John W. Whitehead

“But these weren’t the kind of monsters that had tentacles and rotting skin, the kind a seven-year-old might be able to wrap his mind around – they were monsters with human faces, in crisp uniforms, marching in lockstep, so banal you don’t recognize them for what they are until it’s too late.” – Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children The U.S. … Continue reading “The Making of a Monster”

“Pity the nation whose people are sheep And whose shepherds mislead them Pity the nation whose leaders are liars Whose sages are silenced And whose bigots haunt the airwaves Pity the nation that raises not its voice Except to praise conquerors And acclaim the bully as hero And aims to rule the world By force … Continue reading “Pity the Nation: War Spending Is Bankrupting America”

“For soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, coming home is more lethal than being in combat.” ~ Brené Brown, research professor at the University of Houston Not all heroes wear the uniform of war. In the United States, however, we take particular pride in recognizing as heroes those who have served in the military. Yet … Continue reading “A Badge of Shame: The Government’s War on America’s Military Veterans”

“Why throw money at defense when everything is falling down around us? Do we need to spend more money on our military (about $600 billion this year) than the next seven countries combined? Do we need 1.4 million active military personnel and 850,000 reserves when the enemy at the moment – ISIS – numbers in … Continue reading “The Military Industrial Complex Strikes Again”

“If we’re training cops as soldiers, giving them equipment like soldiers, dressing them up as soldiers, when are they going to pick up the mentality of soldiers? If you look at the police department, their creed is to protect and to serve. A soldier’s mission is to engage his enemy in close combat and kill … Continue reading “Battlefield America Is the New Normal”

“We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from government.” ~ William O. Douglas, Supreme Court Justice, dissenting in Osborn v. United States, 385 U.S. 341 (1966) The government has become an expert in finding ways to sidestep what it … Continue reading “The Age of No Privacy: The Surveillance State Shifts Into High Gear”

“The means of defense against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.” ~ James Madison Who designed the malware worm that is now wreaking havoc on tens of thousands of computers internationally by hackers demanding a king’s ransom? The U.S. government. Who is the biggest black market buyer and stockpiler of cyberweapons (weaponized … Continue reading “America’s Reign of Terror”

“You had to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.” ~ George Orwell, 1984 Supposedly the National Security Administration is going to stop collecting certain Internet communications that merely mention a foreign intelligence target. Privacy advocates are hailing … Continue reading “Big Brother Is Still Watching You”

“We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth.” ~ Former New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg Let’s talk about fake news stories, shall we? There’s the garden variety fake news that is not really “news” so much as it is titillating, tabloid-worthy material peddled by anyone with a … Continue reading “When It Comes to Fake News, the US Government Is the Biggest Culprit”

“No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.”? ~ Edward R. Murrow We’ve walked a strange and harrowing road since September 11, 2001, littered with the debris of our once-vaunted liberties. We have gone from a nation that took great pride in being a model of a representative democracy to being a … Continue reading “The Tyranny of 9/11”