Will Millennials Save Us All?

A Millennial Unlikely to Save Many: Abby Huntsman

One of the stranger articles appearing in the popular media lately is entitled: 'The New Greatest Generation: Why Millennials Will Save Us All' (TIME, May 20, p. 26) by Joel Stein. It is strange given my already raised concerns over the Millennial set, e.g.  http://www.brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/04/bernie-sanders-schools-millennial-moron.html   and also the facts- data that Stein himself introduces in his article, including:

- The incidence of narcissistic personality disorder is nearly three times higher for people in their 20s than for the generation 65 and older. According to data from the National Institutes of Health, 58% more college students scored higher on a narcissim scale in 2009 than for those in 1982.

- They are too fame- over- substance obsessed (Three times as many middle school girls aspire to be personal assistants to famous people rather than Senators or environmental activists or substantive persons in their own right)

- Their development is "stunted" - more people ages 18-29 live with their parents than with a spouse (according to the 2012 Clark University Poll of Emerging Adults.)

- They display an overbloated sense of self esteem fed by over-doting parents who rewarded 'em when tots even if they drew a crappy sketch of an egg. Hence, they've come to expect rewards from society for just showing up.

- A sense of "entitlement" - including when living with mom and pop at age 26, being able to get satellite TV or at least cable, having cell phone access, and not being given any miserly curfews!

But never mind all that, Millennials -at 80 million strong - comprise the biggest age grouping in American history. This also suggests that they potentially could have the most profound effects on shaping any future America. As Stein puts it (p. 28): "They are the most threatening and exciting generation since the baby boomers brought about social revolution".

And given the headlines of the past week or so- what with Bradley Manning's trial, and Edward Snowden coming forth with leaks on the monster NSA 'snuff out all 4th amendment rights' dragnet program - who can blame oldsters for agreeing? Both Manning and Snowden are Millennials, though granted not your "instagramming  24/7 to make sure I'm alive for friends"  types. But don't tell that to John Boehner, who called Snowden a "traitor", or Saxby Chambliss who opined yesterday:  "Well if he ain't a traitor he's pretty close to it."  This coming from a Georgia chicken hawk who escaped the Vietnam War out of some dubious excuse but had the nerve to cast unpatriotic aspersions on then Sen. Max Cleland (a wounded Viet Vet) to snatch his seat.  

So, pardon me while I don't dump on these two upstanding newsworthy Millennials who, if as Stein also insists will "save us all" - may be the models that 18- 29 year old generation ought to shoot for.  Which brings us to Stein's positive points on their behalf:

- Because Millennials don't respect authority they also don't resent it.

- Millennials have especially close bonds with their parents who they regard as 'friends'.

-Millennials are "nice". They have none of that David Letterman irony, and prefer a boundless optimism to negativity. On the net they therefore tend to dwell on things positive and stay away from things negative (likely including blogs like mine which probably have way more negative stuff than they can handle - but which I call REALITY).

- Millennials are more accepting of differences, not just among gays, women and minorities - but in every one. In other words, you can kind of visualize them as the exact opposites of my brother, "Pastor" Mike.  As one Millennial was quoted in the piece: "There's not this us-vs.-them thing now. Maybe that's why Millennials don't rebel."

Stein then goes on to cite Tom Brokaw (not exactly one of my favorite sources, after he caused Marina Oswald to terminate a rude 1993 interview with him, and his recent insistence 'better off' oldsters give up their social security for the next generations - thanks, but no thanks, Tom) who calls them the "wary Generation". This is because they " exhibit a certain cautiousness in life decisions which is a smart response to their world".

On this basis, Stein ends with a "more rounded picture" and even - some might say - an exaggerated one, given he ends by suggesting this group might "save us all". His reasons?

- They're earnest and optimistic (check)

- They embrace the System (Uh-oh! Better then read my blog post  http://www.brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/09/america-haters-uhhno-system-haters.html

- They are pragmatic idealists, tinkerers more than dreamers, life hackers.

-  Their world is so flat they they have no leaders which is why the OWS movement had even less chance than previous rebellions.

- And, of course, the usual pompasetting set up: they have delivered more techie wonky products, including apps, new iPhones, etc. then any other group.

Fair enough, but is that enough to save us all? Now, note I don't discount the notion because - truth be told, I regard what both Pfc. Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden have done at least on a par with Millennial Wunderkind Zuckerberg's Facebook. That may be  "Treasonous" to say, but there it is. The reason is simple: if we have information on how the government is curtailing our rights we can still have time to at least ACT (if we can get enough Americans off their asses - latest polls show 56% agree with the NSA program) instead of ending up with a possible condition like the Chinese have - where their Googling choices are severely restricted.  And don't think it can't happen here if extreme right wing paranoids occupy the oval office!

BBC Anchor Katty Kay tried to emphasize that on 'Morning Joe' this morning, but both Mika Brzezinski (emulating more the dumb blonde this a.m.) and Donnie Deutsch (emulating the clueless Madison Avenue adman know-nothing) expressed disbelief: 'That would never happen here!'  Sorry, folksies, that's also what the Germans thought ca. 1931-33 until Hitler became Chancellor!

My point here is a  search device like Google or even the social media Facebook would mean nothing if we lived under a giant surveillance spy state that was also tyrannical and imposed extreme censorship- and slipped in photos of smiling tyrants on your FB pages with the words 'We're watching you!'.

So I grant that Millennials can conceivably save us all, but if they do it will be along the lines of exhibiting not so much entrepeneurial genius (though they may well be important - say if they invent a device that can neutralize all potential gov't snooping making leaks unnecessary) but the courage to act in the interest of all citizens - like Manning and Snowden have done.

Here's some other advice for those Millennials who aspire to saving us all:

1. Don't accept the System! The "system" is exactly that corrupt nexus of government, big business, the military and banksters which gave rise to the surveillance state. Read my blog post on the link shown above.

