Glenn Greenwald’s Fish Tale

[Galraedia]

Over the past few days, there’s been a major burst of outrage regarding the “NSA leaks” from a young tech named Edward Snowden, as published in The Guardian by Glenn Greenwald. The claims were that the NSA is monitoring every American, and that there’s a “secret” program called PRISM which enabled Snowden (among others) to wiretap into anyone’s communications. Along with that, that the government had “direct access” to all the major internet services servers. Aside from the fact that it was Greenwald publishing it, there were a number of things that Snowden and Greenwald were claiming that made me smell a distinct odor of fish.

A little personal background. I’ve been a computer geek for over 30 years, both professionally and as a hobby. I’ve worked on and with major data systems, as well as having been responsible for security. I’ve also had security clearances and had more than my share of security briefings. Which is why the initial story didn’t smell right to me. More than a little fishy, in fact.

Why? Let me explain some things. First and foremost, even without “national security,” no one gets the sort of complete access that Snowden claims he had. Things are compartmentalized. You may have access to some systems, but not others. I’ve been a systems administrator in a fairly large IT section, and from experience, while I had complete access to everything on my systems, I didn’t on other administrator’s systems. What access I did have was extremely limited, and everything was audited at some point. I can’t imagine NSA is any less compartmentalized.

Secondly, you have to understand the sheer volume of information that’s currently being sent around the Internet. We’re not talking a few gigabytes here and there, we’re talking millions of terabytes for the US, and tens of thousands of petabytes for the world. Any idea that the NSA is storing all that, let along monitoring it all, is ridiculous on its face. The sheer cost of doing so would be a significant part of the country’s budget, and the number of people necessary to do it would solve the unemployment problem in this country. That’s aside from the reality that the majority of that traffic amounts to “nothing of interest to the government.” The NSA doesn’t really care that you’re watching movies on Netflix, that you’re downloading porn, that you’re writing pithy blogs or commenting on them. They’re “meaningless” in overall terms, and keeping tabs on that is rather idiotic.

Read more: http://cendax.wordpress.com/2013/06/16/glenn-greenwalds-fish-tale/

[fascisthunter]

1. lol

good God, the propaganda is morbidly twisted.

[longship]

2. I happen to agree, in part, with the article.

Plus, people keep screaming about direct access like it is something special. Let me give you all a clue, whether you connect via fiber optic or dial-up you are directly connected to every server on the Internet. So the NSA does not need special services from the Inet companies to get direct connect access; all they need are connections close enough to backbone nodes which they would have access to at any rate given their financial resources and their usage.

That, and the employing hackers to get past firewalls, gives them access to whatever they want, although in practice that's still difficult.

But what's important with this OP is the question about the rather large elephant still in the room.

What the fuck are they going to do with all of that useless information?

And there are some very paranoid people claiming that they're recording everybody's cell phone calls in real time!!!

Don't make me laugh. What the fuck are they going to do with that?

Some teenager (HUGE users of cell phones, as they have been since the beginning of phones): "So he goes, 'Dwanna go to the dance Friday night?' So I go, 'No, Dweeb! I go with Jack.' And then he goes..."

You get the idea. And the NSA has personnel sufficient to wade through all this shit let alone store it on the off chance that some micro percentage of calls are plotting a terrorist attack?

Some people are either delusional, paranoid, or both.

Even if there was sufficient bandwidth on the system to record it all, indexing it and storing it in real time is just beyond any reasonably possible current technology. And again. What would you do with it all if you could even approach the required technical capability?

I do not like what NSA is doing. But I am not worried about them recording my phone calls. I'd hate to be the dude listening to mine. He'd be bored out of his fucking skull. As for the teens? That would depend on what they are going about that day.

[reusrename]

3. There are two types of useless information, and each is gathered for a different purpose.

Apples


The concern about metadata collection is completely new, and it has to do with the use of this information. Metadata is used to create the targets for a counterinsurgency operation. Sometimes (or according to research, in most cases) the most influential person in a social network (or insurgency) is not the most high profile or the most vocal individual in the group. With very large groups (OWS for example), this new technology identifies those individuals who's participation in the group is the most critical.

