Saturday, January 05, 2013

More Proof Of The US's One-Party System

Under the not-so-surprising headline - Obama Quietly Signs Abusive Spy Bill He Once Vowed to Eliminate - we learn that Barack Obama took advantage of the week between Christmas and New Year's - when many Americans are busy with family and friends - to sneak off and sign into law a five-year extension of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, giving the National Security Agency "nearly unfettered access to Americans' international communications".

If you are curious to read the empty promises that Candidate Obama made in 2008 to dupe his supporters into thinking he actually was going to offer an alternative to the right-wing neo-cons, click here.

The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald yet again offers unassailable proof of the US's one-party government:
Just four or five years ago, objections to warrantless eavesdropping were a prime grievance of Democrats against Bush. The controversies that arose from it were protracted, intense, and often ugly. Progressives loved to depict themselves as stalwartly opposing right-wing radicalism in defense of Our Values and the Constitution.

Fast forward to 2012 and all of that, literally, has changed. Now it's a Democratic President demanding reform-free renewal of his warrantless eavesdropping powers. ... And it now all happens with virtually no media attention or controversy because the two parties collaborate so harmoniously to make it happen. ...

Here we find yet again a defining attribute of the Obama legacy: the transformation of what was until recently a symbol of right-wing radicalism - warrantless eavesdropping - into meekly accepted bipartisan consensus.
By earnestly and unswervingly following in George Bush's and Dick Cheney's ideological footsteps, Obama has effectively negated all meaningful protest of these unconstitutional measures. Democratic politicans now happily support the same policies they railed against for the eight years of Republican rule (thus making any reasonable person question their prior objections). And Democratic voters offer flimsy reasons why things are somehow different now, arguing that Obama is not that bad.

As the Peace Laureate continues his drone attacks on at least six Middle Eastern countries, where he has murdered close to 200 children in Pakistan alone (without shedding so much as one tear), many of them the same age as the innocent kids who were gunned down in Newton, Connecticut.

1 comment:

allan said...

"an arsenal: two shotguns ... high-capacity magazines and tracer ammunition, shotgun shells, a replica M203 grenade launcher designed to launch flares, and a vial containing 7 grams of a white powder later identified as HMTD, a high-power and extremely unstable explosive. ... an array of disturbing manuals, including "The Terrorist's Encyclopedia V. 102," guides to improvised firearms including a DIY manual for the construction of a sub-machine gun, and Army manuals for constructing and placing traps and bombs"

Sounds like terrorists, right?

Wrong. The owners of this cache of weapons have white skin.