Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Today's NSA Brought to You By a Decade of Republican Fear-Mongering
HP | Bob Cesca | 06/21/13

On his show recently, while the NSA story was blazing its way through the tubes, Rush Limbaugh said, "So there is clearly -- somewhere, somehow, in some form or another -- a coup taking place, and there is an assault on privacy, and there are assaults on people because of their politics and their ideology. It is taking place; it's undeniable." ... Got to read the article to see/feel the hypocrisy ... Read more

On the Espionage Act charges against Edward Snowden
TheGuardian | Glenn Greenwald | 06/22/13

Who is actually bringing 'injury to America': those who are secretly building a massive surveillance system or those who inform citizens that it's being done?

Prior to Barack Obama's inauguration, there were a grand total of three prosecutions of leakers under the Espionage Act (including the prosecution of Dan Ellsberg by the Nixon DOJ). That's because the statute is so broad that even the US government has largely refrained from using it. But during the Obama presidency, there are now seven such prosecutions: more than double the number under all prior US presidents combined. How can anyone justify that? ... Read more

US warns Moscow not to let Edward Snowden escape Russia
TheGuardian | Spencer Ackerman | 06/24/13

Confusion surrounds Snowden's whereabouts as journalists report NSA whistleblower was not on plane bound for Havana

The Obama administration urged Russia not to allow the surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden to leave the country, as his attempted escape to South America descended into confusion and farce on Monday.   John Kerry, the US secretary of state, said it would be "deeply troubling" if China and Russia had failed to detain Snowden knowing he was a fugitive from American justice.   The White House insisted that the extradition paperwork it had submitted to Hong Kong, where Snowden had been holed up until Sunday, was in order and that he should not have been allowed to leave. Read more

How Republicans stopped worrying and learned to love big government
WashingtonPost | Ezra Klein | 06/21/13

Here's what I don't understand: How can Republicans who think themselves skeptical of the federal government also believe it capable of predicting the path of the economy 30 years into the future while locking down the border and picking through all electronic communications?

Consider the budget projections of just the past few years. In 2001, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the government would wipe out its debt in 2006 and be $2.3 trillion in the black by 2011. But after a recession, the Bush tax cuts, 9/11, two wars and the financial crisis, the reality was rather different: We were $10.1 trillion in the red. ... Read more
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*Decline and fall: how American society unravelled
TheGuardian | George Packer | 06/19/13

Thirty years ago, the old deal that held US society together started to unwind, with social cohesion sacrificed to greed. Was it an inevitable process -- or was it engineered by self-interested elites?

In or around 1978, America's character changed. For almost half a century, the United States had been a relatively egalitarian, secure, middle-class democracy, with structures in place that supported the aspirations of ordinary people. You might call it the period of the Roosevelt Republic. Wars, strikes, racial tensions and youth rebellion all roiled national life, but a basic deal among Americans still held, in belief if not always in fact: work hard, follow the rules, educate your children, and you will be rewarded, not just with a decent life and the prospect of a better one for your kids, but with recognition from society, a place at the table.

This unwritten contract came with a series of riders and clauses that left large numbers of Americans -- black people and other minorities, women, gay people -- out, or only halfway in. But the country had the tools to correct its own flaws, and it used them: healthy democratic institutions such as Congress, courts, churches, schools, news organisations, business-labour partnerships. The civil rights movement of the 1960s was a nonviolent mass uprising led by black southerners, but it drew essential support from all of these institutions, which recognised the moral and legal justice of its claims, or, at the very least, the need for social peace. The Roosevelt Republic had plenty of injustice, but it also had the power of self-correction.

Americans were no less greedy, ignorant, selfish and violent then than they are today, and no more generous, fair-minded and idealistic. But the institutions of American democracy, stronger than the excesses of individuals, were usually able to contain and channel them to more useful ends. Human nature does not change, but social structures can, and they did. ... Read more