Virtual America
Copyright © James Henry Graf, 1996-2001
Virtual America
Copyright © James Henry Graf, 1996-2001
I am James Henry Graf, a virtual prisoner in a virtual democracy, a hostage trapped in a land that has strayed far from reality. This is my statement and a small part of my story.
An American whistleblower and an advocate for the human rights of all, I have never used or advocated violence, nor has any state or nation ever charged me with a crime. Nevertheless, because of what I believe, say, and write, what I know and have tried to communicate, I have seen more than seven thousand days of surveillance, defamation, persecution, terrorism, mental torture, and more, for which society denies recourse and law provides no remedy.
In 1984 and 1985, I blew the whistle on civil liberties violations involving persons at my workplace and corrupt police, prosecutors, and intelligence agents. The gangsters, government and "private," whose crimes I had tried to reveal invaded my privacy, slanderously attacked my character and reputation, impugned my sanity, assaulted me with radiation and bio-chemical weapons, killed my dog, and tortured me with electromagnetic weapons. They forced me out of my job without due process, wrecked my car, broke up my marriage, drove me into exile, violated my rights abroad, and thrice conspired to coerce my return to this benighted nation. Thrust from prosperity to poverty, from health to disability, from dignity to disgrace, I am left alone in the company of hard, sad, frightening truth.
Yes, this happens here in the birthplace of modern democracy. Behind an angelic facade lurks a satanic reality, an America that pursues its critics with a fanaticism unsurpassed by any Iranian mullah, mobilizing the community in such harassment of targeted persons as the Chinese experienced in their Cultural Revolution, aping the defunct Soviet Union in its use of psychiatric evaluations as instruments of intimidation and discreditation, circumventing due process with a disregard of Constitutional liberty and human dignity frighteningly reminiscent of Germany's Third Reich.
Many have warned that the marriage of fascist mentality and Twenty-first Century technology may produce a monster most hideous. The perspicacious Dave Emory, an American researcher and broadcaster, has stated that in the absence of positive change we may soon face "the total world triumph of absolute evil, forever." From the deep virtual dungeon of my personal experience, I thoroughly agree and boldly bear witness.
The mock democracy that has cheated, persecuted, humiliated, terrorized, and tortured me is really a "national security" dictatorship, a land surreptitiously controlled by an insolent overclass contemptuous of Law and Constitution, using astounding technology to advance an essentially fascist agenda. It is a vicious, capricious empire, the domain of drooling Caligulas and snarling Torquemadas whose unchecked malevolence enlists the aid of legions of cowards, crooks, liars, and fools. It is a culture of contempt, where personal attack supplants rational debate, where artificial distinctions abound while valid ones are ignored. All is arbitrary here. Everything is relative. Law, ethics, and very reality are defined to suit the nefarious purposes of those in power.
My America is holographic, virtual. The faces that pretend to rule, the stentorian voices that speak to and for the people, the flags that flutter so high above our heads, are just as unreal and unreachable as those guiding principles now buried beneath heaps of self-interested rhetoric and pervasive apathy. The pretty, pithy phrases that so enthralled me in my youth -- "a government of laws, not of men," " the equal protection of the laws, " inalienable rights," "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" -- echo hollowly now in my ears.
An intangible Berlin Wall surrounds my America, an invisible Iron Curtain. I left my native land three times, seeking political asylum in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Belgium. In corruption and cowardice, those enlightened nations thrust me three times back into a virtual hell from which I can no longer even hope to escape. Virtual America, through its very palpable power, has spawned Virtual World.
I am a non-person, ignored or rejected by all, frustrated in my every earnest effort to obtain effective advocacy and justice under law. Define me now as an anti-American American citizen. I have become an enemy of the United States, not by any primal intent or plan of mine, but by the inhuman designs and machinations of my government these many years. One cannot love a government that abuses the human rights of its people and assiduously avoids accountability, that rewards selfishness over service, that abandons principle and enshrines expediency.
I see my government now attacking the poor as it has attacked me, stealing the liberties of others as it has mine, punishing victims while rewarding scoundrels. I see the people unaware, numbed, somnambulating. Hobbled as I am, there is little I can do to help. So isolated am I that I cannot even obtain information about United Nations human rights complaints that date back to 1991. I have voted three times with my feet. There is nothing here that makes me want to stay. Were I well enough and wealthy enough, I would surely shake from my soles the dust of this cosmically disappointing and dangerous place.
As an individual, I am no more important than all the other brave souls of earth -- most of them enduring far greater pain than I -- who may be considered Prisoners of Conscience. The significance of my circumstance lies in the power, contumacious attitude, and tyrannical intent of those who oppress me, and, as well, in my utter abandonment by those persons, organizations, and governments who carry the standard of decency and humanitarian concern. My experiences bespeak a serious breakdown of those systems -- state, national, and international, public and private -- that are supposed to control abuse of public power.
The sad reality is this: in practical terms, there is no United States Constitution. Those who really rule here are not elected by or accountable to the people. The Bill of Rights is contingent, circumstantial, virtual. What has happened to me -- much more than there is room here to tell -- can happen to anyone. Human rights, human liberty, security of mind and body, and the very concepts of dignity and decency may be lost forever.
I appeal to all who read this to hold my nation, as well as the European states against whom I have a cause of action, fully accountable under the international human rights agreements to which they have freely assented. Throw open the curtain. Let in the light. I have dignity, integrity, and intellect. Let them be recognized. I have charges to make. Let them be accepted and investigated. I have truth to tell. Let it be heard and understood. Let Virtual America actualize itself. Let Virtual World come to its senses, while there is still time.