A very safe bet

On the morning of January 21st, Democrats all over the country are going to wake up and suddenly realize they care about civil rights.

We've handed Don't Trump the most terrifying, Orwellian surveillance state in history.

According to Michael Hayden, who was NSA Director from 1999 to 2005, Obama placed the program under more congressional oversight than Bush, but “in terms of what NSA is doing, there is incredible continuity between the two presidents.” In fact, the surveillance programs have expanded under Obama, Hayden says, and the spy agency now has more powers now than when he was in command.

Liberals were perfectly fine with the existing Orwellian surveillance state, as long as a Democrat was in the White House. In fact, anyone who blew the whistle of Obama's abuse of powers was demonized.

Although the Snowden revelations led to the appointment by President Obama of a Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, which later issued a 300-page report with 46 recommendations to dramatically curtail the NSA’s surveillance powers, Snowden himself was vilified as a traitor by prominent Democrats such as Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Bill Nelson, and several congressional leaders called for his arrest and prosecution.
On the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton flatly stated that “he broke the laws of the United States” and “stole very important information that has unfortunately fallen into a lot of the wrong hands.” Asked whether Snowden should be allowed to return to the United States, she said, “I don’t think he should be brought home without facing the music.”

It wasn't just politicians.

When the New York Times revealed Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program in 2005, 60 percent of registered Democrats thought the program was “unacceptable.” But after NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed a dramatically larger surveillance apparatus in 2013, a 61 percent of Democrats said the opposite — presumably because they trusted the man in charge.

The fact that a U.S. Court of Appeals found the NSA's domestic spying program to be violating existing laws, wasn't enough to change the minds of Democrats, but having a vindictive man who makes enemies lists in the White House will surely give Democrats a "come to Jesus" moment.

“it’s so great our enemies are making themselves clear so that when we get in to the White House, we know where we stand...Let me just tell you, Mr. Trump has a long memory and we’re keeping a list.”
- Trump surrogate Omarosa Manigault

Democrats can be forgiven for not seeing this one coming. After all, who could have predicted that a non-Democrat would have ever won the presidency, amirite?

Civil liberties advocates have been warning of a scenario like this for more than six years. The extraordinary national security powers George W Bush pioneered and Obama shamefully entrenched could now fall into the hands of someone many people consider a madman.

Even at this late date, Democrats are still not clamoring to push Obama to do some reforms to protect civil rights before he leaves office. Maybe they've forgotten how.

Unlike when Obama was president, Democrats will suddenly remember that they care about torture and war crimes.

Trump’s abhorrent daily pronouncements about what he would do as president come at such a rate that we have become numb to them. We’ve lost count of the amount of times he’s claimed he’ll bring back waterboarding, or some forms of torture that are “so much worse” (something that would constitute a war crime). Or that he’ll not only kill terrorists, but members of their families as well – another war crime.

It's understandable why Obama swept those war crimes under the rug.

In short, when it comes to torture, Obama’s hands aren’t entirely clean either.
Some go further. “His record on torture has been abysmal, to the point of obstruction, concealment, and ultimate complicity,” said Wells Dixon, a senior attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has defended detainees who have been victims of torture.

The question is, how will Democrats rationalize the eight year-long coma on these issues?

When the drone program is handed over to the Trump administration, will Obama supporters still think it’s a good thing that the executive branch has the authority to kill US citizens in complete secrecy?

A very good question. My guess would be "no".
The Democratic Party abandoned its opposition to civil rights violations once Obama took the oath of office in 2009.

And then there is the issue of war.

the Obama administration has done more damage than Bush did to the constitutional principle that Congress should be the only governmental body that can declare it. The US is currently waging war in multiple countries – Syria, Iraq and Libya – using a law written 15 years ago meant for Afghanistan, to go after a terrorist organization that did not exist at the time. When President Trump decides to invade the first Middle Eastern country that looks at him the wrong way, to “take their oil”, it will be that much harder to stop him because of the precedent the current administration has set.

Remember way, way back when Democrats were against pointless wars? You almost have to be Gen X or older for that.
My opinion is that it's far too late to remember how to oppose useless wars. Democrats should continue to "embrace the suck", because there is nothing to stop the Imperial Presidency now. The opportunity for that has already passed.

