Tweak 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (25) comment rss

  • On the post: Money And Power: The Real Reason For The NSA Spying On Everyone

    Tweak ( profile ), 21 Aug, 2014 @ 06:47am

    Let's not forget that this power is turned both externally and internally. Outside of the US, this power is used to further enrich US government/business by granting every advantage to the American side. Within the US, this power is used to monitor and control those who seek to fight the machine - be they protestors, civic leaders or those who seek office with a functioning moral compass.

    Seek an increase in your global corporation's net profits and the ability to undermine the development of similar businesses in other countries? Sure, we can help you with that. Seek to change the status quo and bring righteousness to public office? No, no, see we can't have any of that. Oh, here we've stumbled across a long lost tryst of yours. Wow, those are some great pictures! Would be a shame if they became public, though. And here it seems that we've manufactured some financial malfeasance on your part because we can alter your bank records. Too bad you wanted to do so much for the people. So sad.

  • On the post: Police In Ferguson Sign Court Agreement Promising Not To Interfere With Media… Then Go Threaten And Arrest Media

    Tweak ( profile ), 19 Aug, 2014 @ 08:54am

    The flagrant fascist thinking (shouldn't, but still) amazes me. It is highlighted here in an editorial at the Washington Post from today:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/08/19/im-a-cop-if-you-dont-want-to-get-hurt-dont-challenge-me/?hpid=z10

  • On the post: From The Unsealed 'Jewel v. NSA' Transcript: The DOJ Has Nothing But Contempt For American Citizens

    Tweak ( profile ), 18 Aug, 2014 @ 09:55am

    Yet again

    I'm sorry if it seems that I keep harping on this, but this is another story that brings me back to the Declaration:

    "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it..."

    It is up to us, with the ballot box or by other means.

    Reading this, one begins to wonder if in the past the DOJ (or another agency) has been successful in a similar attempt.

  • On the post: Police Militarization, Citizen Journalism And The Suppression Of Free Speech: The Ferguson Fiasco Highlights Systemic Problem

    Tweak ( profile ), 15 Aug, 2014 @ 10:39am

    It Can't Happen Here

    Has anyone read this book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can%27t_Happen_Here) by Sinclair Lewis? In spite of the fact that it was first published in 1935, it is scary how similar many of the situations in the book are to 1) the happenings in the run up to WWII in Nazi Germany and 2) the US today. I would recommend it to anyone here.

    I'd love to see someone put together a list of quotes from politicians in that book and current members of Congress to see if anyone can pick which are real and which are fiction.

    Posse comitatus, habeus corpus and numerous constitutional guarantees disappear as the nation and civilization we thought we knew crumble before our eyes. What will we do? Elections are in the fall. We can try to start again. Let's get to work, America.

  • On the post: Obama Admits 'We Tortured Some Folks' But Doesn't Seem Too Concerned

    Tweak ( profile ), 02 Aug, 2014 @ 09:25am

    Declaration

    Over the last year or so, after reading things here, I find myself turning more and more often to the Declaration of Independence for guidance.

    "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

    Let's rekindle that fire.