That, in a nutshell, is the purpose for which the metadata is being used. It should be obvious how this information can be used/misused to affect our first amendment freedoms, specifically our right to peaceably assemble. There are a couple of stories floating around today about how the MIC is targeting opponents of the keystone pipeline. This counterinsurgeny technology and training is being used against law-abiding citizens right here in America.

Because the algorithms being used are easily handled by computers, and because no errors are introduced by trying to decode or translate any communication content, the system can create a very precise mapping of our social networks. Only actual metadata associated with each communication is logged into the software, and from that the algorithms sort out the social connections.

Almost everything about this particular type of surveillance is new. The science behind the algorithms that are used and the computers that store and sift the data are new. The idea behind controlling the pubic is not new, however. It has been done before, and very effectively, even without this new weapon.

This all fits into the bigger picture of the subject of this OP. Remember that our country was founded by insurgents. Many, if not all of our heroes, would have been easily thwarted under this type of surveillance regime and folks have written about how Paul Revere could have been stopped.


For some basic info about how the science is implemented, google the keywords: thesis+insurgent+social+network



Oranges


This use of the metadata to undermine our right to peaceably assemble seems to be the more dangerous issue. This is an unmistakable mark of tyranny. The eavesdropping on content, OTOH, can be used to disrupt/detain/dissuade/discredit a target. It is the scientific selection of targets which is what thwarts our (the ones who are trying to change things) ability to properly organize any resistance. This is serious. Without organization we have no idea at whom to aim our pitchforks.

Let’s look at the individual warrants required to monitor individual communications. By this I mean the opening of recorded emails or the listening in on digitally recorded phone conversations. Can we figure out what the policy is, and if so, from that can we discern what the uses for this other system might be?

There seems to be a lot of confusion about the order of things. The analysts can look at anything in their database (which includes recordings of all our conversations and emails) with little or no oversight. I think it works something like this:

1) Yes, they do need a separate warrant in order to access content of individual phone calls/emails.

2) Yes, the analyst has legal authority to access content of individual phone calls/emails of anyone, on his own, without first getting a separate warrant.

These are consistent statements. The FISA law allows 72 hours after the fact to seek the warrant.

My understanding is that the analyst has legal access, on his own authority, once he has been verbally authorized by either the Attorney General or the Director of National Intelligence. I think the analyst only need fill out a form in order to take a peek at anything.

At least this is my current understanding of the law and the policy. These analysts, once verbally approved, might might be compared to the robosigners we found in the banking fraud.

There is one important difference; unlike the illegal robosigners for the banks, Congress, the Adminstration, and the Courts all seem to have made this process perfectly legal.

If you start to parse the Q&A information with this timeline in mind, it starts to reveal an amazing consistency. Many of the contradictory claims evaporate.

Basically, we are racing toward future where you either support the 1% or else you are a terrorist. This path leads to fascism and the restoration of slavery. There is no doubt about it.

[longship]

4. Again, who is going to analyze all the "he goes"/"she goes" nonsense?

(a metaphor for 99.9999% of our mundane lives) for the important stuff?

How many people are needed to listen to these putatively recorded multi-million phone calls per day in the USA alone?

Oh yes! They have some wonderful speech to text programming which they have somehow miraculously hidden from Apple with their Siri? (Which by the way you ought to try some day. It isn't very good with phone conversation level voices, let alone vernacular.)

I don't buy it. Not for a second. It's paranoia like the drones under our beds crowd.

But let's put this into realistic perspective.

The NSA is a huge threat and the recent revelations only support what many of us in the tech/science industry have been speaking about for years.

But when people make shit up, it does not help, it harms what advantage we might have, what those of us who have cared about this issue for years have been speaking out about.

Stop making shit up!

Go to reliable sources. Some suggestions:

Bruce Schneier

Electronic Freedom Foundation

Tim Berners-Lee

Another source from the legal side:
Lawrence Lessig

And others who have had skin in the game from day one.

This technology has a history going back to ARPANET, but also most importantly to Al Gore championing further development through Congress passed during Bush I.

Some of us were on to it early and understand that no matter what of pop culture portrayals it still obeys the network protocols which are, for good or bad, publicly available, always have, and always will be. That's what we all have to fight for, as well as transparency in government.

