Please grade Barack Obama's performance as president

[woo me with science]

86. Well, there's a facile argument around here somewhere...

Last edited Sun Sep 28, 2014, 08:08 PM - Edit history (13)

I trust people to figure out which one it is.

(And to the alerters: No, this post is not about Obama himself, but about the entire diseased, bipartisan, corporate money-corrupted system of which he is a part, and that the poster above denies is orchestrating suppression of dissent).

All these indignant denials that we're in trouble take the same form:

We're not being burned alive in ovens, or we're still typing on the internet, or we aren't being lined up in the streets and shot (well, that one's starting to get debatable, isn't it...).

As though the corporate owners of the United States of America, who rely on its reputation as the beacon of freedom and democracy in the world, can't find more effective and less politically damaging means to make sure dissent never materializes into anything seriously threatening to the PTB.

Psst. Our president has a "Kill List." And indefinite detention. And a surveillance state. And an entire secret government, secret laws and secret courts, operating alongside the one we are taught about in school. And all it takes to become part of that is for someone to invoke the word, "terrorism" and relate it to you.

"But that's a high bar!" all the sensible woodchucks will protest. "I TRUST my president! And it's only for TERRORISTS!"

Really? And do you trust the next one?

Actually, we're all being spied on. And "terrorism" is being invoked as a weapon against political dissent.

Report Details How Counter Terrorism Apparatus Was Used to Monitor Occupy Movement Nationwide
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12527647

Whoop, There It Is... 'Evidence Homeland Security Coordinated Occupy Crackdown' -
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002462465

ACLU discovers FBI is labeling peace activists as 'potential terrorists'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4500788

And the most sinister aspect of all of this is the fact that the language of terrorism and espionage is being actively expanded to include whatever citizens or groups the corporatists consider to be irritants: political enemies, protesters, even journalists.

Protestors against Energy Company charged with terrorism
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024175848

Mission Creep: When Everything is Terrorism
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023279560

US Uses Espionage Act To Convict Manning Using Words Added In 1990: "with a computer"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023375845

Fed Court: Just changed interpretation of Espionage Act to cover leaks that are NOT Harmful To USA
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023365713

NY Times: White House Uses Espionage Act to Silence Employees, Press
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101616764

Obama Has Charged More Under Espionage Act Than All Other Presidents Combined
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023080388

If you are a One Percenter trying to effectively use the government you have purchased to manage unpleasant press about what you are doing, what do you do? Well, one tactic might be to try to get the government into the business of deciding who is a journalist. That way you can claim to establish "protections" for whistleblowers, when what you are actually doing is creating categories through which you can exclude from protection those you don't want to protect.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023708417
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4976955
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4976082
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4976955

Yeah, journalism isn't doing too well in this country. One might say it is being murdered. There's a reason it's supposed to be protected by the First Amendment. That reason is not compatible with increasingly totalitarian corporate control.

Petition Calls On Obama Stop Intimidation Of Journalists And Whistleblowers
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025509395

Why Is President Obama Keeping a Journalist in Prison in Yemen
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023300531

James Clapper Calls Journalists "Criminal Accomplices" -
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017174990

Reporters without Borders: 'Security interests threaten press freedom'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/11333723

US Plummets In Press Freedom Rankings
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024487392

Obama's escalating war on Freedom of the Press
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023314296

Risen Case: War on Journalism coming to a head
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101699216

Government Surveillance Is Crippling Press Freedoms, Report Shows
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023902153

So....you shut up the journalists.

And you shut up the protesters.

Who else do you need to shut up?

Ah....all the people who work for the government, many of whom can be assumed to still have consciences and thus be potentially dangerous to the corporate coup of democracy. How do you handle them?

Well, you can fire them. See, it's *useful* for the government of an ostensibly free nation to have highly visible groups like the ones you mention...Black Panthers, etc....and not to deny them employment or do anything serious to them. It gives the illusion of freedom. But look what we learned of just this week, about how firings happen at the Fed:

The Secret Goldman Sachs Tapes
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025587384

But you can also wage legal war against their power to function as whistleblowers. And you assault the unions that protect them.

The Obama administration/DOJ war on whistleblowers, federal unions
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5586389

You can institute draconian snitch rules to intimidate those who might be thinking about whistleblowing:

President's 'rat out your co-worker' plan unlikely to work, experts say
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023214675

And you claim the right to spy on them even at home.