2. Remember: People in power will always try to manipulate you into acceptance of their rotten System and memes!

This is why it pays to have at least part of your suspicious - negative 'lizard brain' working and aware since the power mongers' brains surely will be. The most recent gross mass manipulation was before the Iraq War when millions marched round the world to protest any potential U.S. involvement - but the mammoth protests were marginalized by the too cozy U.S. press, who also then began their disgusting pro-war drumbeating, to drive public opinion to the favorable threshold the Bushies felt comfortable at launching an invasion.

3.Doing Nothing is Obeying a Deadly Order.

Yes, there is such a thing as a sin of omission and too many commit it because of the fear of sticking necks out, or leaving places of comfort. Just look at young Edward Snowden who might easily have remained living in his Hawaiian apartment while raking in $200,000 a year and ignoring the distressing things he saw with PRISM. But he threw that all away to act out of conscience. (And no, asshole Jeff Toobin, hate to break it to you  -but no "narcissist" permanently tosses that much of his life away!)

As fellow blogger David Swanson put it:

"But a sin of omission is morally and effectively equivalent to a sin of commission. We need to be saving the earth and we're not doing so. We're allowing global warming and other major environmental destruction to roll ahead. We're allowing militarization and warmaking to advance. We're watching the concentration of wealth. We see the division of society into castes. We know we're building prisons and drones and highways and pipelines while closing schools and condemning our grandparents to poverty. We are aware that we're funding multi-billionaires with our hard work while fueling mass suffering, bitterness, rage, frustration, and violence."


4. Obedience Is Extremely Dangerous Because It's What the Fascists Depend On

Obedience, too much of it, is what most Germans of the WW II era still around agree sunk their nation. They were too docile, too agreeable while one small step, then another, then another was taken to remove their liberties. First the newspapers and their editors were challenged, their windows broken, presses destroyed and they said or did nothing. Then the editors were taken and sent away and they did nothing. Then the labor unions were shut down and they said nothing. Then the existing Constitution of the Weimar Republic was changed - replacing it with Reich laws - and no one spoke out. Then, the Gestapo began appointing neighbors to spy and report on neighbors and it was essentially too late.

The "Good German" - that solid patriot who was a rock behind what he believed to be a resurgent nation, was in reality the assistant architect to a dictatorship that sought global domination. Will the contemporary "Good American" be the same? Or will he manifest as something different, say like Bradley Manning or Edward Snowden - thereby postponing or eliminating a future that could resemble Germany's Nazi past?

The answers to those questions will determine if the Millennials really can save us all, or actually become part of the problem: a real world disconnected, cyber- hyper-connected group of mostly tech -app consumers - unaware of history, or even our own nation's politics, economics. Steeped more in the glitzy lure of  the Kardashians than the Kennedys of the 1960s.

I guess it boils down to whether most Millennials will become more like Abby Hunstman, or more like Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning.

Don't Pin The "Traitor" Label on Edward Snowden - Pin It on Congress!

As the predictable calls for ‘punishment’ from predictable political hacks and blow –dried blow heads fill the air, in the wake of Edward Snowden’s admission to being the PRISM-Verizon leaker, the deep politics maven can easily discern who the real criminals are, as well as traitors. They are exactly the ones who have used and continued to exploit “security” to eviscerate civil liberties. They are also the ones who’ve consistently abetted the corporate bankster spy warmonger state invested in perpetual war and massive debt. These rats want to keep obscuring the real reasons for their Big Brother spy state.

What is most amazing is how the real traitors (like Peter King, R-NY, bloviating this morning on CNN) have depicted Snowden to be “dangerous” when they are the ones who’ve led us into this fascist panopticon. They are the ones who’ve effectively taken away right after right while hoodwinking the public into believing this shackling of liberties is needed to make us safe,

Normon Solomon aptly wrote in his blog this morning:

“The corporate-government warfare state is enraged that Edward Snowden has broken through with conduct and values that are 180 degrees in a different direction. “I’m not going to hide,” he told the Washington Post on Sunday. “Allowing the U.S. government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest."


When a Post reporter asked whether his revelations would change anything, Snowden replied: “I think they already have. Everyone everywhere now understands how bad things have gotten -- and they’re talking about it. They have the power to decide for themselves whether they are willing to sacrifice their privacy to the surveillance state.”


But as I indicated in a post 2 days ago,  presumption of privacy underpins fourth amendment rights. So the real question is whether people are willing to sacrifice their 4th amendment rights to the surveillance state. I for one, am not. I would rather that the whole surveillance state be disassembled and the money saved ($300b a year) than that me and fellow citizens are surveilled 24/7 out of fear that the odd terror attack will occur, which in any case isn’t likely to even claim as many lives as the Aurora Theater massacre. Even if it surpassed that, the numbers would pale besides the gun homicides just in Chicago the first five months of this year.


Look, death is inevitable. It comes to us all sooner or later, and could be violent and unexpected - say being murdered by a psycho with an AR-15 or via accident in a tornado. It could also be less violent say by disease (cancer) or other agency. My point is that it is stupid to drown all civil liberties in order to try and stop all deaths from terrorists. It is not only stupid but unrealistic, as well as hypocritical – since the super spy state doesn’t seem to have any problem with sporadic sudden killings or even massacres (Virginia Tech, Newtown) arising from gun-slinging "micro-terrorists".

I’m talking about those whackos – like the Santa Monica shooter- offing a few citizens at a time with their 150 rounds of ammo pumped out with AK-47s or AR-15s. Yet when robed loonies commit a terror act or try to, everyone goes bonkers and want to impose draconian laws that effectively kill all 4th amendment rights! What’s the difference? I don’t see any! People suddenly offed in a "terror attack"  or  by a lone psycho in a theater massacre meet the same end! Yet in the one case we go batshit crazy and totally eviscerate 4th amendment rights- the very ones that distinguish us as Americans, while in the other we leave 2nd amendment rights untouched. Schizoid nation anyone?


But it gets to the heart of what columnist Al Lewis noted yesterday (‘Dirty Bomb Blows Liberty’. D. Post, WSJ 2):

“Here’s how terrorism works: slaughter people on national TV and watch as a nation that prides itself on freedom, shackles itself.


