I just tripped over some boxes in my garage.

sexy? Did they have long, corrugated appendages, and alluring flaps?

had broken hearts .

than principles.

where you aren't treated as a possible suspect by having your privacy taken away from you. I think a government agency having this much power is a danger to the concept of a free country and a democracy.

...that only guilty people have anything to fear.

Unless and until everyone agrees with you, those that don't are now enemies? You might want to examine your democratic values.
Different opinions are healthy and people are entitled to them; why disparage that?

Are you kidding when you characterize blatant erosions of privacy and civil liberties as "different opinions"? An American with that kind of different opinion hurts us more than a 100 Snowdens.

thou bunch needs to be excoriated so they can prop themselves up a higher pedestal. RIght up there with this guy..


BuzzFeed Benny ✔ @bennyjohnson
Follow
Snowden condemning unwanted and illegal government interference in peoples lives from Russia
6:42 AM - 10 Mar 2014 104 Retweets 41 favorites •Reply
•Retweet
•Favorite

TOD

Creepy bullshit..

Thanks for all you do.

I didn't see any DUers' name on the CIA petition to "spying on American citizens"

In fact, I do believe some actually shredded the document.

I almost feel bad for you - the agitation and unrest from the Ed is Hero Fan base is palpable.

American people. A majority of them, growing every day as more and more is learned about the threat to this democracy from the NSA.

I feel sorry for the country but I have confidence that this threat to democracy will pass. The American people are very fond of their Constitutional Rights and not very fond of people who try to undermine those rights in any way.

And now that Sen. Feinstein has learned she too is a victim of what she initially thought was okay for us, she has apparently changed her mind about all that spying.

it's some stupid privilege. Actually, it is a big favor. thank you.

If I am not already!!!

who got that announced for them and I was like.. hey!.. The next you know here I am!

Is that irony or hypocrisy?

who woulda thunk?

but I scrolled down to see if any astute DUers had noticed that too and lo and behold.

such horrible "groupthink"!

What is this Fox News?

Just so you know btw, the old talking point you used was long ago known to mean:

Criticizing the CIA or NSA and debating the issues has been replaced with calling out straw men, imaginary DUers. Much easier to defend than information.

You're either with us or you're against us.

You've been polluting the waters from day one with your bullshit witch hunts. You erect straw men (Snowden, Greenwald, Assange) every day with the intent of distracting from the central issue. It's not a "different opinion" it's subterfuge.

"Ha, look who's talking

You've been polluting the waters from day one with your bullshit witch hunts. You erect straw men (Snowden, Greenwald, Assange) every day with the intent of distracting from the central issue. It's not a 'different opinion' it's subterfuge."

..."Snowden, Greenwald, Assange" are not above criticism. What makes them any different from any other public figure criticized?

Still, your response exposes the real point of this strawman OP: Leave "Snowden, Greenwald, Assange" alone.

I don't give a rat's ass about the messengers (that's your game), I care about the message. The one you're trying to bury.

with his own fan club had he just revealed that information under Bush or under a Republican administration.

Just be thankful someone finally did. It's crazy up in here...

The main beef that the Snowden haters have is because he embarrassed President Obama's administration. I agree with you, and I am thankful for the revelations - I hated the surveillance state (I refuse to call it national security, because that is a farce) under Bush, and I hate it now.

It IS crazy up in here, and it is easy to make that mistake, my friend!

Hence this BS OP, right?

"You couldn't hit the broad side of a barn"

Where do you think you are: a comedy club on a slow night?

Knock, knock?

Who's there?

Lee

Lee who?

Leeave Snowden alone.

I didn't mention Snowden in my OP. It was you who went there, and now you're wasting everyone's time with your silly games.

"I didn't mention Snowden in my OP. It was you who went there, and now you're wasting everyone's time with your silly games"

No, I didn't: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024647193#post22


Guess who did bring him up?

own it: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024647193#post26

They were eventually referenced in the comments, but the OP was never about them. It was about people who condone and excuse the affront to our rights for political expedience, and the incredible disservice they do their fellow Americans. Know anyone like that?