In the twenty-first century, the Special Operations Command, which oversees those elite forces cocooned within the regular military, has gained ever more power to act in ever more independent and secretive ways. In those same years, the country’s elite troops, including those Green Berets, the Navy SEALs, and the Army’s Delta Force, have grown to staggering proportions, while ever more money has poured into their coffers. There are now an estimated 70,000 of them – a crew larger than the actual armies of some reasonably sizeable countries – and from trainers to raiders, advisers to hunter-killers, they now operate yearly in an overwhelming majority of the nations on this planet. Moreover, they generally do so in remarkable secrecy and (as once might have been said of the CIA) their most secretive part, the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), responsible for the killing of Osama bin Laden, is in essence the president’s private army.
In these last years, President Obama, who gained a reputation for being chary of war, has nonetheless taken on with evident relish both those special ops forces and the drone assassins, while embracing what Washington Post columnist David Ignatius recently termed the role of "covert commander in chief." Now, in these last weeks of his presidency, his administration has given JSOC new powers to "track, plan, and potentially launch attacks on terrorist cells around the globe" and to do so "outside conventional conflict zones" and via "a new multiagency intelligence and action force." As a result, whatever this new task force may do, it won’t, as in the past, have to deal with regional military commands and their commanders at all. Its only responsibility will be to the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and assumedly the White House; even within the military, that is, it will gain a new patina of secrecy and power (while evidently poaching on territory that once was considered the CIA’s alone, no small thing at a moment when President-elect Trump is not exactly enamored with that agency).

The good news is that liberals will now have a brand new issue for meaningless virtue signalling that can be tossed aside again once a Democrat wins.

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Comments

Brave New World, 1984, and When the Sleeper Wakes aren't How-to manuals?

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There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.

tapu dali's picture

certainly is, for the Republicans at least.

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There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.

Don't forget that under the NDAA El Presidente can still nab you without charge or any reason and hold you indefinitely without trial. Nobody should have that kind of power.

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They say that there's a broken light for every heart on Broadway
They say that life's a game and then they take the board away
They give you masks and costumes and an outline of the story
And leave you all to improvise their vicious cabaret-- A. Moore

divineorder's picture

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

The voting

http://educate-yourself.org/cn/patriotact20012006senatevote.shtml

They are part of this system lock stock and barrel.

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Big Al's picture

combined with "Stop the war in Syria!", just don't seem to go together.
But we've been through this, saw the contrast between Bush and Obama which still exists after all Obama has done. The democrats only goal is to try to take back the House, Senate and Presidency, they're losers. So war and civil rights and all that, the issues, is just talk, it doesn't matter except in the context of victory.
Any and all attempts at the democratic party and democrats trying to lead and coopt movements need to be rejected by the serious minded.

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shaharazade's picture

the Bush and Obama's administrations.They are to me just a superficial false variation on the same theme. Abuse of power, deregulation, endless bloody war, globalized centralized power for profit, and death for all by the oligarchs from hell. Not to mention the destruction of universal laws humans have developed over centuries to keep these rat bastards who want to rule the world in check. Why do they want Hillary? She is the queen of 'We came we saw we killed'. A bad ass warrior who loves war and belongs to the church of 'The Family.'

They must believe the bad ass killers and brutal tyrannical empires throughout history that have been the scourge of humans since time began are agents of god and 'inevitable'. Their god is Mammon and any means to rule the world is 'worth it'. The victory of who she and all the global ruling class represents is nothing anyone should want. Why can't people connect the dots and stop thinking that this bloody nightmare world is something humans should acquiesce to. If you vote for and give your consent to this madness your enabling it to to continue down this path of death to humans, all critters and the planet. For what? Get real resist.

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Big Al's picture

antiwar when Bush was prez, then changed to warmonger sycophants under Obama. Relative to Obama vs Bush, agree, Obama was just a continuation. I've been making the case that even Trump and his admin are shaping up to be a continuation. Most people, supporters and haters, don't want to believe that yet. I'd have to ask, why do they think it would change now?

Resist is the only answer, resist this political system that keeps the power at the top. I truly believe there has to be a major transformation of our political system in order for us to seize the power from the ruling establishment. And it can't be done by working within it.

But you know that.

