... And So Here We Are - Yet Again

Plus ça change, plus c'est pareil - the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Indeed - the way things are already going in 2009, and regardless that we are fast approaching the so-called "New Dawn" which many folks apparently await breathlessly and which is supposed to occur following Barack Obama's inauguration, I just don't see how anything will change for the better by the time we reach 2010 ... or 2020 ... or even 2050, for that matter.

Here's why ...


1) Despite living in democracies, with all the rights and privileges this entails, we remain all-too-lazy to actually exercize our duty, our responsibility, as citizens and therefore fail to register and/or cast our vote - regardless of the stakes and whether we acknowledge said stakes or not. Cases in point:

U.S. Nov. 2008 general elections: only 56.8% of the voting-age population (i.e. all residents age 18 and older) voted - despite the obvious stakes. If you prefer taking into account only those who actually registered to vote (i.e. "vote-eligible" population), then you get a "whopping" 61.6% turnout rate - who would've thunk that this election was, you know, crucial for the future of the U.S.?

Canada Oct. 2008 general elections: only 59.1% of the vote-eligible population (i.e. registered voters) turned out to vote. Typical excuses heard for such a low turnout? "A ho-hum campaign", "uninspiring party leaders", and/or "no important stakes involved" (yes - and let's forget about the economy already worsening then, among other things, eh?).

Québec Dec. 2008 elections: only 57.4% of registered voters turned out to vote. Typical excuses heard for such a low turnout? "Too soon after the federal elections", "these elections were not necessary", "bad weather", and/or "no important stakes involved" (again yes - let's forget about the economy already at one of its lowest points then, among other things ...).

In short, our democracies are far from being healthy. Any excuse not to vote, let alone register, is a good one. In the meantime, those who actually care about such a dire state of affairs tend to dwell upon making voting easier, or making voting more accessible, or reducing voter lines by opening more voting polls, etc., etc., etc.

In the end, these, as well as intense time and effort in driving voter turnout from the grassroots, inevitably fall short - being as effective as applying band aids in trying to stem the loss of blood from a gaping wound. Why is that so? Because the actual root of the problem remains largely unaddressed. Acknowledged? Maybe, by some. But is anything ever done to actually resolve such a critical problem which keeps on eating away at our democracies? Any long-term plan and significant investment of time and effort to at least begin to resolve this problem? Nope. Nada. Zip.

You can't save a dying tree by doing everything in order to keep the leaves and branches healthy, when the tree is actually rotting from the roots. And as long as we refrain from fully realizing and understanding this verity, our democracies will keep on slowly - but surely - rotting away.


2) A large part of the "root problem" of our democracies remains our failing education systems:

The purpose of the educational reforms of the last 25-30 years in our modern societies will have had as the primary goal to make education less strict and authoritative, and rather more motivating, enriching and inclusive. That in itself is all well and good. Unfortunately, the reforms put in practice over these years will have brought us to the present situation whereby intellectual sloth is not only encouraged but, even more so, actually rewarded. Indeed, any effort that is slightly substantial is regarded as being incompatible with the cognitive development of a child (or of an adolescent) and, still worse, with the blooming of those who have “difficulties in learning” - in other words, our reforms will have lowered the bar to the lowest common denominator. Point in fact is that any difficulty of learning (except in specific situations like dyslexia) draws its origins from several factors: poverty, parental situation, traumatisms experienced, etc., and thus require specific teaching methods which take into account these factors. But nevertheless, we seek to motivate all children without requiring of them any truly significant effort: this amounts to seeking to motivate an employee into being willing to work with never ending promotions, while without requiring of him to perform his tasks decently. Ridiculous, no? But this is exactly how things are being done in our schools today.