20 GOTO 10
30 REM You've got ODS

I'm loving the new and creative ways people attempt to disguise their call outs.

So much better than "blue linky" or "hack"

Got more?

How is the ol' Linkasaurus Rex thing working out these days?

I noticed you have not abandoned your use of the:
in your responses.

the in the responses or if some other program does that.

are getting more ridiculous by the day.

So....

Let's pull this shit under Bush, and expose it on Obama's watch.

Yeah, motive matters. It ALWAYS matters.

Now how this concept gets twisted into ZOMG!1! NSA APOLOGIST11!! is just bizarre, not to mention completely disingenuous.

The central issue is one thing, (and this is no doubt extremely important) but the "messengers" involved have some gaping credibility issues. That some simply won't tolerate this discussion in any way, shape, or form just blows my mind.

"Criticizing the CIA or NSA and debating the issues has been replaced with calling out straw men..."


Or writing gossip columns about the individual rather than policy...







(insert distinction without a difference here...)

All I ever see are the same old excuses, and/or attacks on the Whistle Blower or personal attacks on those who have never changed their minds on Government spying on the people since we first found out about under Bush.

I would love to have a discussion about it for a change.

Why not start right here?

Do you support or oppose the policies of the NSA involving spying on every American?

I oppose them, always have, I like the 4th Amendment especially since it was written with great thought and a knowledge of what allowing Government intrusion, especially in secret, with secret courts, secret warrants etc, (it's not new but still as bad as it always was) throughout history. You can't have a democracy when the government views its own people, all of them, as suspects.

Swimming through the steady stream of utter bullshit has become quite the challenge as of late.

Excellent post.

for the same reason I dislike the "blame America first", "supporting tarrarrists", or "Why do you hate freedom?" memes. I don't like declaring people to be the enemy of a concept.

We're always striking a balance between security and privacy. I think they're completely wrong where they fall on that line, and they think the same of me. For all that I poke a few of them and get annoyed with them sometimes, I don't think they're enemies of democracy. I'm completely opposed to the NSA/CIA, but I bet if we kept going we'd eventually disagree on where to draw the line, because all of us are going to draw it in a different place. Just to use an example, I tend to fall away from other civil libertarians on protests that attack every day individuals as a means to an end. I don't think screaming "SLUT!!!" at a pregnant woman through a megaphone from six feet away should be protected. I think it should be considered assault. If I started an OP to that end, there would likely be a bitter fight. It doesn't mean I hate free speech, or am any less supportive of it, it just means I draw the line differently.

If I had to pick a group in the US to brand the enemies of democracy, it'd be the folks that are doing their level best to make it as hard as humanly possible for people that disagree with them to vote.

I completely agree.

We all draw the security/privacy line in different places; but to refuse to recognize that there REALLY IS a security concern, or that one out weighs the other, is foolhardy. In the end, we can only argue this BECAUSE of the security that has been afforded.

If this opinion makes me a water carrying enemy of democracy in the minds of some, oh well ... that doesn't rank in the top 1,000 of "bad" things I've been called.

Im not an apologist for the NSA.... they haven't done anything to apologize for.... Hell the courts uphold everything they have done...

Snowden is a traitor,,,,, seems he has secured his deal for a new beach house in Crimea after giving Putin our DOD's War Book !

Im still amazed by the number who were unaware that that this was happening... geez my dog even figured that out.

The Age of Privacy is Dead and Gone with the arrival of the Digital age.... quite whining and live with it [or go live in a cave]edit!

So your saying that the 4th amendment is a quaint anachronism.
Well, enjoy your authoritarian overlords. I'm sure they have your best interests at heart.....

However, I'll pass on your twisted version of the US.

its like using a big old party line telephone...

