Senator 'iane "einstein, and (epublican (epresentative @ike (o ers have publicly claimed that *we are not safer now than we were a year a o,+ and that *terror is up worldwide+ (both of these 3uotations come from their appearance on the CNN pro ram *State of the Union,+ on 'ecember .$! 2owever, when one e5amines the facts, the total number of deaths that have been classified as *terrorist-related+ in CB.. was nine, and si5 of those were from the lone shooter who murdered worshippers at a Sikh temple in %isconsin! Iikewise, the "1I has listed a total of nine terrorist incidents on U!S! soil, less than half what they were in CB..! &he scare statistics are instead drawn from four countries in which terrorist activities have been on the rise4 Af hanistan, Ira3, #akistan, and Syria! &his shows clearly that "einstein and (o ers are lyin when they make their claims! Could it be that this is due to the fact that both of their spouses are deeply involved in *private security+ contracts with the U!S! military and State 'epartment< (1ill Kan Auken, *U!S! Con ressional Intelli ence Chiefs #romote &error Scare,+ %orld Socialist %eb Site, 'ecember -, CB.C$! Roosevelts Third Freedom: Freedom from want, especially economic want. &his clearly implies economic e3uality, as opposed to ine alitarian views of individualist economic ain! %here we stand today in re ard to this freedom may readily be demonstrated by two facts4 first, the top ten C=A)s today in the U!S! make an avera e of over L.D million each! An the e5treme end, @ark Muckerber , founder of "acebook, took home LC!CG billion, while &im Cook, C=A of Apple, made L.0D million, and 2oward Shult: of Starbucks made L..G!> million this year! &he richest increased their wealth by over LC trillion this past year, accordin to the "orbes 0BB report from September! &o put this in perspective, Andre 'amon states in his report of these numbers that *the wealth of these 0BB individuals is more than twice the amount necessary to cover the federal bud et deficit, which is bein used as the 9ustification for slashin food stamps, education, housin assistance, and health care pro rams+ (%orld Socialist %eb Site, Actober C0, CB.D$!

"or the second fact, compare these obscene salaries with the normal U!S! household, whose income has fallen by appro5imately ten percent over the past ten years! In fact, accordin to a report by the Southern =ducation "oundation, nearly half of public school children in the U!S! are now poor, where *poor+ is defined as an annual income of LC/,BBB for a family of four! Additionally, the report states, of the 0> wealthiest countries in the world, the U!S! ranks second in the level of child poverty rate! If that isn)t enou h, with the lack of con ressional action for the unemployed, benefits for over one million of the unemployed will e5pire ne5t week! &his news comes as the "ederal (eserve continues to add L?> billion per month into the financial system, in order to keep %all Street profits at a ma5imum! %hile the corporate mentality propa andi:es that the destitute are *parasites+ on the body politic, corporate millionaires in the fast food industry have conspired to take ta5payer money both *from the top+ and *from the bottom!+ Accordin to the report *"ast "ood C=A)s (ake in &a5payer-Subsidi:ed #ay,+ the C=A)s of these corporations6E"C, &aco 1ell, @c'onalds, and #i::a 2ut named amon them6have created and used a ta5 loophole to let themselves deduct performance-based e5ecutive pay from their ta5es, so that the hi her the C=A salary under this cate ory, the less ta5 they pay! &his is *from the top+ of the ta5 monies! *"rom the bottom+ is the fact that fast food corporations like @c'onald)s pay their employees such low wa es that the employees need overnment pro rams like the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance #ro ram (SNA#$ to feed their families! In fact, @c'onald)s has a pro ram that assists its employees to et on the food stamp and welfare pro rams, thus takin ta5payer money to fund the wa e ap that they have deliberately created! Af course, this class ine3uality is insufficiently wide for the elites! &hus, there are several other actions they have planned in order to widen the class divide in America and to consolidate their complete economic and political power! "irst, accordin to a report in "he Guardian, their main lobbyin roup, the American Ie islative =5chan e Council (AI=C$, is now plannin a D0-state assault on education, health, ta5, worker compensation, and the environment (=d #ilkin ton and Su:anne 7oldenber , *State Conservative 7roups #lan U!S!-wide Assault on =ducation, 2ealth, and &a5,+ "he Guardian, 'ecember >, CB.D$!

