Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Domestic Spying

A couple of months ago, I wrote a post called "Rooting for Uniforms" about how Americans tend to support programs they once opposed when they are proposed by members of their own political party. Nothing has exemplified this phenomenon more than the NSA spying scandal.

During the Administration of George W. Bush, when it was revealed that the government was engaging in warrantless wiretapping, the Democratic party and liberal blogosphere exploded with rage. This was called, rightfully, an absolute infringement on the Fourth Amendment, an extra-constitutional expansion of executive police power, and an erosion of our right of privacy. The Conservative political class responded with the usual terror scare tactics, and how in a post 9/11 world we were going to have to live with giving up some liberties in order to remain safe.

In the last two weeks, thanks to the leaks of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and the reporting of Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald, we have learned the under the Obama Administration the NSA has expanded its domestic surveillance including gathering metadata on every phone call made within the United States, and collecting data directly from the servers of many of the largest internet companies in the United States. The administration claims that these types of activities were authorized under the re-authorization of the Patriot Act as well of the FISA Amendemnts Act (FAA).

You would think that this disclosure would have resulted in a huge liberal backlash against the Obama administration. But, you would be wrong if you did. Instead, every mainstream liberal talking head went into overdrive trying to defend the administration's actions as being necessary for the protection of our country, and painting the whistleblower Snowden as a traitor. From Lawrence O'Donnell to Bill Maher to Joy Reid, the airwaves were filled with liberal commentators who had eviscerated the Bush administration for similar, though less intrusive, programs of domestic surveillance, praising the Obama Administration for their unprecedented dragnet of personal information about virtually every American citizen. Democratic Senators and Congressmen were lining up to defend the administration's actions declaring them legal and even transparent, though conducted in complete secrecy. Even Senator Al Franken, considered one of the most liberal in Washington, said he wasn't the least bit worried about these intrusions.

During all of this, Pew Research Center released a poll looking at the views of the government monitoring e-mails based on party affiliation which when compared with a similar poll of a similar question in 2002, showed disturbing results:

It seems that the partisanship that has brought our legislative process to a complete halt across the nation has permeated throughout the electorate itself. We, as a nation, have nobody to blame for our broken political system than ourselves. As long as we judge the worth of a policy based on which party is proposing it, rather than whether it is good for the country, we don't deserve anything other than the sleazy, partisan, broken government that we have now.

I will say this again: when you look at any proposal of any kind, especially one in which the government asks for more power to intrude on your every day lives, ask yourself if you would support the policy if it were put forth by the other party. If your answer is no, then it is a bad proposal and you should be against it.

What this latest grab of power on behalf of the government should show us is that neither of the two major parties in this country represent our best interests as Americans. Any government that would spy on its on people en masse, is not a representative democracy and does not deserve our allegiance. The only thing that this current group of so-called leaders in Washington and elsewhere deserves is to be thrown out of office, each and every one of them. And if the next group that takes their place shows as much contempt for the protections of the individual liberties of our citizens as the current  Congress, then they deserve the same fate.

It is time for us to stand up to our leaders and reassert our power as Americans. We must hold both Democrats and Republicans responsible for the lawlessness that they have unleashed on this nation and demand a government which doesn't see its citizens as enemies of the state.

The Amazing Benefits to NSA's Domestic Spying Program

It was revealed this week that the National Security Agency and the FBI have been collecting metadata on every telephone call placed within the United States for the last seven years. A day later it was revealed that through its PRISM platform the NSA has been tapping directly into the servers of virtually every major internet company beginning in 2007.

Now there has been a lot of bellyaching on the part of the civil liberties community (read: America hating communists). Woe is me! Our data is being collected! Cry me a river.

I would like to focus on the benefits that such a treasure trove of data could bring to us.

For instance, the next time you are filling out a job application and it asks for your most recent five addresses and you can't seem to remember the address of that studio apartment you lived in for three months, just dial up the NSA and ask.

The next time you can't remember your password? The NSA can help you out with that.

Ever had a hankering to view your old zombie My Space page and don't remember what your login was or if My Space actually still exists? The friendly folks at the NSA can easily pull up those pages for you.