That is what this poster is trying to point out to you...

remember how you could feel the vibration in your own phone when somebody was using the line?

that is NOTHING like "the Internet"

using our line...I didn't need a vibration....

like for example, how

never was...

if i call my lawyer on the phone , are those the same lines.

back in the day if you called your lawyer on the party line.....you just had to trust that the other folks on the party line weren't listening in to your call by the way...

there hasn't been any party lines in decades, its a red herring.

second, "the Internet" isn't a solitary thing, its a collection of many different protocols, and some are definitely designed to be "inherently private" , whatever you think that means, such as HTTPS.

so to say the internet isn't private, and to compare it to a party line, just shows that YOU don't know what you're talking about.

Yes I know all about the Internet...I have a degree in IT and I have been on it since before there was a W.W.W.


So you can drop that!

you wouldn't make such a brain-dead statement as "the internet is like a party line"

not to mention, W.W.W.

really, a period after each W

who knew

periods....because its actually an acronym for World Wide Web...there WAS Internet before it...


But then who knew right?

Last edited Wed Mar 12, 2014, 06:42 PM - Edit history (1)

the brain-dead statement was "the internet is like a party line"

your use of "W.W.W." to abbreviate the world wide web was just a funny aside

edited to add link
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2091d4/i_am_tim_bernerslee_i_invented_the_www_25_years/

maybe you should send him an electronic mail and tell him his abbreviation is wrong

it wasn't about Berners-Lee....because in THOSE days it WAS an acronym.

Oh and Berners-Lee also said:

On Wednesday, that project, now simply called the web, will celebrate its 25th anniversary, and Mr. Berners-Lee is looking ahead at the next 25.

But this moment comes with a cloud. The creators of the web, including Mr. Berners-Lee, worry that companies and telecommunications outlets could destroy the open nature that made it flourish in their quest to make more money.

"Because he had no other alternative engaged as a journalist / with a journalist to be careful of how what was released, and provided an important net overall benefit to the world, I think he should be protected, and we should have ways of protecting people like him. Because we can try to design perfect systems of government, and they will never be perfect, and when they fail, then the whistle blower may be all that saves society".

Tim Berners-Lee (WWW inventor) 3/12/14

Its OPEN....exactly as I described it and as Tim Berners-Lee just corroborated....he now regrets that "openness".

"the internet is like a party line"

remember

duh talk about brain dead!

are you saying they haven't done anything

or

they haven't done anything yet

or

they haven't done anything that you know of


either way, you're who the OP is talking about, but you already knew that

who's party?

who is watching and recording every fucking word you write and say.

Americans can't disagree nor support without being called the Enemy. Have the USA reached that point where Democracy means nothing unless you agree. That sounds like what the GOPers/Libertarians want, but I myself will never fall into that eff that trap and America will not neither.

it's about rights and the Constitution. People can agree or disagree on many things, but some things are out of bounds. Note that I do not necessarily agree that agreeing or opposing the OP's point makes someone un-American, but I can fully understand it. It's very difficult to fathom there are those on the left (let alone anyone in this country) who would put political considerations above rights and the violation of the same.

You should notice that those who support the NSA position(not all but most) do very little but spout misinformation while making fun of any and everyone who does not support the NSA position.

Yeah. They know who they are. My guess is that they know they are condoning undemocratic behavior, but just don't care because somehow it is justified in their mind, most likely because it is "their team" misbehaving. Either that or they really don't fundamentally believe in democracy.

"Yeah, you know who you are..."

...I calling you out see! You're either wiff us, or you aginst us.

What's needed is two separate forums: GD Them and GD Us

LOL!

in Sarah Palin's voice?

But not surprised you went with that in the least.

What else ya got?

The style ( if you can call it that ) is incredibly reminiscent.

minions all riled up and breathless .

Welcome to who gives a shit.

You're on ignore. They could see it ... maybe the GG will print a ES leaked transcript letting them know how devastated you are.

is the voice of the giant strawman the OP has erected in the middle of GD.

though that's doesn't make it correct, nor appropriate either. Authoritarians are Americans to.

'Enemies of democracy' is about as McCarthy-esk as you can get.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Precision and concision. That's the game.[/center][/font][hr]

"I hold here in my hand a list of the enemies of democracy!"