What Lewis captured here is the anomaly of a nation that boasts of all its freedoms and how our soldiers are “fighting for our freedoms” yet is willing to dump them all at the first hint of uncanny or sudden slaughter – by perpetrators in robes. What this tells me, and obviously tells Lewis, is those freedoms we brag so much about don’t mean that much in the end. They are expendable if it means the large majority of citizens can have the illusion they are saved if the gov’t is pouring through all their phone calls, data to try an catch an odd "bad guy".

Oh and by the way, the recent claim by Obama officials that the NSA spying system made us safer by thwarting the New York subway bombing plot was already thoroughly debunked by news organizations and Intelligence Committee member Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO)  within a few days- in case you missed it.


So when you hear those like John McCain and others (Dianne Feinstein, Lindsey Graham etc.) calling for Snowden’s head, be aware that congress have been the real traitors. First, they expediently passed a civil liberties gutting law they themselves never read – I am referring to the Patriot Act in 2002. Second, after learning the Bushies broke the law with their illegal wiretaps and violations of the 1978 FISA law, instead of holding the law breakers accountable they rewrote the FISA law to make it comport with the law breaking! Treason! This is exactly why appeals to legal backing for what is going on now are absurd. There is no real legal backing only the illusion of such, since the actual law, legal backing was renunciated out of cowardly expediency. "Legal parameters"  for this mass surveillance, as a CNN talking head tried to insist this morning? In your dreams!

Third, when a last final chance arose in 2011 to rectify things by halting renewal of the bogus FISA act, congress again punked out. They knew what they were doing but out of political expediency voted for this abomination. Treason three times! So now, having traitorously implemented a false legal structure they want to go after all those real patriots who seek to expose the shell game to which citizens are being subjected.


So all of the talking heads and political hacks you hear or see this morning, pouring condemnation on Snowden is merely an attempt to shift the focus of outrage away from the potentially major crimes against the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment. What’s interesting is all the yappers emphasizing the “grave violation core values” in the disclosure of the potentially unconstitutional mass surveillance, not the mass surveillance itself. Which is mind boggling!


Same thing for NSA Honcho James Clapper. What’s “reprehensible” to him is the disclosure, not the NSA’s potential crimes. Notice, too, that neither Clapper nor Justice officials are calling for an investigation into Clapper committing  one of recent history’s most explicit acts of perjury when answering congressional questions about surveillance (and yes, perjury before Congress is a criminal act) In this distorted worldview, Edward Snowden’s decision to expose the NSA’s potentially unconstitutional behavior is somehow presented as a bigger crime than the NSA’s behavior itself.


In his writeup of the Manning trial, Matt Taibbi sums up what is really at stake in the reaction to all of these information disclosures.

“If you can be punished for making public a crime, then the government doing the punishing is itself criminal,” he writes. “Who’s the right kind of person to be let in the know about the fact that we systematically turned academics and other ‘suspects’ over to the Iraqi military to be tortured? We want people who will, what, sit on this stuff? Apparently the idea is to hire the kind of person who will cheerfully help us keep this sort of thing hidden from ourselves.”

As blogger David Sirota puts it:

“The same can be asked about the NSA surveillance revelations. Do we really want to criminalize public officials who expose possible violations of the Fourth Amendment? Do we really want those public officials to witness such crimes and say nothing? Doesn’t that make them complicit in crimes that are far bigger than the alleged crime of blowing the whistle?”

In many ways, those of us who lived through the Kennedy assassination 50 years ago, aren’t the least bit surprised. The coup d’etat that murdered Kennedy, likely engineered by the CIA, set the nation off on a course of war mongering and mass surveillance. Since up to now we haven’t honestly addressed the Kennedy assassination as what it was, a coup d’etat (preferring to believe the lone nut myth), we haven’t gotten to the rot eating away at the nation’s underbelly. It had been hoped in this anniversary year progress might have been made when more files were released, but the National Archives has ordered them unavailable- at least until 2017.


Then people wonder why there are leaks!

Normon Solomon again:

“The gratitude that so many of us now feel toward Edward Snowden raises the question: How can we truly express our appreciation?

A first step is to thank him -- publicly and emphatically. You can do that by clicking here to sign the “Thank NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden” petition, which my colleagues at RootsAction.org  will send directly to him, including the individual comments.”

Bravo to you, Mr. Snowden! And on behalf of those of us who are genuine patriots - not the paper kind who prefer safety to civil liberties- we thank you for your courage and hope you find safe refuge someplace on this forlorn planet.

How Do We Get the pro-National Security 'Densans' To Understand What's At Stake?

"In the flash, 9/11 turned cocky. self-satisfied Americans into a mob of scared school girls. We went screaming to "Daddy" demanding to be kept safe from "terrorists." Spare us the details, we said, and just get it done, we demanded" - Steve Pizzo


Mensa is a high IQ organization for which all those with IQs in the upper 2% are eligible. The organization took some heat ten or so years ago when a number of their local Newsletters were seen to be referring to "densans" - meaning all those in the lower 98 percent of IQs.  But I want to suggest here that we need to find a way to engage and activate the (evident) majority of our ciitzens who are "densan" in terms of how they're reacting to the recently breaking NSA gobbling of telephone records, and vacuuming up online information in a program called PRISM.

How then do we light a fire under their butts and get them to express outrage, as opposed to the irritating nonchalant rejoinder: "Hey I ain't got nuthin' to hide! Why should I worry?"

Well, you ought to worry plenty, sonny! And if you believe monitoring law abiding citizens is normal, collecting troves on each one, well...you're a damned densan!

Security and privacy expert Ian Glazer put it in a straightforward way using a bathroom analogy: (Denver Post, today, p. WSJ 2)

"There's a reason our toilets are not in our living rooms. You're not doing anything wrong when you go to the bathroom, but it's still something you want to keep private."

