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Yes, the Tice interview is mindblowing.
An interesting aside (perhaps) is a friend of mine once jokingly suggested that when Obama sat down at the Presidential desk for the first time he was presented with a key frame from the Zapruder film. The subtext of this chilling joke, of course, is that Obama better follow orders. Not so far fetched now if you believe Tice and his information about the NSA and a certain young senator.
With all the abuse of power demonstrated for so many years by J. Edgar Hoover, I wonder at how soft headed any administration is to allow the power of NSA to exist. If they can, they will! Furthermore they will always claim it is necessary to PROTECT us.
That Tice interview had some interesting stuff. They even monitor and read snail mail. How outlandishly illegal? How many accomplices have they coerced into breaking the law? Now what forms of communication left are still private, verbal (to some degree), hand signals, secret codes, body language, light flashes; and, of course, smoke signals. Of course a secret code that is then inturn encrypted with secret algorithms should be more than enough to give the intelligence community fits just long enough to launch any "scheme" any group wants. If you really wanted to send them scrambling in different directions at the same time, send many such messages at once from and to multiple sources and destinations. Make only one the real one and the rest birthday cards. Best of all, you could send it using any means you wish with total impunity. Strange how reality follows fiction. I believe it was Scotty from Star Trek who said, "The more complicated the Technology, the easier it is to gum up the works."
If our corrupt Government has taught me anything it is that the best place to hid something is in plain site of everyone.
It's amazing: Nearly everything that the administration and NSA say about the surveillance program is quickly shown to be a lie. One of the best articles on this flimflam is Trevor Timm's "A Guide to the Deceptions, Misinformation, and Word Games Officials Use to Mislead the Public About NSA Surveillance" published 14 August 2013 on Electronic Frontier Foundation's website. The rapidity with which government statements have been immediately debunked by investigative journalists would be amusing if the lies didn't represent serious breaches of trust with the American people.
DAnneMarc:
There is a Canadian company that is ramping up production of a 4 bladed helicopter drone that can not only be controlled remotely to fly to some destination, hover, send real-time videos back using wireless or bluetooth, and can also have a programmed itinerary to do it all even without being controlled remotely. It runs off of batteries and when it senses a low charge condition it can fly back to a landing pad where the batteries will be charged through induction (ie: it doesn't have to make electrical contact). All this can be yours for just over $500.00.
What better way of spying on your neighbors? But some neighbors are ready to shoot them down!
What do you think would happen to a German citizen, during the Nazi regime, if he/she went through some Nazi channel to report on the death camps? They'd send him/her to one! Not that I believe we have death camps, yet, but I sure wouldn't trust any channels the government set up, if I were a whistle-blower. It's funny, I remember when the company I worked for, many years ago, got really paranoid about accounting practices being scrutinized by the government and a number of whistle-blowers had ratted on their companies for having two sets of accounting books. My company sent email around to it's employees that they had set up a special department that promised to act on any hint of impropriety on the part of anyone else in the company. "Come to them first"..they said. I don't know of anyone dumb enough to fall for that garbage.
Flopot: Yes, I had seen this video before and commented on it on Thomhartmann blog. Thank you for the link because I thought it was essential to watch again. Abby Martin on Breaking the Set really does help to expose things we all need to know. Everyone should listen to what Russ Tice has said. Because the government you think is in control...isn't. His guess as to who is only goes so far as to say "the upper echelon of the intelligence community". And he also said that it appeared to most employees of the NSA that when Bush and Cheney were in office...it was Cheney that appeared to be bossing everyone around. And while Cheney was part of the Military Industrial Complex...Haliburton...I would suspect that there is a cabal of very powerful people of that caliber who are acting as the puppet masters behind the intelligence agencies. They don't play fair...they spy on...blackmail...set people up as patsies...and even murder people that won't play ball. The illusion that we have a government of and by the people is contrived propaganda. They more than likely even control President Obama..and everyone else in those top government positions. I wonder what they have on him/them? Even if they had nothing on them deemed worthy of blackmail...they are a real threat to the lives of those (and their families) that are being controlled.
Flopot ~ Thanks for the Russ Tice interview. Anyone who thinks Snowden behaved cowardly should watch that.
Gator Girl ~ Go on Gator Girl! Thanks for that great advice. Demand to see your own dossier. I love it. Let's do it.
