{"id":998,"date":"2005-12-24T08:16:02","date_gmt":"2005-12-24T06:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/?p=998"},"modified":"2005-12-24T08:16:48","modified_gmt":"2005-12-24T06:16:48","slug":"bushs-illegal-domestic-spying-has-echoes-of-apartheid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2005\/12\/24\/bushs-illegal-domestic-spying-has-echoes-of-apartheid\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush’s illegal domestic spying has echoes of apartheid"},"content":{"rendered":"

from americablog<\/a>, quoting newsweek<\/a>…. I think they went a little overboard on SA being the MOST hated – it’s just the most recently hated\/publicized. If only the USA could help out in Congo, neh? They blog as follows:<\/i><\/p>\n

Hey, cool, we’re now being compared to one of the most loathed, oppressive, vile governments in the history of mankind. You gotta admit, it takes a real special gift to take us from a shining city on the hill to apartheid in only 5 years.<\/p>\n

Tell me again that Osama hasn’t already won?<\/p>\n

From Newsweek<\/a>:<\/p>\n

For anyone who has lived under an authoritarian regime, phone tapping\u00e2\u20ac\u201dor at least the threat of it\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis always a given. But U.S. citizens have always been lucky enough to believe themselves protected from such government intrusion. So why have they reacted so insipidly to yet another post-9\/11 erosion of U.S. civil liberties?<\/p>\n

I’m sure there are many well-meaning Americans who agree with their president’s explanation that it’s all a necessary evil (and that patriotic citizens will not be spied on unless they dial up Osama bin Laden). But the nasty echoes of apartheid South Africa should at least give them pause.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then there’s this from Desmond Tutu:<\/p>\n

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the South African Anglican leader who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his principled fight for justice in his native country. “It’s unbelievable,” he told me in an interview, “that a country that many of us have looked to as the bastion of true freedom could now have eroded so many of the liberties we believed were upheld almost religiously.”<\/p>\n

Tutu recalled teaching in Jacksonville, Fla., when Bush won re-election in 2004. “I was shocked,” he said, “because I had naively believed all these many years that Americans genuinely believed in freedom of speech. [But I] discovered there that when you made an utterance that was remotely contrary to what the White House was saying, then they attacked you. For a South African the d\u00c3\u00a9j\u00c3\u00a0 vu was frightening. They behaved exactly the same way that used to happen here\u00e2\u20ac\u201dvilifying those who are putting forward a slightly different view.” Tutu made these comments to me exactly a year ago next week.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from americablog, quoting newsweek…. I think they went a little overboard on SA being the MOST hated – it’s just the most recently hated\/publicized. If only the USA could help out in Congo, neh? They blog as follows: Hey, cool, we’re now being compared to one of the most loathed, oppressive, vile governments in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9blZT-g6","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1338,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/01\/is-america-dead\/","url_meta":{"origin":998,"position":0},"title":"is america dead? (updated below)","author":"nathaniel","date":"01 October 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Friday was, perhaps, the saddest day in American history. And it went mostly quickly and quietly, except for the \"liberal\" lefty blogger base.These crazy opponents to Bush's new bill, which passed in the Senate 65-34, actually believe that Bush should not be able to legally torture or hold detainees permanently,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news and politics"","block_context":{"text":"news and politics","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/news-and-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":170,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2003\/08\/04\/dean-spots\/","url_meta":{"origin":998,"position":1},"title":"Dean spots","author":"nathaniel","date":"04 August 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Today, Dean is on the covers of Time, Newsweek, and US News & World Report. The articles, respectively, are: TIME.com: The Dean Factor -- Aug. 11, 2003 The Left's Mr. Right? U.S. News: Howard Dean isn't afraid of the president, so why are Democrats afraid of Dean? Yay.","rel":"","context":"In "news and politics"","block_context":{"text":"news and politics","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/news-and-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":956,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2005\/12\/02\/william-kentridge-on-net-art-news-a-mechanical-masterpiece\/","url_meta":{"origin":998,"position":2},"title":"William Kentridge on Net Art News: A Mechanical Masterpiece","author":"nathaniel","date":"02 December 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Cool to see William Kentridge on Rhizome - I can't wait to see this piece in action! Link to William Kentridge on Rhizome.org's Net Art News: A Mechanical Masterpiece: William Kentridge, one of South Africa's most acclaimed contemporary visual artists, gained international stardom at Documenta X (1997), where he exhibited\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":138,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2003\/07\/02\/talk-less\/","url_meta":{"origin":998,"position":3},"title":"talk less","author":"nathaniel","date":"02 July 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Thanks to the 24.7 artist residency, I've hooked up with the \"not so enigmatic but undoubtedly talented\" Wayne Barker this week. If you are unfamiliar with his work, his background features some very famous paintings, from the end of the apartheid era in SA, worth looking into. This performance piece\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":84,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2003\/05\/19\/newsies\/","url_meta":{"origin":998,"position":4},"title":"newsies","author":"nathaniel","date":"19 May 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Ooooooh. Two blogs one day. I couldn't resist just a little news surfing. Here's a nice one on Howard Dean. Fleischer is resigning and this could be good for the rest of America. Perhaps Bush won't find a decent press secretary (sigh)? Kerry is calling for a tax increase on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news and politics"","block_context":{"text":"news and politics","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/news-and-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1464,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/09\/catch-up-links-tidbits-etc\/","url_meta":{"origin":998,"position":5},"title":"catch-up, links, tidbits, etc","author":"nathaniel","date":"09 May 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Hey All: Been in Wales at this conference over the last 5 days or so, and lots has happened in the world since then, so this'll be a kind of ranty catch-up of random and, depending on who you are and what you like, potentially unimportant things. Nicole and my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}