Glazer also went on to point out no one set of data ever stays by itself - so the Verizon data will likely be combined with other data. Then when a determined snoop starts coming through it, well it becomes more tantalizing. We can have all the assurances in the world from the likes of NSA honcho James Clapper that no one will ever use the data and engender problems - but past history with "meta" data gathering is not encouraging. One recalls here the 1970s -80s PRIZM ((Potential Rating Index for Zip Markets)  program - not to be confused with PRISM, for which many innocent Americans were snagged as not having reported to their draft boards when they actually had.

As author Erik Larson observed in his '2nd law of data'  (The Naked Consumer), p. 99:

'Personal data has a way of being used for purposes that no one ever intended' .

This is a point reinforced by Glazer. Only an idiot then would expect such treasure troves of data to just sit there without being used to some other purpose later. Besides, as columnist Al Lewis has put it (ibid.),

"Maybe you trust our current president but will you trust the next one?"

It's all very well for Obama to explain there's nothing to worry about because responsible people are minding the store, but try to imagine if an ideologue like Ted Cruz or Sarah Palin was to occupy the Oval Office. Liberals, if any real ones are left out there, ought to be shitting bricks. They sure as hell shouldn't be complacent, unless they're willing densans on national security over reach.

Lewis used a chilling analogy when he wrote:

"It's as if a terrorist set off a dirty bomb that is slowly spreading tyranny instead of radiation."

Well, yes - because tyranny can prosper when too many are so consumed by their safety that they fear death - from any event- more than liberty. The fact is there is no way to make any system, town or nation 100% safe. A determined cabal of demented loonies with bombs strapped to them and willing to die themselves could still spread disaster. What are you going to do, hide in your house or piss in your pants while you wait for the government to hold your hands? As one poster on dailykos put it: "The reason this has no traction is that too many Americans are terrified of sudden death!"

Yes, but that is the nature of terrorism. My problem with the security meisters who patronize us with their regard for our safety is that they seemingly have NO regard when it comes to stopping gun killings, mayhem - such as just happened in Santa Monica, CA.  We lose over 30,000 each year from gun killings but where is the national security infrastructure to halt those? We're informed by the NRA that this is the price we must pay to ensure 2nd amendment freedom. But I say what about the price to have 4th amendment freedom?  I regard that as far more important. I would rather be much less "safe"  from a putative terror attack that has the same odds of an asteroid strike, than have gov't snoops trawling and scrolling through all my personal and other data, especially as we know future election cycles could bring real dictator types - who now have even more powerful machinery to weed out citizens they don't like.  But alas, it seems most of my countrymen are ninnies.

Sadly, as Lewis observes, "Technology has outpaced Americans' ability to protect civil rights". He adds:

"It is time for real patriots to consider the Patriot Act before the terrorists win."

My fear, as I noted earlier, is they already have. The 'horse' has already escaped the barn and it will be holy hell to find him and get him back in!

---

Followup: Edward Snowden who leaked the information to the Guardian has stepped forward, see e.g.
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/09/nsa_whistleblower_steps_forward/

He is looking for a country to grant him asylum, preferably one that values openness and protecting civil liberties. I wish him luck, but also advise him not to walk too close - if he should land in such a place-  to any characters in black raincoats carrying pointed umbrellas!

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/stephen-pizzo/49987/be-ashamed-americans

Americans Have No Innate Right to Privacy? WRONG!

The 40-odd year march in this nation’s decline has been marked not only by cynical transformations (e.g. citizens to consumers) but also the acceptance of political canards made possible by a degeneration of historical memory. Because the ‘life cycle’ of most Americans’ political-historical memory barely stretches 5 years, it is possible to hoodwink too many in the populace and especially getting them to accept as facts shibboleths that are anything but. A case in point is the conviction that there are only “negative” rights inherent in the Bill of Rights, and there can be no “positive” ones.


A negative right implies that there are ‘x’ things the government can’t do to you, say take away your guns or deny you property ownership, disposal. By contrast, positive rights assert there are actual positive rights to which you are entitled under the Bill of Rights, say health care and privacy. Most of those on the Right, who have only passing acquaintance with the Federalist papers, assert positive rights like to privacy don’t exist, but they are wrong.  This is important because one reason there hasn’t been more outrage at the disclosure of massive NSA surveillance is most Americans take for granted there is no innate right to privacy. I will argue, however, that not only does a right to privacy exist, but it underpins most other rights that inhere in the amendments to the Bill of Rights

For example, if the presumption to no right to privacy is valid, then the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights is meaningless. To restate that Amendment:


“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”


But note, “secure in one’s person, house, papers, effects” implies PRIVACY! These are after all MY private papers, my private effects, my house, etc. If an inherent right to privacy was a myth then by all accounts being secure in one’s person, papers, effects wouldn’t matter. Hell, let the whole freakin’ world see ‘em! This is why in a fascist dictatorship “personal effects” don’t exist. “Personal papers” has no meaning. The state has full monopoly, de facto ownership on whatever the person has, even his own body. Hence, in fascist dictatorships, such as existed in Nazi Germany, all personal effects, papers could be seized by the Nazis on a whim or remote suspicion - under the Reich Laws. A fundamental right to privacy, meanwhile, insists there exist bona fide entities that one can uniquely own, e.g. papers, effects – including photos or what not- that are private. Without this fundamental right, then, “personal papers, effects” has no meaning hence the 4th amendment is meaningless.


Prof. Garry Wills (‘A Necessary Evil: A History Of American Distrust of Government’, Simon & Schuster, 1999) further reinforces this point in his chapter ‘Constitutional Myths’(p. 108). He notes that citizens alone possess rights, which neither the states nor the federal government share. Both the latter retain powers and prerogatives, but not rights. Hence, the subtext is that rights can only accrue to human individuals.

The Ninth Amendment states that “the people retain unenumerated rights” "The people:" here refers to flesh and blood citizens, not to a bunch of contractual abstractions (states), or to corporations. .As Wills emphasizes and underscores (ibid.):


“The states have no natural rights. Their powers are artificial, not natural – they are things made by contract.”


