It's actually worse than that. Donald Rumsfeld was given Osama Bin Laden on a silver platter and refused to take him.
The guy was in Pakistan as a regular citizen while we were fighting two wars that cost us trillions and a number of lives for oil!
We didn't NEED the surveillance and it wasn't a priority with Bush. Yet here we are, dealing with the fallout of two wars and the need for constant surveillance tolling a death knell as we have no more terrorists to fight besides home grown protestors to the status quo.
Okay, the problem here is the fact that the president of the United States is using some key language here...
Most telling is his use of "Americans".
If anyone has studied US history, people always want to defend "Americans" but everyone else is not considered worth their time. Right now, environmentalists are considered terrorists. Your rights at the border are considered forfeit along with immigrants. Who is considered American is pretty clearly defined by this point. And that's the problem...
If you don't make enough money or you're not part of the elite, you aren't an American in the eyes of the government. You have no rights. You don't have a right to remain silent, nor do you have the right to an attorney. You have a right to die, cold, alone, and on the street corner for all they care.
You are a terrorist unless otherwise noted and the government will track you because you aren't a human being in their eyes. That's what the president is very clearly saying here:
BARACK OBAMA: The way I view it -- my job is both to protect the American people and to protect the American way of life which includes our privacy. And so every program that we engage in, what I’ve said is let’s examine and make sure that we’re making the right tradeoffs.
Think about everything that's happened since 9/11... How does keeping the public poor and destitute while giving them failed policies keep them safe? There are no tradeoffs here. The public's civil rights have been infringed and the president's job isn't to protect the people. It never was. His job is to uphold the Constitution which he has failed to do so.
But it's pretty obvious to me what he's doing. The book on propaganda is what influenced even Nixon to push for a large domestic spying program that curtailed the rights of minorities. Hell, the entire Southern Strategy is the result of Nixon and his dog whistles to conservatives. And Obama does this to please his constituents. He isn't talking to you, the viewer. He's signalling to his donors that he's still going to fight this and he is going to support the minority of the population that agrees with him. The first step is the language he uses to hide his agenda.
Even more, let's remember that Obama is implicit in being a kingmaker. The re-signing of the NDAA, the renewal of the Patriot Act, and other bills such as CISPA show us that he wants nothing more than to ensure the inequality of the public in their ability to fight back in this.
It all starts with language. He protects the elite and it's disgusting that he won't protect the public and the Constitution that we all hold dear.
I do indeed have my own issues with the Constitution based on how undemocratic it is but I at least acknowledge that you can't just selectively interpret its laws and rulings. That's what people in power actively want and it becomes transparent that everyone in positions of power are doing this to maintain unequal power over they public that they're supposed to represent.
Okay, I'm still skeptical. Microsoft was facing a showdown with the EU and it seems they capitulated since they have this plus the Prism scandal to deal with. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seemed that everything they were trying for was derailed since the EU planned to have a few discussions with banning the Xbone due to the restrictions in play.
Try being a fan of Mother or other games that are highly sought after...
I wouldn't turn in my games if I knew how good they were. And the fact that there is no way to rent anymore besides Gamefly cements in my mind that publishers are losing opportunities to impress me by not opening new markets for themselves.
Do not make the mistake of comparing this time with that.
Ok... But let's do the exact opposite and see if there are parallels.
Germany was in the grip of a devastating depression, with civil anarchy as a theme.
How is that different from the US being gripped with punishing austerity in their sixth year while we give more money to the rich and leave the scraps for the rest of the nation?
There were no good leaders, no cohesive groups or mindset.
Communists were banned from influencing the government and their exclusion lead to extreme conservatism by the libertarians of the time. I try to keep partisanry out of the example, but it still explains the basic gist of corporatism that is currently going on in our country today.
The reparations the country made to the Allies were crippling the economy to the point of utter exhaustion.
No question. But look at our economy sputtering along when the rich could be taxed to provide better public services. Look at the demagoguery between liberals and conservatives in keeping a corrupt and unequal system of governance that is exhausting the people itself.
Hitler was 'selected' by the people because they were desperate for a leader who would lead them out of a economic misry so vast that the money would change value in hours.