But along the way, let's not be making shit up just because you read it on DU.

Again, I despise what the NSA is doing. But if we are going to fight it we have to speak from a position based on facts.

[reusrename]

11. I cannot make much sense of what you are saying.

I think you're saying that it's impossible to read everyone's mail or listen to everyone's calls. I agree with that completely. That's exactly why the metadata is so important.

As far as the numbers go, the uprising in Iran (pop. 25 million) was put down by making approximately 800 arrests.

I honestly don't think you understand how this technology works. To crush a movement like OWS they only need figure out who the most critical people are in the movement. I doubt if they need to monitor/neutralize more than about 100 people, once they've been identified.

By the way, the drone attacks are real. I hope you aren't saying that we are just imagining things.

All I'm talking about is science. How do you think the science works? What do you think I have gotten wrong about this? Can you please be specific.

[OnyxCollie]

5. If you smell a distinct odor of fish,

you might have a hygiene problem.

[Cha]

6. Oh Norbrook!

Well, what about the “telephony metadata” you may ask? All that is is a list of phone numbers, which numbers they called and the length. No personal information or content. Even that is a large data set to sort through, so without a key to start the search, it’s mostly just a bunch of numbers. Unless there’s a key, or some reason to track a given number, there’s not much of interest in the rest of it. They don’t care that you called the local Domino’s for delivery. What’s a “key?” It’s a set of terms or values you use to narrow your search. For example, do a Google search for “John Smith.” You’ll get 14,800,000 results. “John Smith” is a “key,” but you still have too many. So unless you know more about the particular John Smith you’re searching for, you’re going to have to page through almost 15 million results to see if you can find who the heck you were looking for.

That's so hard to get through the heads of those who are down with ODS.

What about Snowden? Well, he’s managed to make himself look like what he is: An idiot who decided to betray his country. Not a hero, not a whistleblower, just another turncoat. It’s been obvious for years that Greenwald has a vendetta against President Obama. He must have thought he had in Snowden the best “fish story” in existence. The problem? Like most fish stories, the reality wasn’t close to the story. In fact, it’s beginning to look like Glenn was selling some rather long-dead fish. There are still many questions to be answered, including just what Glenn’s role was in Snowden’s action, and whether he instigated it. The “timeline” Greenwald has stated (although I’m sure he’ll backtrack on that) has some serious legal implications, in terms of “Did Glenn Greenwald set up Snowden’s actions?” Glenn may have more problems than just trying to defend his leaping to conclusions because he thought he finally had something on the President. And it couldn’t have happened to a better person.

Mahalo, Galraedia.. Excellent Read by Norbrook

[freshwest]

7. From 'Cut the Crap, a common sense look at progressive politics. Truth has a liberal bias. Use it.'

Glenn Greenwald's Anti-Obama Vendetta Continues

May 30, 2013

http://pleasecutthecrap.typepad.com/main/

Mild stuff. I'm not really mad at GG. He's just a tool. Stronger stuff here, even though this is an old story:

Koch Whores

Glenn Greenwald Of The Libertarian Cato Institute Posts His Defense Of Joshua Foust…The Exiled Responds To Greenwald

By Team eXiled, January 3, 2012

A few charges are made about the CATO Institute, which fans have no problem with because XYZ covers all objections? And even though any self-proclaimed should.

Because it was founded and has been used by the Koch brothers for their agenda to slaughter the poor and the civil rights of Americans under the glorious names of liberty and freedom. Animal Farm style.

In the next few paragraphs, GG defends himself. Good defense on drug policy but is that sufficient to give him a pass when so many others support legalization, too? Not unlike a standard liberal. Then the reply:

...Moreover, as Greenwald himself knows better than anyone, his ties to the Cato Institute and the Koch-funded libertarian nomenklatura go deeper than this. For example, Glenn Greenwald was one of the keynote speakers at an elite “Cato Benefit Sponsors” event, featuring Glenn and Cato fellow P.J. O’Rourke and winger Michael Barone. Who among progressives is invited as a top entertainer for the elite Cato Institute Benefit Sponsors event? Glenn Greenwald, that’s who.


