Spying and Elections

 Today we shall cover two recent major developments.

First, will be the NSA leaks release to The Guardian newspaper by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The second is the Iranian presidential elections and the cynical US propaganda and demonization of Iran’s electoral/political system

The mass leaking of NSA information by Edward Snowden, now a fugitive-in-hiding somewhere in Hong Kong, have for the 3^rd time since Julian Assange’s Wikileaks revelations about American diplomatic dirty tricks and back-stabbing, and the collateral damage video and other damning Iraqi war data exposed by PFC Bradley Manning, have one again given us a glimpse into the twisted and demented world of US foreign policy.

US politicians and various spook agency bosses have been falling over themselves to deny and justify the massive surveillance operation know as PRISM which has been going on since George W. Bush administration.

The operation involved the warrantless and illegal interception of phone calls, emails and other digital data from various websites and electronic services without the knowledge of congress (supposedly) and the public.

It looks like the constitution and the Bill of Rights are dead documents. 

Of course, the government is falling over themselves to explain how this mass-surveillance program helped prevent fifty acts of terrorism and how it is in the end a good idea.

While the average person can understand the need for surveillance of communications used by a nefarious person who is clearly conspiring to commit a crime, and there is clear evidence given to a judge that there is reasonable amount of suspicion about the target, to blindly canvass the entire nation and other parts of the world is sheer lunacy.

No “war on terror” or obsessions about “security” can ever justify the warrant-less mass-surveillance of millions of people without evidence of wrong-doing. Heck, if there are millions of terrorists out there, then there is no hope and mass surveillance will not do a damn thing to stop them!

If there is good evidence that someone is up to no good, present it to a judge and then get a warrant!  What is so hard about that?

There is no excuse for warrant-less surveillance and eavesdropping, period!

This recent revelation of mass-surveillance by the NSA and other miscreants shows the level of depravity and far-out paranoia ingrained in the US state security establishment.

The NSA revelations also threw the lid off US spying on allies during the G20 conference back in 2009 and US surveillance of foreign nationals. This has infuriated foreign governments.

It speaks volumes about the mentality and aberrant personalities of the people who devise, manage and carry out these programs.

It also shows the ineptness and laziness of these intelligence agencies if they have to sweep up millions of people into their surveillance net. This is a total lack of professionalism.

More than one psychotherapist would have a field day with any of these people employed by the NSA or CIA and other security establishment critters. It would be quite sobering and interesting to see what lies in the minds of these tormented individuals.

What is their problem? What compelled them to enlist their time and efforts in such a murky world of deceit and disregard for any law?

Were they abused as children? Are they untreated bi-polar paranoiacs, sexual deviants, closet perverts who have a elementary school bus stop kid fetish? What’s the deal? Why would you want to work in a job where you illegally eavesdrop on what people say or do or think? What shortcoming or issue are they trying to make up for?

I’m acquainted with a person who used to work for the Dept of the Navy. This person had the misfortune of interacting with the NSA types and found them unappealing and freakish. I was told these people do not take NO for an answer lightly, and will exact revenge if rejected.

Only a psychopath would want to work for these agencies. Normal people don’t get jobs at the NSA or CIA. And spare me the lectures about how these people are serving their country and are trying to keep us safe. That’s just PR for the idiots out there.

It is obvious that the proliferation of these digital mobile technologies, smart phones, GPS devices and social networks since the middle part of the last decade has coincided with the rolling out of this illegal mass-surveillance.

This begs the question, why were these technologies even invented?

Was the whole idea of these resulting products, simply an innocent and spontaneous brainchild of talented private minds, albeit one which has been obviously co-opted/high-jacked and exploited for illegal government surveillance of the US and foreign populations,

Or

Was the whole idea of thse resulting products deliberate government creations from the very beginning, which were/are meant to be used for mass-surveillance purposes since inception, and were just dressed up to look like cutesy and friendly  technologies owned by “private companies” who are in reality government spook agency fronts,

Or

Were these technologies rotten and unruly children born of Donald Rumsfeld’s wet dream called Total Information Awareness, but their implementation was outsourced to private individuals to cover up government involvement, and unfettered access to these creations was given to the government as part of the multi-million/billion-dollar deal with the private individuals and companies?

These are questions which seriously must be asked and investigated, because I have a feeling there is much more to this whole surveillance scandal than meets-the-eye.

But one thing is certain when it comes to the colossal crimes and deceptions committed by the US since 2001. Anyone who still sees the US as the good guy in the world is a stupid, corrupt coward. No decent person will ever go along with US policies and actions.

The Iranian Election

The recent Iranian elections have resulted in the election of moderate cleric Dr. Hassan Rohani.

Of course, the US and western media spared no opportunity to demonize and vilify Iran and its electoral system as being not up to a democratic standard, unfair and not free. This is the standard and canned anti-Iranian fare, which is more hyperbole and propaganda than truth

They point to the vetting process where over six-hundred candidates were disqualified by the Guardian Council. 

But what the western media fails to explain is why there were so many candidates to begin with.

In Iran, unlike in the US, anyone can apply to be a presidential candidate. This naturally created a pool of people who had no experience or education or knowledge of government and what it means to be a president.  Naturally the vast majority of these people were disqualified.

