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Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

nytimes.com

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Re: Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

#51

Post by zephjc »

pixelmonkey wrote: post #15

From the article: "Mr. Obama was acutely aware of the risks of being seen as handcuffing the security agencies. 'Whatever reforms he makes, you can be sure if there’s another incident — and the odds are there will be in our history — there’ll be someone on CNN within seconds saying if the president hadn’t hamstrung the intelligence community, this wouldn’t have happened,' Mr. Axelrod said." And so, the wheel keeps tu…

If theres ever a time to do the right thing, it's in the President's second term: it's all downhill, what the pundits say doesn't matter to re-electability, since there is none (unless you plan on going to another office later on...)

Re: Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

#52

Post by [deleted] »

nsns wrote: post #9
grandalf wrote: post #3

The headline might as well be a more Onionesque "After gaining power, politician turns out not to actually hold the strongly principled views he expressed while campaigning". I'd be surprised if Obama holds any of the views he expressed during his campaign. A campaign is a marketing effort intended to install a team of people in power. Generally speaking, the vast majority of power holders agree that aggressive spyin…

" A campaign is a marketing effort intended to install a team of people in power. " You've just described the current crisis of representational democracy.

[deleted]

Re: Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

#53

Post by privong »

zephjc wrote: post #51
pixelmonkey wrote: post #15

From the article: "Mr. Obama was acutely aware of the risks of being seen as handcuffing the security agencies. 'Whatever reforms he makes, you can be sure if there’s another incident — and the odds are there will be in our history — there’ll be someone on CNN within seconds saying if the president hadn’t hamstrung the intelligence community, this wouldn’t have happened,' Mr. Axelrod said." And so, the wheel keeps tu…

If theres ever a time to do the right thing, it's in the President's second term: it's all downhill, what the pundits say doesn't matter to re-electability, since there is none (unless you plan on going to another office later on...)

> (unless you plan on going to another office later on...)

Just curious, has a president ever done that?

Re: Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

#54

Post by untog »

aaronem wrote: post #22
brown9-2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a really sad and poor way to concern yourself with how our society governs itself.

Roughly 125 million people voted in the last presidential election. Had I been among them, I'd therefore have had roughly 1/125,000,000 of a say in who gained the office. Perhaps, to a homeopath, such a marvelous dilution of political power might leave something meaningful in its wake. Not being a homeopath myself, I find it somewhat less than compelling. I fail to see how resignation in the face of inevitable powerl…

Roughly 125 million people voted in the last presidential election. Had I been among them, I'd therefore have had roughly 1/125,000,000 of a say in who gained the office.

Naturally, that isn't true at all. The President gets all the attention but they can't do much without the House of Representatives and the Senate's approval. Your vote for representatives in those houses is worth a lot more than 1/125,000,000.

If you wanted to have a greater effect, you could get involved. Help campaign for the candidate you favour, effectively multiplying your vote by however many people you convince of your case. Or if you really wanted to make a difference you could run for office yourself.

But yeah, local politics is messy and difficult. It's a lot easier to say you're above it and not do anything.

Re: Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

#55

Post by selimthegrim »

rfnslyr wrote: post #17
brown9-2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a really sad and poor way to concern yourself with how our society governs itself.

There's just no way to do it from the bottom. All these protests, all this (sl)activism, it doesn't do anything. You either need to dedicate your life to politics and get into the club and start working from the inside, and pray some holy fucking deity that there are others like you, or nothing will change. Maybe severe violent revolt but I literally don't ever see that happening. There isn't enough time in the day t…

> It takes a very very special type of person to run a country. You need people who are basically insane.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Bc1LAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA279&lpg=P...

"She [Thatcher] had no hobbies, no hinterland, and no close friends with 'an old shoe' quality of comfortable familiarity. Recharging her batteries was a practice she had never heard of."