That should be the OP's title.

Gee, they were all anti-war liberals, too. Libertarians are more liberal than liberals, don't ya know, because they are pure as the driven snow.

All I could make out of the Faux Noise 2-minute Hate was O'Reilly was auditioning for Goebbels and Hannity was playing a Hitler wannabe.

I know about all the memes and how the Right and Reich and Libertarians and Teabags use them repeatedly to disrupt and demoralize Democrats to get them to not vote in the midterms.

Election seasons do NOT start after the primaries, they are in action all year, every year. We are being given the CREEP treatment just like Segretti did for Nixon, and was done in every election thereater.

This is the ammo to create another Tea Party victory in 2014 like the one in 2010, and people have still not gloomed onto the technique. The GOP gave it such an attractive name, too, Ratfucking:



Don Segretti 4.0, A Teabagger Nation

By Driftglass - **June 21, 2010**

'Ratfucking' is a method the GOP began during the Nixon era and consistently after that time. Since they have the money to fund pundits to do this for them, it will continue. Beware.

The practice has won the right many victories for them and very effective in causing Democrats to abandon their candidates and their party. The man who originated the term and method was:

Donald Henry Segretti (born September 17, 1941, in San Marino, California) is a former political operative for the Committee to Re-elect the President (Nixon) during the early 1970s. Segretti was hired by friend Dwight L. Chapin to run a campaign of dirty tricks (which he dubbed "ratfucking"[1]) against the Democrats, with his work being paid for by Herb Kalmbach, Nixon's lawyer, from presidential campaign re-election funds gathered before an April 7, 1972, law required that contributors be identified. His actions were part of the larger Watergate scandal, and were important indicators for the few members of the press actively investigating the Watergate break in in the earliest stages that what became known as the Watergate scandal involved far more than just a simple break in. Segretti's involvement in the "Canuck letter"[2] typifies the tactics Segretti and others working with him used, forging a letter ascribed to Senator Edmund Muskie which maligned the people, language and culture of French Canada and French Canadians, causing the soon to be Democratic presidential candidate Muskie considerable headaches in denying the letter and having to continue dealing with the issue. Many historians have indicated over the years that Muskie's withdrawal from the Presidential primaries, and the disastrous Iowa primary loss to George McGovern that precipitated it, were at least partly the result of Segretti and some of the other "Ratfuckers" creating so much confusion and false accusations that Muskie simply could not respond in any meaningful way.

In 1974, Segretti pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of distributing illegal (in fact, forged) campaign literature and was sentenced to six months in prison, actually serving four months. One notable example of his wrongdoing was a faked letter on Democratic presidential candidate Edmund Muskie's letterhead falsely alleging that U.S. Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a fellow Democrat, had had an illegitimate child with a 17-year-old; the Muskie letters accused Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of sexual misconduct as well.[3] After testimony regarding the Muskie letters emerged, Democrats in Florida noted the similarity between these sabotage incidents and others that involved stationery stolen from Humphrey's offices after Muskie dropped out of the race. A false news release on Humphrey's letterhead "accused Rep. Shirley Chisholm (D-N.Y.) of being mentally unbalanced" and a mailing with an unidentified source mischaracterized Humphrey as supporting a controversial environmental measure that he actually opposed.[3]

In the 1976 film about Watergate, All the President's Men, Segretti was played by Robert Walden.

Segretti was a lawyer who served as a prosecutor for the military and later as a civilian. However, his license was suspended for two years following his conviction. In 1995, he ran for a local judgeship in Orange County, California. However, he quickly withdrew from the race when his campaign awakened lingering anger over his involvement in the Watergate scandal. In 2000, Segretti served as co-chair of John McCain's presidential campaign in Orange County.[4]

He holds a B.S. in Finance from the University of Southern California (1963) and a J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law (1966). While at USC he became associated with Dwight L. Chapin, Tim Elbourne, Ron Ziegler, Herbert Porter and Gordon C. Strachan, they all joined the "Trojans for Representative Government" group.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Segretti



Back in the Nixon era

It would be tempting to label this "The Return of the Ratfuckers", but of course the GOP Ratfuck squad (from Corrente) --

Ratfucking is an American slang term for political sabotage or dirty tricks. It was first brought to public attention during the Watergate scandal investigation that during the 1972 presidential campaign the Nixon campaign committee maintained a "dirty tricks" unit focused on discrediting Nixon's strongest challengers.

