I would hope that congress could be united in perturbation at what seems to be a clear pattern of contempt officials of the Executive branch has shown for them, starting with the last presidency.
And I'm not referring to the president or his political appointees, but the permanent security state. In particular, "Emperor Alexander" and the fiefdom he has accumulated [0], without anyone noticing, and unprecedented for any American military official, and clearly contrary to basic republican principles.
If we continue the pattern of echoing the Executive's contempt for Congress, clearly intended as the principal branch of our democratic government, it will just continue it's pattern of delegating increasingly vague and arbitrary powers to that Executive, and offering no oversight whatsoever. And those powers are going somewhere. To "Emperor Alexander" or his successor.
I don't like to see so many people echo of the contempt the executive has shown for congress. It doesn't help Democracy to attack it's principal branch.
While I don't share your fury on this point, I am equally confused by Congress's lack of ability to see one step ahead.
Should the executive ever decide to use intelligence information for political gain, members of Congress would likely be among the first blackmail targets of an American surveillance state.
Few people remember that former governor Eliot Spitzer was brought down by the PATRIOT Act. Congress really can't see that a security state is actually bad for politicians first and foremost?
Let's hope some of the liberals who oppose the NSA's surveillance can put aside their differences and support this pro-gun, anti-abortion, religious Tea Party republican in his efforts.
If you paid more attention to what Amash is doing, rather than hating him for his party affiliation, you would see he is much more than what you claim he is.
Amash is one of the few in Congress that posts his votes and reasoning on his Facebook page. Very transparent. I would say he is also a lot more Libertarian than he is Tea Party. He is for protecting us and (what's left of) the Constitution.
As my representative, I will continue to vote for him and his run for Senate, regardless of his pro-gun, anti-abortion views, religion, or party. We need more Amash's in our government to protect the people and the Constitution.
I'm not hating on him at all. I'm being serious when I say that I hope liberals who disagree with his other views can nonetheless support him in this one.
I think that as a practical matter, reform of the NSA has to come from the right. Candidates on the right are less susceptible to charges of being "weak on terrorism" and also can appeal to constituents (pro-gun, anti-abortion, religious) that have historically chaffed at government registration/monitoring type efforts (e.g. opposition to national ID cards has always come mostly from the right). And that means that liberals who want to see reforms to the NSA will have to get on board with any conservatives they can find who are willing to push the issue.
For the record, he's never actually voted against abortion. He opposes government-funded abortion, but also voted "Present" on a bill to defund the "Planned Parenthood" organization, saying that he will not vote on any bill that names a single private organization instead of a class of organizations in general.
>put aside their differences and support this pro-gun, anti-abortion, religious Tea Party republican in his efforts
Isn't this tone part of the problem? It is possible that there exists a topic that you agree with someone on even if you find them or their unrelated views repugnant. Refusal to identify where the overlap in views does exist is what has gotten us to the state we are in.
That seems to be the problem. The political environment these days is so overly partisan that the minute we get a candidate that focuses on issues that are important to us tech folks, everyone gets tripped over social policies and end up missing chances to work across the isle.
That's just a feature of having two parties dependent upon the same funding sources trying to differentiate themselves. There might be individual members of conscience, but there's somewhat of a Gresham's dynamic going on where they will be the first to get booted in favor of someone who will toe the line.
I think that the one idea that the [ideologue] liberals and conservatives pretty much agree on, is that the government is full of jack booted thugs who are not to be trusted.
The problem is... ironically... the law and order types in both parties, as well as the majority of the people in the general population. They believe the American Government acts in an essentially "good" fashion. These are the, "Well... if you have nothing to hide, you don't have anything to worry about." -types.
“Most people prefer to believe that their leaders are just and fair, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which he lives is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one’s self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all.”
-- Michael Rivera
I wish there was more harmony on things like this--if, for example, one wanted to run a back-alley clinic in the Tea Party apocalypse, then presumably you wouldn't want trivial tracking of your movements by phone data mining.
It'd be nice if the liberal party line was more pro-gun; they'd probably find converts a lot more easily.
FWIW, I think the gun issue is tied to "pandering to the base."
I posit that the vast majority of gun killings are drug-trade related. Generally in the form of gang conflicts, like turf battles for distribution areas, maybe some for armed robbery for money to buy drugs.
The base of the republican party could never accept that recreational drugs aren't inherently bad. So they can't point out the obvious (obvious to me at least) point that if they ended the war on drugs, the rate of gun violence would plummet.