Second, workers are seein their pensions slashed! &he test cases for this assault on the politically unrepresented, helpless class are in 'etroit and Chica o! In an e5cellent analysis of the 'etroit bankruptcy issue, %allace &urbeville ar ues that the real crisis in 'etroit has absolutely nothin to do with pensions or e5penses! (ather, the real problem lies in numerous other factors, includin *emer ency mana er+ Eevyn Arr)s shady accountin , revenue reductions, state revenue sharin , corporate subsidies, and most of all, 3uestionable financial dealin s in such thin s as interest rate swaps! All of this contributed to the city)s cash flow problem, while the city)s pension contributions and e5penses remained relatively stable (%allace &urbeville, *&he 'etroit 1ankruptcy,+http4FFwww!demos!or FsitesFdefaultFfilesFpublicationsF'etroitH1 ankruptcy-'emos!pdf $ In Chica o, corporate 'emocrat (ahm =mauel announced his plan to entirely eliminate health insurance subsidies for retired city workers, effective on ,anuary ., CB.G! &his will place far more financial burden on the workers by increasin their premiums, eliminatin subsidies, cuttin retired workers from the city)s health care plan, and re3uirin employees to purchase insurance throu h the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as *Abamacare!+ 2owever, like 'etroit, worker pensions are not the problem! (ather, the deficits have been created by reducin ta5 rates on the wealthy and by raidin pensions, amon other thin s, all with union backin ! &hird, Abama and the 'emocrats) new federal bud et has ei ht key items that constitute what 'avid Cay ,ohnston, amon many others, has characteri:ed as a hu e iveaway to the economic elites who now run the country! &he bud et cuts .!D million Americans out of unemployment insurance, provides no 9ob creation, provides additional ta5 cuts for the wealthy, maintains ta5 loopholes for corporations, cuts 2ead Start back, cuts medical research back, and increases #enta on spendin (by LCB billion$ (see *'emocracy Now,+ 'ecember .-, CB.D$! ,ohnston could easily have added other serious *class warfare+ cuts such as reduction of retirement benefits to federal workers and retired military personnel, and leavin intact se3uestration cuts (thus reducin social spendin even more$! &hat the 'emocrats are not merely *concedin ,+ but have been in on this whole class war from the be innin , is nearly commonplace knowled e by now (for evidence of this assertion, see the 'emocrat)s report entitled *State 1ud et Crisis &ask "orce,+ released in ,uly, CB.C$!

