NSA/Greenwald/Snowden: Everybody Knows the Deal is Rotten

[99th_Monkey]

Watching this whole NSA/Greenwald/Snowden thing day-to-day, prompts me to imagine -- if only for brief periods -- living inside the mind of one of the .01%, and when I do, it feels increasingly crowded with lies, fear and frustration. Through this imaginal Looking Glass, I see someone living in fear, stuck in a frenzied mental state that spells "Danger to Others", especially if your name happens to be Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, or now Glen Greenwald & The Guardian. Imagine the anguished screams & the heads exploding among the ranks on goon squads at NSA, CIA, FBI, et. al, both to CYA AND to "GET SNOWDEN NOW!! (e.g. before he spills ALL the beans) ... except that they cannot really stop these leaks anymore. A whole handful of very brave people have clearly put themselves very much in harms way, and that's putting very lightly; and they did it for me and for you, and for the constitution. As surely as the sun will rise in the East, others will follow, and imho ...this is "Game Over". Period.

Now Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows" takes on a brand new meaning.

The reason it's pretty much OVER for "Captain$ of the Univer$e" is because of Snowden's public statements (which I have no reason to disbelieve) to the effect that he has already given 100% of the information in question, duplicated many times over, deposited "for safe keeping" at many locations, for immediate release, just in case Mr. Snowden has any unseemly "accidents" in a small plane, or his car suddenly & inexplicably accelerates out of control until it bursts into flames.

The mind-boggling but indisputable "Good News" is this: like it or not, the cat is out of the bag now, and all the horses have left the barn. These rather embarrassing USA/NSA issues are Front & Center on the World Stage right now, and we're not looking so good. There really is no going back now, a simple refreshing truth for which I am immensely grateful, and every American should be. Most of us will get through all the shit-storms that will be thrown at us as we enter this potentially transformative period of history. But -- make no mistake about it -- I think we ARE "on our way" to a somewhere much better than our Corporate Overlords wanted. All the more reason we must keep our wits about us, and not just "be open to change", but actually step forward to embrace needed changes, step into making history. Rather than remaining invisibly oppressed by it, why not recreate it?

Yes we can. < I think the 99% should hijack and recycle this, all the way to Obama's doorstep. My hopeful side believes that Obama desperately wants us to do that. Yes, we need to begin choosing our battles a bit more carefully at times, but never will the 99% completely give up, even when the cops come, or the threats come, or whatever they throw.

One way to look at this is that Obama NEEDS us to resist. I don't believe for a minute Obama likes what is happening, but I DO know how much he appears to love his family, and want to raise his lovely children, as he should, sheilded by the wealth they have acquired along the way to becoming a president no one thought they elected, once post-election everyones masks came off behind closed doors.

The Big Lie is that it's "every person for themselves now" , like most lies, this lie creates separation and fear if I buy into it, because that is precisely how your average rich greedy fuck thinks, if you can call it thinking. This whole "survival of the fittest" and " sounds more like literally casting an evil spell, through their hired mega-corporate mouthpieces, by projecting their own selfishness and twisted inner-ugliness out onto the rest of the Human Race. Fuck that. I don't buy it for a second. But I digress ... where were we? Oh yah, we were imaging BEING one of the .01% ruling class, sitting on ALL the weaponry, and ALL the riches, and ALL the political influence you will ever need to be with all our secrets

Red State or Blue, imagine what must be racing through millions of upper-class minds right now, perhaps caught red-handed pilfering from the public purse, while profiting from the misery of most of their "fellow citizens", while at the same time discovering (perhaps for the first time) that even if you are rich and famous -- all of YOUR DATA, phone calls & emails, etc. could ALSO very easily slip into SOMEONE ELSE's hands, the "wrong hands, to be used against you anytime they so chose. All that 'humming' you hear is all the imagination wheels racing to recall where all the bodies are buried, if there is any damning evidence "they" NOW have on ME. It's like pretty much ALL of us are now living in a Spy v. Spy fishbowl surrounded by one-way see-through glass,

So THIS is the world we really WANT to be co-creating? I think not. In fact I believe we now live in a world where .01% of the people get to live in unimaginable wealth and god-like splendor, while literally everyone else is either a "Partner in Crime", or ultimately a hireling at their OverLord's beck and call, publicly, vocationally, covertly, directly or indirectly, all of those and more. But eventually, when someone is no longer "useful", then what?

