I believe in the Occupy movement and have an Occupy bumper sticker on my tailgate. I have seen only one other Occupy sticker on any car anywhere I've been. I surmise from this scientifically invalid study that most American's have little to no understanding about the Occupy Movement.

The totalitarian police state treatment of Occupy Protesters has made me EXTREMELY RELUCTANT to participate in anyOccupy gatherings. Simply put, I don't want to go to jail, get tasered, pepper sprayed,cracked in the face with a police baton, or loose my eardrums from police noise machines.

Also, I just plain don't know how to navigate big cities like New York. And I can't stand camping out.

Not to mention Occupy on the east coast seems to have fizzled. I'm even reluctant to peruse any Occupy websites, lest I put a big drone target on my back.

I fear my own government a hell of a lot more than any terrorist, simply because the probability of my own government wrecking my life if they chose too is about 10,000% greater than being a victim of terrorism.

-90% Jimmy

Here's some remarkable information about America's drone program. This one poor soul unto himself is responsible for 1626 deaths, working for the U.S. as a contractor, no less!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11794063

On the one hand, I think our national security state is based on the urgent need to avoid another large scale terrorist attack on the U.S.A. Can you imagine Fox News coverage if we receive another mass murdering terrorist attack? Impeachment would be too good for Obama. He'd be drawn and quartered on live TV if large scale terrorism to the U.S. happened on his watch.

OTOH - The U.S.A. is guaranteed to be afraid of decades of BLOWBACK as a direct result of the mass murders of our drone program.

It's my understanding that once a week, Obama sets aside an hour or two for personally selecting those to be droned. I think he should invite somebody like Dianne Sawyer and do a TV special while he's personally supervising murder by drone.

So, my conclusion is that our anti-terror program is really engineered to create even more terrorism so that more bricks can be added to our national security wall and engorge our military-industrial-congressional-security-complex until 3/4 of our GDP is going to defense contractors.

-90% Jimmy

With all the other sinister crap our government has done over the years, this scenario is soon becoming the only possible explanation.

For example, it has recently been revealed, and covered in detail by Thom Hartmann, that LBJ knew Nixon was negotiating with North Viet Nam to delay a peace agreement until after the election and Dickie would give them a better deal than LBJ. Thom played a tape of LBJ talking to Senator Dirkson; "Everett, this is TREASON!" "I know, I know."

It've a proven part of history. bonafide, no wild CT's. irrefutable proof of an American Presidents successful use of TREASON to win a Presidential Election!

And Dick also needlessly extended the war another 22,000 dead as a result of this. How could any person not simply drone themselves from the weight of murdering so many people?

-90% Jimmy

Yeah, it's not possible to bring any of the categories mentioned down to zero deaths. BUT, in the case of all things mentioned, governmental efforts can bring all those numbers dramatically lower. If you lower all categories by 10% across the board over the same time period, that would be 2 million (2,000,000) lives saved. I think it's fair to postulate that if the government had poured the same resources into preventable deaths that they did in building the current NATIONAL SECURITY STATE, a ten percent reduction is a reasonable assumption in the same time period since 9-11.

"terrorist attacks prod us into wars." Define "us", Kimosabe? The run up to the Iraq Invasion sparked the largest turn out in world wide anti-war protests in the history of the universe. We the people sure as hell didn't want to invade Iraq! It was our neocon GWB White House that wanted to invade Iraq. We as a country were terrified, but I think there was a decent consensus we at least wanted to bring the 9-11 plotters to JUSTICE, which is a hell of a lot different than invading a country that had nothing to do with 9-11 what so ever. I think we were all supportive for invading Afghanistan after 9-11. That was where most of the plotters could be located, based on info of that time.

Terrorist Attacks prodded OUR GOVERNMENT into starting a war. With our MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL-CONGRESSIONAL-SECURITY-Complexes ever growing lust for profit making wars and conflicts, the USA, especially under GWB, would go to war if another punk ass country without nukes even looks at us funny.

The invasion of Iraq was an act of treason by the GWB White House. The fecklessness and waste of how the war was conducted was also treason. Incompetence so tremendous, it bore the weight of full blown treason.