"ourth, while Abama)s speech on ine3uality on 'ecember 0 was crafted to make him appear as the reat defender of e3uality, in point of fact Abama has done everythin in his power to maintain a distinct ine3uality in society, doin his corporate master)s biddin all the way! %hile these e5amples are not e5haustive, the followin will suffice to indicate support for this claim! "irst, Abama)s restructurin of the auto industry in CBB/ was done precisely to cut wa es and benefits to the workers! In that same year he intervened to prevent le islation directed at blockin e5ecutive bonuses at various bailed-out banks and insurance companies! Additionally, he has re9ected providin federal assistance to states and cities hit hard by the economic crisis, while continuin to pump money into the very banks and %all Street companies that crashed the economy in CBB?! %hile the avera e income for avera e Americans has fallen by several percenta e points durin his tenure, Abama has failed to advocate stron ly for a fair increase in the minimum wa e! Simultaneously, he heralds education for all, while cuttin 2ead Start pro rams from his bud et and advocatin corporate-owned schools in his *(ace to the &op+ education pro ram! "ifth, we should take note of the &rans-#acific #artnership (&##$, the topsecret, closed-door ne otiations between the U!S!, Canada, and ten Asian and Iatin American countries! &his *free-trade a reement+ establishes supranational liti ation tribunals, to which any iven domestic court would be re3uired to defer, for the purpose of rulin on economic and trade matters! Iest this sounds too removed from we, the people, this new capitalist-based court system, which will have no human or civil ri hts limitations, would rule on issues affectin all of us, such as food production (i!e! enetically modified foods N7@A)sO$, individual ri hts, civil liberties, publishers, internet service providers, internet privacy, and the intellectual and environmental commons (%ikiIeaks, *Secret &rans-#acific #artnership A reement+$! 2ere is the key part! Accordin to #loom erg Ne$s, *the treaties would elevate individual corporations to e3ual status with nation states, empowerin them to dra the U!S! overnment before closed-door e5tra9udicial tribunals!+ &hese tribunals would be composed of three private lawyers who are unaccountable to anyone else, least of all to the electorate, and would have the power *to order ta5payer payments for domestic policies or overnment actions the corporations oppose!+ In its most corrupt part, the &## calls for 9ud es servin on these tribunals to rotate between servin as 9ud es and actually ar uin cases for corporations a ainst overnments! &here is no independent 9udicial mechanism to appeal their decisions ((alph Nader and Iori %allach, *Con ress Shouldn)t "ast-&rack Covert &rade 'eals,+ #loom erg Ne$s, 'ecember .., CB.D$!

Roosevelts Fourth Freedom: Freedom from fear, especially from military aggression. So who are the military a ressors from whom everyone should be free of fear< 2ow about be innin with the lar est spender on military, and the nation and a resses the most a ainst others< &he U!S!, which spends three times what the rest of the world spends in total on military weaponry, 9ust ave its military yet another bud et boost, this time for L-DD billion, while most of its citi:ens are sufferin from a deep recession! #art of that money will no doubt o toward fulfillin our new a reement, announced in November, for the permanent U!S! occupation of Af hanistan! @uch like the Ira3 a reement, and directly contradictory to Abama)s proclamations, the a reements with both countries allow U!S! troops and bases to continue their operations throu h CBC0! &his is not somethin that the U!S! was *asked+ to do, either! As Susan (ice, Abama)s national security director, very publicly put it, it was the U!S! position that Af hanistan #resident 2amid Ear:ai si n the U!S!-drafted accord, or face a complete cut-off of U!S! fundin and troops! In comparison, a paltry LG-!0 billion could fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance #ro ram (SNA#$! "or those whose unemployment insurance is bein suspended by the overnment at the end of the month, 9ust LC>!- billion would suffice to take care of that!

#art of the money bein piped into the U!S! military, at the e5pense of its citi:ens, is also destined for support of U!S! military provocations in Southeast Asia! Althou h much ado was made in the U!S! mainstream media over China)s declaration of an air defense identification :one (A'IM$ in the =ast China Sea, followed by North Eorea)s doin the same, and while much was made (ri htfully$ about U!S! deliberate provocations of China in this :one by the fli ht of 1->C)s directly into the A'IM, much less attention was paid to two events that demonstrate the military seriousness of Abama)s *Asia pivot!+ 1oth stories indicate how much Abama and his military-corporate masters are itchin for a war of territorial control! &he first story concerns the U!S! uided missile cruiser USS Cowpens nearly collidin with a Chinese naval vessel in the South China Sea, on 'ecember >! Althou h the U!S! claimed it was operatin in international waters, in point of fact the U!S! was playin chicken with the Chinese fleet formation, by sailin $ithinthat formation! %hat could more incendiary than for the U!S! to deliberately sail their ships intothe fleet formation of a country that the U!S! has already very publicly tar eted for economic war, and publicly stated its preparedness for a military war< As re ards to how serious the U!S! is about the U!S! itch for a *hot war,+ in November, the (and Corporation, an alle edly independent *think-tank+ but that 9ust happens to do much of its studies advocatin #enta on issues, released a strate ic plan for en a in China in war! It advocates (indeed, it even claims that what has already started is$ an *arc+ of land-base anti-ship missiles with which to attack China! &hese missiles, the report claims, should be and are bein stationed in Eorea, Akinawa, the #hilippines, Indonesia, and @alaysia! "inally, the lon shadow of U!S! military and imperialist presence in Syria is once a ain makin the news, with the United Nations now reportin that three-3uarters of Syria)s CC!0 million people will need humanitarian assistance 9ust to survive, by the end of CB.0! &his report says nothin about the rou hly three million refu ees who have already fled Syria, due to the U!S! pro5y war there! &his is the inevitable result when a country whose sole concern is military power and economic and social control puts its footprint on a country such as Syria! Note that the Abama administration has said nothin at all concernin these reports, let alone taken any responsibility for the immense social problems that its attempt to control Syria has brou ht in its wake! &he Syrian people, much like the #alestinian people, simply do not e5ist in the eyes of &otalitarian and militaristic leaders such as our current U!S! re ime!

