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Saturday, October 26, 2013

ACLU vs. Clapper, Alexander, Hagel, Holder, and Mueller - 6

"My job is to Spy on Everybody Everywhere"
This series documents the military NSA spying and voyeurism beginning with the complaint filed in federal court (ACLU vs. Clapper, Alexander, Hagel, Holder, and Mueller).

The spying/voyeurism regimen is a vile practice that has angered nations and peoples around the world, including the American People.

It has also resulted in U.S. Ambassadors (Germany, France, Mexico) being called onto the carpet to explain this heinous practice of despots, thugs, and other civility challenged people, culminating with a statement signed by dignitaries of European nations who prepared a joint statement after a meeting in Brussels on Friday:
Annex Statement of Heads of State or Government

The Heads of State or Government discussed recent developments concerning possible intelligence issues and the deep concerns that these events have raised among European citizens.

They underlined the close relationship between Europe and the USA and the value of that partnership. They expressed their conviction that the partnership must be based on respect and trust, including as concerns the work and cooperation of secret services.

They stressed that intelligence gathering is a vital element in the fight against terrorism. This applies to relations between European countries as well as to relations with the USA. A lack of trust could prejudice the necessary cooperation in the field of intelligence gathering.

The Heads of State or Government took note of the intention of France and Germany to seek bilateral talks with the USA with the aim of finding before the end of the year an understanding on mutual relations in that field. They noted that other EU countries are welcome to join this initiative.

They also pointed to the existing Working Group between the EU and the USA on the related issue of data protection and called for rapid and constructive progress in that respect.
(European Council, PDF). Some of us will remember that the first reaction of the criminally minded military NSA officials was to lie to congress and everyone else in the world about what they are doing.

Their current response is to say that the media, the free press, yes, the journalists of the world should stop reporting on their illicit spy ring:
The head of the embattled National Security Agency, Gen Keith Alexander, is accusing journalists of "selling" his agency's documents and is calling for an end to the steady stream of public disclosures of secrets snatched by former contractor Edward Snowden.

"I think it's wrong that that newspaper reporters have all these documents, the 50,000 – whatever they have and are selling them and giving them out as if these – you know it just doesn't make sense," Alexander said in an interview with the Defense Department's "Armed With Science" blog.

"We ought to come up with a way of stopping it. I don't know how to do that. That's more of the courts and the policy-makers but, from my perspective, it's wrong to allow this to go on," the NSA director declared.
(Guardian, Glenn Greenwald, emphasis added). Dredd Blog has pointed out how important as well as how respected whistleblowing supported by a free press has been to Americans since the very beginning of the United States:
On July 30, 1778, the Continental Congress created the first whistleblower protection law, stating “that it is the duty of all persons in the service of the United States to give the earliest information to Congress or other proper authority of any misconduct, frauds, or misdemeanors committed
by any officers or persons in the service of these states.”
(Whistleblowers According To The Early Americans). How far we have fallen, even though we have been repeatedly warned:
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." - James Madison

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied: and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.

The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals, engendered by both.

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.


Those truths are well established." - James Madison

Experience has shown that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” – Thomas Jefferson

"Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people." - Thomas Jefferson
(Dredd Blog Quotes Page, see Tab at top of Blog Pages). Let's all keep watching, writing about, and protesting this grave danger to our American Republic.

Other Dredd Blog posts that are related to this subject (A Decline Of The American Republic - 2, American Feudalism - 6, and Epigovernment: The New Model - 5).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

Friday, October 25, 2013

What I Forgot To Post on 23 June 2012


Sister Golden Hair (Surprise!), by America


Thursday, October 24, 2013

The Daily Maine

Maine Speaks ME
One of the coolest times of year is the transition from one season into the next.

That is happening now in our hemisphere and in theirs.

It is always like that, while we are leaving Summer, they are entering Fall.

Which brings to mind some of the beauty of Maine, and some thoughts of the poetry of John Keats et alia.

When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be

--by John Keats--


When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.