In short, we are trying to teach knowledge while doing everything possible to make knowledge interesting and easily understandable, consequently lowering the bar by standardizing intellectual sloth. Moreover, we are at the point where we are actually making students practice important exams with the aim of improving their performances during these same examinations - what could be more ridiculous? And of course, each successive reform fails in its attempts to increase the motivation, to reduce the rates of failure, or to reverse the dropout rates. Why? Because at the base, all these reforms entrench in their new methods and teaching approaches the rewarding (direct or indirect) of intellectual sloth, as well as its by-products, the search for facility and for instant gratification. In other words, we perpetuate and accentuate the problem!

If this is not intellectual sloth in itself on the part of our educational leaders and decision makers ...

Should one therefore be surprised by the preponderance of the promotion and exercise of leisures and hobbies, in the house as well as outside? As with everything, too much of a good thing is bad. If intellectual sloth is silently (or by negligence) encouraged by parents and at school, how can the children, and their own children, and so on, do anything else but perpetuate this vicious circle at all levels of society?

The solution is of course quite simple - but would require a complete re-thinking of our educational approaches as well as a definite long-term commitment to solve this critical problem:

(...) the inculcation, beginning in childhood and throughout the educational process, of the need for questioning, for reasoning, for discerning, for gathering information, for contextualizing, for criticizing, for evaluating/re-evaluating, for thinking - in short, for the need of intellectual activity - constitutes the best vaccine against intellectual sloth.

(...) My solution is that we must inculcate intellectual activity, as defined above, as soon as possible in children. Let us not wait until college or university to do so like we have always done so far, for by then it is visibly too late and intellectual sloth has already set in too many students - not mentioning all those who dropped out or ended their education after high school.

Inculcating intellectual activity in our schools as it should be, i.e. without encouraging intellectual sloth in any way whatsoever, is a matter that holds the very future of our modern societies at stake, including that of our cultures and our democratic values and institutions as well. It is by countering intellectual sloth that we will eventually allow the emergence of future leaders who will make better use of reason in establishing the application of true and durable solutions to the problems facing our societies and humanity as a whole.

In conclusion, it is by countering intellectual sloth that we will make way for the inevitable emergence of a majority (in the least) of competent citizens in all spheres of activities within our societies - and the latters will only be the better for this.

And we as well, incidentally.

So far, I still don't see this coming any time soon ... and so intellectual sloth, the constant search for instant gratification and overall incompetence will continue to rule the day in all spheres of activities in our societies - thus further spreading the cancer that keeps on eating away at our democracies.


3) We still wallow in our self-centerism and selfishness, while hypocritically congratulating ourselves at being "good guys" who walk on the bestest of moral high grounds.

Well, let us take a hard, painful look at what we truly are:

The increasing erosion of our constitutions, civil rights and democracies as they are being gradually subjugated by Authoritarian Security Surveillance States. The bloating no-fly lists and terrorist watch-lists. The continuing inhumane and barbaric renditions, "enhanced interrogations" and indefinite detentions - of children, teenagers and adults alike. The continuing standing of Military Commissions, which are nothing more than politically-driven, rigged, kangaroo courts. The seemingly unending wars of choice and occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq - both based on lies to justify a vengeance operation for 9/11 and the securing of foreign oil resources. The ever mounting toll of civilian deaths, displaced refugees and soldier casualties.

This is the overall state of things today with regards to our so-called "Western civilization" - especially with regards to the U.S.A., the U.K. and Canada.

Through it all, much of the currently occurring discourse and debating on these above-mentioned, self-evident evils deal largely with semantics and quaint legalese gymnastics in order to defend and justify not only their perceived necessity, but to actually establish, maintain, or cement, their legality as well.

In other words:

We justify breaking laws, war crimes and atrocities because, goshdarnit, we're the good guys and therefore we only do what is necessary - and consequently we can do no wrong.

Nor can our friends do any wrong, because, you know, if we're the good guys, then so are our friends.

But all those who are not our friends, well ... they should be denounced and prosecuted for the same things that we are doing - but since we're the good guys, we can be excused because we are doing those things in good faith. So, there.