For the 99.9%, when you become no longer useful you are "laid off", if you are lucky. If you are not lucky, i.e. you know too much and/or are "in the wrong VIPs way", then you get murdered, or otherwise disposed of, likely reduced to poverty and lack. You will NOT be a happy camper blacklisted, trying to somehow find another decent job in our jobless economy. can just fuck off and die as far as the .01% cares; unless we get real "creative" to conjure up a totally new way to be "useful", to "do your part" to keep this Wall St./DC Punch & Judy Show going. If I were even one of the wealthiest 50%, I'd probably be trying to recall all my slips, and weak moments, wondering just how "loyal" my "trusted help" really is, wondering what their own "profile" looks might like behind the NSA/CIA e/phone curtain, To sum up, unless you ARE ALREADY behind The Curtain, you are already "under suspicion of being a traitor unless you STFU, lay low, listen to your bosses, listen to your government so-called, take care of your family and be just be thankful your number hasn't come up yet.

imagine suddenly becoming a "person of interest" while holding a high socio-economic rank or office. If it were me, I'd be racking my memory trying to recall every slip of the tongue, every batch of key-strokes, that someone might use against me, since anyone who can get their hands on it will be able to hurt me bad. Is there any way for this person to live an honorable life, living in perpetual fear of getting thrown like so much red meat out the back door to pack of ravenous beasts, while the whole house of cards comes crashing down around our ears? Now LOTS of people are wondering who might show up at the door with some very unseemly pictures of them at that crazy party (pics who someone else there took on their cell phone), pictures that would be sufficiently embarrassing to ruin my marriage, destroy my career, pictures with which I suddenly find myself being blackmailed.

No one is completely safe now. Certainly not us, you and me, as we're mere pawns & peons. But even if you are Warren Buffet, you DO have enemies, enemies who now may be able to "get the goods" on you, to bring you down. Even certain rich people can become very "expendable" very fast, just ask the Kennedy Clan about that. So even if you are rich, you are now more vulnerable to becoming a "person of interest" now for going to the wrong webnsites, or having the wrong opinions about politics or the economy, or caring about who is really running things in Amerika.

Besides the Super-rich, there are certainly others who deserve some "credit" for this draconian train-wreck, i.e. all those obedient lapdogs, 100s of thousands of good folks mostly working & living in either NYC or Washington DC, who work as a Congress Critter, OR as Congressional staff, OR for a Federal Bureau, OR as a Lobbyist with the infamous "K Street" crowd, OR you get a paycheck from one of the M$M outlets (formerly known as the "Free Press&quot .

Now that literally EVERYONE is under surveillance by people authorized to murder them, if they fit a certain "terrorist profile", anything and everything can and will be used against us, to our detriment. We will all get used-up eventually, to be "exposed" and/or disposed of. The NSA files that Snowden is exposing day by day -- drip drip -- it will continue until many a Fat Cat gets taken down by an angry public or by the .01%'s goons, all of which means that ever more people are likely to step forward so much so, that the list simply gets too long to keep track of anymore, as citizens begin waking up, re-imagining and re-creating our world anew, to be a much healthier and happier place, especially when compared to the Hellhole we were being bamboozled into accepting as a "future".

It's time we devise a better way to conduct our public business: i.e. convene a Constitutional Convention, or come upwith some kind of "National Referendum", to revise and update our founding documents, so that:
a) They accurately reflect the situation we actually live in, especially in light of medical & technological advances,
b) also such that it is clearly the "will of the people", and not dictates of the super-rich.