Various Verses

--by W.B. Yeats

We rode in sorrow, with strong hounds three,
Bran, Sgeolan, and Lomair,
On a morning misty and mild and fair.
The mist-drops hung on the fragrant trees,
And in the blossoms hung the bees.
We rode in sadness above Lough Lean,
For our best were dead on Gavra's green.
...
My arms are like the twisted thorn
And yet there beauty lay;
The first of all the tribe lay there
And did such pleasure take;
She who had brought great Hector down
And put all Troy to wreck.
...
Cast a cold Eye
On Life, on Death.
Horseman, pass by!
...
Now that my ladder's gone
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.
...
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
...
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Epigovernment: The New Model - 5

In this series which Dredd Blog began in December of 2012, an  attempt is made to set forth a hypothesis which explains some of the inexplicable conduct of "government."

The hypothesis is that there is an Epigovernment which operates above the level of the visible offices of federal government.

That Epigovernment exerts various degrees of control and/or influence upon the direction and policy of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of what is traditionally considered to be "the government".

The graphic to the upper left (click to enlarge) shows an example diagram of the concept of Epigovernment, while the one below it (click to enlarge) shows a Worldwide Military Command structure ostensibly under the control of The Commander In Chief, who in the normal concept of governmental structure, controls the military as the chief or top commander.

The full description of Epigovernment shown in the top graphic is presented in the post Epigovernment: The New Model.

The full description of the Worldwide Military Command structure shown in the lower graphic above is fully described in the post The Virgin MOMCOM - 4.

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of today's post concerning what the nature of this situation is, let's set the stage for explaining the almost inexplicable reality we are going to discuss:
In terms of pure projectable power, there’s never been anything like it. Its military has divided the world -- the whole planet -- into six “commands.” Its fleet, with 11 aircraft carrier battle groups, rules the seas and has done so
U.S. Gunboats Dwarf All Other Nations
largely unchallenged for almost seven decades. Its Air Force has ruled the global skies, and despite being almost continuously in action for years, hasn’t faced an enemy plane since 1991 or been seriously challenged anywhere since the early 1970s. Its fleet of drone aircraft has proven itself capable of targeting and killing suspected enemies in the backlands of the planet from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen and Somalia with little regard for national boundaries, and none at all for the possibility of being shot down.  It funds and trains proxy armies on several continents and has complex aid and training relationships with militaries across the planet.  On hundreds of bases, some tiny and others the size of American towns, its soldiers garrison the globe from Italy to Australia, Honduras to Afghanistan, and on islands from Okinawa in the Pacific Ocean to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.  Its weapons makers are the most advanced on Earth and dominate the global arms market.  Its nuclear weaponry in silos, on bombers, and on its fleet of submarines would be capable of destroying several planets the size of Earth.  Its system of spy satellites is unsurpassed and unchallenged.  Its intelligence services can listen in on the phone calls or read the emails of almost anyone in the world from top foreign leaders to obscure insurgents.  The CIA and its expanding paramilitary forces are capable of kidnapping people of interest just about anywhere from rural Macedonia to the streets of Rome and Tripoli.  For its many prisoners, it has set up (and dismantled) secret jails across the planet and on its naval vessels.  It spends more on its military than the next most powerful 13 states combined.  Add in the spending for its full national security state and it towers over any conceivable group of other nations.

In terms of advanced and unchallenged military power, there has been nothing like the U.S. armed forces since the Mongols swept across Eurasia.
(Why Washington Can’t Stop, Tom Engelhardt). Today we are going to fuse another Dredd Blog series "American Feudalism" into this mix, so as to explain this structure in terms of feudalism and neofeudalism, which do accurately portray the structure and dynamics of this never-happened-before worldwide apparatus:
Feudalism was the medieval model of government predating the birth of the modern nation-state. Feudal society is a military hierarchy in which a ruler or lord offers mounted fighters a fief (medieval beneficium), a unit of land to control in exchange for a military service. The individual who accepted this land became a vassal, and the man who granted the land become known as his liege or his lord. The deal was often sealed by swearing oaths on the Bible or on the relics of saints.
...
Feudalism was a political system which was dominant in Europe during the Middle Ages. First used in the 1600s, the term refers to a hierarchy of reciprocal military and legal obligations among the nobility. In simplified terms, a lesser noble (the vassal) would pledge his loyalty (fealty) to a higher noble (the lord) in exchange for land (a fief). In return, the vassal gave military service to the lord. As armies were expensive to raise and maintain, a lord was able to distribute the cost (in men and money) among his vassals.
(American Feudalism - 6). Before you wonder off thinking "how can that relate to the U.S. military", let's look at the Vassals who command the six fiefdoms (USNORTHCOM, USSOUTHCOM, USCENTCOM, USEUCOM, USAFRICOM and USPACOM) shown in the graphic at the beginning of the post:
Of the many facts that have come to light in the scandal involving former CIA director David H. Petraeus, among the most curious was that during his days as a four-star general, he was once escorted by 28 police motorcycles as he traveled from his Central Command headquarters in Tampa to socialite Jill Kelley’s mansion...

