"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss..."
The Who's line is as true now as it was in 1971 and as true as the similar old French saying, "the more things change the more they stay the same." The same idea is repeated again and again in folk wisdom from every culture, which suggests that it's based on a shared element of human experience. Change is inevitable, but too often its results are only superficial.
In this case the deja vu we'd rather not be experiencing all over again comes from the Obama administration's diligent efforts to outdo his much-reviled predecessor when it comes to shreedding our constitutional rights in the interest of national security. Like President Bush, President Obama seems intent on focusing his efforts on rendering the Fourth Amendment utterly meaningless. You know that amendment. It reads:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
It's the amendment that reminds government and other entities that we have an absolute right to privacy which they can't just violate at a whim. It's been under assault for years and eroded away more and more with each new governmental initiative to protect us from the latest bogeyman or from ourselves. The War on Drugs with its asset seizures and warrantless searches has been wearing away at our rights for more than 30 years, but nothing has done more harm than the War on Terror which took the cold-war era Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and expanded it into a blanket authorization to execute thousands of warrantless wiretaps against US citizens, often with very little justification and virtually no accountability.
FISA was already blatantly in violation of the 4th Amendment before the Bush administration got hold of it. They took the blanket authorization for unlimited wiretapping which was implied in the legislation and ran with it, making it the justification for datamining and automated content scanning of telecommunications completely outside the scope of the technology available when FISA was written, but arguably authorized under the overly broad language of the law. When challenged, they went to the compliant congress and got amendments to the FISA Act in 2008 which protected many of their practices and reduced the level of accountability in the act still further. The ACLU has launched a lawsuit over the constitutionality of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, but to date it remains in force, giving unprecedented power to the federal government to basically scan and listen to any telecommunications with no prior approval.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Joanne Huspek
Anytime our rights and freedoms are eroded away is a scary time for me. What is truly amazing is that some people will surrender them if they are thinking they will be taken care of. That's a pretty high exchange if you ask me.
2 - Ruvy
Dave, Joanne,
I got this e-mail today. There is no URL attached to it, so I am forced to repeat it here in its entirety.
It is worth reading - especially for those who are still in love with the "Blessed of Hussein". If it scares me, it should definitely scare you.
SOMETHING OF HISTORIC PROPORTIONS IS HAPPENING
By Tim Wood
Professor of History at Southwest Baptist University
Bolivar, Missouri
I am a student of history. Professionally. I have written 15 books in six languages, and have studied it all my life. I think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is just a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into sharper focus.
Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten - fifteen years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.
We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back. Why?
We learn that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has 'loaned' two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom, or why, or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is three times the $700B we all argued about so strenuously just this past September. Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of 'we the people', who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not. One important point missing is the fact that the Federal Reserve is a PRIVATE COMPANY not anything to do with the government.
We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy. Why? We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and we no longer teach our founding documents, showing why we are exceptional and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, and school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?
We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (now violently in California over a proposition that is so 'controversial' that it wants marriage to remain between one man and one woman!). Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago? We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then allow mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?
Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, Social Security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government, and our education system is worse than a joke. (I teach college and know precisely what I am talking about.) The list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth. It is potentially 1929 x ten. And we are at war with an enemy we cannot name for fear of offending people of the same religion, an enemy who cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.
Now we have elected President a man no one knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla , Alaska All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling, if not downright scary. Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a 'mandatory civilian defense force' stronger than our military for use inside our borders. No? Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over, and then demand he explain it. Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe is more important to the media.
Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one word: change. Why?
I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now! This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.
And that is only the beginning.
I thought I would never be able to experience what the ordinary, moral German felt in the mid-1930s. In those times, the savior was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they did know was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed. He edged his way onto the political stage through great oratoryand promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his 'brown shirts' would bully them into submission. And then, he was duly elected to office as full-throttled economic crisis was at hand [the Great Depression]. Slowly but surely he seized the controls of government power, department-by-department,p erson-by-person, bureaucracy-by-bureaucracy . The kids joined a Youth Movement in his
name, where they were taught what to think. How did he get the people on his side? He did it promising jobs to the jobless, money to the moneyless, and goodies for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in their country, across Europe , and around the world.
He did it with a compliant media. Did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and ..... change. And the people surely got what they voted for. (Look it up if you think I am exaggerating.) This is same as what Obama is doing, so should be addressed as Mein Fueher or COMRADE Obama???
Read your history books. Many people objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and made fun of. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though.
Don't forget that Germany was the most educated, cultured country in Europe It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And in less than six years --- a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency --- it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors. All with the best of intentions, of course. The road to hell is paved with them.
As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong by closing my eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is transpiring around me.
Some people scoff at me, others laugh, or think I am foolish, naive, or both. Perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe, and why I believe it.
I pray I am wrong. I do not think I am.
3 - roger nowosielski
Ruvy,
I'm sorry to say, but this man is off his rocker. It may appeal to your sense of urgency and Messianic hope, but I view the author of this unsigned email as a raving lunatic. There's something about the tone that just doesn't sound right. We all know we're in a pickle but come on! This man is foretelling Armageddon.
However bad things might turn, it's not the end of history. The race will survive.
4 - Christopher Rose
Ruvy, I agree with Roger. This simply doesn't make any sense. At all.
