Yesterday’s news… today!

Look: I love Glenn Greenwald. He has the temerity to get in The One’s [TM] face just about every day, unswayed from the star-struck-teenage-girl bullsh*t that defines most of my brethren and sistren “progressives” in bloggyland, who somehow think because my college classmate The President is on “our team,” that he is “a good guy” who “is on our side” and “means well” notwithstanding his advancement of his predecessor’s (and his predecessor’s, and so forth, back to God knows when) systematic and seemingly inexorable advancement of “the national security state”.. even though, in the case of Barack Obama, he campaigned, and I daresay, got millions of votes (including mine) solely because of his promises to rein back the executive overreach of his predecessor. The Obama Administration’s quite early adoption of the Bush Administration’s “state secrets” doctrine lock, stock and barrel was a body blow, and a betrayal which, rather than any kind of anomoly, has just led to more and more betrayals.
Well, fool me once, Barack baby. Fool me ONCE. From here on in, you can kiss my tush, because I’m not voting for you, I’m not supporting you, I’m not contributing to you, or to your miserable sell-out party, and I’m certainly not going to waste my time volunteering for your campaigns. Did I say that out loud?
Anyway, kudos to Greenwald, especially for today’s piece in which he wonderfully juxtaposes the deadly serious reporting by WaPo’s Dana Priest concerning the inexorable advance of the super-secret-total-national-security-state with the horsesh*t trivia that otherwise defines “political journalism”. Of course, Greenwald is a bit late; I’ll certainly give Ms. Priest credit for having worked on this story for a long, long time (and she has to do it while laboring at a dying institution at that… albeit one managed by yet another of my college classmates.).
Regular readers here know that we were on this particularly story years ago, with our own hard-hitting interview with gonzo journalist, artist, photographer and geographer Trevor Paglen in which he let us in on “the black world” of insane government secrecy… a world where the Government knows more and more about you, and you know less and less about it. And that world, in the stated guise of “protecting us” and of course, feeding its insatiable war machine.,. just keeps getting bigger,.. and bigger… and sucking up more and more of our money,
Of course, tens of millions of you have just about already conceded any semblance of “privacy” as it is by publicly posting your most intimate details on Facebook, Twitter, and/or other social networking software; in that sense… by living as an open book, you’re basically giving the Government a big “in your face” by not giving it anything to hold over you; I caution, you however, that your employers may feel differently. Others like me, still somewhat squeamish about that “life as an open book” sort of our thing, simply try to live exemplary lives with nothing much of significance to hide… not that if the national security state decided to get us, there would be anything other than the political consequences of doing so stopping them. At the moment, only people of color, Muslims, illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, political advocacy groups, young people, old people, unemployed people and working people are particularly in any danger from the national security state… but that could change at any time and impact the rest of us.
My advice to you’all is never… NEVER… stand for injustice, if you’re in a position to do anything about it… but do not waste your time on political “process” bullsh*t, which, as Greenwald’s piece brilliantly observed, has largely been reduced to Seinfeld episode “show about nothing” stature… in short, I urge you to “opt out” of the political system… Don’t pay any attention to it, because you can’t do anything about it, and, well… the differences between “us” and “them” are as superficial and “about nothing” as any Seinfeld episode. What you should do is lead your life, and to the extent possible, prepare yourself for the ultimate comeuppance of the total national security state, to wit, its inevitable failure as it collapses under its own weight by bankrupting our economy. Figure out reliable sources of food and water, shelter, transportation and security, preferably “off the grid” if at all possible… mock them for it if we like, but our grandparents and great-grandparents lived much more simple and sensible lives than we do, in many cases under far more stressful conditions than many of us face, particularly in matters of… food, shelter, transportation, etc.
If it’s going to be… it’s up to me. A government collapsing under its own weight of trying to spy on you (and trying to make sure you don’t know what it’s up to) just isn’t the kind of government that’s going to be of any help to you when you need it most. Just ask anyone in Greater New Orleans about that. Just saying.