I really think it's dumb that we encourage people and businesses to invest money overseas by not taxing it. We need to charge a 50% tax on money made overseas. We need to encourage American Businesses and wealthy individuals to begin investing money in America again. Money collected on those taxes can be invested in rebuilding our roads and schools, and putting people back to work.
We also need to pass a law that no Government monies, (ie Grants, subsidies, and contracts) be wasted on companies that pay excessive bonuses to their executives. The same law should apply to companies that send American jobs overseas.
From what I've heard there are allegedly 18,000 American Businesses doing Business out of the Cayman Islands. Funny thing is, that the population of the Cayman Islands is just under 52,000. Which means that there are 2.8 people working for each of these 18,000 American Companies. I can't think of too many Companies that can operate with just 2 people working there. 95% of these companies have to be just shell companies. We have to make that practice illegal.
A picture of the ax handle is right. I would add that many Americans are complicit in this sham, being more concerned with having the latest smartphone than having real goods that they can build their lives on.
Dan -- we and Thom are 100% aligned on our view of the absolute necessity of education.
The small deficit destroying the economy is from historical data provided by Ravi Batra.
I spent most of my 72 years agreeing with you and your father. My key to understanding what is happening is to listen to what both economists on the left and right agree on. The metric to look at is the ratio of debt/GDP. Then, one needs to see how a small or zero deficit effects that ratio. In the words of your father we want to live within our means. However, instead of cutting our spending to live within our means, we should increase our means.
An example of what is wrong on depending on a revenue argument are the tax rate cuts of reagan. As you know, Reagan cut the tax rates for the top 1% from 78% to 33%. The revenue from the top 1% doubled or tripled. The economy tanked.
Add to that the fact that our local "police departments" are looking just like the combat teams in Iraq and Afghanistan - same uniforms (different colors), same equipment/weapons and the mis-use of the power they hold.
It used to be that a SWAT team was only called out for the most serious, dangerous or crimes where intervention was time-sensitive. Now SWAT teams go out for minor "alledged" reports of someone who MAY be growing pot, a domestic call, and the ordinary everyday calls that do not require the massive, expensive over-kill of use and abuse that results
More and more police departments are spending massive amounts of tax-payer dollars on armored vehicles, .50 caliber rifles and other assault weapons, body armor and equipment meant for military invasions. But these are the current para-military forces in small town America all over the country - try Gilberton, PA for an example of this attitude gone wrong - and this is one answer to being able to launch an all-out assault AGAINST ordinary citizens whose tax dollars have PAID FOR all of that tactical gear/equuipment. One way to by-pass the Possee Commitasse law maybe?
Make no mistake, i AM a staunch defender of the 2nd amendment and, no, I am not a member of the NRA nor am I a Republican. I am a white, female senior who believes the right of the citizenry to defend themselves in their own homes. Do I think we could hold off the US forces if they chose to march against us? Of course not. But, I do believe that our safety is OUR responsibility because of the above mis-use of build-up and force happening by our local departments who have sworn to PROTECT us - NOT invade us - which is NOT happening.
Anyone who does not believe that NSA et al are using domestic information to compile information on all of America's citizens is foolish. Instead of using the information that Eric Snowden to positively protect the RIGHTS (I know - what's that, these days) of all citizens and NOT store and use them for nepharious purposes. President Obama asks WHY didn't Eric Snowden go through "normal channels" to report what he had found? Really? Do you know what would have happened to him had he tried to do so? First of all the information which he was able to gather would NEVER have been seen by the public and, most likely, Eric Snowden may NEVER have been seen again, too.
Wake up people and start writing, emailing, calling and talking to all of your Senators and Representatives, the newspapers, blogs, the Whitehouse, the President and Vice-President - EVERYONE - to take back the rights which were guaranteed us in our Constitution and which we have NOT authorized to be walked all over. Write and request with a Freedom of Iniformation request for any/all information collected on you. They will send you a standard denial after which you should file an appeal and continue to do so. If they were innundated with millions of requests and the people who are supposed to serve you were also swamped with mail, phone calls, emails and visits - maybe, just maybe, we would begin to see some action. If we roll over and give up our rights we do not deserve those rights - it is your place to start the ball rolling to PROTECT YOURSELF NOW!!
Lethargy = mass arrests, etc as Loren Bliss states. I do not think this makes us "conspiracy theorists" but rather, true patriotic citizens who are doing our best to speak out and demand that the rights taken away by the Patriot Act, Homeland Security, NSA and our President be reinstated NOW and that we once again - on both sides - DEMAND that our Constitution be utilized FOR us instead of AGAINST us.
