General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I'll never understand people who take the actions of Snowden as a personal insult. [View all]Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)certainty that it would do more harm than good - I would withdraw my support from the Democratic Party. Not because I am so shocked and cannot believe the intelligence services are getting way out of control - even under a Democratic administration, not because I personally blame President Obama for this travesty. These are the results of bipartisan post September 11 madness fueled all; the more by the private industry of what Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson have called the Intelligence Industrial Complex. Just as there came a time when the Democrats realized that had made a mistake in Vietnam and came to the realization that we had to get out of that terrible mistake - I cannot imagine why anyone who would espouse liberal or progressive or even basic eighth grade civics class values - cannot see how dangerous it to continue down this road into an ever expanding Intelligence Industrial Complex. Quite likely the NSA are already keeping records of every time and place any of us communicate with anyone on the phone or on the Internet or by any electronic means. If they are not already doing this - there is a strong possibility that they are rapidly moving in that direction. Even if the Obama administration does not actively abuse the system very much - it is only a matter of time before it is abused by some future Dick Cheney or John Ashcroft. This massive growth of the Intelligence Industrial Complex can only mean that in time a whole web of clandestine surveillance and ultimately clandestine control will soon encapsulate all of us. The Snowden affair gives us the opportunity to stop, appraise and reverse the direction we are heading. But majorities in both parties - the media from Fox News to CNN as well as most of the liberal establishment - are not appraising the situation - Many liberals are now supporting that which only a short time they were denouncing with outrage and fury - So here we are as we sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science .