The commanders who lead the nation’s military services and those who oversee troops around the world enjoy an array of perquisites befitting a billionaire, including executive jets, palatial homes, drivers, security guards and aides to carry their bags, press their uniforms and track their schedules in 10-minute increments. Their food is prepared by gourmet chefs. If they want music with their dinner parties, their staff can summon a string quartet or a choir.

The elite regional commanders who preside over large swaths of the planet don’t have to settle for Gulfstream V jets. They each have a C-40, the military equivalent of a Boeing 737 ...
(American Feudalism - 3). Thus Epigovernment and the federal government can represent the principle of the feudal King, while the Worldwide Military Command structure can represent the principle of Vassal Fiefdoms, and finally the people of the world are in principle the feudal Serfs:
Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted in some countries until the mid-19th century.

Serfs who occupied a plot of land were required to work for the Lord of the Manor who owned that land, and in return were entitled to protection, justice and the right to exploit certain fields within the manor to maintain their own subsistence.
...
A freeman became a serf usually through force or necessity. Sometimes freeholders or allodial owners were intimidated into dependency by the greater physical and legal force of a local magnate. Often a few years of crop failure, a war, or brigandage might leave a person unable to make his own way. In such a case a bargain was struck with a lord of a manor. In exchange for protection, service was required, in cash, produce or labour, or a combination of all. These bargains were formalized in a ceremony known as "bondage" in which a serf placed his head in the lord's hands, akin to the ceremony of homage where a vassal placed his hands between those of his overlord.
...
To become a serf was a commitment that encompassed all aspects of the serf’s life.

Moreover, the condition of serfdom was inherited at birth. By taking on the duties of serfdom, serfs bound not only themselves but all of their future progeny.
(American Feudalism - 4). Serfs or citizens are given security and an occupation as their reward for loyalty to the King and Vassals, who bring them goods and services through the plunder of resources in the six command zones around the world:
General Carter Ham, the [USAFRICOM] commander for the Pentagon, admitted last week that the US had helped trained the Mali rebels, including Captain Amadou Sanogo, who led the military coup which overthrew Mali’s constitutionally-elected government.

In describing the statement Ham made at the Ralph Bunche center, Veterans Today editor Gordon Duff is highly critical of Ham’s support for widening US military involvement in the region, including the recent establishment of drone bases in Niger.

Duff is extremely concerned that the US lacks the intelligence resources in Africa to prevent the horrendous “collateral damage” nightmares drones have caused in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.

He goes on to describe Mali as a “domino” in a misguided and poorly thought out destabilization effort aimed at creating a generation of warfare.
...
Western multinational corporations’ attempts to cash in on the wealth of Congo’s resources have resulted in what many have called “Africa’s first world war,” claiming the lives of over 3 million people. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been labeled “the richest patch of earth on the planet.” The valuable abundance of minerals and resources in the DRC has made it the target of attacks from U.S.-supported neighboring African countries Uganda and Rwanda.

The DRC is minerial rich with millions of tons of diamonds, copper, cobalt, zinc, manganese, uranium, niobium, and tantalum also known as coltan. Coltan has become an increasingly valuable resource to American corporations. Coltan is used to make mobile phones, night vision goggles, fiber optics, and capacitators used to maintain the electrical charge in computer chips. In December of 2000 the shortage of coltan was the main reason that the popular sale of the Sony Play Station 2 video game came to an abrupt halt.

The DRC holds 80% of the world’s coltan reserves, more than 60% of the world’s cobalt and is the world’s largest supplier of high-grade copper. With these minerals playing a major part in maintaining US military dominance and economic growth, minerals in the Congo are deemed vital US interests.