The invasion of Iraq was another artifact that proves our democracy is being stolen. The first proof of democracy demolition was of course the 2000 Bush v. Gore Supreme Court Decision. The magnitude of just how much our Democracy is being murdered by design has become in your face clear with these recent FISA/NSA revelations.

The list of freedoms and rights lost, surveillance mechanisms built and practicing the governance of middle ages monarchs are pointing in the direction of a national police state governmental infrastructure. I think we are perhaps only two or three election cycles to reach this tipping point as described by Frank Zappa.

“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”

America is a police state, although we are only at the stage where the tiny beak is starting to break through the eggshell.

Thanks for your comments. Insightful and thought provoking. It sparked me to try to further refine what exactly is pissing me the hell off about our It's alive, IT'S ALIVE!!!! Police State.

-90% Jimmy

How's this "keeping Americans 100% safe" working out for yah, U.S.-military-industrial-congressional-surveillance-complex?

Our government only wants to prevent terrorism. In terms of the magnitude of death and human suffering, they don't seem to give a rats ass about the 99.99999% of us that die from preventable causes other than terrorism.

I suggest our governments priorities are misplaced and it doesn't take much brain power to realize our government nullifying our Constitutional Rights has very very very little to do with keeping us safe.

Americans should be terrified of the stuff that has an astronomically higher probability of killing you - namely:

Number of deaths for leading causes of death:
Heart disease: 597,689
Cancer: 574,743
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 138,080
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 129,476
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 120,859
Alzheimer's disease: 83,494
Diabetes: 69,071
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,476
Influenza and Pneumonia: 50,097
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 38,364

And it seems all of the above mass murdering forms of premature death are not even on the radar of our national conversations?

"Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe." Frank Zappa

The hidden in plain sight stupidity of our war on terror certainly comes to light when you quantify the magnitude of the acceptable death we Americans tolerate!

We sacrifice 30,000 American to guns every year. This is perfectly acceptable to us all. But loose 3.050 almost 12 years ago and it's time to go full blown TOTALITARIAN FASCIST POLICE STATE!

I currently fear my government a hell of a lot more than I fear terrorism!

-90%

sabrina's post above:

"The president also said that in order for us to be 100% safe we have to give up some rights'. Wtf?? "

Well, if job one is to keep us 100% safe, our protective government missed their goal by about 99.9999% in the last decade.

We've lost 3,000 on 9-11 and perhaps 50 more to the present time. 3050.

In that same time periods, approximately 10-11 years since 9-11, we ALSO LOST about 20,000,000 (thats TWENTY MILLION) to preventable causes of death.

Number of deaths for leading causes of death:
Heart disease: 597,689
Cancer: 574,743
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 138,080
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 129,476
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 120,859
Alzheimer's disease: 83,494
Diabetes: 69,071
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,476
Influenza and Pneumonia: 50,097
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 38,364

Here's a link to another post that substantiates the above death numbers
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1017&pid=123706

so our government is stripping our Constitutional Rights to make us "100% safe from terrorism", but finds the 20,000,000 dead since 9-11 to be something they don't seem interested in fixing?

And if the are so concerned with keeping us 100% safe, how come our government sent an additional 5,000 young Americas to die in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9-11? The families of our patriotic dead that made the ultimate sacrifice realize that their loved ones were not keep 100% safe by our government.

If our government is hell bent on keep us all 100% safe, how come there's no angry mob torches and pitch forks about the ABYSMAL JOB our government did keeping those 20,000,000 dead Americans 100% safe?

As Thom Hartmann pointed out, we loose more people every year in bathroom accidents than we lost in 9-11. In terms of the magnitude of human loss, the bathroom deathtrap problem is much more severe than preventing another 9-11! Our government should take their TRILLION DOLLAR TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS PROGRAMS and funnel that money into SAFER BATHROOM TECHNOLOGY!

-90% Jimmy

I got this from the attached video.

Obama should simply take out Snowden with a drone strike.

Then we can all forget about this and move on to the next shiny object.