You let the dissent flourish, as long as it's safe dissent. But you take care of the stuff that has the potential to be truly threatening. Most importantly, you make a vicious example of those who carry through with revealing corruption:

Daniel Ellsburg: Snowden would not get a fair trial today, was right to flee US
http://www.democraticunderground.com/11784497
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023198130

Bradley Manning: top US legal scholars voice outrage at torture
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x871563

That includes those who whistleblow on financial institutions, not just the government. Since you're not prosecuting the banking criminals, you have plenty of time to send up a guy who tried to identify them:

Bradley Birkenfeld, UBS Whistleblower, Finds Himself in Federal Prison
http://www.cnbc.com//id/41257962

It's a delicate line to walk, all this intimidation while still claiming to be the beacon of freedom for the world. But the intimidation is necessary, because people are starting to catch on.

No, nobody has sent the jackboots to line up the protesters in front of everyone and methodically kill them. But we're seeing the next best thing.

Militarizing the hell out of the police departments. That way it's blamed on some "programs"....but it sends a clear psychological message to the upstarts.

Stopping police militarization: Once again, the solution requires confronting corporate politicians.
http://sync.democraticunderground.com/10025416709

Federal grants drive the militarization of police departments in America.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025383806

And then you get this:


And this:


Three of the five Occupy violence pics I used to use regularly now I cannot find anywhere on the internet; if I could, I'd put them here, too. The elderly woman tear-gassed, the mobs of jackbooted storm troopers surrounding a few people on a blanket...

And, meanwhile, out in the community, the militarized police are starting to terrorize ordinary citizens, mostly the impoverished and voiceless ones. But the corporate-controlled federal government keeps sending the hardware and the storm trooper uniforms, even encouraging it with grants, and they refuse to keep records on how many citizens have been murdered. How many were there this week?

"What I've Learned from Two Years Collecting Data on Police Killings...
...I'm convinced to my core: The lack of such a database is intentional."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025429276

Twenty-Three People Killed by American Police in the Span of One Week
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025593137

We're all suspects, potential terrorists now. and the mechanisms are in place to ensure that any dissent that begins to bubble up can be handled and eliminated before it materializes in any serious way.

The truth is that you don't know what dissent may have already been cut off at the root, because of the elaborate, secret, unaccountable system that has been put into place. We know that the president has sought the power to lie in response to Freedom of Information requests. We know that data collected from NSA spying has been used to imprison Americans using false evidence trails. We know that the CIA can spy on the Senate Intelligence Committee with impunity and nothing is done about it, and that Clapper can lie to Congress and the Department of Justice can lie to the Supreme Court about spying and nothing is done. These are just the things we know.

DEA Manuals Show Feds Use NSA Spy Data, Train Cops to Construct False Chains of Evidence
http://sync.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4507611

Obama Admin Seeks Permission TO LIE In Response To Freedom of Information Requests - Even To The COURTS
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2185303

DOJ lied to Supreme Court about domestic surveillance
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140514/06214727229/doj-still-trying-to-hide-fact-it-flat-out-lied-to-supreme-court-about-domestic-surveillance.shtml

The sensible woodchucks keep telling us that someone has to be actively involved in VERY SERIOUS TERRORISM against the United States of America in order for our government to start throwing *that* word around, or showing an interest in us. But we are all surveilled, and the methods for it keep expanding. If you think about it, it's GOOD for corporate control to have people posting dissent on the internet. It helps you know whom to watch. Voiced dissent is USEFUL as long as it doesn't lead to anything...you know, serious. Our corporate government is keeping an eye on us.

OKC protestors slapped with terrorism charges
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024175848

A Nation of "Suspects"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x5011487
http://www.truth-out.org/nation-suspects/1314810046

American Protesters Declared Enemy for Weapons Testing Purposes; Rules of Engagement
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2132808#2139011

DoD Training Manual: Protests are "Low-Level Terrorism"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/100227662

Ridiculous FBI list: You might be a domestic terrorist if...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1790765

Doctors asked to identify potential terrorists under government plans
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1261120&mesg_id=1261120

Do You Like Online Privacy? You May Be a Terrorist
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002257966

Top US counterterrorism official: drone critics are Al Qaeda enablers
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002279862

"Arrogant complaining about airport security is one indicator Transportation Security Administration officers consider when looking for possible criminals and terrorists"
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/04/15/tsa.screeners.complain/

N.S.A. Examines Social Networks of U.S. Citizens (Decision Made In Secret, in 2010)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014605329

Now, you tell me.

Why would the corporatists who have purchased into our government and rely on its reputation as the beacon of freedom and democracy for the world, use such heavy-handed and politically damaging tactics as shutting down the internet or ostentatiously lining up protesters to shoot them in the streets, when they have already put into place and legalized this elegant system to control dissent?

Yeah, I'm typing on the internet. That PROVES we're free.