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0 pointseinhverfr12y ago0 comments

What is even more scary is that we have been in freefall in this regard mostly since at least Nixon signed the Banking Secrecy Act.

This was followed by Carter signing FISA....

Regan followed, signing among other things legislation to allow the military to enforce drug laws domestically as an exemption to Posse Comitatus. This meant that the military was involved in surveillance at both Ruby Ridge and Waco, and also directly provided military equipment and in some cases personnel to these operations (in addition to Navy SEALs raiding crack houses in some cities).

Then came Clinton and things got worse again with the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and some other laws.

Then came GWB, no further comment required.

And now we have Obama.

Whoever we elect screws us. That's the truth.

0 comments

VLM12y ago

The purpose of elections is to give the populace the false idea that they have a choice. If they could actually change anything, they'd be outlawed.

rangibaby12y ago

Although people often bemoan political apathy as if it were a grave social ill, it seems to me that this is just as it should be. Why should essentially powerless people want to engage in a humiliating farce designed to demonstrate the legitimacy of those who wield the power? In Soviet-era Russia, intelligent people did their best to ignore the Communists: paying attention to them, whether through criticism or praise, would only serve to give them comfort and encouragement, making them feel as if they mattered. Why should Americans want to act any differently with regard to the Republicans and the Democrats? For love of donkeys and elephants?

EXCERPT FROM

Orlov, Dmitry. “Reinventing Collapse.” New Society Publishers, 2011-04-06. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

einhverfrOP12y ago

I used to disagree with you and Mr Orlov, but there is a point where apathy is the correct response because it frees up energy to build a better future through other means.

raintrees12y ago

George Carlin had it right yet again...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxsQ7jJJcEA

einhverfrOP12y ago

What you can use elections for is to extort policies from elected officials. The problem is that means being willing to vote for the greater evil if you don't get the things the country needs and our country is unwilling to enter into that mentality.

VLM12y ago

I think you're missing the point that the actual important policies are not up for debate and are agreed to by both sides before the two winners are picked for us to vote on. All the electorate gets to decide on is meaningless stuff. Both candidates will always want the elimination of privacy, destruction of the middle class, complete subservience to wall street, etc. The electorate gets to decide on unimportant stuff like the skin color of the winner... it doesn't really matter because either winner will implement the same policies, although perhaps with slightly different PR campaigns.

A fundamental impedance mismatch is the public wants/needs policies. However they're only allowed to vote on two hand picked two sides of the same coin "leaders", not the actual policies. The "winner" is the candidate who tells the best lies about policies, which will of course be forgotten after inauguration, and both are going to do the same thing anyway so it doesn't matter very much which wins.

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rst12y ago

The funny thing is that FISA was originally intended to curb the intelligence abuses that had come to light earlier in the '70s, in which phones were tapped, and international telegrams seized en masse, with no legal authority whatever. It doesn't seem to have been effective in that regard even before it was effectively gutted by the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, but it's still not quite of a piece with the stuff that came later.

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0 pointseinhverfr12y ago0 comments

What is even more scary is that we have been in freefall in this regard mostly since at least Nixon signed the Banking Secrecy Act.

This was followed by Carter signing FISA....

Then came Clinton and things got worse again with the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and some other laws.

Then came GWB, no further comment required.

And now we have Obama.

Whoever we elect screws us. That's the truth.

0 comments

VLM12y ago

The purpose of elections is to give the populace the false idea that they have a choice. If they could actually change anything, they'd be outlawed.

rangibaby12y ago

EXCERPT FROM

Orlov, Dmitry. “Reinventing Collapse.” New Society Publishers, 2011-04-06. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

einhverfrOP12y ago

I used to disagree with you and Mr Orlov, but there is a point where apathy is the correct response because it frees up energy to build a better future through other means.

raintrees12y ago

George Carlin had it right yet again...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxsQ7jJJcEA

einhverfrOP12y ago

VLM12y ago

1 more reply

rst12y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse