U.S. Politics

[hiero2]

In terms of the theory, Richard Hofstadter's "Paranoid Style in American Politics" (1964) is the original essay, taken up by David Harvey on neoliberalism and his book "The New Imperialism", also Hardt and Negri's "Multitude," and Sheldon Wolin's "Democracy Incorporated."

They all deal with the Bush years, I don't think that many yet have fully linked Obama's extension of Bush' military/domestic security policies with the current era of economic disciplining, but it's coming.

I think you mean "All the latter . . ." rather than "They all . . .", especially since Obama hadn't entered the picture as of 1964.

In particular, though, your comment ". . .Obama's extension of . . " previous policies. I've always been struck by the thought that Obama is a truly conservative president - in the true, dictionary definition, sense of the word - not the emotional, political party affiliation sense, which I find to be anything but conservative.

It has seemed to me that the impact of the paranoid has grown over the decades - along with the impact of global warming. Both have been too subtle at times to honestly and accurately track, until you wake up one day and say wtf.

But, I don't think this characteristic is so much typical of the US (the paranoid style), as it is that, somehow, the US gives the political conspiracist a voice it would not have elsewhere. For instance, I have seen very similar tendencies of opinions in Latin America, Ireland, Russia, and (from) China. In the first three, I have spent time in those areas to experience 1st hand these political paranoias. In the last, I have known recent immigrants who readily adhered allegiance to conspiracy theories I had never heard of before. Given the political extremes of WW2 in Europe, I don't think they are immune, either.

I think it is a human tendency, but I know it has heavily impacted American politics.

 

[aphronesis]

I think you mean "All the latter . . ." rather than "They all . . .", especially since Obama hadn't entered the picture as of 1964.

In particular, though, your comment ". . .Obama's extension of . . " previous policies. I've always been struck by the thought that Obama is a truly conservative president - in the true, dictionary definition, sense of the word - not the emotional, political party affiliation sense, which I find to be anything but conservative.

It has seemed to me that the impact of the paranoid has grown over the decades - along with the impact of global warming. Both have been too subtle at times to honestly and accurately track, until you wake up one day and say wtf.

But, I don't think this characteristic is so much typical of the US (the paranoid style), as it is that, somehow, the US gives the political conspiracist a voice it would not have elsewhere. For instance, I have seen very similar tendencies of opinions in Latin America, Ireland, Russia, and (from) China. In the first three, I have spent time in those areas to experience 1st hand these political paranoias. In the last, I have known recent immigrants who readily adhered allegiance to conspiracy theories I had never heard of before. Given the political extremes of WW2 in Europe, I don't think they are immune, either.

I think it is a human tendency, but I know it has heavily impacted American politics.

Thanks. I'll put a sig in "Please excuse any pronomial laziness, I'm typing on my Ipod."

What you're missing here is that the argument is not about paranoia in relation to big P politics and conspiracy, but rather a reorganization of human interests, concerns and, indeed, identity. All these being understood as things that are produced first under monopoly capital (the high age of objects) and beyond into the more precarious era of finance capital. The US is or was exemplary in developing said culture even as it promoted global militarization while seeing an end to direct first world competition and agression or clear objectives for growth, advance and the maintenance of global supremacy. Caught between the imperatives US culture and society it has built for itself in the past 60 years along with the wholesale dismantling, outsourcing and privatization of the social contract and capitalization of the self, and faced with the shadowy realities of the present,
it is argued that the inevitable mass citizen is going to be personally paranoid as default reaction and a designed condition of docility and conformity.

No one is suggesting that the US invented paranoia or that there aren't political regimes--past and present--around the world that engender it to full effect--often in overt and violent terms. The question is the uses to which it is put, of which technologies of governance, political control and economic developtment is it a stated objective, a conceptual object or a near continuous, ever present and thereby naturalized effect, condition or baseline of daily life.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

I love it when the band gets together to play.

The band's name is the BASHERS of HATE.

 

[Hugh Januss]

In a way that's funny, or at least comical. The more things change, the more they remain the same. You know that Augustus boasted that he shut the doors of the Temple of Janus three times during his regime! After four centuries of continuous war the Roman Empire entered the Pax Augustae Romana (for all its propagandistic worth): for several decades after WWII we also entered the Pax Americana, though this will only be a prelude to far worse dire times than that which came before.

When was this "Pax Americana" that you speak of? It was only about 5 or 6 years between WWII and the Korean war, then Vietnam. If we include our involvement in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (where our funding helped to produce two new groups that were on our side, the Taliban and Al Qaeda) we can then move seamlessly right into the Gulf wars and current Iraq/Afghanistan.
So we win, we are more warlike than the Roman Empire.

 

[patricknd]

When was this "Pax Americana" that you speak of? It was only about 5 or 6 years between WWII and the Korean war, then Vietnam. If we include our involvement in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (where our funding helped to produce two new groups that were on our side, the Taliban and Al Qaeda) we can then move seamlessly right into the Gulf wars and current Iraq/Afghanistan.
So we win, we are more warlike than the Roman Empire.

hell yeah, we're #1

 

[patricknd]

I love it when the band gets together to play.

The band's name is the BASHERS of HATE.

question is, who's the lead singer?

 

[Semper Fidelis]

question is, who's the lead singer?

I'm sure they will argue that to death. Bashers of Hate first album = Death Metal Classic - "Let the Hate Begin". Second Album "The Hate continues."

 

[Amsterhammer]

I don't know diddly about death metal, but the Guardian apparently has more substantial and shocking revelations lined up for the coming days/weeks. They interviewed Snowden for nearly a week.

WASHINGTON — The American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration over its “dragnet” collection of logs of domestic phone calls, contending that the once-secret program — whose existence was exposed by a former National Security Agency contractor last week — is illegal and asking a judge to both stop it and order the records purged.

The lawsuit, filed in New York, could set up an eventual Supreme Court test. It could also focus attention on this disclosure amid the larger heap of top secret surveillance matters that were disclosed by Edward J. Snowden, a former N.S.A. contractor who came forward on Sunday to say he was the source of a series of disclosures by The Guardian and The Washington Post.

The program “gives the government a comprehensive record of our associations and public movements, revealing a wealth of detail about our familial, political, professional, religious and intimate associations,” the complaint says, adding that it “is likely to have a chilling effect on whistle-blowers and others who would otherwise contact” the A.C.L.U. for legal assistance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/us/aclu-files-suit-over-phone-surveillance-program.html?_r=0

 

[python]

I'm sure they will argue that to death. Bashers of Hate first album = Death Metal Classic - "Let the Hate Begin". Second Album "The Hate continues."

can you help here, glen ? Did you mean that those expressing their concerns with the us govnt illegally spying on their citizens are bashers of hate ? Without an explanation you sound like the haters you seem to be mocking..or, likely, the thin skinned flag waver unable to face the facts...please help us here b/c you sound upset.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

I don't know diddly about death metal, but the Guardian apparently has more substantial and shocking revelations lined up for the coming days/weeks. They interviewed Snowden for nearly a week.



http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/us/aclu-files-suit-over-phone-surveillance-program.html?_r=0

The funny thing about this is people who have adressed this issue for years have been labelled as conspiracy nuts.

Here in Holland, hell, you might even have seen the man, a socalled 'social democrat' member of parliament even said he had no problems with it because 'the US could prevent terrorist attacks this way', he just forgot the simple fact everyone is a suspect, untill proven not suspect.

Sick brother is watching.

 

[python]

Sick brother is watching.

it is the sick FAMILY bro, YOU and i included

The Problems is, some mericans, the minority like in this thread, see it as you and i, and the majority are ignorants like glen raised on waving their flag while enjoying the benefits of being born in a country fairly or unfairly sending their sons to set up the rules of the world without paying much attention to what the receivers think of the unwanted, self-imposed rule setters...

The total spying on the domestic scene while lecturing the rest of the world on what the democracy is supposed to be, is, yes, too stupid.

 

[Amsterhammer]

The funny thing about this is people who have adressed this issue for years have been labelled as conspiracy nuts.

Here in Holland, hell, you might even have seen the man, a socalled 'social democrat' member of parliament even said he had no problems with it because 'the US could prevent terrorist attacks this way', he just forgot the simple fact everyone is a suspect, untill proven not suspect.

Sick brother is watching.

My experience in recent days has also been that the Dutch basically don't give a ****. There are conspiracy nuts, there's Glen Beck, and then there's Alex Jones....anyone with a brain will have known for years that every government everywhere carries out some forms of surveillance. You expect that any surveillance is targeted, not blanket. That's the big difference with this revelation. We're talking about many millions of phone subscribers, and an entirely unknown number of web users.