I DO HAVE THE ANSWER
Since all of our electronic info is being collected by the NSA, and we currently pay monthly to have this service performed on us, it would be way more consititutional if the NSA bought me a phone and laptop and then provided my monthly user fees for the use of these products. This way there would be no question to the rights of the NSA to look at what I am looking at, to see who I called, they would own the phone and I would just be the guy using it.
As it stands now we each spend bewteen $1,000-3,000 a year for the NSA to spy on us. If we are being spied on and I have to pay to allow this to happen, we have a problem and this problem has criminal intentions all over it and no one to arrest the policy makers or even hold them in check. Its not just the NSA. Its all unchecked spy groups which operate with our tax dollars.
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Snowden is the real deal 'cause he had the evidence - so sayeth another NSA whistle blower...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6m1XbWOfVk
[Edit: removed second link about a different issue.]
Loren Bliss ~ Thank you! You've just given me enough food for thought to chew on for a month. Very disturbing! Very sobering! Everything you say makes perfect sense. There is only one link in the chain--namely the link between the stock market crash, the Great Depression, and the advance of Nazism--that is new to me. (However, since Banks financed the Nazi's and caused the Depression that link is no giant leap for mankind in my mind.)
My only issue with your theory is that I don't believe such a structure would last very long; or, ever be stable. It does look sound on paper; but, it believe in practice it will not be practical. However, if you're environmental predictions are accurate--and from my own personal studies; as well as, learning about the research and theories by Immanuel Velikovsky and others--they are; and, if so, then you have an air tight argument.
I personally thank you for sharing! I will prepare accordingly. I hope everyone else on this blog was listening and will heed your insight. We are all in debt to you! You've connected far more dots than I ever realized existed.
Forgive me if I return to the current issues at hand like I learned nothing tonight. After all, like you said, "...there is not a goddamn thing we can do to stop the process--or even ameliorate it." Allow me my final moments of basking in the glow of a hallucinatory hope. After all, what else you gonna do? Why not make hay while the sun shines? I'm not the sort that can go down without a fight, no matter how "futile" it is. Wherever there is life, there is hope! Wherever there is death, there is peace!
Actually the roots of the total-surveillance state date back to the post-World-War II purges, when the One Percent ordered the government to mercilessly persecute not just the Communists, but all socialists of any sort and -- more to the point -- discredit all intellectuals by conditioning us to regard "intellectual" as synonymous with "subversive."
But the impetus to create such a state obviously dates back at least to the Bankers Plot of 1934, when the One Percent tried to impose fascism on the United States -- and failed only because of the patriotism of a Marine Corps general and intervention by the Communist Party and its allies. The conspirators' intent was to reduce the U.S. to a de facto colony that would have been the primary source of natural and financial resources for world conquest by the Nazis' Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis.
The surveillance apparatus itself is facilitated by certain military inventions of World War II, most notably the computer, the malevolent origins of which are now becoming obvious in its malevolent applications. No doubt the legions of war criminals absorbed by the government and the corporate sector after the war -- unreconstructed Nazis whose dream was turning the U.S. and its empire into the Fourth Reich -- greatly helped.
As to the long-range objective of the present-day program of total surveillance, it is obviously intended to facilitate capitalism's achievement of its ultimate and final form, which is Ayn Rand fascism. Thus the already undeniable reality of capitalist governance: absolute power and unlimited profit for the One Percent, total subjugation for all the rest of us. In other words, the imposition and perpetuation of the ultimate slave state, the construct by which the One Percent intends to survive the forthcoming triple apocalypse of terminal climate change, petroleum exhaustion and the resultant collapse of all petroleum-dependent technology.
And at this point, there is not a goddamn thing we can do to stop the process -- or even ameliorate it. As under the (fictional?) Borg, "resistance is futile" -- save as a doomed assertion of individual freedom.
Bobsr ~ Thom, I , and everyone else I know did 'jump' on this issue some 12 years ago when the Patriot Act was released. Pull up some of his archive shows if you don't believe me. Long before anyone suspected that 9/11 was an inside job everyone knew that the Patriot Act was an attack on our Bill of Rights and an egregious misuse of power. I might ask, "Where were you?"
