When I searched for the term “parallel construction” only Wikipedia provided the definition I needed. The first dozen links returned grammar-related definitions, and that’s OK. Actually, it’s more than OK. The state is empowered and exists largely in the realm of language – not by facts or reality. Language is the most useful tool of government. Language shapes beliefs, constructs arguments, and lends credence to fantasy. Orwell explained this truth about language and government, and how language as control agent could, and would be technologically facilitated. Goebbels understood this, as do the ruling classes, neoconservatives, and of course, advertisers everywhere. There is what is said and believed, and then there is a measureable concrete reality.
In words, government at all levels helps us do “things” we couldn’t or wouldn’t do otherwise. In reality, government is parasitical in the way of the tapeworm or tick, consuming what we produce, feeding itself, and growing larger, until it becomes unsustainable and is gracelessly shed by an exhausted population.
In words, the United States is at war with her enemies. In reality, there is no “war” with any US “enemies.” Rather, the US government is a war-loving and warfare-dependent organization that seeks internal and external conflict using two key and opposing criteria: 1) conflicts and wars it may involve itself in without attracting any domestic attention, and 2) conflicts fomented to attract the “right” kind of domestic attention, i.e. against “terror” and for “democracy” or “justice.” This is precisely why there is such rage in the machine against truthtellers Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden.
Manning was subjected to institutionalized torture, mistreated, and labeled a “guilty traitor” by bureaucrats for nearly four years before his date with a kangaroo court. He faces up to 90 years of prison for what has already been shown in the court to be a crime without a victim. In reality, his actions did little more than embarrass State Department lackeys and reveal the real nature of America’s modern day “fighting men” to people around the world. Many who watched the incriminating video of US soldiers killing civilians and laughing about it were already familiar with America’s high tech and soulless wars against fourth rate militaries or no-count insurgencies in far away countries filled with poor brown people. Having a conscience, a backbone and faith in the good of mankind has gotten Manning nowhere in his government career, and if he is not a martyr, he is certainly a posterboy for why every good and honorable person should tread lightly around the snake of state.
Snowden seems to have particularly infuriated the head of state in this country – by ingeniously honoring his oath to the Constitution and acting on his own faith that government works for us, not the other way around. He was mistaken in this belief, but by acting nobly he exposed the nefarious lying hypocrite that is the President, the executive branch and the warfare state, and as we no doubt will see in coming years, the welfare state as well. Because he is mild mannered and polite, intelligent and honest, he makes a perfect superman to the USG villains. That he wisely sought personal safety and freedom of speech outside of the United States (in Putin’s Russia!) is a further source of enragement to our “government” – viscerally and fundamentally exposing its hypocrisy and lawlessness to the patriotic masses.
In words, Washington seeks democracy and fights terrorism. In reality, the US government funds Islamic fundamentalism around the world, subsidizes tyrants and dictators, and actively trades with and works with al Qaeda places like Libya and Syria. In reality, US tax dollars funds murder of innocents and those of good will. The US government funds and facilitates the murders of Christians in Iraq, Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere and has done so for years with the reliable, predictable, and entirely indefensible support of “pro-Christian values” Congressmen and Senators.
A few days ago, in a parking lot picking up supplies from our regional organic supplier, I was reminded that Obama policies in Syria (and our own tax dollars) have directly caused a recent atrocity that is similar to many others, none of which seem to make mainstream news in the “heartland” or to shift state policy.
In that parking lot, my Catholic neighbor was frustrated that our own conservative Congressman for the 6th Virginia district had continually voted to support the foreign policy of aid to tyrants and al Qaeda linked groups. He has written repeatedly to the Congressman’s office, recently on the US-funded murder of Friar Murad in Syria, and he has garnered no response. Silence. Checking this conservative Congressman’s voting record finds that he also recently voted to continue funding the illegal domestic monitoring and data collection ongoing by NSA, unconstitutional programs that Ed Snowden helped us better understand (building on the truths told by James Bamford and Russ Tice.) The Democrats are no better — they support murder and monitoring at home and abroad as predictably as the Republicans. New fractures along the lines of state and anti-state seem to be emerging, and this is at once a sign of hope, but also a harbinger for the centralized state’s larger ongoing battle against the rest of us for its survival, a battle that increasingly forces all of us to choose sides, to clarify our values, and to prepare.
Truthtellers like Manning and Snowden have impacted the world of lying and wordsmithing governments in ways that may not have been initially seen. The unraveling of the government storyline is irreversible. From knowledge of our government’s ability and intentions to know everything about us have come demands from defense attorneys, corporations, and interest groups for the data “they paid for.” From this data we get a closer semblance of “justice” in individual cases, and from this we open the door more widely to recognizing broad government stupidity, excess and overreach. From widespread recognition of stupidity, excess and overreach we get a new confidence from the nether regions and otherwise unempowered rubes (present company included). We get resource flows away from government. We see that the IRS can’t enforce Obamacare, IT guys buy government-allied newspapers for pennies on the dollar, and private sector engineers design space, time and transportation solutions as government bureaucrats gaze helpless, speechless, doe-eyed.
A small but perfect intersection of these concepts is demonstrated by “parallel construction,” as defined by the FBI, DEA and dozens of other agencies that share “sources.” Simply put, the government recreates a fact stream to hide the actual facts, as a matter of longstanding policy.
It’s always done for a “good cause,” to protect the paid stooges, narcs and government informers so critical to the government “making its case” and justifying its activities. Except, now that we know more about how the government operates, and we see how the 
government works not for us, but for itself and its connected corporate or bureaucratic “friends,” we the people don’t really like “parallel construction.” We the people don’t like being taken for idiots, being lied to, getting the runaround, funding their own
accusers and paying bureaucratic peeping Toms.
The Constitution bound no man, and the Founders knew it wouldn’t. However, its language offers a grappling hook for those who value liberty and honesty – and inevitably it is language today that powerfully arms us against the state. As in any guerilla war, we systematically acquire our enemy’s cache and use his techniques and weaponry against him. The concept of parallel construction – a weapon of the state – is so understandably in violation of the law in a way that touches so many people – that we who oppose the state must chuckle and celebrate. The government’s admission and embrace of a policy of “parallel construction” in the ongoing era of the Panopticon is one more revelation of the utter lawlessness of the state, and it has great potential to increase mass intolerance of state “authority.”
