One thing I had failed to expect of the Obama term II was how modern politics seem to focus on the scandals as soon as possible during the second term. During Bush's fifth year it seemed to be one thing after another after another then Katrina happened, and his dopey, non-response and it seemed his legacy was permanently cemented in shit. And so it appears it shall be for Obama. At first we had a plague of micro-scandals that are mostly bullshit (Benghazi in particular) but then came the NSA leak. (Right guys? Assuming this stupid blog has been sucked up into my meta-data file, yes?)
Like many people my biggest gripe with Obama has continued to be the notion that he continued all the Patriot Act, George W. Bush over-reach and spying that he initially claimed he wouldn't do prior to becoming President. And that totally fucking sucks. Apparently, once he got in he then saw the value, and lets play along, the scary boogey-man-ness that made it impossible to dial down the greatest intrusion in our (what is now clearly imagined) rights to privacy. So, we have illegal American citizen assassinations, total data/phone/internet monitoring and also an aggressive need to offensively cyber attack whomever we want with our secret technological terror. It's beyond science fiction and it's totally not what I pretended to hope for when I first voted for Obama. I mean, it's not just him BUT now that this extreme invasion of technology and abuse of executive power is now only further cemented for years to come. I have a hard time believing that some benign, non-egotistical human being who actually believes in America and it's people will ever get this job then successfully roll this whole program backwards. It seems like we have already lost that hypothetical battle and fuck it anyways...Game of Thrones is on!
Seriously, I am as guilty as anyone of just tuning it all out with my hands in the air since there is nothing I can do outside of very occasionally posting pointless un-read blogs (well, almost unread, right NSA guy/girl reading this?) and that is what makes this all so much more sad. I would literally lose my mind if I even attempted to go down any road that could, even in the most micro way, affect any sort of change that could in any way restore the free, private America we all like to imagine we once had. The fourth amendment has been rolled back, the second won't help you against a cyber powered robot drone army. So, I have no choice but to enjoy my TVs, my movies and other entertainments and hopefully live my life as best I can within these imposed controls. All in the name of my "safety."
It's just all too bad, we could do better. Yes, the world is more a dark and terrible place of poverty and horror beyond most of our fat, over privileged, American's imaginations. But gawd dammit, we could all do better at this life thing...It's just too damn bad.