Hey, NSA, what was my old friend's Spotify playlist that I liked so much? You know, the one that had the really great tribal beats on it? Yeah, that's the one. Thanks, man. I couldn't have done that without you.

So, the next time you want to whine about all the privacy invasion this and military industrial complex that, remember: Let the Surveillance State's massive data mining work for you!

This message brought to you by the new NSA: We're not just for indiscriminate killing anymore; and by Organizing for America.

A Short Note on Obama's Drone Memo

The Obama Administration through a memorandum written by Attorney General Eric Holder revealed what many have suspected for some time - that the United States has killed four U.S. citizens in drone strikes in foreign countries. What may be most revealing about the memo is that only one of the four was actually "targeted" by the U.S. government - Anwar al Awlaki. 

This has caused many to speculate that 3 out of the 4 were therefore killed "by accident."  This is likely at best a mis-characterization of what actually happened. 

Although the memo is bereft of any additional information on the circumstances surrounding these 3 strikes, it is likely that these three Americans (one of them 16 year-old Abdulraman Awlaki) were victims of what are known as "signature strikes." That is, that the targets, although unknown, fit a certain set of characteristics which this administration has determined justify death from above. 

Now, of course, the administration won't tell us (or anyone else apparently) what these characteristics are. From what investigative journalists have been able to surmise, these characteristics involve sex (male), dress, possession of firearms and other similar characteristics which the administration has determined are indicative of terrorists. Unfortunately, these are also indicative of many adult males in the areas of Afghanistan, Yemen, and Pakistan that are the regular targets of U.S. drone strikes. Therefore, these strikes often lead to the murders of innocent civilians, a statistic on which the administration is still unwilling to comment, and which fuels much of the animosity felt in the Arab world toward the United States. 

What is important to keep in mind about this revelation is that these killings of U.S. citizens without trial, charge, due process, or any judicial involvement were not accidents. They are just part of standard operating procedure for the Obama administration. Although they did not know that 3 of the 4 were American citizens when they were killed, it wouldn't have mattered if they had. This coupled with the ever expanding definition of "combatant" (now defined as any male of military age who is in a targeted area) make a large portion of the Arab world, terrorist or not, a legitimate target of deadly American military might. 

Following 9/11 we asked why it was that "they" hated us and there was no one answer. Now there is: drones. It is for this reason that this policy of extrajudicial assassination by the use of armed unmanned drones must be ended immediately and never pursued again. 

Lack of Serious Opposition Leaves Obama's Power Unchecked

The press and blogosphere has been alive with been alive with scandal these past weeks, all pointing toward a serious problem for the Obama Administration. Starting with Benghazi, then the IRS scandal, then the subpoena of AP phone records and the subpoena of a Fox News journalists email in which the DOJ referred to the journalist as a co-conspirator or aider and abettor to the crime in which it was investigating, the alleged leak of classified information on North Korea by a State Department official.

While any one of these issues would be considered serious, it is only the escalating attack on journalists that really has any potential to be seriously harmful to the administration. However, you would not know this by following the news or listening to Republican leaders.

In a week that revealed serious infringement of First and Fourth Amendment by the same Administration that at its outset promised to be "the most transparent administration in history," the leaders of the President's opposition were screaming about "Benghazi" and believe it or not, whether or not the President should have held his own umbrella at a joint appearance with the Prime Minister of Turkey. Seriously.

Ever since President Obama took office, the Republican party has made its mission to obstruct, embarrass, and harass the President at every opportunity. They have done this generally by simply ignoring reality and creating a President who doesn't actually exist. This foreign born, Marxist, Socialist, Muslim, terrorist President I refer to as Fauxbama. Although attacking Fauxbama did gain the GOP the House of Representatives in 2010, it has generally failed to do any serious harm to the administration because the attacks are so far from reality that they allow the administration to discard any attack from the opposition, whether it be legitimate or not, as a tin-foil hat, black helicopter, conspiracy theory.

Because of their inability or unwillingness to make serious arguments against the Obama administration, the GOP has abdicated its responsibility to act as a check on the growing and disturbing expansion of executive power, begun under the previous administration, on which the Obama administration has embarked. This was seen in stark terms this past week.

