The USA Political Thread

[lennco]

Here you can spout your USA political views.

Rules:
1. Keep it clean
2. No fighting
3. Respect the views of others.
4. US Political views, No Religious views
5. Have fun

:wave:

 

[JB Lions]

The US is sinking very fast and becoming much more like China, or some tinpot banana republic where the rule of law doesn't apply. At least China is more honest and does not claim to uphold democratic values or human rights worldwide while acting the opposite way.

The problem is not the POTUS or the politicians, although they are part of the problem. The problem is the voters.

What rule of law?

Speaking of China, just saw this yesterday, China is in black - http://www.upworthy.com/wow-i-bet-this-map-would-be-banned-in-some-countries?c=ufb1

Looks like Germany is kicking butt, they're in white. Voted most popular country in the world, #2 for tourism etc.

 

[Kate]

What rule of law?

All of them + the Constitution. That "goddamned Piece Of Paper".

 

[iowadawg]

Obama’s “Bacon” remarks outrage the Muslim world

White House, Congress, and US Embassies around the world on lockdown in anticipation of Muslim riots. Obama reported to be planning another apology tour.

 

[dom-]

Our hero!
Constitutional Law Professor!
Civil rights fighter!
Sold out to the right wing degenerates. Sh!t

 

[JB Lions]

All of them + the Constitution. That "goddamned Piece Of Paper".

All of them? These type of answers always lack in specifics for some reason. Actually, what they're doing is legal. Patriot Act, expanded. People just don't like it or have had their heads in the sand.

I don't like them in my business like most people, but understand the NSA et all have a role. If they didn't, some of this stuff might have happened:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_foiled_Islamic_terrorist_plots_in_the_post-9/11_United_States

Then we would have people crying that our government wasn't doing enough.

And again, who would love none of this to be happening the most? Terrorists.

The discussion that needs/going to happen, is where is the line.

"Are the people calling Snowdon a patriot the same ones that are asking why the FBI didn't know more about the Boston Marathon Bombers?"

 

[Domainace]

And again, who would love none of this to be happening the most? Terrorists.
The discussion that needs/going to happen, is where is the line.
"Are the people calling Snowdon a patriot the same ones that are asking why the FBI didn't know more about the Boston Marathon Bombers?"

This is why I despair for the US. Americans are unique in the world in their response to a massive loss of rights. I've never witnessed in my life a people marching so resolutely and willingly towards fascism.

So we should all submit to having all of our electronic conversations monitored to prevent something like the Boston bombing? Not to diminish the gravity of that, but more people die from traffic accidents or cigarettes every hour of every day.

The US has always had plenty of information. They could have stopped 9/11 in its tracks. It wasn't lack of information that stopped them - it was lack of organization and lack of will. I mean, people such as the flight instructors were calling the FBI asking them to investigate, and nothing happened. They had plenty of info.

And yet, the first thing the government did was enact draconian laws to access yet more information.

All one has to do is go through any US airport to see that the line was crossed a long time ago. And yet many Americans still want more of it. By the time you all agree a line has been crossed, it will be far too late to do anything about it. It's the frog in warm water syndrome.

If people cry that the government doesn't do enough, it's because the government has trained the people to do that. Like...sorry to say it... sheep. They love it when people say that. It gives them the perfect opening to expand their power even more.

And so far as that little colored chart on press freedom, don't you wonder how it was compiled? It was put together by an obviously political organization. And yet, even there, the first thing I see on their Facebook page is the violent arrest of a photographer for taking pictures at a train station in Toronto - in a "white" country they define as having a free press.

 

[JB Lions]

"marching so resolutely and willingly towards fascism"

Oh geez.

"It was put together by an obviously political organization."

Because they put Communist China in black, the worst, the place you always prop up as being freer than America? Where would you put China at?

"It wasn't lack of information that stopped them - it was lack of organization and lack of will. I mean, people such as the flight instructors were calling the FBI asking them to investigate, and nothing happened."

Isn't that going against what you're saying? So you want the government to have more will, investigate more, everything that's ever reported?

 

[verbster]

Man oh man. i never thought I'd see the day i be reading such demoralizing nonsense. Take a break from this political fantasy and hug your kids, your wife or a tree, if need be. Get your feet on solid ground again and recapture some reality. Have a chocolate milkshake or two. It will help.

