Theatre of the Absurd

This certainly describes the life of the actors on the stage of the state:

Their work expressed the belief that human existence has no meaning or purpose and therefore all communication breaks down. Logical construction and argument gives way to irrational and illogical speech and to its ultimate conclusion, silence.

The Absurd in these plays takes the form of man’s reaction to a world apparently without meaning, and/or man as a puppet controlled or menaced by invisible outside forces. Though the term is applied to a wide range of plays, some characteristics coincide in many of the plays: broad comedy, often similar to Vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism and the concept of the "well-made play".

Irrational and illogical speech, man as a puppet, broad comedy, characters forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions, dialogue full of nonsense, plots that are absurdly expansive….

The absurdity has found a new outlet, in this mainstream revelation of massive government surveillance of electronic communication.  Let’s follow some examples of statements and actions consistent with this genre:

The top intelligence official in the United States condemned as “reprehensible” leaks revealing a secret program to collect information from leading Internet companies and said a separate disclosure about an effort to sweep up records of telephone calls threatens “irreversible harm” to the nation’s national security.

It is the leaks that are reprehensible, not the act of monitoring every single phone call.

Mr. Clapper said. In a separate statement, he warned about the negative impact from the leak of a secret court order authorizing the collection of phone records.

Wouldn’t it seem beneficial if the bad guys knew that their calls were being monitored?  Of what benefit is the “secret,” unless there is shame in the act?

Mr. Clapper’s comments raise the specter of broad, new investigations into the leaks of secret and classified government documents…

If you think the way the government tortures and abuses so-called terrorism suspects, what what they do to those who expose secrets!

Dennis C. Blair, who served as President Obama’s first director of national intelligence, said Friday that there was little debate at the beginning of the Obama administration about whether to continue the National Security Agency’s telephone and Internet surveillance programs that began under President Bush.

When the program was secret, there was no reason for debate.

Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, said Friday morning that there needed to be a discussion about that balance.

Jane Harman, a former Democratic representative from California, said on “Morning Joe” that lawmakers had been “briefed regularly” about the terrorist surveillance programs but acknowledged that “I think we ought to have a public debate” about the issues involved.

Now that it is public, perhaps we should have a debate.

“In 2006 and 2007, everything was put under a legal basis. That looked pretty good to us, so we continued it,” Mr. Blair said.

Government officials defended the two surveillance initiatives as authorized under law, known to Congress….

In confirming its existence, officials said that the program, called Prism, is authorized under a foreign intelligence law that was recently renewed by Congress….

…the administration and lawmakers who supported the telephone records program emphasized that all three branches of government had signed off on it…

“As far as I know, this is an exact three-month renewal of what has been the case for the past seven years,” Ms. Feinstein said, adding that it was carried out by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court “under the business records section of the Patriot Act.  Therefore, it is lawful,” she said. “It has been briefed to Congress.”

The senior administration official said its legal basis was the so-called FISA Amendments Act, a 2008 law that allows the government to obtain an order from a national security court…

Nowhere will you find a better example of puppets, forced into repetitive and meaningless dialogue.  A nation of men, not laws.  If the state says it is legal, that makes it legal.

Speaking at a fund-raiser in Silicon Valley Thursday night, Mr. Obama did not mention the surveillance programs or the leaks of secret documents.

What would he say?  “Thank you for helping the government spy on not just US citizens, but all people everywhere around the world.”

In comments to tech executives at the home of Vinod Khosla, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, the president focused on the need to have all schools connected to the Internet.

It isn’t bad enough that the state is brainwashing the children, now they will spy on them as well.

Mr. Obama is scheduled to fly to Southern California to attend a fund-raiser and then visit with the Chinese president. The meetings had been expected to focus on issues of cybersecurity, with Mr. Obama pressing Mr. Xi on accusations of state-run hacking of American businesses and government installations.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Forgive me.  I lost my composure.  Is Obama accusing China of not being abusive enough?  Of not collecting enough data?  Just what is the accusation?

My guess is that the government passed a law in China making this legal.  So what is Obama complaining about?

“It cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States,” Mr. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said in a statement, describing the law underlying the program.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Forgive me.  I lost my composure…again.

The revelation, which was confirmed by the director of national intelligence, came just hours after government officials acknowledged a separate seven-year effort to sweep up records of telephone calls inside the United States.

“The president welcomes a discussion of the trade-offs between security and civil liberties.”

No more absurdity.  Speculation has been rampant on this subject for years.  It never made mainstream headlines before.  There is a reason all of this is being officially confirmed now.  I offer two possibilities here.