True. And that's why austerity is so dangerous even in the country now. It makes people desperate to find blame with the weakest people of a nation and works to find scapegoats and con artists in positions of power.
Add to that the substrata of hatred towards one select group as the reason for their misery, and you have a country that was ready to give any man who had their hearts and minds in his speeches.
And how is that any different from the US and their degradation of blacks in the Drug War, the peonage system we've used since the Civil War, or the fact that we have plenty of people that have felt the effects of influential speakers in making life harder for people all around?
There are no Gestapo agents busting down doors to find the nearest Jew to put into concentration camps.
Try being black and having law enforcement break down your door with no-knock warrants. We have more people killed by police officers every day than were ever killed by terrorism.
There are no detention centers for intellectuals.
Aaron Schwartz' prosecution says otherwise. We don't detain the financially wealthy. We detain and subject everyone else to harsher fates for doing nothing other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The NSA does have too much power, and true, it has been used recklessly and without checks on it.
And all I've done is show the history of the 30s, which others have not learned. I stand by the view that if we move further to extreme conservatism, we will see fascism arise in the US. And that will be the utter end of the democratic experiment that began in 1776. Personally, I believe that there can be a new democratic experiment. It just means that our institutions will have to be changed considerably to allow more democracy than what the Founders ever intended. No electoral college. No 3/5th Compromise. No loss of votes for all American citizens.
But to pander to the view that we're going to turn into Nazi Germany because of it is sheer utter intellectual posturing and false straw man argument.
Nope. Just as we can learn about history to prevent it, so too can we learn to avoid the mistakes of even Germany and its bout with fascism. I stand firm that this was created to show how our history has progressed for the past 40 years. Maybe you don't agree. But with parallels in how we treat minority groups, it's time to recognize that we are dangerously close to the brink of our own destruction and that's difficult to accept but a desperate conversation needed right now.
February 27, 1933. That was the rise of Hitler. Democracy died that day in Germany. Those in charge received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed.
You see, the people were distracted by their unelected "leader", a man who was chosen for the position by the elites. He wasn't supposed to be there. Many citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted. But he knew... They'd all be punished in the end. They dismissed him as a simpleton. He had simple, inflammatory rhetoric and knew how to have passionate speeches. But even his younger days in the occult didn't stop his rise to power. For this gentleman knew...
He knew the terrorist was going to strike (just not where or when). So when an aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified that it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference.
That fire was used not to declare war on a nation but a tactic: terrorism. This terrorism had to have originated with a group of people of Middle Eastern origin who rationalized their acts using religion.
Two weeks later, suspected allies were held in prison and patriotism erupted everywhere with the leader's flag. Within four weeks of the attack, the nations leader had pushed through legislation - in the name of fighting terrorism and the philosophy that spawned it - which suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Now police could intercept mail and wiretap phones; terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and no access to lawyers. Police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.
And people went along because he promised sunset provisions.
But the people got gradual increases in state sponsored terrorism. More people began to be arrested for suspicious acts. Pretty soon, the nation was referred to as "the homeland" in 1934. The beginning of an us-vs-them mentality pursued.
Then the push for more military war powers began. His argument? "Any international body that didn't act first and foremost in the best interest of his own nation was neither relevant nor useful. He withdrew his country form the League of Nations in October 1933 and negotiated a separate naval armaments agreement with Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Anthony Eden in the United Kingdom to create a worldwide military ruling elite.
To get the evangelicals of his country he proclaimed a need for a revival of the Christian faith across his nation with his "New Christianity". Every man in the growing army wore a belt buckle that declared Gott mit uns - God is with us- and most of them fervently believed it was true.
Within a year of the attack, the nation's leader began to coordinate various local police and federal agencies around the nation around Middle Eastern terrorism. What would eventually occur is that this national agency that was mandated to protect the security of the homeland, dealt with the press and had them at their disposal. They asked people to phone in suspicious neighbors.
And yet, that program began to grab opposition politicians and celebrities who dared speak out. Then the thirst for more power began... He reached out to industry and forged an alliance with them by bringing former executives of the nation's largest corporations into high government positions. Government money poured into corporate coffers to fight the war against terrorists in the homeland and to prepare for wars overseas. Powerful alliances with industries culminated into one of the first large-scale detention centers for enemies of the state.