Glenn Greenwald, “freelancer,” entertains more than 100 Cato Benefactors

My question is why would anyone want to spend any time with those fuckers? I wouldn't wanna be in the same zipcode. They mean me no fucking good. It's not like they put a gun up to GG's head. No, these are friends and colleagues. And it costs money to gallivant all over the world.

So who's paying the bill? We know who pays a lot of the Kochroaches. We know who pays O'Keefe and Rove and the whole swarm of ratfuckers. Certainly they have the ability to sway the masses, or they wouldn't be in the inner circle. Glib of tongue and able to fashion a tale.

Don't think they are not going to get paid for this. And why would GG stop shilling to get money to pay for his own bills? And who foots his lifestyle? It ain't pennies from heaven and it ain't magic, folks.

Okay, back to the eXiled:

But even if Greenwald’s ties to the Cato Institute didn’t go deeper, the idea that taking money from the Koch brothers for a one-year drug-decriminalization project shouldn’t be disclosed each time Greenwald attacks progressives while defending the Kochs’/libertarians’ pet projects—as when Greenwald defended Citizens United, much to progressives’ confusion, or when Greenwald attacked our article in The Nation about the Koch-funded libertarians leading the anti-TSA union campaign—is plain wrong and ridiculous. Payoffs and influence-peddling usually come in more subtle forms than payments marked “BRIBE.” In Russia, bankers would pay off government ministers not by giving them money earmarked “Vzyatka” but rather by giving them a “book advance” on a completely unrelated, intellectual endeavor. But even in Russia, bribery schemes like that, which clearly tie the recipient of that money to the donor of that money, led to ministers being fired. So when the Koch brothers pay for Greenwald to spend a year on a policy whitepaper, even on something as “benign” as a drug policy whitepaper, we don’t see it as benign when Greenwald simultaneously protects libertarians, defends Citizens United, and attacks journalism critical of Koch-funded libertarians.

We find it disturbing that Greenwald never said a single critical word about his benefactors the Koch brothers until a Weekly Standard interview with Charles Koch in March 2011, which finally elicited a mildly critical column (by Greenwald’s standards) of his Koch benefactors.

We believe that when you take money from the Koch brothers and a notorious corporate-rightwing libertarian outfit like the Cato Institute, that you should disclose your conflict-of-interest when you attack the credibility of journalists who expose Koch-linked libertarians running the TSA media hype, as we did at The Nation, or when Greenwald defends the Citizens United decision against progressives, as Greenwald did in 2010, much to progressives’ confusion.

http://exiledonline.com/glenn-greenwald-of-the-libertarian-cato-institute-posts-his-defense-of-joshua-foust-the-exiled-responds-to-greenwald/

Someone is funding GG. It's not like it's never been done. It's not like they can't afford to pay an infinite variety of stooges to fuck with the minds of the public.

The Koch brothers are a bigger menace to democracy and civil rights than any past or current government program. Anyone who knows what ALEC has done to this nation, is aware that it's the Koch brothers plan.

GG supporting Citizens United supports the Koch brothers. Ratfucking Democrats supports the Koch brothers. GG supported Ron Paul and all the Paulies support Rand, who support the Koch brothers.

You know, Rand, personhood bills, end social security and all those liberal and progressive ideas. That's GG's kindred spirit. Which means GG doesn't give a fuck about me and I take it personally. As Tim Wise said in 2012:

Of Broken Clocks, Presidential Candidates, and the Confusion of Certain White Liberals

...And please, Glenn Greenwald, spare me the tired shtick about how Paul “raises important issues” that no one on the left is raising, and so even though you’re not endorsing him, it is still helpful to a progressive narrative that his voice be heard. Bullshit. The stronger Paul gets the stronger Paul gets, period. And the stronger Paul gets, the stronger libertarianism gets, and thus, the Libertarian Party as a potential third party: not the Greens, mind you, but the Libertarians. And the stronger Paul gets, the stronger become those voices who worship the free market as though it were an invisible fairy godparent, capable of dispensing all good things to all comers — people like Paul Ryan, for instance, or Scott Walker. In a nation where the dominant narrative has long been anti-tax, anti-regulation, poor-people-bashing and God-bless-capitalism, it would be precisely those aspects of Paul’s ideological grab bag that would become more prominent. And if you don’t know that, you are a fool of such Herculean proportions as to suggest that Salon might wish to consider administering some kind of political-movement-related-cognitive skills test for its columnists, and the setting of a minimum cutoff score, below which you would, for this one stroke of asininity alone, most assuredly fall.

