'Obama's new NSA proposal and Democratic partisan hackery,' by Glenn Greenwald

[JDPriestly]

67. If the shoe fits, wear it! The very individuals who attack Greenwald's blog piece are the ones

who march goosestep after goosestep to the command of whomever-they-feel-is-in-charge-at-the-moment, now Obama. They are the sheepie who follow their leader off a cliff if necessary to demonstrate their loyalty.

Loyalty to what? To a person. To a strong man. To someone with whom they identify as the leader. And why? Could it be because they are insecure, do not think things through for themselves and feel safest when tramping mindlessly in the to them large footsteps of the "leader"? My answer to that question? Yes.

The Democratic Party is a big tent. We Democrats have lots of disagreements. We flourish on new ideas, ferment and creativity. Traditionally, ours has been a movement in which people think for themselves.

Remember the great ideas that formed policy in the past -- the peace movement, the women's movement, the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution, most recently under Obama, the health care rights movement and never to be forgotten, the New Deal and before that, the labor movement which eventually found a home in the Democratic Party. All these movements began as ideas sponsored by a dissident, at first unpopular even shocking and very small group within the liberal party (not always called Democrat). Each of those movements became popular enough among voters to make it to the mainstream. None of them were thought up by a party leader. Rather they were the brainchildren of intellectuals, workers, women, families of seriously ill people, and African-Americans. Minorities. The excluded. The disappointed. The underpaid. Those deprived of human rights,

But, for some strange reason, perhaps a reaction to the truly absurd vilification of Obama by the right wing, some of the very people who have profited the most from the fertile, changeable, wide span of the big tent of the liberal movement (now called the Democratic Party) seem to think that Obama must be followed even when he is clearly wrong and at odds with our Constitution.

Greenwald is right. There is something very strange going on when Democrats goosestep to the beat of a Democratic president. People are not thinking for themselves. They are either lazy followers out of habit or following out of fear of something. Is Obama such a threat that the goose-steppers need to be so obedient?

Not for me. I keep my thinking independent.

Thank you, Edward Snowden, and all who assisted you. You told us what we need to know and not a day to soon.

I had a strange experience. One day I googled the name of an old boyfriend from college. I dated him a few months. He was tall and swashbuckling, very handsome (at least I thought then) and an extreme radical. Really extreme. I was a minister's daughter who was brought up by pacifists who cared about the poor and followed Jesus' teachings as well as they could. I was on the debate team in high school and loved nothing more than to argue politics. He was the perfect date for me because we utterly disagreed about the role of violence in politics. We argued and argued and finally he found someone who agreed with him. End of story.

But i was curious about what had happened to him. He was such a loudmouth and had such controversial ideas. So I googled him.

I can't tell you whether it was one year or two or when it was, but I went to visit a friend (we were in our 50s and 60s) who had worked for a defense contractor. We had dinner at her house and she introduced my husband and me to a "guest." A friend from her work she said. He asked me, questioned me, about my relationship with this guy I dated when I was in college. It was rather funny because he seemed to think I should be embarrassed to discuss this in front of my husband. It amazed me because my google search on my boyfriend's name turned up absolutely nothing. I am still puzzled by this event, but the thought has crossed my mind that my search signaled something to someone. Perhaps I am completely paranoid. But this old boyfriend was not a historical figure. I don't think his name was ever mentioned in a newspaper. I have no idea what happened to him. How did my friend's "friend" know anything about him?

Does anyone have any plausible explanations for this strange experience? It really happened. I have a living witness in my husband.

The NSA surveillance of your every Google search, your every e-mail, your every phone call, your every Mastercard transaction, your personal records could reap you a visit from a stranger one day. Beware.

I'm not saying that is what happened to me. I'm just saying . . . .

We shall see what Obama's proposed bill looks like. I'm not optimistic.