Re: US Gov on over drive
I guess you have never been hounded by someone misusing the law. It can cause PTSD as well as poverty.
Prosecutors associated with the case against the late Aaron Swartz have received "harassing and threatening communications", including postcards of disembodied heads pictured next to guillotines. Government lawyers have detailed the harassment in a court filing urging the court to keep details of the case redacted to protect …
"Let's see... these prosecutors requested a disproportionate jail term that resulted in the death of an innocent man. Most people are on our side and we have the moral high ground. What should the next step be in order to maximize the possibility of positive change? Should we try to uncover other similar abuses and publicize them? Should we work with the family to try to use Aaron's fate as a rallying point for further action?"
"No, no... That doesn't make any sense. I know! We'll threaten to CUT THEIR HEADS OFF!"
"Yeah! That'll show 'em! The public at large will definitely see how serious we are and realize that moderation and appropriate responses are the key to real justice!"
"ordinary people can no longer influence the political process."
This is demonstrably untrue. If people insist on shooting themselves in the collective foot by engaging in worse-than-useless, self-aggrandizing vigilante photo-ops, then of course they won't be able to influence the political process.
But do you think Barack Obama would have been elected and re-elected if Big Korporate Amerika truly had the nation in a death grip? Not a chance. And do you think that Obama really *isn't* any different from Mitt Romney in terms of policy, when Romney essentially advocated defaulting on the debt and cutting the safety net out from under the poor at the same time?
No. People have plenty of influence left. But if those same people spend all their time whining about how the only thing worth doing is making some kind of half-assed Zetas-wannabe death threat - that will in actuality harm their own cause immeasurably and possibly get them thrown in jail, handing even more power to the people they hate - then of course nothing will change. And the Big Bads won't have had to lift a finger - the work will all have been done for them.
Well said David.
The problem, it seems to me, is that far too many "activists" don't know the process for getting change enacted in the laws of their own land/state, and believe that just because they can get 3 dozen "likes" online this carries weight in the real world.
But then, it is easier to grab a library of scripts and start bullying from you mother's cellar than to actually learn the civics involved and start working for real change. Has any one of these photoshoppers written to their representatives in congress or the senate to press their views?
Silly me. You have to sign such writings with your name. Then they'd know who you are and a Black Helicopter would come to take you away.
"I would agree with your argument if your President had real power, but his power is limited."
True, but consider what the situation would be like if Romney had been elected. He'd have almost free reign. He'd be appointing the next few Supreme Court justices - which is insanely important.
We could pretty much immediately write off healthcare reform, rip huge chunks out of social spending, and probably throw a bunch of whatever gets saved back at the wealthy and at the defense industry.
Put another way, imagine what would have happened if Gore had been elected (err, well... if he'd taken office, let's put it that way) in 2000 instead of Bush: Do you think Gore would have ended up invading Iraq, promoting loose monetary policy, giving insane tax cuts to the wealthy? I doubt it.
So, yeah, Obama hasn't got the power to *undo all the damage* that's been done, or to fix every problem that exists. But Romney would have had an incredible ability to do *more* damage. That in itself makes Obama being elected meaningful even if he just sat around doing nothing. Which, by the way, he hasn't - he's actually accomplished quite a bit, and suggesting otherwise by trotting out a list of obnoxious-but-relatively-insignificant-in-the-scheme-of-things pet causes like Guantanamo is disingenuous. Part of Obama's problem is that he *has* focused on getting things done and on prioritizing, which has meant more real progress in the long term but fewer feather-in-cap type bullet points. I'm fine with that.
And I'm sure as hell glad we don't have to find out the hard way that Romney isn't the same as Obama, the same way we found out that Bush was most definitely not the same as Gore would have been.
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