Every American who desires freedom and individual rights MUST read Pema Levy’s “Surveillance State” article in the November-December, 2022, “Mother Jones” magazine. MUST.
For perspective, consider Charles Kimball’s “When Religion Becomes Evil” and his “Five Warning Signs of Corruption in Religion:” absolute truth claims, blind obedience, the end justifies any means, declaring holy war, establishing the “Ideal” time. Most relevant here: the end justifies any means and declaring holy war. See also, Eric Hoffer’s classic, “The True Believers.”
Levy discusses effects of Texas’ “SB 8” bill banning abortions after 6 weeks of pregnancy (before many know they are pregnant), and most significantly: the enforcement mechanism. Under the law, ANY person can sue ANYBODY they SUSPECT of helping a pregnant person get an abortion – legalizing vigilanteism. The incentive: a minimum $10,000 in “damages.” Doctors can also get life in prison.
This mob law phenomenon spread to other states: 191 bills in 40 states “sought to limit classroom instruction on gender, sexual orientation, race, American history since January, 2021…46 of whose would be enforced by private citizens. Vigilantes, like the KKK, used to be extra-legal.
Also of major concern, Levy mentions some considerable damage to the practice of medicine with respect to women, ALL facets. Decades old normal procedures now reconsidered and delayed, with deadly results to female patients.
Levy’s discussion of authoritarian aspects of “SB 8” begins with Communist East Germany’s security forces, the Stasi. A nation of 40,919 square miles had “more than 170,000 informers..not only to spy on its citizens but, through that surveillance, psychologically terrorize them.” Only authoritarian, dictatorial, governments seek to terrorize their own citizens. It was once written, “It Can’t Happen Here.” No more.
Levy discusses another sinister aspect of an American Surveillance State: the right-wing war on America’s public schools. “The war will be won in education, Republican Richard Corcoran, Florida’s then-education commissioner..”Education is our sword, that’s our weapon.'”
A New Hampshire chapter of “Moms for Liberty” “put a bounty on these teacher’s heads” because of the “Divisive Concepts” law. (President Eisenhower: “read every book in the library.”)
“All this happened amid a nation-wide campaign to pass laws that would censor America’s racist past and deny its influence on our present.”
George Orwell already discussed this in “1984,” stating what dictatorships already knew and practiced: government censorship: “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”
Even more sobering for freedom-loving Americans: Levy’s discussion of the work of Jon Michaels and David Noll. “Michaels and Noll see vigilante enforcement laws as an extension of America’s anti-democratic traditions of slavery and Jim Crow. The closest historical corollary to “SB 8”, they argue, is the “Fugitive Slave Law” of 1850.”
Why should we be surprised??? A state of the old “Confederacy,” passing an unAmerican law built around hatred and bigotry? A state that was one of the first, after the infamous 2013 Supreme Court “Shelby County” abomination to revive a previously un-Constitutional law gutting the 1965 Civil Rights Act, to be quickly followed by other Confederate states.
The American Surveillance State is built on fascist principles. Like previous dictatorships it uses “divide-and-conquer.” It turns ordinary citizens against other ordinary citizens. (“the Pursuit of Happiness” anyone??????)
Just like the Stasi, the Gestapo, the KGB, the kempei – Texas’ “SB 8” uses law for authoritarian purposes. What more can be said than the anti-abortion ‘holy war’ has regressed to pre-Civil War practices???
Runaway slaves now replaced by runaway female medical patients.
Historian William Freehling’s “The Road to Disunion,” in his chapter, “Democrats as Lynchers,” between 1830-1860, 300 WHITES were lynched in the South, mentions the “quality of terror produced.”
Just like the quality of terror produced in Hitler’s Germany by “the knock on the door at midnight;” just like the quality of terror in Stalin’s Russia – you did not want to be the first to stop clapping.
But why should YOU be surprised? The “pro-life” agenda is built around authoritarian principles. Just like the Nazis (who also outlawed abortion and homosexuality), just like the Russian communists, just like “true believers” everywhere – the “pro-lifers” know what is best for you. And – if you don’t agree – they’ll force YOU, using any means necessary – to accomplish their holy war’s goals.
The American Surveillance State is only a logical step on the road to a modern Puritan theocracy – except Roger Williams is no longer exiled – SHE is persecuted and prosecuted. Pillory, stocks, ducking stool, witch burning next?
One more thing: for more perspective on what the American surveillance State portends, please check “the 14 characteristics of Fascism.”
Play special attention to these: “powerful and continuing nationalism; disdain for recognition of human rights; identify enemies/scapegoats; rampant sexism (male domination, opposition to abortion and anti-gay laws and policies); religion and government intertwined; corporate power protected (Roberts Court); labor power suppressed (Roberts Court); disdain for intellectuals and art; obsession with crime and punishment.”
THINK on these alone – how many ALREADY EXIST in America? THINK also on how the American Surveillance State aids and abets accomplishment of these fascist characteristics.
Texas’. “SB 8” is a MAJOR step to ending American democracy.
With Justice For All 