I mean, seriously, if “raising important issues” is all it takes to get some kind words from liberal authors, bloggers and activists, and maybe even votes from some progressives, just so as to “shake things up,” then why not support David Duke? With the exception of his views on the drug war, David shares every single view of Paul’s that can be considered progressive or left in orientation. Every single one. So where do you draw the line? Must one have actually donned a Klan hood and lit a cross before his handful of liberal stands prove to be insufficient? Must one actually, as Duke has been known to do, light candles on a birthday cake for Hitler on April 20, before it no longer proves adequate to want to limit the overzealous reach of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms? Exactly when does one become too much of an evil fuck even for you? Inquiring minds seriously want to know.

Meanwhile, at what point do you stop being so concerned about whether a presidential candidate is pushing the issues Paul raises (so many of which do need raising and attention), and realize what every actual leftist in history has realized, but which apparently some liberals and progressives don’t: namely, that the real battles are in the streets, and in the neighborhoods, and in movement activism? It isn’t a president, whether his name is Ron Paul or Barack Obama who gets good things done. It is us, demanding change and threatening to literally shut the system down (whether we mean Wall Street, the Port of Oakland, the Wisconsin state capitol, Columbia University, a Woolworth’s lunch counter, or the Montgomery, Alabama bus system) who force presidents and lawmakers to bend to the public will.

In short, if you’re still disappointed in Barack Obama, it’s only because you never understood whose job it was to produce change in the first place. But don’t take out your own failings in this regard on the rest of us, by giving ideological cover and assorted journalistic love taps to a guy who believes the poor should rely on the charitable impulses of doctors to provide for their medical needs, including, one presumes, chemotherapy; or that America was meant to be a “robustly Christian” nation, but is being currently undermined by “secularists;” or who puts the term gay rights in quotation marks when he writes it, and believes states should be free to criminalize homosexual intercourse, and who is such a homophobe that he won’t even use the bathroom in a gay man’s house; or who has all but said that he would like to take America back to the early 1800s, in terms of the scope of government: a truly glorious time to be sure, if you were white, male and owned property.

Ya know, like some of the liberal “thinkers” who have, as of late, decided to praise Ron Paul.

http://www.timwise.org/2012/01/of-broken-clocks-presidential-candidates-and-the-confusion-of-certain-white-liberals/

A case can be made that the powerful have associations that don't match up to their highest ideals when they get in office. They have to face the beast in the face to get things done for others. But that's not what's going on between these media figures and the Koch brothers. And you can't run from the deadly stench that comes from hopping in bed with the Koch brothers. No, that doesn't wash off.



I want the Koch brothers and their enablers in media to quit fucking with my life and those of the people I love. They stop doing it and they'll get off my shit list.

[Cha]

8. Whoa fresh, that's a lot of interesting info regarding

Greenwald's Koch ties. Of course he would deny it.. who would want to be associated with those fucking fascists? Except, cons like Scott Walker, and all those who need their money and backing to bring down President Obama for their own agenda? Oh wait a minute..

Mahalo for the links, fresh, Milt Shook at Please Cut The Crap, Team EXiled, and Tim Wise!.. and totally righteous rant!

[Cha]

9. A couple of good links for you, fresh.. that I just stumbled onto.. from Imani

Glenn Greenwald’s Portman/Obama Comparison on Marriage Equality is Crap

This fucking guy.
It’s rather amusing to watch Glenn Greenwald attempt, yet again, to insinuate that President Obama is no different than a Republican.