And yet, voices began to dissent.
Students started an active program against him called the White Rose Society and leaders of neary nations were speaking out against his bellicose rhetoric.
So he created a diversion to get away from the crony capitalism he'd implemented, the questions of his illegitimate rise to power, and the civil libertarians who voiced concerns about the people being held in detentions without due process or access to attorneys or family.
And so, Adolf Hitler began his grandstanding for war. He claimed the right to strike preemptively in self defense. Months of lobbying and international debate ensued and he was allowed to annex Austria. To deal with the damage, Hitler and his "friends" in the radio began a campaign to equate him and his policies with patriotism and the nation itself. If you questioned him, you were labeled unpatriotic, "anti-German," or "not a good German" while you were aiding the enemies of the state by failing in the patriotic necessity of supporting the nation's valiant men in uniform. It was the most effective ways to stifle dissent and pit wage earning people against the intellectuals and liberals critical of his policy.
And so to divert attention away from his policies, he focused the nation on war. There was violence against liberals, Jews, and union leaders and the epidemic of crony capitalism was producing empires of wealth in the corporate sector but threatening the middle class's way of life.
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told his people that giving in to this leader's new first-strike doctrine for a second time would bring "peace for our time".
A year later, to the week, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia. Germany was fully at war and all internal dissent suppressed in the name of national security.
By the way... The office for the security of the homeland? That was the schutzstaffel. We know it in the US as the SS.
The US has been going down the same fascist path as other nations with the very same results... We created an aristocracy with Reagan, fought wars while eliminating public services under both Bushes, attacked our poor with crippling poverty under Clinton and Obama, while turning our democracy into a police state for the past 40 years.
Tread lightly... Our republic cannot stay on this path without dire consequences in the near future.
" Further, it's important to bear in mind I'm being called a traitor by men like former Vice President Dick Cheney. This is a man who gave us the warrantless wiretapping scheme as a kind of atrocity warm-up on the way to deceitfully engineering a conflict that has killed over 4,400 and maimed nearly 32,000 Americans, as well as leaving over 100,000 Iraqis dead. Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American, and the more panicked talk we hear from people like him, Feinstein, and King, the better off we all are. If they had taught a class on how to be the kind of citizen Dick Cheney worries about, I would have finished high school."
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The THOUSANDS of firms, with Google at top.
We need to stop playing the right-vs-left political game and start looking at things from a Constitutional stance.
There isn't really a "right vs left" game here. If you look at the political spectrum, it's neoclassical ideologies battling it out, ie conservatives vs liberals. If we were to actually have left wing politics, you would have communists vs conservatives and that isn't happening.
We must stand together as one people, indivisible, and demand that the government stop violating our rights. No other issue is more pressing than this one.
And there's plenty of ways to do that. In particular, I'm a fan of Constitutional amendments banning the electoral college, instituting proportional representation, and allowing people to form into unions or other businesses that they enjoy.
If we cannot even maintain our liberties, our rights, our privacy, if we allow the government and their goon squads to walk all over us for the sake of 'national security,' we have no right calling ourselves the land of the free, home of the brave
If we understood that political inequality leads to economic inequality, I'm sure that we'd have a much better system than now. Sadly, until more people decide that they've had enough austerity, this problem will continue.
The sad part about this is that if Biden were president right now, we'd be fighting SOPA while Biden has us at war with China over copyright infringement.
I think a better idea might be to focus on the people they protect. If you focus on the government, it leads to private actors to repeat the process. That was the point I wanted to make. Any focus on the government should also focus on the private actors that they're protecting or we'll see a repeat of this and that's what I want to avoid.
If the reporting on this is true, then I'm not going to blame the government.
Okay, put down your pitchforks and let me explain...
I've always ran on the idea that people respond to incentives. While I accept that the government did want more power, there's a second story at play here...
Who is the government trying to protect? As far as I can gather, with the HBGary leak, the Manning leaks, and now the Prism leaks, there's a recurring theme...
I have to put my money on the contractors and the competition to Wikileaks wanting to erase anyone that opposes them. Our government already outsources 70% of their contracts to Booz Allen, Halliburton, and other private information contractors.