Hence, the term "state's rights" is bogus, in error. States have prerogatives, not rights, because states exist as governmental entities not a persons-individuals.  It follows that the people then also have the unenumerated right to privacy. While said right isn’t specifically listed in the Constitution the Founders understood that as time went on new rights would emerge which they might not be able to think of (e.g. to health care). In terms of privacy, however, it is clear the language of the 4th amendment shows that privacy is presumed hence the Founders saw no need to elaborate it as a separate right. Hence, use of the descriptor “personal” applied to papers, effects etc. naturally means private! Even if one for some reason disputed the argument, he’d still be left with the fact of the unenumerated rights under the Ninth amendment.

What we conclude then is the NSA, government mass surveillance, mass warrants recently revealed, discloses a rejection not only of citizens’ fundamental right to privacy but any right to be secure in one’s person, papers, effects. So, screw the citizen, the gov’t has arrogated to itself the right to seize anything deemed personal or private once it’s within its purview – whether a phone record, an internet communication, email or whatever. The powers -that- be may really argue they’re doing this for our own good, but in reality they are acting the part of a fascist dictatorship in denying any right of privacy or recognition of individuality at all.  Note the reasons or their declared motivations for doing so are irrelevant.


Americans, if they have sense, should not fall into this trap and just shrug it off as no biggie. Instead they ought to be at least as outraged as I am and be writing to their reps, demanding the gov’t back off. Alas, it may be too late for that. Remember again, as Rachel Maddow observed in her May 3, 2011 show- Osama bin Laden’s aim was never to destroy the U.S. or kill thousands but to get it to spend itself into bankruptcy through over reactive wars and to eviscerate civil liberties for its citizens. To the extent those objectives have been accomplished, yes, OBL has won though he rests at the bottom of the sea. Had there been recognition of a right to privacy, we’d at least not have lost so many civil liberties- so might have been able to declare a partial victory.

With the Extremes of the "Patriot Act" Coming Home to Roost, We Now Know the Final Victory was Osama bin Laden's

"In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover and wickedness insensibly open."  - Thomas Jefferson, in 'Notes on Virginia'.

"Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for the purpose of a temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

- Benjamin Franklin


One of the stock canards (or maybe bromides) spouted all through the 12 years of the 'War on Terror" has been that the "troops are fighting for our freedoms". As we behold the latest leaked (thankfully!) releases that government has an enormous PRISM program raking up all our personal and online info and data (they use the euphemism "metadata") we now know this is so much bullshit. The troops are merely pawns deployed in far off places to justify the ongoing massive security-surveillance network at home - which essentially has tossed all our fourth amendment rights into the dumpster. But this has been long in coming, and to me - the real outrage is those higher ups like Dianne Feinstein now calling for pursuit of the leakers when THEY are the ones ensuring we aren't sent hurling into total tyranny! Because make no mistake - as long as the "patriotic" eavesdroppers know more about us than we do about them and their doings, we are merely consumer-ite tools, hardly citizens in a democracy!

Let's back up some decades to the Church Committee, which under Sen. Frank Church found in the course of its investigations that the NSA  had gotten too big for its breeches and was involved in numerous excesses. Thanks to the Church Committee there was issued Executive Order 12333 launching  'The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978' which mandated several limits, including:


- NSA can intercept any communication - phone call, fax, electronic mail, etc. as long as at least one end is in a foreign country


- NSA cannot target individual Americans, for example, by entering the citizen's name or phone number into a computer that scans calls.


- If NSA accidentally picks up an American during targeting of a foreigner..the American's name must be removed from reports of the call and replaced with the words 'U.S. Person'.


- When NSA (or CIA) eavesdroppers are training or testing equipment they may intercept an American's calls, as long as records are destroyed 'as soon as possible'


Well, all that changed after the  9/11 attacks, when the nation allowed a group of robed lunatics to achieve the leverage of a superpower, as our misguided leaders launched a 12-yr. military buildup and two invasions- "wars" - now bankrupting us - even as they induced us to limit our OWN civil liberties in the name of protecting us from the terrorists. In many ways then, the robed lunatics and OBL got our leaders, so-called reps to do their dirty work for them and thereby emerge victorious. All this horse shit you've heard about they haven't changed our way of life? It's a cock and bull story! Just read the headlines from today's papers if you still think that's true!  The sad fact?  Our lives and every move are fully transparent to the gov't while its sundry machinations are mostly hidden from us- thanks to over-classification of everything. Is this democracy? No freaking way!

Many warnings were sounded, especially after the bogusly named "Patriot" Act emerged in 2002. Alas,  few Senators had read it but most were ready to approve it at the drop of a hat because...oh my.....if they voted against it they'd be deemed UNPATRIOTIC! In fact, the REAL patriots were those like WI Sen. Russ Feingold who rejected it - recognizing it for the Trojan horse it was. Out of the Patriot Act's clauses emerged much of the sinister manuevering, pseudo-legalistic mumbo jumbo justifying the over reach going on now, including the deliberate muzzling of internet companies so they wouldn't inform customers they'd been compromised by backdoor gates- supplied by NSA, FBI etc..

Flash forward to 2005. At least the FISA Act was still protecting us, i.e. our 4th amendment rights. But then the Bushies began taking shortcuts with it, doing their snooping without proper judicial warrants. It violated the heart of the FISA laws but given how many congress critters had been turned into lily-livered punks they didn't halt it, no -- they changed the LAW to make the FISA violations lawful! The chance then came up in 2011 to halt the renewal of this insanity and unconstitutional over reach once and for all, but all our congress whores punked out, and approved it - so here we sit- with the NSA snoops likely watching even as I type this.  Obama could have chucked the unconstitutional FISA law revision-renewal with a veto but he let it pass by signing. Odd, because as a Senator he offered a full throated defense of the Billl of Rights and warned against the very over reach we're now seeing on a mammoth scale.

