Looks Like I Was Right Again- This Time About the NSA

One of the great frustrations for me in living on this planet is seeing things clearly that are obvious but that most other people cannot see. Even as a child I was perspicacious. I was 12 when I was against the Vietnam War (this was the early 1960s), before my parents were. A few years earlier the pictures of Oswald's assassination looked arranged to me. Even then I sensed the malevolent fascistic forces of the U.S. deep state lurking behind events.

For years now I have simply assumed that the NSA collects all the phone calls and other communications it possibly can, and that with its supercomputers and mission of code-breaking, it could probably decrypt much encrypted traffic, but maybe not the most sophisticated kind used by other major powers.

Now, thanks to Edward Snowden, we have learned some details of what should have been obvious. Indeed, the NSA reads encrypted traffic. Furthermore, they have subverted the encryption programs themselves by making secret deals with companies that sell encryption software, so the companies cooperate in making their products vulnerable to NSA penetration via backdoors and various flaws and weaknesses.

Shouldn't surprise us that a fascistic state and corporations cooperate. Ultimately the U.S. is a corporate oligarchy, and the deep state is the protector of the status quo. That is why the CIA for example overthrows regimes in countries that aim to better the lives of the majority of their populations. (Not just the CIA of course. The Pentagon and State Department always play roles in these coups. And of course when there are outright invasions, such as of the Dominican Republic under Lyndon Johnson, or the invasions of Haiti, Grenada, Lebanon a couple of times, and earlier conquests of the Philippines and Mexico (which cost Mexico half its national territory) its a straight-up military operation.

One heartening sign is that within parts of the establishment itself there appears to be some pushback against the growing oppressiveness of the secret secret police state. The New York Times put the Snowden revelations on page one, in a major story. Editorially, it has lately turned from taking Obama's patently insincere and false rhetoric at face value, to being openly critical and making demands for reform. Other media outlets too (but not enough, alas, and there are plenty of reactionaries in the establishment media defending the secret police state) are exposing and opposing Obama's creeping totalitarian regime.

Unfortunately the American political class is apparently hopeless. Or maybe that's too pessimistic. One can look at the House ALMOST passing a law to rein in the NSA. (Of course even it it had passed, the Senate would have had to pass it. And then, after Obama's inevitable veto, which would have contradicted all his bullshit rhetoric about reform, both chambers of Congress would have needed to muster two-thirds votes in favor to override the veto, an impossibility given the current membership of those bodies.)

They do keep reauthorizing the abominable, anti-human rights "Patriot" Act, which basically makes the Bill of Rights a dead letter. Amazing how much traction they are still getting from those twin towers collapsing. It's been twelve years and they're still milking it! Just today, the government propaganda radio network in the U.S., NPR, started playing the sad violins, so to speak, reminding us that the "twelfth anniversary" is coming up, and starting a daily series of tearjerker stories about people who were killed. News flash for NPR; everybody dies, eventually. How many more years are you going to brainwash people with your ersatz, never-ending grief? Oh by the way, a bunch of kids were burned to death in Syria right after that sarin attack, when one of Assad's jets- the ones Obama has steadfastly refused to take out for 2 years, despite his bullshit calls for Assad's ouster- dropped a firebomb on a playground in Aleppo. And you can't pretend you didn't know about it- the BBC happened to have a crew on hand to report the event. You forgot to cover it, as it most of the U.S. media. (Oddly, an NPR woman- forgot who- mentioned about a week ago that it was barely reported here! She was too diplomat to say "including NPR.")

Since my "negative" and "cynical" perceptions are generally proven correct, perhaps realist would better describe my outlook.

Until a lot more people face reality, and then resolve to change it together, things will remain hopeless. We need a lot MORE "cynicism" and "negativity" to have a positive effect on the world we live in.