The base of the democratic party could never accept that guns aren't inherently bad. If they talked about decriminalization as a means to reducing gun violence that would weaken any arguments for the outright banning of guns.
So neither party has incentive to fix the problem because their respective bases have idealogical beliefs that are simply not topics of debate.
The problem is the existence of the humungous centralized Federal government with its Central Bank and its spying apparatus. Politicians and The Money that buys them created the problem. They're certainly not going to fix it.
The way to fix it is to cooperate with the central State as little as possible while also working towards decentralizing our own lives and economic activity as much as possible. This is going to take generations to fix, not years or decades.
The Central Bank is a red herring. It's totally irrelevant here. The central federal government is obviously what allows the NSA to overreach, but centralized defense is one of the primary purposes of government in nearly any philosophical framework. The problem is that any government powerful enough to beat back China or Russia in a shooting war is going to be powerful enough to spy on you.
I'd posit that the only reason for the existence of agencies such as the NSA is exactly what Eisenhower warned us about on his way out the door (sorry for textwall but its all relevant to my point):
"...Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
The Federal Reserve, the central bank, is the engine of the military-industrial complex (Eisenhower wanted to call it the military-industrial-congressional complex but his speechwriters advised against it) and is the core reason for the imposition of this complex in our lives.
It's a private bank run along the lines of a public utility, which ensures that the worst parts of both the public and the private sector will be emphasized. Until we remove private interests from the middle of government, ain't nothing gonna change.
The quote is relevant, but nothing in it supports your claim that the central bank is the "engine of the military-industrial complex."
The permanent defense establishment is not the result of the Federal Reserve, it's the result of technology. It's the result of factors that are clearly contemplated in the by the framers, but the balance of which has shifted as a result of modern technology.
The Constitution provides for a permanent Navy, and the U.S. realized the importance of one very early. In his second term, George Washington said: "There is a rank due to the United States among Nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War." (http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/union/state5.html).
In the 18th century, it was a powerful navy that was required to maintain the "rank due to the United States among Nations." A navy was the ultimate tool for projecting military power at the time.
Technological progress has changed the specific tools, but the principle remains. The statements George Washington made with respect to a navy in 1793 are today applicable also to an air force and a nuclear deterrence.
> The permanent defense establishment is not the result of the Federal Reserve, it's the result of technology.
The permanent defense establishment is the result of Money, as is technology. The control of the issuing of currency and credit in the US is held in the hands of privately held banks. Those same banks also own the Federal Reserve and so in turn, own the US government and its spying apparatus.
Those same banks are also who all of us have to go to, be we an individual or a corporation, to get our loans. Defense contractors, farmers, students, families and the US government are all ultimately in debt to the same coterie of financial interests.
Justice Brandeis said in 1928:
"Instrumentalities like the national banks or the federal reserve banks, in which there are private interests, are not departments of the government. They are private corporations in which the government has an interest."
"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
When we allowed private interests to take government, we become servants to the master. The NSA and other such outrages are just those private interests' way of keeping tabs on their inventory.
A small piece of anecdotal history re: George W.Bush's grandfather during WWI:
"In the spring of 1918, banker Bernard Baruch was asked to reorganize the War Industries Board as the U.S. prepared to enter World War I, and placed several prominent businessmen to key posts. Bush became chief of the Ordnance, Small Arms, and Ammunition Section, with national responsibility for government assistance to and relations with munitions companies.
Bush served on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland (as well as of the Huntington National Bank of Columbus). In 1931, he was appointed to Herbert Hoover's President's Committee for Unemployment Relief, chaired by Walter S. Gifford, then-President of AT&T. He was once recommended to serve on the board of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, but Hoover did not feel he was sufficiently known nationally."
When we allow private interests to take the reins of government at our expense, and allow it for generations, we end up with things like the Bush family.
It's hard to conjure up a plausible scenario where the M/IC takes over the country and ruins our lives without introducing a Kim Jong Il style madman into the mix. They tried to do it in the TV series Jericho and that's where the story fell apart.
There are legitimate questions of the necessity of a permanent military complex. Classical liberals opposed standing armies.
Switzerland has an alternative to a standing army.
And, as the other commenter pointed out, the Industrial complex was created from scratch during WWII, which is clearly an argument that it didn't need to be Permanent.
Yes, it continued during the Cold War. But that's over. And China or Russia aren't the USSR.