On May 3, 2011, meanwhile, Gordon Rachman - writing in The Financial Times - advised it was time to declare victory in the "war on terror" and end it.  Of course,  to the hyper-militarists and security mavens this was anathema, since god forbid, they need a driving shtick to keep on pulling in federal dollars. Shut down all their anti-terror toys, surveillance and so on and what's left? Well, nothing to do but play golf every day and what fun is there in that? So, their response naturally kept the fear pipes blaring, warning of this and that or now - after Bin Laden's killing- some kind of obscure retribution from the terror cells. But as Rachman noted, this game could go on forever, because no one is going to kill or eliminate every terrorist on the planet.  Those warnings sounded by the Spy complex two years ago were re-echoed yesterday by the same Complex and its self-righteous bloviators (as well as assholes like Lindsey Graham), who are chagrined that the leaks which informed us of the extent of their snooping will now "not protect us as well".  The question emerges from what?

You're going to turn the whole country into a fascist panopticon out of fear of one or two odd attacks? Evidently yes, and both parties are hostage to this syndrome because neither wants to be known as the party of "terr'ist lovers", anti-Patriots, commies or whatever. But as Rachman noted in his piece: citing a report for the Rand Corporation by Brian Jenkens who makes a similar point:

"The average American has about a 1 in 9,000 chance of dying in an automobile accident and about a one in 18,000 chance of being murdered.".

Meanwhile, in the five years after 9/11 (including the people killed there) "the average American had only a one in 500,000 chance of being killed in a terrorist attack". By way of comparison, the chance of dying in an airline crash is one in 346,000 and the chance of being annihilated by a monster asteroid (> 0.5 km dia.) in its collision with Earth, is the same, according to Sir Martin Rees ('Our Final Hour'). SO in other words, the chance of being killed in a terrorist attack is much much less than the chance of being wiped out in an asteroid collision.

So all this hullaballoo about "protecting us" is really about taking away all the basic fourth amendment rights in the interest of trying to halt one or two odd attacks (or even more possibly) which don't even claim as many lives as gun homicides every year - and for which this nation does absolutely squatto. (As we've witnessed after the Newtown massacre). I betcha if Newtown had been a terrorist attack, there'd be no multi-clip magazine weapons left out there!

You do remember those 4th amendment rights, don't you? You're not one of those fool 'Muricans who in a poll taken ca. 2004 couldn't name 3 of the Bill of Rights? Let us recall the words from that once sacred Constitution now treated as toilet paper by most of our aristocrats in the Senate:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”


As noted by blogger Norman Solomon (http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/norman-solomon/49920/the-bill-of-rights-exists-an-open-letter-to-dianne-feinstein):

"One of the most chilling parts of that just-revealed Surveillance Court order can be found at the bottom of the first page, where it says “Declassify on: 12 April 2038.”

Apparently you thought—or at least hoped—that we, the people of the United States, wouldn’t find out for 25 years. And the fact that we learned about this extreme violation of our rights in 2013 instead of 2038 seems to bother you a lot."

Why 2038? Obviously, because the powers-that-be, bless their little hearts, know that most Boomers will all be dead by then. And we are the last generation living that can still trace back historical memory to the era of the Kennedy assassination in 1963 - while for most Gen X'ers and Millennials that is all distant fairy tale stuff so they'd have little interest anyway. (Recall, the JFK file hiders also wanted to keep hidden all the relevant files until 2037, but thanks to Oliver Stone - whose film 'JFK' launched the JFK Records Act, that was shot down)

Solomon goes on, addressing Sen. Dianne Feinstein:

"Rather than call for protection of the Fourth Amendment, you want authorities to catch and punish whoever leaked this secret order. You seem to fear that people can actually discover what their own government is doing to them with vast surveillance."

But in fact, it is the leakers who have ensured a level playing field in the matter of deep politics knowledge, at least keeping the PEOPLE somewhat knowledgeable of what their government is doing, as opposed to the gov't having it all its own way and hiding everything!

Rachman himself warned of the dimensions of the extensive surveillance state - complex barely two years ago, noting that the Washington Post's expose ('Top Secret America') pointed out that:

"In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September, 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons.. Adding - and "that is just the organizations created since 9/11, whle the CIA and NSA were hardly modest or under-resourced operations before the war on terror".

 Indeed now,  at least five counties within 150 miles of D.C. are the richest in the country, in terms of median income, and all are beneficiaries of this monstrous security state. One in which I used to live, Howard County, Maryland, is the 5th wealthiest and features the NSA headquarters, the subject of an extensive investigative piece when I lived in Columbia, MD ('No Such Agency: America's Fortress of Spies', by Scott Shane and Tom Bowman, The Baltimore Sun Special Section (Dec. 3-15, 1995)).

Of course, NSA's complexes have vastly grown since then, with its budget more than quadrupled. Recall also my earlier blog on their new facility in Bluffdale, Utah - designed to approach the state of "total information awareness" that the (Bush)- reconstructed Iran-Contra criminal John Poindexter once hoped to implement - and in a way has succeeded, since the reported data scrafing functions approach it.  I noted the extent of this here: http://www.brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-biggest-spy-center-on-earth-lets.html


For example,  the program known as PRISM gives the U.S. government access to email, documents, audio, video, photographs and other data that people entrust to some of the world’s best known companies, according to The Washington Post. The newspaper said it reviewed a confidential roster of companies and services participating in PRISM. The companies included AOL Inc., Apple Inc., Facebook Inc., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc., Skype, YouTube and Paltalk.

Be alert, be aware. Raise a hue and cry as opposed to remaining merely a passive consumer. Now is the time for all real citizens to come to the aid of the country, if a country of democratic principles we are to still have when it's all over! If not, and the Military-Spy Complex has total control, we will know once and for all (as many of us suspect now) Osama bin Laden - though dead 2 yrs. - will have gotten our own government to do his dirty work for him in taking away our rights!

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Footnote: I just saw a nice little spiel Obama gave today about how the data collectors are all "professionals" and doing their jobs - also that he will be a private citizen soon and he may be snooped on by an administration after that. My thought? Isn't he the LEAST worried about that? He ought to be! Again, the extent of MASS surveillance - which is what he's trying to defend - is not supported by the explicit wording of the 4th amendment which calls for individual warrants for searches! This is an abomination and no amount of rhetoric can make it right. Not to me, anyway! Either we return to the 1978 FISA law, or admit we're now a lawless nation carrying on unconstitutional searches.

