We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, December 30, 2013

US judge rules NSA phone surveillance program is legal

Click here to access article from RT.

Recent court rulings related to lawsuits against the NSA for spying waged by citizens and citizen advocates. Only a few weeks ago a District Court judge ruled in favor of citizens in a lawsuit filed by a conservative legal activist, today we learn that another District Court judge ruled in favor of the NSA's right to spy on Americans in a lawsuit filed by the liberal American Civil Liberties Union. Who do you think will eventually win on this vital Constitutional issue? If you understand how the One Percent's government works to serve their needs, then you will easily arrive at the correct answer--the NSA and all other government/private contractor spying programs. 

The issue really goes back to the original meeting held behind closed doors by key figures of the emerging property class in the US following their successful War of Independence from Great Britain. They came up with a new set of rules known as the US Constitution to replace the rules known as the Articles of Confederation to consolidate their power in a much more centralized government. Then they needed to have this version passed by two thirds of the thirteen states.

Having been indoctrinated by the One Percent's schools, most people do not understand how the Amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights came about. The newly formed capitalist class needed to add "a spoonful of sugar" in order to get their property oriented constitution ratified by the states. Thus, the Bill of Rights was tacked on the original Constitution because of widespread opposition by ordinary people in the original 13 semi-autonomous states of the United States. The ruling class's promotion of this new Constitution was essentially a coup engineered behind closed doors by major property holders of the states while attending a convention that was only supposed to be modifying the Articles of Confederation.  

They knew perfectly well that under their new Constitution that they could control a powerful centralized government from any democratic inference from below, and therefore they need not worry about the Amendments. To illustrate how seriously these people, reverently referred to as our "Founding Fathers", took these Amendments, bear in mind that only nine years after the Constitution went into effect they passed the Sedition Act which made it a crime...
To write, print, utter or publish, or cause it to be done, or assist in it, any false, scandalous, and malicious writing against the government of the United States, or either House of Congress, or the President, with intent to defame, or bring either into contempt or disrepute, or to excite against either the hatred of the people of the United States, or to stir up sedition, or to excite unlawful combinations against the government, or to resist it....
Our ruling class has never hesitated to pass such legislation whenever it suited them as we've seen with the Espionage Act of 1917 and the imprisonment of citizens of Japanese ancestry during WWII as the most egregious examples. So, you see that these Amendments which supposedly secured liberties for citizens was never taken seriously by this new ruling class. 

Now we are witnessing a very paranoid ruling class who insist on full spectrum surveillance over all citizen activities including journalists and their courts will, without doubt, find that these practices are permitted under the US Constitution.