So how is it any wonder that the government shares interests with the people it protects?
We lost our democratic republic and the government works for the highest bidder. And the bidders are the Stratfors, and other defense contractors that milk taxpayer dollars for their own salaries and are unscrupulous when it comes to using the government to do their bidding.
I mean hell, the corruption laundering has been going on for so long that we have corporate interests in how people enjoy the arts as well as what information is public.
Is it really that much of a stretch to think that our government is not what the people wanted but what the people in high positions of power want?
Re: Re: Re: Re: The THOUSANDS of firms, with Google at top.
She's a neoliberal similar to Nixon. She maintains the status quo and her own paycheck through plausible deniability of government issues.
I think people should be aware that even FDR would approve of her tactics until the public revolted against him. Liberalism is still a right wing ideology after all.
The telcos want to maintain their strength. What they've done is essentially ensure their own demise by going against what the public wants. AT&T and Verizon have immunity from the government. But they need government approval of mergers that could make them larger. So they want to protect from that.
So they have the public that's angry at them while the government would actually punish them if they decide to talk about this issue.
One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.
And, on top of that, people are pointing out that if Snowden could walk out with that much supposedly secret information, you have to wonder who else has done so as well, perhaps with much more nefarious intent, such as selling the information to a foreign power or group. Conor Friedersdorf points out that having the NSA collect so much data makes it a key target for the Chinese:
Didn't we learn from the Stratfor emails that we're already selling American secrets to others?
We sold secrets to Turkey and other countries based on what Stratfor did for money. So you mean to tell me that we should worry about the Chinese?
I think we should worry more about the profit motive in America.
"It teaches practically everyone in the world—sources, liaison services—that America can’t keep secrets."
There's a few contexts that need to be made here. Michael Hayden represents the richest people in the world. The CIA has long been used to depose democracy for the proliferation of American corporations. The NSA has worked to protect the richest members of society. So when he's talking about America, he's specifically talking about a small cabal of people that have what I should term a "shadow democracy". It's not a democracy where the public is served, it's one that only goes to the people with the most money to buy it. Most would call it crony capitalism, but there's plenty of synonymous words for it.
Now let's put out there that American corporations have a lot of influence in the government. We're criticizing a government that isn't put there to protect the American public. We should be asking who it is protecting and why has it decided to do so in an undemocratic manner.
No one that I know of would want the government spying on them. No one seriously thinks that the government should be able to snoop on everyone. Sure, we can use the buzzword of terrorist, just as Communist was the big one in the 50s and 60s or Reds in the 30s. But spying on ALL citizens in a large vacuum? Secret courts? Secret documents saying a person is guilty? No ability to defend oneself from unjust prosecution?
Kafkaesque courts that deprive you of your life and liberties with vague guidelines?
This is not how to run a society. We have a military-industrial-Congresso-complex that harms the rights of its citizens and forces through laws which protect certain Americans. Congress passes the laws, the military and CIA execute them, and the president signs off on them. That isn't a democracy. It's a dictatorship.
I find it stunning that this is one thing that Democrats and Republicans agree on. This was dangerous to America. How? It's like everyone just totally forgot that the public they represent wouldn't want these impeachments on the Constitution.
And people are letting them do it. There's a lot to be lost if this continues. People's freedoms and liberties should be far more important than false securities of people in very high positions of power.
To me it seems USA is setting the standards of paranoia extremely high after 9/11 2001.
That was the catalyst. This entire issue of overwrought security has been in place since Truman. Nixon helped create the events that have given us a secretive government which looks out for itself instead of the people.
This is essentially 40 years of people being trained in secrecy, media manipulation, and backroom dealing that makes WWI look quaint.
Are you nuts? Have you not been paying attention? Everytime a whistleblower went through the proper channels, they were prosecuted from William Binney to Bradley Manning.
It's time to recognize that the "proper channels" are severely limited and do nothing for the people showing and exposing the corrupting behavior.
If he did, he wouldn't be able to give the warnings that he did. Which is worse, to know how this program began and get these people on the record, or to be on the outside looking in while they do this without explicit knowledge?