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shaharazade's picture

No way can it it be done within the system. There is no way to transform our political system from within. From outside what does that mean? Orgs. Factions within the duopoly? Nothing that emanates from the powers that be is going to do a damn thing to stop this madness. How do we get a major transformation of our political system? Will ordinary people reject this entrenched system? Nah. but then again how much worse does it have to get before ordinary people just reject both sides in this fake divide.

It is the reality they know and have embraced as the only reality that is real. Believe it, it's real! say the pushers of Putin did it. I'm in a bad space right now as I see no way open for people of good spirit and intent to unite and actually become 'stronger together'. People seem to be afraid to take these fuckers on. Perhaps it's easier to delude yourself into thinking that this is all we can get and that the only alternative is worse. I say bs. Take a good look at you deem the lesser evil. Who would be in charge if Trump were declared the loser. Oh joy! We would win and the Clintonian branch of the Dem. party would save the day.

Who pray tell in the Democratic party locally, state wise, or nationally will these fuckers ever represent ? We the people, our common good, or peace on earth? None of them will they are part and parcel of the world as we find it according to the gospel of the free market. They are not the lesser evil they are the same evil all wrapped up and clothed as a lesser evil . It's the same evil they say as is the worse evil. It's the same evil with different trappings. Oh well forget it I''m a fool and I know it. Yet I will not surrender. Forget about it. I'm a thief and I dig it.

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Big Al's picture

"Power to the People My Ass", a takeoff of one I did previously. You and I have been at this a long time now and I don't know about you but I'm getting tired of seeing the same thing over and over. It's like we're humans or something.
Most people are going to follow. It's going to take a lot of people like on this blog and many others to decide they want to get real instead of continuing this fruitless revolving around this corrupt and undemocratic political system. Decide to stop supporting political parties, stop sending money to evangelists, I mean politicians, stop participating in this system and start demanding a new one.

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working within the existing one (e.g. by passing initiatives or referenda, not necessarily by cajoling politicians to pass laws) or by working outside it (which, at some level, requires breaking the law and committing acts that would be considered treasonous, and almost certainly would require violence), or possibly some combination.

stop participating in this system and start demanding a new one

Seems clear enough which you support. What plans do you have in that regard? What course of action do you suggest? And don't tell me crap like "civil disobedience," either: that's working very much within the system. How do you suggest we demand a new system at the same time we avoid participating within the current one and also without engaging in violent revolution?

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Big Al's picture

violence or breaking the law at all. I think that's a misconception on what is possible outside the representative election system. What are my plans? I didn't know I needed a plan to voice an opinion but I what I think is needed is what I mentioned above, we need enough people that really want to change the system and not perpetuate it to organize together and demand it. That is not happening now, nor has it ever really happened. We all know now we don't live in a democracy, it's all a farce, etc. I think it's time for solidarity and focus on changing the system instead of focus on the next election and political parties. That doesn't require violence, treason or whatever, it requires a lot of people working together for a common goal. The problem is the goal.

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MarilynW's picture

by waiting over one week to respond to the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a spill that was an ecocide. Much of the oil is still down there on the sea bed along with the skeletons of thousands of sea creatures.

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To thine own self be true.

I remember at the time that there was a oil exec. on TOP that was just ripping into BP and Obama about how incompetently the surface spill was being handled. That there should have been no oil to reach the shore and kill off so much wildlife. The Coast Guard basically was told to back off and say nothing. That's when it became apparent to me that Obama was a neoliberal in that whenever a problem occurs, hand over to some private group the power of the government to solve the problem, like in Obamacare, charter schools. BP controlled the area and people were denied even photographing public beaches.

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public beaches and no photos.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

travelerxxx's picture

I have to be a little careful here, but I can tell you that after the spill, BP had a helicopter with a photographer out every day (except weekends) for over a year. They were photographing the Gulf of Mexico coastline from Brownsville to well into Florida. This was all courtroom ammo according to certain people.

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featheredsprite's picture

Otherwise, conduct yourself in public like a pleasant, harmless simpleton.

[But I'll admit that on some days, it doesn't take too much acting on my part. :-)]

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Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.

shaharazade's picture

why not all show your hand and join the human race and loudly reject this loud and clear, as an intelligent human being. Simpletons abound why would you join their numbers 'in public' and advocate hiding to avoid what? Get, real why act ? How fucking stupid can people get to think hiding from the reality the all face by pretending to be a simpleton is somehow the answer to what we face globally and nationally.