Might take some intensive spin to remove the FASCIST TOTALITARIAN POLICE STATE aroma from such a move, but we have a very short attention span and the drone would kill this story in 48 hours after the strike. Move on, nothing to see here.

-90% Jimmy

Did the President take an Oath to keep us safe?

No, Absolutely not. The Oath he took states: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."[61]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_office#Federal_Executive_and_Legislative_Branch_Oaths

The crux of the biscuit with privacy since 9-11 is the utter lack of PROPORTIONAL RESPONSE to the tragedy of 9-11. I am presuming that keeping us safe also means helping us avoid death. So the most of our resources should be brought to those areas that cause the most deaths.

From a post on DU, someone has estimated that America has lost perhaps 50 lives to muslim terrorists since 9-11. In the same amount of time, we lost approximately 20 million lives from preventable causes. Heart Disease, diabetes, suicides, accidents, etc. My data can be found in this post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1017&pid=123706

We created this self-perpetuating state of TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS in the hopes of turning that 50 dead to zero? Why instead aren't we working more diligently on where it would do the most people the most good and work on the stuff that caused the 20,000,000 deaths instead? This is a ratio of 400,000 "normal"/preventable deaths to 1 terrorism death.

Fighting the war on Terror, based on the concept of proportional response, should be lower on the national priority list than outlawing Donald Trumps hair, fer chrissakes!

Therefore, it's my conclusion that the primary purpose of the "War on Terror" was to justify a bloated and self perpetuating national security state. Something that history shows is always done on the road to a totalitarian fascist police state.

"It can't happen here" in the present is now "It has happened here"

Restoring our Constitutional Rights would do a hell of a lot more for attainment of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" than a police state ever would!

-90% Jimmy

So “THEY” want to protect us from the nasty dangerous world? Well, being a democracy almost by definition means our government should do the most good for the most people. Our government should prioritize their “protection” of us all based on the magnitude of the threat. Here’s some American mortality stats from 2011 (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm)

Number of deaths for leading causes of death:
Heart disease: 597,689
Cancer: 574,743
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 138,080
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 129,476
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 120,859
Alzheimer's disease: 83,494
Diabetes: 69,071
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,476
Influenza and Pneumonia: 50,097
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 38,364

This seems to add up to approximately 1.85 million deaths per year for the above causes of death. Rounding down to 11 years since 9-11 and assuming about the same death toll per year since 9-11, that’s 20.35 million US dead since 9-11. I know almost all of the above is preventable, but we don't have the technology in all of the sciences to bring the above numbers down to zero, but we are making inroads continuously in lowering the preventable death rates.

The number that died in the 9-11 attacks is approximately 3,000 (http://www.statisticbrain.com/911-death-statistics/)
So our government has been aggressively nullifying our Constitution in the name of fighting terrorism?

To prevent the deaths of a hypothetical future 3000 people vs not giving a rats ass about the 20,350,000 preventable deaths since 9-11. Either our elected reps have misplaced priorities or “they hate us for our freedoms”, which are being nullified daily in the name of the war on terror.

I thought these people took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, not destroy it in front of our very eyes. Aren’t these people violating a pretty damn sacred oath to uphold the Constitution simply traitors?

I want all of America to enjoy the same Constitutional Rights we all used tp enjoy thirty years ago. In terms of magnitude, destroying the Constitution to save us from terrorists is like "treating dandruff by decapitation"*.

-90% Jimmy

* - Frank Zappa at the 1985 PMRC Congressional Hearings

The USA is spying on the entire planet! I wonder what THE ENTIRE PLANET has to say about that?

The treasonous seditious rape of the Constitution is one thing, but what about the multi-national corporations? Considering Corporations have purchased our entire system of government and all our institutions, wouldn't they be interested in the TRADE SECRETS of their corporate competitors?


The possibility there are no more secrets in business seems core enough to bring about the economic collapse of the entire planet! Yet another set of Institutions we depend on for a civil society bites the dust.

The only good thing is the USA will start at the top of possible manufacturing and design technology if we decide to make washing machines and electric appliances again. Woe to all of us if China's main TRADE SECRET is slavery, pollution, and unsafe workiing conditions!

-90% Jimmy