That, for many people, is certainly a step too far.

it is the sick FAMILY bro, YOU and i included

The Problems is, some mericans, the minority like in this thread, see it as you and i, and the majority are ignorants like glen raised on waving their flag while enjoying the benefits of being born in a country fairly or unfairly sending their sons to set up the rules of the world without paying much attention to what the receivers think of the unwanted, self-imposed rule setters...

The total spying on the domestic scene while lecturing the rest of the world on what the democracy is supposed to be, is, yes, too stupid.

As it's not my place to answer on Glen's behalf, I'll just say that you may be misjudging him. I've learned that Glen doesn't always really mean what he appears to be saying.

 

[python]

As it's not my place to answer on Glen's behalf, I'll just say that you may be misjudging him. I've learned that Glen doesn't always really mean what he appears to be saying.

as it is not the place to judge your opinion about his message, i will just say you are misjudging the messenger (the reasons i will leave out for now). the messenger, who went on record to call the posters being haters and bashers when they expressed their opinion about the latest whistle-blower... without any reasonable explanation. i could care less of what he means as long a he/she makes it clear what the position was about. your deference of the thread bud is understandable.

 

[BroDeal]

I don't know diddly about death metal, but the Guardian apparently has more substantial and shocking revelations lined up for the coming days/weeks. They interviewed Snowden for nearly a week.

Don't worry. The Prez is a Constitutional law professor. I am sure he has the people's back on this one.

 

[BroDeal]

Things that make you go hmmmm.

Republican dooshbags support mass surveillance when a Republican is president but don't support it when a Democrat is president, and Democrat dooshbags don't support mass surveillance when a Republican is president but do support it when a Democrat is president. Hmmmm indeed.

A prime example is Velocity, whose defense of Obama's reprehensible actions basically boils down to, "It's is okay under Obama because it would have been worse under McCain." I am getting a kick out of the return of Amsterhammer and his concern about the Fourth Amendment being dismanted by the statists he supports who want to get rid of the Second Amendment.

 

[ChewbaccaD]

The ACLU filed a case asking for Declaratory Relief (having the court declare the NSA wiretaps unconstitutional and a violation of statute), and a permanent injunction. They were harmed because they are customers of Verizon and the surveillance revealed contact between them and their clients, which is and should be protected communications in every facet. We'll see how far that flies. I am not optimistic.

In all honesty, I am completely disillusioned with the state of our country at this moment. The depth and breadth of the corruption and tyrannical (yes Bro, tyrannical) policies of our government seem irreversible. We are a dying dinosaur and I don't think the rest of the world will miss us.

 

[BroDeal]

The ACLU filed a case asking for Declaratory Relief (having the court declare the NSA wiretaps unconstitutional and a violation of statute), and a permanent injunction. They were harmed because they are customers of Verizon and the surveillance revealed contact between them and their clients, which is and should be protected communications in every facet. We'll see how far that flies. I am not optimistic.

In all honesty, I am completely disillusioned with the state of our country at this moment. The depth and breadth of the corruption and tyrannical (yes Bro, tyrannical) policies of our government seem irreversible. We are a dying dinosaur and I don't think the rest of the world will miss us.

At least now the ACLU is out of the catch-22, where they could not sue about the secrecy of the program because they cannot show anyone is being spied on but they cannot show anyone is being spied on because of the secrecy of the program. The EFF has been getting that legal run-around for years.

You have to laugh at Sensenbrenner as he acts shocked that "his" Patriot Act is being abused. Yeah, no one could have predicted it. No one.

 

[ChewbaccaD]

At least now the ACLU is out of the catch-22, where they could not sue about the secrecy of the program because they cannot show anyone is being spied on but they cannot show anyone is being spied on because of the secrecy of the program. The EFF has been getting that legal run-around for years.

You have to laugh at Sensenbrenner as he acts shocked that "his" Patriot Act is being abused. Yeah, no could have predicted it. No one.

Yea, Sensenbrenner needs to stick to harassing the USADA...what a freaking d0uchebag. Him and his Slowditch posting lackey.

 

[Scott SoCal]

Republican dooshbags support mass surveillance when a Republican is president but don't support it when a Democrat is president, and Democrat dooshbags don't support mass surveillance when a Republican is president but do support it when a Democrat is president. Hmmmm indeed.

A prime example is Velocity, whose defense of Obama's reprehensible actions basically boils down to, "It's is okay under Obama because it would have been worse under McCain." I am getting a kick out of the return of Amsterhammer and his concern about the Fourth Amendment being dismanted by the statists he supports who want to get rid of the Second Amendment.

