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[freeformschooler]

PTTG?? & freeformschooler: Who will you vote for? I've voted Reform and Green in the past, but those are no longer options for me. The only other third parties I know anything about are based on racist philosophies.

I haven't decided yet. But I'm going to carefully research all possible options before I vote.

[Nadaka]

PTTG?? & freeformschooler: Who will you vote for? I've voted Reform and Green in the past, but those are no longer options for me. The only other third parties I know anything about are based on racist philosophies.

What's wrong with the Green and Reform? Or independents?

Reform put Pat Buchanan up as a candidate a while ago and the greens are rabidly anti-nuclear. If you are talking about the same Independent party from my area, they are one of the white power parties.

[palsch]

Again, this law explicitly doesn't change the current rules on detention, with the exception of mandate. Again;

        Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens or lawful resident aliens of the United States or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.

Other than the mandate, which stinks, the bill is basically changing nothing. There isn't much in here to even affect future Supreme Court decisions given how ambiguous it is. Well, other than the parts which explicitly state that it doesn't change things.

Other than bringing the existent detention program even more into the light, I don't see any change at all.

[Itnetlolor]

I think I might really leave this country now. I really do. This is serious police state legislation.

I think it's a safer bet to send out messages to extraterrestrials to get you off this rock. We're not far off from all governments removing their masks to reveal they're all one and the same One World Order.

[PTTG??]

Itnetlolor: I'm pretty sure if there was a real conspiracy, it would work more like Europe than anything else. Which is to say, it wouldn't work at all.

[Johnfalcon99977]

So anyone else starting to get seriously afraid that the USA is going to be become a Democracy just in name over the next 50 or so years?

Or even worse, that there won't be a USA over the next 50 or so years.
...
The sad thing is that I think the second of those two might solve more problems then it causes.
^{CIA: Oh god he must be terrorist scum arrest him}

[SalmonGod]

It's systematic.  Literal conspiracy in the stereotypical form of small groups of powerful people talking shady business in secret chambers is a small factor. 

Global corporate dominance -- abstract entities with zero compassion that are designed to have greed as their sole motivation.  They're comprised of people, but only a handful have any influence over their behavior.  Those that do are put under the most pressure to serve the interests of the corporation itself as an abstract entity, not as a collection of people.  They serve the corporation by maximizing its ability to hoard wealth.  This is their JOB and they're constantly under a magnifying glass to perform.  Success means the corporation hoards tons of wealth and then it's right there to be picked as low hanging fruit by those at the top of the corporate ladder.  There's no innate responsibility to distribute that wealth in any specific manner once it's hoarded.  It's up to those of the highest influence to determine, and there's nothing stopping them from just taking it for themselves... so they do.  It's their career to see their employees as nothing but mathematical abstractions, after all.  Can they really be expected to care?  Employees exist to generate profit for the company.  Whatever they're getting paid can't be counted as profit.  Therefore paying them more just makes them worse employees.  This is the kind of logic we're up against.

[Johnfalcon99977]

Global corporate dominance -- abstract entities with zero compassion that are designed to have greed as their sole motivation.  They're comprised of people, but only a handful have any influence over their behavior.  Those that do are put under the most pressure to serve the interests of the corporation itself as an abstract entity, not as a collection of people.  They serve the corporation by maximizing its ability to hoard wealth.  This is their JOB and they're constantly under a magnifying glass to perform.  Success means the corporation hoards tons of wealth and then it's right there to be picked as low hanging fruit by those at the top of the corporate ladder.  There's no innate responsibility to distribute that wealth in any specific manner once it's hoarded.  It's up to those of the highest influence to determine, and there's nothing stopping them from just taking it for themselves... so they do.  It's their career to see their employees as nothing but mathematical abstractions, after all.  Can they really be expected to care?  Employees exist to generate profit for the company.  Whatever they're getting paid can't be counted as profit.  Therefore paying them more just makes them worse employees.  This is the kind of logic we're up against.

