NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] NSA, Buffalo Springfield, and the Triumph of Paranoia
NSA, Buffalo Springfield, and the Triumph of Paranoia
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001044.html
In the nearly 10 years since I've been authoring this blog, I can't
recall a previous period of so many lengthy posts, one after another
on a single topic, as has been the case with the current NSA saga.
We've already discussed the details as we know them at the moment, as
described in "NSA 'Whistleblower' Snowden: Hero? Fool? Traitor? Or ...?"
and its ancestor postings. ( http://j.mp/103oRpG [Lauren's Blog] )
So this morning I was trying to think of a unifying theme of sorts
that I could use to wrap up the current round -- when an old "Buffalo
Springfield" classic played forth from the music stream I had running
in the background, and handed me the answer across the decades.
In their 1967 song "For What It's Worth" -- often mistakenly thought
to be an anti-Vietnam war piece, but actually written as a statement
about civil rights in the aftermath of a notorious "riot" and police
actions on the Sunset Strip here in L.A. -- Buffalo Springfield sang
these words:
Paranoia strikes deep.
Into your life it will creep.
It starts when you're always afraid.
And therein resides the key -- not just to NSA and Snowden's story,
but to so much in our contemporary lives and reaching back to the dawn
of human history as well.
Paranoia and its close sibling "conspiracy theories" in fact are the
only real "winners" in the entire chain of events rolling out before
us over the last few days, along with the historical genesis of those
events.
Paranoid terrorists and their attacks. Paranoid reactions to those
attacks by Congress and yes, by the majority of Americans as well.
Knee-jerk legislation like the PATRIOT Act that gave paranoia the
force of law. Paranoid NSA programs. Paranoid claims about those NSA
programs. Paranoid accusations against Internet firms. And on ...
and on ... and on.
Conspiracy theories thrive on paranoia -- the mother's milk of emotion
over logic, of fear over reason, blurring the lines between real
enemies, genuine abuses, and the unreal, fantasy theories that
permeate our brains like so much booze on a drinking binge.
And the recent NSA-related events seem virtually purpose-built to feed
that paranoia, piling onto the inherent fears that so many persons
have about the rapid pace of our technologies, so complex that it
might as well just be magic as far as vast numbers of our fellow
travelers are concerned.
So we have fear of cookies, fear of Web ads, fear of tracking, fear of
Wi-Fi, fear of malware, and again on and on -- mixing hard technical
realities with the acid blend of paranoia itself, leaving especially
the nontechnical observers in a dizzying spin, gasping for air, unable
to separate any underlying truths from exaggerated claims and
purposeful obfuscations.
The nightmare demon, the terrifying "they" seems omnipresent, lurking
in the shadows, ready to strike, feeding on a steady diet of
misinformation.
They are listening. They are lying. They are covering up something.
They are out to get us.
And no matter how many times it seems demonstrated that particular
fears are misplaced, that only means we haven't dug deep enough,
haven't considered every fanciful possibility, haven't allowed our
phobias sufficient and full bloom.
The negative stands proudly unprovable, while the path of paranoia
seems clear by comparison. The glass stands half empty rather than
half full, as our leaders with only the best of intentions remodel
society and laws in the name of what's worst and most feared, rather
than in hope for a better and brighter tomorrow.
The red pill or the blue pill -- it matters not, for in the empire of
paranoia, all paths ultimately lead to the inner circles of our own
man-made hells.
It's way too early to fully understand the entire scope and purposes
of the NSA programs that are now in the headlines. But the odds are
we'll learn that NSA, exercising its own paranoia, did pretty much
exactly what a paranoid Congress and paranoid administrations wanted
NSA to do in the wake of 9/11, as horror at the attacks quickly gave
way to jingoism, and our Founding Fathers' dreams of ascendant civil
liberties gave way to the kind of political madness that has destroyed
an array of civilizations down the span of the centuries.
And throughout it all, as the truths and conspiracy theories and
exaggerations mix and mingle into a diseased, opaque pool of
pestilence -- within yet above the fray, reigning as sovereign --
paranoia itself sits on its blood-soaked throne -- smiling, nodding in
satisfaction, and knowing that in the end, it has indeed triumphed yet
again.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
- Data Wisdom Explorers League: http://www.dwel.org
- Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter: http://vortex.com/t-lauren
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
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