When it was learned that DOJ seized two months worth of phone records of the AP and its journalists as part of a leak investigation supposedly concerning an article the AP had published about a failed Al Qaeda bomb plot against the United States, most civil libertarians hit the roof. For some time, based on the prosecutions of whistleblowers under the Espionage Act, the prosecution of Army Private Bradley Manning, and the investigation of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the civil liberties community had been warning about this administration's disregard for privacy and press freedom for some time. However, the mainstream press and both sides of the political aisle had more or less ignored the issue. Now, that one of the largest mainstream news organizations had been targeted in an investigation which appears from all indications to have overstepped even the DOJ's own policies regarding obtaining press records, it appeared that we now had a scandal which had some legitimacy to it.

This week, close on the heels of the AP subpoena, it was uncovered that the DOJ had obtained e-mails of a Fox News reporter who had gathered information from a State Department official on North Korea. In the subpoena, which was issued nearly three years ago, the reporter, James Rosen is referred to as a co-conspirator or aider and abettor of the subject of the investigation by soliciting the disclosure of classified material. In essence, the DOJ is saying that Rosen committed espionage by simply acting as a journalist. This kind of attack on the press is almost without precedent (the Nixon administration after failing to prosecute whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg or prevent the New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers, tried to prosecute the reporter who published the story, Neil Sheehan to no avail).

However, as has been par for the course for the GOP, instead of going after the Obama Administration for something that clearly appears to be an inexcusable and unwarranted expansion of executive power, the Republicans instead focused on their old standbyes, the attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya in which the U.S. Ambassador to Libya was killed, and what appears to be a troubling, but minor scandal involving increased scrutiny given to Tea Party groups seeking tax exempt status as 501(c)(4) organizations.

The problem with these is that there appears to be very little to either of these "scandals". There has been no incident that has been investigated more by the Republicans than the Benghazi attack. Yet, all that they seem to have come up with so far is that the talking points given to U.N. Secretary Susan Rice were incorrect and either intentionally or incompetently misleading, and that the President described the incident as an "act of terror" rather than a "terrorist attack."

There appeared late last week to be some momentum to this story after ABC News White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl reported that he had obtained White House e-mails that showed that the talking points were changed in order to protect the State Department. However, what appeared to be a major scoop and perhaps a "smoking gun" was quickly dashed when it was reported (embarrassingly by Jake Tapper at CNN, the reporter whom Karl replaced at ABC) that the e-mails in fact said nothing of the sort, a fact which was confirmed when the White House released the actual e-mails. Karl was forced to admit that in fact he had not seen the e-mails but a "source" had read him a summary of the e-mails, a summary which turned out in fact to be fabricated. Inexplicably, Karl is still standing by his story, but that is an issue for another post.

The IRS scandal has a little bit more legitimacy to it. It is certainly improper for any administrative agency to use political beliefs to target certain groups, and that appears to be, at least in part, what the IRS did to Tea Party groups. However, there is some legitimacy to doing this in this circumstance, based on both the proliferation of 501(c)(4) groups following the Supreme Court's Citizens' United decision, as well as the quick expansion of Tea Party groups following the 2008 election. Inquiring whether or not these groups were legitimate non profits seems to be something we would want the IRS to do. Now, if only right wing political groups were targeted, or if these groups disproportionately had their applications denied on strictly partisan grounds, this is something that is very troubling indeed and needs to be investigated and prosecuted. However, there is no evidence that either of these things are the case now.

So, why has the GOP focused on these, rather than the AP scandal, and ongoing increasing scrutiny of journalists? There are probably a number of reasons. First among these is that it is quite possible that the GOP leadership agrees with Administration policy on these issues. In fact, this weekend, Senate Majority Leader said so on Sunday's Meet the Press, while again focusing on the IRS and Benghazi issues. Second, is that the AP and Fox News scandals, and the ongoing war on whistleblowers and journalists is not a simple issue. It involves very complicated issues of national security, the classification of information, Constitutional protections, and the reasons for the Administration taking the position they have on prosecuting leaks with such zealousness.