Getting A Perspective on the IRS Hysteria

In a perverse way, one has to admire the always seemingly victimized Repukes for their innate ability to set off phoney outrage, brouhahas, assorted political diversions and specious scandals (e.g. Benghazi) which they insist have national security dimensions.  The latest one is the IRS issue which - to hear the Reeps tell it - has seen one of the most powerful agencies in the country singling them out for far more detailed screening of their 501(c)(4) applications - for reduced taxes to "social welfare" groups, than their political counterparts.

What a freakin' bunch of hooey! And the worst part of it is how most of the press, with few exceptions, has jumped on the Reepo outrage bandwagon without more carefully examining the facts. (One exception is Michael Grunwald's excellent essay in TIME - June 10, p. 35- 'One Nation, Tax Exempt' - asking why any charity or social welfare group would need a tax exempt status, unless it had to shelter profits. Good question!)

First, let's set the stage: under the criteria set for 501(c)(4) groups:  the degree to which they can claim tax exempt status hinges on the extent to which they are not embroiled in political opportunism, partisan political attacks and self-styled political hackery. Does anyone seriously believe the Tea Party groups qualify? Groups that have viciously attacked Obama and his administration from the get-go,  to the extent of toting loaded weapons to public meetings on his Affordable Care Act, and painting him as a Hitlerite or Nazi pond scum.

As Exhibit A,  note the photo-shopped depiction of Obama extracted from one Tea Bagger's website in the run up to last year's election. Now, can anyone with all brain cells active and with an IQ over room temperature seriously tell me that this is not only politically biased material but politically OFFENSIVE? Do you seriously believe any nimrod who would belong to a group that publishes such crap ought to receive a tax relief benefit under the IRS code? Gimme an effin' break already!

In other words, it requires no jumps in latent popular IQ to grasp why the IRS would invoke a more lengthy and detailed application form for these types of groups and people. And bear in mind again, they are obliged to scrutinize more such types specifically because of the tax code's own requirements!  But to hear the little Tea Party types whine - you'd think they had been unfairly molested. Jeezus Peace! You'd think they were all brought up on tax evasion charges or something when it was merely they're having to use a more detailed 501(c)(4) form to explain themselves!

Might the IRS have taken a document short cut and paid more attention to Tea Party brands? YEEEEESSS! So what? When one understands the extent of how IRS funding has been cut by the GOP in the last few election cycles one would grasp the need to look for high profile giveaways, like TEA PARTY - behind the name. Especially of groups that put up crap like that phoney Obama as Hitler TIME image! (And please don't interject any bollocks about the IRS' 'Star Trek' training video which cost maybe $200k and is fully understandable in an agency where probably too much of the work is tedious, boring and where a novel approach can get more results, say with new employees. If you're really about waste, go after CEOs who use inflated share money to make million dollar vids and have $15m  escapades....errrrr...'conferences'  in Vegas, complete with strippers.)

Besides which, even if the IRS spent several million on conferences, training etc. it pales besides the BILLIONS that secretive Tea Party support groups  (like Americans for Prosperity and the Koch brothers) want protected from Uncle Sam's taxes!  But see, when 'pukes set off this kind of hysteria, it's always the rational perspective that becomes the first casualty.

Second, regarding the hidden Tea Party support groups like Americans for Prosperity, columnist Jim Hightower has noted ('Wolves in Do-Gooder Clothing', Col. Springs Independent, p. 10):

"This privileged status (of being designated a 501(c)(4) social welfare group) would allow them to take unlimited bags of corporate cash without ever revealing to voters the names of the corporations putting up the money. The caveat is that the 501(c)(4) groups are supposed to do social welfare work and cannot be attached to any particular party - nor can politics be their primary purpose."

Did the U.S. mainstream press cover any of this? Did you hear about this side of the issue? I doubt it, not like we heard it discussed over German News networks! You likely heard no more about it than you heard of the global anti-GMO, anti- Monsanto protests.

Hightower's next point is even more salient in connection with why the IRS was duty bound to scrutinize these little peckerheads even more:

"Forget what the 501(c)(4) rule says. Karl Rove and the Koch brothers have cynically set up their own pretend social welfare groups to run secret money-election political campaigns. Suddenly, hundreds of wannabes were demanding special 501(c)(4) designation, brazenly lying about their overt political purpose, even asserting they were engaged in no political activity."

Seriously? Like the group that put up that Obama -Time Hitler image?

Next time you hear about this IRS "over stepping", please remember to roll your eyes and ask the pertinent question: WHO was it that was really targeted and WHY? And to what extent would their being granted social welfare status have harmed the rest of us?

On that note, this letter in today's Denver Post from a reader is well worth a look, in fact more than one look:

"I’ve had about enough of the GOP wailing and gnashing of teeth over this IRS thing. It should be obvious to the most casual observer that the reason mid-level managers at the IRS would look for buzzwords indicating the far right is that they were tasked with identifying organizations applying for tax exempt status for which they were not eligible.

Who do you think constituted the bulk of such applications? Obviously, the Tea Party, in all its iterations. Have you heard of any new left-wing organizations lately? I don’t think we, the people, should have to subsidize political speech by anyone, and that’s exactly what this is. There are no Tea Party “social welfare” organizations, and we all know it. It’s time for the GOP to back off and let the IRS do its job, a job it was obviously doing very well, indeed." - Pete Lister,



Bingo, Mr. Lister! You were smart and savvy enough to nail it! Maybe others will in time.
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Footnote: A recent sub-kerfuffle has erupted over a putative change in language in the 501(c)(4) code from "exclusively" (i.e. social welfare groups having to exclusively operate in that purview) to "primarily". The latter has been noted by the new IRS commissioner to be applicable to the "implementation" of the reg, whereas the former word is in the original law. While this inconsistency definitely needs to be removed, it doesn't change the fact that Tea Party groups, organizations still wouldn't qualify since we know - as the letter writer points out- none of them meet even the lowly "primary" social welfare standard. In other words, the IRS - despite the change in lingo- was still justified in applying a higher level of scrutiny for the TeePees applying for tax exemption under 501(c)(4).

