Stasi

The MfS, Ministerium fur Statssicherheit, also known as Stasi, monitored and attempted to control the lives of East Germans under Soviet occupation. I strongly urge anyone who is too young to remember the Stasi to read up on it or watch some videos about it.

 

Any bureaucracy, such as government, can flip from an institution created by and for its supporters/funders to a institution manipulated by the few within to amass power and control over those same initial supporters/funders. Our U.S. government has been flipping in this direction since the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Those in government and those who seek to control government from outside of it have been given a 12-year pass on violating civil liberties of American citizens. This is extremely dangerous.

 

President Obama's minimizing of the current furor over the surveillance being conducted on the phones and computers of millions of Americans is a symptom of the problem. Americans should be outraged at these revelations. They should wake from their conformist sleep. They are not safer under a spying and controlling government, which is now being openly manipulated by corporate interests with the blessing of the Supreme Court, the Presidency and Congress.  

 

The bland politically correct and "it's all good" media brainwashing of the last decade has been engineered to dull the traditional American penchant for protest and skepticism. This is not paranoia. Paranoia is an irrational fear. Mine is a rational fear based on growing up as a sexual minority in times when the government placed men like me, judged as deviants, in state hospitals for electroshock therapy. Yes, this occurred in my own lifetime. Turning this around did not happen by sipping a cocktail and purring "It's all good."