According to Woodward and Bernstein, Nixon aide Dwight Chapin hired fellow USC alumnus Donald Segretti to run a campaign of dirty tricks (which Segretti dubbed "ratfucking&quot against the Democrats in 1972. The purpose of the operation was to create as much bitterness and disunity within the Democrat primary as possible. One notable example of Segretti's wrong-doing was a faked letter on Democratic presidential candidate Edmund Muskie's letterhead falsely alleging that U.S. Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a fellow Democrat, had had an illegitimate child with a 17-year-old...

-- has never left us.

Much more worth reading at:

http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2010/06/don-segretti-40-teabagger-nation.html

This is why we see one thing after another against Obama, Kerry, Pelosi and Democrats to gin up outrage. Some things we hear about are based on difference of opinion, tearing up Democrats and our leaders is not productive. Many of the issues have been manufactured about the things guaranteed break the hearts of liberal, progressive Democrats, but usually by Libertarians who do not want the same things. But they want to destroy the Democrats because they are the force that robs their coporatist masters.

So what happens is that Democrats feel betrayed and react accordingly, but they are seldom given opposing information.

And as soon as one issue is debunked, they move immediately to another. It is exhausting and costly to rebutt all of these, and after a while by repetition they are established as a truth by the inability to not rebut them at the speed they are sent out. They are the monied party, after all, now being sponsored by the really big money, like the Koch brothers.

Ratfucking relies upon the learned perception that the well of political discourse has been turned into a cesspool, and counts on the discouraged to lose the will to get in government and clean the mess up. Instead, in their place are Tea Party grifters as the voices of the sane and the compassionate stay out of political life. Thus the RW mission is accomplished.

Another major reason some smears are not rebutted is we don't have Koch billions to fund these smears, so they outvote us with their media dollars and paid pundits. We have to be smart and not allow this to divide us.

It applies to what is being done to attack Obama and most Democrats right now.

Anyone who followed the political scene for many years would recognize the approach being used with or without the term 'ratfucking.'

But the term is shorthand for a complicatd process. Its purpose is to destroy the reputation or credibility of the Democratic Party and Obama among those who should be rightly proud of our accomplishments. The media is owned by right wingers and they do not show our side in a credible fashion.

Make no mistake, it is not just the personality or the actions of our party or our president being attacked, it is the progressive ideas represented. And now we see that they are going after each and every Democrat on the personal level. That and we are the enemy of the RWers and Koch organizations who are fighting by going after our leaders and now, all of us. They will use Citizens United and every other weapon in their hands to defeat us and our hopes for a better America and a better world.

In more recent events, think of the method employed to ruin the Kennedys, ACORN and so many others. We must not be taken in.

**Yes, some of us realized what was happening as the media and pundits formerly trusted did this in the summer of 2010, and it worked very well. We tried to warn others, but they stayed away from the polls and many states now live under the boot of the Tea Party.

Will they succeed in 2014?

Once again, you absolutely nailed it.



This post should be plucked out of this bogus thread and OP'ed outright.

...are what Ignore buttons were made for. Because you can't reason with cultists. They don't have the ability to discern the difference between facts and their ''OUR GUY CAN DO NO WRONG'' fantasy that ''MUST BE HELD TOGETHER AT ALL COSTS.''

- Inconvenient truths are frowned upon and/or ignored. And sometimes hidden by juries......

K&R

equal pay for equal work, marriage equality, etc... every single one of those issues, even as standalone issues, are 10x more important than what the NSA or CIA does.

Otherwise why counter with a list of his achievements?