In a Twitlonger he likely jotted off because of the pushback he received in response to his vapid tweet earlier this morning, Greenwald compares President Obama and Rob Portman’s evolution on marriage equality: Rob Portman attributed his position shift to finding out that his son is gay and Obama “partially” based his position shift on the fact that he has gay friends.

http://thisweekinblackness.com/2013/03/16/glenn-greenwalds-portmanobama-comparison-on-marriage-equality-is-crap/

The Hypocrisy of Glenn Greenwald, Iraq War edition

http://thisweekinblackness.com/2013/03/19/the-hypocrisy-of-glenn-greenwald-iraq-war-edition/

[Cha]

10. "America is Under Siege As The Koch Brothers Look to Replace The Constitution

http://www.politicususa.com/2013/06/30/america-seige-koch-brothers-replace-constitution.html

Another one for you, fresh

[freshwest]

12. This is the clear and present danger Libertarians deny. Dividing us lets it happen.

Last edited Mon Jul 1, 2013, 03:29 PM - Edit history (3)

The graphic says what is happening, but media diverts people from the big picture:



I suppose you've seen me ranting about the 14th amendment that Ryan wants to repeal. This is what repealed DOMA. But 14th can be legally done away with as Ryan, Paulites and Libertarians want, by the use of state conventions. Those RED legislatures people seem to think don't matter, unless they live under their thumb. The most important parts of the 14th:

Birthright Citizenship

This was needed as the 13th Amendment wasn't clear enough, despite the Civil War. The Confederacy was built on the belief of white supremacy (check my journal for the public domain, university publication). Their philosophy directly opposed hat of the Founding Fathers who saw black slavery as the end of the America they started but wanted to eventually live up to the core values of equality.

But that was not so for the Confederacy as Jefferson Davis' vice president spells out. They wanted those ideals gone. He actually makes a 'logical' case and invented the idea of those who are liberals and believe in equality are ignorant mentally ill, which is recurring theme from the GOP and their media.

A determined portion of the electorate now funded with billionaire dollars, believe in inequality and is working to dissolve this nations. Thee GOP are still employing the Southern Strategy by Nixon's Lee Atwater. The same arguments have never left. Read it and weep. They don't believe in equal rights and they even bring God into their equationt to silence oppostion. It has worked very well.

The loss of birthright citizenship will kiss voting rights goodbye unless approved by a theocrat, a scion of wealth or by the right kind of birth as decided by Republicans. Sadly, many Americans won't make the list due to the actions of the same Republicans. They have done this in small locales, changing the American political landscape in their favor, leaving future generations without remedy for the loss of that particular civil liberty for the less popular and powerful. Yet all I hear are those darn cicadas. Or is it crickets?

Due Process Clause

Due Process under the law is the right to be treated fairly and to have a fighting chance when facing legal action. It is mentioned twice in the U.S. Constitution. But it needed more to make it clear in a nation built on conquest and slavery. So Amendments Four, Five, Six and Eight were passed, but the Fourteenth is the one that seals the deal:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

This is the clause that fed all liberal and progressive movements since then and works to create a country the Founders most likely dreamed of having. Most Americans have come to rely upon the protections it affords in environmental law, employment, housing, health care and other ways.

It is not just in regards to the legal system and has been sorely abused by the Patriot Act and other legislation passed by the GOP at a time Democrats were mailed anthrax letters and people died. There has since been a media induced collective amnesia is on how this was orchestrated at the time, but media had a huge hand with making it pass. The Goebbels media called for the death of those who opposed it on Constitutional grounds, and the traumatized populace decided it had better pass, or else someone would be hung as a traitor for being soft on terrorism.

Welcome to the landscape we have been living in since September 11th. It can be repealed, but privatization advocates have put in the poison pill every time. Add in any number of stochastic and extremist terrorist acts which have given it a life that has made it acceptable to some, so in general it has been accepted, out of justified fears, others not. Privateers see a gold mine in contracts.

But parts of the Patriot Act have been declared to be unConstitutional, even by that crew of corporatists at the USSC. But it takes a grass roots voting effort to repeal it at its source, the elected officials. And those who make the money will show up at every single election. They aren't going away, so we have to get out and vote,or we will be the ones who allow it.

Equal Protection Clause

Welcome to Animal Farm. Where some animals are more equal than others. All your uteri are belong to us. This is why I see the wailing over the 4th, a particular fetish of the Paulites, to be the most hypocritical, when half the populace have lost their rights under the 4th in the most intrusive manner by the actions of the Kochoctopus. Wait, I think I hear our allies in protecting women's rights rising up in their defense of the violation of privacy for women!

