Mr. Whitehead took part in an interview with FNA to present his viewpoints regarding the police state and the lack of democracy in the US, the restrictions imposed on the American citizens following the 9/11 events and the costs the American taxpayers pay for the US government’s military expeditions across the world. What follows is the text of the interview.
Q: Mr. Whitehead; you’ve argued that the United States is becoming a police state in which the civil liberties are restricted, the phone calls, emails and transactions are spied on, the financial transactions are monitored, the legal types of protesting are criminalized and the innocent citizens are killed in shooting rampages. These are the realities which exist in the American society, but there are many people in the Third World countries, who tend to think of the United States as a utopia in which everything is orderly, perfect and freedom is unrestricted and at its highest level. Is it really the case? What’s your response to such people?
A: Americans do enjoy a significant amount of freedom in some respects compared to people in other countries. Obviously Americans are freer than, say, people in North Korea, but that is just an extreme example. Americans have largely ceded their rights and freedoms to the federal government, particularly since September 11, 2001, and every day we’re giving up more and more of our individual freedoms to the government. Furthermore, our electoral system is thoroughly corrupt, such that the average American has no real chance of affecting government policy. I would agree that Americans are in some respects more free than people in other nations, but if we don’t take note of our quickly eroding freedoms, that won’t be the case for long.