Your Master’s Voice …

“Reprehensible,” says US Representative Kay Granger (R-TX) of the public release of thousands of documents relating to the US occupation of Afghanistan. It “risk[s] American lives.” It is the government’s responsibility to “protect state secrets.”

This is the same Kay Granger, of course, who supported the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and has continued to support the US occupation of that country for nearly nine years since.

Actually, she doesn’t merely “support” that occupation, she actively frames the terms under which it continues: She’s a member of the House Appropriations Committee and its “Defense” subcommittee, and the ranking member of its “State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs” subcommittees.

The Afghanistan occupation is Kay Granger’s baby. She “risks American lives” every time she justifies it, every times she engages in its planning, every time she votes to continue it and to continue funding it.

It’s not only in Afghanistan that she “risks American lives,” either.

She supported the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.

She’s actively worked to endanger the lives and well-being of US troops who might be captured on the battlefield by supporting the use of torture and kangaroo “military commission” courts with respect to their foreign counterparts.

Kay Granger doesn’t give a damn about “risking American lives.” She does so with abandon. She does so with presumed impunity. She does so without visible skepticism or self-doubt. And the blood of thousands of Americans stains the floor wherever she walks. She’s already killed more Americans than will ever die due to the Wikileaks document release.

It’s not the risk to American lives that has Kay Granger upset. It’s the fact that Wikileaks has outed the actual results of the policies she — and a majority of the 534 other US Representatives and US Senators she works with — supports and enables.

Like most politicians, Kay Granger’s bread and butter is the control of information. She’ll tell you what she’s going to do with the money she steals from your paycheck. Later she’ll tell you what she’s done, how swimmingly things are working out, how badly you need more of her and more of her talent for high-level machination. And, to the best of her ability, she’ll prevent anyone from superimposing inconvenient facts over that narrative. Her deepest, dearest desire is to be your master’s voice, the only voice to which you hearken.

The major threat to the modern state isn’t foreign invasion or even armed native insurrection — it’s the increasing ease with which its opponents can disseminate the truth about what government is and what government does. Government withers and dies under the harsh light of disclosure, exposure, transparency.

Congresswoman Granger is alarmed by the public release of thousands of “classified” (read “kept secret because they’re embarrassing to the state”) documents … and alarmed she should be. Her ability to keep you in the dark is an indispensable weapon in her overgrown street gang’s war for control of your life. In the age of Wikileaks, that weapon is quickly becoming as obsolete and anachronistic as a 12-pounder Napoleon would be in a modern artillery battery.