Who really needs "watching"?

Thanks to Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now," we have learned The San Jose Mercury News is reporting a special intelligence unit has been set up within the California National Guard to monitor radical peace agitators such as Gold Star Families for Peace (GSFP). GSFP is a national organization of families whose loved ones died as a result of the war in Iraq.

I don't have any family presently serving in Iraq. I do, however, have friends with family members there. It's not difficult imaging, however, joining such an organization as GSFP were I to lose a family member in this insane war. But to discover your group is under surveillance because a family member of yours made the supreme sacrifice in a war prosecuted on lies is about the ultimate insult your government can lay on you.

This past Mother's Day, GSFP was joined by Raging Grannies, women who have had enough of wars, oppression, injustice, racism, sexism, environmental destruction, multinational corporate control, eroding civil liberties, violence against women, children and poverty (whew, is that all?) in what was a small demonstration against the war.

Also present were members of Code Pink, a wonderfully brassy group of women for peace who always seem to get past security and embarrass administration officials publicly by unfurling banners and hurling raw nerved questions at officials the U.S. press corps no longer asks, no, no longer demands answers to! (Who can forget Code Pink's Medea Benjamin on the floor of the Rep. Nat'l Convention last summer asking VP Cheney how much money he'd made via Halliburton in Iraq that day as they escorted her out of the hall?)

And finally, one other group in attendence at the Mother's Day rally for peace were members of the California National Guard. Incognito, I'm sure.

A spokesperson for the National Guard justified their surveillance by saying "it would be 'negligent' in not tracking such anti-war rallies in the event that they disintegrate into a riot that could prompt the governor to call out troops.......after all, we live in the age of terrorism, so who knows?"

Just imagine. You've "earned" membership in a group because a family member died in Iraq and now your government's watching you? This is just another example of "Where the Hell Are We Going?, Are We There Yet?" I've talked about previously on this blog. (See below.)