You can't solve the "NSA/Privacy" issue as long as we're on Permanent War footing...

[Junkdrawer]

World War II never ended. There was no demobilization. If anything, the growth of the Security State exploded. It's made a very few individuals EXTREMELY wealthy at the cost of destroying the competitive productive fabric of the nation as a whole.

Pick up a book by Peter Dale Scott and/or Kevin Phillips and read all about it. It didn't just start with Dubya/Cheney taking advantage of the tragedy of 9/11. It's a malignant cancer that has grown beyond the nation's constitutional control mechanisms.

Our constitution has self-deactivation clauses for times of war, so, of course, it is in the interest of the foes of democracy to maintain a permanent war footing.

And that's what has been done.

[HooptieWagon]

1. Thats why we have constant war, duh.

Feeds $ to the monster, and justifies the surveillence state and suspension of the constitution. 1984 is an instruction manual for the corporate state.

[Junkdrawer]

2. The 90's were a frightening time for the Security State....

It was harder and harder to ignore calls for a Peace Dividend.

Dubya's selection and 9/11 were no accidents. But we're just sure that if we whistle past the grave and wait it out, we won't have to confront those crimes.

[MisterP]

3. the Cold War meant a state of permanent war footing

Last edited Wed Aug 21, 2013, 04:38 PM - Edit history (2)

the Allies won, but humanity lost out to total war and its pushbutton mechanisms of moral abscondment; the CIA gave skullduggery a place to practice and a sense of mission and purpose, warping democracy by purging the "New Deal socialists" to deform the political spectrum of available choices and acceptable discourses, controlling the discourse on the Second and Third Worlds
a lot of the Cold War was quite deliberate--many 1947-58 talking points are not only from 30s union-busting and New Deal-hating, but also from Coughlin's Jew-baiting and luminaries to the left of Strom Thurmond like Sen. Bilbo, who argued that we were fighting on the wrong side of WWII: the Red Scare was as much about integration as it was about the CPUSA and its turbulent 40s slap-fights
http://www.georgetownbookshop.com/display2.asp?id=739
http://www.georgetownbookshop.com/display2.asp?id=745
http://www.georgetownbookshop.com/display2.asp?id=736
http://www.georgetownbookshop.com/display2.asp?id=748
once the danger has passed is when you have to watch out: the state-within-a-state redoubled once the explosions STOPPED; the further we get from 9-11 the tighter the spying gets and the more fevered the Islamophobia
analysts say it was the non-Ground Zero non-mosque that caused this current wave, not any actual bombings: the Euston Manifesto talking points were limited to online hatemongers divorced from their 19th-c. roots and Beckites: their talking points have been mainstreamed

[Junkdrawer]

4. Total War and the A-Bomb readied the population for the state of permanent war...

Directing that fear at Communism was Easy as Pie.

[MisterP]

5. it could make decisions on its own that everybody didn't want:

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

[Junkdrawer]

6. I see that a lot....

Very interesting