On the post: Yet Another Claim Of How NSA Surveillance 'Saved Us' From Terrorists Falls Apart Under Scrutiny
Re: Re:
The guy was in Pakistan as a regular citizen while we were fighting two wars that cost us trillions and a number of lives for oil!
We didn't NEED the surveillance and it wasn't a priority with Bush. Yet here we are, dealing with the fallout of two wars and the need for constant surveillance tolling a death knell as we have no more terrorists to fight besides home grown protestors to the status quo.
On the post: President Obama's Weak Defense Of NSA Spying On Charlie Rose
Language is key
Most telling is his use of "Americans".
If anyone has studied US history, people always want to defend "Americans" but everyone else is not considered worth their time. Right now, environmentalists are considered terrorists. Your rights at the border are considered forfeit along with immigrants. Who is considered American is pretty clearly defined by this point. And that's the problem...
If you don't make enough money or you're not part of the elite, you aren't an American in the eyes of the government. You have no rights. You don't have a right to remain silent, nor do you have the right to an attorney. You have a right to die, cold, alone, and on the street corner for all they care.
You are a terrorist unless otherwise noted and the government will track you because you aren't a human being in their eyes. That's what the president is very clearly saying here:
BARACK OBAMA: The way I view it -- my job is both to protect the American people and to protect the American way of life which includes our privacy. And so every program that we engage in, what I’ve said is let’s examine and make sure that we’re making the right tradeoffs.
Think about everything that's happened since 9/11... How does keeping the public poor and destitute while giving them failed policies keep them safe? There are no tradeoffs here. The public's civil rights have been infringed and the president's job isn't to protect the people. It never was. His job is to uphold the Constitution which he has failed to do so.
But it's pretty obvious to me what he's doing. The book on propaganda is what influenced even Nixon to push for a large domestic spying program that curtailed the rights of minorities. Hell, the entire Southern Strategy is the result of Nixon and his dog whistles to conservatives. And Obama does this to please his constituents. He isn't talking to you, the viewer. He's signalling to his donors that he's still going to fight this and he is going to support the minority of the population that agrees with him. The first step is the language he uses to hide his agenda.
Even more, let's remember that Obama is implicit in being a kingmaker. The re-signing of the NDAA, the renewal of the Patriot Act, and other bills such as CISPA show us that he wants nothing more than to ensure the inequality of the public in their ability to fight back in this.
It all starts with language. He protects the elite and it's disgusting that he won't protect the public and the Constitution that we all hold dear.
I do indeed have my own issues with the Constitution based on how undemocratic it is but I at least acknowledge that you can't just selectively interpret its laws and rulings. That's what people in power actively want and it becomes transparent that everyone in positions of power are doing this to maintain unequal power over they public that they're supposed to represent.
On the post: Microsoft Capitulates, Removes Online DRM From Xbox One
Not buying it...
On the post: 'Gears Of War' Designer: Used Games Must Be Killed So Unsustainable Development Can Live
Re: Re: Re:
I wouldn't turn in my games if I knew how good they were. And the fact that there is no way to rent anymore besides Gamefly cements in my mind that publishers are losing opportunities to impress me by not opening new markets for themselves.
On the post: NSA Boss Asks Congress For Blanket Immunity For Companies That Help NSA Spy On Everyone
Re: Re: Godwins' Law
Do not make the mistake of comparing this time with that.
Ok... But let's do the exact opposite and see if there are parallels.
Germany was in the grip of a devastating depression, with civil anarchy as a theme.
How is that different from the US being gripped with punishing austerity in their sixth year while we give more money to the rich and leave the scraps for the rest of the nation?
There were no good leaders, no cohesive groups or mindset.
Communists were banned from influencing the government and their exclusion lead to extreme conservatism by the libertarians of the time. I try to keep partisanry out of the example, but it still explains the basic gist of corporatism that is currently going on in our country today.
The reparations the country made to the Allies were crippling the economy to the point of utter exhaustion.
No question. But look at our economy sputtering along when the rich could be taxed to provide better public services. Look at the demagoguery between liberals and conservatives in keeping a corrupt and unequal system of governance that is exhausting the people itself.
Hitler was 'selected' by the people because they were desperate for a leader who would lead them out of a economic misry so vast that the money would change value in hours.