Classical liberals didn't have to deal with air forces, nuclear weapons, and ICBM's. They did have their analogues, however: at the time it was warships that were the major tool of international power projection, a role served today by aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons, and the Constitution certainly did provide for a permanent Navy.
Switzerland would never survive a modern war with a country that had these things and a trained, professional infantry. I don't think their current policy would be at all sustainable without the de-facto protection of the U.S. and Europe.
Switzerland couldn't win an open war, but the intent of their army is not to win an external war, but to prevent an invasion. In other words, make an invasion as hard (and expensive) as possible.
"Switzerland would never survive a modern war with a country that had these things and a trained, professional infantry."
...which is strange, because both the Afghanis and the Iraqis seemed to have made out just fine against Uncle Sam.
I'd posit that, while very flashy, your advanced weapons don't really do much for taking and holding territory. Indeed, in the modern age of commerce, those weapons so useful in an absolute war become a liability when deployed against an opponent whose riches you seek to seize.
When our country is so rich that it is economically non-viable to wage war on us using these weapons, we then ought shift back away from the military-industrial complex, because we have no need of them.
> ...which is strange, because both the Afghanis and the Iraqis seemed to have made out just fine against Uncle Sam.
Despite the protestations to the contrary from the liberals, neither Iraq nor Afghanistan was faced against the U.S. in total war, and even what little attention the U.S. has paid to those conflicts have resulted in relative disaster for the peoples of both nations.
It is true that defeating a dug-in insurgency is no easy task, but there are examples of it being done in history. Unfortunately the methods required are brutal, far worse than anything the U.S. is likely to stomach doing again.
It's kind of apropos you mention economic dominance though; to the extent that resource rights enter into economic stature, a strong military is essential to stopping wars of conquest before they start.
There's a reason China is building up their military so much, once they are strong enough to engage in 'power projection' of their own then little international laws like UNCLOS will be no impediment to them extracting exclusive resource exploitation rights, and probably without much bloodshed (as long as it remains a regional-only conflict, at least).
The central bank is the sole reason why the US military can spend $600+ billion every year.
It has funded the NSA build-out. It has funded all the wars, all the boondoggle military projects, and all the spying. America is bankrupt except for that little clock ticking off as each dollar is printed and the spiral downward continues.
Run the math on paying back $20 trillion in public debt. It can't ever be paid back under any scenario no matter what happens. That $20t is the tiny baby cousin to the entitlements disaster that totals at least a hundred trillion in unfunded liabilities; meanwhile Social Security is already bleeding out, while the politicians pander to a non-existent SS trust.
Take away the central bank's financing - which has covered over 3/4 of all government debt since the deficits erupted, not to mention artificially propping up tax revenues with new stock market and real estate bubbles - and you then have to decide between dissolving the entire US military or getting rid of Social Security or Medicare / Medicaid.
Without the Fed holding down interest rates via 'printing,' the $16+ trillion in public debt we already have, would turn America into a 2nd world nation instantly (if we were so lucky). How does 7% on $16 trillion sound, minus the ability to fund deficits. That would remove $1.8 trillion from the government's budget, effectively wiping out half of the Federal Government.
So yes, the central bank is absolutely at the middle of all of it. The NSA as we know it today does not exist without the printing presses to pay for it all.
In order for this to work, it would have to have some real teeth, i.e., spell out real jail time penalties for NSA staff if collection occurs beyond the cutoff date. Jail time for top staff, not just low-level scapegoats.
Also, eliminate their loophole -- spell out explicitly that any capture + storage of communications qualifies as collection, not that it requires a human to listen to qualify.
Side question: has the State now successfully argued that I can secretly record all conversations provided that I do not listen to them until I later get a warrant or court order?
Personally I think the two-party consent laws for recording are a great boon for corruption, and having the ability to record everything just in case I might later need to prove what was said in court would be immensely useful.
And I'm not referring to the president or his political appointees, but the permanent security state. In particular, "Emperor Alexander" and the fiefdom he has accumulated [0], without anyone noticing, and unprecedented for any American military official, and clearly contrary to basic republican principles.
If we continue the pattern of echoing the Executive's contempt for Congress, clearly intended as the principal branch of our democratic government, it will just continue it's pattern of delegating increasingly vague and arbitrary powers to that Executive, and offering no oversight whatsoever. And those powers are going somewhere. To "Emperor Alexander" or his successor.
I don't like to see so many people echo of the contempt the executive has shown for congress. It doesn't help Democracy to attack it's principal branch.
[0]http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/general-keith-alexa...