However, the more that is brought out about both the AP and Fox News stories, the more it appears that this is a scandal which could end up doing serious damage to this Administration. For the most in depth investigations into the AP scandal I have seen, please read the work that has been done by Marcy Wheeler. You can find her very good Salon.com article here, and can read her continuing investigations into the AP story at www.emptywheel.net or follow her on Twitter @emptywheel. From reading her work, and other articles about the AP investigation, appears that there is more than simply a leak investigation going on here. At the very least, it appears that the administration may be trying to hide either internal leaks that were authorized and had much more serious implications for our security and the security of our agents than the AP story, or that there is a cover up of administration politicizing threats to the U.S. surrounding the anniversary of Osama Bin Laden's death, when in fact no such threats actually existed.

In any event, outside of the political implications of such a scandal, what the most serious implication of both the AP and Fox News scandals is that the Obama Administration is trying to curtail the last, most effective check on executive power that we have in a free society -- a free and unhindered press. They are doing this by freezing out any and all sources of information that do not comport with official administration views. With the Democrats showing repeated unwillingness to stand up to anything this President does, no matter how wrong or inconsistent with previously stated policies, and the Republicans unwillingness to seriously hold the administration responsible for its repeated misdeeds, the press is our only hope to uncover the truth and hold our government accountable.

If we fail to protect our press and hold the Obama Administration accountable for its attacks on press freedom and privacy, we will have nobody left to defend us at all.

On Empathy

I can't help it.

When I see somebody crying, I cry. When I see someone in pain, I feel pain.

It's who I am. It's all I know.

It seems though that I am the exception rather than the rule.

We have an empathy deficit in our country. We are cold. We are suspicious. We are unfeeling. Our hearts are hard. Our souls are empty.

On April 15, once again our country was the subject of a terrorist attack. It was carried out not by a well organized cell of foreign terrorists, but by two bumbling young brothers whose motives are still unknown.

Already there are calls to take action both domestically and internationally. This isolated and incredibly stupid attack is being used as justification for everything from increasing domestic surveillance, to attacking immigrants, to going to war yet again.

The FBI is swooping in to charge or pressure everyone who ever knew the brothers. The younger brother has been arrested and his friends charged as accessories after the fact. The older brother's widow is being followed and surveilled 24 hours a day. In possibly the most disturbing occurrence, she can't even find anywhere to bury her husband, as if somehow by denying his body a resting place, we can undo the damage he had wrought through his bombs.

What the hell is wrong with us? Is this what we have become as a nation?

Just a quick perusal of the news headlines or my twitter feed shows that what happened in Boston on April 15 is an every day occurrence across much of the world. In most cases the suffering inflicted on these civilians in other countries is either directly or indirectly the result of the policies and actions of the United States.

I point this out not to excuse the actions of the Tsarnaevs or to cast blame on the US for what happened in Boston. I point it out simply to say that this is an opportunity for us to understand, just a little bit, what many people around the world suffer every day. That maybe, just maybe, we could form a connection with those civilians across the planet who live with the threat of bombs, with the reality of lost limbs, maimed bodies, dead children on a daily basis.

I recall in a discussion on race while in law school following the verdict in the OJ Simpson murder trial, saying that this was an opportunity for white folks who were outraged at the verdict and were feeling rage and disbelief many felt at that time, to understand just a little bit what African Americans felt after the acquittal of the police officers who beat Rodney King. That if we could understand that, perhaps we could move beyond the divisions that continue to separate us.

That didn't go so well. But, I'll try it again.

As we go forward from this point, we need to remember what the last 12 years have brought us. In our understandable rage following the September 11 attacks, we gave up our privacy, our security, and many of our rights. We have been at war for 12 years. We have destroyed our economy. We have turned much of the world, who was with us in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, against us. We have tortured, we have assassinated, we have droned. We have turned against many of our most cherished values in the name of safety and the prevention of "terror."

We have tried everything except understanding.