 

[Domainace]

Where would you put China at?

"It wasn't lack of information that stopped them - it was lack of organization and lack of will. I mean, people such as the flight instructors were calling the FBI asking them to investigate, and nothing happened."

Isn't that going against what you're saying? So you want the government to have more will, investigate more, everything that's ever reported?

There's no freedom of press at all in China. Is that the standard you want to hold America to? At least China is open about the fact, and they don't bleet on about "protecting our freedom" while they take it away.

Reread what I said. The government can't act appropriately on the information they have already. Why should they need even more?

Man oh man. i never thought I'd see the day i be reading such demoralizing nonsense. Take a break from this political fantasy and hug your kids, your wife or a tree, if need be. Get your feet on solid ground again and recapture some reality. Have a chocolate milkshake or two. It will help.

Way ahead of you there. Milkshakes, wife, kids, check. I'll pass on the tree thanks - happy enough pruning them. Unfortunately, it's not fantasy. Every now and then I get completely pissed off and post here, where it will do zero good. Then I get back to the stuff I can control. I can't stop the tide of events, but it doesn't mean I'm not appalled and disappointed. This is obviously what most Americans want.

 

[JB Lions]

There's no freedom of press at all in China. Is that the standard you want to hold America to?.

Ok then. You just said earlier you have a problem with that map I posted, it had China in black, the worst. Now, you just said there is no freedom of the press at all in China. Well, that's saying that map is pretty much on point then, doesn't it?

Here are some past things you said on China, remembering you haven't lived in the United States in 20 years:

"At least, in China, the people have some idea of how free they are."

"I can tell you that the US is already more communist than China"

"Whether the US is more communist is a debatable point"

Fascism, Communism, no. So we have people living in Japan, Portugal and some unknown country (not America) worried about our freedoms, saying stuff like Fascism and Communism. Be serious.

 

[dom-]

America is the yardstick by which the world measures freedom.
Right now that yardstick is smooshed with sh!t all over

 

[Domainace]

Some people just need to believe I guess. If you all would just confine that nuttiness to within your borders I'm sure we would be fine with it. Unfortunately the govt and many people there are not so restrained

 

[Kate]

All of them? These type of answers always lack in specifics for some reason. Actually, what they're doing is legal. Patriot Act, expanded. People just don't like it or have had their heads in the sand.

'Legal' doesn't mean it's right. Fascists states have laws too, and rewrite them as needed.

Let's review the achievements of bush & obama so far:
Invading foreign countries under bogus excuses and killing tens of thousands people... legal.
Gitmo... legal.
Torture... legal.
Extraordinary renditions... legal.
Extrajudicial killing by drones or through other means... legal. Even if the target is an American national.
Indiscriminate, massive monitoring of private communications of American and non-American persons... legal.

I tend to agree with most what you're saying in general, but let's stop making excuses to justify Orwellian rule. Do you think you live in a 'normal' country ?

Countries like China or Russia are not doing better than the US but they understand and accept that their sovereignty is limited by national boundaries. The US does not.

Then we would have people crying that our government wasn't doing enough.

Most likely, that's why I said the problem is voters (sheep).

And again, who would love none of this to be happening the most? Terrorists.

The terrorists are the winners because they have succeeded in making our socities paranoid, less free, less democratic and heading for the clash of civilizations they aim to provoke.

So we have people living in Japan, Portugal and some unknown country (not America) worried about our freedoms, saying stuff like Fascism and Communism. Be serious.

It's not just about your freedoms, but ours. You don't realize that what's going on in the US has an impact on the rest of the world, more than in the US proper. That's why there is so much resentment and anti-US sentiment worldwide.
For instance, the massive digital surveillance. Foreigners are the target here, but Americans are in the same dragnet.
Americans don't realize how much the world has changed. The 9-11 legacy not only lives on but grows like cancer.
Just four decades ago Nixon fell for the Watergate. Now people put up with such crap. The founding fathers would turn in their graves.

 

[Domainace]

Countries like China or Russia are not doing better than the US but they understand and accept that their sovereignty is limited by national boundaries. The US does not.