And what is that sound I hear building from those who scream about the Fourth in the distance? Is it cicadas this time? No, it's the same damn crickets. Animal Farm again.

It took a Civil War to get the 14th with more death than any other war the USA has been involved in, percentage wise in population. Other laws like the Voting Rights Act and other amendments are also written in the blood of those who wanted to see this nation become all it could be, and was intended to evolve into.

The original Constitution the Koch funded Tea Party and Libertarians and others want to beat everyone over the head with the sacred relic of their religion, was not what it has been amended to be, as the Founders intended:

As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality. ~ George Washington

The original did not have the right to vote for women, minorities and the young, or those who did own property. It enshrined giving representation in the fraction of 3/5th per slave to slave owners. The very people they held in chains were used to increase their power in government, which was a grievous and mind-shattering depravity. As the GOP seek to deny the right to vote to millions, they likewise intend to use the census numbers of those they deny a voice, to grant them more power. As another Founder said:

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever. ~ Thomas Jefferson

We should be trembling over inequality and unjust treatment of large groups of people from basic rights. Not from being online, or the ones that media wave in front of us as an apocalyptic vision of authoritarian dystopia. Those visions are used to discourage and scatter those who would stop it happening. There are many more millions beyond the myopic scope of the classes of people with enough wealth to truly participate in this venue here online. The invisible ones who talked person to person and showed up to re-elect Obama to the horror of media shills. Their well-paid diversions failed, and no wonder they were in shock. As they believe that dollars equal freedom of speech, as they are paid handsomely, there may have been a bit of anxiety over their incomes.

And back to the original Constitution that some cry about, even going as far back in time to invoke the Magna Carta, that only applied to freedmen, not women or slaves. There are many who state and are working to re-create, the Articles of Confederation to guarantee their liberties, just as they had then. The Constitution was too liberal and godless for them, as they've said. But Democrats like it that way, as they believe in evolution, too.

And Native Americans were only mentioned in the most derogatory terms from the outset of this nation in primary founding documents. No, we have come a long way, but billionaire owned media has been used to destroy us. Our natural love of knowledge and scientific invention, has been used to enslave us.

Ironic, now, that the media owners have created a caste system of the mind, from which they have not spared our bodies either. They have used modern technology to assign segments of the populace to indulge in and masturbate mentally to fantasy, superstition and mind-numbing cultism by appealing to the lowest denominators of human behavior, fear, panic, hate and the love of scandal.

We are in danger from the ground up, and focusing on the head is not what the GOP have done. They have mutated the grass roots and the stolons have multiplied like weeds. We have not choice but to focus on GOTV.

[ucrdem]

16. Wow, great stuff freshwest!

[freshwest]

18. Be sure to read the Politicususa link I was responding to, also!

[sheshe2]

13. There is evil afoot, as we knew. We sensed something was wrong from the get go!

Thank you for these great articles, freshwest. This sure does explain a lot!

It isn’t a president, whether his name is Ron Paul or Barack Obama who gets good things done. It is us, demanding change and threatening to literally shut the system down (whether we mean Wall Street, the Port of Oakland, the Wisconsin state capitol, Columbia University, a Woolworth’s lunch counter, or the Montgomery, Alabama bus system) who force presidents and lawmakers to bend to the public will.

[sheshe2]

15. From reading further...

this was from one of the sub threads at your first link, freswest!

Meanwhile, in 1974, Charles Koch founded the Cato Institute (called the Charles Koch Foundation until 1977). This think tank has done more than any other to push for an end to Social Security. In 1983 the Cato Journal published a blueprint of how to destroy Social Security, “Achieving a ‘Leninist Strategy,’” by Stuart Butler and Peter Germanis. The authors acknowledged that a strong coalition of Americans backed Social Security and thus saw the need for “guerrilla warfare against both the current Social Security system and the coalition that supports it.” Victory could be far in the future, “but then, as Lenin well knew, to be a successful revolutionary, one must also be patient and consistently plan for real reform,” they write.

snip

When Texas Governor Rick Perry, a front-runner in the Republican primary for president, derides Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme” or a “monstrous lie,” that rhetoric can be traced back to the work of Hayek and Koch. And yet we now know that in private practice, Hayek was perfectly content to pay into Social Security and that Koch encouraged him to draw upon both Social Security and Medicare. Did they really believe what they wrote? Or were these attacks just scare-talk meant for the rubes, for you and us, “the public”?