I don't know when the exactly the country became so divided. I have opinions but I'm second guessing them. I found the poll odd for the same reason you did.

It appears many on the left and many on the right have no core beliefs other than party.

Bizarre.

 

[Scott SoCal]

At least now the ACLU is out of the catch-22, where they could not sue about the secrecy of the program because they cannot show anyone is being spied on but they cannot show anyone is being spied on because of the secrecy of the program. The EFF has been getting that legal run-around for years.

You have to laugh at Sensenbrenner as he acts shocked that "his" Patriot Act is being abused. Yeah, no could have predicted it. No one.

Which really gets us back to the constitution and this idiotic argument that its a " living, breathing document"... That amendments are behind the times, etc.

The founders understood very well what would happen when guaranteed rights began to erode. Yet very bright people seem shocked that... rights are being eroded.

I don't have clean hands in this, btw. I don't think I really understood the depth of the patriot act. At the time it seemed a minor trade-off compared to the idea of constant terror activity in the US.

 

[Hugh Januss]

it is the sick FAMILY bro, YOU and i included

The Problems is, some mericans, the minority like in this thread, see it as you and i, and the majority are ignorants like glen raised on waving their flag while enjoying the benefits of being born in a country fairly or unfairly sending their sons to set up the rules of the world without paying much attention to what the receivers think of the unwanted, self-imposed rule setters...

The total spying on the domestic scene while lecturing the rest of the world on what the democracy is supposed to be, is, yes, too stupid.

I mostly agree with you (I know, alert the media), but Glenn (or as you call him, Glen) falls under the heading of being sent off to set up the rules more than enjoying the benefits. True he lived through that so now he can enjoy the benefits, so I guess you can hate him for that.
Mostly I cut him a little slack because he is obviously slightly brilliant (after all he is friends with ChrisE).

 

[Hugh Januss]

Which really gets us back to the constitution and this idiotic argument that its a " living, breathing document"... That amendments are behind the times, etc.

The founders understood very well what would happen when guaranteed rights began to erode. Yet very bright people seem shocked that... rights are being eroded.

I don't have clean hands in this, btw. I don't think I really understood the depth of the patriot act. At the time it seemed a minor trade-off compared to the idea of constant terror activity in the US.

OH yes the framers of the Constitution understood full well how their rules would translate into the 21st century. They knew in advance about population density's of 500 times what existed in their day, not to mention the information age and the internet. Everything is still just the same as it was in1776, don't worry.

 

[Scott SoCal]

OH yes the framers of the Constitution understood full well how their rules would translate into the 21st century. They knew in advance about population density's of 500 times what existed in their day, not to mention the information age and the internet. Everything is still just the same as it was in1776, don't worry.

With respect to guaranteed, inalienable rights, yep.

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness will never go out of style.

I would have guessed you'd be disturbed by the events lately. I would have been wrong apparently.

 

[ChewbaccaD]

Which really gets us back to the constitution and this idiotic argument that its a " living, breathing document"... That amendments are behind the times, etc.

The founders understood very well what would happen when guaranteed rights began to erode. Yet very bright people seem shocked that... rights are being eroded.

I don't have clean hands in this, btw. I don't think I really understood the depth of the patriot act. At the time it seemed a minor trade-off compared to the idea of constant terror activity in the US.

I would back off the "idiotic" part unless you want a list of cases that YOUR conservative justices have acted like the document was living when it suited their needs. To suggest the founders did not envision the document would be interpreted (which by it's definition means it is unclear and in need of clarification and adaptation) is what is idiotic. Until you actually study constitutional law, I would back off statements like that. You need a living document, you are just too blinded by partisan bullsh!t to recognize it.

 

[ChewbaccaD]

With respect to guaranteed, inalienable rights, yep.

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness will never go out of style.

I would have guessed you'd be disturbed by the events lately. I would have been wrong apparently.

And how do those rights apply to unforeseen technologies and techniques? Well, the constitution lived and breathed enough for SCOTUS to pass judgment on what they thought the founders would have thought on the issues, but unless you can dig the motherf**kers up, reanimate them, and ask them, your point is full of freaking holes and so is any interpretation made by anyone up to and including Antonin...

EDIT: Also note that none of the justices believe every single right is living and breathing. That is just an ignorant generalization promoted by people who talk more about the constitution than they actually understand.