I am not even going to link to the mass of recent news stories regarding President Obama’s frantic wriggling to calm down the growing storm over the NSA’s…and other agencies as well, bet on it…massive surveillance system. (Anyone who hasn’t seen the coverage, it’s too late to talk to you. Go prattle about “politics” instead.) That system as it stands today makes the wildest dreams of previous science fiction writers looks like nursery rhymes in comparison. It is linked not only to the entire telephone, email and texting system of the U.S. (and quite probably most of the rest of the world), but also through corporate alliances with internet giants like Google, Apple, Microsoft and…oh, and Amazon, too.
What? You thought that Jeff Bezos “bought” the Washingtoon Post w/out a quid pro quo deal of some sort? Without thoroughly establishing his fealty to the PermaGov and its aims? Please. If you bought anything from a knife sharpener to a year’s supply of KY Jelly from Amazon over the last decade, the surveillance state knows about it. Bet on that as well. What sort of chance do you think an equivalently rich Chinese, Russian, drug-related South/Central/Caribbean American or Muslim multi-billionaire might have had to make the same purchase? Get real. The WAPO Grahams were among the earliest sign-ons to the whole ’50s CIA takeover of the major American media…look it up yourselves, you lazy libruls (Operation Mockingbird…it’s all available at the click of a mouse.), and Bezos got some kind of OK from high up in the PermaGov system before he even made the bid. Make a third bet on that.
And now here comes our Peace President, “smooth Harvard lawyer with impeccable credentials and vacuous-to-repressive neoliberal politics”, master compromiser/cakewalker and kinder, gentler warmonger (“This is not a bloodless process.”), taking to the media in an attempt to cool down the Snowden-caused surveillance furor with yet another blue ribbon panel idea…a modernized, rubber-stamp version of the execrable Warren Commission would be the best thing that could come out of this…because the recent anti-surveillance House vote near-miss scared the living shit out of him and also out of his handlers.
That House vote? Real “bipartisanship” in action…members of every clique in that House of Cards voting against the surveillance system because they fear for their political lives if they don’t, safe in the knowledge that nothing will happen anyway because the less immediately politically threatened Senate clones…longer terms, don’tcha know…would certainly vote it down and even if they didn’t Preznit O’Bomb’em would veto the whole shebang. (“Those who respect the law and love sausage should watch neither being made.”-Mark Twain. Yup.)
Meanwhile, here on Booman Tribune’s front page, NOT A POST ON THE WHOLE SUBJECT AS OF 8/10/13/10:40AM EST!!!
What does it say on my computer when I hit my Booman Trib bookmark?
Oh yes. There it is. “Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community.”
“Progressive.” I always thought that meant in favor of liberty and the individual. I must’ve been wrong. Now I guess it stands for “Progressive Intrusion On The Privacy Of Individuals.
PIOTOP.
Booman Tribune ~ A PIOTOP Community.”
Nice.
The new, new “New Left.”
Nice.
Nevermind.
The center is where the drain empties. Always and forever.
Enjoy the ride.
The suckers always become the sucked.
Always.
So it goes.
Down like a motherfucker!!!
Later…
AG
frenzied attempts to minimize the crisis at hand?
Feel free.
Pile up them NSA brownie points any way you can. You get enuf of ’em and they’ll send you a toaster.
Bet on it.
AG
It’s cyber-Stasi. Well, except for Obama’s Insider Threat Program which is more like mini-Stasi.
Booman Tribune – Once a Progressive Community
And don’t forget Barack Obama – once a “progressive community organizer.”
Or was it all part of his front?
Unless some smoking missive turns up due to “whistleblowers” we will never find out, will we?
Too bad.
What a movie it would make. Except of course there is no real Hollywood left to make such a movie. Just shards of shattered filmmakers and lockstep “Hottest Thing Ever!!!” formula thrillers.
Riiiiight…
More faux special effects and poseurs dressed up as actors.
Bet on it.
AG
The next big blockbuster movie hype is already in progress.
“Batman vs. Superman”
Or is it “Superman vs. Batman?”
No matter…it’s one imaginary hero vs. another.
Saaaay! That sounds like…
Like…
Like U.S. politics.
Yup.
Just like U.S. politics.
The fix will be in, of course…the feelgod fix. Can’t ruin the
parties….errr, ahhh…franchises, right?So first one will be the bad guy and then the other for most of the movie.
Until of course something really bad happens…like say 9/11, the whole Assange/Manning/Snowden thing or those nasty Tea Partiers/Libertarians/Non-Centrists of any and every stripe…and then they’ll team up and go get the real bad guys. At least…the ones they decide to tell us are bad guys.
Impossible, you say?
Watch.
Art imitates life. So do bullshit movies, only they imitate “life” as the media tells us to perceive it.
Like dis.
Like dat.
When it’s PermaGov vs. PermaGov the fix is always in when the chips come down.
Bet on it?
Don’t bet on it.
It’s a lose/lose proposition.
‘Cept for the winners, or course.
Ask ’em yourself.
They sho’ look happy, don’t they? Friends to the end. Probably reminiscing about their Bilderberg experiences.
Friends to the end.
Allies to the end.
Bet on it.
Later…
AG
Johnny Depp blaming critics of “The Lone Ranger” for the weak box office receipts is like Obama blaming Snowden for public displeasure with NSA spying.
“John Carter” is worse than “The Lone Ranger,” but not all that much worse. Cheap dreck is pardonable, expensive dreck isn’t.
.
In my diary – Video NSA Debate: Obama ’13 vs. Biden ’06 – Guess Who Lost?
AG – please refresh my memory, where did you find the quote: “smooth Harvard lawyer with impeccable credentials and vacuous-to-repressive neoliberal politics”. The writer´s name please? After all,you do take the trouble to note Mark Twain. The absence of Edward Snowden on the Booman Tribune is disappointing. At least we know it might be worth considering boycotting the winter Olympics in our home entertainment centers.
Apparently Adolph Reed, Jr. is the source of that quote, at least according to Paul Street.
Right. Obama: the first Reagan-child president; next we´ll get a Clinton think-alike (not if Ms Dowd has her way – time stands still in the USA, evidently change means more of the same old thing, how depressing).
Yup.
Adolph Reed, Jr., 1996 in The Village Voice. A prophet of sorts.
I’ve linked it so many times that I thought that everybody knew it by now. Here it is.
AG