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The people we elect aren’t the ones calling the shots, says Tufts University’s Michael Glennon. Others at SN have also voiced similar opinions so I thought this might be an interesting read for our members.
The voters who put Barack Obama in office expected some big changes. From the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping to Guantanamo Bay to the Patriot Act, candidate Obama was a defender of civil liberties and privacy, promising a dramatically different approach from his predecessor.
But six years into his administration, the Obama version of national security looks almost indistinguishable from the one he inherited. Guantanamo Bay remains open. The NSA has, if anything, become more aggressive in monitoring Americans. Drone strikes have escalated. Most recently it was reported that the same president who won a Nobel Prize in part for promoting nuclear disarmament is spending up to $1 trillion modernizing and revitalizing America’s nuclear weapons.
Why did the face in the Oval Office change but the policies remain the same? Critics tend to focus on Obama himself, a leader who perhaps has shifted with politics to take a harder line. But Tufts University political scientist Michael J. Glennon has a more pessimistic answer: Obama couldn’t have changed policies much even if he tried.
Though it’s a bedrock American principle that citizens can steer their own government by electing new officials, Glennon suggests that in practice, much of our government no longer works that way. In a new book, “National Security and Double Government,” he catalogs the ways that the defense and national security apparatus is effectively self-governing, with virtually no accountability, transparency, or checks and balances of any kind. He uses the term “double government”: There’s the one we elect, and then there’s the one behind it, steering huge swaths of policy almost unchecked. Elected officials end up serving as mere cover for the real decisions made by the bureaucracy.
[Related]: ‘National Security and Double Government’
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday October 21 2014, @07:27PM
Okay then Mr. Leader of The Revolution, what are we going to do about it?
If voting doesn't do what they tell us it does, what other options do we have?
Are we ready for violence yet?
If not violence, where do you intend to direct the outrage you lambast others for lacking?
If you don't do something useful with it, look in the mirror at the criticism you dole out.
Pathetic.
Shameless.
Outrage without action is useless.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by velex on Tuesday October 21 2014, @08:13PM
Start at the local level. Work to get measures on state ballots.
Marijuana is being legalized. That's proof that something can be done that the Masters of the Universe don't want.
I expect things like Wolf-PAC will be significantly more difficult due to the greater threat that represents and the greater brainwashing that allows people to accept what's going on.
Support your local Libertarian or Green party. More importantly (and ironically given TFS) vote for them. Sure, maybe the Masters of the Universe would start rigging elections left and right, but that information would get out. Maybe that'd start the revolution.
Doing nothing is not the answer.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday October 21 2014, @09:28PM
I agree completely.
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Tuesday October 21 2014, @08:47PM
I write letters, I vote and I sign petitions. I know that at best they have little effect and usually end with me on a spam list from a given politician but I still do it and though I understand why others don't I still encourage it and more importantly I bring the cluebat when it needs bringing. Like right now. And don't give me this "leader of the revolution" shit. That's why your mindset is so pathetic. You think there's no space between outright rebellion and apathy. Just the fact that people acknowledge that these things are unacceptable is better than doing nothing at all. Total apathy because you feel impotent is exactly what these asshats want. They want you to expect and tolerate every little violation up until suddenly you're in a total police state (i.e. what has and is already occurring, especially in the UK).
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday October 21 2014, @10:31PM
I'm not sure what you think my mindset is, but I have a feeling you're wrong about it.
I do think there is space between violence and apathy, and I think you're in a perfect position to fill it.
I don't think that writing letters, punching ballots, or signing petitions changes much, but I'm still glad you do those things.
I just don't think they're the best use of your time, Lagg.
You can do more, though you certainly aren't obligated to.
You know the FBI wants a backdoor in all encryption? [newsweek.com]
Laughable, I know.
In the future, the code will disagree with the laws.
I would focus your outrage on the code, not the laws; you can't change the laws.
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Tuesday October 21 2014, @10:47PM
I'm probably wrong but frankly you're not giving me much to go on with hyperbole like "leader of the revolution". Yes it might not be the best use of my time but there's not much else that can be done and I'd rather do that and get some level of personal reassurance rather than being defeatist about it. As far as code goes I'm not too concerned. The only place that will be an issue is in proprietary stuff. For open source projects not only will such laws be ignored but actively fought. Hackers tend to not be too open to such things. What would likely result is the cryptography equivalent of the Streisand Effect.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 21 2014, @11:28PM
In a recent edition of The Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Ralph noted that a letter to a Congresscritter that expresses **an opinion** will just get a form letter back.
What you do is ask a question.
The staff will then have to make an effort.
In the process, they may learn something they didn't know and that may find its way to the ear of the guy who votes on stuff.
It's one of the last things in the 13MB file at about 0:50:00.
http://archive.kpfk.org/mp3/kpfk_141011_110045nader.MP3 [kpfk.org]
Immediately after that, he tells how to take a bite out of a megacorporation at almost no cost to you.
(Identify a way that you have been injured by its actions and file a case in small claims court.)
N.B. Since they "improved" their site, I can no longer link directly to their streams.
If you want that instead, it's the October 11, 11AM program.
http://archive.kpfk.org/#ad_24906 [kpfk.org]
That program will remain accessible from their archive until early January 2015.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Wednesday October 22 2014, @01:17AM
Will keep that in mind, thanks. In my experience the boilerplate responses don't really change that much from question to opinion but will try to consciously do the former.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday October 22 2014, @08:48PM
Nonviolence and intentional subversion of the status quo are definite measures technologists like us can undertake. I offer Napster and Edward Snowden as two ready examples. Napster single-handedly signaled the end of a multi-billion dollar, very influential industry. But it was just file-sharing software, something many of us could have written if we had wanted to. Snowden has massively imploded global perceptions of the American government, but all he did was make documents of the NSA's crimes public. He didn't even have to write software to do that; he just had to want to and to have balls of steel.
I submit that there are many, many ways each and every one of us on SN can apply our skills to kick the "shadow government" in the nads, if we want to. If you're an American and think DC and its controllers are out of control, then I would say it's your patriotic duty to do so. We as a group can be a far, far more effective force for change than X million dirty hippies waving their fists in the street.
Washington DC delenda est.