Re: Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

#56

Post by rayiner »

grandalf wrote: post #19
untog wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Taking on the government is the wrong fight when they are (at least broadly) representative of public opinion. The fight should be educating people on the dangers of NSA spying, something that I haven't really seen anyone try to do. All commentary comes from the perspective that "NSA = bad" is already a given.

Hmm. How can the public have an opinion about a secret program? If a leaker revealed that the government had a secret underground concentration camp below the Arizona desert would you view that to be the result of dutiful fulfillment of public service?

Read the techcrunch article: they support the program even after the details leaked.

Re: Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

#57

Post by socrates1998 »

I just don't get why people don't believe politicians.

We are lied to all the time by them.

We don't need the US Congress. We don't even need the President in it's current version.

We can vote on legislation ourselves. We can approve a budget ourselves. We can veto stupid and corrupt laws.

We do everything else online, why can't we govern online?

The people in power don't want this to happen, so they convince us they are actually doing something.

Re: Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

#58

Post by mcv »

aaronem wrote: post #42
adventured wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is fascinating how people lay blame. The most common thing I see is my fellow Americans blaming politicians, bankers, school teachers, lobbyists, cops, unions, almost anyone... except themselves. The truth is, the American people are the problem, and they've spent the last few decades doing everything possible to avoid personal responsibility for the shape of the country.

> It is fascinating how people lay blame. Oh, yes, very much so! For example, you seem quite effortlessly to lay blame on three hundred or so million people, and that's only counting those alive right now, with no consideration for those who've predeceased us, at least some of whom presumably could be expected, in your formulation, to have had a hand in creating the situation you so readily decry. But laying blame, w…

> What would you have us do? -- all three hundred million of us, of course.

Vote. For for better people. That is the basis of any democracy. You don't blindly follow your leaders, and you don't blame them for their mistakes and carry on as if there's nothing you can do about it, because you can do something about it. You can vote them out, and vote better people in.

The fact that those three hundred million Americans haven't done that, is entirely their own responsibility. It is the responsibility of the American people is that they allow themselves to be lied to. That you allow every single politician to break their promises, and re-elect them anyway. That you keep voting for the same two parties.

And yes, of course the first-past-the-post district system makes it a lot harder to have someone else win the vote. You'll have to mobilize a lot of people. But you have to start voting for different people. People unrelated to the big two parties. People who do politics in a different way. Find them and vote them into office.

Re: Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

#59

Post by venomsnake »

rayiner wrote: post #26
rfnslyr wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's just no way to do it from the bottom. All these protests, all this (sl)activism, it doesn't do anything. You either need to dedicate your life to politics and get into the club and start working from the inside, and pray some holy fucking deity that there are others like you, or nothing will change. Maybe severe violent revolt but I literally don't ever see that happening. There isn't enough time in the day t…

> Maybe severe violent revolt but I literally don't ever see that happening. I always find this sentiment (or various forms of "wiping the slate clean") to be quite amusing. It is historically more likely for a society to be less free after violent revolution than the opposite. Radicals who believe in a cause strongly enough to engage in revolution also tend to be ideologues who, once in power, want to remake society…

Wiping the slate clean also means repeating the same mistakes. Actually I strongly prefer pragmatic and strong ideology free, realpolitik playing USA than the current state where the US is ... entangled in some mix of ideology and interest that ensure that anything will be done half assed.

Re: Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

#60

Post by tunap »

grandalf wrote: post #3

The headline might as well be a more Onionesque "After gaining power, politician turns out not to actually hold the strongly principled views he expressed while campaigning". I'd be surprised if Obama holds any of the views he expressed during his campaign. A campaign is a marketing effort intended to install a team of people in power. Generally speaking, the vast majority of power holders agree that aggressive spyin…

"I'd be surprised if Obama holds any of the views he expressed during his campaign."

His nomination of the original author of the Patriot Act[1] to be his running mate was my confirmation that we were no longer one choice away from a dictatorship. Geitner & Gates' retention was just salt in the wound.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Counterterrorism_Act_o...

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