Men Using T for a Cosmetic ‘Fix’ – Playing Roulette with Prostate Cancer

The news that five million American males are now brandishing their tubes of ‘Androgel’ and other testosterone-delivering gels, etc. is not surprising. The post-45 lot seem to believe they’ve found a new lease on life where biceps pump up, and flabby abdominals turn into hardened six-packs. Their brains work better, or so they claim, so what can go wrong?


Well, how about aggressive prostate cancer – then having to get a surgery or radiation treatment that leaves you with having to use penile implants, endless Viagra and penile injections?


It is amazing how many sites one finds on doing a Google search that pooh-pooh any evidentiary connection between testosterone increases and prostate cancer. One site I located actually referred to any such connection as a “myth”. I have news for them: they are living in a fool’s paradise and furthermore are encouraging male readers over 45 into taking immense risks that they’d be better off avoiding.  The truth is that "testosterone fuels prostate cancer growth" and prostate cancer is "the only type of cancer susceptible to testosterone inactivating pharmaceuticals" (According to Dr. Mark Scholz, in 'Invasion of the  Prostate Snatchers', p. 42).


Two nights ago on an ABC News segment on testosterone fixes, a muscle-bound 60+ year old was shown flexing his biceps and bragging about all his energy ….and so on. Hey, great! But I just hope you’re ready when you have to be treated for prostate cancer – whether radiation therapy or a radical prostatectomy leaving you dependent on penile shots, implants or PDE5 inhibitors, or worse, never being able to get it up again because the cancer is so aggressive that you’re put on female hormones. (With large breasts you will want to hide, to boot).


Dr. John P. Mulhall, author of an academic monograph entitled: "Sexual Function in the Prostate Cancer Patient," also wrote a less technical book for actual prostate cancer patients and their significant others, entitled: "Saving Your Sex Life: A Guide for Men with Prostate Cancer". He makes clear the extent men will have to go to in a process of “penile rehabilitation” to regain sex lives after prostate cancer. In this case, sex lives that can be hampered not only by erectile dysfunction, but painful orgasms and dry ejaculations – even if they do take enough Viagra or penile shots to get the machinery working.

As if that isn’t enough to terrify any macho fool idiot into halting an enhanced T -regimen unless absolutely necessary, there is the prospect of surgical error leading to infection (c. diff.)  and vesicularectal fistula such as reported  by Dr. George Rinaldi on p. 20 of 'Invasion of the Prostate Snatchers'. Rinaldi was not one of the lucky 50% who emerge from radical prostatectomy relatively unscathed. He ended up farting through his penis and saddled with other complications before having to get a colostomy!

Apart from such extreme consequences, something like 50% end up wearing diapers for the rest of their days. This is possible because in the course of the prostatectomy (the most frequently chosen treatment) the urethra has to be sliced in two different places (since it passes through the prostate) then the base of the bladder has to be resected to the remaining part of the urethra excised from the prostate base.


One problem with the above is the response that “it won’t happen to me” – resorting to the exceptionalist meme. But I have news for these guys – it can happen to you unless you’re lucky enough to get the skilled hands of a surgeon that can minimize the collateral damage. Oh, and if you’re thinking about using that fancy dancy da Vinci surgical robot to do it, think again. Accumulating evidence discloses this thing will actually produce worse results unless – I repeat – unless, the prospective surgeon using it has at least 600 such operations under his belt. You really want to take a chance with some clown who's only done 12 or even only 100? Good luck on that!


Radiation treatments, which many opt for instead of surgery, are also dependent on the soundness of the center's treatment planning system and the skill, experience of the radiation oncologists delivering the doses. One thing you don’t want is an excessive dose of radiation which occurs in what’s called an “administration error” which can leave your bowels suppurating and your bladder in a mess, or ulcerating. Oh, and if you’re game for that new method using a giant linear proton machine, just be sure the oncologists administering the treatments don’t have a “geographical miss” – where the proton beam misses the cancer site totally and uh, goes through your bowel or bladder instead! As for a geographical miss hitting your penis instead, well we won’t go there, but it could make a clever horror flick!


Apart from incontinence, the greatest risk that surgical patients face post-op is loss of erectile ability. .The incipient damage is called "atrophy" which increases in probability the longer a patient goes without erection post-surgery. (Mulhall, p. 98) Atrophy is, in fact (ibid.):

"a scarring of the erectile tissue, and if the erectile tissue scars, the patient will never get his own erection back and will always struggle with medication".

Dr. Mulhall goes on to note (ibid.) that "the incidence of erectile tissue damage, as measured by the presence of venous leak is very uncommon before the fourth month after surgery. However, at eight months after surgery it "occurs in about 30% of men and at one year 50% of men".


If any former Mr. T-using Muscleman has these effects post -surgery, and is also unable to sustain enough blood flow he has another little complication to look forward to: a misshapen penis! Mulhall invokes the "use it lose it" saying here. In some cases, indeed, prolonged disuse engenders organs which are badly misshapen (bent as in a U-shape) and essentially unusable because of unequal scarring in different tissues.


Any guy seriously thinking of aping the muscle-bound CEO spotlighted on ABC News (in his T-regimen) would be advised to watch the video below first and pay close attention! Note the particulars of treating low testosterone, including the fact: a) testosterone can vary during the day so the time you get the blood test is critical, and b) the low testosterone can be due to multiple other causes than natural, including stress, fatigue, diabetes or other hormonal imbalances.


http://www.webmd.com/prostate-cancer/video/testosterone-replacement-prostate-cancer


If a guy has no T-problems and just wants to “muscle up” to look better, I say just be prepared for what’s coming later. It might also help to imagine yourself long past the cancer treatment stage when your dick is U-shaped, your breasts are bigger than Mariah Carey’s (so much you want to hide from your wife) and you have to wear giant diapers just to go to the corner 7-11.