11-12-2014, 03:28 PM
Drew Phipps Wrote:That's just not true that nothing changes. You guys have all been watching current events very carefully, but why don't you attribute any significance to what you see? You've got a terror report that roundly criticizes in a couple dozen ways the very people you think run the iceberg. You don't think that is a harbinger of change? Obama beat the polls and the pundits to get re-elected in 2012? That's not significant? What about Snowden exposing the secrets of the NSA? There are hundreds, if not thousands, of reputable scientists and engineers speaking truth to power about 9/11.
These little surface events are the things that bring abiding change to the "deep structures" of government, if we can but teach the next generation to expect and demand it. Remember Rosa Parks? (This reminds me of that Who song, "Won't Be Fooled Again." Go and listen to it, or Lennon. I wonder where we would be today without those little messages of hope in our ears as kids?)
Drew, maybe you don't remember the Church Committee, the Pike Committee and the HSCA in the 1970s. A lot of deep government secrets were revealed by Congress. What did it accomplish? Here we are 40 years later and it's much worse.
Obama? Seriously? This guy has performed the magic trick of validating most of Bush's national security/foreign policy agenda and getting most liberals to go along with it.
Yes, I like to have hope too. Except polls show that about half the American people think torture is just fine. Many secrets have been exposed over the decades. Most Americans are not paying attention to them. They're not reading forums like this, Drew. They are watching the Kardashians and planning their next shopping trip. Voter turnout last November was 36%, because of apathy, hopelessness and a sense that nothing important really changes over the long term.