Historically, the U.S. government identified sources of materials in Third World countries, and then encouraged U.S. corporations to invest in and facilitate their production. Dating back to the mid-1960s, the U.S. government literally installed the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko, which gave U.S. corporations access to the Congo’s minerals for more than 30 years. However, over the years Mobutu began to limit access by Western corporations, and to control the distribution of resources. In 1998, U.S. military-trained leaders of Rwanda and Uganda invaded the mineral-rich areas of the Congo. The invaders installed illegal colonial-style governments which continue to receive millions of dollars in arms and military training from the United States. Our government and a $5 million Citibank loan maintains the rebel presence in the Congo.
(Journalism: Facts vs. Fantasy). Thus, today's reality seems to fit together quite well as a typical feudal or neofeudal construct.

To learn the locations of the Epigovernment, and what it is composed of, read the four Dredd Blog posts "Epigovernment: The New Model" that precede this post.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

Beautiful Africa, by Rokia Traore (lyrics)






Tuesday, October 22, 2013

American Feudalism - 6

The Cheney
"History repeats itself, and that's one of the things that's wrong with history", said Clarence Darrow.

DNA also "repeats itself", but an individual who lived in the feudalism of the dark ages, whose genetic configuration is now found in the DNA of a descendant who is alive today, will not have had the same exact feudal experiences as their living descendant is having today.

That is because history and DNA repeat themselves in principle, not in actual exact physical replications of either individuals, nations, or specific feudal events.

But the fundamental "genes" or characteristics of historical feudalism, as has been shown in this series, have replicated themselves within American culture and society.

We see this genetic repetition of history in the form of neofeudalism, which, in this series we have called "American Feudalism" because we are focusing on its reemergence into American society rather than in other nations, whether the same would be true of other nations or not.

Those who have argued for a revision of the history of feudalism were mentioned in the previous post of this series (American Feudalism - 5).

If you break down their arguments into their most basic genetic components, they argue that since the word "feudalism" is a word that was created after the historical events which the word "feudalism" is used to describe, the word should no longer be used.

I would rather focus on the principles that were in the DNA of those feudal societies, and which of those characteristics are still found in the DNA of the modern version of those societies.

So, let's review the fundamental genetic material of feudal society:
Warfare was endemic in the feudal period, but feudalism did not cause warfare; warfare caused feudalism.
...
Feudalism was the medieval model of government predating the birth of the modern nation-state. Feudal society is a military hierarchy in which a ruler or lord offers mounted fighters a fief (medieval beneficium), a unit of land to control in exchange for a military service. The individual who accepted this land became a vassal, and the man who granted the land become known as his liege or his lord. The deal was often sealed by swearing oaths on the Bible or on the relics of saints.
...
Before a lord could grant land (a fief) to someone, he had to make that person a vassal. This was done at a formal and symbolic ceremony called a commendation ceremony, which was composed of the two-part act of homage and oath of fealty. During homage, the lord and vassal entered into a contract in which the vassal promised to fight for the lord at his command, whilst the lord agreed to protect the vassal from external forces.
...
Feudalism was a political system which was dominant in Europe during the Middle Ages. First used in the 1600s, the term refers to a hierarchy of reciprocal military and legal obligations among the nobility. In simplified terms, a lesser noble (the vassal) would pledge his loyalty (fealty) to a higher noble (the lord) in exchange for land (a fief). In return, the vassal gave military service to the lord. As armies were expensive to raise and maintain, a lord was able to distribute the cost (in men and money) among his vassals.
...
Feudalism was based on the exchange of land for military service. King William the Conqueror used the concept of feudalism to reward his Norman supporters for their help in the conquest of England. Life lived under the Medieval Feudal System, or Feudalism, demanded that everyone owed allegiance to the King and their immediate superior.
...
The feudal society was constructed for one reason: security. The nobles wanted the security of maintaining control over their far-reaching kingdoms, so they were forced to delegate power to local control. The peasants wanted security from marauders and barbarians from neighboring lands. They also wanted security from invading armies. And thus the development of the feudal system and the fief structure was almost inevitable. However, all this came at the great expense of the common man. He gave up many freedoms for his security. The question we ask you is: Was it worth it?
(American Feudalism). It is at once clear, even to the casual observer, that the genetic material of the feudal historical time-frame is still replicating itself, that is, history is repeating itself.

If I wanted to appease the current historians who no longer respect the word "feudalism", I would offer them the word "Wartocracy" as an alternate, because that shoe also fits:
And as war begat the King and the military noble, so it also begat the slave. There had always been a slave class, a class of the unfree, among the English as among all German peoples; but the numbers of this class, if unaffected by the conquest of Britain, were swelled by the wars which soon sprang up among the English conquerors.
...
It is an old saying, nearly a dozen centuries old, that "war begat the king". It is no less true that war, not civil, but international, begat feudalism.
...
War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied: and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.
(American Feudalism - 2). War is the fundamental gene that "produced" feudalism, the king, the military vassal, and slavery.