We still have a chance. We can increase our empathy. We can see those things that we share with those "others" that we see as our enemies. We can make a small effort to feel the pain that these "others" feel and recognize it as our pain too. We can see that the mourning that is felt by the parent of an Arab child killed in a drone attack is the same mourning of the parent of a child killed in Newtown. We can see that the shame felt by a devout Muslim seeing her religion slandered by a suicide bombing is the same shame felt by a devout Christian seeing her religion slandered by a zealot holding a sign that says "God Hates Fags." We can see that the fear felt by a villager in Yemen afraid every day of having their village bombed in the same fear we have of being attacked by another unknown terrorist.

We've tried everything else. Look where it has brought us.

Raw and Scattered

Raw and scattered pretty much describes my feelings regarding the bombing at the Boston Marathon yesterday. It really hasn't sunk in what happened. I don't really know what to say, but bear with me as I process through some of what I have seen, read, and heard over the past day.

What surprises me is that I don't have the raw anger that I felt after other tragedies such as 9/11, or Newtown, or similar unspeakable horrors. Perhaps I'm too tired to be angry. Too tired of these senseless things happening, too tired of feeling helpless, too tired of hate. There certainly is a lot of anger out there -- you can see it in the streets, on social media, or on television as people lash out at whoever they can, even though we don't know and may not know for a long time who it was that committed this atrocity or why.

What I do feel is sadness and pain. The unedited images of the injuries to those in Boston yesterday -- some race participants, others spectators or supporters -- are images that I will probably never forget. They are images of unimaginable injuries -- legs with all their flesh blown off until only a jagged remnant of a bone remains, scorched skin, faces numb with shock. What makes me sadder is that it appears from the placement and design of the bombs that this was exactly what was intended as the outcome -- to maim as much as to kill.

Maybe not knowing who is responsible for these evil acts is for the best. Maybe it will cause us to take a look at evil and hate itself. Maybe it will make us look at what leads one to these acts of unimaginable violence. Not knowing who is responsible prevents us from blaming a particular ethnicity or group or religion or political belief (although many still do). It makes us see that regardless of who is responsible, the act itself is still wrong, and hopefully teaches us that responding in kind will do nothing but foster more of the same type of actions.

Looking at those gruesome images from the bombing made me think of those who have been through wars and have seen these things before. When faced with such horror, one can have one of two reactions -- one can give into the violence, ratchet up their hate, and vow eternal vengeance; or one turn against the violence, increase their love, and work for peace. I am amazed at those that have viewed such carnage up close and still can love, can have hope, can have faith, and can work for peace and justice. I look at people like Chris Hedges who as a war correspondent has witnessed some of the most inhuman brutality one could ever witness, and still devotes his life to causes of peace through his journalism and activism and throughout maintains a deep religious faith. If more of us could aspire to that, the world would be a much better place.

It is said often by many that God is Love. If that is true, then the inverse is also true -- Love Is God. The only way we can respond as people of faith is to love more. The only way that we can aspire to be more like God is to love more. The only response to hate for the faithful is love.

Love more. It's all we have.

Rooting for Uniforms

This is a post in three parts. Not to be confused with This American Life.

Part I: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Kevin Garnett

I grew up loving the Boston Celtics. I loved everything about them. Their teamwork, their style of play, their attitude, their ugliness -- everything. Maybe it had to do with the fact that I was an average sized white kid who had no hops, but loved basketball, and instead of relying on talent, had to rely on a bruising, physical game in order to survive. Whatever the reason, I lived and died with Boston Celtics basketball.

The Celtics went 22 years between NBA championships. The years between 1986 and 2008 were beset with tragedy (the deaths of Len Bias and Reggie Lewis) and mediocrity. Many of the Celtics teams scraped the bottom of the barrell, rarely winning and often times being an embarrassment to themselves and their fans. During the same time the game changed for the worse. The NBA no longer relied on quick, smart passing, elaborate teamwork, and superior shooting, but was a one-on-one up and down the floor style with brick after brick being thrown up. It was boring and almost unwatchable.

But, prior to the 2007-08 season, the Celtics signed two superstars -- Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen -- to supplement their resident all-star forward Paul Pierce and instantly became a contender for the NBA crown. They reached the 2008 finals against the hated Los Angeles Lakers, and there I was again, living and dying with each game rooting on my beloved Celtics.