To which I am compelled to respond thusly:

In these days when torturing is conveniently justified as a matter of necessity, when debate about torture is more than ever about the effectiveness of torture versus the "ineffectiveness" in following the rule of Law, when torture is apparently no more a cause for tarnishing reputations of countries and governments, when military commissions rule at whim (one more example here) over the rule of civil and human rights, when prosecuting torturers and torture promulgators becomes something to be actually requiring debate, when promulgating/instituting torture is no more a criminal matter but rather one of "good faith" but "misguided/wrong" policy-making, or misguided interpretation of laws or merely a matter of proper "spin", when black holes of human decency and justice have become acceptable, when torture has become nothing more than a "mere legal term" and something done casually that is not to be feared or condemned, but in fact to be made money from, trivialized or joked about ...

Then more than ever, we have lost any semblance of human rationality and grace - consequently rendering the Universal Declaration of Human Rights naught but empty words to make us feel noble, good, principled and civilized - allowing us to conveniently forget however much the deluded, hypocritical, savages and barbarians that we truly are.

Yes, President-elect Barack Obama recently renewed his pledge to end the practice of torture - and yet, what are we to make of calls for him to keep pro-torture Bush appointees in his administration-to-be, of those potential alternatives floated around and those other "torture-is-necessary" elected representatives (like this fatuously-reasoning barbarian) so far?

In other words: it remains to be seen whether hypocritical, quaint rationalizations (like this, or that, or this, or that) to justify torture will be at last dumped in the trash bin of history of savagery, so that the barbarian practice of violating human and civil rights will be abandoned once and for all ...

(...) .. and we have quite a long way to go in order to finally make the Universal Declaration of Human Rights not only a reality, but an absolute, unalienable standard of what it means to be human and civilized.

Then again, I should not be surprised that we claim to hold onto noble principles, and congratulate ourselves for this, yet nevertheless dismiss said principles whenever we feel threatened.

After all, are we not still in the habit of proudly claiming our adherence to high ideals while we summarily ignore them for the sake of convenience, of expediency? Here's a few examples from the top of my head:

How often have I witnessed self-proclaimed and self-righteous followers of this or that "peace-loving" religious faith (Christian, Muslim, Hebrew, et al.) promulgate lack of compassion, or intolerance, or hate and even violence onto others?

How often have I heard self-proclaimed "good, decent, caring people" (or the same religious adherents as above) express xenophobic remarks, or summarily condemn the homeless, poor and/or jobless as "lazy slobs"?

How often have I heard self-proclaimed "good, decent, caring people" (or the same religious adherents as above) demonstrate utter indifference at injustices perpetrated onto other fellow citizens by security agencies, either because they automatically assume guilt and/or said other fellow citizens so unjustly abused are perceived as "not regular, honest folks" (i.e. ethnic minorities)?

How often do I still hear self-proclaimed "good, decent, caring people" (or the same religious adherents as above), men and women both, exhibit lack of outrage at a woman being raped while muttering that "she was probably asking for it by dressing like a slut"?

How often have I witnessed self-proclaimed "pro-environment" people still failing to separate their recyclable trash from the rest of their waste, and equally failing to put said recyclable trash into the proper recyclable trash bins for pick-up by city services, because doing so is "too much trouble"?

How often have I heard self-proclaimed "concerned citizens" railing against the government ... and yet rarely get off their couches to go out and vote when they are called upon to do so?

And I could go on and on and on.

All these things I have seen, heard, witnessed in my own province of Québec, as well as in many other places in Canada and the U.S.

Overall, such rank hypocrisy on our part, such repugnant self-delusions about our grandeur, our goodness, our moral high ground, borders on the pathological.

We have a long way to learn the simple truth that holding on to noble principles is worth nothing unless we steadfastly hold them closer to our hearts and minds whenever we are tempted to ignore them - regardless of the reasons, the justifications or the opportunities, to dismiss them.

Claiming the moral high ground means that you stay on said moral high ground - through thick and thin, through rain or shine, through beautiful or stormy weather.