Exactly. A telling characteristic is how Americans who leave the country for freer pastures are told "good riddance," and treated like traitors. Very few countries do that. As though being born in America is some kind of blessing that demands a lifetime of gratitude and bondage. A common comment is "try living in Somalia or North Korea, then - if you hate it here." Ignoring that there are numerous countries around the world where the living is much better and the government is far less intrusive.

What was the one comment from a New York cop? Something about how giving up your freedom is the price you pay to live in a free country. And he was serious.

(PS- A little off topic, but I really wish this thread wasn't tagged "pee through anus." I mean, c'mon....)

 

[Kate]

On a side note ussr.com sold for $9,320 yesterday at NJ.

 

[RaiderGirl]

]

Let's review the achievements of bush & obama so far:
Invading foreign countries under bogus excuses and killing tens of thousands people... legal.

Come on now, you make it sound like their was no reason at all for invading.

"Gitmo... legal."

Where should we put them? should we release them to their home countries so they kill again? or should we kill them like Obama does with drone attacks?


"Torture... legal."

Like waterrboarding? because liberals say its torture that means it is?.. Torture to me is causing physical harm, beating, burning or cutting off one limb at a time until they talk.. Which I have NO problem with IF it has a high potential of saving innocent lives.

"Indiscriminate, massive monitoring of private communications of American and non-American persons... legal."

I agree it's disturbing, their clearly needs be some justification for monitoring communications of citizens, For example the Boston Bombers where the US was warned of these two, and like 911 the US failed to act.

Also where the Philippine Government warned the US twice that Al Qaeda was planning a plane attack on US Buildings, we HAD the warning and did nothing about it, so I agree with DomainAce with respect that it's more about lack of organization where agencies failed to communicate with one another..

I remember flying in and out of Manila in 2000, their was clearly a big change in security from 1997 when I visited. I was asked to remove my shoes, I was patted down, couldn't carry liquids, my check luggage was hand searched, my carry-on was searched once entering the holding area and once again before boarding the plane, Fortunately they had NO 911 style attack.

I later found out about a bomb making cell in Manila that caught fire, they were plotting to kill the Pope, big mistake if your caught in the PI, because we have NO problem with torturing, the suspect caught was Abdul Hakim Murad and through interrogation and torture, he coughed up the plans for 911, BEFORE 911 happened.


Mr. Murad, a Pakistani, was not a talker. Although a computer in his apartment contained information about his plans, he resisted requests to give details of what he was doing. His interrogators reportedly beat him so badly that most of his ribs were broken; they extinguished cigarettes on his genitals; they made him sit on ice cubes; they forced water down his throat so that he nearly drowned.

This went on for several weeks. In the end, he provided names, dates and places behind a Qaeda plan to blow up 11 commercial airliners and fly another one into the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency. He also confessed to a plot to assassinate the pope.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/09/w...ror-suspect-won-t-talk-should-he-be-made.html


All this was sent to the FBI not once, but twice, It must of been about the time Bill Clinton was getting blow jobs from Monica.

Our Government hard at work.


Research the "Bojinka plot"

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bojinka_plot"]Bojinka plot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

 

[Kate]

"Gitmo... legal."

Where should we put them? should we release them to their home countries so they kill again? or should we kill them like Obama does with drone attacks?

US doublespeak: the detainees at Gitmo are bad guys and are so dangerous that they can't be brought on US soil. Utter nonsense:
They have been rotting for years on the island because the US hasn't been able to make a case. What kind of country abducts people, keeps them locked up indefinitely and with no trial ?
There is no shortage of prisons in the US, even supermax ones. Remember, the land of the free has more inmates than any other nation on Earth.

The government doesn't want any scrutiny and accountability. Your country doesn't belong to you anymore. And don't expect your members of Congress to stand up for you.

"Torture... legal."

Like waterrboarding? because liberals say its torture that means it is?.. Torture to me is causing physical harm, beating, burning or cutting off one limb at a time until they talk.. Which I have NO problem with IF it has a high potential of saving innocent lives.

Very easy to say when you are not on the receiving end.
That's another terrorist victory: making you look and behave like them. Eventually the lines are blurred. How do you stand to the terrorists and your own people when you stoop to their low level ?

 

[JB Lions]

"It must of been about the time Bill Clinton was getting blow jobs from Monica."

Maybe he would have had more time if you guys weren't trying to impeach him. Plus, I think she'll go down as an American hero. It's a stressful job, she helped save lives and Clinton was a great President.