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travelerxxx's picture

To a degree, I'm one of them. I posted some information (seemingly innocent enough ... just above this comment) about BP that would cause me to lose my job were my identity verified.

Some have family situations that require them to stay rather silent, especially in public. I know a woman whose husband would probably physically assault her if he knew of her convictions. As far as he knows, she's a Trump voter. Yeah, she should get out, but that's another matter.

Where I live, if your car had a bumper sticker touting any Democrat, you were guaranteed to need a paint job in short order ... or maybe four new tires.

Not everyone has to keep their head down, but some do. I know we're not to the point of needing a White Rose Society (as far as we know), but there are always some who can do better work by remaining incognito ... yes, even to the point of acting a simpleton - although doing that to simply save your hide will probably fail in the end.

I do agree with you that most of us need to speak up and speak out. It's just that not everyone can. For some it may well be fear, for some it may be tactical reasons, for some pure laziness. I've learned not to criticize someone just because they aren't waving a banner on the front lines.

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Bollox Ref's picture

Eleventy dimensional chess and all that.

Plus, you purists want to ride your unicorns all over pragmatism.

Besides, RW talking points. Go back over to Red State where you belong.

/s

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

Yellerdog's picture

The first rule of Unicorn Riding is to be very careful were you sit.

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GreatLakeSailor's picture

Thanks Obama

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Compensated Spokes Model for Big Poor.

will be putting all America's cards on the table -- as opposed to Obama, who preferred to keep most of them up his sleeve. But I do not think Trump has a winning hand. Time will tell, but it seems to me that Trump's more bombastic and far reaching domestic ambitions have little chance of being realized. He will meet with considerable public opposition once he takes office. I do not expect anything immediately revolutionary to occur, in terms of domestic policy. Alternative news (non-mainstream) working in tandem with the US corporate media will provide a strong check on anything too extreme that Trump tries to do domestically.

Foreign policy is the realm over which a US President can have the greatest degree of influence and control. How Trump will participate in this arena is anyone's guess, but I suspect that whatever it is, it will be anything but secretive. I also think we can expect clashes between the Trump Administration and the Deep State (particularly the "intelligence community") that could reveal previously well-guarded information.

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native

public opposition would stop Trump when congress and most state governments are in repub hands?

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dfarrah

to do considerable damage, but not as much as some people fear. Of course I could be wrong -- this isn't a sure prediction, it's just my best guess. Others have been predicting certain doom, but I'm not convinced of that. Not yet, anyway.

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native

It is our reality.
How we resist it or even live in it is the Big Question.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Yellerdog's picture

What you say here stays here forever in the cloud.

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travelerxxx's picture

While I don't trust the NSA any further than I can toss a piano, I'd be more worried that C99 (and other rather non neoliberal sites) simply disappear from the conscientiousness of the world via a simple algorithm change by Google, Bing, etc. No laws need change, no dictates or executive orders need to occur. For all we know, it's already happening.

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When a politician like Hillary says information "has unfortunately fallen into a lot of the wrong hands," she means the American people. That's why I'm glad Podesta's Gmail account was so easy to hack. Unfortunately, from now on I expect the powers that be will take data security more seriously.

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"We've done the impossible, and that makes us mighty."

same as the old boss, but with better speeches.

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ggersh's picture

Drinks

Your talking about the D's they never get anything right.

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

On the morning of January 21st, Democrats all over the country are going to wake up and realize they can gain political advantage by bashing Trump over civil rights.

Opposition positions between parties do not have much to do with real differences. It is mostly cynical partisan reactionary politics. Many times, it just hides from view that the positions of the parties are very close to each other. It is much like Gore Vidal said that there is only one party with two branches. The example perfectly illustrates that--neither party is against the surveillance state.

Any evolution on any issue mainly comes from outside the party. For example gay marriage and $15/hour min. wage. And even then people like Hillary gave two shits about $15/hr until her campaign was forced to even recognize the fight for higher min wages. And in the first 3 three years of the Obama administration his DOJ defended DOMA by equating gay marriage with incest. And the base defended his defense of DOMA--poor guy was stuck defending it because he was required to do it. The democratic party like the gop, has its own unique deplorable base as many a Sanders supporter found out.

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