War is fundamental either in American Feudalism or in American Wartocracy:
The Worldwide control of humanity’s economic, social and political activities is under the helm of US corporate and military power. Underlying this process are various schemes of direct and indirect military intervention. These US sponsored strategies ultimately consist in a process of global subordination.

Where is the Threat?

The 2000 Global Report published in 1980 had outlined “the State of the World” by focusing on so-called “level of threats” which might negatively influence or undermine US interests.

Twenty years later, US strategists, in an attempt to justify their military interventions in different parts of the World, have conceptualized the greatest fraud in US history, namely “the Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT). The latter, using a fabricated pretext constitutes a global war against all those who oppose US hegemony. A modern form of slavery, instrumented through militarization and the “free market” has unfolded.

Major elements of the conquest and world domination strategy by the US refer to:

1) the control of the world economy and its financial markets,

2) the taking over of all natural resources (primary resources and nonrenewable sources of energy). The latter constitute the cornerstone of US power through the activities of its multinational corporations.

Geopolitical Outreach: Network of Military Bases

The US has established its control over 191 governments which are members of the United Nations. The conquest, occupation and/or otherwise supervision of these various regions of the World is supported by an integrated network of military bases and installations which covers the entire Planet (Continents, Oceans and Outer Space). All this pertains to the workings of an extensive Empire, the exact dimensions of which are not always easy to ascertain.
(Global Research, see also Why Washington Can’t Stop). This overall landscape of Wartocracy is broken down into various command zones that cover the entire globe:
The graphic to the left shows the world wide command structure of MOMCOM.

That is: USNORTHCOM, USSOUTHCOM, USCENTCOM, USEUCOM, USAFRICOM see also this, and USPACOM (which are all part of the size of government) [NOTE: Since this page was posted by Dredd Blog on 8/4/2011, the military has changed or removed these web pages, the Wayback Machine versions of that time have been inserted (if available) to replace these current pages: USNORTHCOM, USSOUTHCOM, USCENTCOM, USEUCOM, USAFRICOM, and USPACOM].
(The Virgin MOMCOM - 4). The only "feudal" word we no longer use to describe government is "king", but the genetic make-up of "king" is still around.

Because, like the feudal king "who could do no wrong", the government today has "sovereign immunity", "sovereign secrecy", and far, far more military power than any feudal king had:
Somewhere on this planet an American commando is carrying out a mission. Now, say that 70 times and you’re done ... for the day. Without the knowledge of the American public, a secret force within the U.S. military is undertaking operations in a majority of the world’s countries. This new Pentagon power elite is waging a global war whose size and scope has never been revealed, until now ... One of its key components is the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, a clandestine sub-command whose primary mission is tracking and killing suspected terrorists. Reporting to the president and acting under his authority, JSOC maintains a global hit list that includes American citizens. It has been operating an extra-legal “kill/capture” campaign that John Nagl, a past counterinsurgency adviser to four-star general and soon-to-be CIA Director David Petraeus, calls "an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine."
...
“I would not say that CIA has been taken over by the military, but I would say that the CIA has become more militarized,” Philip Giraldi, a retired career CIA case officer, told The Nation. “A considerable part of the CIA budget is now no longer spying; it’s supporting paramilitaries who work closely with JSOC to kill terrorists, and to run the drone program.” The CIA, he added, “is a killing machine now.”
(The Government of MOMCOM: Wartocracy - 3). As was the case in feudal times, commercial weaponry is a considerable enterprise for the Wartocracy today:
It’s pop-quiz time when it comes to the American way of war: three questions, torn from the latest news, just for you.
...
Now, consider question two in our little snap quiz of recent war news:

In 2011, what percentage of the global arms market did the U.S. control?
...
a) 37% ($12.1 billion), followed closely by Russia ($10.7 billion), France, China, and the United Kingdom.

b) 52.7% ($21.3 billion), followed by Russia at 19.3% ($12.8 billion), France, Britain, China, Germany, and Italy.

c) 68% ($37.8 billion), followed by Italy at 9% ($3.7 billion) and Russia at 8% ($3.5 billion).

d) 78% ($66.3 billion), followed by Russia at 5.6% ($4.8 billion).