So, why did I suddenly care? There was certainly no connection between the team that featured Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Danny Ainge, Bill Walton, Robert Parrish, Dennis Johnson and a host of various scrubs, and this sleek athletic showtime Celtics team chock full of superstars. I was certainly far removed from the teenager that obsessed over every statistic in every game all season long.

What it comes down to that we as Americans root for uniforms. If we grew up rooting for the Yankees, even though Reggie Jackson, Dave Winfield and Graig Nettles have long since retired, chances are we will still root for the Yankees, or Celtics, or Cowboys or what have you. This is the same if our team suddenly trades for a player we hated when he played for our rival team. He has our uniform now, so suddenly we love him today when we hated him yesterday. Our loyalty is not to the players or even the franchise, our loyalty is to the brand. There is something truly Capitalist about that, and the fact that brands can have such an influential effect on our behavior.

When this is related to sports teams, it really doesn't have a huge impact on our society. However, when it relates to politics and policies, this type of behavior is much more serious.

Part II: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love ObamaCare

The American political system for better or for worse (oh, ok, for worse) is divided into two main parties -- Democrat and Republican. Those who maintain their allegience to one of these parties really do see substantive differences between the two, and sometimes there are. However, it amazes me how the positions of these parties can morph almost imperceptably overnight and take their millions of loyalists along for the ride.

One example of this is the years long fight over ObamaCare.

When he was elected in 2008, and took office in 2009 as our nation's first African-American President, Barack Obama decided, whether wisely or unwisely, to make the push for a national health insurance system his number one domestic policy initiative. The policy that he introduced would mandate most citizens to purchase private health insurance, would make reforms to the private health care insurance system such as banning denials based upon pre-existing conditions, would set up health insurance exchanges similar to risk pools where individuals could shop for the lowest cost plans, and would penalize those who did not purchase insurance by making them pay a penalty or tax.

This plan was nothing new. It had been implemented in Massachusetts by then Republican governor Mitt Romney. But, the plan was much older than that. In fact it was the exact plan that had been hatched by the ultra conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation and floated as the Republican alternative to Bill Clinton's auspicious but ultimately failed universal national healthcare plan in 1993. I know this because I was standing outside the press conference where all of the Republican Senators announced their plan back then, handing out press releases to all of the reporters trying to get them to cover a press conference later that afternoon put forth by the Health Care Coalition, a conglomerate of labor leaders and other progressive groups pushing to support the Clinton plan.

The Republican plan in 1993 was roundly criticized by Democrats of all stripes as a boondoggle and a sell out to the insurance industry, falling fall short of the goal of universal coverage that was touted by the Clintons. As it turned out, nothing was passed and we were left with a system which became more and more expensive, leaving any kind of adequate health coverage beyond the reach of more and more Americans.

So, having a Democrat touting a plan which had been hatched by the most conservative parts of the Republican party and had been implemented by a self-described severely conservative governor to pretty good success, you would think that passage would be fairly easy. Of course, the opposite was the case. Republicans viciously attacked Obama's health care plan, alleging it limited freedom, was socialized medicine, would lead to rationed care, and would establish death panels who would decide when to kill your grandma. None of these were remotely true, of course, but their vehement opposition to the Affordable Care Act probably helped the GOP take over the House of Representatives and gain seats in the Senate in 2010, while at the same time costing them the Presidency in 2012.

To show how exactly this was "rooting for uniforms" much like in sports, let's look at what would have likely happened had Mitt Romney bested John McCain for the GOP nomination in 2008 and won the Presidency against Obama (it's less far fetched than you think).

Upon taking office, President Romney would have almost certainly introduced as his main domestic policy initiative, the very same plan which he so successfully implemented as Governor in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts health insurance plan is almost identical to Obama's Affordable Care Act. What would have followed would be almost farcical knowing what happened over the last five years. Immediately, every Republican elected official would line up touting the benefits of the plan. They would almost certainly emphasize that the Romney plan would promote personal responsibility and reward those who had purchased health care all along by lowering their rates and punish those who lazily refused to pay into the system by fining them. The benefits to small businesses by setting up separate exchanges for small business would be shown to be a way to lift up the job creators who up to now had been unable to afford to provide health insurance for their employees even though they had wanted to. Moreover, the Republicans would have responded to criticisms from the Left that unlike socialized medicine or a single payer system that was run by the government, the Romney health care plan kept individual choice and private benefits, keeping the government out of your health care decisions.