You're right, though, it is scarey, in the sense that having such a total loon in the education system can only produce more madness.
This is a perfect example of how your beliefs are getting in the way of your mind and serves only to undermine your own position. Well played!
Roger, it was signed...
5 - STM
Did you hear about the peanut that was mugged?
It was a salted.
6 - roger nowosielski
I meant no URL.
It's a funny part, though, Chris, you being scared of a fanatic roaming the corridors of our educational institutions.
It's a hilarious picture, can't stop laughing.
7 - M a rk
Surfer dude - just tell me what happened with the damned hamburgers!
8 - Christopher Rose
More inattention, Roger? I thought you were past that now.
As to the guy, if you don't think someone who believes all that rubbish being in a position to influence people from an apparent position of respectability is scarey. He's not a fanatic, he's just yet another faithist with an axe to grind.
9 - roger nowosielski
Of course they can. But a faithist (as you call 'em) or a fanatic, it's the same thing to me. And it does cut a funny picture, don't you think?
I don't worry about those guys. There'll always be around. So what can you do but laugh?
10 - Cindy
Dave,
Great article. I've read about everything except the Cybersecurity Act. That's good to know about. And bad to find out about. (sigh)
11 - Dave Nalle
Cindy, nice to see someone actually read the article rather than just reading Ruvy's spam from some nutjob in Missouri.
There's a reason why someone ends up teaching at Southwest Baptist University and not a larger and more reputable institution.
Dave
12 - roger nowosielski
Why, Dave, I've read it before. The first piece by you regarding which we almost totally agree. Good job!
13 - roger nowosielski
Or perhaps I'm coming around.
14 - Dave Nalle
I haven't written anything on this topic since like 2007 when Bush was mucking with FISA, and whole new vistas of badness have opened up since then.
Today it came out that the NSA has been routinely ignoring even the new relaxed FISA rules and monitoring phonecalls with no accountability at all.
Dave
15 - Dr Dreadful
The article Ruvy quotes in #2 is just hilarious.
16 - STM
Mark: "Surfer dude - just tell me what happened with the damned hamburgers!"
Temporary hiccup. Bad timing. It just happened to coincide with a huge community promotion we were doing with them. We've had to hold on to it for the time being.
17 - Ruvy
Well, I'm glad you are so entertained by this professor of history. Folks used to laugh themselves hoarse at the idea of Hitler running Germany. They used to snigger at Mussolini and his Blackshirts. Austrian police agents in Vienna would ask sarcastically of themselves, "Who's going to run this Socialist revolution? Herr Ulyanov sipping his coffee at the Café Internationale?"
The dictatoship slowly emerging in your country - one that you are reporting on, Dave, but refuse to acknowledge - the very same way you refused to axknowledge the economic crisis you country faced - is also going to be a thigh slapper.
But I'll get to do the laughing (and crying for my own family there) as you (and they) discover that you've been screwed over royally by the "Blessed of Hussein".
18 - roger nowosielski
Ruvy,
The very tone of that letter just doesn't strike me right. The guy is a raving lunatic. How in hell did he ever get to be where he's at is beyond me. Must be some kind of screwed up school.
I'm surprised they're letting him put out these chain letters as feelers. They ought to lock him up. A menace to society.
Anyway, that's my impression. And I did laugh my ass off.
19 - roger nowosielski
Ruvy,
[Personal contact info deleted]
I fleshed him out. He does work for SBU. So Ruvy, perhaps you can contact him and offer him a lecture tour.
Since he's got no audience here to speak of, he might do better elsewhere. And it will rid us of at least one nut.
20 - roger nowosielski
Ruvy,
Here is the link to Southern Baptist University.
If you look under faculty, you'll get all the info on Prof. Woods.
Who knows, he might make a splash.
21 - Joanne Huspek
Ruvy's post is interesting, whether or not you agree with the professor of history or if you believe that Ruvy is an alarmist. He's also right that in the 1920s, everyone in Germany (including the Jews) thought Hitler and the Nazis were just a bunch of flaky nut jobs and that the common people were too sensible to fall for that line of bull. It took less than ten years for the country to do a 180.
History repeats itself, but looking back doesn't seem to bring any wisdom. We have to learn the freaking hard way, just like bullheaded teenagers.
22 - roger nowosielski
Ruvy may not be an alarmist, Joanne, but that guy surely is. And if Ruvy starts hanging around with Mr. Woods, God help Ruvy. So don't you give him any encouragement. We love him as he is.
23 - roger nowosielski
Ruvy,
You're saying:
"Well, I'm glad you are so entertained by this professor of history."
I wonder if I would get this kind of distinction and recognition among my BC fellow members if I had a sheepskin to my name. I was within few seminars of completing two or three PhD programs but my travails and paramours took me elsewhere.
So seriously now, would you attribute greater weight to everything I post on BC and consider it pearls of wisdom if I produced my credentials?
Just wonder.
24 - Dave Nalle
Ruvy, no one rational in Texas takes anyone who teaches at a Baptist university seriously. I wonder if his school bans dancing like Baylor does.
Dave
25 - roger nowosielski
I posted the link to that honorable institution of higher learning a few comments above.
What I'd like to see is Ruvy and Mr. Woods on a lecture tour, together. I'd even buy me some tickets.