Same shit, different administration

[unixronin]

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- The Obama administration says it will continue its predecessor's policy of using state secrets authority to block disclosures about warrantless eavesdropping.

OK, so ... anyone out there still believe in Obama enough to try to spin this?

Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Kevin Bankson told CNN Holder's move represented a continuation of Bush's policies and stands in sharp contrast to the promises of greater government transparency and accountability Obama made during his presidential campaign.

"It turns out that 'change we can believe in' hasn't really resulted in any change at all when it comes to government secrecy," he told the broadcaster.

But at least the Bush administration didn't make any empty boasts about being "the most open administration in history".

Republican.  Democrat.  It makes no damned difference.  Both are rotten to the core, united by their love of power.  There is no "lesser evil" on Capitol Hill.  There is only the same evil wearing two different faces.  They play different favorites; but they both play favorites.  They take different special interests' money; but they're both owned body and soul by special interests.  They go after different Constitutional and civil rights first; but they both attack and undermine Constitutional and civil rights. They sometimes tell the voters different lies; but they are both cut from the same pack of habitual liars.  Only when both parties' followers learn that, will there be any chance of changing it.

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Comments

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Should I repeat my British anarchists' quote?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Which quote is that?

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

"No matter who you voted for, the Government got in."

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Ah, right, yes. I like that one.



By the way ... you don't happen to know anyone who actually still speaks Penobscot, do you...? I think I'm going to start another round of actively seeking out new translations of "My god, there's an axe in my head!"

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I know several members of the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy tribes, but I don't think any of them have learned their respective languages. For example, our neighbors across the street -- Skip told me he knows more Gaelic than Penobscot, since he plays in a Celtic band now and then . . .

The local anthropology museum has a dictionary project ongoing, but I don't know if that is on-line.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Further -- you may be able to cobble together something from this resource:

http://www.native-languages.org/abna.htm#language

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'll take a look. :)

[lebo-superman.livejournal.com]

Repeat after me: Li-ber-tar-i-an. The only promise of change you can actually take to the bank.

[luxobscura.livejournal.com]

Well, you're half right...the bit about there being no difference when it comes to the power of government itself and the "once acquired, never surrendered" aspect of secret powers. You could probably add foreign policy/vital interests/economic imperialism in there too.

Beyond that, to claim there's no difference between the two parties is stretching it too far.

There's a big fucking difference between Utah or Mississippi and Massachusetts or California.

[luxobscura.livejournal.com]

I suppose if you were to get really technical, there is a sameness in that, despite what one or the other might claim, both parties are potentially very intrusive. But what makes going to polls nominally important is the manner in which they intrude. Democrats have an annoying tendency toward Nannyism, which I don't like AT ALL, but they tend to be less restrictive about lifestyle choices and more pro-equality, even if they go about it all wrong sometimes.

Conservatives are more laissez-faire when it comes to large corporate interests and certain things like guns (yay!) but they are also the party who represents the worst elements of fundamental christian intolerance (boooo).

You see the special hell I'm in as a pro 2A social progressive...

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

We share that special hell.

[luxobscura.livejournal.com]

:)

Thanks. It feels lonely sometimes. Conservative friends think I'm a liberal pansy, and liberal friends think I'm a militia-prone xenophobic anti-government "fringer".

Neither is accurate, but there's a dash of truth in both recipes, I suppose.

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

I'm from the South. State Rights before Federal Rights and Personal Liberties before all others. Really and truly I care not one whit what you do as long as it does not infringe upon me or any other. But most importantly, I do NOT want to see or hear what you are doing! I'll most gladly stay out of your business and you'd damned well better stay out of mine.

[luxobscura.livejournal.com]

I keep forgetting that you're from the South. My girlfriend was born and raised in Mississippi, then lived in New Orleans for awhile. I was raised in Southern California. We both wound up here in Denver with this sort of weird mutual pro-South/West libertarian with progressive social tendencies thing. Coming out here from MS and LA was for her escaping from oppressive social conservatism. For me, coming from CA, it was stepping a bit away from that Hard Left/The State Will Take Care of Everything. I think we're pretty close to the happy medium here. Not perfect, but not too terribly far off.

We both agree we want a couple dozen acres somewhere, and machine gun nests.We just can't agree where...North Carolina, or the Inter-Mountain West? :P

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

No THAT is an attitude that I can wholeheartedly agree with!

Do what you want, don't rub my nose it it. I'll do what I want, keep your nose out!

I'm from Missouri. Not really the south.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. Myself, I tend to regard both as intolerant, in different ways. In some ways, the card-carrying liberals can be more intolerant than the card-carrying conservatives — god help you if you don't fit into one of their preconceived stereotypes of who and what you should be.

[luxobscura.livejournal.com]

I have been lambasted pretty badly by Libs, as you've probably seen on neph_politics. Actually, more often it's just a deafening silence. You can almost hear them thinking, "OMG, I can't believe he said that."

[yndy.livejournal.com]

politics is usually the one area everyone agrees that everyone else is wrong about something... and if you just yell at them long enough and loud enough about why & how they are wrong, suddenly they'll see the light! (okay, yeah, not happening...)

[luxobscura.livejournal.com]

whoa, a ghost!

hey there...

[yndy.livejournal.com]

Heya! I delurk occasionally! On here especially, but then, unixronin makes me think a lot! :)

Hope life is good!