The main opposition to President Romney's plan would be led by Nancy Pelosi and probably Senator Obama, pointing out the huge subsidies being paid to the health insurance industry and drug manufacturers. They would call this more corporate welfare. They would lament the huge costs that would be imposed on the poor. You would hear heartbreaking tales of single mothers, or old retirees forced to choose between health insurance and food. These same working poor would end up homeless when forced to pay the penalty for not being able to afford private health insurance. This would be attacked as another tax being imposed on the least fortunate among us, while fat cats and the wealthiest with their Cadillac policies got superior coverage and at the same time were getting huge tax cuts proposed by the same Republicans trying to force this despicable plan on our nation.

Eventually the Democrats would squeeze out some small concessions probably in the form of expanded exchanges, or greater subsidies for lower income individuals, but would in the end go ahead and vote in favor of the Romney plan. This would be hailed by both sides as a huge step forward and much better than the system we had before hand. But you would never hear a peep about how the Romney plan was an attack on individual freedoms, nor anything about death panels or killing grandma. The only people railing about things like this would be considered lunatic libertarian fringe elements and this would never see the inside of any courtroom, much less come down to a breathless 5-4 decision in the Supreme Court.

Part III: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Drones

But nothing shows the outright absurdity of the willingness of Americans to support policies that they would have despised had they been proposed by the "other team" more than President Obama's drone program. When he ran for President in 2008, Senator Barack Obama was overwhelmingly critical (rightfully so, in my opinion) of the foreign policy of then President George W. Bush. He was most outspoken about the use of torture to attempt to obtain information and the prosecution of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Based on the posture of his campaign, one would have been reasonable in expecting that once elected, President Obama would reverse course on these programs, immediately draw down troops, close Guantanamo Bay, end indefinite detention, and in a responsible manner in our dealings around the world.

However, once elected, President Obama continued our troop deployments, increasing our troop levels in Afghanistan, kept Guantanamo open, increased the use of indefinite detention expanding it beyond any levels previously used by the Bush administration, and continued to act aggressively and recklessly in our foreign policy.

But the one policy implemented by Obama that has caused the most consternation world wide is his use of drones to carry out targeted killings across the Middle East. These attacks know no geographic limitations being carried out in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East. We actually know very little about the program, including the rules of engagement and exactly where the drones have been deployed, against whom they have been deployed, or the reasons that any particular individual or group was targeted based on the extreme secrecy the Obama administration has placed over the program.

What little we do know about the program is incredibly disturbing. We know that many of the attacks are so-called "signature" killings, not directed at any particular person or Al-Qaeda leader, but instead executed because the target fits a profile which is indicative of persons who may be terrorists. This has resulted in killings of innocent civilians. When faced with criticisms over the killing of civilians, the administration inexplicably simply re-defined the term combatant to include any male person of military age who is found in a combat zone.

We have learned that the administration does not exempt American citizens from being targeted by drones, as was evident with the assassination of American citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki in Yemen. Awlaki had been a high priority target of the Obama administration based upon his popularity among young Muslims who were exposed to his militant speeches mostly through You Tube videos, as well as his apparent participation in plots against the U.S. including the supposed underwear bomber on a plane headed for Detroit. Two weeks after his assassination, Awlaki's 16 year-old son, American citizen Abdulrahman Awlaki was killed by a predator drone. We still do not know if the younger Awlaki was targeted since the administration will not release this information, but there appears to be no evidence that Abdulrahman Awlaki had any involvement in Al Qaeda. When pressed to answer about the younger Awlaki's death by We Are Change's Luke Rudkowski, former Obama press secretary and current MSNBC contributor Robert Gibbs stated "I would suggest you should have a far more responsible father."