Then again - as long as intellectual sloth, the constant search for instant gratification and overall incompetence will continue to rule supreme in our societies, all that we have lived just in 2008 alone - from political hypocrisy and incompetence to unfettered, unchecked and encouraged corporate greed, from wars of choice to genocide, and everything in between - we will continue to experience time and time again.

And so we'll keep on getting right back where we started - until that fateful day when the house of cards we so proudly call "civilization" comes down crashing hard on our bewildered, dumbfounded, hypocritical and deluded collective heads ...

... unless, of course, the bulk of Humanity finally wises up and stops itself from repeating history in one way or another year after year after fucking year.

Granted - this may be nothing more than wishful thinking on my part.

And yet ...

And yet, I remain convinced that once we tackle the three main problems outlined above, we will be well set onto that so-elusive road to maturity as a species of sentient beings.

As opposed to stubbornly - and stupidly - running in circles, as we're still doing now.

So, in conclusion, I reiterate that which I stated at the top of this post: the way things are already going in 2009, and regardless that we are fast approaching the so-called "New Dawn" which many folks apparently await breathlessly and which is supposed to occur following Barack Obama's inauguration, I just don't see how anything will change for the better by the time we reach 2010 ... or 2020 ... or even 2050, for that matter.

In the meantime, I'll keep on "commenting on/documenting the horrors" ... while still hoping against hope that we'll somehow, some way, actually improve and better ourselves as democratic societies.

(Oh - and a belated happy new year 2009, folks ...)


(Cross-posted from APOV)

A (Grim) Fable Of Woe

Once upon a time ...

There was this single cell, alone in a body of billions of other cells.

And it was unhappy and malcontent of its lot in life.

Now, in that body of billions of cells, and in order for that body to function, there was this assignment of specific roles to be played by each given cell - all for the common good of all.

Some were meant for infrastructure. Some were meant for protection. Some were meant for defense. Some were meant for repair. Other were meant to digest and absorb foodstuffs, or take in oxygen. Yet others were meant as roads and highways to keep the flow of nutriments and oxygen going to all cells. More others were meant as the motor of said vital flow.

Hence, some were workers, some were soldiers, some were mechanics, some were maintenance technicians, some were harvesters, some were waste managers, some were distributors, some were traffic comptrollers, some were programmers, some were entrepreneurs, some were decision-makers - and so on and so forth, altogether essential for the body-organism to thrive, prosper, adapt, reproduce and, through its progeny, evolve.

Again - all for the common good and perpetuation of all.

Except for the single, malcontent and unhappy cell of this story.

You see - this cell had come to resent rules and regulations. It fell in love with the idea of being able to do what it wanted to do, whenever it wanted to do it, and regulations be damned.

It also rejected the notion of long-term thinking - what it perceived as a slow, inane and petrificating way of looking at the world - in favor of pure short-term thinking.

The here and now - and maybe tomorrow, next week and/or the next three months, but that is it! - is what truly mattered in its life.

In other words: this cell had decided that it was in it for itself - first and foremost.

So this single, malcontent and unhappy cell started multiplying on its own, disregarding any signals it received from the regulators to stop.

But still the malcontent cell kept on growing.

Into two cells. Then four. Then eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, one hundred and twenty eight, and thus more and more and more.

Soon enough, the one original malcontent and unhappy cell was now a growing crowd of equally-minded rebel cells - in fact, many of them having already become even more self-centered and self-serving than the original one.

Of course, the other neighboring cells came to be disturbed by such outrageous behavior of this crowd of rebel cells - why, these uncout ones ate much more than their fare share of the food available, most of what energy they produced they kept for themselves, their presence displaced or even stiffled other normal-behaving cells and - adding insult to injury - they left a lot of waste around and about them.

So police, ordely, maintenance, repair and decision-maker cells were called in to stop such reckless, utterly selfish nonesense.

But the rebel cells, now so many clumped together in a growing mass, came to be rather crafty and smooth-tongued cells.

