Song parody: Edward and the NSA.

Erdogan has made a compromise with the protesters about the fate of Gezi Park, but this by itself will do nothing to reduce the creeping censorship and repression in Turkish society.

The US government is worried about "domestic disturbances" caused (for instance) by climate disasters or energy shortages, and spying on environmental activists seems to be part of its response — along with martial law.

As the Earth heats up, "disturbances" will happen by and by in many countries, including the US. (Food protests have happened in some countries in the past few years.) Rather than prevent them by curbing global heating, the US government plans to respond to them with repression.

Tax cuts for the rich played a major role in creating the income inequality of the US today.

If we could roll back all changes in the US since 1980, with the exception of useful advances in technology and the few advances in human rights (such as gay rights), we would be a lot better off. The other changes created the plutocracy that now owns our government.

Glenn Greenwald talks about the attempts to demonize Snowden, and how loyal Obama supporters defend massive surveillance because it's Obama's policy now.

He makes an interesting point that if PRISM is really nothing more than a streamlined way for companies to hand over what they had been handing over since 2001, its supporters could hardly claim it makes a tremendous difference.