True. And that's why austerity is so dangerous even in the country now. It makes people desperate to find blame with the weakest people of a nation and works to find scapegoats and con artists in positions of power.
Add to that the substrata of hatred towards one select group as the reason for their misery, and you have a country that was ready to give any man who had their hearts and minds in his speeches.
And how is that any different from the US and their degradation of blacks in the Drug War, the peonage system we've used since the Civil War, or the fact that we have plenty of people that have felt the effects of influential speakers in making life harder for people all around?
There are no Gestapo agents busting down doors to find the nearest Jew to put into concentration camps.
Try being black and having law enforcement break down your door with no-knock warrants. We have more people killed by police officers every day than were ever killed by terrorism.
There are no detention centers for intellectuals.
Aaron Schwartz' prosecution says otherwise. We don't detain the financially wealthy. We detain and subject everyone else to harsher fates for doing nothing other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The NSA does have too much power, and true, it has been used recklessly and without checks on it.
And all I've done is show the history of the 30s, which others have not learned. I stand by the view that if we move further to extreme conservatism, we will see fascism arise in the US. And that will be the utter end of the democratic experiment that began in 1776. Personally, I believe that there can be a new democratic experiment. It just means that our institutions will have to be changed considerably to allow more democracy than what the Founders ever intended. No electoral college. No 3/5th Compromise. No loss of votes for all American citizens.
But to pander to the view that we're going to turn into Nazi Germany because of it is sheer utter intellectual posturing and false straw man argument.
Nope. Just as we can learn about history to prevent it, so too can we learn to avoid the mistakes of even Germany and its bout with fascism. I stand firm that this was created to show how our history has progressed for the past 40 years. Maybe you don't agree. But with parallels in how we treat minority groups, it's time to recognize that we are dangerously close to the brink of our own destruction and that's difficult to accept but a desperate conversation needed right now.
On the post: NSA Boss Asks Congress For Blanket Immunity For Companies That Help NSA Spy On Everyone
Godwin's Law
You see, the people were distracted by their unelected "leader", a man who was chosen for the position by the elites. He wasn't supposed to be there. Many citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted. But he knew... They'd all be punished in the end. They dismissed him as a simpleton. He had simple, inflammatory rhetoric and knew how to have passionate speeches. But even his younger days in the occult didn't stop his rise to power. For this gentleman knew...
He knew the terrorist was going to strike (just not where or when). So when an aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified that it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference.
You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history.
"The fire is beginning."
That fire was used not to declare war on a nation but a tactic: terrorism. This terrorism had to have originated with a group of people of Middle Eastern origin who rationalized their acts using religion.
Two weeks later, suspected allies were held in prison and patriotism erupted everywhere with the leader's flag. Within four weeks of the attack, the nations leader had pushed through legislation - in the name of fighting terrorism and the philosophy that spawned it - which suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Now police could intercept mail and wiretap phones; terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and no access to lawyers. Police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.
And people went along because he promised sunset provisions.
But the people got gradual increases in state sponsored terrorism. More people began to be arrested for suspicious acts. Pretty soon, the nation was referred to as "the homeland" in 1934. The beginning of an us-vs-them mentality pursued.
Then the push for more military war powers began. His argument? "Any international body that didn't act first and foremost in the best interest of his own nation was neither relevant nor useful. He withdrew his country form the League of Nations in October 1933 and negotiated a separate naval armaments agreement with Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Anthony Eden in the United Kingdom to create a worldwide military ruling elite.
To get the evangelicals of his country he proclaimed a need for a revival of the Christian faith across his nation with his "New Christianity". Every man in the growing army wore a belt buckle that declared Gott mit uns - God is with us- and most of them fervently believed it was true.
Within a year of the attack, the nation's leader began to coordinate various local police and federal agencies around the nation around Middle Eastern terrorism. What would eventually occur is that this national agency that was mandated to protect the security of the homeland, dealt with the press and had them at their disposal. They asked people to phone in suspicious neighbors.