In this e5amination of U!S! military a ression worldwide, we have not even mentioned the numerous drone strikes that #resident Abama has ordered and continues to order and publicly support, in #akistan, Af hanistan, and Jemen, to name but three prominent places! &his practice of asymmetric remote-control war shows only si ns of increasin in U!S! practice in years to come! #uttin this militarism into perspective, Chalmers ,ohnson warned in his book Nemesis that we can either have an =mpire (i!e! abroad$ or we can have a democracy, but we cannot have both! I have been ar uin that "'()s "our "reedoms is a ood synopsis of what the side of havin a democracy truly means, and ar uin that &otalitarianism at home is at least morally e3uivalent to =mpire abroad! &he conclusion of this article seems so obvious that it almost doesn)t need statin , but state it we must4 the United States has rushed headlon into a &otalitarian, if not a "ascist, re ime of overnment-corporate control of the culture and citi:ens, and we are only seein the be innin s of it, in part because the Snowden revelations are incomplete, and in part because the overnment is not forthcomin with 9ust how many and how far its actions o that contradict the "our "reedoms! 1ut with re ard to this conclusion, 9ust because our overnment has the trimmin s of a democracy matters not, when the fact is that re ardless of who is elected, the political bureaucrats put in office tend to the interests of the rulin re ime of corporations and their desire for authoritarian control of all of the information of the culture and the citi:ens! &his is what Supreme Court ,ustice (uth 1ader 7insber no doubt at least partially had in mind when she stated that if a re ate limits on individual political contributions are not limited, then *>BB people will control American democracy!+ &his makes U!S! elections a sham and a farce! %orse, it bodes ill for the immediate future, in that &otalitarian re imes are e5traordinarily difficult to overthrow without a complete revolution in the mindset (i!e! worldview$ of the vast ma9ority of citi:ens! &he obvious mindset or worldview chan e ar ued for in this article is that if we want to put the brakes on this bullet-train into headlon "ascism, we must reiterate and or ani:e around these "our "reedoms adumbrated by (oosevelt! &hey are user-friendly, and nicely encapsulate the primary values for any true democracy! &hat chan e of mindset is worth re-committin ourselves to in the year to come! Unlike Abama)s empty campai n rhetoric, it is truly our only *hope+ for *chan e!+

'r! (obert #! Abele holds a #h!'! in #hilosophy from @ar3uette University 2e is the author of three-plus books4 A Users Guide to the USA PA"%&'" Act (CBB>$; "he Anatomy of a (eception) A *ogical and +thical Analysis of the (ecision to &nvade &ra, (CBB/$; (emocracy Gone) A Chronicle of the *ast Chapters of the Great American (emocratic +-periment (CBB/$; and a contributor of eleven chapters to the +ncyclopedia of Glo al .ustice, from &he 2a ue4 Sprin er #ress (Actober, CB..$! 'r! Abele is a professor of philosophy at 'iablo Kalley Colle e, located in #leasant 2ill, California in the San "rancisco 1ay area! 2is web site iswww!spotli htonfreedom!com