And so begins our story in the Undergound Cyberpunk cities of 2050, where the Liberal Crime Revolutionaries fight againist the Evil Corporate Conservitive scum!

[Heron TSG]

I liked the definition by Henry Ford.

"Corporation, Noun. A means of attaining maximum personal profit with minimal personal responsibility."

It's just cynical enough to work.

[nenjin]

I find this pretty relevant given NDAA's passage.

Not that Manning's case really needed any help being relevant, but....

Coombs objected to Almanza's job as a prosecutor for the Justice Department because Manning could be called as a witness in the federal case against Assange.

He objected to Almanza only granting the defense four out of 28 witnesses they requested who were not on the prosecution list.

Coombs said Almanza denied a defense request that the Article 32 hearing be closed to prevent information that might later be ruled inadmissible in court to get out publicly and possible taint a future jury.  He also objected to Almanza's willingness to accept unsworn statements.

It's things like what they're capable of doing to Manning that I think justifies everyone's concern with this. When the gov't wants to play hardball, they're just as capable of railroading as any vindictive county attorney. Maybe even more so.

[Luke_Prowler]

Okay, this has just been bugging the hell out of me: A lot of people (or at least the mouth-breathers on the internet) are saying Manning is a traitor/needs to die/rebel scum ect. for leaking infromation. But what I'm wondering is it that he leaked?

[Servant Corps]

Okay, this has just been bugging the hell out of me: A lot of people (or at least the mouth-breathers on the internet) are saying Manning is a traitor/needs to die/rebel scum ect. for leaking infromation. But what I'm wondering is it that he leaked?

To my knowledge, he leaked internal State Department memos to Wikileaks.

It's things like what they're capable of doing to Manning that I think justifies everyone's concern with this.

This law doesn't add anything specifically new, other than the mandate. Concern requires actual change, and the change to current law is out of proportion to the attention and the title given to this topic.

[Nadaka]

Okay, this has just been bugging the hell out of me: A lot of people (or at least the mouth-breathers on the internet) are saying Manning is a traitor/needs to die/rebel scum ect. for leaking infromation. But what I'm wondering is it that he leaked?

He leaked video evidence of war crimes that the US military covered up.

He leaked documents exposing the corruption in Tunisia that directly lead to the overthrow of that government and began the Arab spring.

He leaked documents that exposing the coverup of US corporation was providing underage boys to service an Afghan warlord.

He leaked documents exposing graft and corruption in the US and allied nations.

He leaked documents showing that the image of a successful war in Iraq was fabricated propaganda.

He leaked documents that cast world leaders (allies, pseudo allies and competitors) in an unfavorable light.

He leaked a lot of other stuff that was more or less meaningless junk.

[Luke_Prowler]

@Servant Corps: I know it was to wikileaks.

@Nadaka: Thanks, I was expecting as such. So this is just a normal ass covering ploy.

[Orangebottle]

Okay, this has just been bugging the hell out of me: A lot of people (or at least the mouth-breathers on the internet) are saying Manning is a traitor/needs to die/rebel scum ect. for leaking infromation. But what I'm wondering is it that he leaked?

He leaked video evidence of war crimes that the US military covered up.

He leaked documents that exposing the coverup of US corporation was providing underage boys to service an Afghan warlord.

He leaked documents exposing graft and corruption in the US and allied nations.

He leaked documents showing that the image of a successful war in Iraq was fabricated propaganda.

He leaked documents that cast world leaders (allies, pseudo allies and competitors) in an unfavorable light.

He leaked a lot of other stuff that was more or less meaningless junk.

Is this really all that terrible? There was that whole 'corruption that lead to overthrow of government' thing that I would understand, but the rest of it seems like something that the citizens of the US should know. Except the meaningless junk.

So anyone else starting to get seriously afraid that the USA is going to be become a Democracy just in name over the next 50 or so years?

This is already the case. We're more of an oligarchy than a democracy.