NSA spying and inequality are deeply, inextricably linked.

It is deeply disingenuous to try to argue that they aren't related, or that people focusing on one are ignoring the other.

They are deeply, intimately connected.

Why do plutocrats put a sweeping, Constitution-assaulting, spying infrastructure into place? To create total information awareness, power and control; to spy on competitors and politicians; to facilitate their corporate predatory agenda; to prevent investigation of their abuses by a free press; and to crush dissent by protesters and the citizens they are systematically exploiting, stripping of their rights, and impoverishing.

Caring about poverty REQUIRES that we take a powerful stand against this government spying. This sort of government abuse enables every corporate outrage that is the CAUSE of the poverty we are talking about.

The propaganda will always be mystified at why Democrats betrayed us "this time."

There is always an excuse. Usually it is a lesser of two evils con. Sometimes it is problems with redistricting. It's interesting that Virginia was gerrymandered while a Democrat who could have prevented its passage was absent from Washington. Things like that sure seem to happen a lot. And Harry Reid couldn't seem to rally Democrats to change the filibuster rules, either.

The propaganda will always try to make the arguments personal, too. It is always about "anger" or "enemies" or the sin of questioning the motives of a Democrat. We are never to notice or seriously consider the effects of the tsunami of corporate money flooding Washington and our Party, and we are never to look at the PATTERN.

Like in Groundhog Day, we're expected to retain no memory or awareness of the relentless, horrifying pattern of betrayals unfolding before us, day after day after day after day after day, the unslowed eating of the poor by the rich through policy. Each betrayal is presented as an aberration, a "special circumstance," or perhaps gazillion-dimensional chess on our behalf, that we couldn't possibly understand.

We are merely to smile and treat each one, again and again and again, as merely an aberration. We are to drift from betrayal to betrayal in hypnotic belief that our corporate Democrats share the same heartfelt principles and policy goals we do...even though their actions repeatedly, relentlessly pursue the opposite.

And even though the flood of corporate money they receive explains why.

It takes strenuous, almost superhuman effort to deny the obvious problem here, but that is what the propaganda does. You have no response to my extensive lists of betrayals by Democrats. You simply ignore them and divert.

And we are urged to circle the wagons and deny the real problem again.

What a diversionary, distorting reply,

but illustrative of the corporate propaganda that is now ubiquitous on this site.

You chose to ignore the most relevant information in that thread expressing the rage of DU at another "bargain" that overwhelmingly favors the rich. Look at the numbers:

As per the unwritten rules for obligatory corporate Dem propaganda responses,

you will continue to argue this point until everyone else gives up from exhaustion. You will argue relentlessly, because any overt statement of the obvious, coordinated control of this party by corporatist Dems cannot be permitted to stand in the current climate of 24/7 propaganda and messaging.

You will do this even though history and simple observation render your conclusions absurd. We are to accept that the now-predictable votes of Democrats to enable corporate hijacking of government are evidence that the Party really opposes corporate hijacking of government....just as in other threads we are solemnly lectured that Obama's offering up Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block proves that he opposes cuts in Social Security and Medicare.

War is Peace, and the chocolate ration has been increased, and they are working on an even bigger increase for all of us.

You will create and fixate on absurd distractions like suggesting that 2-3 spare GOP votes would be "close," but "4-5" certainly wouldn't be, ignoring entirely the larger point, which is that each and every important vote like this is predictable as the sunrise when it comes to its ultimate outcome: The Party makes sure of it.

Houston, we have a problem.

And again we are conned. The familiar "rotating villains" strategy.

We are being played by corporatists in both parties. Again.

These are not rogues. They are the designated villains for this round. This is the same con our own corporate-purchased party plays on us, over and over again.

Yup. It's the Call to Stupid.

The incessant bullying to think like a stupid person.

Lizards.

Remember this compilation of MSM clips about the poor

that was put together for The Daily Show?

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-18-2011/world-of-class-warfare---the-poor-s-free-ride-is-over

I recommend watching the whole thing, but the last few minutes, especially, will sicken and enrage you. It is exactly what you are talking about here.

This is the social messaging of a corporate state that values profit above human lives.

The goal of the propaganda assaults across the internet is not to convince anyone of anything.*

We are being manipulated to miss the point.

The point is not whether laws have been passed to allow the spying. All governments that turn authoritarian attempt to "legalize" what they do.

The point is not whether anyone listens to the phone calls, although we have no reason whatsoever to trust that they don't/won't.

The point is not even that the FISA court is rubber stamping every single request that it receives, although this fact certainly drives home what a kangaroo court and illusion of responsible legal oversight we are dealing with here.