In the US, very few people can apply as candidates for president since the US electoral laws are more restrictive and the applicants themselves must pay a good chunk of money to be a contender, something the majority of Americans cannot afford.

Second, the US media loves to point out that Iran’s electoral system is repressive and controlled by a group of people who pre-select safe candidates to run who are part of the Islamic establishment and anyone who is outside of it is never allowed to run.

But the western media is being both hypocritical and unfair towards Iran by making these accusations, because every nation has some kind of a vetting process for which presidential candidate will be allowed to run, with the US being no exception.

The only difference is that in Iran this vetting process is plainly visible, whereas in the US or other western countries it is done behind the scenes.

In Iran, the clerics hand-pick the candidates that will perpetuate and protect the current system and put Iran’s core interests first.

In the US, the democratic and republican parties internally vet ”viable” candidates according to the whims and wishes of their donors in the corporate/banking/military-industrial world. 

Plus, whereas Iran had six candidates which were presented to the people on an equal footing and all took part in official debates, the US allows only two parties in the presidential debates, where the range of subjects to be debated is tightly controlled by a privately-owned corporation ran by democrats and republicans, as are the questions to be asked.

Yes, there were five other candidates who ran in the US presidential elections of 2012 but they were ignored by the media and not allowed to attend the debates by the two main parties.

Plus, in the US the electoral college, not the popular vote decides the candidates, and people must vote in their assigned districts. In Iran, people can vote in any part of the country.

 And last but not least, after the debacle of the 2000 election, where Al Gore had more votes but Bush was selected by the Supreme Court in what was a sham election, the US has lost the right to criticize and condemn any other country’s elections or electoral systems.

If the US is so concerned about democracy and free elections and peoples’ rights, then it should start with itself first and foremost, as the US political and electoral systems are corrupt and rigged for the benefit of the wealthy and powerful elites, who manipulate the populace and give them pre-selected corporate yes-men as choices.

Then it should call for democracy and free elections in countries who are US allies. It can start with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain, where there isn’t even a fake pretense at democracy of any kind.

What does the US and the American public expect from Iran? That it allows some pro-US/western candidate that will sweep away the present system, arrest its clerics and bow down to every western /Zionist demand, and put foreign interests before the interests of Iran?

Would America ever elect a president or senator or congressman who wants to sweep away the current US political, economic and social system and replace it with a system to the liking of Iran or Russia or China, and submit to the control and interests of foreign countries and presidents above the interests of the US?

If the answer to this is NO, then how can anyone expect the Iranians to do the same? 

The bottom line is that any candidate for public office in any country must submit to the present political, economic and social system. If they do not, they will not be elected, for the job of elected officials is first and foremost to protect and perpetuate the current system and its traditions.

Iranians may have grievances and be angry with their current leadership about some policies and issues, but this should never be construed by the US or the Zionists as some kind of a repressed subconscious yearning to be “liberated” by the west.

After all, 72.2% of voting-age Iranians voted in these elections, so the Iranians certainly do see their current system as legitimate and the best representative of their interests. And contrary to US propaganda, this Iranian election was a defiant slap in the face by the Iranians not against their current establishment, but against the illegal US/western sanctions and policies.

It all comes down to a basic misunderstanding of what democracy is, and means. It is not a one-size-fits-all free-for-all system defined by some foreign country and culture according to their interests or what they think is best.

It is a system in which the people of a particular country are free to elect leaders within the official internally-based scope of their best interests, culture, and customs, who ensure that their national culture and sovereignty will be maintained and survive into the future, without foreign interference or control.

US and western countries do not understand this. They are hell-bent on defining democracy according to their own internal cultural, economic, political and strategic interests and then foist these US/western-centric systems upon other nations, in total disregard of those nations nest interests, aspirations, cultures and norms.

This results in corruption, contradictions and the disregard of popular will in favor of another nation’s interests. This is why democracy has been a mixed bag and generally not working out very well in many countries.

A foreign version of democracy foisted upon a nation is nothing less than a virus, which threatens their future survival.

Again, the US/west must seriously consider the results of this latest election in Iran, because 72.2% is a high number. This number effectively means that the policies of sanctions, virulent propaganda and lies and ill-treatment of Iran by the west have failed, and are having the opposite effect, which resulted in Iranians hunkering down and closing ranks in solidarity with their government.

Now compare these results with barely 50% of voting-age adults who turned out to vote in the US elections last year. This is an embarrassing and pathetic statistic for a country which hails itself as the greatest democracy on earth.  This inconvenient fact may also be why the US/west went into overdrive with trying to de-legitimize the Iranian political and electoral system in the run-up to the elections.

For all Iran’s economic troubles, they know that the US deserves most of the blame, and they definitely will never elect someone who bows down to foreign interests instead of Iranian ones, even if the clerics allow anyone to run freely without any vetting of candidates.

Unfortunately, the US and their western slaves will most likely fail to comprehend the obvious message from the Iranian election results.

Instead of rapprochement and a loosening of sanctions, more anti-Iranian propaganda and sanctions will follow, because in the sick and demented world of US/Zionist politics, the recent election results in Iran simply mean that not enough anti-Iranian propaganda, threats and economic strangulation are being applied on Iran.

The absolute worst thing that can be said about the Iranian electoral system is that it is no worse than the US or any other western one.