Dear America: You’re in the Army Now

[unhappycamper]

http://www.juancole.com/2014/06/america-militarization-everything.html

Dear America: You’re in the Army Now
By contributors | Jun. 13, 2014
By William J. Astore

I spent four college years in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) and then served 20 years in the U.S. Air Force. In the military, especially in basic training, you have no privacy. The government owns you. You’re “government issue,” just another G.I., a number on a dogtag that has your blood type and religion in case you need a transfusion or last rites. You get used to it. That sacrifice of individual privacy and personal autonomy is the price you pay for joining the military. Heck, I got a good career and a pension out of it, so don’t cry for me, America.

But this country has changed a lot since I joined ROTC in 1981, was fingerprinted, typed for blood, and otherwise poked and prodded. (I needed a medical waiver for myopia.) Nowadays, in Fortress America, every one of us is, in some sense, government issue in a surveillance state gone mad.

Unlike the recruiting poster of old, Uncle Sam doesn’t want you anymore — he already has you. You’ve been drafted into the American national security state. That much is evident from Edward Snowden’s revelations. Your email? It can be read. Your phone calls? Metadata about them is being gathered. Your smartphone? It’s a perfect tracking device if the government needs to find you. Your computer? Hackable and trackable. Your server? It’s at their service, not yours.

Many of the college students I’ve taught recently take such a loss of privacy for granted. They have no idea what’s gone missing from their lives and so don’t value what they’ve lost or, if they fret about it at all, console themselves with magical thinking — incantations like “I’ve done nothing wrong, so I’ve got nothing to hide.” They have little sense of how capricious governments can be about the definition of “wrong.”

[Smarmie Doofus]

1. Best single sentence:

>>>I’ve been out of the military for nearly a decade, and yet I feel more militarized today than when I wore a uniform. >>>>>

[yurbud]

2. and oddly, we probably feel less militarized, just as we don't feel like we're the most aggressive

nation on Earth at the moment.

[Dan]

4. I thought this sentence was...

They have little sense of how capricious governments can be about the definition of “wrong.”

[PeoViejo]

3. Good 'Gemans' have nothing to fear.

It's always been that way.

[WhiteShoesATL]

5. Misconduct Vet

I served from '03 to '09 until it just became too cheezy. I still respect most of those in the uniform but, military contractors gotta go. They ruin the whole idea of what it means, "to serve."
Most were corrupt, shady, and towards the last few years of my service I refused to talk to any of them... let alone take orders.
I thought Obama would change a lot of that so, I broke the law and campaigned for him. I figured I would, "wait it out and see."
HUGE MISTAKE! lol
Things kinda got worse and we were flooded with even more shadowy contractors in my intel unit.
I look at our culture today and it is sad how Prussian and militarized we have become.
To many Europeans it seems comical but, America is a special place. But I think we concentrate far too much on a military history that is not as noble as many would like to believe.
I am, however, proud of this country's labor movement which set a world precedent. I am proud of most of its technological developments as well as intellectual developments. Our music is awesome and culturally, thank God for African Americans or we'd just be another lame Euro country with only Beethoven based techno music lol (no offense but we're talkin jazz, blues, rock)