And yet, that program began to grab opposition politicians and celebrities who dared speak out. Then the thirst for more power began... He reached out to industry and forged an alliance with them by bringing former executives of the nation's largest corporations into high government positions. Government money poured into corporate coffers to fight the war against terrorists in the homeland and to prepare for wars overseas. Powerful alliances with industries culminated into one of the first large-scale detention centers for enemies of the state.
And yet, voices began to dissent.
Students started an active program against him called the White Rose Society and leaders of neary nations were speaking out against his bellicose rhetoric.
So he created a diversion to get away from the crony capitalism he'd implemented, the questions of his illegitimate rise to power, and the civil libertarians who voiced concerns about the people being held in detentions without due process or access to attorneys or family.
And so, Adolf Hitler began his grandstanding for war. He claimed the right to strike preemptively in self defense. Months of lobbying and international debate ensued and he was allowed to annex Austria. To deal with the damage, Hitler and his "friends" in the radio began a campaign to equate him and his policies with patriotism and the nation itself. If you questioned him, you were labeled unpatriotic, "anti-German," or "not a good German" while you were aiding the enemies of the state by failing in the patriotic necessity of supporting the nation's valiant men in uniform. It was the most effective ways to stifle dissent and pit wage earning people against the intellectuals and liberals critical of his policy.
And so to divert attention away from his policies, he focused the nation on war. There was violence against liberals, Jews, and union leaders and the epidemic of crony capitalism was producing empires of wealth in the corporate sector but threatening the middle class's way of life.
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told his people that giving in to this leader's new first-strike doctrine for a second time would bring "peace for our time".
A year later, to the week, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia. Germany was fully at war and all internal dissent suppressed in the name of national security.
By the way... The office for the security of the homeland? That was the schutzstaffel. We know it in the US as the SS.
The US has been going down the same fascist path as other nations with the very same results... We created an aristocracy with Reagan, fought wars while eliminating public services under both Bushes, attacked our poor with crippling poverty under Clinton and Obama, while turning our democracy into a police state for the past 40 years.
Tread lightly... Our republic cannot stay on this path without dire consequences in the near future.
On the post: Dick Cheney's Crystal Ball Says That NSA Surveillance Could Have Stopped 9/11
Snowden's reply
On the post: Congress' Response To Leaks? Stop Contractors From Access To Classified Material Rather Than Stop NSA Spying
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The THOUSANDS of firms, with Google at top.
There isn't really a "right vs left" game here. If you look at the political spectrum, it's neoclassical ideologies battling it out, ie conservatives vs liberals. If we were to actually have left wing politics, you would have communists vs conservatives and that isn't happening.
We must stand together as one people, indivisible, and demand that the government stop violating our rights. No other issue is more pressing than this one.
And there's plenty of ways to do that. In particular, I'm a fan of Constitutional amendments banning the electoral college, instituting proportional representation, and allowing people to form into unions or other businesses that they enjoy.
If we cannot even maintain our liberties, our rights, our privacy, if we allow the government and their goon squads to walk all over us for the sake of 'national security,' we have no right calling ourselves the land of the free, home of the brave
If we understood that political inequality leads to economic inequality, I'm sure that we'd have a much better system than now. Sadly, until more people decide that they've had enough austerity, this problem will continue.
On the post: Senator Biden Teaches President Obama A Lesson About NSA Spying From The Past
The sadness...
On the post: Yahoo! Fought Back Against PRISM, Lost In Secret Ruling
Re: Re: Not the government...
On the post: Yahoo! Fought Back Against PRISM, Lost In Secret Ruling
Not the government...
If the reporting on this is true, then I'm not going to blame the government.
Okay, put down your pitchforks and let me explain...
I've always ran on the idea that people respond to incentives. While I accept that the government did want more power, there's a second story at play here...
Who is the government trying to protect? As far as I can gather, with the HBGary leak, the Manning leaks, and now the Prism leaks, there's a recurring theme...
I have to put my money on the contractors and the competition to Wikileaks wanting to erase anyone that opposes them. Our government already outsources 70% of their contracts to Booz Allen, Halliburton, and other private information contractors.
So how is it any wonder that the government shares interests with the people it protects?
We lost our democratic republic and the government works for the highest bidder. And the bidders are the Stratfors, and other defense contractors that milk taxpayer dollars for their own salaries and are unscrupulous when it comes to using the government to do their bidding.