Where were you when the entire country rallied around a Constitutional Scholar and put him into the White House despite the fact that he was a black man? Did that not say something about where the entire country was 6 years ago? Who could blame people for exploding after the revelations of NSA spying? They intentionally elected Obama the orator and Constitutional Scholar to fix this mess and now learn they have been used, misled, and betrayed by Barack the betrayer. How can you remember one 60 Minutes show from 10 years ago and forget the rest of recent history?
Thanks for taking the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and love learning more on this topic. If possible, as you gain vi nu expertise, would you mind dam cong so updating your blog with more information? vay da hoi It is extremely helpful for me...thanks
This so-called NSA scandal is a total joke. I distinctly remember 60 Minutes having a show about 10 years ago with a retired phone company installer who said that the government was being connected to every phone line in the company he worked for. Why the mainstream media did not jump on this, including Thom Hartmann then and now, is beyond me. It almost looks like the lefties, with their phony complaining, are trying to help the righties impeach Obama. One of the biggest laughs I've had was the initial screaming by many Republicans when they first heard about this before it was pointed out to them that this program began under the Shrub and initially had zero safeguards. I wouldn't be surprised if the Republicans used it to nail Eliot Spitzer.
The morons around where I live still think this is a program initiated by Obama.
Supposedly there has been data illegally gathered by this program recently. However there are no specifics as to what the data was and what was done with it. What BS!
On NSA unconstitutional spying: Fact 1) If any group of educated, competent and committed people are dead set on using a tactical nuclear weapon to blow up an American city they will succeed. Fact 2) Sacrificing our Constitution on the alter of fear and ignorance will not stop it. Fact 3) Staying true to our laws and traditions coupled with treating the rest of the world the way we want them to treat us will prevent it.
Loren Bliss ~ Your analysis is very reasonable. TOO reasonable.
There is of course the fact of detention centers built around the country to house unknown numbers of people set up by FEMA. There are also stockpiles of caskets located in and near these centers that can fit three bodies per container. If you conclusion is right, one must ask the logical question what fate will befall these captives after being roundup. Does a government that resents "entitlements" really intend to house, feed, and cloth all these detainees indefinetely? Or perhaps, the "ultimate" solution might be a more reasonable expectation--MASS EXTERMINATION.
If you are going to go as far as mass arrests, my friend, why not shoot for the Full Monty? Also, since this is the direction you are obviously pointing to, may I ask what is the full purpose of this plan? There must be some rhyme to this reason that makes logical sense. So far to me it seems like a lot of evidence, conjecture, and speculation without a reasonable plot. Does the Georgia Guide Stone have anything to do with this? And finally, who is really behind this? What is the goal behind the end play?
PS You, I, and Palindromedary simply must hangout sometime.
In military intelligence work there are two important sorts of estimates. One is of enemy capabilities, the other is of enemy intentions. The two estimates combined enable analysts to determine if or when an enemy is likely to attack.
But is it legitimate to consider government in the United States the enemy of the people it presumably represents? Obviously, the Right has done so for many years. Now the Left is beginning to follow suit. Note the ever-more-brazen despotism of the Ruling Class -- the One Percent and all the federal, state and local politicians and bureaucrats it owns. Note our repeated victimization by government, how we of the 99 Percent are forced ever deeper into joblessness, poverty and wretchedness. The scope of the conflict -- the answer to the pivotal question of "which side are you on" -- becomes ever more obvious.
We know government now has the capability to spy on us 24/7, literally every minute of every day. We also know government is already employing this capability to collect unlimited data on every individual who resides within or passes through USian borders.
What then is government's intention? What will government do with all these dossiers it is creating on all of us? What are the indications?
The answer is to be found in three facts. One is that government at every level of the United States is busy proving itself the enemy of our (former) Constitutional rights. Two is that, in opposition to the Bill of Rights, there is no appreciable difference between the two major parties, their despotic singularity repeatedly proven by the succession of unanimous or near-unanimous votes by elected officials to repeal or nullify our Constitutional rights. Three is the governmental assault on freedom of information, proven by the zero-tolerance persecution of whistle-blowers, members of the working press and organized dissidents such as Occupy -- campaigns of suppression in which state and local governments function as surrogates of the federal government. Clearly therefore the intention of government is to use its capabilities against us, to ensure that We the People are reduced as quickly as possible to abject powerlessness and never again regain the initiative required to achieve liberty.
In this context, the only remaining question is when will the mass arrests begin.