Upon being confronted by the aforementioned authorities and their assistants, they pleaded victimhood:

"Growth serves the common good!" They chanted mendaciously. "Do not all tissues grow thus? Does the overall body-organism not grow thus? Growth is prosperity!" They continued, in earnest. "Sure, we use local resources - we have to! But through our growing numbers, how much more proteins, sugars and macromolecules we generate than what we take in." Regaining their composure, they then delivered their ultimate argument: "Give us the proper tools and the means, lend us more energy and foodstuff, let us employ other cells, and you will see how our growth will benefit all those cells in our neighborhood - for indeed, a good portion of all the proteins, sugars and other macromolecules we generate can and will be returned to those cells we will employ which, in turn, will likewise share in the general wealth and well-being of all cells in the end!"

At first unsure, the decision-making cells nonetheless came to be enthralled by such apparently unassailable argument in favor of growth, being lulled by the smooth tongues of the rebel cells.

Hence the police, orderly and repair cells were sent back to their stations, having been instructed henceforth to leave the rebel cells well enough alone.

The decision maker cells likewise instructed maintenance cells to remain available to the rebel cells in order to help them establish whatever infrastructure they required.

Hence, the tumor was granted irrigation with newly formed blood capillaries and vessels, allowing it greater access to food and oxygen - all the better for the common good, the rebel cells still claimed.

And thus supplied, the rebel cells went to work anew - with a vengeance.

As they kept on growing further in numbers, they came to co-opt (sorry: employ) the maintenance and road/highway cells, making them construct/deliver/divert more and more resources - which were in large part used first and foremost by the rebel cells, of course.

In time, some of the rebel cells even got the means to bribe supplier cells in giving them more resources than they needed, or endothelial cells to make cheaper capillaries, or quality control cells to look the other way, or even some decision-making cells to assure their continued support.

Then a momentous time came, when some of the rebel cells began to spread throughout their neighboring tissue - taking more and more place while increasingly displacing normal-behaving cells further.

So decision maker cells were called in again.

"We get little while they keep the most of what they make, in addition to having no other choice but to live in the mounting waste of their wake - waste which makes us sick or even dying!" The outraged normal cells shouted angrily. "Those capillaries and vessels they constructed are badly designed and all leaky!" They continued. "Not only is there less and less for us, and of us, now it has come to the point whereby we can't perform our roles adequately anymore in order to keep our tissue functional and healthy!" They added, thinking that such a potent argument would be quite difficult to counter, let alone dismiss.

But the ever crafty, self-serving rebel cells were more than prepared for such argument: "In order to keep growth going," they offered, "we must expand. Let those of us who grow the most quickly and who are the most sturdy leave this tissue in order to bring our growth-producing propsperity to other tissues and organs. Those others of us who will remain behind will slow down their growth and be more careful about waste, thus nevertheless keeping growth-producing prosperity alive and well here!"

Confused by such double-speak, the normal-behaving cells decided that this all made much sense. Consequently, the decision maker cells consented as well - especially since they were sold to the idea of "growth = prosperity" to begin with.

And so, many cancer cells used the leaky capillaries and vessels they constructed through their employment of connective tissue and endothelial cells in order to metastasize boldly go out and spread and practice their free, unregulated growth prosperity ideals to the rest of the body-organism.

Where the whole cycle was repeated again and again and again.

In between, those rebel cells which initially did slow down their growth and waste production eventually generated more aggressive cells anew - thus further amplifying the destructive cycle of unchecked, unregulated growth.

Leaving all their neighboring normal-behaving cells to gradually break down and die from lack of food, lack of oxygen and toxic waste.

**********

And thus, there eventually came a time when the body-organism came to be sick.

Very, very sick.

Lungs were bleeding, the liver was shuting down, the kidneys were malfunctionning, and a whole slew of other breakdowns and/or malfunctions were ensuing throughout all organs and tissues.