Calling this mere hypocrisy downplays the seriousness of their fraud. Koch and Hayek are no more hypocritical than the used-car salesman who knowingly sells a lemon to a gullible buyer, or the financial agency that rates “AAA” instruments it knows are crap. This is a grand swindle played on a trusting, gullible public, a scam whose goal is to con America’s dying middle class into handing over their retirement money to the richest 0.1 percent, convincing them that in doing so, they’re “empowering” themselves and protecting their “individual liberty.”

Read more: Charles Koch to Friedrich Hayek: Use Social Security! | The Nation http://www.thenation.com/article/163672/charles-koch-friedrich-hayek-use-social-security#ixzz2XpZhF1CE
Follow us: @thenation on Twitter | TheNationMagazine on Facebook

[freshwest]

17. Whoa, I didn't get that far. It's why when I hear media dissing any reform to SS for effect, and

pushing and doing the Koch brothers will in everything else, calling it civil liberty, my 'fishy meter' goes into overdrive as well. I agree with the plan of the man they hated more than life itself, Franklin D. Roosevelt:



Second Bill of Rights

The Second Bill of Rights was a list of rights proposed by Franklin D. Roosevelt during his State of the Union Address on January 11, 1944.[1] In his address Roosevelt suggested that the nation had come to recognize, and should now implement, a second "bill of rights". Roosevelt's argument was that the "political rights" guaranteed by the constitution and the Bill of Rights had "proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness." Roosevelt's remedy was to declare an "economic bill of rights" which would guarantee:

Employment, with a living wage
Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies
Housing
Medical care
Education
Social security

Roosevelt stated that having these rights would guarantee American security, and that America's place in the world depended upon how far these and similar rights had been carried into practice. Later in the 1970s, Czech jurist Karel Vasak would categorize these as the "second generation" rights in his theory of three generations of human rights.

Franklin Roosevelt -Second Bill of Rights

Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed a Second Bill of Rights in a speech on January 11, 1944. This was an economic Bill of Rights.

“The Economic Bill of Rights”

Excerpt from President Roosevelt's January 11, 1944 message to the Congress of the United States on the State of the Union:
[2]
“It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.”[3] People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens.

For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Bill_of_Rights

This is the legacy of the Democratic Party, being shredded by the Koch brothers, right wing religion, GOP lies and media compliance. I focus on poverty and basic rights, for as FDR, said above:

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.”[3] People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

It is why the GOP want Obama and the government to fail. It is why they obstruct everything Obama proposed, which was also called a New Deal with many of the same alphabet government employment programs FDR enacted. The GOP fought him from Day One, calling his programs Obama Youth Squads, his plans for health care Death Panels, and so on.

They want misery and people on the run, listening to grifters, cultist and demagogues so they can step in and create their dictatorship.

That's why I have little patience for those who don't get down to Earth and deal with what affects real people and that's the pain of being shoved around by the rich. No amount of smearing is going to convince me that who follow every Koch inspired media sensation when we have the dire wolf at the door. While people squabble, they are pulling the rug out from under us.

I really appreciate the link you posted. It's very enlightening.



P. S. Also at the Wikipedia link is the story of the video. The audio was lost for many years, until Michael Moore found it and put it in Capitalism: A Love Story.

[sheshe2]

19. HA!

You caught me five minutes out of a nap...something I never do, however I was up until 4 pm~

So my first post was a little woozy. That said I grabbed some caffeine and started reading. Great sub threads!

It makes you cry, reading President Roosevelt's words.

“It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

Greed before Need. How far we have drifted from or values.

Thank you freshwest.

[sheshe2]

14. Galraedia.

Thank you, excellent information at your link.

So there was a lot about this story that didn’t add up from my experience, right from the beginning. Now, as Snowden keeps making news by spilling information to the Chinese, and tech people and the press begin to look very hard at his and Glenn Greenwald’s claims, things are falling apart.

http://cendax.wordpress.com/2013/06/16/glenn-greenwalds-fish-tale/