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Please don't speak for everyone. I care. Many people care. You may feel as though the median person is too poor or dumb or disempowered, and that may disempowe

Please don't speak for everyone. I care. Many people care. You may feel as though the median person is too poor or dumb or disempowered, and that may disempower you, but there are many other people who tirelessly work against these types of overreaches, whether its' FOIA requests, campaigns, articles, or otherwise. I see no point in such a post, it drifted into some sort of anti-democracy rant.

user3939382 4y ago
I feel that the entire machinery of the government at the state and Federal levels is so thoroughly captured and corrupt that its levers can now never be used to cleanse itself. The American people have/had rights they didn’t have to sacrifice to get, but which are valuable to a very determined and well-organized group of people, and so they are and will evaporate. The average American has never even heard of Snowden.
zaptheimpaler 4y ago
Sorry about the drift into a rant. My point is to say that the standard playbook for creating social or policy change is broken. The playbook is roughly - 1. build awareness via a nice article like the link 2. people read it? 3. people do something about it? But very few people read. The actual issues in broad public awareness are whatever crap is on Fox news. Beyond that, even if people get mad they have no structured way to demand a change and it rarely happens. The rant is tangentially related because we still haven't seen any action on the Uvalde PD, abortion laws just got revoked, there is a war in Ukraine, we might soon be in a recession, the climate might kill us all, etc etc. These are issues where the public actually cares, but nothing seems to change. Surveillance is not even on the list with all the other fires burning. I guess I'm just saying "caring" about an issue is meaningless in the absence of the power to effect any change. We dont even have the basic ability to ask a government official a question and get a straight answer. We don't seem to have any common knowledge or consensus on how to demand accountability from the government. These are much deeper issues that have to somehow be addressed before anything happens.
- hunterb123 4y ago
  Most of those issues either are caused by the usual people that have been in power in congress, or aren't issues that Americans should even care about but have convinced to be (Ukraine) as to keep money spigots flowing. Vote out the establishment in the senate and the house if you really want change. Rule of thumb if they've been there for 50 years they're okay with the status quo, regardless of party.

user3939382 4y ago

I feel that the entire machinery of the government at the state and Federal levels is so thoroughly captured and corrupt that its levers can now never be used to cleanse itself. The American people have/had rights they didn’t have to sacrifice to get, but which are valuable to a very determined and well-organized group of people, and so they are and will evaporate. The average American has never even heard of Snowden.

zaptheimpaler 4y ago

Sorry about the drift into a rant. My point is to say that the standard playbook for creating social or policy change is broken. The playbook is roughly - 1. build awareness via a nice article like the link 2. people read it? 3. people do something about it? But very few people read. The actual issues in broad public awareness are whatever crap is on Fox news. Beyond that, even if people get mad they have no structured way to demand a change and it rarely happens. The rant is tangentially related because we still haven't seen any action on the Uvalde PD, abortion laws just got revoked, there is a war in Ukraine, we might soon be in a recession, the climate might kill us all, etc etc. These are issues where the public actually cares, but nothing seems to change. Surveillance is not even on the list with all the other fires burning. I guess I'm just saying "caring" about an issue is meaningless in the absence of the power to effect any change. We dont even have the basic ability to ask a government official a question and get a straight answer. We don't seem to have any common knowledge or consensus on how to demand accountability from the government. These are much deeper issues that have to somehow be addressed before anything happens.

hunterb123 4y ago
Most of those issues either are caused by the usual people that have been in power in congress, or aren't issues that Americans should even care about but have convinced to be (Ukraine) as to keep money spigots flowing. Vote out the establishment in the senate and the house if you really want change. Rule of thumb if they've been there for 50 years they're okay with the status quo, regardless of party.