As the body-organism laid in a vegetative state on its death-bed, physician body-organisms considered what options they could enact to heal this dying one.

High dosage chemotherapy was put forth - then dismissed. Although such treatment may kill all the cancer cells, too many of the remaining healthy cells would likewise be killed in the process - thus killing the patient most assuredly.

Radiotherapy as a possibility met the same decisional fate, for essentially the very same reason.

It was finally decided to attempt to render the body-organism better prepared to undergo drastic cancer therapies - if only for a short while.

The physician body-organisms did so by pumping intravenously a glucose-saline solution and by force-feeding through a tube nutritious foodstuff preparations.

It was hoped that enough food and energy would nevertheless reach the healthy cells, consequently making the sick body-organism that bit much stronger to undergo drastic cancer treatment.

Unfortunately, the rebel cells of the now generalized cancer running throughout the dying body-organism had come to be so self-serving, so self-centered and so aggressively greedy, that they managed to hoard - and consume - all of what was being pumped/force-fed.

Hence while they remained well off, all remaining normal-behaving cells died.

Thus the body organism died as well.

"If only that body-organism paid closer attention to its symptoms of illness and sought remedy when there was still much, much time left, instead of letting such cancer grow and fester!" One of the physician body-organism bemoaned upon the very last breath of their patient.

But woe as well was there for the rebel, cancer cells - for when their host body died, all foodstuff, energy and oxygen stopped being supplied even to them, consequently leaving them in turn - and in the last - with naught but bitter-sweet memories of prosperity.

"If only our single, malcontent and unhappy ancestor cell could have forseen such a terrible fate for us all!" Thus wept the dying cancer cells in distraught unisson.

And the darkness of oblivion prevailed forevermore.

**********

Moral of the story: now you folks get to have fun "guessing" what this parabole is all about ... and what it may signify for our future.

(since I'm a good guy, here's a hint ... or two ... or three)


(Cross-posted from APOV)

The Bush Legacy Equation: Authoritarianism + Corporatocracy = Fascism

Following up from this previous post, here are more disastrous Presidential directives being enacted by outgoing President Bush The Incompetent (emphasis added):

1) The Dept. of Labor proposed a regulation Aug. 30 that changes how workplace safety standards are met. Labor experts contend that the administration, which previously issued only one new workplace safety standard and that under court order, is trying to make it a bureaucratic nightmare for future administrations to make workplace safety rules.

Here’s what it would do:

Currently, if the Occupational Safety and Health Admin. or the Mine Health and Safety Admin. want to introduce a new safety standard on, say, the level of exposure to toxic chemicals, it issues what is called a notice of proposed rule-making. This notice is published in the Federal Register and then debated by labor, business and relevant federal agencies.

The new regulation would add an “advanced notice of proposed rule-making,” meaning OSHA and MSHA would have prove that, say, the said chemical was seriously harming workers.

This would open the door for industry to challenge the validity of the risk assessment and then, if necessary, the actual safety standard that may come from that risk assessment.

“The purpose of this sort of rule is to require agencies to spend more time on a regulation which gives them less of a chance to actually regulate,” said David Michaels, a professor of workplace safety at George Washington University, “You’re adding at least a year, maybe two years, to the process.”

The regulation has not been finalized.

2) The administration proposed a rule that changes the employer-employee relationship laid out in the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act.

Here’s what it would do:

The Family and Medical Leave Act says that employers must give their workers 12 weeks of unpaid leave if they are sick or need to take care of a family member or newborn. The employer’s health-care staff can check the legitimacy of the family or medical leave claim with the employee’s doctor or health-care provider.

The proposed regulation would allow the employer to directly speak with the employee’s doctor or health-care provider. The employer could also ask employees to provide more medical documentation of their conditions.

Why such a rule — which may threaten an employee’s privacy– is needed is unclear. The only study the Labor Dept. has done on the act was in 2000. The department collected comments from employers before issuing the proposed regulation, but a report analyzing the comments was never issued.

