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Middleboro Review 2

NEW CONTENT MOVED TO MIDDLEBORO REVIEW 2

Toyota

Since the Dilly, Dally, Delay & Stall Law Firms are adding their billable hours, the Toyota U.S.A. and Route 44 Toyota posts have been separated here:

Route 44 Toyota Sold Me A Lemon



Monday, January 6, 2014

The Last Gasp of American Democracy

...and not a whimper from Americans!

Gen. Keith B. Alexander, director of the National Security Agency and head of the U.S. Cyber Command testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 12, 2013. (photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
Gen. Keith B. Alexander, director of the National Security Agency and head of the U.S. Cyber Command testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 12, 2013. (photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

The Last Gasp of American Democracy

By Chris Hedges, TruthDig
06 January 14

his is our last gasp as a democracy. The state’s wholesale intrusion into our lives and obliteration of privacy are now facts. And the challenge to us—one of the final ones, I suspect—is to rise up in outrage and halt this seizure of our rights to liberty and free expression. If we do not do so we will see ourselves become a nation of captives.

The public debates about the government’s measures to prevent terrorism, the character assassination of Edward Snowden and his supporters, the assurances by the powerful that no one is abusing the massive collection and storage of our electronic communications miss the point. Any state that has the capacity to monitor all its citizenry, any state that has the ability to snuff out factual public debate through control of information, any state that has the tools to instantly shut down all dissent is totalitarian. Our corporate state may not use this power today. But it will use it if it feels threatened by a population made restive by its corruption, ineptitude and mounting repression. The moment a popular movement arises—and one will arise—that truly confronts our corporate masters, our venal system of total surveillance will be thrust into overdrive.
 
The most radical evil, as Hannah Arendt pointed out, is the political system that effectively crushes its marginalized and harassed opponents and, through fear and the obliteration of privacy, incapacitates everyone else. Our system of mass surveillance is the machine by which this radical evil will be activated. If we do not immediately dismantle the security and surveillance apparatus, there will be no investigative journalism or judicial oversight to address abuse of power. There will be no organized dissent. There will be no independent thought. Criticisms, however tepid, will be treated as acts of subversion. And the security apparatus will blanket the body politic like black mold until even the banal and ridiculous become concerns of national security.

READ MORE: The Last Gasp of American Democracy



Also from RSN:

Steve Weissman | Where Glenn Greenwald Goes Squishy
Glenn Greenwald. (photo: AP)
Steve Weissman, Reader Supported News
Weissman writes: "Contrary to Glenn's proscription, outcomes motivate much of what the Court decides, often blatantly as in Bush v. Gore, and sometimes with ideological, ruling class certainty."
READ MORE

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