Naturally, you naturally eliminated “d” first. Who wouldn’t?
...
The correct answer for 2011, however, is the singularly unbelievable one: the U.S. actually tripled its arms sales last year, hitting a record high, and cornering almost 78% of the global arms trade.
(The Government of MOMCOM: Wartocracy - 2). The fundamental dynamic of dark age feudalism is the same fundamental dynamic of the Wartocracy today:
By 1990, the value of the weapons, equipment, and factories devoted to the military was 83% of the value of all plants and equipment in American Manufacturing. From 1947-1990 the combined US military budget amounted to $8.7 trillion ... Military industries crowd out the civilian economy ... and lead to severe economic weakness.” Consider that the US military is now spending over $1 trillion per year including all black and related expenses, which is more than the entire rest of the world combined. The next biggest spender is China at $91.5 billion according to Chinese figures. Johnson summarizes, “Devotion to military Keynesianism is, in fact, a form of slow economic suicide ..."
(The Virgin MOMCOM - 5). Another genetic marker of feudalism is privatization of justice, such as with prisons:
So many theories, revisions, and counterrevisions have been proposed to explain the term feudalism that it has become like Potter Stewart's definition of pornography: we may not know what it is, but we know it when we see it ... Feudalism ... was essentially the extreme privatization of the government functions of defense, administration, and justice. The mechanism for putting these functions into private hands and paying for them was the fief, usually an estate with dependent peasants to work it, granted to the holder, or vassal, by a lord, or seigneur, in return for military service.
(American Feudalism - 5). Dick Cheney, shown in the graphic at the top of the post, loves privatization of justice (especially torture) like in the dark ages.

I will finish with what was quoted at the beginning of this post: "History repeats itself, and that's one of the things that's wrong with history".

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

Monday, October 21, 2013

ACLU vs. Clapper, Alexander, Hagel, Holder, and Mueller - 5

Whistleblower Ed Snowden
In this series we are following a lawsuit brought by the ACLU, a civil rights organization which is suing the military NSA for unAmerican, which is to say, unconstitutional, broad-based spying activities being conducted on all Americans (ACLU v Clapper).

The plot has thickened considerably with the British newspaper's headline "Snowden leaks: France summons US envoy over spying claims" (BBC News), a new revelation which shows that yet another "ally" is as miffed as American citizens are, as what could be the most asinine episode of the Keystone Kops continues to unfold:
The French government has summoned the US ambassador in Paris, demanding an explanation about claims that the National Security Agency has been engaged in widespread phone surveillance of French citizens.

On Monday, Le Monde published details from the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden suggesting that the US agency had been intercepting phone calls
"The eye of Sauron"
on what it terms "a massive scale".

The French interior minister, Manuel Valls, has described the revelations as shocking, and said he will be pressing for detailed explanations from Washington.

"Rules are obviously needed when it comes to new communication technologies, and that's something that concerns every country," he told Europe-1 radio. "If a friendly country – an ally – spies on France or other European countries, that is completely unacceptable."
(Guardian). It was only recently that worldwide news editors of various media entities showed unity in support of the Guardian's policy of releasing documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden (The Citizen Journalist In America - 2).

There are reports that the NSA also hacked emails of Mexico's president:
The National Security Agency hacked the email of former Mexican President
"We have your information"
Felipe Calderon, according to a report from Der Spiegel.

The report, which stems from documents leaked by Edward Snowden, alleges that a division of the NSA "successfully exploited a key mail server in the Mexican Presidencia domain within the Mexican Presidential network to gain first-ever access to President Felipe Calderon's public email account." Der Speigel also reports that the spying, which began in May 2010, also targeted other top officials in the Mexican government.

The report claims that some of the information retrieved in the surveillance program provided economic benefits to the U.S.
(NSA Hacked Mexican Presidents' Email For Years: Report). The Keystone Kops part of this is that it is a disaster for foreign policy, even though it shows technological skill.

Our government can't get a website up that helps people with fundamental human needs (Pelosi: Obamacare Glitches 'Unacceptable') but can spy on everyone everywhere.

That is what happens when psychopaths slither their way into offices in the peoples government to then pervert the system (When You Are Governed By Psychopaths - 4).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

Military NSA motto: I'll Be Watching You ...