We learned in a New York Times article that there was a secret kill list, presided over by the President himself, in which it is decided who will be targeted for assassination next. These weekly meetings have been dubbed Terror Tuesdays and the potential targets laid out on cards similar to baseball cards. The term developed for the criteria for which it is decided who lives and who dies is the Orwellian sounding "disposition matrix." In all of these drone strikes, meetings, assassination decisions, there is no judicial oversight and the position of the administration is that having representatives of the various parts of the executive branch alone discuss whether due process has been met is sufficient under the Constitution.

All of this came to a head during the confirmation hearings for CIA director John Brennan who had participated both in the prosecution of the drone program as well as in the previous administration's "enhanced interrogation", i.e. torture program. A couple of Senators, some Republican, some Democrat, pressed the nominee on the issue of drones and whether American citizens in the United States could be the target of drone strikes. It was learned that the Obama administration had failed to respond to multiple inquiries of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence regarding the drone program and had not provided any of the legal memos justifying the extrajudicial assassination program. It was clear that the administration was not only bypassing the judiciary, but the legislative branch as well, ignoring all oversight of its program. The climax of this was a 12 hour filibuster of Brennan's nomination by Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky to draw attention to the administration's abuse of their power and refusal to give answers to the legitimate and reasonable inquiries of the Senate.

There is no doubt that had these policies been carried out by the Bush administration that there would be outrage on the left. It would be the top story every night on MSNBC. Democratic Senators would be lining up demanding answers, calling for hearings and investigations into the abuse of power by the Bush administration. There would be more than one call for the President to be impeached. There would be mass protests in the streets and robust debate over whether or not this activity was even legal under U.S. and international law.

So, what was the reaction from Democrats? Mostly silence. The very same people who vented overwhelming criticism at the previous administration now agreed overwhelmingly with these policies being carried out by Obama. This can best be exemplified in this picture showing the results of a phone in poll on the liberal Ed Show on MSNBC the night of the Brennan hearings:

It is simply inconceivable that the viewership of the Ed Show would be agreeing with a Republican president targeting American citizens for assassination, much less supporting it by a nearly four to one margin. This is probably the most overwhelming example of the American public rooting for uniforms, willing to accept something they previously found distasteful simply because it is proposed by someone they voted for or like.

Conclusion: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Third Parties

So what does this all tell us?

I'm not going to venture a guess as to why the American electorate acts this way, or why those who strongly identify as either Democrats or Republicans are so quick to defend any policy put forth by their party regardless of whether they supported or extremely opposed the same policy previously. That is something for psychologists and sociologists to study.

What I can conclude is that what this does show is that our two-party political system is much less about ideology and much more about gaining and maintaining power. The similarities between Democrats and Republicans are far greater than their differences. But by being able to marshall their party loyalists to support them no matter what and to stick with their parties as their policies shift more often than the wind, both Democrats and Republicans have been able to stave off any serious challenges from parties either on the left or the right.

Both the Republican and Democratic parties exist to maintain a system of corporate governance whereby elected officials adopt legislation which creates the most favorable conditions possible for their large corporate paymasters. As money becomes more and more involved in the political system and politicians rely on large donors to maintain their careers, the entrenchment of this corporatocracy will increase and become permanent.

Of course, as long as people are willing to support their stated political party no matter how far they stray from their stated positions, there will be less and less incentive for them to hold themselves accountable to their non corporate constituents. The parties know this, and as Obama has shown us, the ability to campaign in one way and govern in a completely different way is not only possible, but overwhelmingly successful. This will be the template upon which future Democratic campaigns will be built.

Until people are willing to demand accountability from their leaders, and be willing to walk away from their stated parties, this will not change. I cannot see myself voting for a Presidential candidate from either major party in the future. There will be those who claim to be liberals who will criticize this saying that I am empowering Republicans. But I simply refuse to take part in this grand political Kabuki theater wherein the candidates act out their elaborate roles simply for show, while carrying out policies which completely undercut their promises and stated beliefs.

It is only through more people making this kind of commitment to refuse the current corrupt system of government which controls our nation that we can begin to see real change.