The regulation also would gives employees the right to waive their rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act, making it the first national labor law to be optional. A worker, for instance, cannot waive his right to earn a minimum wage or get paid more for overtime.

The regulation was finalized on Election Day.

3) The Dept. of Health and Human Services proposed a rule Sept. 26 that would expand the reasons that physicians or health care entities could decline to provide any procedure to include moral and religious grounds. The language of the regulation says the department hopes to correct “an attitude toward the health-care profession that health-care professionals and institutions should be required to provide or assist in the provision of medicine or procedures to which they object, or else risk being subjected to discrimination.”

Here’s what it would do:

The rule change seems to apply to abortion. But they are already several rules that say physicians or health-care entities can deny an abortion request. Some women’s health advocates contend that the proposed regulation’s broad language is meant to increase the number of physicians who not only don’t provide abortions but don’t provide contraception.

“Contraception is certainly the target of this rule,” contends Marylin Keefe, director for Reproductive Health at the National Partnership for Women and Families. “The moral and religious objections of health-care workers are now starting to take precedence over patients.”

The regulation is notable for another reason. A rule involving an employee’s religious rights must be referred to the Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission, yet the commission was never told of this proposed regulation.

A bureaucratic battled erupted when EEOC’s legal counsel, Reed Russell, wrote a regulation comment (pdf) blasting both the substance of the proposed rule and its disregard for the rule-making process.

The regulation has not been finalized.

4) On July 31, the Justice Dept. proposed a regulation that would allow state and local law enforcement agencies to collect “intelligence” information on individuals and organizations even if the information is unrelated to a criminal matter.

“This is a continuum that started back on 9/11 to reform law enforcement and the intelligence community to focus on the terrorism threat,” said Bush homeland security adviser Kenneth L. Wainstein in a statement.

Critics say it could infringe on civil liberties.

Here’s what it would do:

“It expands local law enforcement’s ability to investigate criminal activity that it deems suspicious,” said Melberth of OMB Watch. “But what’s suspicious to you may not be suspicious to me. They could be investigating community organizations they think are two or three steps away from a terrorist group.”

The regulation has not been finalized.(Read also this, if you will)

All of the above bring me back to the following other previous posts:
U.S. Bailouts = Bush's Final Pillage?

North American Security State: I Told You So ...

Reloaded: Do You Hear The Jackboots Coming To Town?

Oligarchy And The Idiots Who Rule Us

Got Protest? Lose All That You Own - Including Your Rights

Shhhhh ... Don't Speak, Don't Say A Word ...

Marching Straight Towards Authoritarianism

This Is How A "Soft" Dictatorship Works

Gitmo USA

Domestic Spying Abuse: You Were Warned

Can You Hear Jackboots Thundering On The Horizon?

While No One Was Paying Attention ...

Security, Hallowed Be Thy Name And Dominion

On The Final Steps In "Crossing The Rubicon"

More U.S. Secret Prisons And Indefinite Detentions Galore!

The *Real* "Axis Of Evil" Of Our Times

More Case Of Abusive, Paranoid-Driven Security State Domestic Spying

The Authoritarian Security State At Work

The Problems With The FISA Capitulation Bill

Your Privacy - Government Style

Brownshirts 'R US

Domestic Spying: The Ever Convenient Rationale Of The Security State

No One Is Safe: The Real Low Down

Telecom Immunity Capitulation: The Other Problem With This

Welcome To The Security State Of North America

Behold The Wisdom Of SheepIn essence, what Bush is doing in his last days in office is finalize the establishment of tools which allow the government to fully monitor and control the population through what can only be described as an authoritarian security state, while at the same time giving corporations not only unrestrained and unchecked freedoms to do as they will, but furthermore granting them actual powers to infringe upon, intervene into - and consequently, dictate - the private lives of people.