I know I've indulged in a bit rambling here & have perhaps become a little grandiose at times, but I felt inspired to start a DU conversation about some of surprisingly constructive opportunities & longer-term possible outcomes that are becoming much more imaginable as the GG/ESnowden/NSA revelations keep doing their work of disinfecting this place.

[Fire Walk With Me]

1. I believe in the people of this country. I believe we can build a better world. n/t

[99th_Monkey]

3. Me too.

Thanks for the rec, & for keeping the Occupy Forum updated as much as you do.

It's my bed time, so I'll say good night, but 'twaz nice hearing from you.

[cali]

4. I don't. I believe the vast majority of people are persuadable

[99th_Monkey]

6. We all are persuadable, but at a certain point

once sufficient pressure has built up, just like earthquakes, there's no stopping
it really, it simply takes over with a "life of it's own" until the dust settles again..

[randome]

18. So do we all.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[graham4anything]

2. just curious- a question about Leonard Cohen

what makes you think Leonard Cohen would agree with this?
I don't get the connection nor have I heard Mr. Cohen ever once talking about any of these type things.

and to assume Mr. Cohen does or does not mean something, is there something I am missing?

Or is it just a nice musical interlude?

Because after all, Hallelujah, Chelsea Hotel his most famous song, and Suzanne are personal love songs that have zero to
do with politics at all.

And I have seen him in concert in the past many times.

so just wondering.

[99th_Monkey]

5. That's the dangerous thing about ART

It means many things, different things, to different people.

Did you actually listen to all the song's words, to the end?

What I hear Mr. Cohen saying in this song, may indeed be somewhat
different than what he intended to communicate, or from what you
might hear.

So what?

[railsback]

7. 'That's the dangerous thing about ART'

'It means many things, different things, to different people.'

Which explains your take on the SnowdenGreenwald performance piece going right now.

[99th_Monkey]

8. It wasn't me who said

"the whole world is a stage".

Not exactly a unique or new idea, but true in
sometimes surprising ways.

[graham4anything]

12. When I hear Lana Del Rey sing "Americans" I think of the great Barack Obama.

but that doesn't mean it was written for Barack Obama specifically.

I don't see the Leonard Cohen connection to any of these people.
Leonard Cohen is a highly religious person, and a highly sexual person. (After all, the true meaning of Hallellujah was about
a sexual rhapsody so to say).(his version, don't know what any other singers version means).

But I guess its like old Ben Franklin.
One person thinks one of his quotes means this
I take the one most important to mean exactly the opposite of the other quote

and of course, the most famous is Kristofferson's "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose".
Those all thought it meant the opposite of what Kristofferson wrote

which means only if one is 100% free of being connected to anyhow, do they have nothing left to lose

When one loves somebody, one is not free to do as they choose, but they are free to lose that person and howl at the moon
in Santa Monica on the beach over the person they lost.

FYI.

[99th_Monkey]

14. I think Dylan said it best

about the "meaning" of his music. Really insightful actually.

[dipsydoodle]

9. The lyrics are pertinent to the subject of the OP.

I think so anyway.

[djean111]

10. Yes. It is the song, not the singer.

Much like it is the revelations, not Snowden.

[dipsydoodle]

11. Exactly.

The revelations : not Snowden

[graham4anything]

15. Did you ever read Fleming?

[dipsydoodle]

20. Which one ?

Ian ?

[railsback]

13. Cohen wrote the song

So how can it NOT be about the singer?

[99th_Monkey]

16. At the end of that clip, Leonard says he wrote the song in collaboration with "Sharon Robinson"

and he said it was written "a long time ago .. not sure I've heard of her, and
he provides no further reference points.

[randome]

17. Well, Concrete Blonde did an abbreviated version of it.

Still, Cohen's is better.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[snooper2]

19. ROFL

Totally wrong song by the way---

LOL