(5) Tom Drake, NSA Whistle Blower
http://www.whistleblower.org/action-center/save-tom-drake
(6) Bill Benny, NSA Whistle Blower
http://reason.com/blog/2014/01/12/before-edward-snowden-there-was-william
Please refer to these links, or do your own Web search, to learn how these heroes of critical thinking fought to promote the right--the moral--side of issues relating to war, peace, justice and constitutional law.
Naturally, in addition to the whistle blowers I've listed, any education in these issues to which American youth should be exposed before leaving high school would also include an introduction to Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. [3] John Kiriakou, the man who revealed US torture programs, would also be added to the list.
https://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_kgb_would_have_been_delighted_by_the_nsas_toys_20121130
All of these whistle blowers were persecuted, and many were prosecuted and/or arrested for their activities. Of course, as with any of America's youth today who may be contemplating joining the military or an intelligence agency, all of these men knew even before beginning their career that they would face danger in carrying out their professional duties. However, only a few knew before signing up that many of the threats they would face--on their lives, their health and their well-being--would come not from some enemy abroad (or terrorists in the streets of their homeland), but from their very own government, family, and friends. From among these groups, they would find little support for their own ideals of justice, fairness, democracy, freedom, and a better future.
Because of their willingness, against great odds, to serve as beacons showing the way for modern Americans and others around the globe to reform themselves and their nations, I look on whistle blowers as an important type of moral heroes. Now, it's time for ordinary Americans, and parents and societies around the world, to take on the same role. We have to encourage our children (and fellow countrymen) to envision and work toward an alternative sense of self that supports civil activism aimed at putting our society on the right side of history and justice, rather than allowing it to remain on the side of a powerful but destructive war machine.
A Kansan's Education in the 1970s
As many readers know, I came of age in one of those rare periods in modern American history when the US had no major wars in sight and was actually interested in avoiding them. I first went to a Kansas high school in 1976, when the US got out of the Angolan Civil War, the Church Committee was still shaking up the CIA, and the DOD had already left Vietnam. The election of Jimmy Carter that same year brought on a very short period when the US--for the first and only time--based much of its foreign policy on improving or promoting human rights. The late 1970s was also a time when some high schools, like my own in Sterling, Kansas, severely restricted military recruitment of its students. ROTC was unknown in most high schools in the state, or substantially reduced from what it had been in the early years after WWII.
I played on a very successful football team in high school, and also played trombone in the high school band. These activities gave me some confidence as an individual, but also taught me how to work together with others as a team.
At the same time, I was a peculiar high school footballer. For example, one Monday morning following a victorious Friday night varsity game, I went to my coach's office before school started and confronted him about what I thought was a very legitimate issue. I wondered why he hadn't allowed a greater percentage of players on the team the same privilege I had been allowed of actual playing time in the game. My position was that, by giving all of the players a regular chance to play, each individual would get better and more confident, and the team as a whole would grow stronger.
In short, my mindset even as a high schooler was very egalitarian--as my father had tried to raise his children to be. I was also encouraged by my schooling to think about things and not be afraid to ask adults difficult questions. There was a reason I had asked my coach why more lower-classman and non-starting athletes weren't given playing time: We were winning in any case, and in the overall scheme of things there wasn't a great deal of difference between those who were playing and some of those who were not. Fairness for me is imperative. It is one reason I feel that a system, such as the one in the US, where trillions of dollars are heaped on the military and military contractors each decade, while the rest of society scrounges for help and assistance, is far removed from any standard of fairness.
During the late 1970s, Americans made an effort to figure out what their relationship to the rest of the world should be. The era of Détente had brought some relaxation in the long-running Cold War, and America, under Carter, looked south to Latin America, returning, at least at first, to Roosevelt's hands-off, or Good Neighbor, policy toward the region. One result of that policy was to allow a people's movement in Nicaragua to force out of power the despotic regime of the Somoza family and its cronies.
In dealing with the echoes of national crises, which had enveloped the US during the Vietnam War and Watergate eras, movies with mixed messages on heroism emerged. In 1976, All the President's Men came out. In 1978, there were Coming Home and The Dear Hunter. Apocolypse Now followed the next year. For my high school generation, these films were the source of almost everything it knew about the Vietnam War-era. Fantasy hero films, like the ones with Sylvester Stallone's John Rambo character, would not come to theatres until 1982.
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