Indeed (emphasis added):
Whenever you apply for a job, you must submit yourself to all sorts of intrusions in your privacy, regardless what kind of job you apply for - from giving urine and/or blood samples, to granting permission for "security checks" on you (including credit reports), to submitting to wide-ranging questionnaires to assess your personality, including your psychological/cognitive/emotional state of being (not counting having to actually go through the ludicrous exercise of submitting yourself to a lie detector).

And when you are employed, you are under constant scrutiny - electronic or otherwise - in order to continually assess your performance during your "day at work". In addition, how many companies/corporations nowadays have "proper employee conduct" codes to which all employees must adhere to - including outside of the work place?

But company/corporate "elites" crave total control over their employees and there are large periods of time in a day, a week, a month and a year, when their employees escape their ever-watching, scrutinizing and controlling gaze: off-work hours, week-ends, holidays and vacation time.

Companies/corporations have kept increasing their requirements of what they consider "appropriate performance" on the part of their employees, while freezing (or reducing) wages at the same time.

In short: they ask you to do more and more and more, while they pay less.

Now imagine a day when company/corporate elites can actually know what you do in your "off-work" time - surfing the internet? Watching TV? Renting/buying movies? Reading books? Going to shows? Cheering your favorite team? Just spending time with your family in the backyard?

Imagine also if your employers became intimately aware of every facet of your private life, including whether you are having an affair (or your partner/spouse does), you or a member of your family has been diagnosed with a grave illness, your sexual practices (with or without your partner/spouse), which political party you adhere to, etc.

What kind of power, then, would your employers hold over you, your job and your career?

As example, how many people have so far been fired for "moral conduct incompatible with moral values/proper employee conduct" of a company/corporation outside of work, based only on rumors? Now imagine what can and will happen when actual facts are known.Here is but one tiny example to support this:
I just read something that has verily shocked and outraged me. Via Raw Story - Workers told to shape up or pay up:

"Looking for new ways to trim the fat and boost workers' health, some employers are starting to make overweight employees pay if they don't slim down. Others, citing growing medical costs tied to obesity, are offering fit workers lucrative incentives that shave thousands of dollars a year off health care premiums."

At the last, the companies and corporations are now flatly coming out, unafraid and unfettered, to proclaim their intent of actually controlling your lives as they see fit.

Not only does this constitutes a serious breach of human rights, such encroachment into our personal, private lives would leave us open to any desire, whim and fancy of the moment from high-minded, arrogant corporate bureaucrats whom, let us not forget, will ever remain watchful of the bottom line first and foremost, rather than your health and/or well being.

What's next? Employees being fined for not eating enough veggies? For eating too much meat? For drinking too much coffee? For listening to "non-approved" kinds of music or artists? For reading "non-approved" books or blogs? For watching "non-approved" TV channels and/or shows? For smoking cigarettes or having a drink, at home?

For dating a "non-approved" other?

For having a "non-approved" number of children?

For having a "non-approved" overall lifestyle?

For holding "non-approved" political views?

For following a "non-approved" religion, or specific denomination?

For belonging to a "non-approved" party?

For (fill in the blanks)?

For non-conforming to every single dictate of your employers?

(...) Via at-Largely: Chicago police stormtroopers swarm a gathering of poetry reading on private property - without warning and without warrants. Now, I am not a "fan" of poetry, but still ... looks like the Powers-That-Be decided that poetry was not for your own good, or something to this effect? Perhaps the quite innocent, legal and constitutional gathering was perceived as an exercise in subversion - perhaps even indulging in reading the Constitution, the most subversive type of literature of all? Or perhaps the nefarious shadow of poetic terrorism is on the rise again? How about the clear and immediate danger to Homeland Security for reading in public? After all, knowledge is a very dangerous thing indeed.

And further down we slide the slippery slope ...Yup.

Incidentally, there is a word for all of this: fascism.

The Bush legacy is nothing but a long litany of gradual destruction of the constitution, civil rights and human rights, all in order to leave way for a fascist state.

What is the price to pay indeed after eight years of Bush ...


(Cross-posted from APOV)