"but let's stop making excuses to justify Orwellian rule. Do you think you live in a 'normal' country?"

Yes, do you live in a normal country, which country is that?

"The terrorists are the winners because they have succeeded in making our socities paranoid, less free, less democratic and heading for the clash of civilizations they aim to provoke."

I'm not paranoid, I've known this kind of stuff happens. This is a tool they use to help combat terrorism, and we have stopped some:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_foiled_Islamic_terrorist_plots_in_the_post-9/11_United_States

I do think we need to talk about it, where the line is. Should we just scrap it all together? Terrorists would love that. This is the kind of stuff the NSA does and has been doing for a long time now. Probably your country as well.

Is your country Iceland? That's a Puffin right?

Shia warned us all back in 2008

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ux1hpLvqMw"]Shia Labeouf: One-In-Five Phone Calls Are Recorded (2008-09-16) - YouTube[/ame]

 

[eyedomainous]

I'm not paranoid, I've known this kind of stuff happens. This is a tool they use to help combat terrorism, and we have stopped some:

No surprise here. Defense satellites gave us GPS and in February, 1980, TCP/IP became "the preferred military protocol." I knew this when I got online, in '99, and conduct myself accordingly.

Personally, I was happy to hear the Gov has a data-tap on the major (corporate) web servers.

Netizen data, in the cloud, is the new 'commons', and while I strongly prefer this data be collected by Archive.org and the Library of Congress, the fact that it has been "secretly" collected -and the country is about to finally have a 'discussion' about it, means the Information Society has not lost, at least, the last 7 years of its "communications heritage".

The real danger is OUR information is now being OWNED by private companies. These fragmented "information silos" are not user friendly, on so many fronts, and deny us the 'big picture'... while they use our 'big data' picture to manipulate us to spend more money, in a process that robs us of the 'organic web' experience.

In an age where multi-national corporations, and their Mega-Regions, have more wealth than governments it is wise to have a unified data archive... if for no other reason than to connect-the-dots, and help keep corporations honest.

Corporations are, unelected, cut-throat competitors who freguently target people they deem to be a problem, it could be Goog targeting spammers, an oil company targeting indigeneous opposition, an insurance company targeting a claimant, and so on.

The target has little recourse, and "elimination" may be literal. Now, according to a recent Supreme Cort decision, even when the outcome is death -like for the 9 Ogoni tribal leaders targeted by Shell, and killed by a military unit they trained, uniformed and equipped, the court ruled they have little to no authority over Multi-national Corp.

U.S. Supreme Court Dismisses Lawsuit Against Shell in Nigeria
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15832

"The ruling effectively blocks other lawsuits against foreign multinationals for human rights abuse that have occurred overseas from being brought in U.S. courts."

Note: a lower court found Shell guilty and awarded $14 million to surviving family members.

 

[enlytend]

Good article on some of the issues with mass surveillance ...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_t...em_with_nothing_to_hide_and_surveillance.html

You may think "its only metadata" - but put a lot of "metadata" together and you have a pretty invasive (and not necessarily ACCURATE) picture of someone's entire life. It's too easy to label someone "suspicious" when in reality they may be completely innocent. "Innocent until proven guilty" becomes "guilty until proven innocent"

"The government" isn't the only one with access to your data - there are people in "the government" who have access. Systems admins, network admins, security personnel. Yes, there are safeguards in place to minimize abuse, but several working together and in high authority could potentially devise a workaround Speaking of security, wouldn't all this data be a nice target for foreign hackers?

Right after the Snowdon story broke, someone claimed a subway bombing was prevented by the NSA data collection. Shortly afterwards, a couple of people involved in the case stepped forward and said that no, it was just old-fashioned police work. Emails that cracked the case weren't discovered in huge banks of ISP data, they were found because someone's computer was confiscated in a raid.

Crickets chirped.

Boston bombers - they must have been using T-mobile ... or throwaway phones ...

Government security in the US (NSA/CIA) has a history of overreaching and of having no qualms about abusing US citizens dating back to the cold war era. That's another reason this concerns me.

All these things being done in the name of "national security" are chipping away, bit by bit, at the things that make the country what it is, if it's allowed to continue the US may be "safe" (or not!) but it certainly won't be the same country it was before those measures were put into place.