I mean hell, the corruption laundering has been going on for so long that we have corporate interests in how people enjoy the arts as well as what information is public.
Is it really that much of a stretch to think that our government is not what the people wanted but what the people in high positions of power want?
On the post: Congress' Response To Leaks? Stop Contractors From Access To Classified Material Rather Than Stop NSA Spying
Re: Re: Re: Re: The THOUSANDS of firms, with Google at top.
I think people should be aware that even FDR would approve of her tactics until the public revolted against him. Liberalism is still a right wing ideology after all.
On the post: Hear That Deafening Silence From AT&T And Verizon About NSA Surveillance?
Incentives
So they have the public that's angry at them while the government would actually punish them if they decide to talk about this issue.
On the post: Previous NSA Leakers, Thomas Drake And Mark Klein, Speak Out In Defense Of Ed Snowden
A quote
----- Martin Luther King Jr
On the post: Perhaps The NSA Should Figure Out How To Keep Its Own Stuff Secret Before Building A Giant Database
Let's back up...
Didn't we learn from the Stratfor emails that we're already selling American secrets to others?
We sold secrets to Turkey and other countries based on what Stratfor did for money. So you mean to tell me that we should worry about the Chinese?
I think we should worry more about the profit motive in America.
On the post: Former NSA Boss: This Leak Teaches The World That America Can't Keep Secrets
Partisanry activate!
There's a few contexts that need to be made here. Michael Hayden represents the richest people in the world. The CIA has long been used to depose democracy for the proliferation of American corporations. The NSA has worked to protect the richest members of society. So when he's talking about America, he's specifically talking about a small cabal of people that have what I should term a "shadow democracy". It's not a democracy where the public is served, it's one that only goes to the people with the most money to buy it. Most would call it crony capitalism, but there's plenty of synonymous words for it.
Now let's put out there that American corporations have a lot of influence in the government. We're criticizing a government that isn't put there to protect the American public. We should be asking who it is protecting and why has it decided to do so in an undemocratic manner.
No one that I know of would want the government spying on them. No one seriously thinks that the government should be able to snoop on everyone. Sure, we can use the buzzword of terrorist, just as Communist was the big one in the 50s and 60s or Reds in the 30s. But spying on ALL citizens in a large vacuum? Secret courts? Secret documents saying a person is guilty? No ability to defend oneself from unjust prosecution?
Kafkaesque courts that deprive you of your life and liberties with vague guidelines?
This is not how to run a society. We have a military-industrial-Congresso-complex that harms the rights of its citizens and forces through laws which protect certain Americans. Congress passes the laws, the military and CIA execute them, and the president signs off on them. That isn't a democracy. It's a dictatorship.
I find it stunning that this is one thing that Democrats and Republicans agree on. This was dangerous to America. How? It's like everyone just totally forgot that the public they represent wouldn't want these impeachments on the Constitution.
And people are letting them do it. There's a lot to be lost if this continues. People's freedoms and liberties should be far more important than false securities of people in very high positions of power.
On the post: The Real Scandal: Not That The NSA Broke The Law In Vast Spying, But That It Probably Didn't
Re: Re: Re: Re:
That was the catalyst. This entire issue of overwrought security has been in place since Truman. Nixon helped create the events that have given us a secretive government which looks out for itself instead of the people.
This is essentially 40 years of people being trained in secrecy, media manipulation, and backroom dealing that makes WWI look quaint.
On the post: DOJ Argues Secret Ruling Over Secret Unconstitutional Surveillance Must Remain Secret Because It's Secret
/circlejerk
I've never seen such an organization troll so professionally...
On the post: NSA Whistleblower Ed Snowden: From My Desk I Could Wiretap Anyone: You, A Federal Judge Or The President Of The US
Re: traitor or hero?
It's time to recognize that the "proper channels" are severely limited and do nothing for the people showing and exposing the corrupting behavior.
On the post: Edward Snowden: Whistleblower Behind Leaks Outs Himself
Re: Re: Re: troubling
If he did, he wouldn't be able to give the warnings that he did. Which is worse, to know how this program began and get these people on the record, or to be on the outside looking in while they do this without explicit knowledge?
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