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :)

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

I tend to not fit into either group well. I am far too liberal for my conservative friends, and pretty conservative for my liberal friends. I have learned to just be quiet about it most times. I find the liberals to be the most intolerant, in-your-face christians (small 'c') included.

"... Time after time we lose sight of the way. Our causes can't see their effects."

[wyrdling.livejournal.com]

hey, i'm running in a similar world, too. still a little shy about being to open about some of it. people don't take kindly to having their pigeonholes busted. but i really shouldn't care so much.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

But does that say more about the difference between Republicans in Congress and Democrats in Congress, or between Utah and California, or Mississippi and Massachusetts?

[luxobscura.livejournal.com]

I can't believe I invoked CA and MA, after all the smack talk I've doled out to them, but if I had to choose between well-meaning but ineffectual liberals and mean-spirited Bible Thumpers, well...San Francisco, here I come.

It's hard, though. There's a lot about the The South that I admire, having been there sweveral times in the last five years. I admire the Mind Your fucking Business attitude, combined with (most of the time) outward civility. But there's a lot of ugliness down there too, in the history and in the Jesus Thing.

Conversely, I have no interest in living somewhere that's socially progressive but so Nannyist that I'm expected to apologize to the person shooting me to death for the "history of people my color oppressing people of your color" thing, either.

Solution: Mountain Fortress!

[luxobscura.livejournal.com]

or Southern Forest Fortress. We're still going back and forth on that.

[yndy.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm lucky... I didn't believe in "the change" so I wasn't terribly disappointed when it didn't happen.

Obama is better than Bush in some aspects - his administration is simply maintaining the evils visited upon us by the previous one - Bush's kept coming up with new and different indignities to visit upon us.

Honestly? I feel so much sympathy for my friends who thought that things were going to change radically. They seem so disillusioned these days.
:(

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Obama is better than Bush in some aspects - his administration is simply maintaining the evils visited upon us by the previous one - Bush's kept coming up with new and different indignities to visit upon us.

Actually, that's not entirely true. I doubt that I could find the article after all this time, but months ago it was pointed out that the Obama administration is not merely maintaining the Bush administrations secretiveness, but expanding upon it. (Oh, and then theres the proliferation of this czar, that czar, economy czar, healthcare czar, energy czar, kitchen czar, front door czar, czar czar, all of them with no accountability, and no-one really knows what any of them are doing or what powers they have...)
For another example, no administration prior to Obama's has taken it upon itself to order the CEOs of private-sector corporations to resign. One of the few things Obama has made no secret is that he intends to bring about a massive redistribution of wealth and radically change the face of the United States, and given the nature of many of Obama's associates, I suspect that change, if accomplished, will not be one that anyone but the radical left will like. In the words of Ringo Starr, "Everything government touches turns to crap."

(Actually, on the subject of maintaining evils, it's worth remembering that the "designated free speech zones" for which many liberals love to slam Bush were, in fact, only "maintained" by Bush, having been invented by his predecessor in turn, Bill Clinton.)


As for disillusionment ... well, it's one of the early steps on the path to enlightenment. You can't open yourself up to see what is true before you first unlearn what is false.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

"For another example, no administration prior to Obama's has taken it upon itself to order the CEOs of private-sector corporations to resign."

Sic transit gloria Reagan, who had his own banking bailout.

When you talk about "redistribution," are you referring to the financial system bailout? That was a huge redistribution! The radical and moderate left regards Obama as far too conservative and corporatist, and Obama has treated us like poison from the beginning of his campaign, regardless of any prior allegiances. After the financial system bailout and the various defenses and continuations of Bush II authoritarian policies, is anyone seriously arguing that Obama is a radical socialist of any stripe? I can only wonder at arguments that Obama is a radical socialist! Those arguments are being made because the people who make them do not like socialists, not because there is any evidence for them. All the evidence points the other way: Obama has made a deal with the big money and the warmongers, if he has not simply sold out.

[yndy.livejournal.com]

good points...
I've been really just rather trying to ignore the politispeech of late - especially concerning the Obama/change thing - country is as polarized as ever if not moreso.

I find I just get David Byrne stuck in my head repeating "same as it ever was... same as it ever was..." whenever I do get reeled in.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

You too, huh? That and "Meet the new boss / Same as the old boss..."

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

You only now noticed? Here, try this search (http://www.google.com/search?q=holder+site%3Afiredoglake.com). I don't defend the Administration on this; this is execrable, and it's been going on since the administration took power. On the other hand, it appears that House and Senate have voted (the Senate, just ten days ago) to allow the transfer of Guantanamo prisoners to prisons in the USA. Guantanamo may actually close by January, though the release of innocents held there is not assured.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Nope, I didn't only now notice. It's just that this is one of the higher profile invocations.

Linkage

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Emptywheel on the implications for legislative and judicial branches (http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/10/31/if-its-friday-it-must-be-state-secrets-hiding-abuse-of-power-in-the-9th-circuit/). Marcia's done a bang-up job of tracking this issue.

Re: Linkage

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Heh. I like the title. :)

[wyrdling.livejournal.com]

there's a reason why the wedding date's set for november 5th, next year. besides the fact that we're hopeless geeks.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Remember, remember, the Fifth of November... ;)

[lebo-superman.livejournal.com]

"I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot!"

or this one

"People should not fear their governments; the governments should fear their people."

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

"When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."

As a counterpoint, "That government which fears arms in the hands of its own patriotic and law-abiding citizens, rightfully deserves to."