General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: This is not about Obama or Snowden, this is about the corporate takeover of our democracy [View all]calimary
(80,693 posts)Consider (from Wikipedia):
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States, the first African American to hold the office. Wikipedia
Born: August 4, 1961 (age 51), Honolulu, HI
The NSA has been spying on Americans for longer than Barack Obama has even existed.
Yeah, I know - I know - somehow it's still his fault ...
Funny - Randi Rhodes was talking about this today. How the lines between big business and government are so blurred as to be non-existent by now. How it's rarely mentioned while everyone is fulminating about the NSA - the distressing scope of those allowed access to all this classified and highly-sensitive info - are, invariably, CONTRACTORS. Business. Corporations. The private sector. Over and over in the coverage of this I've heard references to these jobs have been outsourced. Privatized. Probably with a contract bid so low it's like taking a big piece of Swiss cheese with you to wrap around you for warmth as you go climbing Mt. McKinley. No accountability - it's once-removed into private industry. If the government were running this directly, there'd ostensibly be SOME public accountability (although bush/cheney certainly left that one in shreds with their no-bid contract orgy to their friends in banking and business and industry).
This is what happens when you cut back government services - and therefore capabillities, and accountabilities - in order to let the unfettered free market rule. When you say "gummnt BAAAAAAD! NO gummnt!" Then you have no oversight, no curbing or checking of - or restrictions on - rapacious, marauder, robber-baron behavior. You get Pirates on Parade. It's not "privatizing," it's more like "PIRATIZING." Unrestrained. And look what can happen. Did ANYBODY have any sort of leash on these reckless thieving corporate vultures and vampires or were they left to run amok without ANY supervision? And we should just trust 'em to do the "right thing"? Leave 'em on the "honor system" - when in actuality, they have none, and their only "honor" is how much money they can make, or steal? After all, who oversees this, if government contracts out all these government jobs? Are the contractors beholden to the taxpayers then? Answerable to us taxpayers then? Have any of them been questioned or investigated for the laissez-faire piracy and free-wheeling highway robbery during bush/cheney?